APSU Provost Lecture Series explores adoptive, foster parenting as next topic

Clarksville, TN – Popular rhetoric often promotes the idea that to foster or adopt a child, “all you need is love.”

“In actuality, adoptive and foster parents need much more than love,” said Dr. Katherin Flower, assistant professor of sociology at Austin Peay State University. “In fact, there are no uniform criteria for becoming foster or adoptive parents.

Instead, a complex set of federal, state and local policies as well as agency specific mandates establish the criteria for approving parents.”

Flower will discuss this topic in more detail as part of the next Provost Lecture Series. She will present “Creating a Family: An Analysis of the Standards for Foster and Adoptive Parents” from 3:00pm-4:30pm, Thursday, November 10th in the Morgan University Center, Room 303. All presentations in the Provost Lecture Series are free and open to the public.

Three of Flower’s students – Jessica Wilson, Jessica Patmore and Olivia Ames – assisted Flower during the fall semester with this project.

Other sessions in the Provost Lecture Series also are planned for the academic year. All sessions are from 3:00pm-4:30pm in the MUC, Room 303 (unless noted otherwise) and include the following:

November 17th: Darren Michael, associate professor of theater and dance
December 1st: Dr. Tim Leszczak, assistant professor of health and human performance
January 12th: Dr. Ellen Smyth, instructor of mathematics
January 19th: Dr. Ann Silverberg, professor of music
January 26th: Dr. Marsha Lyle-Gonga, assistant professor of political science
February 2nd: Dr. Rebecca Johansen, assistant professor of biology
February 9th: Dr. Sergei Markov, associate professor of biology
February 16th: Cynthia Marsh, professor of art
February 23rd: Dr. Christine Mathenge, associate professor of geology
March 1st: Dr. Robert Shelton, associate professor of chemistry
March 15th, MUC 307: Dr. Allyn Smith, associate professor of physics
March 22nd: Dr. Sharon Mabry, professor of music
March 29th: Dr. Cameron Sutt, assistant professor of history
April 5th: Mark DeYoung, assistant professor of art
April 12th: Dr. Tim Winters, professor of English
April 19th, MUC 103: Dr. Jeffrey Wood, professor of music

The Provost Lecture Series seeks to foster a spirit of intellectual and scholarly inquiry among faculty, staff and students.

The program will be used as a platform for APSU faculty members who are recent recipients of provost summer grants, who have been awarded faculty development leaves and who have engaged in recent scholarly inquiry during sabbatical leaves.

APSU faculty members with recent research of acclaim also will be given a platform within this series. In addition, other faculty members of local or widespread renown will be invited to lecture within this series.

For more information about the Provost Lecture Series, call Dr. Brian Johnson, assistant vice president of academic affairs at APSU, at 931.221.7992 or email him at johnsonb@apsu.edu.