Challenge - Spring/Summer 2012 - Tiffin University

Bereza Presents Research
Dr. Matt Bereza, Assistant Professor
of Psychology and Counseling
at TU, presented his research,
“Direct to Vendor Relationships:
Strengthening Communities
through Local Foods” at a conference
in June at New York University.
The research was presented
with the assistance of TU undergraduate
students Chase Barnes,
Dr. Matt Bereza
Kevin Collins, Gabriel McConn,
Jaclyn Meyer, and Selina Rumschlag.
During the 2010-2011 academic year, Bereza and his research
group conducted interviews with local growers of food
and those who sell local foods to the public.
“The focus of the interviews was to explore and describe
how the local growers and sellers come together to
create what is called Direct to Vendor routes,” said Bereza.
“These routes are important to the local food community
because they avoid
the for-profit,
and often times,
inefficient largepurveyor
model.
The research
demonstrated that
those involved in
growing and selling
local produce noticed
an increase in customer satisfaction when Direct to Vendor
routes were used,” he said.
Bereza plans to continue this line of research in the
future by looking at how local food organizations have been
reclaiming urban space to better community nutrition.
Collins and Chiara Present
Dr. Teresa Collins and adjunct instructor Nancy Chiara
presented a session entitled “Collaborative Teaching in the
Online Environment” at this year’s Annual Conference of the
Kentucky Society
for Technology in
Education (KySTE).
Arguing for greater
use of team-teaching,
the Partnership
for 21st Century
Skills states that
“successful professional
development
initiatives for education include fundamental characteristics
that are widely accepted including tapping teacher expertise
through co-teaching.”
As team-teachers, Collins and Chiara documented
their experiences teaching several online graduate research
courses for Tiffin University’s Master of Humanities and
Master of Education programs. The KySTE session presented
best practice strategies illustrating how pairing well-matched
instructors in online courses provides students with an enriched
learning experience.
CampusScene
TU’s Hospitality Club and Career
Development Office host a Business
Etiquette Seminar each spring. The seminar is
an educational and entertaining evening, where
Mrs. Susan Marion provides an informative presentation,
featuring dining etiquette and professional interview
topics. Students enjoy a fine dining meal and earn
co-curricular credit.
SPRING / SUMMER 2012 | CHALLENGE | 43