Robert L. Bland, endowed professor of local government in the University of North Texas Department of Public Administration, has been named an honorary member of the International City/County Management Association. He will be honored at the association's annual conference October 22-25 in San Antonio.

Founded in 1914, ICMA provides training and professional development to more than 11,000 city, town and county managers, their staffs, and other individuals and organizations throughout the world. Honorary membership is awarded to an individual who is not a professional in local government management, but who has achieved distinguished public service and contributions to the improvement and strengthening of local government.

Bland has devoted 35 years to advancing the study and practice of local government management through service, teaching and research. He joined the UNT faculty in 1982 as a faculty member in the Department of Political Science. In 1992, he helped to establish the new Department of Public Administration. He served as the department's first chair until 2013 and currently serves as the faculty director of the Department of Public Administration's Center for Public Management, which provides continuing education to local government officials in Texas.

Bland is the author or co-author of five books on local government finance, including "A Budgeting Guide for Local Government," which is used in the curricula of numerous master of public administration programs. He received the Excellence in Research Award from the Government Finance Officers Association for another one of his books, "Financing City Government in Texas."

For more than 30 years, Bland has secured funding from the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation for scholarships for UNT master of public administration students.

His other awards include the Stephen B. Sweeney Academic Award from ICMA and the Terrell Blodgett Academician Award by the Texas City Management Association. Bland was twice named Professor of the Year by the Public Administration Student Association and was elected as a fellow to the National Academy of Public Administration.

By Nancy Kolsti, News Promotions.

Neale R. Chumbler, dean of the College of Health and Human Services at Western Kentucky University, has been named the new dean of the University of North Texas' College of Health and Public Service, or HPS. His appointment will begin July 1.

Chumbler will replace Linda Holloway, former chair and faculty member in the college's Department of Rehabilitation and Health Services, who has served as interim dean since September 2017.

"I'm excited Dean Chumbler is joining UNT and know that we will accomplish great work under his leadership," UNT Provost Jennifer Cowley said. "Our College of Health and Public Service recently was re-envisioned to better serve our students and better align with the important needs of health and public service professions that serve our communities."

Chumbler said he was "struck by the ambition, enthusiasm and pride" in the HPS faculty, staff and students when he visited the college, as well as the college's unique academic disciplines.

"These disciplines not only will help meet the health and public service workforce needs in Texas, but will help shape the next generation of scholars through the novel research performed by health and public service Ph.D. students and the research-active faculty," he said. "The college also provides several excellent undergraduate and graduate programs that integrate service learning. This is important in providing students with an application-based education that betters the community."

Chumbler became dean of the College of Health and Human Services at WKU, where he earned his master's degree in sociology, in March 2015. During his tenure, he developed and implemented a strategic plan to guide the college through 2020 and raised the research and pedagogical profile of the college, despite cutting spending in the college. He also implemented a research incentive program, including a series of workshops on research methods for faculty members, developed a faculty research mentoring program for tenure-eligible assistant professors and created a Dean's Merit Award to recognize faculty and staff for outstanding contributions.

In addition, during his tenure, the amount of extramural research grants and contracts received by college faculty members increased 53 percent, and the number of funded awards increased 18 percent.

Chumbler's research focuses on improving the quality of care for senior citizens with chronic diseases and central nervous system damage. Prior to coming to WKU, he was a faculty member in the University of Georgia's Department of Health Policy and Management and chair and graduate coordinator for the department.

He also served in several administrative positions at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, or IUPUI. Chumbler was chair of IUPUI's Department of Sociology, director of the Institute for Research on Social Issues and interim director of the Survey Research Center. While at IUPUI, he simultaneously served as a research scientist at the Center for Implementing Evidence-based Practice, located at the Indianapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

He was a faculty member in the University of Florida's Department of Health Services Research, Management and Policy and was also a research health scientist at the Gainesville Veterans Administration Medical Center's Rehabilitation Outcomes Research Center.   

In addition to his master's degree from WKU, Chumbler received his doctoral degree in sociology from Case Western Reserve University and bachelor's degree in sociology from Murray State University.

By Nancy Kolsti, UNT News Service

This fall, Hee Soun Jang, Ph.D., associate professor and assistant department chair of HPS’ Public Administration department, gave an invited lecture at Asia Center, a Title VI National Resource Center for Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Utah.

Jang’s lecture, “The Government-driven Civil Society in South Korea,” offered an understanding about Asia’s recent efforts to grow the third sector and engage nonprofit organizations in social service provision, with a focus on South Korea.

Prior to joining the University of North Texas, Jang was an assistant professor at the Division of Politics, Administration, and Justice at California State University Fullerton for four years. She teaches courses on nonprofit management, public and nonprofit partnerships, public administration seminar, leadership and organization in public administration, and personnel management in the public sector. Her research explores nonprofit and government partnerships, local government management and policy choices, and the nonprofit sector in South Korea and the role of government in civil society initiatives in Korea. Her research has been published in scholarly journals, including Public Administration Review, Administration and Society, The American Review of Public Administration, International Review of Administrative Sciences, and Journal of Policy Development and Research. Dr. Jang was a recipient of the Best Poster Research Award at the ARNOVA conference (the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action) in 2016 and received the Emerging Scholar Award from ARNOVA in 2005. She received the DeVoe Moore Fellowship from Florida State University.   

Manish Vaidya, associate professor in the University of North Texas Department of Behavior Analysis, and graduate student Maria Otero are using a motion monitoring computer program to teach young children to stay mostly motionless during radiation treatments for cancer. They are currently testing the technology on healthy children.

Watch the 1-minute video from NBC 5 News: UNT Program Could Help Children During Radiation.

While radiation therapy is the most common cancer treatment for children under age 10, preparation for it may cause great stress for a child and his or her family.

A child cannot move more than 3 millimeters in any direction during radiation or risk damaging healthy cells near cancerous cells. Pediatric oncologists have routinely sedated children to keep them motionless for the therapy, so a child can't have food or water for up to 12 hours before a session. And therapy sessions are typically scheduled for six days a week, for up to six straight weeks, said Manish Vaidya, associate professor in theUniversity of North Texas Department of Behavior Analysis.

"Radiation itself is painless, generally takes less than an hour during a session and doesn't require an overnight hospital stay. But a child may not completely understand why he or she cannot eat or drink before radiation, and that could negatively impact relationships with parents," he said.

Vaidya has developed an alternative to anesthesia — teaching young patients to stay mostly motionless while awake for radiation therapy using motion monitoring. He is part of a research team working on the project, called PROMISE, or Pediatric Radiation Oncology with Movie-Induced Sedation Effect.

The research is being funded by a $900,000 grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Vaidya is working on the project with four faculty members in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and a pediatric psychologist at UT-Southwestern.

Vaidya is currently testing PROMISE on healthy children under age 10 in a child friendly laboratory at UNT. The laboratory has colorful displays of the alphabet, solar system and world map on the walls and a bookcase and toy chest filled with toys.

As a child lies on a mock treatment table, he or she watches a cartoon projected upward on a ceiling screen. At the same time, a video surveillance system that beams a grid of light on the child monitors his or her motion. The video will display a green traffic light if the child is not moving more than 3 millimeters in any direction. If the child moves too much, the traffic light turns yellow, and the cartoon pauses. If the child continues moving, the traffic light turns red, and the cartoon disappears from the screen. But if the child reverts back to his or her treatment position in a short time, both the green light and the cartoon resume.   

"The more precisely we can observe behavior of children, the more we can develop applied behavior analysis training to modify that behavior," Vaidya said. "We want to make staying mostly motionless into a game."

He notes that in addition to the frequent need for sedation causing stress for children and their families, the anesthesia may have long-term effects on children's cognitive development.   

"Our goal is to get a child through a therapy session as quickly and as stress-free as possible," Vaidya said. "The total time for receiving radiation therapy is usually no more than 30 minutes, so our focus with healthy children is to create very short testing sessions."

Behavior modification to keep children mostly motionless "is a simple solution to make children’s lives easier," said Maria Otero, a UNT master’s student in behavior analysis who is working with Vaidya on the research.

"The idea seemed too logical to not be investigated," she said.

By Nancy Kolsti, News Promotions.