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Podcast: A Few Minutes With … Daniel Romanchuk

Jan. 06, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Vince Lara, media relations specialist at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, spends a few minutes with Daniel Romanchuk, 2016 Paralympian who’s training at Illinois for a spot in the 2020 games in Tokyo.

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Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hello. This has Vince Lara and the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I spent a few minutes with Daniel Romanchuk, 2016 Paralympian who’s training at Illinois for a spot in the 2020 games in Tokyo. All right. I’m speaking with Daniel Romanchuk who is a 2020 Paralympic trainee hoping to make the team for the Tokyo games. So, Daniel, you started with the Bennett Blazers. But I want to go back a little bit before that. When did you know that sports was something you wanted to do?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: Ooh. So I started with the Bennett Blazers when I was two years old. Sports has always just been a part of my life. So I’m not sure if there was ever really a moment where I was like, oh, I want to play sports. I got started in wheelchair racing with the Bennett Blazers when I was, I believe, around four years old.

VINCE LARA: Wow.

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: And, so yeah. With that program, a lot of kids just tried everything. You didn’t have to really stay in anything, but you’d try it to see if you’d like it and kind of just go from there. If you liked it, of course you can stay in it. Also I think a little bit with your question, their motto is actually, tell kids they can before they’re told they can’t.

VINCE LARA: Wow, that’s great.

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: We’re athletes. And so there’s never really been, to me, oh, well I can’t play basketball. I can’t do this. There’s really never been any of that really in my life.

VINCE LARA: Which is great. You’re from Maryland, which is where the Bennett Blazers are located. But how did you end up training here at Illinois? And is it a testament to Coach Bleakney that you ended up here? Had you known about Coach Bleakney before getting here?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: So I grew up in the Mount Airy, Maryland, about a half hour outside of Baltimore where the sports program was located. And then it was just over four years ago that I was training all on my own. We’d eventually gotten in contact.

We had asked the high performance director, at that time, are there any training facilities or anything that I maybe can go train at? Because I wanted to try and make the 2016 games. And so after them kind of looking around a bit, we got put in contact with Adam Bleakney. And so he had let me come out and train, at first kind of intermittently. And then we moved out here.

VINCE LARA: Wow. When you say you were training on your own, how did you even know how to train?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: I would say my mom did a lot of that. So we would just basically go out to there’s a cul-de-sac that I would just do repeats on. It was a slight hill. And so I would just go out and do repeats of about 200 meters long. And then, eventually, just going out on the road.

I would just kind of push. I especially did not know any training methods. I didn’t know anything about taper or any of the phases or anything of training. And so we would just kind of go out on rides at that point.

VINCE LARA: Had you watched the Paralympic Games, and is that what gave you the idea, oh, I need to do 200’s or whatever training you had done on your own?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: I would say really it was kind of my mom that, at that time, was sort of guiding training. But yeah, they are one of the very few sports that I actually watched– the Olympic and Paralympic Games. So yeah. I don’t remember when I first watched it, but I do remember Beijing, and Tatyana McFadden, Josh George, and a number of other Paralympic racers, and other sports, as well.

So a number of other athletes had come through the Bennett Blazers sports program. And they had come back. Even after they’re gone off to college or whatever, they would come back every once in a while to kind of just come back– of course, say hi, and then just help the next generation along. And so that’s something I like to do when I can, is to get back and help bring along the next generation.

So I wouldn’t necessarily say when I first saw the games that I wanted to go. I’d probably say I just kind of known about them through other older athletes. And I’ve always been one to just push myself to see how far can I go? How fast can I go? And I think a lot of this just happened at such a young age. I don’t really remember too much of it.

VINCE LARA: OK. Well, you spoke about Tatyana. And you spoke about giving back. So, at this point given your experience in the marathons that you’ve had and the 2016 games, do you feel yourself as a mentor to some of your younger teammates? Because some of them are as young as 19, let’s say Alexa Halko. So what kind of role do you see yourself in now, while you’re competing, but also as one of the more experienced members?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: I mean I think I’ve been very–

VINCE LARA: Fortunate?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: Yeah, to have older athletes and mentors that have helped me get to where I am. And so I certainly want to help any athlete and help them just reach their potential.

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm. Now, you’ve competed in several world majors of the marathon circuit. And does that training help you with the Paralympic Games, or do you consider them really kind of separate?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: As far as the marathon at the games, that certainly does help. You’ll see a lot of the same racers. Courses of course vary, but I would say it does help with the marathon.

VINCE LARA: You’re also now training for Dubai. Is that a springboard also for 2020?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: Yep, the last world championships just leading into the games. And so that does have a lot of things to do with the games. Slots can be earned for the country at the World Championships. I believe if you end up in a medal spot, you earn a spot. So it certainly is a big event going into the 2020.

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm. So now you’ve talked about potentially enrolling at Illinois, maybe 2020, 2021. What do you think comes after sport for you?

DANIEL ROMANCHUK: Certainly like to stay in the sport to whatever degree, as long as I can. One thing I’ve learned in racing and just otherwise is I don’t know what God has planned for me. And so I try not to make a plan too much and to hold too tightly to it. Because I can make a plan for a marathon, and chances are it’s going to fall apart somewhere along the way. So I’m not sure where I’ll end up, but I’d certainly like to stay in the sport.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Daniel Romanchuk. This has been A Few Minutes With.

Tags: Daniel Romanchuk, Podcast

A Few Minutes With … Brian Siemann

Jan. 13, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

2020 Paralympic Games trainee Brian Siemann chats with Vince Lara of the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois about how he got involved with racing, coach Adam Bleakney and working at Disability Resources & Educational Services at Illinois.

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Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hello. This is Vince Lara at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spend a few minutes with Brian Siemann, two-time paralympian who’s training again in Illinois for a spot in the 2020 games in Tokyo. Brian, good to talk to you.

So you’re a graduate of Notre Dame High from New Jersey, the school that also produced Star Jones, famously, among others. And you started taking part in racing when Coach McLaughlin introduced you to it. Did you think that sports wasn’t something you’d ever be able to do to take part in before that?

BRIAN SIEMANN: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Sports to me was kind of this foreign concept that, you know, I didn’t really know of any opportunities that existed nor did I really see any kind of representation of athletes with disabilities competing anywhere. So it’s kind of one of those things that when you’re– when you’re growing up, you just sort of kind of resigned yourself to the fact if you don’t see it, then it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind. And you just look for other opportunities or other sort of interests that, you know, are kind of calling to you. And so when I was asked by coach McLaughlin if I wanted to come out for the racing team, it was very much a shock because sports, again, was something that I had never considered myself doing nor did I really consider myself excelling at it at all. So it was definitely a memorable day, to say the least.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, and how quickly did you come to enjoy the sports part of it? I guess– was it racing that you got into first?

BRIAN SIEMANN: Yeah, yeah. So I got into racing. And so basically, the high school coach McLaughlin had said to me, you know, I’ve never coach an athlete with a disability before. And I was like, oh, cool.

Well, I’ve never done any sports before. And so he was like, we’ll just kind of figure this out together. And so basically, my high school raised money for my first racing chair, which cost about $5,000, which is a huge– looking back on it now is a huge– was a huge sort of gamble that they took and kind of a leap of faith in me just to kind of have me be included on this– on my high school track team.

And then I just started racing. I did the same workouts that all the able-bodied runners did. And so it was just– I was just another member of the team, and I just used a racing chair instead of my legs.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that’s great. Now you know, being from the east coast, did you know about Illinois’ training facilities, and was coming here about DRES and about the ability for you to continue to train?

BRIAN SIEMANN: Absolutely. But at first, it was not the case. So being from New Jersey and having no exposure to sports, I had created sort of this four year plan for myself where I was going to graduate from high school. And even when I started racing, I had said, like, OK. I’ll do this through high school, like, you know.

But it was never anything that I envisioned happening much later on and, like, continuing to do now for, oh my God, nearly 16 years at this point. And so I definitely did not consider that. But as I started to train, I think around my– like, towards the end of my sophomore and junior year, as you go to these local competitions with other athletes with disabilities, you start to– Illinois is a term that’s frequently mentioned.

And so you start to– you know, again, I never– I was living in New Jersey. I was by the shore, by New York City. The idea of coming out to the Midwest and cornfields was like the last thing I ever wanted to do. But I was actually– I was recruited out here. I came up for a visit I want to say my– like, the beginning of my senior year, I came out for a track camp that the university program runs for younger kids with disabilities.

I came out, and I did like the whole visit. I saw alma mater. And then I went– I trained with all of the other U of I paralympians.

And as soon as I came home, I was like, this is where I want to go. Upon just, like, getting around campus, just seeing just the culture around this entire university towards disability is something that is noticeable right away even for someone who has no exposure to it. And so oddly enough, so I submitted my application. I did– I think it was like the early decision thing or whatever.

And so around that December 1 or whenever that is, I remember I got– I was, like, frantically checking my email. And I was really frustrated because it was– we’re east coast time. And so I had to wait until 6 o’clock and not 5:00, even though it’s, you know, the same thing. but–

VINCE LARA: Right.

BRIAN SIEMANN: My didn’t view it that way. And so I was, like, frantically, like, refreshing my email. And I actually accepted my offer of admission before even telling my parents that I got in.

VINCE LARA: Oh wow.

BRIAN SIEMANN: I remember just telling them, like, oh yeah, I got in and I’m going just because I knew that this was where I belonged.

VINCE LARA: Now you predated Coach Bleakney, correct?

BRIAN SIEMANN: No, he had been here for– I want to say about four years before I started. And so he recruited me.

VINCE LARA: OK. So did you know about him, and was his reputation that wide that even in the East Coast, people knew, oh yeah, you want to go, you know, train with coach?

BRIAN SIEMANN: Oh yeah. So with Adam, it’s really funny. So we kind of have this running joke where once I started to learn about the Illinois program my junior year or so, I mean, even before I came out here, you started to see– like, I learned about the accolades of Adam Bleakney.

It was like I wanted to impress him. And so he would always come to these junior national competitions and everything. And I still remember my conversation with him.

And I always ask him now. I’m like, do you remember, like, where we met and what we talked about? And he’s like, yeah, yeah, of course. And he has no idea. And so it’s kind of this recurring joke between us that he remembers me when I was a kid. And now he’s been stuck with me since 2008.

VINCE LARA: Now you’ve competed twice in the Paralympics. Do your teammates, at this point, come to you for advice? Because you know, there’s a pretty nice gap between you and, let’s say, Alexa or some of the younger members. And is that a role that you enjoy?

BRIAN SIEMANN: Yeah, so I think we have a really welcoming sort of environment. I remember when I was the young kid sort of what that was like to be– you know, we’re kind of really lucky here. We’re surrounded by phenomenal athletes. And so I remember kind of feeling slightly intimidated but just sort of how welcome I was made to feel by the older teammates that I still am friends with to this day. And so it is something that I do take very seriously when new students come in that I try to be that open sort of person that kind of talks to them and kind of lets them kind of learn from some of the mistakes I made maybe. Or just to have someone to talk it was always kind of– is something that I do cherish a lot.

VINCE LARA: Mm-hm. Now you got your masters here. Now you’re working in DRES and student services. So do you allow yourself to think what’s next beyond sport and what your next step would be?

BRIAN SIEMANN: So taking this job as an access specialist at DRES really sort of was kind of what I was thinking as what’s my next step after sports. And so I’m very fortunate in the fact that working at DRES gives me the opportunity to still train and train for 2020 and also still work with students, which is what I love doing. And so that culture, really, I don’t think I can do this anywhere else. And that’s kind of– this is the perfect sort of position for me. But it really did come out of this desire to sort of– and it’s a desire that’s really kind of– it’s a message that’s instilled by Adam because he wants us to look beyond sport as well and then to look towards like having healthy, active lifestyles through sports but also then having something set up after the fact because that’s something that a lot of athletes struggle with if they don’t have some sort of plan in place.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Brian Siemann. This has been “A Few Minutes With.”

Podcast: A Few Minutes With … Kevin Richards

Feb. 13, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Kinesiology and Community Health assistant professor Kevin Richards spends a Few Minutes With AHS media relations specialist Vince Lara and speaks about his pedagogy research and the socialization of teachers, primarily in physical education.

Transcript

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today it’s been a few minutes with Kevin Richards, Assistant Professor in the Kinesiology and Community Health Department of AHS, to talk about his pedagogy research and the socialization of teachers.

Kevin, what inspires your research? Let me ask it this way. What led you to do what you do?

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s interesting because a big thrust of my research is socialization. So, basically, you’re asking me what socialized me into the research that I do. But so I did my undergraduate degree back in Massachusetts in physical education. And I had every intention to go out into schools and to become a K-12 physical education teacher.

But back east, you have to have a master’s degree within five years to keep teaching in schools. And so a lot of people did like the night– the night school thing, and that just wasn’t for me. So I decided that I was going to look at graduate programs so I could just knock out that master’s degree in one shot, and then focus on teaching after. And that led me out to Purdue University, where I did my master’s and built the relationship with my advisor, Tom Templin.

And Tom studied socialization. And he was one of kind of the forefathers of that area of research in physical education. And I just got really passionate about that area of research through talking with him. So, you know, the main thrust of my research through the work that I did on my PhD and then, you know, and the majority of my career since focuses on how we recruit, prepare– recruit and prepare teacher– individuals to go into the field of physical education.

And then once they’re out in the schools, what are their lives and careers like? Physical education tends to be a marginalized subject in a lot of schools. And so I do a lot of work looking at marginality and how that affects teachers’ understanding of themselves and their relationships with others.

VINCE LARA: So, basically, to streamline what you’re saying is, you’re trying to build the best teacher you can, is that fair to say?

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yes, in a sense. You know, we look to recruit people into our programs who are diverse in terms of things like traditional markers like race and ethnicity. But then also in terms of their background experiences. Physical education’s been traditionally a discipline that potential recruits really see to align with coaching.

So those who want to coach extra curricular school sports sometimes come into physical education with these really solid, developed backgrounds in team sport. And they see physical education as kind of a conduit to continue that. But not every kid who is out taking physical education in schools loves sports. So we try to recruit more diverse students.

But then also looking at the methods that we use in our physical education programs to give those students the knowledge and skills that they’re going to need in order to become effective practitioners into the future. But, also, you know, we focus a lot on dispositions, because, you know, while they’re in our classes, we can hold them accountable. So we can grade them. If they don’t do what we tell them to do, you know, we can fail them even.

But the reality is that once our students transition out of our programs out into schools, we lose that control. And so at that point the true marker is, you know, have they internalized these beliefs to the extent that they’re going to use them even when we’re not watching. And so, we really try to work with students to help them develop ideologies that align with best practice, but are grounded in their own experience, and that they’ll follow through on.

VINCE LARA: What are some of the challenges, you know, physical education teachers– there’s some stigma around that, right? So what are some of the challenges of getting kids into the program? And what do you do to try to, you know, defeat some of those stigmas, if you will?

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yeah, yeah. That’s– it’s a really good question. And it’s timely, because this has actually been one particular area that I’ve been focusing on quite a bit in my work right now. But, you know, there are a lot of those negative social stigmas. And some of them, you know, are grounded in fact. You know, unfortunately, there are some physical education teachers, especially at the secondary level, the middle school and high school, who teach using ineffective practices.

The colloquialism in our field is that they roll out the ball. So they just kind of throw a ball out and let the kids play. It’s not educational. It’s not purposeful. And I think that sometimes people think about physical education and they reflect upon their own past experiences or maybe what their kids are going through in school, and they use that as the marker to evaluate the whole discipline. But, you know, of course, physical education can and should do so much more than that.

And so we really try to work with, you know, on the pre-service teacher side of it, develop teachers that are ready to step out into the world of schools, and teach using effective practices. And then a lot of my work has then also looked at those teachers who are in-service, working out in the schools, and how can we help to improve their work conditions and reshape their ideologies so that they’re using best practice. And then you have kind of this streamlined approach in the ideal situation where pre-service teachers are stepping out into schools that are ready to embrace the practices that they’ve learned.

And then, you know, this is all kind of a cyclical process, because the next generation of teachers are going to come out of those schools, and they’re going to see physical education as it’s presented to them by their own teachers, and use that as the basis for evaluation to determine whether or not they think physical education is for them. And so if we can get better physical education in the schools, then we’ll have better recruits coming into our programs.

VINCE LARA: One segment of your research, I noticed, deals with helping teachers deal with stress.

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: So what methods do you use to research that?

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yeah, yeah. So I was initially trained as a qualitative researcher. My advisor, Dr. Templin, was very qualitative. I joke, in that, I don’t think he’s ever, like, calculated a mean in his career, like it just wasn’t his bag. Now I’m exaggerating, he has. But he’s very qualitative. So that’s how I was originally trained.

But then I did a postdoc at Purdue with a woman named Chantal Levesque-Bristol. And she was a cognitive psychologist that used primarily quantitative methods. So I kind of got a mix of both, and have really come to appreciate mixed methods and multiple methods working together. A lot of my studies are designed using sequential approaches.

So we might do a large scale survey of teachers, you know, and get hundreds of responses, asking them questions about stress and burnout, and, you know, protective factors like resilience and perceived mattering. And then we’ll take a sub sample of people who complete that survey, and then do qualitative interviews with them.

But what I’m really excited about is we’re taking all of this information that we’ve learned over the last few years studying teacher stress, and we’re putting it into practice. We got some funding through a small seed grant to develop a professional development program for teachers in local Champaign-Urbana area.

We’re calling it the Dream Project. That’s developing resilience and enhancing appraisals of mattering. And it’s kind of the culmination of the last six years of my career learning about stress and burnout in the relationships among these variables, and how teachers experience their work life, and then putting that to practice to try to do something about it.

VINCE LARA: You also look at social and emotional learning in physical education. Would you elaborate a little bit on that?

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yeah, yeah. So that’s kind of a sub area or a second, maybe not sub area, but it’s kind of like a second tree of my research. So I had a colleague when I was going through grad school together– grad school named Michael Hemphill. And Michael and I– or Michael was very interested in social and emotional learning using this one particular best practice model called teaching personal and social responsibility.

And so TPSR, as we call it, is a way to teach within a physical activity context that views physical activity as kind of a mediator or a vehicle to get kids talking about personal and social responsibility. So there you have that hook of physical activity that a lot of kids like. It draws them in. And then that opens the door to say, OK, well, yeah, we’re going to focus on skill development. We’re going to focus on activity. But we’re also going to help you learn to be better people.

And so we focus on goals like participation and showing good effort, respecting the rights and feelings of others, self direction, and some goal setting, leadership and helping other people. And then the ultimate goal of all of that is to take lessons learned in the gym and transfer that out into other aspects of your life. So you know, you learn about respect in a physical activity program where you can use that in school.

Before I came to the University of Alabama, I was at– or excuse me, before I came to the University of Illinois, I was at the University of Alabama. And while I was there, a doctoral student and I, Tori Ivey, we ran a after-school program that focused on social emotional learning through physical activity over the course of three years, and learned a ton about best practices and best ways to do that.

And so then moving up here to Illinois, myself, Naiman Kahn, who’s another faculty in KCH, and my wife, Felicia Richards, who’s an instructor in our department, have been collaborating to take a summer program that our department’s actually offered for like 60 years. It’s one of the longest running summer programs, physical activity summer programs in the country. It used to be called Sport Fitness.

And so we took that and made some modifications to the structure, and rolled out a revised version of the model that we’re now calling IPAL. So it’s Illinois Physical Activity and Life Skills is what we are calling the program now. And that– that’s kind of a framework that we’re going to use this summer to roll out a couple of different summer program offerings using physical activity as kind of the hook, but really trying to get at those social emotional learning goals.

VINCE LARA: Is that program one of the reasons why you chose Illinois?

KEVIN RICHARDS: You know, I chose Illinois for a lot of reasons. I really like the people I worked with at Alabama, had great relationships down there. But Kim Graber and Amy Woods who are in pedagogy area with me, they’re leading scholars in the field. And Kim was actually on my dissertation committee. So we have this relationship that goes back a ways. And then, you know, Amy and I have collaborated over the years, too.

So those pre-existing relationships are a big part of what drew me here. But then, you know, or at least piqued my interest. But then after having come onto campus and see everything that Illinois has to offer, I mean this is a magical place. I really love it here. And, you know, my wife and I couldn’t be happier with the decision we made.

VINCE LARA: Now research obviously is a big part of why you’re at Illinois and our institution, obviously. But you know you also have to teach.

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yeah, yeah.

VINCE LARA: So do you– is there a particular class that you enjoy more than others?

KEVIN RICHARDS: Yeah, yeah. And people who listen to this might find this a bit surprising. But I love teaching actually. You know, it’s a huge part of my identity. I look forward to it. It’s not a burden. I love interacting with students. And the way that my teaching appointment is split here is that I teach one physical education majors course, so I still have my connection with the PE majors.

I teach a rotating course for our doctoral students. And then actually my favorite course is– it’s KIN201, Physical Activity Research Methods. And when the course got turned over to me, Neha Gothe and I actually collaborate on it. I teach it fall, she teaches in the spring. And when the course got turned over to us, you know, I think that it was a good idea, but it needed some fleshing out and development. And it’s been really fun to do that over the last couple of years with Neha.

And, you know, we’ve got the course to a position now, where the feedback that we’re getting at least, is that the students really enjoy it. We use kind of a lecture lab format. So they– you know, a large group lecture, where we can kind of talk about these concepts. But then the students break out into lab groups, where they get more kind of intimate contact and attention.

And, you know, I love talking about research. And so sparking that interest in the minds of our undergraduates, I think is a really cool part of our job. And so, I just got an email the other day actually from a student who was able to take something that we talked about in class a few weeks ago, and apply it in her life, reading a research article, and she wrote to me to tell me about that, which I thought was really cool and that really speaks to what I hope students get out of this class.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Kevin Richards. This has been A Few Minutes.

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Kevin Richards, Podcast

Podcast: A Few Minutes With … Naiman Khan

Dec. 12, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Kinesiology and Community Health assistant professor Naiman Khan speaks with AHS media relations specialist Vince Lara about his research on the impact of diet on cognitive health.

Listen to the podcast

Transcript

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I spend a few minutes with Naiman Khan, an assistant professor in the Kinesiology and Community Health Department, to talk about his research in the disciplines of dietetics, body composition, and cognitive neuroscience.

NAIMAN KHAN: First of all, thank you for having me. It’s a real pleasure to speak with you today. When I actually started doing, starting my training, I was interested in practicing first. So I was interested in becoming a registered dietitian and working in the field– so focusing on clinical nutrition.

And all the way through my master’s degree, that was the plan. So I did my master’s in nutrition. And then, I did a dietetic internship, which is the clinical training. And during that time, I realized that I really enjoyed the research on campus. And after I received my dietetic credential, I returned to do my doctorate– and then, focused on research.

And but that– you know, my training in dietetics was still very useful in sort of shaping the questions and my approach for my research agenda. So it’s still very beneficial. But that was a point at which I decided to pursue research.

And, of course, there are different ways to do research and different types of institutions. I really enjoyed teaching. And especially during my graduate training– I was working with different schools and teachers across the state of Illinois. And I really enjoyed the education component of my research. So I wanted to work at a place like the University of Illinois that gives an opportunity to do both research and nutrition.

VINCE LARA: Now, you mentioned nutritional neuroscience is what your research focuses on. And what led you to study that?

NAIMAN KHAN: Well, that fascination of, sort of, merging those two disciplines started when I was a graduate student. I had a assistantship in the University of Illinois Extension program. And my job involved really working with teachers and children in elementary schools that had at least 50% of the population receiving free or reduced school lunch. And we were focused, of course, on that. In that study were focused on nutrition education.

But I spent a lot of time in schools. And it really got me thinking about academic achievement and cognitive health markers in children and whether our nutrition could be used as a way to meet that health gap that we know exists in many different communities.

We know that there are some implications of– some households, some schools do better than others. And we know there’s some variability in how well children do in school performance. And I just wondered if nutrition could be something we could leverage to do that.

And that fascination led into a postdoctoral position with Chuck Hillman, who was a– Dr. Hillman, here at the University of Illinois, was doing work in pediatric exercise neuroscience. And that was where I received my neuroscience trainings working under him.

VINCE LARA: So you focused on diet and physical activity as well as the link to obesity and cognition. So I think, traditionally, people might see the brain and the heart as separate– but what did you find when you looked at the interactions of those things?

NAIMAN KHAN: Yeah, so the philosophy sort of varies depending on which scientist you speak to. Traditionally, yes, people have studied the brain separately from physical health– so cognitive health has been separate from physical health. But the reality is that they’re co-dependent. We have evolved as a species to mature.

For example, from a developmental standpoint, cognitive development is in synchrony with physical development. And they really inform each other. And it turns out, if you look at the data, the epidemiological data, in particular, all the markers that affect cardiovascular health, chronic disease, those things– for example, sedentary behavior, and even poor physical activity patterns, poor diet, elevation in blood markers that increase risk for heart disease– these same factors are also predictive of cognitive health in individuals. And we see that quite a bit in the older adult literature.

And what we’ve been interested in examining is really– when does that start? When do we start seeing that link between behavioral patterns and these health factors that we know are important for living a healthy life? When does that– they start actually having an impact on cognitive measures?

And so far, we have been able to demonstrate this in young adults. We’ve shown it in preadolescent children and even in younger kids now. So we’re doing some work in four and five-year-olds where we’re seeing some very similar patterns. So it would be consistent with the hypothesis that health behaviors like healthy nutrition and physical activity, and of course, maintaining a healthy growth status, a healthy body weight– these factors seem to be important for cognitive health even in early childhood.

VINCE LARA: You recently did a study that got some really good publicity on the link between children’s cognitive processes and water. So what led you to study that?

NAIMAN KHAN: Really, what inspired that is that—our laboratory is interested in looking at diet quality. So at least, I don’t think that there’s only one way to eat healthy. And there are multiple aspects of our diet that we used or leveraged to even do that for a healthier lifestyle.

And we know that water is a marker of high diet quality. And that’s been demonstrated. Most of the foods that are higher in water tend to be fruits and vegetables and water consumption. Hydration is vital. Adequate hydration is vital for survival. And that’s been known for a long time.

So we were interested in– previous work in our lab had looked at dietary fiber. We had looked at dietary consumption of cholesterol and some fatty acids. And another marker of diet quality is also water consumption. And so that’s what led to that study.

And then, we also realized that in the literature, there’s very little known about hydration in children and its implications for cognitive health. What’s alarming, really, is that recent epidemiological data even suggests that majority of children in virtually most countries, but even in the United States, specifically, are chronically in a state of hypohydration, where then, we don’t think they’re adequately hydrated, based on some really good markers in urine.

So we thought it would be important to determine whether this chronic state of hypohydration has implications for cognitive health. And if we did provide children with more water to drink and modulated water intake– to determine whether that would actually affect certain aspects of cognition.

VINCE LARA: Did you find or have you found that it’s a lack of understanding the importance of water? Or is it a lack of access to water?

NAIMAN KHAN: So it’s a combination of both. And when it comes to kids and children, the challenge is that they’re more likely to have involuntary dehydration. But they depend on adults for much of their food intake. It’s the same thing with beverages and water.

So unless adults are paying attention to making sure that kids have access to water– it’s being provided to them, it’s likely that children also then have increased risk for dehydration. And that’s a awareness that we just need to have in our communities and in families and schools to make sure children are having access to water.

And then, the other aspect of it is also the research gaps. As scientists in the area of behavioral sciences, we haven’t really done a lot of work with water. Even though it’s such a vital and essential nutrient to survival, it is often taken for granted. And we really haven’t figured out or conducted randomized controls for trials to really determine what is the adequate amount of water necessary to really be healthy in all the different domains of health.

The current recommendations are really just based on, sort of, population patterns of what we think is adequate. But really, we don’t know how much water should be consumed for particular outcomes of health. So in that regard, it’s really a challenge of both sides– it’s awareness, access. And also just– so as far as a research priority, it’s just not been something that we’ve really done a good job at.

VINCE LARA: Now, we’re conducting this interview in your lab. And you can see– your lab was buzzing out there. So what kind of things are you working on that are upcoming that you’re excited to talk about?

NAIMAN KHAN: Well, we have a lifespan approach in the laboratory. So we’re conducting studies in– from four and five-year-olds all the way to older adults. And as I mentioned earlier, there are many ways of living healthy. And if you just look at diet alone, there are many factors of diet that could contribute to cognitive health. And the same thing could go with physical activity and fitness as well. There are multiple components of activity that could be predictive of cognitive health.

So the work that we’re doing in the laboratory is multidisciplinary. And that’s really exciting for us. We like to merge that knowledge in and across disciplines. So it’s hard to pick a particular area that I’m really excited about because it’s all very exciting to me. I have a lot of different interests.

But I can tell you about some of the recent studies we’re doing. Some of them focusing on younger children– so four and five-year-olds. We are interested in determining whether the factors that we have shown are predictive in early adolescence– so true also in younger age in terms of diet quality, aerobic fitness, and the effect on cognitive health.

We’re excited about that area of research. There isn’t a lot known in that area. And then, on the other end of the spectrum, we’re focusing in the area of multiple sclerosis and trying to understand how a diet can impact some of the symptomology and quality of life in multiple sclerosis– which we’re excited about because there’s some potential to really have an impact on people’s lives.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Naiman Khan. This has been A Few Minutes With.

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Naiman Khan, Podcast

A Few Minutes With … Alan Nathan

April 14, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

At the Sapora Symposium, University of Illinois emeritus professor of physics Alan Nathan speaks with College of Applied Health Sciences media relations specialist Vince Lara about his research on the physics of baseball.

Listen to the podcast

Transcript

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spend a few minutes with Alan Nathan, emeritus professor of physics at Illinois, and renowned baseball physicist. Alan recently gave a presentation at the Sapora Symposium on the campus of Illinois.

Alan, Rob Arthur, who you know, recently wrote about the baseball– “Did they dejuice the baseball? Did they rejuice the baseball? The answer is both, depending on the day.” I’m wondering what your opinion is.

ALAN NATHAN: Well, the thing that Rob did was he looked at so-called drag coefficient. So it’s a measure of how much speed the ball loses as its going through the air. So it’s a very important factor for fly balls. The more the air drag, the less likely it is to be a home run. Turns out, you can measure these things actually very, very well, just with all of the pitching data that we have from Statcast. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of pitches that we can analyze, and if you look over the last couple of years, and even within any given year, you see a lot of fluctuations up and down of this quantity, suggesting that the ball itself is quite variable from one ball to the other, and you see changes from year to year. So for example, in 2018, the drag was somewhat higher than it had been in 2017. The ball didn’t carry as far, and consequently fewer home runs. Things reversed again in 2019, where the drag was down– home runs were up. And then the post-season happened, and home runs are up, home runs were down, and then they were up, and it became a rather confused situation. I think it’s probably fair to say it’s still a somewhat confused situation. Although one thing I would say about the postseason, of course– you have fewer games being played than on a typical day during the regular season, so you sort of have to take that into account. But–

VINCE LARA: And better pitching, too.

ALAN NATHAN: And better pitching, colder weather on the average. I mean, there are all kinds of things you have to take into account.

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm. OK. You know, Rob also wrote at the beginning of this season, that the ball had lower drag, and that was something that was later corroborated by MLB officials. Your 2014 study however, found that the primary reason for variation is due to a difference in the drag properties of different types of baseball. And there’s even variation within a given type. So are you talking about the seam height, or are you talking about the inside of the ball, are you like– what sorts of things were you looking at in that study?

ALAN NATHAN: Yeah. Well, the study that I did in 2014 was entirely simply looking at trajectories of baseballs, and measuring how far they’d gone. We didn’t dissect the ball or do anything on the inside of the ball. What we did do is we did measure the seam height, and we found that there was a definite correlation between the seam height and the drag. So the higher the seams, the more drag, the less well the ball carries. We found that particularly when looking at different types of balls. So at the time, the NCAA was using a raised seam baseball. They have since switched to a flat seam baseball. And we definitely found that that raised seam baseball simply didn’t carry as far. In fact, the fact that the ball didn’t carry as far led the NCAA to switch to a flat seam ball, to basically get more home runs.

VINCE LARA: Right.

ALAN NATHAN: So we didn’t look at the interior of the ball, we didn’t look at the seams. Now in our initial study from Major League Baseball, which took place in 2017– the report was issued in 2018– we were looking at the home run increase over the 2015-17 period, and we found you could pretty much attribute all that increase in home runs to drag. However, we really were not able at that time to figure out what exactly changed in the ball that would lead to more drag– or less drag, and therefore more home runs. Now for sure it’s true that, as I said, the drag was up, homers down in 2018, and the reverse in 2019. The home committee of Major League Baseball sort of got back into action around mid-season this year, and we’re–

VINCE LARA: Which you’re part of.

ALAN NATHAN: Which I’m part of. And we are getting close.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: We’re getting close to the point where we’re going to go public with our findings.

VINCE LARA: Interesting.

ALAN NATHAN: I can’t talk about it, what they are, but we’re getting quite close to that. Hopefully maybe at the Winter Meetings, which will be in a few weeks.

VINCE LARA: OK. You know, Rob Manfred has said– and Rawlings has said– that the baseball recipe remains the same, regardless of year. However, Meredith Willis, who you also know, and Rob Arthur concluded this year that ball construction was different, including lower seam height. Do you have any insight into that? Like, how that happens? If baseball’s saying it’s not– you know, baseball’s saying that the recipe is the same.

ALAN NATHAN: Well, for sure. I believe it’s true that the recipe is the same. I mean, I really do believe– I visited the plant in Costa Rica where the balls are made a couple of years ago. We’ve talked extensively with people from Rawlings. There are changes that are made, but largely due to the fact that you’re dealing with organic materials– wool, leather, cotton– and there’s variation in those materials. So– but the process really hasn’t changed. There could very well be differences from one ball to another within a given year, differences in average properties of the balls from one year to another, and that’s just a natural consequence of the materials that are used and the actual process that’s made. I mean, there’s a lot of hand work that’s done to create a baseball, particularly sewing the cotton threads through the leather on the outside– that’s all done by hand.

So for sure, Meredith Wills has taken some balls apart, she’s found differences from one year to the next. Her latest article came out, in fact, just yesterday, and she looked at the postseason balls, and– OK, she drew some conclusions there. What she hasn’t done– because she really has no way to do it– is to show in any conclusive way that whatever changes she does see actually affect the drag on the ball. That is something that we, our group, is actually uniquely able to do, because we can take baseballs– we have large samples of baseballs, we can take them into the laboratory, we can measure their drag with very, very high precision, much higher precision than you can actually measure by tracking pitches in a ballgame. And we can measure seam height very accurately, we could measure the roundness of the ball, we can measure the thickness of the seam, and the surface of the ball. I mean, the drag is largely a surface effect. It’s the air interacting with the ball, and the only thing the air sees is the surface of the ball. So you know, you could pretty well isolate it. Is it– to be something associated with the leather, the smoothness of the leather, for example? Or something to do with the seams? And if you look at a baseball, there’s a lot of little holes there in the leather, and the seams are sticking up, and there’s a lot going on there, and no one has been able to model this from a fundamental physics point of view from First Principles. So ultimately, you’re stuck with just doing the best measurements you can, which is I believe what we’re able to actually do.

VINCE LARA: Now, the very fact that Major League Baseball has your committee, and the very fact that you looked at things like a humidor in the Diamondbacks’ park in Chase Field, says to me that Major League Baseball is concerned about this explosion of home runs. Now–

ALAN NATHAN: I have no inside information.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: I don’t question people’s motivations at all, so I can’t say what’s on their mind. I don’t interact directly with Rob Manfred.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: I do interact with the people I interact with– Reed MacPhail. MacPhail’s a famous name in baseball, this is the fourth generation MacPhail.

VINCE LARA: OK, fourth generation.

ALAN NATHAN: And Morgan Sword is the other person I interact with. And I can tell you, from having talked with him extensively, that– I don’t know what their bosses are thinking, but they for sure are very concerned.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: And I can also say that having–

VINCE LARA: Are they concerned because it’s affecting the integrity of the game?

ALAN NATHAN: I guess– I don’t know. Look, I don’t want to characterize why they’re concerned. I know they’re concerned. I mean, maybe they’re just concerned because they’re getting a lot of bad publicity, I don’t know.

VINCE LARA: Right, right.

ALAN NATHAN: But they are concerned. And I know Rawlings is concerned. I think Rawlings is largely concerned because of bad publicity.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

ALAN NATHAN: They really don’t like all the bad publicity they’re getting, and sometimes they’re even a little defensive about it. But all by way of saying, that I think they’re– I believe, personally, that they’re all honest brokers, that they really are– for whatever their reasons– are trying to figure out why there is an increase in home runs. If the ball has changed, what has changed? How can we, going forward, better control the production of the ball? And I really do believe that they are genuinely concerned about that, but I don’t know their motivations for being concerned.

VINCE LARA: I’m going to ask you something that I asked Charlie Young, who was on an earlier podcast. Which came first for you, your love of baseball or your love of physics?

ALAN NATHAN: It’s an interesting question. So I like to tell people that I have been a physicist all of my professional life. I’ve been a baseball fan virtually all of my life. Now, it is true that I had a long career as a nuclear physicist– faculty member here at the University of Illinois, teaching physics, doing research. And it was really well into the game that I got interested in baseball. So although I’ve– in applying physics to baseball, I’ve been interested in baseball, but in the specific job of applying physics to baseball, it’s been much more recent. It’s been over 20 years, but still I was well into my career when that happened.

VINCE LARA: What sparked that?

ALAN NATHAN: Interesting question.

VINCE LARA: Yeah.

ALAN NATHAN: There’s actually an interesting story. So the physics department has this outreach program where we give talks on Saturday mornings– used to be for high school honor students, but now they’ve opened it up to the public, they call it Physics for Everyone. And way back in 1997, it was my turn to give a talk. And normally the faculty talk about their research but they present it in a way that the general public can understand it. So I was thinking of doing something like that, but then there was this book called The Physics of Baseball, written by another physics professor, that I had had in my bookshelf for about five or six years. I bought the book, I thought I’ll do this one someday, but I never read it. All right, so then I said, you know, I’m going to talk about the physics of baseball, which will force me to read the book, and I’ll learn something and it’ll be a one shot deal but it’ll be kind of fun. And it would have been a one shot deal, never to be returned to, except that there was a News Gazette reporter in the audience who interviewed me afterwards, wrote it up in the front page of the Sunday paper, and then everyone started calling me up to give talks, and this and that, and then it just sort of blossomed from there.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Alan Nathan. This has been “A Few Minutes With.”

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Alan Nathan, Sapora Symposium

Podcast: A Few Minutes With … Clarion Mendes

Dec. 05, 2019 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

AHS media relations specialist Vince Lara speaks with clinical assistant professor Clarion Mendes about her speech pathology work and work with helping transgendered individuals find their voice.

Transcript

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I spend a few minutes with Clarion Mendes of the Speech and Hearing Science Department to talk about speech pathology, alternative communication, and helping transgender individuals find their voice.

Clarion, thanks for meeting with me today. I really appreciate it. I wanted to ask you– I commonly ask this question– did you always want to teach?

CLARION MENDES: So no. And I think that’s one thing that’s really fascinating and exciting about the fields of audiology and speech language pathology. When I went into graduate school, I initially started graduate school in a different field, and then I transitioned into speech and hearing science.

And what’s phenomenal about it is, if you approach the fields of audiology and speech pathology with an open mind, with a curious mind, you’ll never know what you might discover as far as what your strengths are. So if you had asked me 10 years ago when I graduated, would I end up teaching at a large research university, I’d probably say no way. But it’s been a really fantastic journey.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, so speaking about your research, what led you to do what you do? Was there something– some inspiration in your life that made you decide on this kind of field?

CLARION MENDES: So I have always been fascinated by the prospect of language. And as I was studying the fields of linguistics and psychology, I realized that I had a deep fascination with the idea of what can happen when a system that was previously entirely intact has had some degradation from some sort of neurological event or some other situation. And so I switched in to speech and hearing science and became a speech language pathologist.

And I started out working with the geriatric population in skilled nursing facilities as well as acute care. So that’s kind of how I fell into this field. Yeah.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, interesting. Well, I know the geriatric population is your favorite population of people to work with, and I wonder, why?

CLARION MENDES: I think the geriatric population has the best stories. So when you have lived that long of a life– and it’s also my grandmother’s 89th birthday today–

VINCE LARA: Oh, wow.

CLARION MENDES: –so happy birthday, Grandma.

VINCE LARA: Yeah. [CHUCKLES]

CLARION MENDES: They have the most rich life experiences. And so it’s so rewarding to be able to give back to individuals that have given so much of their lives to their hobbies, and their interests, and their vocations. So it’s great.

VINCE LARA: That’s fantastic. So I wonder, today’s era of communication is all about text, and it’s all about non-speech communication. Does that help someone who has a speech difficulty communicate?

CLARION MENDES: Well, if we look at the idea that pretty much everybody uses communication in multiple modalities– so we’re not just robots who are producing information that we process in our brain, right? We are using communication in so many different ways, whether it’s texting, email, body language, dress, so on and so forth. So I think we probably should look at it not just as something that helps individuals that might have a communication disorder, but we all benefit from having multiple different options to communicate, not just speech.

VINCE LARA: Because it makes the message easier to convey?

CLARION MENDES: Sometimes, yes. Sometimes it might make it more complex, right? You can think of the situation where you sent a text message and then regretted it shortly thereafter, realizing, oh it didn’t convey the right tone or it didn’t convey the right message that I was looking for. So just like any tool– if we look at communication as a tool– it can be used for good or not so good.

VINCE LARA: That is true. Now, you’ve been involved in helping transgendered people find their voice. Very popular research that you’ve undertaken. Now, how does that process work? And to you, why is it important?

CLARION MENDES: So it’s been very, very rewarding. And I will say that since I started working with this population about four years ago, the vocabulary and the terminology has changed, and the culture has changed quite a bit. So I’m just going to say that we don’t say transgendered people, we say transgender individuals.

VINCE LARA: OK.

CLARION MENDES: So I stumbled upon working with this community about four years ago, and it was completely by accident. So, like, a lot of, like I mentioned earlier, having a curiosity and an eagerness to learn has just been super rewarding in this field, and is one of the reasons why I love being in speech path. So about four years ago, a young woman had reached out to somebody– a couple of people my department– my department head as well as the professor who was here at the time, tenure track working with voice. And she had mentioned that she wanted to work on voice feminization because her gender identity was female, and it was causing a lot of distress that she had this masculine-sounding voice.

And so my department head and my colleague said, why don’t you speak with Clarion? She’d probably be a good fit for you as far as this kind of treatment is concerned. And I met with this young woman and I was completely honest with her. I said, I’ve not worked with this population before. I said, once I heard from you I started digging into the research a little bit to see what’s out there. And I said I’m open-minded, but it’s going to be a learning journey for us together.

And she’s like, that sounds good. Let’s do it. And it was a great experience. Made a tremendous positive impact in her life. And since then, I’ve pursued additional education, done a lot of readings. I have to pull– because it’s a relatively new field of study– when I’m working with individuals, I have to pull from research in lots of different fields. So possibly acoustics– I’ve looked into the forensic linguistics literature, and linguistics in general. And so since then, I’ve just had a big increase in caseload from word of mouth, from different health care practitioners in the community.

VINCE LARA: Locally, or have you extended beyond that?

CLARION MENDES: Locally, although I do hear– I do get people from all over the state. So for instance, Lurie in Chicago has reached out to me for resources as well as some places in Wisconsin, and just around the state because it’s a relatively rare specialty.

VINCE LARA: Can you talk a little bit about how you go about changing someone’s voice?

CLARION MENDES: Yeah, absolutely.

VINCE LARA: Oh, great.

CLARION MENDES: So I think a lot of people, when they think of voice feminization, immediately their brain goes to, let’s increase the pitch. But if we think about when an individual is speaking in a falsetto, it doesn’t sound particularly feminine, right? It just sounds like a male speaking with a really high squeaky voice. So while there is a baseline pitch that a person needs to achieve in order to be perceived as having a feminine voice, there’s a lot of other factors involved.

So I focus a lot on resonance, which is kind of a tricky term, right? Sort of difficult to define, it’s difficult to train. But some of the things that I’m looking for when we’re training residents is, how do we modify our articulators? So for instance, our lips and our tongue, to make the oral cavity, the mouth, present sound with a more feminine manner?

So some of the ways we do that is, if we sort of move the position of the tongue to be more forward in the mouth, it’s going to sound more feminine than if we were to retract the tongue to the back of the mouth. So things like that– playing with the articulators, playing with inflection, helping to better connect breath support with foundation– these are all things that can help shape the voice. But it’s a process. And it’s a lot of work for the folks that choose to pursue this, but it generally is very rewarding for them as well.

VINCE LARA: I imagine so. Do you ever look at the person who is asking for this kind of help and try to fit the right voice with them by doing that? Or is it something they say to you, I’m trying to sound like this? I mean, how does that process work?

CLARION MENDES: That’s such a great question. So something that’s super important– and I’m so glad that you brought that up– is I’m their guide. It’s not my job to tell them exactly what they’re supposed to sound like. Everybody’s goals are going to be different. But it might be my job to help shape expectations to be realistic.

So we can do amazing things transforming the voice and communication. But if somebody has a very deep bassy voice, probably not going to make them a soprano. However, what we can do is make a voice that helps them feel like themselves, express themselves in the identity that they truly are.

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm. Well, as a clinical professor, then, you have a course load. Are there courses that are your favorites? I know it’s like asking who your favorite child is, right?

CLARION MENDES: Yeah, right, right right. So I primarily have taught the motor speech disorders class. And so I’ll be teaching that again in the summer. I am excited, though, because coming up in the spring, I teach a medical methods in speech language pathology class.

And what I love about that is, that is helping students prepare for the final step before they actually get their master’s degree in speech language pathology. So at our institution, the last 10 weeks of their graduate career they’re in a full time medical externship. And that’s really exciting because in that opportunity they get to work with patients full-time and get to show what they know– show what they’ve acquired and learned during their experience here.

And so the medical methods and speech language pathology class prepares them so that they can take all of the coursework and all of the clinical work and be able to apply it to patients directly.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Clarion Mendes. This has been A Few Minutes With.

COVID-19: A World Without Sport Podcast

March 21, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Vince Lara of the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois speaks with Mike Raycraft and Jon Welty Peachey of the Recreation, Sport and Tourism department, about a world without sports, due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Listen to the podcast

Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hi, and welcome to another edition of A Few Minutes With, the podcast that showcases Illinois’s College of Applied Health Sciences. I’m Vince Lara. And today I’m speaking with Mike Raycraft and Jon Welty Peachey, professors in the Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism, to talk about the impact of a world without sport during the coronavirus outbreak.

All right. Jon Welty Peachey and Mike Raycraft are with me from Recreation, Sport, and Tourism. And we’re talking about the state of affairs due to the coronavirus, novel coronavirus, and how it’s impacting our world in terms of, this is the first time all three of us have been through work stoppages in all the sports. But this is the first time on a global scale where we’ve had no sports activity.

And I’m wondering, Jon, I’ll start with you on this, because you’ve worked on sport development and how it impacts countries. For you, can you tell us what kind of impact a world without sport has on– let’s even start with a really low, ground-level community, and then a city-state, and even a country.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Sure. And besides the economic impact, which is certainly huge, one of the things that’s happened is, I like to think of it as we– in communities, we have what’s called a “third space.” We have home, we have work. And those are places that we spend a lot of time.

But we also need what are called “third spaces” or “third places.” And these are venues, places we go where we experience community, where we are social with others, where we bond, where we relax social norms in some ways, make connections. And we’re in an age right now where we don’t have these third places.

And sport provides those third places in many respects– when you think of the venues, the arenas, the stadiums, going to the local pub to watch the game, gathering at somebody’s house to watch the game. So right now we’re socially distancing. And we’re taking away these third spaces, these places, which I think is going to have some profound impact in terms of how people at the local level can experience community. Maybe some creative ways will emerge to do that.

I think there’s going to be impact broader, at the national, at the international levels, when you think about how sport has played a role in building community and bringing together disparate others from various backgrounds. And we don’t have that right now. Hopefully, we will again in the future. But we’ve removed that context at the present moment.

So I think the impact is going to be profound when you think about the social adjustments that we’re going to need to make in the very near future. My hope is that we come up with some creative ways, that we haven’t thought about yet, to perhaps provide that connection, whether it’s through sports or other types of leisure services that can still help people experience those third places which are so vital for us.

VINCE LARA: Jon, let me ask you another question. Do you think that if the sports leagues had decided to play without fans, there’d still be that element of– people would still be able to plug in, even without being able to attend?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Well, I think so. But I’m not sure that that would have been the right thing to do, when you think about where we are right now, and the fact that we have athletes and coaches testing positive for the virus. You know, when we think of the broader picture, what I think we need to do to really help society deal with this pandemic, should we continue to provide that content and expose our athletes, and coaches, and referees, and trainers and such to potential long-term effects of the virus?

I’m not sure it would be worth it. Even though we’re missing this social element, I think we have to think about the greater good in some ways, and the health of the athletes, the coaches, and the staff that would still have to be involved and be in the stadiums and the arenas.

VINCE LARA: I wonder where– and either of you can answer this. What do you think of the IOC deciding not yet to pull the plug on the Olympics?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: I can leap in there again. And Mike can certainly fill in, too. But personally, I question that a little bit. I know why they’re hesitating, simply because of the magnitude of the scale of that decision. But one of the things that it does, though, is when you think about– where are the athletes training now, and how are they training?

And are we saying that we don’t care about their health right now? So essentially, if an athlete has been training all these years, and the Olympic games are still on, they still have to somehow keep that level of fitness and on-point readiness with their sport. And how are they going to do that and not be at risk?

So where do they train? How do they train? I think there’s a lot of questions there. So we’re saying, yeah, we’re going to still do the event, but you need to go on training as you normally would to be able to qualify and such. So I’m not sure I agree with that personally, when you look at the greater good.

And as well, all the other events that have canceled, not just in sport, but across the board, and concerts, and music festivals, and all of the really social places and events, big events that are postponing. I’m not sure about that decision. I’d be interested in Mike’s thoughts on that as well.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Well, I was chatting the other day with a colleague of mine that was an Olympic athlete in 1980 on the US Olympic team. And so the president for the plug being pulled is there. And we talked about it, and here we are 40 years later.

And looking back, I think, you know, it was kind of agreed that was the right decision, that sometimes things are just bigger than a sport event. This is one of those.

VINCE LARA: Let me ask you– what do you guys think– is there a different impact depending on size of country when these events are canceled? In other words, the Olympics canceled in the United States, it’s certainly a big event here. But it’s not as big as it is in another country.

So does the cancellation depend on scale of country or importance?

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the United States has got– with a high-end college and professional sports, they can focus on that. Or you get this in smaller countries around the world– the Olympics is the whole party. It’s their opportunity to compete on a national stage.

So yeah, I think it’s a bigger deal in other places. It’s a big deal here, too. But, you know, we have alternatives that other countries don’t.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah, I agree. I agree with Mike. You know, I think it is scalable. I think the impact, certainly for certain countries, as Mike said, you’re gearing up for an event where you do have perhaps a little bit of prominence. You excel in a certain sport or activity. And it provides that national identity. It provides that rallying point for citizens in a country and such.

So to remove that, I think the effect would be more pronounced for certain countries, whether it’s based on size, or based on how sports has been developed in that country. We have some countries that might be large in size but still, sports is not as developed as it is here in the United States.

So yeah, the impacts are going to really vary by a lot of different factors, I think, for nations here. But really, I think, we have to do what’s right, and think about we’re all in this together in many ways. And we don’t want to think that, I think, one event, such as the Olympic games, is more important than the health of the world. And I think that’s a very myopic view, to have that.

So perhaps we’ll still be able to host it in some modified fashion, based on how things go the next month or two. But I think we have to think about the greater good. And I hope our sport executives and those making decisions will do that, will keep the greater good of society in mind.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: One of the things that’s come up in my classes last week was a conversation about the Olympics, and how the future could be where it goes to having just from one host city to make it a worldwide event, where you host in wrestling one place, track and field one place, basketball one place, and kind of divide it up instead of having it in one host area. Which was interesting, because it seemed that it would provide more people the opportunity to go to live events. It would maybe help out in terms of security and whatnot.

And it kind of makes me think sometimes, is this the type of thing which could maybe trigger that type of a thought, where it’s a worldwide games where it’s spread out? Or one city isn’t taking all the expense and all the heat. You could spread her out across the globe.

VINCE LARA: You know, economically, obviously is the biggest hit that a world without sport delivers. But does it deliver a bigger hit to us psychologically or physiologically?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think both. I’m not sure you can get into degrees. I think psychologically, it is very, very important, and when you think of the identity that many of us have with regards to sport– and not just athletes, but fans, and highly identified individuals, and those that work in the industry. When we have something removed from us that we’re so invested in, whatever that might be, that can lead to a lot of psychological challenges for people, from depression, to lethargy, to all kinds of things.

And I think we’re going to have to find ways to help people in this time think about, where do we get our identity from? And so you think of athletes that are so identified with their sport. And that’s all we have ever known and done. And then all of a sudden, in a matter of an hour your season’s over. Or these decisions are made that take away what you do.

If you’re so invested and identified in that sport that you have basically nothing else, I think that’s where the psychological impact is going to be, in my view, really pronounced, that I think we’re going to have a role for sports psychologists and other health care professionals and mental health professionals in the coming days to reach out and to help those that are really affected by this– and I’m talking athletes here right now– to provide some services, to really help them get through this. I think that’s going to be vital and important.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: One of the things that I’ve seen that I think is interesting is with youth, especially. Kids say under 20, esports, and online gaming, and whatnot has helped them a lot in terms of connecting. And the kids are able to play and be together that way and connect. Or I don’t think the younger generation is going to be as impacted, perhaps, as 20s, 25 on up. They’re finding an outlet.

And then that makes you wonder, hey, where does that go? And how does that impact kind of the role of e-gaming and esports in the next five years?

VINCE LARA: Jon, in terms of youth sport networks, since you deal a lot with this, and the construction of them, how long does a youth sport network have to wait to restart based on what the major league sports do? In other words, if baseball restarts in June, do Little Leagues, let’s say, they don’t start till July to make sure?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think I’d like to see that there would be some pause, there would be some gap, or some time that we do wait. Particularly, when you think about children, and youth, and being in these spaces right now, I don’t think it’s imperative that it’s all aligned, that Little League must start, say if MLB goes back, or when the season might start, that that’s all aligned so much.

Again, I think we have to think bigger than that, and think really about the welfare, and safety, and the health of the kids and the youth. You know, if there is a little bit of a delay as we see– you know, as the CDC is saying, there could be multiple waves of this virus that kind of peaks and goes down, and then comes up and there’s– we want to be certain that we’re not exposing children and youth too early again.

So I don’t want to think we have to rush to go back to starting these leagues up again. Let’s be sure. And go by followwhat’s recommended by the CDC and other health bodies, not being so concerned that we have to align, say, with when the Major Leagues start, but really reflecting on what’s best for the population that we’re serving.

VINCE LARA: What kind of a role can a youth sports coach take in this time? Is it merely outreach? You know, do they send out emails to parents? Or do they just back off?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: No, I think they do need to be– not aggressive, but they do need to stay involved. Because there’s so much connection that the kids and parents have invested in their youth sport- time in the league. Because I’d be interested in Mike’s take on this as well.

I think, you know, we don’t want to send too much information. But we certainly want to be in touch, to express that we still have this community. Maybe there’s some creative blogs and some ways that some online connections can happen that leagues can implement, so that folks can stay in touch. Or maybe there’s some virtual gaming that can happen between and with teams, or ways that that sense of community that, this can continue to go on during this time.

You know, if kids are stuck at home. And so maybe leagues can see their role as trying to help create some spaces for their youth, for their children to continue to interact. Although it might have to be looked at differently right now. But I think those would be some ways that they can continue that connection point for them.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: One thing you’ve seen this week online are a lot of entertainment people doing musical concerts out of their living room. I watched one an hour ago with Brian Wilson. And frankly, it could be– from a marketing sense, it could be an opportunity for professional sports, athletes to market themselves to youth, in terms of, hey, we’re home. Your home here. Let’s connect. And today we’re going to do a session on understanding the fundamentals of baseball or whatnot.

You know, one of the audiences where I think pro sports have had a tough time in recent generations, that’s connecting with young people. It’s so expensive and whatnot. This could be their opportunity to connect and find new ways for kids to build bonds with their teams.

VINCE LARA: You know, one thing that this period, guys, of no sports has made me think about is, what would have been the impact of not having sports on our world? I mean, our vocabulary would be different. I was joking with Mike before we started recording about, how many cliches we use in everyday life.

Turnaround victory for a politician. A clutch comeback by Biden. You know, there’s so many things that sort of seep into everyday life. And for you– for both of you– how do you think life would be different if we didn’t have this infrastructure of sport?

MIKE RAYCRAFT: You know, to go back to what Jon said earlier about third space, I don’t think that’s going to– there’s always going to be a need for that, a connection. And so I don’t think that’s– I cannot imagine a world like that, because I don’t think we’re really built like that as human beings.

We need– there’s always that connection point. And we teach in RST of the whole leisure connection in terms of what is it that brings us all together. And what brings us all together is this is this drive to the third space, and what is this that motivates us.

So sports will always exist. Is it going to change and evolve? Yeah, it sure is. And just like we evolved after 9/11 in terms of how we look at spaces, and security, and travel, and whatnot. You know, we’re going to look at the world differently after this, too. And that’s not all bad, for sure.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: I agree with Mike. And I don’t know if we could ever have a world without sport and play. And if you look at the history of sport or play, which sport really is, and you’ll see that in every culture and every country, there is sport, and there is play. There’s not one culture that does not have it in one form or the other. It manifests differently, of course, with different types of play and sport.

But even in caveman times, there was play. There was this is element.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: I mean, you might see more of a growth and more of a prominence of individual sports or routine sports. That could be. That could be.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah. And I was out running this morning. And I think I saw more people outside than I ever remember on my running route. Because this is one space we can go right now.

But it’s an interesting question, Vince. Our answers aren’t great. But that’s because I think we’re having a hard time conceptualizing–

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Yeah, agreed.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: –a world without sport and play, and how that could come about. But certainly, if we didn’t have that there’d be a huge void. But there has to be some third place. I mean, there has to be these activities that provide meaning socially and such beyond the homes and beyond the work. And if you don’t have that, I don’t think we really have society in many ways.

So we have to creatively now continue to think about, how do we provide these spaces, whether it’s in RST, in sport, or entertainment, a variety of ways we continue to offer these spaces for people. Because it’s fundamental to society.

VINCE LARA: That’s a good point to jump to. Something that Mike and I talked about before we started recording, Mike, which was, you thought that there was a possibility of bringing about some kind of positive societal change. And I’m wondering if you would expound on that.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Well, I think there is possible societal change in that we’re having the opportunity to spend some time at home with our families, and to rediscover some things that are fundamental to the human experience that maybe we’ve ignored, to bond and to make those connections. something And so– to read, to clean out your garage, maybe? To do things that are positive, and, frankly, to reassess.

You know, I stopped playing the piano 20 years ago because I got busy. Well, I can perhaps rediscover talents and interests that, you know, I haven’t really touched on in 20 years. And so I don’t think that’s all bad. I think we all walk out of this experience changed. And certainly, it’s, again, it’s not all bad.

VINCE LARA: Jon, I’m imagining you have similar feelings.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Sure, I do. I agree totally with Mike. Just reflecting on the past couple of days for our family, and I’m exactly being able to re-establish or connect a little bit away from the frenzied life that we probably all feel like we’re normally in. And I think there are some ways that maybe this, when things get back to normal– whatever that normal might be– that we have emerged changed.

Or maybe we value things a little differently. We value family more, which would be a positive change. We value relationships. You know the old saying, you don’t know that you really value something till you don’t have it, till you miss it. And, you know, and maybe we’re going to re-evaluate, hopefully, the importance of people in our lives, not take people for granted.

I think there could be a lot of positive that comes out of this. And so I think that’s a hopeful thing.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Yeah, I’d be very curious to see what happens on campus in the fall. Because I don’t think a lot of the undergraduates really understood what was going on. They have a tendency to live in their own world, and all of a sudden this whole thing kind of– the road got ripped up underneath them. And mom comes with the station wagon to pick up the bedding in the dorm, and we’re going home.

And they have five months to kind of assess what life is away from campus, and what value those campus life, and campus connections, and those relationships, and the scholarly part, et cetera, all have. So I think they’ll come back in the fall tremendously engaged, and tremendously excited to be back and part of the campus, and anxious to connect with people, probably be tired of talking on the phone and FaceTiming. And maybe we can get away from screens and then connect face-to-face.

VINCE LARA: You know, in closing I just want to ask you both about– you both will have students who have internships this summer in industries that are really affected– well, everything is affected but– are affected by this coronavirus crisis. And what kind of advice do you have for them?

Mike, you and I talked about it. So why don’t you answer that first?

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Well, I would say first and foremost, the University Illinois and Department of Rec, Sport, Tourism is going to do everything they possibly can to ensure that the students have a good experience, a meaningful experience, and will graduate on time according to their pace. Or in terms of working with the organizations, we have students that go out in all types of industries, sport being obviously a big part of them.

We’re waiting right now, I think, in terms of what does that look like, what does the experience look like. It’s a little bit early to tell for some. I know we’ve got some kids that are out now and doing spring internships. And a lot of them are doing exactly what we are. They’re continuing to work and contribute from their apartments, their homes, et cetera, a different way.

And so they’re certainly going to be learning. It’s very, very interesting time to be out on your internships for sure, because you entered one world, and you walked out of another one.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah. And I think there’s certainly going to be an impact, too, on if we think about, say, sport or RST, which is– certainly recreation, tourism, and sport have all been affected by this, but in terms of employment, and when and how organizations are going to be hiring, and what that means for our graduates, and how will job roles change, will there be more virtual options now for our graduates to come in on front line positions?

And so it is going to be interesting to see how that evolves a bit, and what the supply/demand is as we move forward a little bit. So I think I’m hopeful. But I think we’re– I come back to, we have to think outside the box and really be creative in terms of how we provide internships, what the nature of our job roles are, and how those may need to be redefined for the foreseeable future.

So that can be positive, too, in terms of changing how we do business. And it might be a time when businesses do reflect on how we engage with things, how we put on our product, how we stage our events. So we could emerge from this stronger, to put a positive spin on it.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: I agree with that. It’s certainly a great time to be creative. My advice to my students is to keep up, to read, to follow the news, to follow what’s going on in sport and related industries, and reflect on it a bit, and reassess and come, determine what role can they have. It’s kind of a new insight, new perspectives, because the whole industry is going to change. And frankly, they could be in front of it.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Mike Raycraft and Jon Welty Peachey. For more podcasts on Illinois’ College of Applied Health Sciences, search “A Few Minutes With” on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, radio.com, and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

Alumni Spotlight—Ron Barger

April 10, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Ron Barger, a 1977 graduate of what was then known as Applied Life Studies and who was most recently senior managing director, head of operations and general counsel at ORIX Corporation USA.

Q: Why did you choose the University of Illinois?

A: I grew up in a very small town in Southern Illinois. I was the first kid from either side of my family to go to college. I was lucky enough and did well enough to receive a scholarship and was entered into the University of Illinois. I originally went to Illinois because my mom wanted me to be a doctor. In fact, my first year at Illinois was in premed. At the end of that first year, when I finished my freshman year at Illinois, I didn’t like what I was studying, and I was looking for something else I had such an affinity for sport and athletics and the things that I had been raised with that I looked at what was then the Applied Life Sciences school and enrolled in that, transferred into ALS. From there, it was a magical time, because for me, it ignited the passions that I had, something I didn’t have my freshman year. When I was growing up, Illinois was this wonderful university. It still is. But it was almost something so much greater than what I could expect and so for me, going to Illinois was like a dream come true.

Q: What about AHS inspired things in you? What was it about that program or whatever you saw? Was it a brochure you saw? Was there something on campus that said, hey, transfer into ALS?

A: No, I think I sought it out. I think you have to remember back in the ancient days, when I was in school, and this was in the early to mid ’70s, we didn’t have the Internet in the sense we have now. You didn’t have digital marketing. You didn’t have those kinds of things. I knew some people that were in the college. A lot of the things that it was, what I saw in terms of kinesiology and coaching and the aspects around sport, fit with where I was in my life at that point in time. So it seemed like a natural place to transfer and to then pursue that area of my life.

Q: Were there professors that had a profound impact on you from ALS?

A: Yes, yes. I was blessed. There were several that I think—and I still think about them from time to time. Marianna Trekell was there. Jim Meisner, and, I think, Don Arnold were both involved in the summer program that the college put on for the community that I participated in and helped in. But Jim Meisner, Don Arnold—Helga Deutsch was a professor I thought a great deal of—and Susan Greendorfer. There was a class I had, and I couldn’t tell you the name of it today, but it was along the lines of sociology and sport. I can remember the paper that I wrote. It was about it was about Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King and the impact that their lives and what they were doing, specifically in tennis and their larger role that they had in society because of that, because of their tennis and their recognition. I remember writing a paper in that class as sort of the capstone of that class with Dr. Greendorfer. For me, doing the research and the writing, I still have a very vivid memory of that experience.

Q: You got your law degree from SMU, so maybe AHS didn’t lead to your current career path. But what did you learn here that’s been instrumental to your career?

A: Vince, thank you for the question. I think there is something that I took away from Illinois—in specific, ALS at the time—a couple things, one of which was being exposed to different thoughts, different ways of seeing concepts. All those kinds of things contributed to where I wanted to go. Originally, as I graduated from Illinois, I wanted to go into politics and ultimately return to Southern Illinois and get into politics and represent that region. I ended up going to SMU and then went into a legal career, and from there, being in a large Dallas-based firm. Then I left after, I think, 17 years in private practice, and I went to a company that was being formed by Goldman Sachs called Archon, which was a real estate subsidiary of the firm and being in that organization that we grew to be worldwide, and very large. Then ultimately, I left Archon and went to a company called ORIX. In those roles, what I found is that my talent or my passion is building. It’s building people. It’s building organizations. It’s leading. A lot of the things I took from my time at ALS and some of the classes as well as student teaching at Urbana high school was, how do you coach people? What I found is that in business, the way you move the business is through people. You help them become the best expression of themselves, the fullest expression of who they are. So the same way that you build teams in a sport environment and the same way that you educate people in a classroom is the same way you lead a business—by building people, by building processes, by building organizations and letting them flourish and letting them succeed and how you motivate and how you inspire and how you give them vision and how you build them up and how you coach them and how you mentor them. All those things go into making a successful organization and a successful business. So while there is not a direct correlation to a specific class that I took, being immersed in those kinds of activities and those experiences ultimately is what made—the success that I’ve had as a business leader came based upon those foundations.

Q: As you said, there’s not a direct correlation between the law and what you learned at ALS. But clearly, there was the foundation in place from here and from those classes that you enjoyed. You talked about the courses you enjoyed the most. Were there any others that you could say really stood out to you?

A: I remember the anatomy classes I had. I loved cutting on the cadavers. I loved the labs, the exercise physiology labs that I had. Student teaching at Urbana High School was a wonderful classroom experience and working for a gentleman by the name of John Stergulz over there. Those kinds of things are life experiences that helped form me. I look at this stage in my life and in my career and it’s one in which you’re formed along the way by all those little experiences and people that touch you. One of my favorite philosophers—and a business philosopher, strangely enough—is John Wooden. Coach Wooden, if you’ve ever read any of his quotes, he didn’t think of himself as a basketball coach. He thought of himself as an educator. Some of the things that he said, and I still follow those, I’m trying to think of the exact quote, but something like, “Five years from now, you’re going to be the product of those people you’ve met and those books you’ve read.” I frankly think that goes from the beginning of your life until any point in time that you look at it you are the result of those people that are around you and the intellectual curiosity and the continued learning that you have to make you who that person that you are at that particular moment. I think all of my experiences, and Illinois is certainly formational for me in terms of helping me move from a small town in Southern Illinois to widening my horizons, thinking about things more broadly than that I had until that point in time, and then launching me into, ultimately, a legal career, which then launched into a business career. I’ve been blessed. I’ve been blessed by being associated with some amazing institutions and some amazing people.

Q: What were some of your favorite on-campus and then off-campus experiences?

A: I’m glad you phrased it like that. I can tell you there are a couple of experiences specifically to AHS that I remember. There was one summer that I was working for the recreation department and was sort of the gym supervisor for Huff Gym. And I can remember being in there late at night, not another person in the gym, and looking around and feeling the people and the events that had taken place in that facility and in that gym. And just sitting there in the dark and feeling it around you and knowing that at so many different times, during the time that Huff was being used as the basketball arena and the state high school basketball championships were played there, that it touched me very deeply. I take that with me. Something that I’ve found as well is just the relationships I had with some of the professors. And that’s what surprised me. For example, Don Arnold wrote a book with regard to, I think it was about the legal aspects of the administration of physical athletics or physical education and athletics in public schools. I was in law school when he sent me a draft of it and said, will you look at this for me now that you’re in law school? Having that sort of relationship was something that impacted me. Having professors that were very engaged with you, were very willing to be a part of your journey, and that’s something—I don’t have a specific recollection of a class. I can just tell you the way I felt is that they were engaged and willing to be partner, mentor and coach, and teach me along my journey. So that’s a wonderful thing. You ask about things that happened that were off-campus. I happened to be on-campus my freshman year when all the streaking was going on. So I can still remember that part of the college experience. I have just the fondest of memories of the University of Illinois. Walking down the quad late at night, I remember walking on campus as a freshman, feeling like you didn’t know a soul and when you walked away as a senior, you couldn’t pass five minutes walking down the quad without running into somebody and seeing a friend. At that time, I think you’re very impressionable. I think you’re very open to what is available to you as you’re in that part of your life and for me, it was a very formative time.

Q: In closing, I’d like to ask you what you would say to someone, a prospective student, to recommend the College of Applied Sciences?

A: I’ve been fortunate to be on the Board of Visitors and so I’ve had an opportunity to be around the college. I am deeply impressed with Dean Hanley-Maxwell. I think she is doing a phenomenal job guiding the college, expanding its reach, enhancing its reputation, looking at ways to integrate what the college is doing, what AHS is doing, into other parts of the university, other parts of the community, and frankly, other parts of the world. I’m really impressed with that and the depth of the areas that the college now touches is amazing. A good friend of mine has recently rejoined as the head of development, Jean Driscoll. I think she will be a wonderful return addition and an Illini coming back home to lead development for the college. Every time I go to a board meeting, and I listen to what is being done, I am amazed. I’m gratified by what I hear and frankly; I am just so thankful that I was able to be a graduate of that college and this University. So if you have a passion in this area, you can take this college, the curriculums that it provides to you, and do amazing things. I think it also prepares you for, if that is not where you necessarily see your journey ultimately taking you, it gives you a great foundation for going and following that dream, if you have something outside of it. I look at my undergraduate degree as being something that has been foundational for both my legal career and my business career. And I think that is probably even more enhanced today with the current state of AHS.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

Tags: alumni, Alumni Spotlight, Ron Barger

Podcast: A Few Minutes With … Marie Moore Channell

March 23, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

AHS media relations specialist Vince Lara speaks with Dr. Marie Moore Channell of the Speech and Hearing Science department to discuss her research on how language and communication skills develop in children with Down Syndrome and her plan to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorder in individuals with Down Syndrome.

Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hi, and welcome to another edition of A Few Minutes With, the podcast that showcases Illinois’ College of Applied Health Sciences. I’m Vince Lara, and today I’ll speak to Dr. Marie Moore Channell of the Speech and Hearing Science Department, who talks about her research on how language and communication skills develop in children with Down syndrome and her plans to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorder in individuals with Down syndrome.

All right, Dr. Channell, thank you for joining me on this edition of A Few Minutes With. And I typically ask all the guests on the show what led you to Illinois. So what led you here?

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: OK. Thanks for having me.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: Well, the goal of my research is to have a positive impact on the lives of individuals with disabilities. So for me the University of Illinois was a natural fit. This university and our College of Applied Health Sciences in particular has really paved the way for innovative strategies for supporting individuals with disabilities. So that was one reason.

And then, also within our department of speech and hearing science, the department is consistently one of the top speech language pathology programs in the country. So it has a great reputation. But also, the interdisciplinary approach to understanding and working with people with communication disorders, I thought that was really important. Because I think that our fields, our sort of subfields of expertise, really need to think about how we can work together to collectively have a stronger impact on the lives of people with disabilities.

VINCE LARA: Speaking of your research, typically there’s something in a researcher’s past that leads them– some sort of inspiration that led you to study what you study. What was it for you?

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: Oh, yes. For me, it was my brother. So my brother has a rare genetic disorder that causes intellectual disability. It’s not Down syndrome, but kind of like that, in that it causes intellectual disability and causes challenges with communicating. And so I think growing up with him and his peers really made me aware of the needs of individuals with different kinds of disabilities and their families. And so I knew I wanted to make a positive impact on their lives. And that’s really what led me to this field.

VINCE LARA: Now, when you started out, did you think about research first or teaching? Did you say to yourself, I want to be a teacher? Like, was there something about that profession?

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: I really didn’t think specifically about teaching or even research. I was really focused on the population that I wanted to work with.

VINCE LARA: OK.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: And I was able to, as an undergraduate student, get involved in a research lab. And that’s where I realized that I liked research, and that I was good at it, and wanted to do it. And so, I realized that research was a way for me to help this population of children with disabilities. And I also got some teaching experience in graduate school and realized how much I really also like to shape the lives of students and future professionals and that teaching is a great avenue for that

VINCE LARA: Where’d you do your undergrad work and your grad work?

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: Oh, both actually at the University of Alabama.

VINCE LARA: Oh, OK. Great. Well, you mentioned that your research does focus primarily on development of language and other skills for people with Down syndrome, and you talked about your brother. One of your goals is to raise awareness of the autism spectrum disorder for people with Down syndrome. How do you propose to do that?

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: That’s a great question. So I think we can learn a lot from the greater autism community. So I think, as a whole, the autism community over the past several years has done a great job of advocating for the needs of individuals with autism and also for really raising public awareness of what autism looks like, some early signs and symptoms, so that people who may require more support can get services earlier and sort of the importance of early intervention. I think we can take that sort of as a model for what we need in Down syndrome.

What I think is a challenge in Down syndrome is that it carries this stereotype of people with Down syndrome are so social, and friendly, and always happy, and while certainly there are a lot of positive attributes to people with Down syndrome, I think that, just like all of us, people with Down syndrome have a range of emotions and a range of ability levels. And so they can also have autism. And so I think that’s going to be the challenge in sort of raising awareness and thinking about even understanding that someone with Down syndrome can have autism also.

And actually, the current research evidence suggests that autism is about at least five times more likely in someone with Down syndrome than in the general population.

VINCE LARA: That’s interesting. And you’ve said now, for individuals with Down syndrome, failing to provide early intervention for the autism spectrum disorder can have long-term consequences. I’m wondering what those would be.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: Well, of course I’m going to say a lot more research is needed, but I would say that the current evidence points toward more cognitive difficulties, less developed language skills, and fewer adaptive skills, which is sort of skills that are needed to function independently in everyday life, in children who have Down syndrome and autism than in those who have Down syndrome only. And we know broadly, from developmental research, that the sooner you intervene and find learning strategies that work for a child, the more opportunities that child has to develop skills that will support their learning and their long-term sort of day-to-day function and independent living.

So if they have Down syndrome and they also have autism, they may need different strategies early on that kind of set them up for success long term.

VINCE LARA: You know, I’m curious about your intellectual disabilities communication lab. Tell me what projects you have going on there.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: Sure. So my primary project right now examines how children with Down syndrome apply their cognitive, language, and social emotional knowledge to social interaction, specifically looking at how they understand and communicate their understanding of other people’s mental states. That’s how they understand, and interpret, and talk about people’s emotions, their thoughts, their intentions, et cetera. And that’s really something that we call mental state language.

And through a grant funded by the NIH while here at Illinois, I was actually able to collect samples of school-aged children with Down syndrome telling stories. And from those stories, we recorded the stories, and we can go back and sort of cull them for four content later, and we were able to see the different kinds of mental state language that they’re using in their stories. And that’s really important, because there’s so much variability from one child to the next, just like any child.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: But in kids with Down syndrome, you also see a lot of variability. So we are interested in finding out what may help explain why some kids with Down syndrome were using a lot of mental state language in telling these really engaging stories and others were not. And so far we’ve seen that it’s not about their IQ, and it’s not about how old they are. It is, of course, about, partially, at least, their general language abilities– so their other vocabulary and grammar skills– but also about their emotion knowledge.

So the kids who are more able to recognize other people’s emotions are also then able to talk about emotions and use mental state language in their conversations, and empathize with others, and use that kind of language in their narratives and their storytelling. So we have a lot to do. But the early results, I think, really do suggest that we should focus on emotion knowledge and not just sort of traditional language when working with this population to improve their communication.

VINCE LARA: Can you explain a little bit about what mental state language is?

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: Sure. So it’s really when we are able to talk about or discuss our emotions. And so when we’re able to basically put our emotions into words, instead of just maybe sort of acting out and not really completely articulating that, so able to articulate our own emotions, but also actually being able to recognize other people’s emotions, and sort of what they’re thinking, and we call it perspective taking sometimes– so being able to kind of put themselves in someone else’s mental shoes is also really important.

And we do that when we communicate– we empathize. I can tell you’re feeling really angry, can we talk about this, for instance. And that’s really what mental state language is.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. Now, as we are in R1 facility, so research is always top-of-mind. I’m sure you have projects going on. Are there any that you particularly want to talk about that are in the pipeline for you and maybe close to finished manuscript?

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: Sure. I have to choose which of those to discuss, right?

VINCE LARA: That’s usually what happens. Yeah.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: I guess I’ll start going back to the mental state language study.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: So really those are preliminary findings that I talked about that are accepted for publication in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. But I have some other papers in the pipeline. We actually– these were school-aged children with Down syndrome– in addition to getting samples of their storytelling, we also had them sit down with their mothers and go through a story book together and recorded how their interact and converse with them during that sort of shared storybook time. And so we have a lot to do with analyzing– we still need to analyze sort of what kinds of things a mother say and do that may help sort of facilitate mental state understanding and mental state language in their children. So that’s one.

And then I would say the other two kind of big projects that are stemming from this, one is– you already mentioned it earlier– this idea of raising awareness of autism and down syndrome. So with my research I’m always collecting measures of sort of autism symptoms in the individuals with Down syndrome that I’m studying, so that I can report on what they look like. And ideally, over time, we can figure out sort of what autism exactly looks like and what may be some signs of autism in individuals with Down syndrome. Because, like I mentioned earlier, it is challenging to identify when someone already has some communication difficulties.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

DR. MARIE MOORE CHANNELL: So that’s another line of research. And then, long term, really, all of this– if the goal of this research really is to not only improve communication but really improve sort of day-to-day functioning and independent living long term for this population, I’m really interested in looking sort of beyond the school age years that transition from high school to independent living in the community. That’s something that is really grossly understudied in Down syndrome.

And we do a lot in the schools to provide services for these individuals while they’re there and to kind of try to set them up for the next steps, but then we don’t really know what happens after that. And so I would also like to use my research to track that. And through that, actually, I’ve established a collaboration with Dr. Meghan Burke in the department a special education here on campus and Dr. Susan Loveall-Hague at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where we’ve put together a survey so that we can more broadly sort of describe what’s happening.

And we put together a survey for caregivers of young adults with Down syndrome who are in that transition phase, just to get sort of a first pass of what’s going on with these families. We know that caregivers do a lot to support their young adults during this time, and just to kind of represent their voice, and figure out where we need to go next with our research.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Dr. Channell. For more podcasts on Illinois’ College of Applied Health Sciences, search A Few Minutes With on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Radio.com. and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Marie Moore Channell, Podcast

Alumni Spotlight—Marty Morse

April 01, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Marty Morse, who got his kinesiology degree in 1984 and master’s in exercise physiology in 1987 at Illinois, and who was the university’s first wheelchair track coach in 1984.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: In 1980, my coach told me that the Department of Kinesiology at Illinois was the finest in the world. Also in 1980, the Director of Boston University’s Spinal Cord Injury Center, Dr. Murray Freed, recommended that I pursue my wheelchair athletics dreams at the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES). I visited in 1980 with both kinesiology and DRES faculty. I fell immediately in love with the campus.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: In kinesiology, it was Dr. Helga Deutsch and Dr. Richard Boileau. At DRES, it was Dr. Bradley Hedrick and Dr. Stephen Figoni. In kinesiology, I was surrounded by professors who knew of my goals and they became involved in making sure I reached or surpassed my academic dreams. At DRES, Doctor Hedrick and Figoni set the bar high for me in athletics and academics. Each day was crammed full with learning at the feet of these two giants in the field of athletics and academics.

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: Everything I was required to take in kinesiology I enjoyed. The same can be said for DRES. Hedrick and Figoni kept the learning challenging, but fun.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: I had no idea where I was going when I entered AHS other than the fact I would be coaching. Dr. Hedrick made sure I received a graduate assistantship at DRES. That alone set my career path in coaching at DRES.

Q: Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: Yes. I was (the first) wheelchair track and field coach at DRES from 1984-2005.

Q:What is your current job?

A: I retired from full-time coaching in 2009.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: Day-to-day contact coaching Illinois student-athletes. There is a vibe being around Illinois student-athletes that can’t be found anywhere else. I thrived in that environment. Each day I was surrounded by the best and the brightest wheelchair athletes that come to the Urbana-Champaign campus to realize their academic and athletic dreams.

Q: What would you say to recommend AHS to a prospective student?

A: Kinesiology and DRES remain where I found them in 1981, the best. If you want to help people live an active, vigorous, healthy lifestyles, the College of AHS is the place to be. You will be challenged outside your current comfort level to achieve your dreams.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

Tags: alumni, Alumni Spotlight, Marty Morse

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