Hello @may24a-cohort! Thank you for meeting with me today to learn more about the Rebus Textbook Success Program (TSP) and the tasks that we will be engaged in over the next year.
Today’s session should have given you a general understanding of how our weekly meetings will be structured. I hope that you also got a sense of Rebus and its community values. I know that many of you have not yet met as individual teams, and I hope that you can have those meetings before we meet again as a full cohort on Monday. As you get a sense of your project, it will help you to engage fully with the resources and tools that we will be going over in the next sessions.
In today’s meeting, we also reviewed the tools that were linked to you initial Rebus email and syllabus, including the Curriculum Hub and the Rebus Community Forum
Please note that you can tag @may24a-cohort for conversations that include all cohort members. You can also message me directly if you have questions.
Please be sure to complete this week’s activities as outlined in your session handout :
We completed the validation of the MOU during our meeting.
Reply below in this thread with a brief introduction, including your role on the project and the dream goal(s) you have for it.
I will be posting our chat transcript and recording of the meeting soon. LOUIS is working on that feature of the Zoom account to resolve any issues that we had today.
I will see you all next Monday for Session 2: Project Scoping. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for your presence!
Hello, my name is Donis Marie Lambert. I am a librarian and one of the cohort leaders for the Flood Mitigation Cohort. I hope to gain a better understanding of OER and the textbook/course creation process.
Hi Everyone! I’m Anne LaVance, program director of the Pharmacy Technician Program at Delgado Community College. I am part of the Intro to Pharmacology Team.
I’ve been teaching Pharmacology to my students as well as other Allied Health students for over 20 years (Drugs are my life!).
I’m excited to be part of this project and I look forward to working with all of you.
My dreams for this project… to be part of creating engaging content that enhances comprehension and application for future Nursing and Allied Health professionals.
Hello, Everyone,
I have been teaching in higher education since 2017 as an adjunct instructor at Fletcher Technical Community College. I am also the Director of Adult Education and an adjunct instructor with River Parishes Community College. Some of my prior higher education roles included advising and career coaching. I teach Business Courses, Customer Service (communication) Skills, Financial Literacy, Digital Literacy, and Integrated Career Skills (career exploration, time management, and goal setting).
Before higher education, my career included ten years in the financial industry, five years in healthcare, and twelve years in business ownership. I have an MBA and am currently a 2025 EDD candidate with a concentration in Adult Education.
I have not technically written an OER before, but I have created a Customer Service course from scratch with all of the course content built into the Canvas course - no textbook needed, so something very similar. I am looking forward to working with all of you.
Hi everyone! Thank you for welcoming me to this project. I am in the Intro to Pharmacology Cohort as a subject matter expert and I’m excited to use my training! I received a PhD in pharmacology from LSU Health - Shreveport and currently serve as biology chair at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University. My dream goal is to learn as much as possible about creating freely available resources for (especially) those who are most in need and serve as a resource for other faculty who want to do the same.
Hello, OER Authors. I’m David, a librarian at Xavier in New Orleans. I’ve worked on projects similar to this on the K-12 side of things, as well as have adopted OER materials for use in college classes. I am happy to serve as the project manager for the foundation skills course and text.
Hello all,
Thank you for answering my questions today, I look forward to working with each of you.
My background is in journalism and documentary/promo video production. At NSU, I teach sports media and other production related classes. I enjoy the work and have been lucky to build a career in this. field.
My master’s is in communication and I’ve taught those classes for many years. So, time management and other soft skills are topics I’ve worked with through many classes.
I do work with OER regularly and have had to search out these materials. But, I’ve never created the works. So, I am very interested in learning/moving through this process.
Again, it’s great to get to know everyone.
Nick Taylor
Hi, everyone, I’m Kendra and I’m a professor of health sciences at the University of Holy Cross in New Orleans. I’ve been an instructor or professor of some sorts since 2007, and two years ago I worked on a previous OER project to create a Medical Terminology textbook & Moodle course. This time I’m working on the Anatomy & Physiology II project, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you all! I hope to create a high-quality OER resource that instructors from anywhere can use and modify to meet their own needs.
My name is Esperanza. I am the Project Manager for the CDL Team. I am a Physics and Physical Science Professor at River Parishes Community College. I don’t have a lot of formal knowledge about CDL, but I am am eager to learn. My goals for this project include (1) Creating a practical and usable Pressbook and (2) Creating a well-designed, practical, and usable Moodle course to support CDL.
I am a subject matter expert for the Foundational Skills, etc. cohort. I am an Academic Advisor and Instructor at Southeastern Louisiana University and I work directly with incoming Freshman, particularly first-generation students and students with a developmental need in Math or English, so I witness the need for these resources firsthand.
Additionally, I am an Adjunct Instructor of History at Baton Rouge Community College and heavily rely on OER materials for those courses.
I hope to include emerging digital skills and tools, such as AI, into this text and course.
Hey all,
I’m Charlie Shunick, and I am an Associate Professor at Delgado Community College as well as the Biotechnology Director. Outside of my role at Delgado, I am also the Founder of a nonprofit organization that supports the loved ones of missing persons throughout the investigation and long after the person is found.
I have been using OER in forensic science courses for about 6 years and teaching nutrition for the last decade. I’m most looking forward to learning to use OER more appropriately and keeping the content up-to-date and consumable for students to really be able to apply the information to their daily lives.
Hello everyone.
I’m Connie Milton. I am the reference and instruction librarian at SOWELA Technical Community College in Lake Charles. I am part of the Flood Mitigation team. As of now, I know nothing about flood mitigation, but obviously this is a very important topic in South Louisiana so I definitely think this will be a worthwhile project in multiple ways.
This is my second time working on a LOUIS OER Project. Last year I was part of the Western Civ II team and it was very much a learning experience. I’m looking forward to working with everyone and learning and growing even more.
Hi everyone! I’m Trista Messerli and will serve as a subject matter expert in the Anatomy and Physiology II group. I’m an associate professor of biology at River Parishes Community College, where I’ve taught since the fall of 2010. I graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and graduate degree in biochemistry. Before joining RPCC, I taught both majors and non-majors biology lecture and lab courses, and microbiology lecture and lab at LSU. I teach mostly the same courses at RPCC, as well as anatomy and physiology I and II lecture and lab, nutrition, and biochemistry.
I have created several courses using already available OER materials. However, I have never written a textbook, or created one from scratch. I am both nervous and excited for that part of the project and hope to gain more experience using OER.
I am the project manager for the human anatomy & physiology 2 course. This is my third time as a project manager for LOUIS OER development projects and I am currently the library director at SOWELA Technical Community College.
Hello everyone! I am Shelcie Menard-Harvey, and I am serving as a content expert on the Human Anatomy and Physiology II team. I am an Assistant Professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at University of Louisiana at Monroe.
I have used OER for a General Biology course, and I am looking forward to contributing to OER during this project. I understand the value of having readily available resources in making educational goals attainable, and I am eager to play a part in creating more available resources for current and future students.
Hi, everyone! My name is Dana Thimons. I am the librarian cohort leader for Intro to Pharmacology. I am a health sciences librarian at XULA. I work with the College of Pharmacy at XULA and have previously worked as a pharmacy liaison librarian, as well as worked at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. Basically, I have worked with a lot of folks who teach pharmacology but I don’t know much about pharmacology. I am excited to learn more about OER and be a part of this process. I’m looking forward to working with everyone!
Hi, my name is Jacqueline Nesbit. I teach A & P at Delgado and Nutrition at UNO. I am a part of the Nutrition Cohort. I am not very familiar with OER and I am just hoping to get more familiar with it and the process of creating content.
Hello, my name is Dawn Simms. I am an Assistant Professor of Biology at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University. I am interested in creating low-cost and online coursework for Anatomy and Physiology II. I am certified in Quality Matters and QM peer-assessment and have experience using free Openstax textbooks for teaching biology, microbiology, and genetics.
Hello, my name is Rubayet Bin Mostafiz. I am an Assistant Director (Research) of LaHouse Research and Education Center and Assistant Professor-Research in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center (LSU AgCenter) and one of the OER Course Development Faculty Team for the Flood Mitigation Cohort. I hope to gain a better understanding of OER and the textbook/course creation process.
Good day, all! I am Wynde Jones. I am an Instructor in the School Of Leadership and Human Resource Development at Louisiana State University. I am a part of the cohort for Foundational Digital Skills, Financial Literacy, Communication, Time Management, and Goal-Setting. I am eager to begin this process and collaborate with my team.
I am excited to learn more about OER and be a part of this process. I’m looking forward to working with everyone!