Governor appoints Ferris grad to Farm Produce Insurance Authority
Gov. Rick Snyder has appointed Ferris graduate Paul Koeman to the Farm Produce Insurance Authority.
The Farm Produce Insurance Authority is a board that represents farmers and grain, feed and banking interests, and promotes the state’s Farm Produce Insurance Fund.
“Paul’s agricultural background will play a key role in the board’s work as we build a stronger Michigan,” Snyder said.
Koeman, of Hamilton, owns Koeman Farms. He also serves on the Michigan Farm Bureau Board of Directors and the Hamilton Farm Bureau Cooperative Board. Koeman earned a degree in pre-engineering from Ferris State.
Koeman will represent producers from the largest Michigan organization representing general farm interests. He will serve a three-year term that expires on June 20, 2014.
Ferris professor receives national award from Printing Industries of America
Ferris College of Engineering Technology Professor Patrick Klarecki has been given the 2011 award of academic excellence.
The award is presented annually to an academic representative in recognition of outstanding contributions to education and training in graphic arts. Klarecki, interim director of Ferris’ School of Design and Manufacturing, came to Ferris in 1992.
Klarecki has served as interim assistant vice president of Academic Affairs, department chair for printing and imaging technology management, and as a professor in printing management.
He also serves on the board of directors for the Graphic Arts Education Research Foundation, Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation, the Accreditation Council for Collegiate Graphic Communications, and as chief expert for the WorldSkills Graphic Communications Committee.
New campus labs to help students develop cognitive clinical skills
Two new College of Pharmacy labs are designed to teach pharmacy students the skills needed to work in a high stress workplace.
The cognitive skills lab opened in fall 2009, and the sterile lab is scheduled to open in fall 2011. Both resources are a part of the practice skills course sequence in the newly revised Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum.
The cognitive skills lab features stations that simulate patient encounters requiring drug product selection, dosing and delivery consultations with physicians and development of appropriate monitoring plans.
Students are also given simulated patient charts and are guided by instructor Lori Dettloff, R.Ph., a practicing hospital pharmacist at St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Rapids.
Dettloff is a 1988 graduate of Ferris’ pharmacy program. She said the lab will better prepare Ferris’ students for the real world since what students getting in class are case simulations of live patients.
“It prepares students for off-campus practice experiences, as well as their careers after they graduate,” Dettloff said. n