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March 2009 |
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Faculty Notebook
Cummins
Joins Louisiana Company of Fellows
 Austin
College Professor of History Light Cummins was inducted into
the Company of Fellows of the Louisiana Historical Association
during the association meeting March 19-21 in Monroe, Louisiana. The
new inductees, Cummins and Jerry P. Sanson of Louisiana State
University, were introduced by a fellow or other member of the
association. “It was my pleasure to induct Dr. Cummins who I have
known for almost 40 years,” said Stephen Webre, chair of the Fellows
Committee, and a member of the Department of History at Louisiana
Tech University.
The Company of Fellows provides
special recognition to senior members of the profession who have
made distinguished contributions to Louisiana history as teachers
and scholars.
A member of the Austin College
history faculty since 1978, Cummins holds the Guy M. Bryan, Jr.,
Chair in American History. He is director of the Center for
Southwestern and Mexican Studies, a program of Austin College that
provides outreach, internships, and community service activities
that educate students about issues facing Texas and Mexico.
Cummins’ research specialty is
the history of the Spanish Borderlands, especially the Texas and
Louisiana Gulf Coast. He is especially interested in the 18th
century Anglo-American migration into the lower Mississippi Valley
and Gulf Coast areas. His six books include A Guide to the
History of Louisiana; Spanish Observers and the American Revolution;
and Louisiana: A History. He is the author of several
dozen scholarly articles dealing with colonial Louisiana and Texas.
Cummins earned bachelor’s and
master’s degrees at what is now Texas State University. After
service in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence officer, he
received a doctorate in history from Tulane University.
Cummins, a Fulbright Scholar to
Spain earlier in his career, serves as an Associate of the Danforth
Foundation, is a former member of the Board of Directors of the
Louisiana Historical Association, and is a former chair of the
Grayson County Historical Commission. He served two terms as a
member of the Board of Directors of the Texas Council for the
Humanities, now known as Humanities Texas. He is a lifetime Fellow
of the Texas State Historical Association, a former president of the
Southwestern Historical Association, and a life member of the
Louisiana Historical Association, and he has been active in a number
of other historical organizations. He is a member of the Sons of the
American Revolution and the Sons of the Republic of Texas, William
B. Travis Chapter.
Louisiana Historical Association
Fellows are nominated by the Fellows Selection Committee of the LHA,
which may originate its own nominations or receive nominations from
the general membership. There may be no more than 35 living fellows
at any one time. There are now 27 living fellows, 10 deceased
fellows, and 10 posthumous fellows. Back
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Barker
Book Explores Religious Nationalism
 Philip
Barker, Austin College assistant professor
of political science, has written a new book titled Religious
Nationalism in Modern Europe: If God be for Us. The book, a part
of the Routledge Studies in Nationalism and Ethnicity series, was
released earlier this year.
The volume examines the enduring
nature of religious nationalism in modern Europe. Through a series
of in-depth case studies covering Ireland, England, Poland, and
Greece, Barker argues that religious frontiers — or geographic lines
of division between different and unique religions — are central to
the formation of religiously based national identities.
Typically, as states develop
economically and politically, religion plays a lesser role in both
individual lives and national identity, Barker argues. However, at
religious frontiers, religion becomes useful for differentiating and
mobilizing groups of people. This is particularly true when the
religious frontier also represents a threat or conflict.
Although religion may not be the
root of conflict in these instances, the conflict takes on religious
tones because of its ability to unite an otherwise diverse
population. Religion takes precedence over language, culture, or
other national building blocks because the “other” can best be
distinguished in religious terms.
The in-depth case studies allow
for a deep historical understanding of the processes that converge
to create a modern religious nation.
Barker joined Austin College in
2008. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history and political
science from Texas A&M University and his master’s degree in
political science and a Ph. D. in political science from the
University of Colorado at Boulder. Barker’s work focuses in the
fields of comparative politics, international relations, and
methodology, and his research interests include religion and
politics, nationalism and ethnicity, and religion and foreign
policy. Back
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  ention
of a physics professor can evoke the stereotypical image of an
eccentric but brilliant Einstein-type. Andra Troncalli, Austin
College assistant professor of physics, may fall into the brilliant
category, but the stereotype falls apart from there — though she
reluctantly admits she has worked math problems just for fun.
“I can’t even remember a time when I was not interested in science
and math,” Troncalli said, cognizant that such confessions might
result in her being thought a geek.
Fully aware that physics “isn’t
the easiest conversation starter,” Troncalli certainly is no
introverted figure muttering jargon in the halls of Moody Science.
Her keen interest in the lives of her students, a well-rounded
appreciation of other subjects and cultures (she reads Russian and
has varying degrees of mastery in French, Italian, German, and
Spanish, as well as fluency in English and her native Romanian),
and the easy and gregarious manner in which she communicates easily
exempt her from the socially awkward ranks of “geekdom.”
Troncalli grew up in Romania, in
a much different world than the one most of her American students
know. “Romania’s a small country and being behind the Iron Curtain,
I was always kind of curious about the rest of the world,” she said.
Access to only two hours per day of one television network required
that Troncalli sate her curiosity with her mother’s extensive
library. “For most people [in Romania], if you go into their home,
there is no entertainment center; you had bookshelves stacked full
of books,” Troncalli said. “We had less access to popular culture
and entertainment.”
By age 14, Troncalli’s education
already was specialized as she attended a math and physics high
school. In 1994, she received her bachelor’s degree in physics from
the University of Bucharest and came to the U.S. (with two suitcases
and $250) to obtain a master’s degree and Ph.D. in physics at
Western Michigan University. She worked in research and as a process
engineer in the semiconductor industry before she joined the physics
faculty at Austin College and began teaching in February 2005. She
found that her natural curiosity about the world fit perfectly with
the College’s liberal arts emphasis.
Troncalli is no doubt a
physicist and very passionate about her work. She can discuss the
field of superconductivity or her work on an international
collaboration project between the U.S., Russia, and Finland to
develop new ferromagnetic shape memory smart materials in such
detail that it can seem a foreign language. Yet, Troncalli enjoys
her role as a teacher and interaction with students as much as
performing irradiations of samples in the Argonne National
Laboratory, where she shared space with Alexei Abrikosov before he
won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003.
“The interaction with students
is what I enjoy most about my job,” Troncalli said. “They are young,
enthusiastic, and haven’t had time to become cynical about the world
around them. They want to change the world, and oftentimes, they
succeed. Being around young people makes me still excited about
that. Although I am not out changing the world myself, maybe I can
educate these students and they can go out and make changes.”
There’s nothing geeky about
that. Back
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Lourdes Bueno,
associate professor of Spanish, is the new editor of Estreno,
a biannual journal of contemporary Spanish theater, created in
1975 and known nationally and internationally. Her first issue
(featuring a play by Jose Moreno Arenas) is out in March. She
also is supervisor and editor of the section on drama of En
sentido figurado, an electronic journal devoted to
publishing works by the most recent Spanish writers. Her article
“¿Reina o mujer? El conflicto interno de los personajes
históricos femeninos en las obras de Antonia Bueno, Concha
Romero y Carmen Resino” has been published in Dramaturgias
femeninas en el teatro español contemporáneo: entrepasado y
presente, edited by Wilfried Floeck et al.
Mark Hebert,
associate professor of philosophy, delivered the paper “Using
Positive Psychology in Student Internships” at the Institute for
College Student Values Conference in February at the University
of Florida at Tallahassee. The focus of the conference was
“Finding the Good Life: How Positive Psychology Can Help College
Students to Discover and Utilize their Personal Strengths and
Virtues.”
Roger Platizky,
professor of English, presented a paper for the “Queer
Iconography Conference” in December 2008 at Hofstra University
in Long Island, New York. During a Fall Term 2008 sabbatical,
Platizky visited libraries in London, Cambridge, and New York
City to continue his research on the social, scientific, and
literary representations of epidemics.
 Ivette
Vargas-O’Bryan, associate professor of
religious studies, is chair of the Comparative and Asian Studies
in Religion Section of the Southwest Commission on Religious
Studies. She reviewed paper abstracts and organized panels on
religion and science for SWCRS conferences in 2008 and 2009. She
recently participated in a research study conducted by Claudia
Salguero with the support of the Department of Leadership in
Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Vargas-O’Bryan was interviewed for a study examining the
processes and structures associated with internal organizational
collaboration in liberal arts colleges. This study explores how
college campuses can become highly collaborative and responsive
to internal and external changes. In addition, she participated
in a filmed interview with artist-in-residence Pema Rinzin for
the Trammell and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art archives.
Sciences
Peter C. Schulze,
professor of biology and environmental science and director of
the Center for Environmental Studies, published “Fast, easy
measurements for assessing vital signs of tall grassland” in the
journal Ecological Indicators. Kellie Wilcox ’04
and Anthony Swift ’03, students at the time of their
involvement, assisted with the research and co-authored the
article. Janet Beckert, former coordinator of the Austin College
Center for Environmental Studies, also co-authored.
Social Sciences
Peter DeLisle,
Crane Chair in Leadership Studies and director of the Posey
Leadership Institute, was a program contributor January 12 for
the month-long “Leadership in a New Era” course at the Osgood
Center for International Studies in Washington, D.C., where
Shelton Williams, professor emeritus of political
science, is president. DeLisle also was the keynote speaker for
the Texas Conference on the Education of Gifted and Talented
held in Midland, Texas, on January 29. His presentation was
“Responsive Teaching and Leadership for Differentiation.”
Hank Gorman,
professor of psychology, presented a poster, “Drug Courts:
Applying Psychology Where It Matters,” at the National Institute
of Teaching of Psychology in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, in
January.
 Janet Huber Lowry,
who retired as associate professor of sociology in
May 2008, is
president of the Southwestern Sociological Association,
organizing the business meetings for this affiliate of the
Southwestern Social Science Association at its annual meeting in
April in Denver, Colorado. She
will chair three sessions of graduate student paper
presentations and facilitate the student awards
competition at
undergraduate, master, and doctoral levels.
Don Rodgers,
associate professor of political science, was an invited speaker
at the one-day “New Actors and Factors in Cross Strait
Relations” conference presented by the Sigur Center for Asian
Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of
International Affairs in January. His presentation was “KMT
Identity and Electoral Strategy: Maintaining Chinese Identity
and Winning Elections in Taiwan,” serving as a member of the
panel on “Political Change in Taiwan and Impact on Cross Strait
Interaction.”
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Mark Smith, professor of art, offered
a solo exhibition of paintings and sculpture during February and
March at Craighead-Green Gallery in the Dallas Design district.
The exhibit featured new works from Smith’s “Summer of Love”
series. His work also was featured in February at the Dallas Art
Fair, a convergence of 30 of the nation’s top galleries dealing
in 21st century American art, located at the Fashion Industry
Gallery. The fair was organized by the Dallas Art Dealers
Association, the Contemporary Art Dealers Association of
America, and the American Institute of Fashion. Smith’s work was
featured in the North Texas visual arts publication THE
magazine and reviewed in print and online in D Magazine,
the Fort Worth Star Telegram, and the Dallas Observer.
Mark Monroe, professor of art,
recently completed a large scale site-specific sculpture in a
collaboration with French Canadian artist Natali Leduc. The
project is in the design district of Dallas at the home of the
Dallas Contemporary, a new art space on Glass Street. The
sculpture is built from materials salvaged from the remodeling
of the interior of this former warehouse and is an inaugural
project for the Contemporary. The sculpture is titled “To Paint
a Bird’s Portrait,” from the poem by Jaques Prevért. Back
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March 2009
Feedback? |
 Tom
Nuckols, professor emeritus of
religion, has been busy this past year, traveling in Latin America.
In the summer, he drove through Mexico to Belize and saw how eastern
Mexico has been transformed from campesino small farms to huge
multinational agribusiness plantations. The result is that 1,000
people a day move to Mexico City. Others move to other Mexican
cities or to the U.S. He said this is part of the greatest human
migration in history, from the farm to the city. In the fall, he saw
a dramatic example of this migration when he visited a squatter
settlement near Lima, Peru, that now numbers 500,000 people. On the
same trip he explored Inca sites such as Machu Picchu in Peru and
Quito in Ecuador and explored the Galapagos Islands for nine days.
In January, he went with Overseas Adventure Travels to Costa Rica
for white water rafting, hiking, and enjoying the beautiful and
diverse flora and fauna. He barely missed being on a road destroyed
by the earthquake. Nuckols said he is now 75 and has to keep moving
because there is so much to see and do and so little time left to do
it. He expects to be kept very busy for the next few years
completing his “bucket list.”
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