Nutrition students, along with Associate Professor Kay Stearns Bruening, donors Rhoda Dearman Morrisroe ’69 and Paul Morrisroe, and Dean Diane Lyden Murphy, pictured in the ACE Center’s new demonstration teaching kitchen. Later in the afternoon, students and invited guests participated in a lecture and cooking demonstration titled, “Food as Medicine,” by Amanda Archibald, founder and owner of Field to Plate.
Falk College has announced the opening of the Nutrition Assessment, Consultation and Education (ACE) Center, a new hands-on learning laboratory to prepare students with traditional and emerging professional competencies critical to effective nutrition practice. A ribbon cutting ceremony, tours and a reception took place Sept. 25.
A generous and visionary gift from Falk College alumna, Rhoda Dearman Morrisroe ’69, made the ACE Center possible. It includes two lecture halls, one with a demonstration kitchen and one with a teaching station; two small private consultation rooms; a physical assessment room; and a small conference room with a large media screen.
“The counseling rooms will allow our students to practice their nutrition consultation skills in an appropriate environment. A purposefully outfitted demonstration kitchen supports our new integrative nutrition curriculum, which uses food as medicine to support disease treatment. I am very excited about the new center, and what this will mean for the future of our nutrition programs,” says Kay Stearns Bruening, associate professor of nutrition, Falk College.
The center’s counseling and physical assessment rooms are equipped with two teaching mannequins, a tube feeding placement simulator, wall-mounted stadiometers and electronic scales, pediatric measuring equipment with several multi-ethnic infant mannequins, electronic blood pressure monitors, a lactation education baby, and a variety of new food models. “This facility allows our faculty to develop high-fidelity simulations for medical nutrition therapy, life cycle nutrition, nutrition education, nutrition counseling, and other curricular enhancements,” adds Bruening.
“Syracuse University, thanks to support from our generous donor, Rhoda Dearman Morrisroe, has created a center that both simulates the types of professional settings where its graduates will work while providing on-going, unique learning opportunities that give students a competitive advantage. In addition to unlimited faculty-supervised hands-on experiences, this dedicated space will provide an ideal environment for student-faculty research projects and educational community partnerships that set the SU programs apart,” says Falk College Dean Diane Lyden Murphy.
In the ACE Center, students will practice nutrition-focused physical examinations on a new patient simulator. The new facilities will allow for unlimited opportunities for direct practice with indirect calorimetry to measure how many calories someone is utilizing, instead of estimations that use imperfect mathematical equations. Additional enhancements to student learning include class experiences measuring body composition with the BOD POD testing system used extensively in university and medical facilities, the military and health and wellness settings to track body composition.
Left to right: Kay Stearns Bruening, associate professor, nutrition; Chancellor Syverud; Paul Morrisroe and Rhoda Dearman Morrisroe ’69; Dean Diane Lyden Murphy; nutrition student Eva Li.
In the afternoon, students and guests met Amanda Archibald, founder and owner, Field to Plate, who presented a lecture and cooking demonstration titled, “Food as Medicine.” Field to Plate creates dynamic food and culinary education experiences and innovative tools. Amanda’s work in culinary genomics was debuted at the Institute for Functional Medicine international conference in May 2015.
