Faculty and staff news
The Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong, a book by music professor Gene Anderson, was a finalist for the 2008 Association for Recorded Sound Collections’ Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.
The book details the origins and influence of the Hot Five, a group of five jazz musicians including Louis Armstrong, who recorded 55 performances in Chicago for the OKeh Records music label from 1925–28. The book includes a CD with all 55 recordings and a commentary.
Edward Ayers, president, conducted a Gilder-Lehrman Institute workshop on the history of the South for 28 high school teachers from throughout the United States. In June he participated on a panel about new perspectives on college success for The Ford Policy Forum, part of the Aspen Symposium Program. He discussed programs that private and public colleges have put into place to address accessibility and affordability issues. In July he hosted five other higher education leaders in a panel discussion about barriers preventing minorities and low-income students from attending college.
Richard Becker’s nine poem sequence, “Fates,” online since August 2007 as part of a joint electronic text project of The Literary Review and Web Del Sol, will be featured as one of nine chapbooks in The Literary Review, Summer 2008 issue. Becker is an associate professor of music.
Steve Bisese, vice president for student development, was elected to a second term as national president of Omicron Delta Kappa, the national leadership organization.
Mavis Brown, associate professor of education, and Linda Hobgood, Speech Center director, co-wrote an article, “Innovations in the Pursuit of Excellence,” published in the spring 2008 issue of Reading in Virginia. Brown recently traveled to Moscow to present a paper, “Early Childhood Education in America: Consistencies and Contradictions,” at the Association of Childhood Education World Conference.
Patricia Johnson Brown, senior associate dean for academic programs in the School of Continuing Studies, has been inducted into Michigan’s Emerald Clover Society, representing extraordinary contributions to 4-H. The society honors individuals who had significant involvement with 4-H as youth and who have made significant contributions to their local, state and national communities.
Elena Calvillo, assistant professor of art and art history, has been awarded a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society to research the career of Croatian miniaturist Giulio Clovio. Her work will contribute to a manuscript about artists who served the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century. The $5,000 grant will enable Calvillo to travel to Rome and conduct research.
C. Wade Downey, assistant professor of chemistry, received a $50,000 grant from the American Chemical Society-Petroleum Research Fund. His project is “Synthesis of Chiral Carboxylic Acid Derivatives via Three-Component Coupling Reactions with Ynoate Electrophiles.” His research will include developing “cascade reactions,” which are series of multiple reactions that take place at the same time in order to rapidly provide complex products. Downey and his team hope to use this method to synthesize biologically active molecules like pharmaceuticals.
Linda Fairtile, head, Parsons Music Library, traveled to Italy in June to view the premiere of the opera Edgar by Giacomo Puccini, which she edited. The performance was broadcast on radio throughout Italy and streamed on the Web.
Lisa Gentile, associate professor of biophysical chemistry, is one of two young professors recognized by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology for teaching and research. An article, “Faculty Who Make a Difference, Part I,” in the society’s magazine discusses Gentile’s work with undergraduate researchers, high school science teachers and their students during summers.
Terryl Givens, professor of religion and literature, took top honors for his book, People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture, at the annual Mormon History Association awards banquet. The book won the association’s best-book award and a $2,000 prize. The book also received the Association of Mormon Letters’ Best Book in Criticism award.
Deborah Hanson, adjunct professor in SCS, has received a fellowship from the U.S. Capitol Historical Society for fall 2008. Her research topic is “Westward Expansion and National Identity: A Comparative Study of Three Sets of Images in the U.S. Capitol.” She will compare westward expansion images from the 1820s, 1860s and 1990s and also consider them in the context of related legislation passed in those time periods. She will be working from the office of the Architect of the Capitol.
Marilyn Hesser, senior associate director of admission, was honored for her eight years of outstanding service to the Council of International Schools Committee for Europe, Middle East and Africa. During her tenure, she served as chair-elect, chair and past-chair and led four higher education recruitment tours to Europe and the Middle East.
Suzanne Jones, professor of English and women’s studies, has published three essays: “Black Girl in Paris: Shay Youngblood’s Escape from ‘the last plantation’” in Transatlantic Exchanges: The South in Europe—Europe in the American South, “Childhood Trauma and its Reverberations in Bebe Moore Campbell’s Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine in Emmett Till in Literary Memory and Imagination, and “Tragic No More?: The Return of the Racially Mixed Character” in American Fiction of the 1990’s.
Lucretia McCulley, director of outreach services at Boatwright Memorial Library, authored a chapter in the book An Introduction to Instructional Services in Academic Libraries. Her chapter is “Taking the Best of Both Worlds: Success and Challenges with the Hybrid Model of Library Instruction.”
Kent B. Monroe, visiting distinguished scholar at the Robins School of Business, received a 2008 Paul D. Converse Award from the American Marketing Association for his pioneering work in marketing. Monroe, whose research focuses on behavioral pricing and consumer shopping behavior, was one of five Converse Award winners recognized at the 17th Paul D. Converse Symposium at the University of Illinois.
Carol Parish, associate professor of chemistry, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation. Her project, “A Theoretical Investigation of Multireference Diradical Molecules,” received $122,469 for the first year, with an additional $144,938 likely for two more years.
Three staff members are serving in the School of Continuing Studies’ Student Government Association. Martha Pittaway, administrative assistant in the Provost’s Office and administrative coordinator for Richmond Quest, is SGA president. She is working toward a bachelor of liberal arts degree. Karren O’Connell, administrative assistant in the Westhampton College Dean’s Office, is secretary. She is working toward a bachelor of liberal arts degree. Terri Weaver, director of budgets and operations for the School of Arts & Sciences, is a member of the SGA board. She is working toward a master’s degree in human resources.
Jim Rettig, university librarian, has been installed as 2008–09 president of the American Library Association. As ALA president, Rettig is the chief elected officer of the 66,000-member organization, which provides leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship. In July, Rettig presented a paper, “Challenges for Academic Libraries in the Networked World,” at the 2008 Sino-U.S. Forum for Library Practice in Kunming, China.
Francine Reynolds, One Card Services, received a bachelor of liberal arts degree from the School of Continuing Studies on May 10. One Card Services holds the distinction that each of its staff has a degree from the University––Randy Moran received an M.B.A. in 1991 and Dianne St. John graduated from SCS in 2007.
Roberta Oster Sachs is interim assistant vice president for university communications. She has been associate dean for external relations at the law school for two years, where she was responsible for media and public relations, publications and marketing.
N. Elizabeth Schlatter, deputy director and curator of exhibitions, University Museums, recently authored Museum Careers: A Practical Guide for Students and Novices. Published by Left Coast Press, the 184-page book for emerging museum professionals features cover art by Tanja Softic, associate professor of art.
Jeffrey I. Seeman, visiting senior research chemistry scholar, has received a grant to create videos encouraging middle and high school student interest in science.
Awarded by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences, the grant will support production of 10 five-minute videos. They will target students in eighth through 10th grades and be distributed free to public and private schools.
Gary Shapiro, Tucker-Boatwright Professor in the Humanities, published “Assassins and Crusaders: Nietzsche After 9/11” in Reading Nietzsche at the Margins and the chapter on Nietzsche in the Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Religion. A chapter of his Earthwards: Robert Smithson and Art after Babel appeared in Spanish translation in Heterocronías: tiempo, arte, y arqueologías del presente. Shapiro gave invited lectures on geophilosophy and geoaesthetics in the graduate lecture series of the California College of the Arts and in a series on heterochrony in contemporary art at the Center for Research in Contemporary Art (CENDEAC, Murcia, Spain).
Porcher Taylor, associate professor of paralegal studies, and David E. Kitchen, associate professor of geology, both in the School of Continuing Studies, published an article in the May issue of Pharmaceutical Executive: The Business Magazine of Pharma. The article’s title is “Bringing in the Green.”
A University classroom activity using iPods was published in the Curriculum Collection of the MicrobeLibrary. Authored by Amy Treonis, assistant professor of biology; Malcolm Hill, associate professor of biology; Theresa Dolson, faculty development specialist; and two VCU collaborators, the article is titled “What Do Students Have to Say about Ecology and Evolution? Using Podcasting to Apply Integrative Biology Themes across the Tree of Life.” The Curriculum Collection provides undergraduate educators with access to peer-reviewed resource materials, including classroom activities, lab exercises and ideas for projects or research approaches.
Joe Troncale, associate professor of Russian, received the Petropol Award in June in St. Petersburg, Russia, at a ceremony in the Alexander Pushkin Museum for his essay “The True Water of the Universe: A Sense of the Source of Being in the Work of Evgeny Orlov.” The essay appeared in a catalog of Orlov’s paintings published by the Museum of Nonconformist Art in St. Petersburg. Troncale is the first American to receive the award, presented annually to Russian and foreign artists for original contributions and accomplishments in the fields of art and culture.