Harris Manchester Summer Research Institute visiting fellows selected

By Cassie Williams
VCU Communications and Public Relations

Three Virginia Commonwealth University professors have been selected to participate in the Harris Manchester Summer Research Institute Visiting Fellows program at Oxford University.

The Summer Research Institute is an opportunity to spend a week focusing on a scholarly area of interest.

The 2008 participants are Amy Sullivan, Ed.D., assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Health in the School of Medicine; Cliff Edwards, Ph.D., professor of religious studies in the School of World Studies; and Cindy Munro, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Adult Health and Nursing Systems in the VCU School of Nursing.

Sullivan will work to develop the curriculum for an intervention study called “Enhancing Clinician Communication with Imminently Dying Hospitalized African American Cancer Patients and their Families.”  While at the institute, she will meet and study with experts in palliative care at the Oxford University Medical School and observe clinical and teaching practice in the palliative care service.

Edwards will conduct his research using collections in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford as well as those in nearby museums to examine the spiritual development of Van Gogh for a prestigious collection called “Classics of Western Spirituality.”
 
Munro’s areas of research will include obtaining consent in critically ill subjects. She also will examine legislation and attitudes toward consent in the United States compared with other countries. Munro has been an Institutional Review Board member since 1993.

Participants will spend a week at Oxford with access to all university libraries, as well as the Harris Manchester College computer laboratory.

Each year, this opportunity is open to three VCU faculty members.