December 2007 Issue

December 2007 Issue

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Faculty Notebook

What’s the Value of International Study?

ustin College faculty and administrators have long encouraged students to take advantage of international study opportunities. As a result, more than 70 percent of recent Austin College graduates have had an international study experience during their college years. What are the benefits? Can they be measured? How does international study influence the individual — and the campus community?

A group of Austin College faculty discussed just that Sept. 13–15 when they gathered in a Teagle Consortium meeting on campus, hosting faculty representatives from Furman University (South Carolina), Juniata College (Pennsylvania), and Washington and Lee University (Virginia).

The four schools were jointly awarded a grant from the Teagle Foundation of New York in May 2005 to explore “Value-Added Assessment of Student Learning in the Liberal Arts: Assessing the Impact of Engaged Learning.” The grant was one of 44 awarded by the Teagle Foundation’s Outcomes and Assessment initiative, which promotes the development and use of faculty-driven, value-added assessment to improve learning outcomes and teaching methods.

The institutions took on the challenge of implementing assessment efforts in four major areas: undergraduate research (Furman), study away (Austin College, in consultation with the Associated Colleges of the South), ethics (Washington and Lee), and collaborative learning (Juniata).

This fall’s conference focused on Austin College faculty efforts in the area of study away, examining formalized semester or year study abroad programs offered around the world, as well as international study courses like those offered during Austin College’s January Term. The faculty members presented their findings and shared strategies for program assessment, the issues and challenges associated with study away, and implications for curriculum based on findings.

Robert Cape, professor of classics; Jill Schurr, assistant professor of psychology; Karen Nelson, associate vice president for Institutional Effectiveness; Mike Fairley, associate professor of communication studies; and Judy Wheaton, director of Institutional Research and Assessment, presented findings and materials on behalf of Austin College. Mike Imhoff, vice president for Academic Affairs and dean of the faculty, welcomed the visitors from Furman, Washington and Lee, and Juniata.

The Teagle Foundation of New York provides leadership for liberal education, seeking to assure that students have access to challenging, wide-ranging, and enriching college educations. The mission statement of the foundation states the belief that the benefits of liberal learning last for a lifetime and are best achieved when colleges develop broad and intellectually stimulating curricula, engage their students in active learning, explore questions of deep social and personal significance, set clear goals, and — crucially — systematically measure progress toward them.

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Tracz Explores Art Books

Tim Tracz, professor of art, offered the following comments regarding his work during his 2006–2007 sabbatical.

“During the sabbatical, I continued work in my studio with two ongoing series of   photo/digital works, which will be exhibited in solo shows at Paris Junior College and at Texas A&M at Laredo in 2008. Six images from these series have been selected for publication consideration in an updated edition of Photographic Possibilities, a book that identifies unusual and innovative approaches to use of the photographic medium. Earlier I had an image included in the same author’s Exploring Color Photography.

“In efforts to learn more about the fabrication, exhibition, and distribution of handmade books, I traveled to several hotbeds of artist book activity in order to touch base with individuals and institutions in communities of small publication and limited edition bookmaking. They include: Santa Fe, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis. By showing my newest work, which includes two limited edition books created with digital tools, my goal is to network and seek opportunities to join the larger community of book artists. Earlier I participated in a book arts exhibition at the University of North Texas, and the two books are under consideration for distribution at Printed Matter in New York.

“The book works emanate from my current research and teaching initiative, which is to integrate digital processes with other, more traditional media, including painting, drawing, and printmaking techniques. As such, I have begun a series of collaborative (with alumna Jean Roelke ’88) mixed media pieces — work very different from my more strictly photographic art making of the past. The first public exposure of this work was in a group exhibition at the University of Texas at Arlington in October. I intend to continue this project with goals of a solo exhibition, additional books, and possibly a film.”

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College Mourns Loss of Two Faculty

Charles Raymond Woodrow, professor emeritus of mathematics, died July 26 in Sherman after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Woodrow joined the Austin College faculty in 1959, teaching until his retirement in 1988. He and his wife of 59 years, Lila, remained in the Sherman community following his retirement. For 17 years during this period, he also served as pastor of the Mahota Presbyterian Church in Marietta, Okla. Before joining the Austin College faculty, he had taught in public schools in Oklahoma and also was pastor at several churches in Oklahoma and in Kentucky.

Woodrow received a bachelor’s degree from Greenville College in Illinois. He earned a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky and a Master of Mathematics Education from Oklahoma State University. He did post-graduate work at Florida State University.

In addition to his teaching and pastoral pursuits, he was a charter member of the Texoma Barbershop Chorus and an avid sports fan. He enjoyed travel and led many Austin College student groups on tours of Europe to study art and science.

James E. Knowlton, a member of the German faculty since 1988, died of a heart attack at his home in Sherman on July 22.

“Jim Knowlton was a highly respected scholar among the faculty and made important contributions to the College’s international programs as director for Study Abroad and as the faculty representative to the Fulbright scholars program,” said Mike Imhoff, vice president for Academic Affairs. “His presence will be missed at Austin College.”

Knowlton received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in German at the University of New Hampshire and earned a doctorate in German at Graz University. He taught German at the University of Northern Iowa from 1977 to 1982 and at Rutgers University from 1982 to 1988 prior to joining Austin College.

Knowlton Memorial Endowment Fund

Friends, family, and colleagues of Knowlton have begun the James Knowlton Memorial Endowment Fund for Study Abroad at Austin College, hoping to raise $25,000 in a permanent memorial to Knowlton’s passion for travel and languages.

Contributions to the fund may be sent to Austin College Office of Development, 900 N. Grand Avenue Suite 6G, Sherman, TX 75090 or made on the College’s secure giving site.

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Professional Activities

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Tom Baker, professor of education, presented a paper, “’Why I Get Up Each Morning’: Case Studies of Intern Teachers Reaching Challenging Students,” at the Texas Association of Teacher Educators conference in Austin, Texas, in June. He attended a Syfr conference, “Science and Math Education in a Flat World,” in Santa Fe, N.M., July 8–11. Syfr Corporation is an education consulting company that brings together educational leaders from around the country. Baker also participated in a National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) workshop July 23–27 at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., to learn how teachers can use global mapping technology in their classrooms.

Jeff Czajkowski, assistant professor of economics, presented a paper, “Is it Time to Go Yet? Dynamically Modeling Hurricane Evacuation Decisions,” at the 21st Annual Florida Governor’s Hurricane Conference in May in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; at the Annual Hazards and Disaster Researchers Meeting in Boulder, Colo., in July; and at the 77th Annual Southern Economic Association Meeting in New Orleans, La., in November.

Kevin Simmons, associate professor of economics, made a presentation, “Tornado Shelters and the Housing Market,” in July at the 25th Anniversary Conference on Construction Management and Economics at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. Simmons has written, with colleague Dan Sutter, four articles accepted for publication. The article and publication sites are “Tornado Warnings, Lead Times, and Tornado Casualties: An Empirical Investigation,” Weather and Forecasting; “Tornado Shelters and the Housing Market,” Construction Management and Economics; “Tornado Shelters and the Manufactured Home Parks Market,” Natural Hazards; and “Improvements in Tornado Warnings and Tornado Casualties,” International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters.

Shelton Williams, professor of political science, was elected this year to a two-year term on the board of the National Collegiate Conference Association (NCCA). The NCCA conducts both the National Model United Nations in New York and the National Model United Nations in Washington, D.C.

SCIENCES

David Baker, associate professor of physics, presented two papers at the American Geophysical Union 2006 Fall Meeting in San Francisco: “Design Guide for Earth System Science Education: Common Student Learning Objectives and Special Pedagogical approaches” and “Tested Tools You Can Use: Evaluating Earth System Science Courses.”

Lance Barton, assistant professor of biology, published an article, “Ubiquitin-independent degradation of cell cycle inhibitors by the REGy proteasome,” that was featured on the cover of the June 22 issue of the journal Molecular Cell. The paper was completed in collaboration with researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wash.

Steve Goldsmith, professor of biology, has written “Longhorned beetle (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) density differs at different elevations in Hawaiian montane forest” for The Southwestern Naturalist, September 2007. Published in that same issue, Goldsmith and Hayley Gillespie ’03 and Cole Weatherby ’04 wrote “Restoration of Hawaiian montane wet forest: endemic longhorned beetles (Cerambycidae: Plagithmysus) in koa (Fabaceae: Acacia koa) plantations and in intact forest.”

Don Salisbury, associate professor of physics, spoke at the Eleventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity at the Free University of Berlin in July 2006, presenting the invited talk “Rosenfeld, Bergmann, Dirac, and the Invention of Constrained  Hamiltonian.” He also presented “A generalized Schroedinger equation for loop quantum cosmology,” based in part on work done by Allison Schmitz ’05 in her Austin College physics honors thesis. In November 2006, he presented “The passage of time in Einstein’s universe” at the University of Texas at El Paso and, in Spanish, “Astronomía mesoamericana” to Mexican high school students at the University of Juarez. In February 2007, he co-organized and gave two talks at the Austin College Mini-Symposium, “The Nature of Time.” This two-day international meeting brought to campus more than 40 undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty participants. In May 2006 and 2007, he co-taught in Florence, Italy, with science historian Tom Settle, a Chautauqua Short Course for college teachers sponsored by the National Science Foundation on “Galileo in Context.” In June 2007, he spoke on “Le Problème du Temps en Relativité Générale” at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Andra Troncalli, associate professor of physics, and Larry Robinson, professor of physics, made presentations at the summer meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers held July 28–Aug. 1 in Greensboro, N.C. Troncalli’s presentation was “Investigating High-Temperature Superconductivity through Data Acquisition with LabVIEW.” Robinson’s presentation was “Introducing Lab-Based Problems in Classical Mechanics.”

HUMANITIES

Justin Banks, College archivist with rank of instructor, attended the annual conference of the Society of American Archivists in Chicago in August and took the 2007 archival certification examination administered by the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA). He has received notification that he passed the examination and was invited to join the Academy.

Jeffrey Fontana, associate professor of art history, spent 10 days in Manhattan this summer conducting research on the architecture and sculpture of the New York Public Library (NYPL) on Fifth Avenue. He worked at the research library and in the archives at the NYPL, as well as in the special collections of the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University. During a trip to Austin, he researched unpublished drawings by Italian painter Federico Barocci at the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas and by the American illustrator Norman Rockwell in a private collection.

Alex Garganigo, assistant professor of English, presented papers in two March conferences, offering “Samson’s Cords” at the Northeast Modern Language Association in Baltimore, Md., and “Imposing Oaths in Samson Agonistes” at the South Central Renaissance Conference in San Antonio, Texas.

Marsha McCoy, visiting assistant professor of classics, took students to the University of Texas at Arlington in March for Homerathon, a day-long public reading of Homer’s entire Odyssey. She presented the keynote address “Coinage, Culture, and History: Romans and Gauls, Ancient and Modern” at UTArlington’s annual Adventures in Antiquity. In April, she presented a paper, “Coinage and Identity in the Roman East,” at the Classical Association of the Middle West and South meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended the annual meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians at Princeton University in May. This summer, she attended a “Reacting to the Past” conference at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., in which teachers from colleges and universities across the U.S. engaged in roleplaying games from turning points in history using only primary sources as background texts. “The games we played — looking at Athens in 403 B.C.E. after her defeat in the Peloponnesian War, the other focusing on Rome after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.E. — enabled us to get up close and personal with the ancient sources and with other actors in the real life dramas that were played out in those distant yet still relevant pasts,” McCoy said.

Jackie Moore, professor of history and 2007–2008 Summerlee Foundation Research Fellow for the Study of Texas History at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at SMU, gave a presentation, “Cow Boys vs. Cattle Men: Restraining Masculinity on the Texas Frontier,” Nov. 14 for the center’s brown bag lecture series. She has been accepted to present “Beyond Marco Polo: Medieval Silk Road Travel Accounts in the Classroom” at the 43rd International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Mich., May 8–11 and to present “Cow Boys, Cattle Men, and Competing Masculinities on the Texas Frontier” for an international conference on masculinity studies at Birkbeck College at the University of London in May.

Ivette Vargas, assistant professor of religious studies, presented “Remembering the Ordained Nuns: Models for Tibetan Communities” at the International Congress on Buddhist Women’s Role in the Sangha Bhikshuna Vinaya and Ordination Lineages in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2007.

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Igniting Passions

I was impressed by the close student-faculty relationships
and the strength of Austin College’s international programs.
— Don Rodgers

During his freshman year at Ohio Wesleyan University, Don Rodgers had an interest in international politics and took a class in modern Chinese history. He also had the benefit of having a great professor who influenced his life beyond the classroom. “I was fascinated with the topic and had a wonderful professor, Terry Weidner, who inspired me to pursue this area of study,” said Rodgers, Austin College assistant professor of political science. He traveled to Taiwan his junior year of college, again guided by Weidner.

Today, the roles have changed. Now, Rodgers, with his passion for international politics and Asia still alive, is the one inspiring students to learn about and visit the region. “I always wanted to teach in a small liberal arts environment,” he said. “Austin College reminded me of my undergraduate experience. Specifically, I was impressed by the close student-faculty relationships and the strength of Austin College’s international programs.”

Since coming to Austin College in 2003, Rodgers has taken 22 students to Taiwan during summers and January Terms. During summer 2005, he and four students visited Taiwan under an AsiaNetwork Freeman Foundation Grant for student-faculty collaborative research. He also has helped several students and alumni obtain internships or jobs in Asia. “I have been fortunate to develop good friendships and relationships with political leaders and scholars in Taiwan and have been able to introduce students to different opportunities there,” Rodgers said. During Austin College’s 2007 Asia Week, Rodgers secured a grant from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy to fund a Taiwan symposium on campus featuring Peng Ming-min, considered the father of Taiwan’s democracy.

Rodgers’ specific interest in Taiwan started when he studied Chinese there his junior year at Ohio Wesleyan, but has deepened through graduate research, business travel, and teaching others about the issues and concerns that face the country today. It robably doesn’t hurt his interest in Taiwan that he met his wife, Kuani Rodgers, on a business trip to the country and married there in 1999. Kuani taught Chinese at Austin College as an adjunct instructor during the 2005–2006 academic year.

The professors at Ohio Wesleyan had a very strong influence on my life and goals,” Rodgers said. It seems the torch has been passed. “My mentor, Don Rodgers, sparked my interest in Asia when I took his Communication/Inquiry class my freshman year,”  said Jordan DiBona ’08, a double major in business administration and Asian studies who has studied in China. “Don has had a tremendous influence on me and pointed me in the right direction to find a passion and run with it.”

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Outstanding Faculty Promoted to Full Professor;
Others Granted Tenure and Promotions

The rank of full professor at Austin College is reserved for those faculty members whose careers reflect outstanding cumulative achievement. Faculty Patrick Duffey, Spanish; Steve Goldsmith, biology; Jacqueline Moore, history; and Peter Schulze, biology and environmental science, were promoted to the rank of professor effective fall 2007.

Faculty considered for promotion to professor have demonstrated excellence in teaching and in research, publication, or other recognized professional work that supports distinguished teaching and continued intellectual growth. Superior performance in areas such as advising, program development, committee service, and other institutional leadership is required. A faculty member normally completes a minimum of six years of successful full-time teaching at the rank of associate professor before consideration for promotion.

Lisa Brown, psychology; Jeff Fontana, art history; Shellene Kelly, computer science; and Scott Langton, Japanese, were granted tenure and promotion to associate professor effective fall 2007.

Faculty members considered for tenure are evaluated on teaching, professional development, and service to Austin College, with teaching the most important factor in evaluation. Tenure is a contractual agreement for continued appointment until retirement unless the faculty member resigns or is dismissed for cause.

Austin College tenure-track faculty members normally are considered for tenure in the sixth year of probationary service at the College.

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Where are they now? Bill Moore

Transylvania doesn’t sound quite like the dream spot for a retirement haven, but that’s exactly where William H. Moore, professor emeritus of English, landed after leaving Austin College in 2002. Moore probably hasn’t seen Count Dracula in Transylvania County, N.C., but has caught an eyeful of gorgeous scenery from his home just outside the small-town tourist destination of Brevard, N.C.

“In the county are a national park [Blue Ridge Parkway], national forest, state park, and state forest, with hundreds of miles of trails, a good number of which we have hiked,” said Moore, who lives in Pisgah Forest with his wife, Suzanne. “In winter, our ‘halfway-up-a-holler’ house looks 15 miles across the valley to 5,000 to 6,000-foot ridges topped by Cold Mountain of movie and novel fame. In summer, we see nothing but greenery from a biodiversity great enough to make George Diggs [Austin College professor of biology] envious.”

Though Moore is happy to be free from the “set and unending schedule” of working life, he has stayed busy exploring the area, visiting his daughter and grandchildren in eastern North Carolina, tutoring a few college students, enjoying the local musical scene at summer festival and college performances, and caring for his wife, who has been facing a cancerous blood disorder for four years.

Moore misses “the extraordinary persons among the students and faculty” he knew during his 35 years at the College and the opportunities to discuss Dante, but has found retirement offers a chance to think reflectively on life. “It’s been a time, in part, when I’ve had the chance to change some patterns and activities, but, in other parts, new challenges and responsibilities have taken control of what I need to do,” Moore said.

Contact Moore at srwhmoore@citcom.net or 13 Falls Creek Court, Pisgah Forest, NC 28768-9554.

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Bueno Researches Spanish Dramatists

Lourdes Bueno, associate professor of Spanish, reported a very productive 2006–2007 sabbatical. Just prior to her sabbatical, she had begun to study the female playwright Antonia Bueno, having met her in a conference in Spain. Antonia Bueno visited Austin College in spring 2007 and worked with student groups on productions of some of her plays. Lourdes Bueno was interested in studying the playwright because Spanish female playwrights are rarely the objects of study and have difficulty getting their plays on stage.

Bueno wanted to help those female playwrights become known to her students. In addition to her study of Antonia Bueno, she spent time in Spain interviewing four other female contemporary Spanish dramatists. She originally planned to use her sabbatical to write a book, but ended the sabbatical with one already published and another forthcoming. The book published in May 2007 is Sancha, Reina de la Hispania by Antonia Bueno. Lourdes Bueno’s forthcoming book, History, Legend, Memory is a critical edition and analysis of the three works that form the Trilogy of Medieval Women, also written by Antonia Bueno.

In addition to the two books, during her sabbatical Bueno wrote four articles, two reviews, some creative works, and presented several papers, including “Blood (sweet and bitter) in Antonia Bueno’s plays” at the 27th Cincinnati Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures in May; “Gender and Sexual Identity Representations in the Spanish Drama” at the University of Cádiz in July; “Queen or Woman? The Inner Conflict of the Female Historical Characters in Three Plays Written by Antonia Bueno, Concha Romero, and Carmen Resino” in Germany in September; and “Dulcinea or the reinterpretation of a myth” at the Dallas Public Library in October.

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Lowry Leads Trip to India 

Janet Huber Lowry, associate professor of sociology, led a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program in July, including 18 faculty and public school teachers, studying “Globalization and Societal Change in South India.” Julia Shahid, associate professor of education, Melanie Fox Kean, assistant professor of economics, and Lisa Brown, associate professor of psychology, were part of the group that performed service projects throughout India as well as planned curriculum adjustments in their own classrooms based upon new ideas and information gained during the trip.

For example, Brown interviewed members of a Dalit colony, (Dalits formerly were known as Untouchables) to gain insights on the experiences of these individuals and their community. She will integrate content into her “Cultural Psychology” course, where research often has juxtaposed “the East” (mostly China and Japan) with “the West” (mostly the U.S.), without noting the variations within these regions. Brown also will develop an international and comparative focus in her “Stigma and Prejudice” course by including information about the caste system in India.

Shahid, who will use information gathered in India during the 2008 Austin Teacher Program summer program for elementary students at Jefferson School in Sherman, took part in a service effort providing seminars in public speaking at Ewart Women’s College. The school caters to young Dalit women who face challenges of gender and class, seeking to provide not only a scholastic environment but to encourage self-esteem, confidence, and opportunity in its students.

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