Candy Free Halloween Party

AUGUSTA, GA (PR) - The Non-Food Halloween Festival invites children with dietary restrictions to a free Halloween party with trick-or-treating for small toys and prizes instead of candy.

Description: For eight years, volunteers from the Georgia Regents University College of Nursing, in collaboration with the CSRA Eos support group, have planned games, crafts, and a haunted house for children with restricted diets due to medical disorders, including food, allergies, diabetes, and Eosinophilic and metabolic disorders, said Katy Slagle, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and founder of the festival.  

The event is open to children with medically restricted diets and their siblings. Costumes are welcomed. Families can RSVP for the event by calling the GRU College of Nursing at 706-721-4724.

Time and Location:

3-5 p.m. Oct. 30 on the fourth and fifth floors of the GRU Health Sciences Building, 987 St. Sebastian Way.

SafeHomes Survivor’s Walk Concludes Violence Awareness Month

Event:   Domestic violence survivors and local practitioners who work to end domestic violence will speak at the annual SafeHomes Survivor’s Walk, a ceremonial candlelight walk to honor all who have experienced domestic violence.

Description: The walk—sponsored by the Georgia Regents University Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Social Work, Office of Diversity and Inclusion; and Ladybug’s Flowers and Gifts—is the last of several events planned for October, known nationally as Domestic Violence Awareness month.

Time and Location: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, by the flagpole near the Summerville campus amphitheater

Award-winning authors present at Sandhills Writers Series Thursday

AUGUSTA, GA – Award-winning authors, including American poet Campbell McGrath and African fiction writer Karen King Aribisala will headline the Sandhills Writers Series, a celebration of emerging and established authors, at Georgia Regents University.

The program begins at 1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, in the Jaguar Student Activities Coffeehouse on the Summerville campus and includes readings, colloquia, author signings, and a reception, which are free and open to the public.

McGrath is the author of ten books of poetry, recently In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (Ecco Press, 2012). He has received many of America’s major literary prizes, including the Kingsley Tufts Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, a USA Knight Fellowship, and a Witter-Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress. He is the Philip and Patricia Frost Professor of Creative Writing at Florida International University.  

Aribisala is Professor of English at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. She is the author of Our Wife and Other Stories ( Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book); Kicking Tongues (a blend of poetry and prose); and the novel The Hangman’s Game, which won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in Africa. Her writing is widely published in international periodicals.

“The Sandhills Writer Series is committed to bringing new and fresh insights into the craft of writing fiction and poetry,” said Tony Kellman, GRU Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Sandhills Writers Series since 1989. “The visiting authors provide verbal commentaries on their writing processes. They will entertain the audience through the force and orchestrations of story and language that appeal to the senses as well as the intellect. Too often we limit entertainment to the so-called ‘performing arts’ but the truth is all art, as soon as it is presented to an audience, is performance. The author performs with words and if she or he does it right, the effect will be the same as that of a beautiful executed dance or musical performance.”

The series began in 2011 as a reconfiguration of the Sandhills Writers Conference that was founded in 1975 by the late Dr. Charles Willig. The program has attracted main-stream American authors, such as the late Ray Bradbury, Edward Albee, Paule Marshall, Nancy Willard, Billy Collins, the late Doug Marlette and Rick Bragg, in addition to Hispanic, Romanian, African, Asian (notably Maxine Hong Kingston), Caribbean (notably Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott), and Native American writers.

For more information, call (706) 737-1500 or email akellman@gru.edu. 

National Allied Health Professions Weeks

AUGUSTA, GA – Students and faculty in the Georgia Regents University College of Allied Health Sciences will celebrate National Allied Health Professions Week Nov. 3-9.

Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver will issue a proclamation for the week at his office Monday, Nov. 3 at 11 a.m. Dean Andrew Balas and students from several of the college’s programs will attend.

Allied health professions greatly influence health care delivery by providing services in the identification, evaluation, and prevention of diseases and disorders. More than five million practitioners – nearly 60 percent of all health care providers – practice in more than 80 unique professions, including health system management, public health, and a variety of rehabilitation services.

“Our students are the allied health care professionals of tomorrow, trained to play ever more essential roles in an increasingly complex health care environment,” said Balas. “Their diverse skills continue to be in high demand as part of vital health care teams.”

By 2020, the demand for health care workers in the United States is expected to grow twice as fast as the national economy, to nearly 20 million.

The GRU College of Allied Health Sciences offers 11 certificate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in clinical laboratory science, dental hygiene, health management and informatics, medical illustration, nuclear medicine technology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant, public health, radiation therapy, and respiratory therapy.

For more information, visit www.gru.edu/alliedhealth/ or call the College of Allied Health Sciences at 706-721-2621.

Healthy Augusta Lunch & Learn will focus on diabetes education

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Nearly 30 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes and 86 million more have are at risk for developing the disease, according to the American Diabetes Association.

So what happens when those people are diagnosed? That topic will be addressed at the next Lunch & Learn, a monthly educational series, presented by Healthy Augusta.

Catherine Brice, a registered dietician and certified diabetes educator for University Hospital, will present “Pay Attention, Don’t Panic if Your Doctor Says Diabetes” at noon, Monday, Nov. 3 at the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library, 823 Telfair St. Lunch will be provided for the first 30 people.

Healthy Augusta is a partnership between community organizations and the Georgia Regents University Institute of Public and Preventive Health aimed at improving public health by increasing opportunities for people to engage in healthy lifestyle practices.

For more information about the monthly Lunch & Learn programs or to register, call Glynis Key at 706-721-1758.

De Leo named chair of Clinical and Environmental Health Sciences

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Gianluca De Leo, an educator with vast experience in the design, development, and use of technology to solve health care issues, has been named Chair of the Department of Clinical and Environmental Health Sciences in the College of Allied Health Sciences at Georgia Regents University.

De Leo, who starts at GRU Nov. 1, is an Associate Professor at the School of Medical Diagnostic and Translational Sciences in the College of Health Sciences at Old Dominion University. He also holds a joint appointment with the Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center.

The GRU Department of Clinical and Environmental Health Sciences offers a bachelor’s degree and a bridge program that allows people who have an associate’s degree to earn a bachelor’s – both in respiratory therapy – and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in environmental health.

“Dr. DeLeo brings valuable competencies, significant allied health experience, business administration skills, inspiring ideas and entrepreneurial spirit to our college,” said Dr. Andrew Balas, Dean of the College of Allied Health Sciences. “He will be a tremendous asset as we continue to develop programs that will advance the education of health care professionals.”

De Leo has served as Principal Investigator on nearly a dozen funded grants, including several through the Office of the Secretary of Defense. His research projects are related to the design, development, and assessment of various e-health systems, including an automated telephone call center for the education and monitoring of patients with diabetes, and a game-based virtual environment to help children with cerebral palsy walk on a treadmill.

He is the inventor of “I Click, I Talk,” an alternative and augmentative communications application for children and adults with communication disabilities.

“I am excited to join Georgia Regents and work to further grow the College of Allied Health Sciences’ innovative research and faculty publications,” De Leo said. “I look forward to working with my future colleagues to promote the university and the college both nationally and internationally.”

De Leo earned a master’s degree in electronic engineering and a doctoral degree in bioengineering and bioelectronics, both from the University of Genoa in Genoa, Italy; and a master’s in business administration and postdoctoral studies in public health informatics at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Mo.