briefs
Writing, publishing seminars downtown
Four writing and book publishing workshops will be held Oct. 26 — the day before this year’s Louisiana Book Festival in downtown Baton Rouge.
The State Library’s Louisiana Center for the Book is hosting what it calls “WordShops for Writers” at the State Library and Capitol Park Museum locations.
The WordShops topics will be the fiction-writing process, writing for young adults, writing about Louisiana and the process of getting published or self-publishing.
The only all-day session will be one hosted by Robert Olen Butler on the process of writing fiction. It starts at 9 a.m. at the Capitol Park Museum.
Butler is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain.”
Three half-day sessions also are scheduled, one in the morning and two in the afternoon.
From 9 a.m. to noon, The New York Times best-selling young adult author Walter Dean Myers will teach about writing young adult novels in the Seminar Center of the State Library.
From 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., in the Capitol View Room of the State Library, Cheré Dastugue Coen and Ronald M. Gauthier will present “So You Want to Be Published?”
Also from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Ken Wells will present “Selling Louisiana: Think Locally, Publish Nationally” in the Seminar Center of the State Library.
To register for WordShops call Michelle Hobkirk at (225) 342-4931 or download the registration form from the “Exhibits & Workshops” section of www.LouisianaBookFestival.org.
Registration and payment are due by Oct. 23. Fees are $40 for half-day WordShops and $75 for the full day.
Free parking is available at the Welcome Center Parking Garage. Participants must bring their Welcome Center Parking ticket to the workshop sessions for validation.
Chinese firm joins in
BR obesity research
Pennington Biomedical Research Center has signed a memorandum of understanding with a Chinese research firm to pool resources as both groups study chronic disease treatment and prevention.
China’s rapid economic growth over the past three decades has led to an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases, while Pennington has been at the forefront of obesity research in the U.S.
The partnership calls for Beijing’s MedNet Research to provide two biomedical engineers to work on emerging research efforts at the new Biomedical Imaging Building on Pennington’s south Baton Rouge campus.
According to a news release, a governing board will direct joint activities including a planned annual symposium at alternating sites and an exchange of visiting scholars for research and development.
Estimates show that adult onset diabetes affects 92.4 million Chinese men and women with another 148.2 million adults diagnosed with prediabetes. Additionally, a news release says, more than 20 percent of children between ages 7 and 17 living in large cities are overweight or obese.
SLU gets green light for doctoral program
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a regional accrediting agency, has given Southeastern Louisiana University the go-ahead to offer an online nursing doctoral program.
The doctor of nursing practice degree program was approved by the state’s higher education management board, the Louisiana Board of Regents, late last year.
The program at Southeastern, which began enrolling students this fall, will be offered jointly with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
The program has attracted 11 students so far, according to university news release.
In a prepared statement, Southeastern Louisiana University President John L. Crain said the program would prepare graduates to help redesign and evaluate nursing and health care systems in the region. Students also will aid in addressing what Crain called the “severe shortages of clinical faculty to mentor and educate new nurses.”
The program will accept nurses who have earned master’s degrees as nurse practitioners or nurse service administrators, Ann Carruth, dean of Southeastern’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences, said in the news release.
“Louisiana needs to significantly accelerate the number of graduates to meet the needs of a workforce educated in health management and public health to address the complex healthcare issues of the state,” Carruth said.
Compiled by
the Capitol news bureau