Cedarville University's Latest News
- New Graduate Program, Faculty Hires Highlight Trustees Meeting
- Virtually There: Senior Creates University Tour
- Students Reimagine Family Vehicle for Business Use
New Graduate Program, Faculty Hires Highlight Trustees Meeting
Cedarville University continues to grow, with record enrollments for 14 consecutive years and new facilities that will transform the campus for the growing student body.
This momentum was evident at last week’s board of trustees meeting, as board members approved a new graduate program and four new faculty members, reviewed artist renderings for the proposed Lorne Scharnberg Business Center, and endorsed a $2,000 bonus for all full-time employees.
Graduate Programs
The trustees approved The Graduate School to offer a new Master of Arts degree in innovation with concentrations in business innovation and business analytics and visualization that will now pursue the necessary external approvals. This program is ideally suited for professionals who want to solve problems using innovative and creative solutions and will provide employment opportunities within medium- and large-sized corporations that have established innovation operating units. The 33-hour, fully online degree program will be delivered as a partnership between the school of business administration and the International Center for Creativity (ICC) in Columbus. Cedarville’s industrial and innovative design undergraduate program and its M.B.A. innovation and entrepreneurship program are also offered in partnership with the ICC.
Undergraduate Programs
The trustees approved phasing out the multi-age health and physical education and physical education (PE) programs. The programs have not seen high demand, and the move allows Cedarville to focus on its allied health programs, such as the developing physician assistant program, which is scheduled to begin in 2023, pending external approvals.
All students who are currently in the PE programs will work with their academic advisor to complete their program and graduate as planned by 2024.
Supporting Faculty and Staff
The trustees also endorsed a $2,000 across-the-board bonus for all full-time faculty and staff members, and a prorated bonus for the University’s 30 permanent part-time employees. The bonus recognizes the campus community’s efforts to successfully complete the challenging 2020-21 academic year with students on campus while carefully stewarding the budget during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is believed to be the largest bonus given to employees in the university’s history.
Campus Master Plan
The board also reviewed and discussed artist renderings of the Scharnberg Business Center. Construction on the new business building is expected to commence sometime in the fall of 2022.
Trustees also participated in a Friday morning groundbreaking ceremony for the $8-million Callan Athletic and Academic expansion project. The Callan Athletic Center has been the home of the Yellow Jackets since 1981. Callan is also the academic facility used by the university’s school of allied health.
The two-story expansion will create classrooms, lab space and offices for the school. Cedarville’s new Master of Athletic Training program, which will enroll its first graduate students in summer 2022, will use this space. Pending all external approvals, the developing physician assistant program, the Master of Medical Science in PA Studies, will also enjoy classroom, lab, office, and student collaboration spaces in the new expansion.
On the first floor, the new space will include a 3,500 square foot weight room for athletes, as well as a new team room with more than 2,000 square feet of space for the athletic staff and student¬ athletes to meet, review film, host events and recruit future Yellow Jackets.
“We are grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to grow and expand our academic and athletic facilities,” said Cedarville University President Dr. Thomas White. “The transformation of the Callan Athletic Center will bless our allied health majors, our athletes and athletics staff and our entire campus. We thank God for the resources he has graciously provided.”
New Faculty Hires
Four new faculty members were approved by the trustees, and below is a brief profile of each one.
● Pamela Bailey, M.S.W., assistant professor of social work
Pamela Bailey earned her undergraduate degree in social work from Cedarville University and Master of Social Work from The Ohio State University. She has served as an adjunct instructor at Cedarville University since 2015.
● Jessica Elder, M.L.I.S., instructor of library sciences
Jessica Elder earned a Master of Library and Information Science degree from Kent State University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Cedarville University. Since 2018, Elder has served as a digital services specialist in Cedarville’s Centennial Library.
● Mark Leeds, Ph.D., associate vice president for academics and associate professor of theology
Mark Leeds earned his doctoral degree in systematic theology and a master’s in language study from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He received his bachelor’s degree in biomedical science from Texas A&M University.
● Megan Rabe, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics
Megan Rabe earned her doctoral degree in mathematics from the University of Kentucky and a bachelor’s degree in math from Cedarville University. Before coming to Cedarville, she served as an assistant professor of mathematics at Grove City College and as a teaching assistant at Kentucky.
Virtually There: Senior Creates University Tour
ackson Bishop, a senior computer science major from Findlay, Ohio, has been developing a high-tech tour app that will be used at Cedarville University to help users explore what their reality at Cedarville might look like.
Biishop has collaborated with Chad Jackson, director of creative services, over the past year to create the custom virtual reality (VR) app for the university. The app, which operates through Oculus VR technology, will debut in June at the annual Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Every summer, we go to the SBC convention and set up our university display booth,” Jackson said. “We’re always looking for ways to attract people to our space, and for those who come up to us, we want their experience to be about Cedarville. We hope they learn something about the school and that younger audiences will remember us for the future.”
“Our goal is to create an engaging, easy-to-use presentation that shows off what makes the Cedarville campus so unique through 360 degree photos in a VR headset,” Bishop shared.
Jackson came up with the idea for the app project when thinking through the 360-degree photos that Cedarville’s online residence hall tours utilize. In the initial phases of the project, Jackson and his team worked with Google cardboard and View Master VR headsets. Then, two years ago, the marketing team switched to Oculus GO.
As the technological demands of the project grew, Jackson sought out additional help. He reached out to Dr. George Landon, professor of computer science, who connected him with Bishop. Jackson oversees and manages the project, while Bishop handles the programming.
“It took several weeks to come up with a proof-of-concept to see if what we wanted to do was possible with the tools we had,” Bishop shared. “Once we were sure we could show 360 degree photos in the headset and operate the tour without controllers, it was a matter of deciding how we wanted to present the tour and then building features and fixing bugs as we went.”
“As far as what this looked like for us as a team, that's the story of 2020: remote work and weekly Zoom meetings,” Bishop added.
Currently, the team is fine-tuning their functioning draft. Bishop is finalizing components of the unguided tour option, which allows users to peruse the campus freely. They are also going through the process of uploading the draft to the Oculus beta app store.
Students Reimagine Family Vehicle for Business Use
Cedarville University industrial and innovative design (IID) students are reimagining the multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) family car for work purposes thanks to a corporate sponsorship between the Columbus-based International Center for Creativity (ICC) and a global automotive industry leader.
Throughout the fall semester, seniors at the ICC were charged with working with a global automotive leader to research, ideate and propose multiple solutions to the design challenge and creative constraints provided by the sponsoring company. This project was called Project Remora, and the brand identity of the automotive leader was withheld due to non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements.
“The overall scope of the project is to take an existing car platform and develop a multi-purpose vehicle that is designed for the fleet market,” said Tom Balliett, co-founder of the ICC. “Intelligent connectivity is leveraging what already exists as far as transportation assets, addressing some gaps in the first and last mile, and then using available and emerging technology to maximize the utilization of these assets. Our global automotive manufacturing partners had some specific constraints for our team and the students were really challenged.”
In spite of the challenges, Cedarville’s IID students working on Project Remora produced a high-quality concept that can produce professional deliverables.
As a part of their transportation design and product design classes, the senior IID students, who spend their first two years on Cedarville’s campus and final two years at the ICC campus, were divided into teams that submitted designs in four categories: rideshare, delivery of essential goods such as packages, food delivery and rideshare for wheelchair users. When a winning design was selected in each category, students then collaborated to develop practical structures, devices or materials for each category.
Three students were chosen to continue developing the project through a hands-on internship for the remainder of the semester: Emily Bader, a senior industrial design major from Sussex, Wisconsin; Tim Brewster, a senior industrial design major from Amherst, Ohio; and Vorrapon Jirakasemnukul, a senior industrial design major from Bangkok, Thailand. The students worked side by side with ICC instructors and an international team of innovators to synthesize the work of their peers and pass the project on to their corporate sponsor for possible future development.
“We sat in a room and poured over all these ideas, circling things, putting them up on the wall and connecting the ideas from so many people to make one cohesive product,” said Bader.
“My favorite memory of the process was waking up to double digits of messages about developmental updates from our team group chat because the project was being worked on literally 24/7 in different time zones, including the United States, India and Italy,” said Jirakasemnukul.
The ICC has developed a network of corporate partnerships with organizations who frequently sponsor class projects. Working closely with industry professionals not only provides students with projects for their portfolios, but also offers a real-world environment where students can learn and grow.
“Having an opportunity to work on world-class projects is a blessing,” said Balliett. “I think it’s helping students learn not only how to work in the industry, but how to lead in the industry.”
Located in southwest Ohio, Cedarville University is an accredited, Christ-centered, Baptist institution with an enrollment of 4,550 undergraduate, graduate, and online students in more than 150 areas of study. Founded in 1887, Cedarville is one of the largest private universities in Ohio, recognized nationally for its authentic Christian community, rigorous academic programs, including its Bachelor of Arts in Industrial and Innovative Design program, strong graduation, and retention rates, accredited professional and health science offerings, and high student engagement ranking. For more information about the University, visit www.cedarville.edu.
About the International Center for Creativity
The International Center for Creativity is a recognized global leader in innovation education. A working think tank and 3D design firm that provides creative services to universities, design firms, working professionals, entrepreneurs, and corporations of all sizes the International Center for Creativity is a recognized global leader in innovation education for all learners.
In addition to being an Innovation Firm at large the ICC trains tomorrow’s creative problem solvers through the development and deployment of our own unique, market-relevant, and innovative curriculum that ensures that the impact our students make is also a positive, character-driven one. The ICC offers higher education training in Industrial Design, Design Thinking, Entrepreneurship, Business, and Innovation courses. The ICC’s Industrial and Innovation Design Bachelor’s is offered through an exclusive partnership with Cedarville University and is ranked 5th in the country.
