Campus Notes
University Communications
University Reporter
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Dirk Messelaar Appointed Dean of Newly-Reconfigured Division |
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University Honors Program Examines Democracy's Discontent |
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Presentations and Conferences
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, assistant professor & director of the marriage and family therapy track, Graduate College of Education, presented the paper "Psychotherapists Working with Latino Families: Unheard Discourses and Practices" at the 108th Annual Conference of the American Psychological Association in Washington DC in August. Prof. Bacigalupe was a co-chair of the symposium "Silenced Voices: Families Whose Stories Have Not Been Heard" in the same conference.
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Dharma Cortes, Carole Upshur, and Andres Torres from the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy presented their paper "Assuring Quality Health Care for Hispanic Mass Health Consumers" at the "Improving Health Outcomes and Health Disparities" Health Services Research Conference sponsored by the Health Care Financing Administration and Howard University Medical School on September 1.
Alice Carter, a master's degree candidate in the History Department, presented a paper at The Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, held May 26-28 at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. The paper was entitled "Gerrard Winstanley: The Transfiguration of the Cosmos." Alice and the other conferees were undeterred by the tornado that blew through town towards the end of the conference and forced the participants to seek shelter in the basement of the building.
Carol Hardy-Fanta, research director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy and senior fellow of the McCormack Institute of Public Affairs, spoke on gender and Latino political leadership at a panel of the Annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., on September 1.
On July 18, Professor Jon C. Mitchell, Music Department, presented a paper titled "Imogen Holst: The Unfortunate Traveller" at the 14th Conference of the International Society for the Promotion of and Investigation of Wind Music at Bad Waltersdorf, Austria.
Associate Professor Dennis Stevens, Criminal Justice, CPCS, presented a case study of three generations of sexual offenders of incarcerated sexual offenders at the annual Society of Police and Criminal Psychology held in Cleveland, Ohio on October 4.
Professor Julie Winch of the History Department gave a paper at a conference sponsored by the Park Service at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of radical abolitionist John Brown. She also edited and annotated the new edition of The Elite of Our People: Joseph Willson's Sketches of Black Upper-Class Life in Antebellum Philadelphia published by Penn State University Press . The book was first published in 1841.
Research and Workshops
Robert Chen, Bernie Gardner, Xuchen Wang, Juanita Urban-Rich, Sarah Oktay-Quigley, Julie Callahan, and Peter Edwards, Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sciences (ECOS) Department, participated in an Office of Naval Research funded cruise aboard the Research Vessel Pelican. The group spent seven days in the Gulf of Mexico and rivers of southern Mississippi were spent to better understand the fate of the color of the Mississippi River Plume, as it flows into the Gulf of Mexico using the ECOS Shuttle designed and constructed at UMass Boston. Robert Chen, ECOS, served as chief scientist. The same group will revisit the area in the high river flow period in April 2001.
The Office of Naval Research will support "The delivery of terrestrial chromophoric dissolved organic matter to the sea" research effort for 3 years beginning Mar 1, 2000. Robert Chen (principal investigator), Bernie Gardner and Xuchen Wang (co-PIs) are from the Environmental Coastal and Ocean Sciences (ECOS) Department.
The Biology Department once again sent 12 doctoral students, including GRT Fellows, to Costa Rica for a field trip that included valuable international experiences. Students visited terrestrial research stations including the Foundacion de Parques Nacionales at Santa Rosa, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, and La Selva. This year the department added a marine research component including SCUBA surveys at Playa Del Coco and Punta Uva. The latter project contributed to three dissertation projects and resulted in a new web site for identifying marine invertebrates in Costa Rica. See www.bio.umb.edu/Tidepools/index.html.
The Massachusetts Campus Compact has asked the New England Research Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) of the Graduate College of Education to facilitate a think tank for coordinators of service learning programs in the region. NERCHE, in cooperation with the Nellie Mae Foundation, also has convened a think-tank for New England area directors of Gear Up programs.
Grants
Alberto Giordano and Richard Gelpke of the Earth and Geographic Sciences Department and Bill Campbell of Computer Science have received an $18,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Wetlands and Waterways, to develop a pilot project to computerize the Public Waterfront Act permits. This involves using Global Positioning Systems equipment,and multimedia cartography, and development of a web-based delivery system.
Joel Gerwein, a biology graduate student, was awarded two highly competitive fellowships based on his thesis work. The fellowships were from the National Science Foundation and the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program of the Environmental Protection Agency. Joel's research will examine long-time effects of deforestation on genetic diversity of red oaks in southern New England. These results will have important implications for forest management.
Publications
Jim Bierstaker, assistant professor of accounting, and Sally Wright, Accounting/Finance Department, co-authored an article "An Investigation of Practical Problem Solving Ability as a Predictor of Performance in Auditing Tasks," which will appear in Behavioral Research in Accounting. Bierstaker has also co-authored articles "Accounting in the New Millennium: The Impact of Technology on the Audit Process" and "Presentation Format, Relevant Domain Experience and Task Performance" for Managerial Auditing Journal.
Robert F. Chen contributed a chapter, "A Laser-based Fiber-Optic Fluorometer for In Situ Seawater Measurements," to the book Chemical Sensors in Oceanography published by Gordon and Breach Science Publishers.
Assistant Professor Avery Faigenbaum, Department of Human Performance and Fitness, recently co-authored a book entitled Strength and Power for Young Athletes. Published by Human Kinetics, this book serves as a valuable resource for youth coaches, parents, and young athletes.
Carol Hardy-Fanta, research director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy and senior fellow of the McCormack Institute of Public Affairs, recently co-authored Latina Politics: Gender, Participation, and Leadership, published in a special symposium issue on Latino politics in the United States of PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 33, No. 3 (September 2000).
Working-Class Women in the Academy: Laborers in the Knowledge Factory , edited by Michelle M. Tokarczyk and Elizabeth Fay, English Department, received an honorable mention in Lingua Franca's recent list of the ten best academic books of the 90's as chosen by their readers.
CPCS Professor Carla Brooks Johnston has just completed her seventh book, Screened Out: How the Media Control Us and What We Can Do About It, published by M.E. Sharpe. Documenting how the media steals our future, kills our culture, and scares us to death, Johnston turns then to the important matter of why this can happen and what we can do to correct the problem.
Robyn Larsen, an undergraduate majoring in history and earth geographic sciences, will have her book A Suitable Murder published by Virtualbookworm.com Publishing While she has written many mystery books, this will be her first published work.
Thomas O'Grady, English Department, has written a new book of poems, What Really Matters, which was published by McGill-Queen's University Press this summer.
Rachel Rubin, asst. professor of American Studies, had her first book Jewish Gangsters of Modern Literature published in the late Spring 2000 by the University of Illinois Press.
Associate Professor Dennis J. Stevens, Criminal Justice, CPCS, recently has published the articles "Civil liabilities and arrest decisions" for The Police Journal; "The effects of police management on the attitudes of law enforcement officials: Determining the effects of police management on law enforcement performance" with John Wiggins in The Journal; and "Education programming for Offenders" in the Forum of Corrections Research: Correctional Service Canada.
Performances
On June 1, Jon C. Mitchell, Music Department, guest-conducted the Pazardzik, Bulgaria Symphony Orchestra in a program of Beethoven, Brahms, and Weber.
"Revival!", a pageant of White Spirituals, by Music Department Professor David Patterson, will be presented on October 22 and 29 in worship services at Pilgrim Congregational Church, Lexington, and First Congregational Church, Somerville. Instrumentalists include Professor Linnea Bardarson (Music Department), piano, her husband Bruce Millardy, mandolin, and Bill Baer (Healey Library), guitar.
Jeffrey Rink of the Music Department conducted "a world-class" performance of Verdi's opera Otello at Symphony Hall according to The Boston Globe. The Boston Herald reported that "Jeffrey Rink capture[d] the tenor of Otello in the June 4th joint performance of Chorus Pro Musica and Concert Opera Boston.
Births
Christina Dunn, Office of University Advancement, gave birth to Kimberly Mae on August 12.
Miscellaneous
Robert Bucci, research director of the UMass Poll, testified before the Committee on Clean Elections for the Massachusetts State Legislature.
New legislation has passed in the State House and is pending in the Senate that will allow the Biology Department's long-standing employee Jane Heatley to continue training her service dogs for the disabled on campus.
The Mass Action for Women Audit has entered its second year. Community meetings have been held around the state to bring women together across the barriers of race, class, and other things that divide communities. Women have been meeting to assess their strengths and discuss their problems and to plan action steps that will result in positive change for our communities. Summer research assistant Adrienne Lazeroff compiled a resource guide based on over 400 items that the project has in its data files. The project has also launched a web site and can be accessed at www.maw.umb.edu.
In the News
Robert Bucci, research director of the UMass Poll, was interviewed Friday, September 1, by Mike Barnicle on 96.9 FM. The discussion focused on immigration and the changing face of Boston. Bucci was also quoted in The Boston Herald on Wednesday, August 30, on the status of immigrants in Boston.
Lou DiNatale, director of the Center for State and Local Policy and the UMass Poll, was interviewed extensively on New England Cable News' coverage of the national nominating conventions.
MetroWest Suburban News announced on Sunday, September 3, the merger between Discoverwhy, Town On Line, and the UMass Poll results of an Internet poll and live rating of the presidential candidates by voter via the Internet.
Corrections
The Vietnam Institute held their ninth annual seminar, not second annual as originally published in September's Spotlights. Robert Enderson was incorrectly identified as Robert Johnson.
The following CAS and CPCS faculty and alumnae were presenters at the National Women's Studies Association Conference: Ann Froines, Elaine Morse, and Weili Ye, Women's Studies Program; Ann Cordilia, Sociology; Esther Shapiro, Psychology; Shoshanna Ehrlich, Ramona Hernandez, Marie Kennedy, Madhulika Khandelwal, and Asgedet Stefanos, CPCS; Shisuko Suenaga, Dottie Steven.