Faculty news and notes
The following faculty news and notes will be found in the upcoming summer edition of ‘The Bridge.” The magazine is expected to be mailed during the week of July 23.
Dr. Greg Beatty, adjunct instructor, had his short story “Behind the Mind Guard” accepted for inclusion in the Mind Candy Too anthology. Additionally, his short story “I Can Always Tell a John” was accepted for inclusion in the Strange Economics anthology.
Dr. Scott Figdore, professor of science and Robert L. Fox endowed chair of science, presented “Rediscovering the Dr. C.C. Parker Herbarium Collection” at UIU’s Fayette Campus on March 26.
Dr. Nigel George, professor of physics and mathematics, and Dr. Katherine McCarville, professor of geosciences, presented a talk titled “STEM-Pros at Upper Iowa: A Glimpse of the Future?” on February 2 at the 2017-18 LSAMP IINSPIRE Annual Conference, Blending STEM and Society. The talk reported on preliminary results from STEM-Pros: Growing More STEM Professionals in the Heartland, an S-STEM program funded by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Melinda Heinz, assistant professor of psychology, made two presentations this spring at the 44th annual meeting of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. One presentation was titled “Implementing an Oral History Project into a Social Gerontology Class.” The other was titled “Concept Maps for Sensitive Topics: A Teaching Tool.”
Tiffany Kragnes ’16, Upper Iowa University Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, is pictured accepting the Teaching, Learning and Scholarship Innovative Design Award from Colby Valentine, Teaching, Learning and Scholarship Section chair, during the recent Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Annual Meeting.
Dr. Rachel Majewski, associate professor of athletic training, published her original research, “The Motivational Climate and Intrinsic Motivation in the Rehabilitation Setting” in the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation (doi: 10.1123/jsr.2016-0228).
Dr. Katherine McCarville, professor of geosciences, taught a two-week course in Glacial Geomorphology at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory on West Lake Okoboji at Milford, Iowa, from June 25 to July 7.
Dr. Tokunbo Osinubi, adjunct instructor, co-authored the following publications in 2017: “Energy Consumption and GDP in the OECD Countries: A Causality Analysis,” published in the Review of Economic and Business Studies (Volume X, Issue no.1. pp 55-74), and “An Investigation in the Relationship between Energy Consumption and GDP in the OECD Countries,” published in the International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management (Volume V, Issue no.8. pp 1-24).
Jeffrey Perso, Adjunct Professor, Milwaukee Center, was named a finalist for the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Novel Prize for his novel Water Bodies. Excerpts from his book have appeared or are forthcoming in Crooked/Shift, Embark, Kudzu House Quarterly, Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, and Why We Right Write Outside the Lines.
Dr. Rebecca Schmidt, assistant professor of biology, received the award for Excellence in Mentoring from the Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program, also referred to as IINSPIRE-LSAMP, at its annual conference on February 3. The award was given “for active involvement with LSAMP students and dedication to assisting students in setting and achieving their own academic, personal and professional goals, and through this work has contributed significantly to the achievement of LSAMP program goals.”
Dr. Paul Skrade, assistant professor of biology, and Conservation Management and Environmental Science junior EmiLee Novak, along with another coauthor, presented a poster at the American Ornithological Society meeting in Tucson, Arizona, titled, “Song Variation of Cerulean Warblers in Northeastern Iowa.” They also received a $500 grant from the Iowa Ornithologists’ Union to continue their research this summer. Skrade received an additional $2,500 grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to survey for avian species of conservation concern in northeast Iowa.
Dr. Melle Starsen, associate professor of communication, presented at the 5th Academic International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (AICSSH), hosted by FLE Learning, Ltd., on May 21-23 at Cambridge University, United Kingdom. The presentation is based on research for a paper titled, “‘Sang Noir’ The Cult Director and Death to Postmodernism – the Films of Rodriguez, Soderbergh, and Tarantino.”
Elissa Wenthe, associate professor of art, and Laura Gleissner, assistant professor of art, received a grant of $7,500 from the Northeast Community Foundation to start Arts for a Lifetime. This program supports adult arts community education programming at Maple Crest Manor assisted living facility, and an intensive high school workshop during the summer of 2019.
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