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'm speaking with Clarion Mendes and Amanda Lawrence from the speech and hearing science department to talk about how the SHS clinics are impacted by the coronavirus crisis. I know Speech and Hearing Science operates the Speech-Language Pathology Clinic and the audiology clinics. And are those still open?

CLARION MENDES: So that's a great question. The physical location of the clinic is currently closed for the safety of our clients, our patients, our families, and our students and staff. So we're following CDC recommendations as far as that's concerned. However, like most of the rest of the world, we are diving deep into the world of telepractice, tele-interaction. So from the speech-language pathology standpoint, we have started to introduce telepractice for our patients and clients, and their families.

For audiology, it's a little bit more complicated because of the types of equipment that are often used for audiological assessment and intervention. So what we're doing currently for audiology patients is working with them to make sure that their hearing aids are up and running appropriately and making sure that their equipment is running smoothly. So repairs are still up and running for audiology.

VINCE LARA: How do you get hearing aids repaired without having that kind of face-to-face interaction?

AMANDA LAWRENCE: So there's a couple things. So if a hearing aid's malfunctioning, everything from-- sometimes we can talk them through it. Because there's a handful of things you just do to start, like, say, diagnosing what the issue is. And sometimes that fixes the issue. So that can be everything from just talking them through appropriate cleaning, just making sure there's not wax that's the problem or a microphone that's blocked to that extent.

So once we've worked through that, if need be-- current pandemic-- one of the things that we can do is, if a patient were to-- most of what I need to know in trying to assess or diagnosis is what their problems or the difficulties are, what's happening with the actual instrument.

They could bring it in without-- either drop it-- I mean, set it on a bench or a t-- outside the clinic. I would be there at the same time, pick it up, go in the clinic, diagnose it. I mean, figure out what's happening-- does it need to be sent in? Is it something I can replace or fix in the clinic?

Once I verify that it's functioning properly, I can clean it back off and disinfect it, and set it back somewhere for the patient to come back and pick up. I mean, it would be sitting there in the meantime, so not just sitting out for somebody to just come by and pick it up. So that can be done.

And most the time, the same thing can even happen even if they need-- if it's a sound-- like if I need programming adjustments, those kind of things. Usually, most, vast majority, 90% or better, I can do without the patient sitting there at all.

The only issue I would have is sometimes the problem is actually wax in the patient's ear. And I cannot do anything about that without seeing or touching the patient, though medical offices are open. So primary care or somebody could do that. But most things I can assess or take care of just by their feedback. It works.

VINCE LARA: You raise a good point, though. What are some of the complications for getting care for what people might deem as non-essential care during this time? And I think you know you bring up one of them. If a patient has an ear wax issue that's going to affect their hearing aid, I don't know, is that considered essential care? Is that something they could go to get care for?

AMANDA LAWRENCE: I don't know how they're doing it. Do we know how the system is set up here? So this I can tell you, just because I've had a friend who's had to go in Florida, who's in the same kind of stay-at-home.

So what they were doing was, well patients, not, say, for a primary care, they were doing those all in the morning. And if anyone-- ill or sick, then they were separating them out and seeing them in the afternoon so that they disinfect in between. So I can tell you there. I haven't tried to go to the doctor here, so I don't know what that means here.

I don't know if Christi and Carl are not seeing any well patients at all, if a patient or somebody called and said, I cannot hear at all, and this is the reason, like if somebody said they could not hear, if it would actually be considered a medical emergency. And if it ended up just being earwax, that would be a great day for their PCP. I mean, because that's something they can actually fix.

VINCE LARA: And Clarion, for someone with a speech-language issue, how would that be handled? And is that considered essential care or not?

CLARION MENDES: That's a great question. So it's going to depend quite a bit on the particular type of diagnosis that we're dealing with. So for instance, one of the specialties of speech-language pathologists is dysphagia, or difficulty eating and swallowing. And dysphagia is often frequently coupled with respiratory issues.

So for speech-language pathologists that are working in a acute care setting or an ICU, they're going to be pretty busy right now. And those services are kept up and considered essential. And of course, it's going to vary on a case-by-case basis from medical facility to medical facility. Something that we've been seeing a lot right now is, for individuals that have acquired neurogenic language or cognitive issues, having SLPs who can communicate with individuals to explain what COVID is and what their limitations are currently. That's something that has also been popping up in their speech-language pathology community quite a bit.

VINCE LARA: Clarion, I'm directing this toward you only because I know you've worked with geriatric populations a lot. And in fact, I think you've said in the past it's your favorite population to work with. Since they're most at risk at this time, what extra steps, if any, would you have to take to ensure their health?

CLARION MENDES: So that is incredibly difficult right now, both from the that they're staying healthy, because they are at the highest level of risk of contracting the virus, but the other challenge is-- I don't mean to stereotype, but they're not digital natives. And so currently, the way that the world is going with managing all aspects of health care in this current state is to do everything as digitally as possible. And so because they're not digital natives, this has been very, very problematic.

I can speak for-- I think I speak about my grandmother a lot when I'm interviewed by you, Vince. She's currently 89 at home. And she's talking with my parents on the phone, but she's excluded from the family Zoom meetings and all that kind of thing. So I wish I had a great answer for you, but currently I don't.

VINCE LARA: And Amanda would you-- how about from an audiology side of things?

AMANDA LAWRENCE: It's the same. That's [INAUDIBLE]. It's how tech savvy they are or have interest in being. So some, it's just frightening all the way around. And there is no interest, little interest, more just out of the anxiety of it or misunderstanding of it. And then some are interested, if you can help them work through it and how well you can do that via telepractice, or just some really does depend on auditory skills. I mean, there is something about telepractice that does depend on the institution.

And the other issue with hearing aids and the older population is, when we have declining visual acuity, hearing aids are very small. Everything about them is very small. So sometimes that alone is one of the things that they need more support with or something they miss clinic when the clinic is an open, because I'm asking them to look for something or wax in an area that's about the size of the head of a pin. And if your visual acuity is not there-- it's not because they're not trying. It's because they can't see it, so the same issues.

But we have a lot of-- I mean, the older population around here a in Champaign-Urbana is definitely a little bit of a sliver or a slice of just a very unique group in that many tend to be retired professors. And so they sometimes have an interest, or at least more inclination, into things that are different, and a lot of times, I would say above average willingness to try. Something that's a little bit different, particularly in my hearing aid population, which can certainly be helpful. But that doesn't change their visual acuity or the dexterity issues that can come with managing hearing aids.

VINCE LARA: We've touched on telehealth a little bit. But I'm wondering, in general, how has the buy-in been from patients with calling them about issues?

CLARION MENDES: So I'll get started with that. This is Clarion. I have jumped in, maybe cart before the horse, with telepractice with many of my voice clients. And I was tentative. I was nervous.

But surprisingly, the buy-in has been pretty good. And I think the reason is, one, I have found overall everybody is in this mood of, we're all in this together. We're collaborating together. We're all figuring out those unknown territories together. And so people have been extraordinarily gracious and understanding that this is something we're all working through.

And I'll say, as far as my client population, a lot of folks are stuck at home. And so people are just happy to have a piece of normalcy, even if it's delivered in an alternate model. And so, so far it's been it's been very positive.

And we're starting to work with this with children as well. And there's some great evidence that suggests that telepractice works very nicely with kids. And to be honest, I think parents are grateful to have somebody else be educating their children and supporting their communication needs right now during this complicated time.

VINCE LARA: That's well put. How about you, Amanda? Are you finding the same thing?

AMANDA LAWRENCE: Yeah. So in audiology and telepractice, you are more limited to being able to give some type of verbal instruction with a device. Otherwise, a lot of what we do is diagnostics, which, it does not lend. Because we have so much equipment. It does not lend to telepractice as well. But making the contact, or to know that somebody can be there via-- even if that is just phone, but if it needs to be talked through, that kind of thing, that there is an availability there. But in general, large swaths of what we do, if it's diagnostic in nature, the equipment just isn't available to be supported through telehealth practices, telepractice.

VINCE LARA: And I think that works well with what my final question is, is that, what are students doing to replace internships, replacing what have to be in-person internships? Clarion, do you want to start with that?

CLARION MENDES: That's a very interesting question. So I have been e-mailing and calling my certifying body, the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, the Council on Academic Accreditation, the Illinois Department of Federal and Professional Regulation, the Illinois Board of Higher Education, and many other entities. Because currently, students are not allowed to participate in telepractice and count it for their certification in the state of Illinois for speech-language pathology and audiology.

As of this recording, every other state permits it for speech-language pathologists. But Illinois is an isolate. So we have been working pretty around the clock to try to get our Practice Act updated so that students can participate in this important aspect of care that I imagine is going to be just becoming more and more common in our current state of affairs.

So that's something we've been working towards. And we check the updates daily, sometimes hourly, for changes in telehealth rules, regulations, and certification. So this has been keeping me up day and night. I have not gotten much sleep recently, to tell you the truth.

CLARION MENDES: I am overjoyed to share this update with you since you interviewed Dr. Lawrence and me on Friday, April 3, 2020. The Illinois Practice Act for Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology has been revised. Effective today, April 6, 2020, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, is allowing, through 7/31/2020, students of speech-language pathology and audiology, to provide their services via telepractice, provided that, per best practice, there is a licensed and certified clinician overseeing all services in real time. This variance is congruent with current best practice for speech-language pathology and audiology, and allows our students to successfully continue a high quality, clinical education while meeting the communication needs of our community during a pivotal time in health care. We are excited to step up and offer this medium of service delivery to our current and future clients. This opportunity, for our energized and dedicated students to offer services with the supervision of experts, allows us to maintain and enhance our standing as a highly-ranked program in audiology and speech-language pathology.

VINCE LARA: Well, I appreciate you both being on today to talk about these really important issues. And I hope that we can see a return to campus and to normalcy very soon. My thanks to Clarion and Amanda.

For more podcasts on Illinois College of Applied Health Sciences, search A Few Minutes With on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, radio.com, and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

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'm speaking with Tammy Seraphin, a registered nurse and health care administrator who is also assistant director of our masters in health administration program to talk about the COVID-19 crisis.

All right, speaking with Tammy Seraphin, who is a registered nurse and has worked in health care administration. And so Tammy, you are uniquely qualified I think to talk about this health care crisis with COVID-19. And I wanted to ask you, what are people in each of those roles experiencing?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: Well, thanks for having me, Vince. One of the things I will mention is that nurses work in a variety of roles. Although most people probably think of nurses, you know, they're dressed in scrubs, they work in a hospital or a doctor's office taking care of patients, but there are many nurses that work behind the scenes in areas such as quality, in case management, infection prevention, and, of course, in leadership roles.

But regardless of what role the nurses are currently working in, we all understand that patients are at the center of everything that we do. We also alleged during our graduation ceremonies to, quote, "devote ourselves to the welfare of those committed to our care." And right now, nurses, especially those direct patient care nurses, are doing exactly what they pledged to do.

They're still taking care of the patients even in times of crisis. And that devotion and commitment is really to be honored and celebrated. And even those nurses who work in non-direct patient care jobs still play a role in supporting patient care. And, in fact, you'll even see some of those nurses returning to direct patient care temporarily to provide more support to the frontline staff.

In fact, I just received earlier this week a statewide alert asking for our licensed and even previously licensed professionals to sign up to help fight this pandemic. And when you look at leaders, leaders are being pulled in many directions during a time like this. And what's interesting is they have to consider that patients are not the only priority.

They have to think about the employees, too. Leaders need to be present and listening to the concerns of those frontline staff. They have to make decisions quickly but very thoughtfully as well. And being willing to collaborate with other organizations is key.

As we are seeing today, the partnership between our local hospitals, the public health departments, and other health agencies is evident, because the public needs accurate and consistent communication, and you can't have that without collaboration. And it's no doubt it's a stressful time for those involved in any health care role.

There have been and will continue to be long, exhausting days. And one of the things I've seen in the last few years is an uptick on the importance of caring for the caregiver. And a lot of times, we think of caregivers as those who are assisting, say, with an elderly parent or perhaps those caring for a child with special needs.

But in this case, though, I am referring to the caregivers in the professional sense. They're providing care in these stressful moments, and that can sure take a toll on their physical and emotional health. And it's important for our employees to feel like they've got the support, and the resources, and opportunities to take care of themselves and to help keep them from becoming another patient.

VINCE LARA: You know, I'm sure you have experience with similar epidemics. Tammy, H1N1 and the Ebola virus. How did you deal with that?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: Well, the most recent epidemic or outbreak that I dealt with was actually with measles last year. That was the one I was really heavily involved in. Things like Ebola, I helped to do some preparation for that. But really, the measles outbreak from last year is my most recent experience.

And I remember sitting at a high school basketball game on a Friday evening, and got a call, and said, we likely had our first case of measles. And by Saturday morning, I was put in charge of implementing operational changes for our clinic.

We had to change how our walk-in traffic was processed, how the patients were roomed, how we were going to staff, how we were going to keep communications with the students and staff. And then not to mention the numerous phone calls that we would get, of course, from concerned students, and parents, and community members.

Sometimes, they were just asking simple questions related to, say, the measles vaccine or their exposure risk. But there were certainly a lot of questions regarding quarantine orders because they, too, had 14-day quarantines for people who were potentially exposed at that point as well.

But I will say having been on the frontlines with that, I was absolutely amazed at how well organized the emergency response was throughout our community and in the clinic where I worked. And I can say all of that was based on communication.

And whether that was through the conference calls we did with our state and local public health leaders to the other health agencies locally and the messaging that we have for our students and staff, that messaging, again, had to be very clear and consistent. But that emergency response, like I said, it was absolutely amazing to me.

VINCE LARA: What's the most difficult issue to deal with in this type of situation, Tammy? Is it understaffing? Is it not enough beds, not enough Personal Protective Equipment, or not enough equipment in general? What, in your opinion?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: Sure. Since I'm not dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic directly on the front lines, it's kind of hard to say, and it's really going to differ from community to community. But one of the things I am concerned about is what I'm hearing regarding the Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE-- I'm sorry-- PPE situation.

One of the first clinical lessons I remember in nursing school was about handwashing and glove use. And so it's ingrained in us early on how important handwashing and using appropriate PPE is. And when we are taught that medical equipment that's labeled single use only is meant to be single use only, and not from patient to patient and things.

So I certainly don't like hearing about the situations when we can't be as safe as we should be when it comes to accessing and using PPE. And I guess one of the other concerns I have goes to the staff, and that's the burnout and potential illness that staff are facing. These are essential employees, and not able to work from home.

And so those that are working in settings that operate 24/7, 365, those facilities don't close, and you have to have staff there to care for patients. So that's one of the main things I feel like it's fairly difficult to manage that right now. But it's my hope that we can keep our medical, and nursing, and other ancillary staff physically and emotionally healthy so they can continue to take great care of the patients that are there now.

VINCE LARA: Yeah. You know, there's no way you can anticipate this, but what advice would you give someone who's entering the nursing field now? I mean, you have people who are graduating who are getting let off their final semester to enter the nursing field. So what advice do you have for them?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: Probably not so much specific to what's happening now. That's a great question. And I guess I would have maybe three things to mention. The first one I'm going to say is to just stay with it. It's not uncommon for nurses to experience burnout early on or even a few years in.

In fact, I just recently reviewed a study from 2019 that showed about 25% to 30% of nurses actually leave their roles within the first couple of years, and that's a scary number to me. We have to focus on reducing that percentage. And we've got a large number of nurses retiring, and we're not getting enough new nurses out there to replace them.

So if I've got someone who's thinking about getting out of the profession, I would just simply remind them that he or she was drawn to nursing for a specific reason. And if you don't really like the position that you're currently in, there are so many other opportunities to put your knowledge and skills to use. Really, don't give up on the nursing profession. We can just try something different.

So I guess the second piece of this is to be a lifelong learner. And I think that's really important from just the things that we're learning day to day now. You know, this is new for our country, and it's one of those things that you have to see on top of the current literature.

So one of the interesting things is it's only been in the last decade that nurses were required by the state of Illinois to log continuing ed hours. And that just seems crazy to me. We have people like licensed barbers that were required to have hours long before this, but nurses weren't. And so like I said, really staying on top of the current evidence-based practices would be something that's important.

And lastly-- and this is something that I'm sure is really hard today, especially for a lot of our staff-- but it's smile and smile a lot. You may be having a bad day, but that person you're interacting with is probably having a worse day. And so I just want to encourage everybody just to be the bright spot in that patient's day.

VINCE LARA: And you are also in health care management. So what should someone in health care management expect?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: This is a fun one as I talk to potential students who want to go into health administration. And one of the key things that I talk about is expect and embrace change. If you don't like-- or, I'm sorry. If you like doing the same things every day in your job, then a career in health administration is likely not for you.

When you really think about all of the rules, and regulations, and guidelines that surround our health care systems, and then you add in the recommendations that suggest changing how physicians, and allied health professionals, and nurses practice, there's this constant motion in health care. And some of these changes are very welcome, and some will be met with strong resistance.

So definitely change and appreciating change is something that leaders would have to do. In addition to that, I would say learning to appreciate another's expertise and bringing them to the table anytime you're looking at making major changes. Leaders in health care organizations all have different backgrounds. Some are clinical, some financial, some are technology-based.

And one of the things I found in basically the last decade when I was working more in the administrative roles is that health care decisions really shouldn't be made unilaterally, because one decision can strongly impact, say, another unit or department without someone even realizing it. And two, explain the whys behind the major changes.

Staff are not always going to agree when changes are made in the organization. But if they at least understand the why, you're more likely to get buy-in and compliance with that change. And we're certainly seeing a lot of change in practices right now.

VINCE LARA: That's for sure. Speaking of one of those changes is nurses being allowed to enter the field without finishing their final semester, as I mentioned earlier. Is that something you agree with?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: You know, Vince, this is kind of a tricky one for me, because I want to support, especially those new nurses getting out there and getting that experience. But there's generally a lot of clinical time that's required during that final semester. And they're unfortunately experiencing cancellations of those clinical opportunities.

VINCE LARA: Right.

TAMMY SERAPHIN: I've been reading some could be offering simulations that could help support that last semester of learning. And certainly, I can see that. Back in the day, we used to even have an option of practicing what they called, like, RNLP, which was Registered Nurse License Pending. And I suppose we could go back to something like that on a temporary basis while nurses wait to take their national licensing exam.

But I guess what I'm kind of concerned about is the fallout of pushing new nurses out there quickly with unrealistic expectations, and here's why. Nursing school is great. We get prepared to get out there and provide great patient care. But it's really only a snapshot of what the reality is like. In nursing school, you take care of one, maybe two patients.

And what we're seeing now, nurses are taking care of five, six, sometimes seven or eight. And as I mentioned earlier, that nursing retention rate for the first couple of years isn't great. So a few of the reasons that I've read where nurses are providing for why they leave is that the workload is too heavy or it's too fast-paced.

They've had nonexistent, or poor mentorships, or poor receptor ships. And just the emotional toll that sometimes these roles take on. So if these new nurses are pushed into a role where they've not received proper orientation and have that good mentorship, they're going to be more likely to leave the profession.

And not only when someone leaves is that disruptive to operational workflows and scheduling, but it's expensive for the organization in both time and money when you have to replace employees. So can this work? Maybe. But I would certainly want to proceed with caution putting those brand new nurses into a situation like this.

VINCE LARA: Sure. Speaking of proceeding with caution, what should people know for best practices when they're going outside during this crisis?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: Yeah. So I really strongly encourage folks just to follow the CDC and public health guidelines for physical distancing. It's definitely OK to go outside. And certainly as this weather gets warmer, a little sun and fresh air can do wonders for someone's mood and you their emotional health.

And, of course, just the promotion of physical activity-- of course, not in big groups. But just going out for the walk, or a jog, or a bike ride, it encourages us to stay healthy as well. So that's really when you're outside, just avoid the big groups. But definitely get out there and enjoy the sunshine.

VINCE LARA: Yeah. And I think going back to that answer, is there anything, any behavior you've seen or heard about that you'd discourage?

TAMMY SERAPHIN: Well, I will tell you my biggest peeve right now is the use of social media to spread misinformation and create more panic. Social media is a great way to certainly reach a lot of readers, for lack of a better term. But getting folks to pay attention to only the credible sources is challenging.

And one of the things I've heard is from a local physician, he was quoted as saying something like, pay attention to the science, and avoid the stories. And I believe really just taking that, and that's a great start. And basically, just don't believe every you're reading.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Tammy Seraphin. For more podcasts on Illinois' College Applied Health Sciences, search A Few Minutes With on iTunes, Spotify, I Heart Radio, and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

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'm speaking with Keiko Ishikawa of Speech and Hearing Science and Neha Gothe of Kinesiology and Community Health about the transition to online instruction during the coronavirus crisis.

So just a simple question, where are you setting up in your house as you transition into this world of online instruction?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Well, I actually set up a home office at my house. I didn't have a really official space from home before. But we actually created a room for me to work in next eight weeks.

VINCE LARA: That's great. How about you, Neha?

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, I think a similar situation for me as well. We have an office space in our house. And so I have a standing desk. I was able to connect with the AHS IT team and get all the more access softwares that I need on my laptop so I am able to access-- and also remotely access my office computer if I need some documents or some softwares.

VINCE LARA: Have either of you had online instruction prior to this, whether it's with Illinois or any other university?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: I will start. So yes, I actually tried to make a hybrid course last semester for AHS 300, which is the undergraduate level anatomy and physiology course. So in that class-- in half of the class, which is almost all the lectures, were done online. And then class met for laboratory activities. So I was not new to this type of online instruction. But full online instruction is a first for me.

VINCE LARA: How about you, Neha?

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, this is completely new for me. I have never taught online classes before in any small or big capacity. So this was a first transition for me to use an online software, such as Zoom which has worked really well for us thus far, and connecting with students. And also trying to then adjust your syllabus coursework, grading rubric accordingly so things move on to a smoother transition.

I think in this situation what certainly did help was I was able to see and connect with my students for the first half of our semester. And so the students know me. I can put a name and a face together when I'm on Zoom with more than 100 students in one of my classes. And so it does certainly help to have had that in-person interaction prior to just switching to online.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, I've heard that anecdotally as well that that helped having that first part of the semester interaction. Do either of you think that this kind of experience would make it more likely that you'd be involved in online instruction in the future? Why don't you start, Neha.

NEHA GOTHE: For me, certainly. I think I have already been thinking and brainstorming about ideas in which I could either transition my course to an online course or perhaps think of a hybrid format. So perhaps meeting in person for once a week and then doing some other activities for the course remotely. And I think to some extent it does work to my advantage being in the field of kinesiology and community health.

All our coursework is very applied, at least the coursework that I teach in the context of health and behavior, health promotion, exercise and health, psychology. These are all the things that are very practically, very applicable to students. A lot of my assignments involve students to try something with their family or friends. And so I can really see this connection where I could do certainly the theory and instruction in person once a week and perhaps connect with my students remotely in a hybrid format.

VINCE LARA: And Keiko, what do you think?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Yes, it really, in a good way, forced me to be creative and think what else I can do for the class that I haven't been preparing for online courses. And like Neha said, my classes typically are also very applied, so there's some concrete knowledge that our students need to develop. And then those things are easily communicated via online courses or prerecorded lectures. So it's really reasonable to do a hybrid format.

VINCE LARA: There are advantages to working from home, no commute, no dressing up. But are you-- let's start with you, Keiko. Are you enjoying working from home?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Yes and no, I would say.

VINCE LARA: Yes.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Yes because no commute. And it's nice to have two minutes to my lunch break.

However, there are challenges. And also I'm missing my colleagues. It's not the same. I'm all by myself in the house. So that is a disadvantage, I think.

VINCE LARA: And Neha, what do you think?

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, I think even for me, I think the biggest change was not seeing any of my colleagues and students. So I think I had to get adjusted to that or trying to see them through Zoom meetings and online meetings that we set up. But in terms of working from home itself, I feel like sometimes it has been a struggle to draw boundaries just because you are at home.

You wake up. You get on with your work. And you're just working all day. And so I feel like when I used to come into work at the university, I had kind of fixed hours. And I know that once I left my office, it was time to do other things. But that boundary has been shifted a little bit.

It's a little more loose when I'm working from home. So there has definitely been some adjustments that I have made, and a schedule that I have created. And just some logistical edits that I have made my calendar, so that way, I can stay on task and still have kind of a work hour routine through the week.

VINCE LARA: Keiko, you mentioned technological challenges. Talk about some of those. Is it Zoom itself? Is it something else that's been a challenge particularly?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: OK, technological challenges. Well, I'm not sure at this point technological challenge-wise. So I haven't tried the Zoom instruction-- synchronous instruction this week.

VINCE LARA: OK.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: That was just because we were not sure about the bandwidth, whether that was standard for all the classes to meet. So we'll figure it out. We'll test it out and see how that goes little by little. So I guess unknowns, what is that technology capable of and how much is what it can take is a challenge at this point.

VINCE LARA: Neha, what about you?

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, I think since we've been transitioning to working from home and also having lectures online, I think without an IT department, you are really your own person to solve your tech problems. And so I think some of the most common issues I've had this first week after spring break is usually to do with low internet or poor internet connections, either on my end or on the other person's end-- either the student or a colleague.

Occasionally, some low quality video calls similar to the bandwidth situation that Keiko mentioned, and maybe sometimes some softwares or program which I wish I had access to and which are loaded on my work computer. But I don't necessarily have an easy connection unless I do a remote access and jump through a few other hoops.

VINCE LARA: Right. Keiko, you mentioned you haven't had synchronous classes yet, but I'm just wondering, maybe you can answer this anyway. What's student participation been like?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: So what I have done is-- so I have asynchronous part, which I prerecord lectures, as I told you earlier. And so they're supposed to watch this and work on the assignments. So it is, in a way, the classroom arrangement.

So I have office hours that I established. And they are supposed to-- I mean, they're not supposed to, they are welcome to join me anytime, ask questions. This week in particular, I think they're still adjusting. So only a few students have participated in the office hours. I'm hoping to see more faces virtually.

 

VINCE LARA: And how about you, Neha?

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, the same for me. We've tried both with asynchronous and then, like Keiko does, recording my lectures and then posting a video. I'm really learning a lot about all of the features you can have, even built in Microsoft PowerPoint, when you can do your narration. And then you can also have your audio and screen slideshow recorded.

So that as well as complementing it with the Zoom and being able to record your video in Zoom and screenshares. I think those two have been my go-to this first week, and both of them have worked really well for us. Also, one of the classes I teach is a lecture and discussion class. So it's KINES 201, that's Physical Activity Research Methods.

 

It's a large class. It's over 100 students. And I lecture for the class twice a week. And the students break out into smaller discussion groups with their teaching assistants for more in-depth knowledge and practice. And so those lab sections, my teaching assistants have been absolutely enjoying the synchronous through Zoom. I think they enjoy seeing the students.

Because it's a small group, there is more of the possibility of having some more conversations and Q&As. And my TAs tell me that they absolutely love it. So I think there are definitely pros to both, and both have worked really well for me thus far.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that because I was going to ask next about lab work or similar in-person instruction. And have either of you thought about or even started working on workarounds to lab work? Or even now that we can't do in-person data collection any longer or in-person instruction, how do you work around those limitations? Keiko, you can answer first.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Yeah, I can start. So we actually were very timely in this matter that the US publishing online service study, which was just approved by IRB. So we were just in time to do this, and we are launching actually a survey risk of vocal injury in university faculty. And we included some of the questions regarding how this transition to online teaching have affected your voice use and whether you are feeling like your voice is getting tired more and what not. So that's one of-- actually just coincidentally is something that worked for us.

But at the same time, we are also looking into doing some experiments online. For example, we do speech perception studies, which listeners listen to some stimuli and then give us responses. So we are working very quickly to transition to online format for this kind of experiment.

VINCE LARA: Neha?

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, so for us, it was a little bit different. We were amidst one of our research studies where it was a site-based exercise trial. So we invited participants to come to campus and exercise with us for a period of 12 weeks. And we were right smack in the middle. We were at week 6.

And so now, with no face-to-face in-person interaction, we have had to transition our exercise sessions remote or online. And then it's been working well so far. We were a little bit hesitant since our population is older adults. And so we weren't sure about how technology would be embraced by them.

But we've had Zoom meetings, again, synchronous Zoom exercise classes with our participants. And things have worked out really well so far. This has been the first week. But thus far, we've had less technical issues than I had anticipated.

For our study measurements, we have been trying to explore other opportunities and services, either through the university IT department or some other commercially available softwares. Qualtrics is a great resource that is available through the university. So for any questionnaire data that researchers might want to collect, Qualtrics would be a great place to launch your surveys online. And I'm connecting with some other colleagues in professional organizations to get some sense of how some of those other unique measurements could be collected online, which are not necessarily as simple as questionnaires.

VINCE LARA: I'm wondering what you both think of take-home exams. Why don't you start, Keiko.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: OK. Yes, exam is- how to administer exam online is something that I have to think about and I'm still making my plans for the final exam. Obviously, you cannot do a simple multiple choice questions--

VINCE LARA: Right.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: --as you may do in the classrooms. So we need to alter the format of the questions and the type of questions you ask. So that is a challenge for sure. It will be much more time intensive on the side of graders. So yes, I'm finding that is a challenge.

VINCE LARA: And how about you, Neha?

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, so I've been trying to go back and look through my rubric and grading rubrics. Thankfully, a variety of my assignments were online for students to do because they were take-home assignments. They had to try different kinds of exercise routines, and do a self-reflection about it. Or they were experiential activities. So those are largely unaffected by this transition.

But the exams, for sure, I'm connecting with my teaching assistants. And we are trying to make some judgment about what did we want students to know and learn for the course, and is there a way to evaluate that learning without having to do an exam necessarily. So we are also exploring other opportunities for grading, maybe adding in an assignment or two, or doing an in-person Q&A, or using some based polling during a class to make sure that the students have understood the content.

So I think my focus has—it was always to make sure that the exams are meant to evaluate the learning for the student in the course. But given this transition to an online format, I'm trying to explore ways in which I could test that learning in other settings.

VINCE LARA: Do either of you have students who are on internships that have gotten interrupted? And what do you do about that? Neha, if you want to handle that first.

NEHA GOTHE: Yeah, we have every semester between, I would say, 5 through 20 undergraduate research assistants. Since a lot of my research is campus-based, we have participants—research participants will come to our labs and participate in a variety of exercise, and fitness, and cognitive activities. We have had an army of undergraduate students who help us with all that in-person assessment and training.

So for them, I have had to creatively think of ways in which they could do other things remotely and still get somewhat of a research experience. So we have been doing and brainstorming ideas, such as doing an online journal club. So that would involve me giving an overview of the research process more towards the end of publications, manuscripts. How do we find the correct evidence? How do you read a journal article?

So for a lot of our undergraduate research students, these are new experiences, and they're a little bit different from their day-to-day collection that they are used to. So I'm just exploring other ways in which I could give them glimpses of the research spectrum and the research experience without necessarily for them having to come into a lab and collect data.

VINCE LARA: Right. And Keiko, how about you?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: OK, so for research experience in my lab, they are able to do a lot at home online. So we are not severely affected by it. Except that we were collecting data from audio screening clinic where we had a face-to-face interaction with the participants. So that had to stop.

And then that was—that is affecting a bit of the graduate students who are getting clinical practicum hours through the clinic. But that is only tip of an iceberg. We, as a clinical training program, our graduate students are severely affected by losing training sites, like schools and hospitals. They are unable to do their training at this point for indefinite time. We are very concerned about this.

And telehealth seems to be a really good solution to this problem. However, right now, we have a regulation where the telesupervision is not allowed. So we are quickly working to see how we can petition for changing this regulation, at least for the moment.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Keiko and Neha. 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 next time.

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 Coach Adam Bleakney and Paralympic Athlete Susannah Scaroni about the cancellation of the 2020 games in Tokyo.

Coach Adam Bleakney and Susannah Scaroni are with me as we're talking about the unfortunate cancellation of the 2020 games in Tokyo due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Coach, I'll start with you first. What was your first reaction to hearing about the cancellation of the games?

ADAM BLEAKNEY: Yeah, that was my expectation. And so I wasn't surprised, based on the way things have moved, and over the last few weeks and the last month. But all the indicators-- it was suggested that the games were going to be-- they weren't going to go. I didn't know if they would cancel them or postpone them. But I was very confident that they weren't going to happen this summer. But you never know, of course, you never know. So no, I wasn't surprised. And I think in enough conversation with athletes, I think that I'd passed along that sentiment, that likely the games weren't going to happen as scheduled.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, I should clarify, they were postponed not canceled. And Susannah, what did you think? Obviously as the coach said, this had been coming for quite some time, it seemed like.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Yeah, I think you could definitely feel that was the way it was progressing. I think the question everybody had was, what will the situation be like in August? But by this point, training and also qualifying events had been so disrupted that it was pretty obvious, and it made sense.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, I was going to ask if you both thought that was the right decision, but clearly you do. Would you have preferred it would have been later this year, if possible? Or does it make more sense for 2021?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Maybe Adam has a better answer. I don't know.

ADAM BLEAKNEY: Yeah, my preference would be that they push it back to next summer. And align with the traditional track and field season, which is you have major competitions, and in late summer, early fall. We've been struggling with that as it is with some of our world championships being scheduled in non-traditional times. And just from a seasonal competition standpoint, that makes it a little bit more challenging to prepare.

And who knows when it's going to be, I guess? I would assume that they would tend to align with comparable dates next summer, but whether they do or not remains to be seen. But I guess if the question is would you rather push it back to December? From a coaching standpoint, it makes it a whole lot easier to maintain the traditional preparation cycle, and do what traditionally is a major games peaking time of year, which is late summer, early fall.

VINCE LARA: Coach, had you already been telling the athletes to back off from training because this looked likely? Or were they even able to train because of the virus outbreak?

ADAM BLEAKNEY: No, so we didn't back off the training. My position is that what it's given us is another opportunity to train some things that we would be moving out of. Clearly we have a winter training cycle. We focus on some very specific goals and objectives, both from a games fitness standpoint.

Generally at this point in time we're moving into a competition phase. So the biggest change, or the biggest difference is that our training volume moves and shifts, and focus shifts into something that allows the athlete to be ready and fresh for competition. Because there aren't any competitions, then we can just spend a little bit more time digging in on some opportunities, whatever those are. We're trying to build strength, and we're trying to strengthen skills and qualities that aren't as strong.

And I've tried to emphasize that to the athletes. It's not a moment to step back and take this as downtime. Rather this is an opportunity to come out stronger on the back end of this. Really situates itself as a unique opportunity. And it is different, but it's somewhat similar to an off year of a major competition.

So traditionally in the Quad you have Paralympics World Champs, you have an off year of no major competitions, then you have World Champs Paralympics. And how I'm couching it is it's an off-major competition year. That isn't necessarily wholly accurate, because generally we'd have all our spring marathon, which are high-value, high-profile competitions.

And then certainly there's road races and other track meets that would occur in the spring and the summer that aren't occurring now. Those major marathons at this point got pushed back into the fall. So that will be a very, very busy fall for the athletes with Boston, along with Chicago, New York City, Berlin, if anybody is going to do that. But that's a lot to bite off, I think.

But the point being, the competition year is still-- in fact, and we even currently have competitions in place for July that have not yet been canceled. So the plan is you have to prep and be ready for those competitions. So the emphasis is that.

And we're on very much a macro level when we look at how I divide the training year up. There's no change in what we're doing, rather than we may extend some phases. And I see that as a great opportunity for the athletes.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that's interesting. I was going to ask, Susannah, what happens now for an athlete? But it sounds like you stay in the same mode. Nutrition and training don't change at all?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: No. I think, like Adam said, this is an opportunity we don't often get. Because like he said, even if we don't have a World Championship Paralympics in the summer, we often have major marathons in the spring. And so right now we can work on skills that we usually have to just really condense into the winter part. And so as an athlete, I feel I can feel that.

And I feel like from a nutrition standpoint, that is giving me more of an opportunity for maybe some-- I mean, it's pretty much the same nutrition. Not to lie, but it's maybe less endurance-based nutrition, and some more power. Maybe a little more muscle-building nutrition support for this kind of training.

So yeah, as an athlete, I am enjoying this opportunity. Because in my eight years of being here, this is the first time we've really been able to extend that kind of phase, which is cool. It's one of my weaknesses, I think.

So I think I'm going to just try to make the most of this opportunity, and then just nutritionally, for the most part, stay the same. Because it's our training. Like Adam said, we're not backing off, but we're really just extending one of our very important phases. Yeah.

VINCE LARA: Coach, for you, is it difficult to keep the athletes motivated? I hear from Susannah, she's definitely motivated still. But does that become a difficult thing to deal with?

ADAM BLEAKNEY: Not with this group that I work with. For the most part, everybody is very intrinsically motivated. And I think the worry for me with some of them is that because I don't have as close a connection with them, because we're not meeting, and there's no scheduled training times, no scheduled practice times.

I think they would be pretty good about following my prescription, in terms of what I'm limiting to them to do rather than them doing extra work. I think they're more likely to do extra training because they're training out of their apartments, their houses. But I would certainly say that that's maybe a little less tuned in because of this change. But not to a great extent.

As I said, I think that's one of-- certainly meet my philosophy, and I think that's one of the cornerstones of my program is that it's athlete driven. And that I'm not a cheerleader and I don't pull the athletes along with their training. I push them in the right direction and then it really then becomes a product of their intention and effort.

And so I think that what that-- I guess to go into that a little bit more, and that's one of my goals with athletes is to create this entrepreneurial drive and an intention and desire so that the athlete takes ownership over their training and their development. And I think this is the perfect situation where if you've ingrained that, and you've developed that skill set, this is a situation where that value presents itself.

And they can very much leverage those skills that they develop, rather than an athlete, who we don't-- it really just feels as if they have to go to training every day. And they're getting yelled at and pushed in order to do something. And that becomes a product of them being forced to do something. But in the opposite, I think athletes who are in that type of system would probably be most inclined to train when they don't have a taskmaster with a whip telling them what to do.

Hopefully that's not the case with these athletes, because they're doing this for themselves. And they understand the value that comes from the day-to-day process of setting a goal and aspiring to that, and just the development of things each day. I think that was a little long-winded answer.

But I think from a standpoint of keeping an appropriate frame of reference when any major games are canceled, the emphasis is on, and the value of why you participate in sport is the day-to-day participation and intention of becoming just a little bit better and moving just a bit closer toward being a little more excellent each day. And to me, that's the value of sport and the takeaway. And hopefully that's what I emphasized, so that even at a time like this, they really do understand and see the value of wheelchair racing and wheelchair track for those specific group of athletes.

VINCE LARA: Susannah, this may not apply to you, but does the moving back of the Paralympics affect whether you'll compete in 2021? Because you're in a PhD program at U of I, correct?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: I am currently in a master's program.

VINCE LARA: Oh, master's program. Sorry.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: I mean, it's a long one. However, I'm going to be confident and say no. It's going to be a little restructured if I requalify for the team. But it's not a big concern.

And in fact, this actually might enable me to get through some of the data collection for my thesis a little bit sooner anyway-- I mean, additionally. So it might present an opportunity for me to have my study completed before the games, unlike what I was planning to do now was try to schedule that data collection in and around the games. So there might be some restructuring, but it's not a major concern.

VINCE LARA: And coach, for you, do you have any athletes that might not compete now because of life circumstances, whatever? And if that is the case, what do you tell them? Because there's got to be obvious disappointment there, I would imagine.

ADAM BLEAKNEY: Yeah, I do. And so I don't know where they'll fall. I think likely or not, they'll just extend their career another year in order to compete, being that the end goal was to compete in the Tokyo games. So it's a nice bookend to their career. So it'd just be 2021, instead of 2020.

VINCE LARA: That's a really good way to look at it. Susannah, you mentioned, do you have to requalify for 2021? You wouldn't be automatically given that status because you had it for 2020?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: I don't actually know the answer to that. I'm not sure if Adam does, of if it's known yet at all.

ADAM BLEAKNEY: It's not. They haven't worked through that, just because of-- up until yesterday they were still moving ahead with track trials. But it really is a good question. Susannah asked that this morning, and I said you're right. But there were four athletes, right, four athletes that had qualified?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: I think three technically, only because of some odd things though in the first place.

ADAM BLEAKNEY: Yeah, OK. So three athletes had qualified for the team via a marathon allocation. So that was Daniel (Romanchuk), Tatyana (McFadden), and Susannah. And so my assumption is that they'll have to rerun the trials in wherever that may be. Maybe Chicago, I don't know.

I would think that they would have to requalify for the team, which isn't an issue for any three of those athletes. But I can't imagine that they would name someone to the team with almost 24 months in between. Is that right? My math isn't good, but a good amount of time between when the qualification occurred and when the competition takes place. That's a pretty good disconnection between those two events.

But I don't know. I'm sure there's a legal framework that needs to be worked through. And so this is all new and novel, so we'll have to wait and see what they decide.

VINCE LARA: Coach, I know you said that the training doesn't really stop, but is there a point where the athletes ramp up again?

ADAM BLEAKNEY: Yeah, competition specific to the games would be next spring. So you would just take this cycle and then transplant it to next spring and summer in terms of the prep. And depending, too, on generally the schedule. Our circuit is pretty similar every year. There's very little variation in terms of the dates of when different meets occur, maybe a week or two forward or backward.

So a lot of that, the general construct, would be the same. It would be different because it's 2021 and not 2020. So every athlete has another 12 months of training under their belt, and another year of experience. So that changes, and if you get into the weeds, that does change some of how each athlete prepares.

But as I said, if things continue on as scheduled for the fall, there will be a certain segment of the athletes that'll have a peaking opportunity in competition, high-value competition cycle in the fall. It will be very busy fall and that's generally the athletes will do three. If three marathons in the fall, they would do potentially Berlin, Chicago, New York. And generally we're just doing Chicago, New York, Boston. So to double that-- they'll have plenty of competition to key in on and move through.

And then I think we'll set up a nice, little transition phase through our winter off-season training plan. And then we come into next winter with extended winter of 2020. So then that creates a nice, solid foundational peace from which we can work towards our Paralympic-specific preparation.

VINCE LARA: In closing, I just want to ask a last question.

VINCE LARA: Yeah. In closing, I just want to ask, do you think that Tokyo or the IOC could have done anything different in how this went down?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: So I guess I can start. I don't think so in my opinion. I think they waited as long as possible, but they didn't go the extra four weeks that they were giving themselves. It was obvious and they made the decision as early as they could.

And so there's really no way to have prevented this, I feel like. I think the world is realizing that it has to clamp down on it. But other than that, I don't think the IOC had much that they could have done differently.

ADAM BLEAKNEY: Yeah, I don't have many issues with the IOC. Well, my real point of frustration with this was with the International Paralympic Committee, and that when this was announced-- and I read it about 7:30, just minutes, I think, after it had been posted on its website. And all the verbiage only referenced the Olympics at that point. There was about an hour window where there was question as far as, well, is it just the Olympics, or the Paralympics, too? Is it the fact that the media typically ignore the Paralympics, and that was their reference point?

And so I had emailed a few different people in the US Paralympics. And then finally, the IPC offered an official statement, and that was-- I mean, I don't know what it was. So anyway, that was my only complaint. I was pretty fired up in that 45 minutes to an hour. I was like, why have they not made an official statement?

Because I wanted to connect with all the athletes as soon as I could. And 45 minutes isn't that long of time, but it just seemed to me that there should've been some anticipation or expectation that that was going to happen, and to immediately follow up with that. When the IOC makes a statement, then my standpoint, the IPC should immediately piggyback on that and make an official statement to clarify any confusion on whether it's just the Olympics, or whether it's the Olympics and the Paralympics. So there you have it.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Coach Bleakney and Susannah Scaroni. For more podcasts on Illinois's College of Applied Health Sciences, search A Few Minutes With on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Radio.com, and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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.

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 Toni Liechty, an associate professor in the Department of Recreation Sport and Tourism, to talk about her research on why people get involved in fitness programs, what keeps them involved, and how life stage and body image impact that involvement.

All right. Sitting with Toni Liechty. Toni, thank you for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it. You know, commonly, when I meet with faculty, I ask them about their inspirations for their research. Because usually, there's something that inspired you to look at what you study. And so for you, how did you get interested in your line of study?

TONI LIECHTY: So, I think maybe I might be a little different than some folks. I never had any interest in doing research or becoming a professor at all. In my field, in recreation sport and tourism, a lot of people go into the profession. And it's not as common to go into research. And I thought that's what I was going to do.

I used to work at a summer camp that was a sport and fitness camp. Which means that a lot of parents sent their kids there because they wanted them to lose weight. And while I was there, I in some ways saw that it was an amazing place for kids to come. I heard some kids say things like, I feel really comfortable at camp because I don't feel like I'm going to get bullied because of my weight and things like that.

At the same time, I saw some things that were really problematic. You know, kids would share stories of how they would lose five pounds over the weekend and these sort of unhealthy weight loss issues. Another thing that I heard that kind of broke my heart was, I still remember a camper telling me that she said, I love swimming. It's one of my favorite things to do. But I only swim at camp because at home, I don't want to be the fat kid in the pool. And it kind of broke my heart that she would have something that she loved to do that would be good for her, but her body image made it so that she felt that she couldn't do that.

And then I started to hear it more often, people saying, well, I like to play tennis. But I won't play tennis because people will be looking at me if I were a little short skirt. Or even in other sports like soccer or basketball, I don't want to run up and down the field and have people looking at my body.

And I thought initially, this was a thing that made sense at this weight loss camp. But when I came home and I decided to do a master's degree, I started to notice it very commonly. Other people who I wouldn't think of as having a weight issue still felt uncomfortable about their body.

And I think part of the reason that I really wanted to do a master's degree was because, as a professional, I looked for information about how to improve our camp, how to make it better, how to address these body image issues in the setting. And I couldn't find the information that I wanted. I didn't feel like there was enough in terms of understanding of management of camps and sport facilities and so on. I didn't feel like there was enough information about addressing body image issues specifically.

So that's why I decided I was going to go back to school and study this. And I thought I was going to go back to school and study it so that I could come back to the camp and do a better job. But I kind of got hooked on the whole research thing and it went from there.

VINCE LARA: So you never really wanted to teach or anything. But the research part of it kind of sucked you in, I guess.

TONI LIECHTY: Especially in terms of how I viewed that it could make a difference in the professional world and how it could help to sort of make people's lives better in a very noticeable way or direct way.

VINCE LARA: You know, some of your research looks at why people get into fitness programs and what keeps them there. And I'm interested, what led to that line of research?

TONI LIECHTY: Well, so when I started looking at body image, there's a lot of research that says that people start out-- that having a poor body image might encourage someone to start a fitness program. But it generally doesn't lead to long term participation. Because if your motivation is just to look good and you start doing something physically active, it's very unlikely you're going to see results immediately. And if your only motivation was to see a physical result in terms of your appearance, then that result doesn't happen so you stop doing the activity.

So I wanted to start to understand what else encourages people to be active, how can we get away from just the appearance factor, help to address different types of motivations that will keep people participating longer.

There's also a lot of research saying that body image doesn't lead to the most healthy behaviors. So if I'm trying to lose weight because of the way I look, I'm more likely to do sort of unhealthy dieting, excessive exercise, things that are going to just be focused on the way that I look.

Whereas if I'm motivated by my general health, I want to feel good, I want to interact with my friends, I want to get outdoors, things like that, I'm more likely to engage in healthy behaviors. So the idea is trying to shift people's motivation and their reasons for physical activity away from the appearance focus and toward other types of things.

VINCE LARA: I'm curious if you ever are asked to consult with, let's say, Planet Fitness or any of these other sorts of chains that pop up.

TONI LIECHTY: There's a tension there.

VINCE LARA: OK.

TONI LIECHTY: Because I think there's sort of an old fashioned thinking that if we can make people feel bad about the way they look, it will motivate them to be active.

VINCE LARA: Interesting.

TONI LIECHTY: And that's the old school marketing approach, right? If you tell people, oh, you gained weight over the holidays. Don't you want to lose that weight so that you can look good in a bikini in the summer, that it will encourage people to join your gym. But what we know from the research is that if people join the gym or whatever because of body shaming, then they do not continue to participate. So the difficulty in getting people to accept what the research says as opposed to what may seem a little bit more logical to them.

VINCE LARA: You know, one of your studies looks at barriers to physical activity. And what are some of those barriers and how do you go about trying to combat them?

TONI LIECHTY: I mean, the first barrier I was interested in was just the body image in general, being sort of self-conscious about the way you look. I think for a lot of people-- So one of the things that people will report most commonly is that their barrier is time. They'll say, well, I don't have time to do it. Yet we know from research that people have time to do a whole lot of other things, right? They have time. Everybody has 24 hours in a day.

So it's not necessarily how much time you have, but how you choose to allocate your time and what things you prioritize. A lot of people don't prioritize physical activity because it's not as easy or enjoyable as pulling out your phone and surfing on social media or doing something that's more fun.

So one of the barriers, and is going to sound silly, but is just the fact that exercise is not fun for a lot of people. And I am not-- I think a lot of people get into studying physical activity because they're fitness gurus. But I am not a fitness guru. I don't like going to the gym. I don't like running. I don't like working out in the traditional sense.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

TONI LIECHTY: But I like playing tennis. I like hiking. I like doing a lot of things that are active if they have something else that makes them enjoyable. And so for me, well, we also know in terms of research that there is a certain percentage of the population that would probably be active no matter what. They enjoy being active. But that's a relatively small proportion. And most people, the majority of us don't particularly like being physically active.

So I'm trying to help figure out how we can make physical activity more fun, more enjoyable, and more of a priority for people. If they have a barrier of just the inertia of getting started, if they view physical activity as a chore, if they think of it as something negative, if they don't have anyone to participate with, that's going to be more boring than if they want to do something that's social.

And then there are a lot of barriers that people face just in their community. They face just the cost. We even hear people say that they don't go to an activity that's relatively low cost even if it's only a couple of dollars. If their income is very low, that couple of dollars on a regular basis is not something they can afford.

Being in their local neighborhood, a lot of people are not willing or able to travel a long distance to work out at a gym or to hike in a park or something like that. So it needs to be relatively accessible to help people overcome that inertia of getting out and doing something active.

VINCE LARA: So what do you try to do to combat those things? Is there a movement that you-- do reach out to, let's say, a local park or community or something like that?

TONI LIECHTY: One of the things that we've been doing-- So, I'm particularly interested in different life stages. And one group of people that are particularly inactive are older adults. And so, we've been working a little bit with Aurora Park District to find out what they do to help get people more active and what they do that is successful and is less successful.

And some of the things that they've been doing, one thing that they do is they have a punch card system so that people can buy a punch card. And every time they go to a class, they just take one punch. And that makes it so that they're not paying for a whole class if they know that they're not going be able to come every time. It makes it more cost effective. It also makes it feel less overwhelming to pay, say, a large amount of money for a session if they can't afford it all at once.

And they make the classes fun. They make sure that there's variety from class to class. They have fun music. They do fun moves during the act during the process. They encourage social interaction so that you come out come out and you hang out with your friends and you all laugh together and have a good time together. And it may sound silly, but fun is a pretty enticing element of any kind of leisure activity. So specifically for physical activity, which is not viewed as being very fun, if you can make it fun, that's going to get people coming back.

VINCE LARA: You talked about looking at specific segments of people. So one specific segment you look at is women who play tackle football, really interesting. How did you get involved with that?

TONI LIECHTY: So I actually knew someone. She was a mature student who had come back to school. And she took a class from me and I was talking a little bit about body image. And she came up to me after class and said, this really resonated with me because I've always had a poor body image because I've always been really big. And I wanted to do things like figure skating. This was when I lived in Canada and figure skating's very popular.

She said, but I never felt that I could do figure skating because I don't have a body for it. And as an adult, I started playing tackle football and I realized that suddenly, instead of being a negative thing, my size was a positive thing. People appreciated, they wanted me on their team because I was big. So I thought, that's such a unique setting. That's such a unique sport that celebrates a bigger body, which is very uncommon for women.

You know, I used to do gymnastics or I played basketball or softball or tennis, different sports that have a sort of body that's an ideal. And when I started talking to these women on the team, they said, what's awesome about football for women specifically is that we can be any size that we are, whatever our body is now, and there will be a position that suits us. So instead of me trying to make my body be the way that the sport requires, I have the body that I have and I just find a position on the team that suits the way that my body is. And that makes a big difference in terms of the way I view my body and appreciate what my body can do instead of how my body looks.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. That's a league in Canada for women who play tackle football?

TONI LIECHTY: Yeah. And there are leagues in the US, too. They're just not as well-known.

VINCE LARA: Really interesting. You know, Illinois is an R1 university. So research projects are your bailiwick, right. And typically, there's always a lot in your pipeline. So what have you got going on that you're really excited about that you're ready to talk about? It's at that stage that you're ready to talk about?

TONI LIECHTY: I think the thing that I'm kind of focusing on right now is a study I'm doing on roller derby. A colleague of mine out of Eastern Illinois University had kind of an in with some local roller derby leagues. And we did, actually, a photo voice approach where we asked the participants to take photographs of what roller derby means to them.

And they took photos of themselves doing derby. They took photos of their outfits. They took photos of their team, their family, and so on. And we interviewed them asking, why did you take these photos? Tell us about your experiences with roller derby.

And in some ways, there were some similarities to the football study in that they said, it's a really cool sort of empowering sport that celebrates your body instead of telling you to fight your body and make it a certain way. That sense of celebrating your body as it is also encourages you to keep participating because there's not a constant frustration that my body's not correct, quote unquote, for this sport.

They also talked a lot about the social aspect and how they felt a lot of social support with the team, which kept them coming back. And a lot of people talked about how participating in that sport in that moment served a really valuable need for them. Like maybe they were going through a divorce or dealing with a health issue or something like that. They found this team and this sport and they were able to enjoy doing something physically active. They felt strong and empowered. They had this social network. So it really filled a lot of needs in their life.

And again, I think that's one thing that we sometimes miss out on about physical activity. A lot of times, if you're thinking, OK, I have 30 minutes in the day or a couple of hours in the day. If I can just only get physical activity out of it, that might not be a good enough use of my time. But if I can get physical activity. I can also get fun. I can also develop friendships. I can also develop connections in the community and all these different things, then that's much a better use of my time, more efficient use of my time.

I don't know that they all said it in those exact words. But a lot of them just talk about getting multiple benefits from participating in a given sport. And that's another way that I think we can help promote ongoing activity and physical activity, or ongoing participation in physical activity.

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

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. David Strauser of our Kinesiology and Community Health Department about his research on work personality and vocational behavior with a focus on people with chronic health conditions and disability.

All right. Speaking with Dr. David Strauser. Dr. Strauser, I appreciate you taking the time to come on with our podcast. The first question I ask when I meet with faculty is I'm interested-- I do my prep as any journalist would, and I try to find out-- hmm, I wonder what led this person to our fine institution? Your background is at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is where you got your degrees. So I wonder what led you to Illinois.

DAVID STRAUSER: That's a good question. There's probably a variety of things that led me to the University of Illinois. I came to the University of Illinois from the University of Memphis where I spent 10 years. And that was the first job that I got after completing my PhD at the University Wisconsin-Madison. Down there, I started a research center, had about 30 people working for me. We were doing a lot of work across the state of Tennessee in the southeast.

And then this opportunity came available at the University of Illinois. And I think for a combination of probably family reasons, being a native Midwesterner, and also an opportunity to be at a school like Illinois, it just seemed like a nice opportune time to make that switch from the University of Memphis to the University of Illinois. And a chance to be in a Big Ten school, at a big research school just seemed like a hard opportunity to turn down.

Also, I think Illinois is a little bit unusual compared to other programs in the Big Ten that have my area of study that it focused a little bit more on health and health behavior. And so that was something that maybe initially didn't come into the mix but became a point of what I really appreciated over the course of my time here.

VINCE LARA: Are you from the Midwest originally?

DAVID STRAUSER: I'm from Madison, Wisconsin originally.

VINCE LARA: That makes sense. I know research is a big part of this job, obviously. But did you always want to teach? Was that something that was top of mind, or was it the research first for you?

DAVID STRAUSER:: That's a really good question. And I would say it's probably teaching first, research second. I started out as an undergraduate thinking that I would go on and do-- as an athlete, I was going to go on and do coaching of some kind. So I think that was always kind of my focus as an undergraduate.

And I had some very influential faculty people who pulled me aside and said, hey, what about me be doing this? What about looking at this opportunity? And that started to peak my interest enough to go look into it a little bit deeper. After completing my undergraduate, I was out in the private sector for about a year or so and decided, you know, this is good, but really being affiliated with the university and pursuing that academic work would really be something that I'd want to do as a career.

With that then became the teaching, and then the research developed through my work as a doctoral student to really look at their research. But I was very much trained from faculty at UW Madison who trained me as a professor. So when we talk about a professor, in my opinion, it's the research, teaching, and service together. It's not just one aspect of it. So that relates to your first question about being in Illinois. I think Illinois gives me an opportunity to do all three of those core components of being a professor, and that's teaching, research, and service.

VINCE LARA: Focusing on that research part, now, your research, to an extent, focuses on work, health, and well-being. And I'm wondering, commonly with researchers, there's something that inspired them to look at that. And I was wondering if there's anything that inspired you to look at those research lines.

DAVID STRAUSER:: Yeah, that's an interesting story probably as a reflecting back on it. Again, as I was an athlete in college and struggled with injuries in college, it became losing the opportunity to compete in college because of injuries. I guess that was happening at the same time that I had some of these influential faculty in my year talking about, hey, what about pursuing rehabilitation psychology as a career? What about some of those things? So I guess serendipity of those things coming together.

That extended then to probably my first job, as I mentioned, before I went back to graduate school, and that was working with injured workers in Southern California. And through that and my own experience of injury and then working with industrial injured workers solidified my interest into working with people with disabilities as a whole and working with people who are having problems working-- pursuing their careers because they have an injury or illness.

VINCE LARA: Yeah. You get some of your research was in marginalized workers. Could you talk a bit about that?

DAVID STRAUSER: Yeah, I think that's a pretty big term, marginalized workers, in that it's a good word. It's an encompassing word. I look at-- especially right now, for probably about the last 15 years, I've really looked at young adults who are having a hard time entering the labor market for some reason related to a chronic health condition, whether that's cancer-- I do a large group of that. Could be some mental health issues, autism.

So they've been marginalized because they have a chronic health condition. We have a project right now where we're looking at foster care youth, formerly incarcerated or justice involved youth. So you're correct to save my work has always looked at people who've been marginalized from entry or participation in the labor market, usually because of some chronic health condition or combination thereof.

So my research has focused a lot on undergraduate-- or I mean younger adults in terms of their entrance in the labor market. Probably an advocacy side of me has continued to deal with industrial injured workers-- I'll use that term-- people who've been injured on the job and advocating for their overall well-being and helping them manage and deal with their loss. So that's probably more of an outreach service component of it than it is a research part, where my research is primarily focusing on these young adults' entrance into the labor market.

VINCE LARA: So what particularly do you deal with? Is it trying to overcome the stigma of what these workers have dealt with?

DAVID STRAUSER: Most people who have chronic health conditions are likely to experience difficulty in meeting the demands of working how it's typically performed. So they're having some issue with meeting the job requirements or figuring out how they identify with the labor market. They may-- for example, somebody might have an interest in doing something as a career, but because they have a limitation or a functional impairment, can't pursue that, so that causes a lot of stress. So I deal with that.

There also is just a lot of people right now and a lot that we more to learn about mental health that they're having a lot of mental health issues that are impacting their ability to function on the job and meet the demands on the job. So they might get a job but they can't keep a job. And so after a period of time, they start to develop that resume that looks very scattered, very thin in terms of duration on the job. And that becomes then stigmatizing and marginalized.

So stigma is an issue, obviously, that everybody deals with with chronic health conditions. That is something I deal with, but I'm more interested in how they fit to the environment, how do they see themselves fitting as a worker, and how did they develop their identity as a worker.

VINCE LARA: Has your research ever led to you being a consultant for either a company or perhaps an industry looking to help these marginalized workers get back in?

DAVID STRAUSER: I do a lot of work with a group called Children's Brain Tumor Foundation, where I work a lot with them to help young adult cancer survivors and businesses help understand issues related to cancer survivors, try to help that fit. So yes, I've worked with some non-profits and some NGOs to work with them to understand, develop plans, develop programs to help them address these issues.

VINCE LARA: You developed what's called the Illinois Work and Well-being Model. I'm interested about that. Tell me a little bit what that is.

DAVID STRAUSER: Yeah, the Illinois Work and Well-Being Model is kind of a byproduct of my 30 years of in this field of how I was thinking about career stuff and finally came together for me as a model, where in our field, in the health field, we use a lot of the International Classification of Functioning or the ICF. So I use components of the ICF and then Common Career Development domains and mesh those two together.

And the model really tries to explain about how people's functioning and how their personal environmental factors impact how they function and how their functioning impacts the career domains of how people become aware of what they are in terms of what they want to do, their vocational identity, how they go about acquiring jobs, and how they go about maintaining jobs.

And so that model helps provide a framework for research, and it's guided a lot of my research over my whole career. Probably the last four or five years it's been formalized as a model that we're using to guide our research, to help us identify factors and variables. But also, we've been using it quite a bit with practitioners to help them guide their services to identify where interventions might need to be placed, where are points of intervention.

So as an example, if we're having a person, a young adult cancer survivor who has a brain tumor, they're trying to figure out, where do I fit into the world of work? What am I going to do? How am I going to do it? We might want to look at their functioning. What are the residual factors of their brain tumor? How do they function in terms of physically, cognitively, emotionally? And how do they communicate? And look at that.

However, even though as we look at those factors or those components, we also understand that personal factors, psychological factors such as resilience, hope, self-efficacy, impact how they perceive their functioning. In addition, environmental factors-- ethnicity, social class. I say ethnicity. Ethnicity is a personal factor, but their cultural background. Their social factors, their schooling, their family also impact how they perceive their functioning.

So we want to make sure that we're looking at all those factors and then how do they relate over to the career domain and those three factors I talked about in terms of awareness. We call it awareness. Basically, vocational identity. Acquisition and maintenance.

VINCE LARA: You always have research going on, several projects in the pipeline. That's one of the things you have to do.

DAVID STRAUSER: Right.

VINCE LARA: What are some of the ones that you have that you're excited about, that can talk about, say?

DAVID STRAUSER: Yeah. We actually have a lot of good stuff going on right now, and I'm very excited about it. We're at a good time. We're having a lot of data and a lot of projects. So we are right now-- a couple things. In terms of the cancer group, we have several data sets right now, one with Dana Farber, one with Children's Brain Tumor Foundation, where we're looking at these psychological career factors that impact employment and employment outcomes with a group of brain tumor survivors.

What's really exciting about that, and this might-- compared to people in other areas like epidemiology or even breast cancer, our data set combined right now is we have about 300 brain tumor survivors. That's quite a good number for brain tumor survivors. So it's a hard group to get. So we have some data there that we're starting to analyze and look at working with these Dana Farber and Children's Brain Tumor Foundation that look at what are these factors that impact employment outcomes.

And we're very excited about that. We have several papers submitted right now. They're under review. A couple of papers that have been accepted that are looking at using the Illinois Model, as we talked about, looking at how functioning and perception of functioning impacts the different domains of career. Highlight to that would be we're starting to get good evidence to suggest that how people's emotional function, the perceptions of their emotional functioning, really impact a lot of their identity development, contributes some to the acquisition phase.

Conversely, we know that people now who start to-- how they perceive themselves physically really has a lot to do with how they perceive their ability to maintain a job. So what we can start to do there is start to parse out of, where people are in their career development, what our interventions need to target and what areas of functioning do we need to maybe support or address to maximize outcomes? So that's very exciting with that.

Another population that we're starting to look at or another group that we're working with is, as I mentioned, a broader group of people with disabilities looking at developing some instruments related to the Illinois Work and Well-Being Model. We have a couple of instruments being developed right now to measure some of those constructs within the model, so we're very excited about that. That's not as maybe exciting, but for us, that's a very practical piece.

Another area that we're really starting to get into because we have seen it quite a bit with the young adults in foster care and the formerly incarcerated young adults is the issue of trauma and how trauma is impacting them, but how trauma is impacting their perceptions of their career development and their career development opportunities. And not surprisingly, we're finding again there's quite a bit of an impact there in terms of how much trauma, how they're experiencing that trauma, how they feel about that trauma, how close to the surface, so to speak, that trauma is is going to be impacting a lot of how they see themselves as a worker, their identity, and their motivation to pursue those things.

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

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I speak with Illinois grad and FEMA Disability Coordinator Linda Mastandrea. She talks about working with Tim Nugent, Marty Morse, and Brad Hedrick, and her memories of Illinois.

So, Linda, of course, you are a decorated Paralympic champion-- 15 gold medals, five silver medals in international wheelchair track competition, including gold and silver at the '96 Olympics and Paralympics in Atlanta. So I want to ask you, what inspired you to try wheelchair racing?

LINDA MASTANDREA: So I think it was a couple of things. I came to the University of Illinois not because I intended to compete in wheelchair sport, but because it was an in-state school. And it was a good school. And I was coming here with my twin sister.

It was just literally by accident that I got involved in wheelchair sports and all. I sprained my ankle. I started coming here for rehab.

I met Brad Hedrick. He started trying to recruit me for wheelchair basketball. And I started actually with playing wheelchair basketball.

He and Sharon Hedrick and other players on the team kept after me for about a year. I thought, you know what? I'm a kid with disability.

I don't play sports. I'm not an athlete. And it really took about a year of convincing me to even try it.

And once I tried basketball, and that opened the door to me looking at myself in a different way, and that's really what led me down the path of even being willing to try track once I saw that I actually could play a sport and I could be athletic. And then that just opened my eyes to this infinite world of possibility.

VINCE LARA: Now, Tim Nugent, who is considered the father of accessibility, recently got this tremendous honor from the NBA. I don't know if you noticed that he got what's one step short of induction into the NBA. He was given the award the John W Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to basketball. And I'm wondering what lessons did you take from Tim in your time here?

LINDA MASTANDREA: Great question. So I think what I really learned from him is that you don't take no for an answer. And you don't give up. He was relentless in pursuing his passion.

And his passion was opening the door to education for kids with disabilities and using the vehicle of sports to open that door. And for me, the vehicle of sports opened my life to looking at myself in a whole different way. It put me on a different path than I ever would have conceived of being a Paralympic athlete, pursuing a law degree, moving out of the Chicago area to pursue careers out of state. It just-- it made me look at myself differently. And so I think what I really took from him is to go through those doors that you're opening and to take those chances and to be relentless and to not give up.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, Tim was considered a person who would tell you whatever was on his mind, whether that was positive or negative. What's the fondest memory you have of him?

LINDA MASTANDREA: I think the thing that stands out for me is hearing him speak at our sports banquet's. And when you're a kid, you laugh at the older people. You're like oh my god, the stories.

And we've heard this thing 800 times before. You giggle and you laugh. But I look back on it now, and I am so grateful that I had those experiences and those memories and got to hear from him firsthand.

Now, people will only, they'll read about him. They'll maybe see a video clip. But I got to sit in the room with this guy, which is phenomenal. And I think more recently, I was doing a piece about the London 2012 Para-Olympic games, reading an article.

And I had a chance to sit and talk with Mr. Nugent for, I want to say, three hours. And we could've gone for a week. He just was such a font of information.

He had so many stories. His memory was impeccable. I'm so jealous of that because I don't even have that.

VINCE LARA: Funny, now Marty Morse was the first-- considered the first track, wheelchair track coach here. But you started playing basketball. So how did Marty convince you to try wheelchair track and field, if you will?

LINDA MASTANDREA: Yeah, so he, too, was pretty relentless and was really encouraging because I-- even then, I doubted myself. I still had a little bit of fear. And he was just so encouraging and so positive and really wanted you to take those chances.

And he just kept encouraging me and said just try it. If you don't like it, you don't have to. And I will say that I did not get fully on board with it while I was a student here. And it really wasn't until after.

But I kept in touch with Marty. And this was before the internet, before social media. Marty literally would write workouts for me and mail them to me.

We would talk on the phone and adjust. And we'd talk about what I was doing and what we needed to tweak and everything else. And that's really where it began.

VINCE LARA: That's amazing.

LINDA MASTANDREA: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: Now, your time at DRES coincided with Jean Driscoll, who is another well-known champion. Did the two of you drive each other to compete, do you think? And was there an immediate bond between you? Because of-- maybe there was that competitive streak for both of you.

LINDA MASTANDREA: Yeah, so we actually literally passed. I heard she was coming. But we became US teammates. And so we always-- I think there's something, though, unique about US teammates who have that Illinois connection.

There's just this unshakable bond that you have coming out of this program. I think it instills such a sense of pride and passion and connection that you are always at home with your fellow Illini.

VINCE LARA: That's very true. And the university has become the place to go for Paralympic training. That's a credit to who? Was that a credit to Dr. Nugent, to Marty, to every-- Brad?

LINDA MASTANDREA: It's a credit to really all of them, starting with Dr. Nugent and his unshakable belief in the power of sport can build the lives of people with disabilities to Marty's desire to build up that athletics program, to Brad's desire to starting with basketball, then the whole of DRES. I think that all of us that came through this program really understood the power of Paralympic sport to positively impact lives and to change the trajectory of lives of people with disabilities I think.

But understanding that that's only part of the story because without education, Paralympics is only-- it's just a piece of it, right? And so I think that the power in Illinois is the focus on not only giving over the athletic skills that you need to be a fierce competitor, but making sure that you have the educational skills and the life skills that you need to become a successful adult no matter what path you pursue.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, and speaking of what path did you pursue, you've gone many paths.

LINDA MASTANDREA: I have.

VINCE LARA: Right, you became a lawyer. You're an accomplished writer. I mean, one of the reasons you're on campus is you're writing a piece about Jean Driscoll. And now you're in this position with FEMA. So tell me a little bit about what you do with FEMA and how does that connect you to your Illinois life.

LINDA MASTANDREA: Sure, so at FEMA, I am the director of the Office of Disability Integration and Coordination. That office sprang up out of the post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act Katrina. And when the emergency management profession really saw the impact of natural disasters on people with disabilities on such a large scale recognized that there needed to be more attention paid to that issue in particular, and created the position and the office in FEMA.

And so my job really is to do a couple of things. It's to help FEMA as an agency do its job better when it comes to serving people with disabilities before, during, and after disasters. But we also do that through helping our state and local and territorial and travel partners do their jobs better. But we give them the training and the tools they need and the resources they need to understand how do I help people with disabilities in my community?

And so, we really are tackling it, if you will, from the community level up and from the federal level down and all aspects. Because the primary goal of it is to ensure that as a community, we are as prepared as possible to as individuals and as agencies, to help people with disabilities, who are impacted by disasters.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Linda Mastrandrea. To hear more about Illinois in the College of Applied Health Sciences, find our podcast on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and other services by searching A Few Minutes With. See you next time.

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 CHELSEA SINGLETON, assistant professor in kinesiology and community health, to talk about her research on the influence of food purchasing and behavior on chronic disease risk in low income and minority populations.

Chelsea, I always ask this, this is the first question I ask when I do these podcasts, is did you always want to teach?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: I was curious when I saw this question like whether or not-- you know, well how many people said yes? Because my answer was definitely going to be no. So no, I definitely did not ever think I was going to be a professor. When I was a kid, I thought I was going to be a doctor mostly because my family said, you're going to be a doctor.

You know, they're like you're smart and I feel like whenever you have a smart kid, you're like, you're smart enough to be a doctor. That's like the job that you should aspire to be.

VINCE LARA: Right.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: But no, and then I got to undergrad and I was pre-med. And I was doing well, it's just that it was not my interest. But I did have a strong interest in health and a very strong interest in health sciences, so I had to just kind of break out of that box like, what else could you do in health?

And I kind of stumbled upon public health, stumbled upon epidemiology. But I did notice that I always had the ability to deliver, I guess like, very quant-heavy topics easy to people. So I did a lot of tutoring in undergrad. Like I tutored chemistry, I tutored biochem, I tutored organic chemistry, and people like oh you can deliver this material very well so it kind of just made me passionate about teaching people about things.

So now I teach epidemiology, I teach biostatistics but no, never thought I would ever be a professor. But I'm very happy with the choice that I made.

VINCE LARA: Now, where did you do your undergrad?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: Oh, well, you can't see me. The people on the mic can't see me. It's a podcast. But I'm wearing my Xavier sweatshirt so I went to a small, historically black college in Louisiana, in New Orleans. They have a fantastic undergraduate premed program, pharmacy program.

And now they're building in programs like public health, biomedical sciences for their undergrads. And they actually put more African-American students in med school. The students who do the pre-med program and pre-pharm program they end up going to pharmacy school, going to med school more than any university in the country.

They have very strong students come out so I've been definitely trying to make connections between Illinois and Xavier because we actually had a lot of students when I was there that are from Illinois. So it makes sense if they want to come back and be closer to family, they can do grad school here. So I've been talking to (Wojtek Chodzko Zajko) and the grad school about making those connections with Xavier. But yeah, that's where I did my undergrad.

VINCE LARA: Why did you pick Xavier? Are you from Louisiana originally?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: No, so funny story. So, I never knew the school existed. You're going to be noticing that a lot of things in my life is going to be me just stumbling upon things.

VINCE LARA: Interesting.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: But I never knew the school existed until my senior year of high school. I always wanted to go to Howard. So, I was dead set on going to Howard, I went to a college fair just randomly, just got on the bus and went to this college fair. And they had all of the schools in alphabetical order and Xavier was the last one. And the recruiter was just sitting there at the table.

Nobody was around so I just went and pulled up a chair next to the recruiter for Xavier and just started talking because I was so tired because we were about to leave. And he started telling me about the program. He was like, you know, we have a fantastic pre-med program. You said you want to be a doctor. We put more African-American students in med schools than any university in the country.

He waived my application fee, I applied, they gave me a scholarship, and so I ended up in New Orleans rather than D.C. And it was the best decision I ever made in my life.

VINCE LARA: Was it important to you to go to a historically black college? Like is that something that your family--

CHELSEA SINGLETON: Yes.

VINCE LARA: OK.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: So yeah, it was definitely something that I wanted to do. My parents went to a historically black college. They went to South Carolina State and they met there. And they just told me all about their experience, not just the partying and the fun, but also just like developing that camaraderie.

Like I definitely see how going to Xavier benefited my career because I now have a network of colleagues around the country who are researchers, doctors, pharmacists and they're all African-American. So whenever I meet young African-American students, even students here at Illinois who are like, oh, I really want to work with you because you look like me-- and that was also my experience.

Both my post-doc and my pre-doc mentor are African-American women so I see how important that is. I now have connections. I've been able to connect students with some of my best friends from undergrad who are in medicine, who are in pharmacy, to mentor them as well. So it's definitely been very beneficial to my career.

VINCE LARA: Now, Illinois has a really diverse campus. Is that one of the reasons why you ended up here, you think, is the diversity? Did you like that it had that reputation?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: Yeah, that was that was definitely something I was very interested in. So when I applied for my job at KCH, the one thing I noticed was that the department was large and very diverse. You know, men and women of different types of backgrounds, different life experiences, some international.

So that was very important to me because I definitely applied at other universities where it wasn't as diverse. So you know, it's kind of challenging coming in when you're a junior faculty and you're going to be the only minority faculty in the department.

So when I came in and I noticed that there was so much diversity, I said, OK. And then I noticed the diversity among the students, which is also very important to me as well. That was actually a selling point for KCH for me.

VINCE LARA: Now I always ask this question as well. What inspired your research?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: OK, so I definitely have some stories. I do research on the retail food environment and I look at the food environment as a risk factor for chronic disease and poor diet. So, I think what really got me into it at first was, when I was a kid I grew up in a food desert. I grew up in southwest Atlanta and up until me getting ready to go to high school, we didn't even have a nice full service supermarket within, I want to say like a four or five mile radius around my neighborhood.

And there was a small mom and pop type of store but the store had really poor quality fresh fruits. I mean fruits and vegetables like their fresh produce as well as meat, so on and so forth. And I remember one night-- so I grew up in a single parent household. My dad raised me, my sister, my brother after my mother passed when I was really, really young.

But my dad had to do a lot. So he was also a teacher, he taught high school in Atlanta for Atlanta public schools. But he would have to get off of work and then pick me, and my sister, and my brother up and then come home and cook. And he would always stop at this small mom and pop store and I remember one night he stopped there, he got raw chicken because he was going to bake some chicken for us.

And he brought the chicken home and he opened the chicken and was getting ready to prep it, and I came in the kitchen and the kitchen smelled terrible. And I was just like, what is this smell? And I walked over to the sink and I looked at the chicken, and I felt the chicken like I touched it, and it had that slimy film, which lets me know it was rancid.

I was probably 12 and I told my dad, I said daddy, this chicken is bad. It's rancid. And he was like, are you sure? And my dad kept looking at it. He was like, now I have to get in the car and go all the way back, get my money back, and then go somewhere else and find chicken.

And the nearest supermarket was probably like, I want to say, it was like over seven miles away from where we lived. But yeah, so definitely just thinking about how communities are designed and how that plays. That's so important to our health. But yeah, definitely. That was definitely one thing that inspired me.

And then I was living in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina. I was a freshman and undergrad the year in New Orleans that Hurricane Katrina hit. So I'm a member of Xavier's Katrina class. And just looking at how the food landscape of New Orleans was completely changed after Xavier, some changed for the good, some changed for the better.

Saw a lot of gentrification that happened. Companies come in, taking businesses and spaces from people where a lot of it was family-owned or black-owned or just owned by locals. And just coming in and just completely changing the food landscape. So that made me really interested in it as well.

VINCE LARA: That's interesting. You mentioned food retail and food purchasing and how and the effects that it has on diet and disease risk, and that's your focus. Talk a little bit about that if you would. : Like how food purchasing has such an effect on diet, especially in low income communities.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: Yeah, so I look at a lot of-- I look at a lot of retail. So I look at in particular and there's so much to retail that affects our food purchasing and our diet that you might not even notice. It's so funny, because I was in Washington D.C. this week at a meeting where we're trying to develop a national research agenda for healthy food retail and marketing.

And it has so much to do with what's going on with these large corporations, not just the supermarkets but the companies that make these products. And us as scientists, we're trying to understand food purchasing, like what influences in people's food purchasing that you're conscious of and not even conscious of, and then how that translates to your diet, and then ultimately, your risk for various different chronic diseases.

But there's so much that goes into deciding what is put into your neighborhood in terms of grocery stores, and a lot of it is at the city level or even at the state level. Sometimes even at the federal level. And then with the marketing component, we as low level scientist-- you know, we're scientists and we're trying to help people be healthy, but then we're looking at corporations who spend trillions of dollars a year on advertising.

I mean the Super Bowl is on Sunday, you're probably going to see tons of ads about food.

VINCE LARA: Oh yeah.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: So, how your neighborhood is designed, there's a lot more that goes into it besides just popping a supermarket there. There were so many decisions that were made behind that. But yes. So looking at what you have access to not only just like driving distance, but also density of different types of stores.

Whether you have stores that sell healthy food or lots of stores that sell unhealthy food, we tend to call those foods swamps. But a lot of that, if you're low income and you don't have access to a car, and you just shop at the places in your neighborhood, that may result in you buying a lot of prepackaged goods, highly processed foods. And ultimately, that's what you're preparing and serving to your family.

And all these types of foods they have high fat content, salt content, cholesterol, just all of that stuff that leads to you developing metabolic disease or developing obesity, high blood pressure, ultimately diabetes and that might result in loss of life or disability. You're not having a great quality of life long-term, or premature mortality.

VINCE LARA: In the research you've done, how much do you find that the food purchasing-- and when you talk about food purchasing, you're talking about what the stores are buying from companies rather than what consumers are buying from the stores? Or are you talking about both?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: It's mostly what consumers are buying from the store and what influences consumer purchasing behaviors.

VINCE LARA: Interesting.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: So I've done some work in Chicago when we were looking at marketing, like what type of marketing people mostly see, and there's a lot to marketing. And it's crazy because the way we study it is very different than the way than the grocery stores study it. They put a lot of money into this.

They are supermarket chains who develop like virtual grocery stores and have people come in and they literally study how people move around grocery stores to see what they're more likely to pick. And then they kind of segment of the population based off of you, your life, your profile. Where you are in life, do you have small kids? Do you have teenagers? Are you an empty-nester?

But then also, even the stuff you see at check out. What's available on the end caps? What's available in the middle of the aisle? What's available on the walls? And then all of these special floor displays, all of this is like prime space that these companies like Lay's Coca Cola-- they pay for this space and they put a lot of money into their advertising.

So we take a look at all of that and people making decisions about what they're going to purchase. But yeah, there's a lot that goes into food purchasing.

VINCE LARA: How much of it comes down to pure economics and how much of it comes down to maybe people aren't informed the way they should be about what they're eating.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: We're starting to see that a lot of it does have to do with your preferences, your education, your interest, or just you know, your family dynamic. Or your culture, just what you're used to buying.

And then also what you trust, like the brands you trust and your life in general, because we have seen-- there's research that has come out over the last 10 years that shows that if I live in a food desert and I just put a grocery store in a food desert, it really doesn't change much.

I mean, it fix the social justice issue, that we have a community that doesn't have a supermarket. So yeah, there's a social justice, food justice component to that that has now been solved. But it's not changing people's behavior.

It's not changing what they're eating. They're not eating any healthier just by solely putting the store there. So that doesn't really solve many things. But we do have to make better connections. There is like an educational component that we have to incorporate as well.

VINCE LARA: And that leads into my next question. So how do you better equip families that are lower income and minority populations, that maybe aren't as well informed about what they should be eating. How do you go about showing them hey, there are places where you can get these foods that are better for you and your family?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: Yeah, I definitely think-- I'm going to use this Whole Foods on the south side of Chicago as an example. So that Whole Foods is in part funded by the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. This was a huge initiative to end food deserts in the United States, that was funded by the Obama administration.

So that was like one of Michelle Obama's-- it was part of her Let's Move campaign. So it was like multimillion dollar initiative around the country and it led to like over 1,000 projects nationally. And that Whole Foods on the south side of Chicago is one of them.

But just putting that Whole Foods there, they knew probably wasn't just going to solve the issue in the Inglewood neighborhood, which is a low income black neighborhood. But they did a lot of other things too. So one of the things they did was develop a whole outreach team and this outreach team was made of a lot of not just community workers, but also nutritionists, for them to do some community outreach and do some education.

But then they also made this Whole Foods part of just a neighborhood revitalization project because they want to bring opportunities for people to work. If we're bringing in jobs into the neighborhood, people have money, and then they have more resources to potentially purchase healthy food as well.

So there's a lot that goes into it like the education, but also giving people the resources they need to even achieve this diet. Because I mean, purchasing healthy food is expensive, especially.

VINCE LARA: Absolutely.

CHELSEA SINGLETON: You have to track it seasonally throughout the year, depending on where you live like looking at different prices and different sources of where you can get fresh produce and healthy food. But is ultimately, expensive than buying like frozen prepackaged items or shelf-stable food. So yeah, it's a challenge. It's an ongoing issue.

VINCE LARA: Now what defines a food desert? A fresh food desert, I should say. Is it like, do you define it by how far something is in terms of miles, or how does that work?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: Different agencies have different definitions but oftentimes people kind of go with the USDA definition. They do base it off distance, but they have different definitions depending on the population density of the area.

So if you live in an urban area, the definition of a food desert is very different. So they consider it to be about one to two miles. So if you don't have any grocery store within that area, then they would consider it to be a food desert. But in a rural area, it's a little bit different because you have spent your amenities to be spread out more in a rural area. So they might go up to 10 miles in that area.

Or a suburban area might be somewhere in between. It just depends. They base it off of usually like whether or not they have any type of like, full service store. So that would be a grocery store supermarket or maybe a super center by Walmart or Target because they have a full grocery store section in them.

And then sometimes they might use the definition of a swamp. Like a swamp would be like you just have a lot of unhealthy, different types of stores. So fast food restaurants, liquor stores, so on and so forth. So if that's abundant, you're a swamp. And you could be both.

And a lot of times in places like Chicago, like on the south and west sides of Chicago, you have both. You know, your neighborhood might be considered a swamp and a desert. But I know for that healthy Food Financing Initiative, they were only giving funding for healthy food retail projects.

So either building a new grocery store, or bringing in farmer's markets, or doing some corner store initiatives where they were making the corner stores healthy. You had to be a USDA designated food desert so based off their definition.

VINCE LARA: Now the life of a professor at an R1 university involves a lot of research, right? You're always working on new things. What are you working on now that you're really excited that you'd like to talk about?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: Yeah, so I can talk about a line of research that I'm trying to get off the ground and get funded. I have some grants under review right now. But one thing that I know is-- so I did my post-doc in Chicago, so I was on the Chicago campus doing my fellowship, and then when I became a professor I moved down here.

And I had a USDA grant to study the farmers markets in Chicago, particularly the ones in black communities. Just looking at what are their challenges of operation, looking at racial ethnic differences in shopping behaviors in fruit and vegetable consumption. But one thing that came out of that research that inspired my, hopefully, my new line of research is violence.

I definitely had that come up a lot in my research, both my qualitative and my quantitative research. Just looking at how violence impacts people's decision making about where they're going to shop and what they're going to buy. And just how they navigate around their neighborhood, period. Their whole built environment, just safety.

I had farmers market managers tell me we had to move the location of our market. We had to change the time because farmers market season kind of overlaps with gun violence season, I mean in Chicago. Chicago definitely has a very clear gun violence season.

VINCE LARA: Oh, is that right? Is it summer?

CHELSEA SINGLETON: It's summer, yeah. It's usually the highest in the summertime just because you know, it's the winter time and people are not out and about as much. They tend to have the most shootings like in May-June, when things start to warm up.

And that's when farmers market season is kicking off. So people are out and about and farmers markets are open public gatherings of people and a lot of times people are now fearful in the United States to even go to open public gatherings for anything just because our gun violence issue.

So I am definitely trying to get a lot of projects off the ground where I study-- I'm looking at the city of Chicago data but also trying to collect my own data. Just looking at people who live in communities that have a large, like a really high violent crime rate, particularly gun violence rates and seeing how that impacts their food purchasing behaviors and decision making around food purchasing.

Because that ultimately might impact their health especially when you're dealing with a population that-- unfortunately, a lot of the communities with high violence crime rates are also lower income and mostly minorities. So they are dealing with other economic challenges or low educational opportunities or whatever the case might be, but then they also have to deal with this other issue.

So I'm trying to see if there is a connection between violence and food purchasing because there is extensive literature on violence and physical activity. I mean, there are studies that show that if you live in a community with a lot of violence, you're less likely to be physically active. You're less likely to go outside, utilize the sidewalks, or even use the public recreation centers.

So revitalizing the trails and the parks and the green space might not impact physical activity if it's a high violent area. So I'm trying to see how it affects nutrition.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Chelsea Singleton. To hear more about Illinois and the College of Applied Health Sciences, find our podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, and I Heart Radio by searching 'A Few Minutes With'. See you next time.

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spent a few minutes with Bill Stewart, professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism to discuss his research on the development of parks and conservation areas to enhance a public sense of place and promote environmental awareness.

And, Bill, I like to ask all the faculty when I meet with them this question. And that, is what inspires your research?

BILL STEWART:Yeah. Well, Vince, thank you for inviting me to be at this podcast. It's really great to be here and to talk with you about this.

VINCE LARA: You bet.

BILL STEWART:What inspires my research? There's a handful of things that do that. When I was a child, I was born and raised in Michigan. And my family was very much an outdoor enthusiast family. So I went to a lot of parks. I liked all four seasons. Winter activities, springtime romps, and summertime camping and swimming. I've always enjoyed being out in nature. And so that sort laid a foundation.

I went to my various programming. I had a previous life before I was an academic, and that previous life took on a couple of different job changes. I spent two years working for an oil company, and as a marketing technologist in a chemical and petroleum additives division. And that was really interesting to get a view of what life was like from the business side of an oil industry. I realized that there were some things that bothered me about the imprint that oil industry left on the environment, and I knew that they're working hard at trying to reduce waste and pollution. But I thought it'd be better to maybe get more information about what I need to work for an oil company, or any sort of business to help with the environment.

And then I went back to school for my MBA at the University of Chicago. And I went to work for a consulting company, a worldwide consulting company. And I was in their construction engineering systems division. And I went around to a lot-- I thought it'd be great to be a consultant where I help people with what they need to do.

And I found myself working for a company that built large petrochemical refinery plants in various places. I read some of their cultural impact statements and their environmental impact statements. And I thought to myself that there's so much more to valuing nature than simply how many natives to move from one place to another, or how flat they need to make the earth to put the cement slab on to make it a refinery.

And so I went back to school at University of Arizona and the School of Natural Resources for another master's and a PhD. Looking largely at forestry and watershed management, but I cared not so much about technical aspects of that. But I cared about how communities and individuals relate to development of natural resources. And that's led me on this journey that I've been doing now for, gosh, 35 years or more. Where I really like to understand what other people think about nature, about why they value the places that they do, what some of their meanings are, and appreciate ways in which they connect with the natural environment.

VINCE LARA: You got your undergrad at Illinois, correct?

BILL STEWART:Yeah, I came here from undergraduate. I was in chemistry here. And I love learning about chemistry. It was just a fabulous undergraduate experience for me. And so it's sort of need to come back to my alma mater to teach and do research.

VINCE LARA: What led you to academia? Because, like you said, you had this career before teaching. So, what was the path here?

BILL STEWART:Yeah. Good question, Vince. I can tell you're good at this. What led me to an academic was that I've always liked reading and writing. And I came to find out during, let's say my previous life, that I liked reading and writing what I want to read and write about. And I thought that an academic-- although I clearly have some large public values that I work under at University of Illinois, I care about community well-being, public health, sustainability. Those are large questions that drive my research. But I could choose ways in which I implement those strategies through my teaching and scholarship.

And I found that the life of the academic to be one where I could be very productive, and I could blur the lines between my work and my let's just say non-work time. I really like doing what I do. And one of the interesting things is when people ask me if I'm going to work this weekend-- friends of mine in the community-- I have to pause a bit. Because I've always, I guess, worked on the weekend. I just like to read and write about things that I care about in my teaching and research.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. So, your research involves conservation planning. Can you talk a little bit about that?

BILL STEWART:Yeah conservation planning, it's a really huge concept. And my window into conservation planning has to do with bringing in stakeholders. Stakeholders are those people who are affected by or can affect environmental decision making. Often of a public need nature, like building a park, or developing a wetland, restoring a prairie. Those would be examples of environmental park development projects.

And for me, conservation planning is about working with communities to, at least in the Midwest here, to look at this corn or bean field on the outskirts of town that's going to be a new development, and ask themselves to imagine what would that be like as a park. So they see it as a current cornfield, and they're are wondering how to imagine what they need to be when they make that into some subdivisions and divide that up.

And to some extent it's about land use planning, but to another extent it's also about adding value to people's lives. Each town has their unique heritage and their sense of identity on a landscape. And it's fun to work with communities to understand what their own sense of history is about. And often, parks tend to be emblematic of those kinds of values that people have had historically in any given area their relationship with the locale.

For example, I think of Urbana and Champaign. They're supposedly twin cities in ways that were clearly fraternal twins. You've got Urbana, whose parks are largely natural areas. They have this relationship with nature that says, nature should be restored and sort of untouched by humans. That the best kind of nature, the idealized park, is an environment where people are there to visit. And we've restored sort of a pristine nature, to some extent. Champaign parks are very different. Champaign parks have more of, I want to say, a progressive narrative of humans and nature. Where humans play a role of gardening, and they make them beautiful, and they're meant for places for people to walk and have activities.

So although that they still have some very similar amenities, Urbana Park District has more natural areas. Champaign Park District has more cultural areas. And they're very different views of what each town is like.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. Are we getting better at quantifying what a park means to an area? Whether it's economically, or in non-tangible ways, are we getting better about understanding what green space means?

BILL STEWART:Yeah, that's a great question there. I think of the notion of, what does any sort of environment mean as being one of place? The concept of place and place making really underscores a lot of my research. A sense of place is a uniqueness of a meaning that people feel as attachment to an environment. And their sense of place at a personal level where you might think about your grandmother's pasture, and the personal relationship you have with that pasture, or your grandmother's backyard.

When I think about community sense of place, is there something collective about the community that makes its relationship with its local environments unique to that locale? And so, your question is, are we getting better at quantifying that? Just to step back from that, I'd like to think we're getting better understanding those relationships. Those relationships come in many kinds, as you mentioned. There's the economic valuation, there is a personal valuation, there's sociological, there's emotional, there's spirituality. There's all sorts of ways in which we connect with environments.

And I'm going to say that we're just tapping the surface of the iceberg in understanding ways that people and communities have come to identify and care about their environments. And that kind of research is urgently needed. We've got, at least when I was first born back in 1955-- I'm dating myself here-- there is 2.5 billion people on the Earth. Right now I think we've got 7.5 billion people on the Earth. So in my lifetime alone-- I'm 65 this year-- the Earth's population has tripled. And in that time period there's been-- I've never noticed any one year the increase in people. But across my lifespan I've noticed there is coming to be a scarcity of wild lands, of open space, of wetlands, of spots that you could go out and enjoy nature.

And so I think that the more information we have about how people connect with an environment, I think the better off we'll be as a society. Because we need to know that those empty spaces, supposedly that really are out of production, in fact are really valuable to people.

VINCE LARA: Now, you direct the Park and Environmental Behavior Research Lab. And as a researcher, you always have projects going on. Are there any that you have going on currently that you're-- you're excited about all of them, I'm sure. But are there any that you want to talk about that are top of mind for you?

BILL STEWART:Yeah. You're right on that. I've got the neatest group of graduate students and research projects that I'm currently doing. And they've added a lot of value to my life and my students' lives. I guess there's two that come to mind.

One has to do with the evaluation Chicago's large lot program. As you may know, there's an urban vacancy problem across most of the world's cities. And it's particularly acute in the northern tier of this country, through the Rust Belt, I'm going to say. Where people have moved out of the city and urban areas for various reasons. Often they abandon their house, and they abandon their house. At times, a city will come in and fold the house into its foundation, or just haul it off. And so this left with what was once a thriving neighborhood in an urban area has become a lot of empty lots there.

Just to give you some examples of this, Philadelphia has about 40,000 vacant lots. Buffalo has about 15 vacant lots. Cleveland about 25,000. Detroit has 125,000 vacant lots to the tune of 25 square miles in Detroit. Chicago has about 35,000 vacant lots. And I will say that these vacant lots are not evenly distributed around the city. They happen only in certain neighborhoods. And what Chicago has done, which is very innovative and quite bold, they developed this green healthy neighborhood plan in 2012. And a cornerstone of that plan to sell off these vacant lots to someone that owned property on the block for $1. And so for $1, if you own property on the block, you could purchase let's say in the vacant lot next to you and do whatever you wanted to with it.

And so I'm evaluating the social and environmental impacts of that large lot policy. And, it's good news. We found that it connects people to their sense of place, it connects people to their neighbors, which their neighbors help them further garden their spot, and they help to pick up debris. They've come to know their neighbors in a tighter fashion that creates this sense of place that was much stronger than what it used to be. Where the lights used to have a past, because it wasn't-- people would look out on the block and say, wow, that's where so-and-so used to live, that's what this other family used to live. And now they see empty lots. So it sort of was a lot with a past and not a future.

Now with this large lot policy, these lots have been bought up, now have a future for them. And so these neighborhoods, the people who stayed behind, they care deeply about their neighborhoods. They stayed behind not because they're desperate. But because of family or community reasons, they decided to stay and slug it out through the hard times. And now they're finally getting rewarded if they own property. They can, if they want to, purchase that lot and create a new vision of what that block could be by repurposing a once vacant lot.

VINCE LARA: Now, you're obviously excited about the large lot research that you're doing. Is there other research-- and I like to call these moonshot projects, because they're kind of off into the distance. They might not be attainable currently. But are there things that, given the resources and the time and the amount of graduate research assistants you need, that you think about? That you write down, you scribble on a piece of paper maybe at 3:00 in the morning and you're like, oh, I wish I had the time to do this.

BILL STEWART:Yeah, that's a really good question. So, I should step back just a minute and say that my research all revolves around a concept called place making. Where people, families, communities, individuals, they aspire to make their place something different and better than what it currently is. And that's where the large lot project comes in. It's about place making in an urban environment.

I guess I would continue on that line, as long as we're talking about the large lot project, there is another moonshot project that deals with more of an urban ecological nature. Where I really have partnered with my colleagues Carena van Riper in Department of Natural Resource and Environmental Sciences, Paul Gobster, who is a landscape architect with the Forest Service. And Alessandro Rigolon, who's a planner now with the University of Utah. That's the large lot team.

There's another forthcoming possibility, and I hope we get the invitation through the National Science Foundation, to invite us to submit a full blown proposal for what's called a leader project, or long term ecological change for urban areas. And that's largely working with ecologists out of Chicago that are based in various universities up there. And they're looking for ways to couple social issues along with ecological issues. No longer can we study the ecology of a system and not be concerned about what-- let's include people in this ecological understanding.

So, I think it'd be really a neat challenge for myself and my students to do a more stronger coupling of healing communities with ecological communities, and try to understand just a baseline description of what is the nature of that relationship. And to some extent, are there interventions that can happen through policy triggers that the city can do-- much like the large lot program-- to further facilitate a healthy social ecological resilience? To make human communities more ready to respond to changes in their future.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Bill Stewart. To hear more about Illinois and the College of Applied Health Sciences, find our podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and iHeartRadio by searching a few minutes. See you next time.