Ouachita to host faculty recital featuring Drs. Chung and Feller on March 4

Ouachita Baptist University’s School of Fine Arts will host Dr. Mary Chung, pianist, and Dr. Carlos Feller, flutist, in concert on Monday, March 14, at 7:30 p.m. in McBeth Recital Hall. The recital is free and open to the public

Ouachita\u27s Department of Theatre Arts to present Godspell from April 7-10

Ouachita Baptist University’s Department of Theatre Arts will present the 2012 revival of “Godspell” by Stephen Schwartz from Thursday-Sunday, April 7-10, in Jones Performing Arts Center, 409 Ouachita Street. Shows begin April 7-9 at 7:30 p.m.; a matinee performance will be held April 10 at 2:30 p.m. The production is open to the public. “Godspell” is structured as a series of parables primarily based on the Gospel of Matthew and includes songs reflecting a wide variety of musical theatre genres and influences

Ouachita to host exhibits by guest artists Sanders and Pinckley Feb. 28-April 1

The Rosemary Gossett Adams Department of Art & Design in Ouachita Baptist University’s School of Fine Arts will host photography exhibits “Be Here to Love Me” by Liz Sanders and “Sticks and Stones” by Donna Pinckley from Feb. 28-April 1 in the Adams Galleries of Moses-Provine Hall, 401 Ouachita Street. The exhibits are free and open to the public; they are part of the School of Fine Arts’ guest artist series

Ouachita Singers and Ouachita Concert Choir to perform April 19

Ouachita Baptist University’s Division of Music will present the Ouachita Singers and Concert Choir in concert Tuesday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. in Jones Performing Arts Center, 409 Ouachita St. The performance, featuring both choirs collaborating on composer John Rutter’s masterwork, “Requiem,” is free and open to the public. Rutter completed “Requiem,” which is dedicated to his late father, in 1985. The work is structured in seven movements; it sets to music parts of the text of the Latin Requiem Mass, as well as two passages from the Book of Psalms. An orchestra made up of Ouachita faculty and students, as well as members of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, will accompany the choirs. Soprano Kara Claybrook, visiting instructor of music at Ouachita, will be a featured soloist

Unintended pregnancy, options counselling & abortion care content in undergraduate nursing text books used in three Queensland universities

Background: Nurses and midwives are on the frontline of sexual and reproductive health care and in many other health care settings where women faced with an unintended pregnancy may present. They can play a fundamental role in responding to unintended pregnancy, options counselling and abortion care and although ideally positioned to interact with women, they may not be well prepared to discuss these health matters. Little is known about the education around unplanned pregnancy, options counselling and abortion care provided in undergraduate nursing and midwifery training programs. The first phase of our study will examine whether and to what extent these topics are covered in nursing and midwifery text books used in three Queensland universities. Methods: Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of unplanned pregnancy, options counselling and abortion care content in nurse and midwifery text books will be conducted using a textbook evaluation tool. Results: in progress Conclusion: Evidence-based content in nursing and midwifery education is crucial for the development of confident and competent practitioners comfortable with providing quality care to women with an unplanned pregnancy, including options counselling and abortion care. Examination of content in undergraduate nursing and midwifery texts is the first step in the development of recommendations for curricular reform and expansion. This study is particularly timely given the recent decriminalization of abortion in Queensland and upscaling of public sector abortion services

Chimpanzees demonstrate individual differences in social information use

Studies of transmission biases in social learning have greatly informed our understanding of how behaviour patterns may diffuse through animal populations, yet within-species inter-individual variation in social information use has received little attention and remains poorly understood. We have addressed this question by examining individual performances across multiple experiments with the same population of primates. We compiled a dataset spanning 16 social learning studies (26 experimental conditions) carried out at the same study site over a 12-year period, incorporating a total of 167 chimpanzees. We applied a binary scoring system to code each participant’s performance in each study according to whether they demonstrated evidence of using social information from conspecifics to solve the experimental task or not (Social Information Score—‘SIS’). Bayesian binomial mixed effects models were then used to estimate the extent to which individual differences influenced SIS, together with any effects of sex, rearing history, age, prior involvement in research and task type on SIS. An estimate of repeatability found that approximately half of the variance in SIS was accounted for by individual identity, indicating that individual differences play a critical role in the social learning behaviour of chimpanzees. According to the model that best fit the data, females were, depending on their rearing history, 15–24% more likely to use social information to solve experimental tasks than males. However, there was no strong evidence of an effect of age or research experience, and pedigree records indicated that SIS was not a strongly heritable trait. Our study offers a novel, transferable method for the study of individual differences in social learning