Rink side research

I spend a lot of time in Rochester at work and at the rink. Sometimes, I work at the rink as well.

Rochester Red Wings

It's a big weekend for sport. This is Memorial long weekend and the Rochester Red Wings baseball team are having a retro weekend with all tickets $5 and all hot dogs .50 cents. My first ever baseball game was enjoyed on a gorgeous Rochester spring afternoon with friends I met through CERP Liz, Zac, Jessica, and Andy.

Awesome seats to see the Red Wing victory over Philly

NCAA Lacrosse Finals

Pep Band road trip to Boston today! There were only 25 of us who could make it to Boston for the NCAA Lacrosse finals but they were 25 members of the finest pep band in the land and we played out hearts out at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. The crowd attendance was 31,560 which is the biggest audience I think I will ever play! Unfortunately we were defeated 15-7 but the Salisbury University Seagulls.  

I am no closer to understanding the rules of lacrosse but I'm excited for season and determined to at least work out some of the rules.

Gillette Stadium, Massachusetts

RIT Tigers!

PeP Band selfie with our new conductor Megan

The End of my Fulbright

Today was the final day of my Fulbright Fellowship. During my Fulbright I have collected data for five studies examining:

1. Semantic fluency skills of students who were Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH), hearing, and users of English and/or American Sign Language.
2. Students’ perceptions of word typicality related to category membership.
3. Students’ categorization skills and their cognitive flexibility in re-categorizing words.
4. The speech intelligibility of DHH college students.
5. The sign intelligibility of American Sign Language users.

I wasn’t sure where my Fulbright journey would take me, but at the outset I imagined that it would end at a tangible destination. A list of submitted journal papers. Conference papers to present. Future research projects in preparation. A check list of tasks to indicate a successful scholarship. However, as I check the final items off the list, I am overwhelmed by a feeling that these tangible outcomes are not the destination that I thought they were. As Henry Miller said, “one’s destination is never a place, but a new way of looking at things”. That is where my Fulbright journey has taken me. To a world that is bigger and brighter, more challenging and more rewarding than I knew. A world full of new friends, new ideas, and of exciting possibilities that I will be exploring for the rest of my life.

RIT Power Shutdown

What happens when there is a campus wide power shutdown that lasts longer than expected? You have to go old school and read an actual book!

RIT Staff Appreciation Picnic

Today was the annual RIT staff appreciation picnic, held in the Gordon Field House. We got to high-five Ritchie, make our own Garbage Plates (this is a food that Rochester is known for), and there were arcade games and Zumba classes to keep us entertained. 

Game station

Dawn and I represented team CERP

More Cultural Exchanges

Another opportunity for cultural exchange today. I ordered a lemon, lime and bitters and was met with confusion and curiosity. I am pleased to say the manager at McGregors did a stellar job in making his first ever lemon, lime and bitters. One friend thought it tasted fantastic, the other I felt was trying to not use the word repulsive!

A typically Australian drink

Speech Pathology Australia National Conference

This week is the Speech Pathology Australia National Conference which is being held in Sydney. I am unable to attend this year but have contributed to two presentations at this year's conference:

McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2017, May). Consonant acquisition by 26,008 children in 31 countries across 27 languages.

Verdon, S., Armstrong, H., Basso, R., Blake, H., Crowe, K., Heine, C. … Webster, K (2017, May). Innovations and evidence-based practice for working in a culturally and linguistically diverse society: A summary of the Speech Pathology Australia position paper and clinical guidelines for working in a culturally and linguistically diverse society.

NCAA Men's Lacrosse

Today the Tigers played in the men's lacrosse semifinals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) league against Wesleyan University. This was the first lacrosse game I've ever seen and it was exciting, even though I did not know the rules and no one in the band was able to explain what was going on! RIT were victorious 22-9 so next week we are off to Boston for the Division III finals. Watch out Boston - RIT Pep Band is coming!

An enthusiastic Tiger fan

Tiger Stadium

Rochester Lilac Festival

The Rochester Lilac Festival is the largest free festival of its kind in North America. Over 10 days, this festival is full of activities: musical, artistic, culinary, and botanical. Gemmie and I managed to make it for the last afternoon of the festival which we thoroughly enjoyed in spite of the inconvenient precipitation. I also fulfilled my Fulbright duties of increasing cultural understanding my introducing Gemmie to my favourite Canadian snack - Poutine!

Lilacs!

Kate and Gemmie

Introducing Gemmie to the Canadian cuisine POUTINE!

RIT Commencement

This is graduation week at RIT. I took the opportunity to see how this process different from Australian universities. Graduation week begins with a big ceremony in the field house, Commencement, which graduating students from all colleges attend. Each college then has its own graduation ceremony for its students. Commencement was an exciting ceremony which I viewed from the overflow seating in the Gene Polessini Center (which is currently not an ice rink). President Destler gave a rousing speech which he delivered in Sim Com (ASL signs and English at the same time) which you can read here.

PhD graduates from all colleges walked the stage with their supervisors and were hooded. Speeches were given by graduating students and past students. There were so many smiles on the faces of students, family, and faculty.

Graduate marshalling area

President Destler's final commencement address

Multilingual College Students

I am working on a piece of writing for the practitioner magazine describing the evidence base for multilingual language acquisition by children with hearing loss. I was lucky enough to be able chat with of the very multilingual Deaf students at RIT today. This is Cristophorus. Cristophorus grew up in Indonesia speaking Indonesian with his family and at school, and also learning English at school. While in Indonesia he learnt American Sign Language from books and tutors and friends, and later learnt Bisindo (Indonesian Sign Language) from other friends. Now a pre-med student at RIT, Cristophorus is a fluent user of spoken English and spoken Indonesian, communicates in American Sign Language and Bisindo, and is currently learning Spanish ... just for fun.

Cristophorus and Kate comparing languages

IJSLP Guest Editorial Position

Sarah Masso, Suzanne Hopf and I have been selected to be guest editors of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology Special Issue – Conference Proceedings. We will be working with IJSLP editor Professor Kirrie Ballard and CEO of Speech Pathology Australia Gail Mulcair to develop this issue of the journal.

Imagine RIT

Imagine RIT is RIT's Innovation and Creativity Festival which is held in May each year. It is  a campus-wide event that showcases the innovation and creativity of RIT students, faculty and staff. Exhibits focus on being interactive and hands-on, and the campus is full of diverse  exhibitions, research projects, and entertainment. One inspiring project was the Get Up and Go Motorized Pediatric Stander Kit for children with mobility difficulties designed by RIT students.

Pep Band played an hour bracket, in the freezing cold rain, and it is an experience I will never forget!

The RIT Theme Park Enthusiasts: Theme Park Engineering 3.0

Elizabeth Jackson Machmer explaining
Professional Interactions Using Mobile Apps Research 

A concrete canoe

Double-decker bicycle