(Bowie, Md.)-Bowie State University’s Henry Wise Wellness Center will coordinate with the organization, Every Girl Can, in holding the 4th Annual “Smart Image” Conference: Healthy Body, Healthy Image Saturday, May 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Center for Learning and Technology on campus. The conference, a pre-Mother’s Day event, will include inspirational and motivational presentations from experienced professionals in the fields of psychology, education, personal image, etiquette, civility, social work, nutrition, wellness and fitness. The keynote address will be delivered by Prince George’s County District Court Judge, DaNeeka V. Cotton.

Workshop topics include cooking easy healthy meals, fitness and health, skin and hair care, civility (table etiquette, etc.), holistic weight management, and mother daughter walk and talk. In addition, one workshop will involve making dresses for girls in Haiti and Jamaica by using pillow cases and trimmings. Panel discussions will address areas such as raising girls to have a healthy body image and helping daughters build strong character, civility, kindness and respect.

Following the workshops offered before lunch, the girls and women accompanying them will be treated to an afternoon of high-spirited fun with health and fitness coach, Adrienne Corder from Corder, Pounders Youth and Family Wellness. A special highlight of the conference will be the surprise appearance of a Sony Music, Columbia Records, teen girl recording artist who is scheduled to bring a special message to the girls about the importance of a healthy body image.

Read More Bowie State University

A group of students are developing a “biology cannon” that will take aim at the question of whether x-rays are more harmful to human DNA in the zero gravity of outer space than they are when exposure takes place on earth.

The Rad-Panther team picked for the NASA Minority Innovation Challenges Institute (MICI) Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program will travel to Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake in June for pre-flight examinations and evaluations. From there, they will move to nearby Ellington Air Force Base to assemble their experiment aboard NASA’s Weightless Wonder, a highly modified Boeing 727, and prepare for a series of roller coaster-like flights over the Gulf of Mexico that simulate zero gravity.

Dr. Brad Gersey, lead researcher with the NASA Center for Radiation Engineering and Science for Space Exploration (CRESSE) at PVAMU, said the focus of the experiment is to develop, build, test and fly a device capable of performing radiation biology exposures to human cell cultures during atmospheric or space flight missions.

The five-member flight team will load their prototype cannon with both biological samples and an ultraviolet-C radioactive source into a sealed metal tube affixed with a shutter system to allow precise-time irradiation of samples only during the period when the flight parabolas are in a microgravity-producing trajectory. Another device called a Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter (TEPC) will be flown alongside the cannon in order to quantify the ambient radiation dose and ensure such radiation is not large enough to confound experimental results.

Undergraduate flight team members for the June 16-25 experiment are junior Jordan Fuchs, team lead, electrical engineering; senior Camille Smith, co-lead, chemical engineering; junior Melanie Price, electrical engineering; junior Demarcus Briers, biology; and junior Christopher St. Julian, electrical engineering.

PVAMU is one of just 14 minority serving institutions and community colleges nationwide participating in the MICI reduced gravity project. CRESSE, a NASA University Research Center, is home to some of the nation’s leading radiation scientists.

SC State University’s police chief, Michael Bartley, was recently the recipient of the SC Criminal Justice Award. Bartley, a 20-year law enforcement veteran, received the award recently at the South Carolina Victims Assistant Network’s conference in Columbia. The award is bestowed upon a member of the criminal justice system who has exemplified true advocacy on behalf of crime victims. Bartley was the only law enforcement officer in the state to receive this year’s honor.

“This is truly a blessing,” says Bartley. “This is the culmination of not solely my hard work but of the efforts of the SC State University Police Department staff as well.”

Bartley’s qualifications for this prominent award are evident. A graduate of Grambling State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice, he was promoted to chief of the SC State University Police Department in October 2010. His previous experiences in law enforcement run the gamut from line deputy and special services deputy, to narcotics investigator and a member of the bloodhound tracking team with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department in Columbia, S.C. Bartley also worked with the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office as captain of Uniform Patrol/Community Services and commander of the SWAT Team. He also served as a member of the Orangeburg County Homeland Security Task Force. This is also not Bartley’s first stint at SC State. In 1996, he worked as lieutenant of Operations/Administration for the University. He later served as major and then as interim chief of police.

Read More