Kudos - Fall 2020
Conference Delegate
Dr. David Cowles, professor of religious studies and T. L. James Eminent Scholars Chair of Religion, was chosen to attend the AAUP National Convention scheduled for June 2020 as a delegate for Louisiana and Centenary. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was founded in 1915 and has helped shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country’s colleges and universities.
Grants and Awards
Mr. Chris Brown, archivist, collaborated with the Department of History and Political Science at Centenary and the Centenary chapter of the National Organization for Women on a proposal funded by the Centenary Muses. The project will digitize a portion of the College’s archives collection and develop curriculum at Centenary as part of the Associated Colleges of the South project “Women and the Liberal Arts Experience.” Students enrolled in the historical methods course will learn research and archival skills.
Dr. Ruipu Mu, assistant professor of chemistry, received the Charlton H. Lyons Summer Research Award. His selection was announced during the Founders Day convocation on February 20.
Earlier in the semester, Dr. Mu received word that his application to the Louisiana Board of Regents Supervised Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program with student London Todd was approved for funding.
Along with Ms. Todd, student researchers Elizabeth Epley and Colbee Duke will join Dr. Mu in his lab this summer to work on development, validation, and utilization of techniques for water analysis of different classes of emerging environmental contaminants in the Caddo Parish water system.
Installation
Mr. Bruce Allen, emeritus professor of art, was commissioned to create an eight-foot eyeball as an architectural public work for the new building on Line Avenue housing the offices of ophthalmologist Dr. Russ Van Norman.
Presentations and Research
Dr. Jessica Alexander, associate professor of psychology and Bill and Sarah James Eminent Scholars Chair of Psychology, made two presentations at the 60th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in November 2019: “Applying Cognitive Psychology Research Findings to the College Classroom: Providing Evidence-Based Instruction Techniques to Faculty” and, with former student Monica Sewell, “Exaggerated Fonts Can Disambiguate Emotional Homographs and Emotionally Ambiguous Sentences.”
Dr. Andia Augusin-Billy, assistant professor of French and francophone studies and William Arceneaux Professor of Foreign Languages, presented “Notre terre est fichue! L’exploitation, l’érosion et la révolte dans le roman paysan haïtien” at the 31st Annual Conference of the Haitian Studies Association in Gainesville, FL, October 18, 2019.
Mr. Chris Brown, archivist, co-presented a session on electronic records at the Convocation of Archivists, South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church. Mr. Brown also hosted the conference, which was held at Centenary October 11-12, 2019.
Dr. Loren Demerath, professor of sociology, planned to present his paper entitled “Feelings as Indicators of Gradients in Information Processing” at ICCS 2020, the Tenth International Conference on Complex Systems, in July.
Dr. Michelle Glaros, professor of art and R. Z. Biedenharn Eminent Scholars Chair of Communication, developed, moderated, and presented on the scholarship of teaching and learning at the University Film and Video Association’s annual meeting in August 2019. The panel, Divergent Cinematic Practices: Innovative Approaches to Teaching Novel Student Populations, addressed current interest in active, engaged, experiential learning strategies. Fueled by developments in the field of neuroscience and changing understanding of learning, experiential learning strategies motivate renewed interrogation of age-old academic structures and disciplinary definitions. The bifurcation of critical studies and creative practices, as approaches to developing knowledge, manifests itself in today’s colleges and universities in a number of ways; specifically, in the arts and humanities, departments and majors are generally divided into critical studies and studio or production pathways. At heart, these divisions reflect methodological differences: is the nature of the intellectual engagement theoretical and conceptual or empirical and hands-on? The development of active-learning pedagogy and the neuroscience that supports it challenges these traditional ways of teaching and learning by illuminating the intellectual constraints they inadvertently produce. Happily, film production professors are well-versed in techniques of active, engaged, experiential learning. This panel asks, “What more can we do (or make) with these techniques?”
Ms. Christy Wrenn, director of library services, presented “HISTORY, In the Beginning…” during the session “Building Relationships with Campus IT” at the October 2019 LOUIS Users Conference in Baton Rouge. Also presented in the session were “Evolving Relationships,” Sheryl Curry, University of Louisiana Lafayette and “Handling the Change” Angela Dunnington, Southeastern Louisiana University.
Publications
Dr. Andia Augustin-Billy, assistant professor of French and francophone studies and William Arceneaux Professor of Foreign Languages, had her article “Tu es ridicule!”: When Black Women Speak Up and Speak Out in Ferdinand Oyono’s Novels,” published in the MIFLC Review, Volume 19, Fall 2018-2019. The MIFLC Review is the official journal of the Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Association.
Ms. Tilisha Alexander Bryant, information and records manager-Admission, has published her second book, Come Clean: Giving God the worst of me, To receive the best from Him. You may learn more and place orders at tilishabryant.com.
Dr. Amanda Donahoe, assistant professor of political science, co-authored a new piece, "Feminist Peace Research," for the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. The chapter introduces the theory and practice of feminist peace research, a mode of analysis of the gendered continuum of violence that offers key insights to the field of peace and conflict studies. This "living reference" work first appeared online on September 1, 2020, and is available to download here.
Dr. David Havird, professor of English, has published a new book. Mercer University Press released Weathering: Poems and Recollections in February 2020. In addition to the volume’s poems, the book contains three retrospective essays that narrate the adolescent poet’s coming of age through encounters with such eminent elders as James Dickey, Havird’s early mentor, Robert Lowell, and Archibald MacLeish. More information here.
“Oracle,” a new poem by Dr. Havird that does not appear in Weathering, was published in the Winter 2020 issue of Literary Matters, the online journal of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. More information here.
Dr. Chad Fulwider, associate professor of history, co-authored a chapter entitled “Shared Ideals: Transatlantic Liberalism, Atrocity Propaganda and US Entry into WWI” with Emily Robertson (Strategic Defence Studies Centre, Australia National University) for the edited collection Proximity and Distance: Space, Time and the First World War (University of Melbourne Press, 2020).
Dr. Rebecca Murphy, associate professor of biology, was an author on the article “Read Mapping and Transcript Assembly: A Scalable and High-Throughput Workflow for the Processing and Analysis of Ribonucleic Acid Sequencing Data,” Frontiers in Genetics, Jan 24, 2020. Three of Dr. Murphy’s students also received author credit: Isabella Kreko, Lauren McHan, and Alexandra Naron. Dr. Murphy and her students conducted research for this article at the University of Arizona School of Plant Sciences LIVE-for-Plants Summer Research Program as part of her NSF-funded award. More information here.
Dr. Earle Labor, emeritus professor of American literature, contributed the introduction to The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories, Penguin Classics Jack London, Penguin Random House 2019. Other recent publications include Jack London Stories for All Seasons, Introduction, Storyport Press, Centenary College of Louisiana, 2019, and Review, Kenneth K. Brandt, Jack London [Critical Biography], Western American Literature 54.4 Winter 2020.
In addition to those print publications, Dr. Labor produced The Art of Manliness Podcast 579 “Jack London’s Literary Code,” January 2020.
Dr. Michelle Wolkomir, professor of sociology, authored, “Swingers and polyamorists: A comparative analysis of gendered power dynamics,” an article published in SEXUALITIES in October 2019.
Ms. Christy Wrenn, director of library services, contributed to “Why IT & the Library Should Work Together” by Dian Schaffhauser. In February 2018, Ms. Wrenn responded to a Louisiana Library Network-LOUIS listserv call for comments from any library colleagues in Louisiana academic libraries who might have information to convey regarding their experiences and relationship with their Information Technology Departments housed in the library. She responded, “Centenary College of Louisiana has a great relationship with the Information Technology Department residing in our library.” Soon after, writer Diane Schaffhauser arranged a conference call with Wrenn and Centenary IT director Scott Merritt to talk about the article she was preparing. The article appeared in Campus Technology (complete with picture of Wrenn and Merritt).
Dr. Peter Zunick, assistant professor of psychology, published “Directed abstraction during initial skill learning promotes performance and lasting self-concept change” in Self and Identity, December 2019.
Recognition
Ms. Tina Feldt, director of counseling and disability services, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Social Workers – Northwest Louisiana Chapter (NASW-LA). The award was presented at NASW-LA’s Annual Conference on March 18, 2020. In honoring the winner, NASW-LA recognizes the best social work values and accomplishments as demonstrated in one’s lifetime career.