Faculty Focus
Clinical Expertise
With 27 years of experience in clinical practice, Harriet Lewis knows first-hand what students need to become professional physical therapists.
As the ASU Physical Therapy Department’s academic coordinator of clinical education, Lewis finds facilities where PT students get their hands-on training and prepares them for the experience. She has secured more than 100 clinical contracts with health care facilities throughout the U.S., where ASU physical therapy students now have the option of doing their clinical rotations. Several of the contracted facilities are on the U.S. News and World Report list of best hospitals, including Mayo Clinic, Texas Children’s Hospital and Methodist Hospital in Houston, and the Kessler Institute of Rehabilitation in West Orange, N.J.
“I make sure that the sites are appropriate for our students,” Lewis said, “and that the sites have all the information they need in order to mentor our students well. I also make sure the students are ready to go, including having all their records in place and having passed all their classes. I also prepare them for those aspects of work in the clinic that are not directly related to patient care.”
That type of support for students led the ASU Alumni Association to name Lewis the first-ever Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award winner from the new College of Nursing and Allied Health in the fall of 2009.
But, it is not all about just helping the students. Lewis also prepares the professional therapists who oversee the students in their clinical rotations. In that capacity, she was appointed to the American Physical Therapy Association’s (APTA) Clinical Instruction Education Board (CIEB) for a three-year term in July of 2009.
The CIEB oversees the APTA Clinical Instructor Education and Credentialing Program (CIECP) and the advanced version of the program. Lewis is a credentialed clinical trainer for both programs, one of only two in Texas for the regular CIECP and the only one in the state for the advanced program. There are only 49 credentialed trainers for the advanced program in the entire U.S.
On top of all that, Lewis is also an assistant clinical professor in the ASU Physical Therapy Department, where she teaches classes in documentation, clinical practice and practical skills.
“I enjoy interacting with the students and finding ways to engage them in different topics,” Lewis said. “But, in our new doctoral program, I will have fewer responsibilities in classroom teaching, though I will still teach my Introduction to Clinical Practice course and the documentation.”
Prior to her 10 years on the ASU faculty, Lewis spent nearly three decades as a licensed physical therapist in a variety of settings, including acute care, outpatient orthopedic physical therapy, nursing home, long-term acute care and home health. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Baylor University and a certificate in physical therapy from University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. She received her Master of Science degree in exercise and sports science with a minor in industrial engineering from Texas Tech University.
Lewis’ husband, Preston, is director of the ASU Office of Communications and Marketing. Their son Scott Lewis, daughter-in-law Celeste and granddaughter Hannah live in Anchorage. Their daughter Melissa Kemp, son-in-law John and granddaughter Cora reside in Round Rock.
Interested in a career in physical therapy?
Exercising Options
Although she didn’t plan on teaching adaptive physical education when she took a Kinesiology teaching position at ASU, Dr. Kathleen Price says her career has worked out for the best.
The 2009 Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award winner from the College of Education finds that path rewarding after a career that began with a volleyball scholarship to Baylor University and continued at several public schools as a teacher and coach before she made her way to ASU.
“After I graduated from Baylor, they offered me an opportunity to stay and do my master’s,” Price said. “I finished my master’s in a year and worked with the volleyball team as a graduate assistant.”
She taught health and physical education in several different high schools before realizing that she needed a different direction in her life.
“In the back of my mind,” Price said, “I didn’t see myself doing that when I was 40. I went back to school at Texas Woman’s University, which is noted for its adaptive physical education. I was more interested in sports sciences – exercise science, biomechanics and exercise physiology.”
Price came to ASU’s Kinesiology Department while she was still working on her doctoral dissertation at TWU. Here, she found another route stretching out before her.
“When I first got here, Melanie Croy was department head and told me I needed to teach adaptive physical education” she said. “I had never taken a class in adaptive, but I hung around other graduate students who were doing that, so I had a pretty good idea about it.”
“I was also familiar with adaptive because my grandfather had his leg amputated when I was seven years old due to circulatory problems. I learned at an early age that life goes on and that a disability wasn’t something that had to stop you from living. My grandfather continued to drive, fish, and live life to the fullest.”
“It’s been neat for me,” Price said, “because I have been able to look at the exercise physiology and biomechanics side of why a person with cerebral palsy walks that way or looking at muscular dystrophy or mental retardation characteristics and what implication they have in terms of exercise or mechanics of walking.”
Price also teaches physical education for elementary school. She said students study age and developmentally appropriate activities along with classroom management techniques.
“I encourage my physical education students to make interdisciplinary connections, such as reinforcing math, science or language arts concepts while teaching physical education,” Price said. “If we scratch the classroom teachers’ backs, they may do that for us.”
Outside the classroom, Price plays golf for recreation and walked a lot until she injured her Achilles tendons.
“I would walk in a neighborhood park, maybe 35 miles a week,” she said. “In 2007, I had MRIs done and both tendons were torn. It was a combination of walking on pavement and the amount I was doing.”
Price still walks some when she plays golf but not on a paved cart path.
Two sports she can’t participate in are curling and speed skating, which were popular in her native Wisconsin but not so much in West Texas.
“I’ve never had a chance to play curling,” said Price, who has one of the sport’s 44-pound oval-shaped and polished concrete stones in her office. “It’s interested me in the last eight or nine years. It’s getting more publicity and requires a lot of balance and teamwork.”
“There probably aren’t too many people in San Angelo with a curling stone,” Price said. “When it was delivered, the poor guy from UPS pulled up with this box. I thought it was going to be a great doorstop.”
She said she sees the stone as much more than that, however.
“The whole idea behind curling is a lot like life,” Price said. “You look at the slippery destination toward a goal. Sometimes there are obstacles you have to overcome and sometimes you need your buddies to help you through.”
Interested in a career in kinesiology?
To ASU and Beyond
When Dr. Ed Olson came to ASU in 1978 to teach government, he found the university to his liking and also found a portal to the world.
The 2009 Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award recipient from the College of Liberal and Fine Arts, Olson has served as head of the Government Department since 1989, and he also helped develop ASU’s International Studies program.
“I was an original member of the ‘gang of eight’ that went to Lüneburg, Germany, to negotiate the exchange program in 1992,” Olson said. “From 1993 through the summer of 2008, I directed or co-directed with Dr. Sharynn Tomlin some 13 study abroad programs in Lüneburg, Sheffield, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland, and in 2009, Italy/Greece.”
Olson has used his government expertise to direct such courses as Politics and Policy in the United Kingdom, Britain and the European Union, and The History of Freedom.
“I believe that international education has become critical to anyone claiming today to have a higher education,” Olson said. “In our global community, it is imperative that our citizens develop an understanding and empathy for other cultures. Study while traveling is essential in developing this empathy.”
Besides International Studies, Olson has a passion for government and has spent 31 years instructing young minds on the intricacies of the American political process. Although he didn’t plan to stay 30 years when he came to ASU from the University of California-Davis, where he earned his doctorate and began his teaching career, it has certainly worked out.
“When I first came, I had never heard of San Angelo,” Olson said. “I debated coming here, but I liked the people, the teaching orientation of the school and the camaraderie within the department. My colleagues became my friends.”
The Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award isn’t a surprise to many of his former students, including Kelby Hagar, president and chief executive officer of Digital Witness, LLC, and a Harvard Law School graduate.
“I took a lot of classes from Dr. Olson,” Hagar said. “He was always helpful and a good adviser.”
Olson’s teaching specialties include the American political process with particular emphasis on the American presidency, campaigns and elections, along with American political culture. He also focuses on comparative politics, international relations and methodology, Texas politics and British politics. He has published articles in American voting behavior, political culture and campaign finance.
Additionally, Olson serves on the ASU Honors Council, which he chaired from 2002-04 after leading the Honors Program Development Committee in 2001. He also serves on the College of Liberal and Fine Arts Curriculum Committee, the International Studies Committee and the Teacher Education Council.
Olson’s reach extends beyond the academic world as he has served as a political or legislative adviser for 30 political candidates and officeholders, including federal district judge and former San Angelo State Rep. Rob Junell and former State Rep. Dick Burnett.
In the community, Olson has moderated political debates and sponsors the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He is a member of the Journal of Borderland Studies editorial board and previously served as co-editor of the Texas Journal of Political Studies.
Such hands-on participation shows Olsen’s passion for the political process, whether he is teaching from a lectern in an ASU classroom or co-directing a program in England or Scotland for his students.
Interested in a career in government?
Returning to Her Roots
Growing up in the rural Concho Valley, Dr. Bonnie Amos was introduced to nature at an early age and has been passing on her love of all things botanical to students in the ASU Biology Department for over 20 years.
Already the winner of ASU’s 2008 Teaching Excellence Award, Amos has also been named a Piper Distinguished Professor for 2009 by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation in recognition of her outstanding achievements in the teaching profession.
The Piper Foundation established the award in 1958 and Amos is just the ninth ASU professor to receive the honor. In addition to being one of the top statewide honors for professors in higher education, the designation carries with it a $5,000 honorarium.
Though she originally planned a career in botany research, Amos decided to take the teaching route to have more contact with students. Now, she has the best of both worlds.
“I really like the teaching portion of it and what is great about ASU is the opportunity that I have to work with students in research,” Amos said. “In fact, the research that I do now, I could not do without their help.”
That research includes studies and surveys of plants native to the Chihuahuan Desert and Chisos Mountains regions of Big Bend National Park and is almost always aided by both graduate and undergraduate students.
“Being an ASU graduate, I appreciate what that opportunity meant to me when I was a student here,” Amos said. “It really made a difference in my life. It enriched not only my education, but helped me select a career. So I wanted to come back and pay back that debt that I felt I owed this university.”
Upon her return, Amos was quickly named head of the Biology Department, a post she held for 13 years, but then vacated to free up more time for teaching and research. She is also curator of the Angelo State Natural History Collections’ Herbarium, which contains over 60,000 plant specimens from Texas, the U.S. and around the world.
“It’s amazing,” Amos said. “I think I could work in there even if it wasn’t part of my responsibilities.”
Amos credits an ASU plant taxonomy class for really opening her mind to a career in botany, but her love of nature goes all the way back to her childhood.
“My grandmother would walk me around their property, show me the wildflowers, tell me the names of them and tell me interesting things about them,” Amos said. “My parents both loved the outdoors and my dad was an avid hunter and fisherman, so I was always outside with him. I think that early introduction to nature made a big difference.”
Amos holds both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from ASU and her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. In her spare time she enjoys reading, attending sporting events, traveling, snorkeling and spending time with her family. Her immediate family consists of four rescued dogs, Sugar, Dottie, Lucy and Rosy, who share her home near Dove Creek.
While she admits to occasionally wondering what her life would have been like had she gone into research instead of teaching, Amos has found a home at ASU.
“I have excellent colleagues,” she said. “We all have the same objective and that is doing the best we can for our students. That makes it a nice place to work.”
Interested in a career in biology?
Finding Poetry in Life
ASU English professor Dr. Chris Ellery draws on what he sees and experiences for inspiration in writing his poetry.
“I think of the poem as a kind of interpretation of life, a lens through which you can focus life,” Ellery said. “It’s a way of connecting both to myself and to whatever is not myself. It’s a way of connecting to the deep currents of life, to the lives of others and to whatever life I’m living and hope to live.”
That philosophy serves the Texarkana native well in his writing and figures into his being named a member of the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL), a non-profit group that recognizes literary achievement and stimulates interest in Texas writers.
Ellery doesn’t adhere to strict guidelines in his writing, which makes for an eclectic body of work.
“I don’t like to put any kind of limit on what poetry is,” he said. “I think there is some very fine fluid poetry, open-form poetry, what some people might call free verse. There is no such thing as free verse. Whatever you do, you want to write well.”
As for formal poetry of others, Ellery is a fan.
“I’m reading the romantics again for a class I’m teaching,” he said. “I love the blank verse of Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and the quatrains of Tennyson’s In Memorium, so I think you can write great poetry in a lot of different ways.”
The form Ellery chooses for a poem is a matter of feeling for the subject matter.
“It’s kind of instinct to sense the form that would benefit it,” he said. “Somehow, the poem dictates its form.”
“Whatever you want to call it, I don’t think anyone has ever explained creativity – where it comes from or how it works,” Ellery said. “I’m just glad when it happens and there is kind of a joy to it. Robert Frost uses a wonderful figure to describe this process: ‘Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.’”
Ellery sees creativity partly as a conscious choice of a particular word, sound or form, but at the same time, he believes that a lot of it is instinctive or intuitive.
“Letting the thing happen and develop where it wants to go – no surprise for the writer or the reader,” he said. “You love those moments of surprise in the poem.”
Ellery is the third ASU professor to join the TIL, an exclusive group of literature advocates. He follows fellow English professor Terrence Dalrymple and history professor Arnoldo DeLeón as members.
Among authors the TIL has honored are San Angelo Western novelist Elmer Kelton, Liz Carpenter, Gary Cartwright, former San Angeloan Mike Cox, Kinky Friedman, Skip Hollandsworth, Dan Jenkins, Larry L. King, Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry.
Ellery has been published in literary journals, including Cimarron Review, AVOCET and New Texas and authored two books of poetry, Quarry (Mountain Muse Press, 2005) and All This Light We Live In (Panther Creek Press, 2006).
He is also noted for translating other people’s works, including Whatever Happened to Antara, a collection of short stories by award-winning Syrian writer Walid Ikhlassi, published by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (University of Texas Press, 2004).
Ellery acquired his expertise about Syria while teaching American poetry at the University of Aleppo in Damascus, Syria, while on a Fulbright teaching grant.
“The Syrians have a deep respect for language,” Ellery said. “Of course, it’s very challenging, but I enjoyed it a lot. I was pretty provincial, so it was nice to get out of my comfort zone.”
Like in much of his work, Ellery found inspiration in his time in the Middle East and is working on a book of poems based on those experiences. One of his poems, “Bimaristan Arghun,” won the 2005 Betsy Colquitt Award from the literary magazine, descant.
Looking back on his works, Ellery didn’t pinpoint one as his favorite.
“My favorite is always the poem I’m working on right now,” he said. “I would be hard-pressed to select a favorite. I kind of do it and get done with it.”
“To me, it’s more about the writing than it is about publishing it or sharing it or showing it to others. I do have some poems that I like and that I think are pretty relevant. They probably have something to offer to readers.”
