Community College of Rhode Island

Info session on MRSA: The college, with Kent Hospital, will co-sponsor a free community education session on MRSA, the super bug resistant to many antibiotics, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday in the Bobby Hackett Theatre at the Knight Campus in Warwick.

Dr. David A. Lowe, chief of infectious disease at Kent Hospital and a specialist in his field, will present the session with Debbie Maaz, Kent’s chief infection-prevention and control nurse, and infection-control nurses Kathleen O’Connell and Linda Oliver.

MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a type of infection that is resistant to such commonly used antibiotics as penicillin, amoxicillin and oxacillin. In otherwise healthy people with no recent history of hospitalization, MRSA can appear as a skin infection such as a pimple or a boil that can be red, swollen and painful. The problem can be treated by some but not all antibiotics. Community-associated MRSA infections are increasingly common, according to experts. Most are skin-associated and are typically mild. But in rare cases they can become life-threatening, according to the Centers for Disease Control, which said there were more deaths from this type of infection in 2005 than from AIDS.

While health care-associated MRSA infections typically occur among the elderly, one study pegged the average age of a person with community-associated MRSA at 23. No advance registration is required to attend this program, but seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

Johnson & Wales University

Certificate of Appreciation: The School of Technology at the university recently received a certificate of appreciation from the William M. Davies Career and Technical High School for the technology school’s assistance in the Davies School-to-Career program.

JWU Prof. Jim Sheusi taught a 10-week course on computer programming to sophomore and junior high school students. This is the second year JWU has been involved in this program, which is part of the outreach that the technology school does with area high schools. In the two years that this program has existed at Davies, nearly 45 students have participated.

New England Institute of Technology

Appointed: John Tavanian, of Warwick, has been appointed an instructor in the plumbing technology department at the college. He is a master plumber as well as a master pipefitter, and his professional experience includes owning plumbing and heating companies and working as a service and installation manager for S&M Hearth, Patio, and BBQ Heating. Tavanian is also a co-owner of a graphic design company.

Providence College

Library exhibit: The following exhibits are on display in the main floor display case of the Phillips Memorial Library on campus: Pen-and-ink drawings by Steven Zannini of the physical plant department at the college will be on display through July 31; and an exhibit that chronicles the growth of the campus during the tenure of the Rev. Alphonsus Philip Smith, president of the college from 1994 to 2005, which includes images, awards and publications, will be on display through Aug. 15. Sponsored by the Phillips Memorial Library public relations committee, the exhibits are free and open to the public during normal library hours. To determine library hours call, (401) 865-2242.

Roger Williams University

Conference: With recent incidents of violent crimes occurring not only in big cities but also in smaller ones in the region, the police across New England are searching for ways to look outside the box to develop innovative tactics to protect their cities.

On Tuesday, the Justice System Training and Research Institute at the university will join forces with the New England Association of Chiefs of Police and the Providence Police Department to host police chiefs from major cities in New England at a summit on “Crime and Violence in America.”

The summit — at the university’s Bristol campus — will open with a welcome from Providence Mayor David Cicilline, Providence Chief of Police Dean Esserman and Robert McKenna, director of the Justice Institute, beginning at 8:45 a.m.

The conference will feature a variety of expert panelists and speakers, including Bob Herbert, New York Times columnist; David Kennedy, director of the Center on Crime Prevention & Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Laurie Robinson, a former assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice and current director of the criminology program at the University of Pennsylvania; and Steven Marans, head of the National Center of Children Exposed to Violence at the Yale Child Study Center. A detailed agenda is attached.

Additional conference topics include crime trends, drug markets, children exposed to violence and community policing. Among others, police from the following cities will participate: Boston, Lawrence, New Bedford and Holliston, Mass.; Bridgeport, New Haven and Norwich, Conn.; and Providence, Cranston, Newport and Warwick, and the Rhode Island State Police.

The summit will be held in the College of Arts and Sciences Room 157 at the university’s Bristol campus at One Old Ferry Road. The event is closed to the public but is open to the media.

The university established the Justice System Training and Research Institute at its School of Justice Studies to provide training and professional development for all areas of law enforcement.

University of Rhode Island

Interim director: Jody Lisberger, of Exeter, will become the interim director of the university’s women’s studies program on June 23. The program has 35 undergraduate majors and a graduate certificate program for both matriculating and non-matriculating students.

Lisberger became a full-time lecturer in the program two years ago. She holds a doctorate in English with a specialty in feminist narrative theory. At URI, she initiated a course called “Violence and Nonviolence in Theory and Fiction: Feminist Alternatives” and an undergraduate/graduate seminar called “Women Writing Their Lives.” In addition, she taught a course called “Race, Class, and Sexualities Seen Through Literature” and continues to teach “Feminist Theory and Methodology,” with an emphasis on narrative, film, medicine, law and the environment.

She mentors five undergraduates to lead the discussion groups and learn feminist pedagogy in her “Introduction to Women’s Studies” course. Her recently published story collection, Remember Love, among other things, reveals women striving to find a balance between love for self and love for others.