Faculty/Staff News of Note
November 2003
Dr. Dawn Blasko, associate professor of psychology, recently presented "Teaching spatial skills across the curriculum with VIZ: The Visualization Assessment and Training Project, " at the Society for Computing in Psychology in Vancouver, B.C, Canada, on November 7. Her co-authors were Kathy Holliday-Darr, instructor in engineering graphics, Derek Mace, instructor of psychology, and undergraduate student Holly Drabik.
Dr. Dawn Blasko, and Dr. Victoria Kazmerski, associate professors of psychology, presented a paper entitled "COR V2: Teaching Research with Courseware for Observational Research," at the Society for Computing in Psychology in Vancouver B.C, Canada. The presentation described and demonstrated their new multimedia software that was developed with the help of Carla Torgerson, instructional designer at Behrend.
Dr. Teresa Caruso, instructor of English, edited a book titled "On the Subject of the Feminist Business: Re-reading Flannery O'Connor," which will be published by Peter Long Publishing in 2004.
Ruth Pflueger, director of the Learning Resource Center, attended a Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Test Preparation Workshop on November 14-15, in Princeton, New Jersey. The workshop was sponsored and conducted by the Educational Testing Service's GRE program staff. The purpose was to provide information to enable administrators to conduct GRE preparation workshops for students.
Shannon Sweeney, assistant professor of engineering, gave a presentation titled "Collaborative Development of a Structural Damper Utilizing Ultra-High Damped Elastomer" on November 16 at the 2003 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress in Washington, D.C.
Dr. James F. Fairbank, assistant professor of management, is co-author of an article in the November/December 2003 BizEd, the magazine of the AACSB. His article, co-authored with Joe Labianca of Emory University, is titled "Picking the Perfect Peers" and focuses on benchmarking as a way of ensuring continuous quality improvement.
Dr. Thomas L. Hemminger, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, presented his paper titled "A Neural Control Method for Impedance Matching of Antenna Systems" at the Artificial Neural Networks in Engineering (ANNIE) Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, on November 5. He was also session chair.
Dr. Victoria Kazmerski, associate professor of psychology, recently presented "ERP Evidence for Differences in Automaticity of Metaphor Processing in Younger Adults," which was co-authored with Dr. Dawn Blasko, associate professor of psychology, and alumnus Alejandra Marroquin, at the annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research in Chicago, Illinois, on November 1.
Dr. Robert Roecklein, lecturer in English, gave a presentation titled "Leo Strauss' Theory of Esoteric Writing and the Philosophy of Epicurus" at the Northeast Political Science Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 6-8. Roecklein also served as chair and discussant for the panel "Aristotle and Athenian Democracy."
Professor of English and Business, Dr. Chester L. Wolford's "The Anger of Henry Fleming: The Epic of Consciousness" and The Red Badge of Courage," has been reprinted in Harold Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Chelsea House, 2004, pp. 41-69.
Greg Fowler, assistant professor of American literature and American studies, and a Fulbright Scholar, recently returned from a year of teaching at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Free University in Berlin. In addition to teaching for two semesters, Fowler gave lectures, training seminars, and conference presentations throughout Germany on behalf of the American Embassy and the German-American Institutes.
Dr, Anthony Foyle, assistant professor of geology, and Kevin Norton, lecturer in geology, attended the Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Seattle, Washington, November 1-5, to present a poster on Presque Isle coastal geology. The presentation is titled "How Does the Surf Zone - Shoreface Profile on a Highstand Systems Tract Strandplain Respond to High-Frequency Transgressions and Repressions at Geologically Short Timescales?"
Norton also gave a poster as a solo author titled "Visualizing Holocene Landscapes: Isostatic Rebound and Lake Level Variations in the Superior Basin," and co-authored a poster with student Adam Lanier titled "GIS-Based Analysis of the Chautauqua Drumlin Field, Northwest Pennsylvania and Western New York."
Jonathan Hall, instructor in physics, and Dr. Richard Furlan, lecturer in physics, attended the Introductory Calculus-Based Physics Conference in Alexandria, Virginia, on October 31 - November 2.
Dr. Roger Knacke, director, School of Science, Dr. Darren Williams, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and Jonathan Hall, instructor in physics, had their article, "Building a School Observatory," published in Mercury, the magazine of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The article includes information on how to choose a telescope, selecting an observatory site, fighting light pollution, and teaching on public use of an observatory. The article is supported by photos of the Mehalso Observatory and other campus photos, taken by Knacke, Bill Owen, photographer, Carolyn Dudas, computer support specialist, and Jerry Magraw, lab technician, as well as photos taken with the observatory's electronic CCD cameras.
Gregor Olsavsky, instructor of mathematics, published an article titled "The Number of 2 by 2 Matrices over Z/pZ with Eigenvalues in the Same Field" in the October issue of Mathematics Magazine.
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