Campus Notes

Presentations, Conferences, and Lectures

Elsa Auerbach, professor of English, presented the plenary address, "Lessons from Community Partnerships: A Pedagogy of Not-Literacy," at an international conference on critical issues in family, community, and school illiteracies, held in Vancouver in July.

The College of Management’s James Bierstaker and Satish Thosar, with colleague D. Wiest, won the Distinguished Research Award at the Allied Academies International Internet Conference for their paper "Analysts’ Responses to Alternative Methods of Reporting Gains and Losses on Derivatives."
In July, Carol Chandler, lecturer in English, gave the address "The Development of Ethnic Community-Based Organizations in Boston" at the Annual Conference of the National Alliance of Vietnamese-American Service Associations.

Richard Delaney, director of the Urban Harbors Institute, was invited to address the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy on July 24. Delaney presented recommendations responding to coastal and ocean objectives of the Oceans Act of 2000.

Linda Dittmar, professor of English, gave the keynote address, "Vietnam Revisited: Documentaries of Conscience," at an international cinema studies colloquium on "The War Film," held at Tel Aviv University in June.

Linda Eisenmann of the Department of Leadership in Education presented "Equivocal Expectations: Educators’ Plan for Women’s Postsecondary Training in Post-World War II United States" at the International Standing Conference on the History of Education, held in Paris in July.

Avery Faigenbaum, associate professor of exercise science and physical education, presented lectures on fitness and conditioning at the conference "Corso Avanzato di Personal Trainer," held in Rome in July. In August, he gave the keynote address, "Strength Training and Children’s Health," at the annual meeting of the North American Society of Pediatric Exercise Medicine.

In August, Marilyn Frankenstein, professor of quantitative reasoning, gave a talk on "Paulo Freire’s Theories and Ethnomathematics" at the International Congress on Ethnomathematics in Brazil.

In July, Professor Robert A. Morris of the Computer Science Department was a panelist for the "Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Informatics: Policy and Implementations" discussion at the 2002 Joint Conference On Digital Libraries.

The Center for Social Policy’s Donna Haig Friedman, Tatjana Meschede, and Michelle Hayes presented findings of their longitudinal HUD-funded evaluation of the experiences of homeless families entering the paid workforce at the "Rediscovering the Other America: A National Forum on Poverty and Inequality" conference, held in Chicago on August 18.

Laurel Radwin, assistant professor in the Department of Adult and Gerontological Nursing, presented "Development and Psychometric Testing of the Oncology Patients’ Perceptions of the Quality of Nursing Care Scale (OPPQNCS)" at the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy Annual Research Meeting in June. Kristine Alster, interim dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, was a co-investigator on the project.

In August, Professor Lorna Rivera of the College of Public and Community Service delivered the paper "Literacy for Social Change: A Participatory, Community Service Learning Collaboration" at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, held in Chicago.

In July, Professors Vicky Steinitz and Ann Withorn traveled to Ljubljana, Slovenia, to give a paper and an interactive workshop at the conference of the International Consortium on Experiential Learning. Both presentations discussed the theory of experiential education practiced at the College of Public and Community Service.

Yung-Ping Chen, the Frank Manning Eminent Scholar’s Chair at the Gerontology Institute, presented three papers at the "Symposium on Retirement Implications of Demographic and Family Change" conference, held in San Francisco, June 24 through 26.

Publications

Public Policy Professors Randy Albelda and Ann Withorn edited the new book Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty and Beyond, which has been published by South End Press.

Gonzalo Bacigalupe, assistant professor in the Graduate College of Education, published "Relational Conversations in the Face of Trauma and Political Terrorism: Professional Training and Personal Reflections in the Aftermath of September 11" in the Journal of Systemic Therapies.

Jacqueline Fawcett, professor in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, published "The Nurse Theorists: 21st Century Updates - Jean Watson" in Nursing Science Quarterly.

Peter Kiang, professor of education and director of the Intercollegiate Asian American Studies Program, published the chapter "Stories and Structures of Persistence: Ethnographic Learning through Research and Practice in Asian American Studies" in Ethnography and Schools: Qualitative Approaches to the Study of Education.

Lovalerie King, assistant professor of English, and her daughter Erin King co-authored "A Healing Romance for the Plague Years," which appears in the current issue of Callaloo.

Three poems by Thomas O’Grady, professor of English and director of Irish studies, appear in the current issue of Agni Review.

An essay by Mary Oleskiewicz, assistant professor of music, on Johann Joachim Quantz’ chamber music was recently published in Barokmusik Führer: Instrumentalmusik 1550-1770.

"New Leaders for a New Century," an article by Sherry H. Penney, professor of leadership in the College of Management, and co-authors Jennifer Leigh and Vanai Norasakunkit, clinical psychology doctoral students, was published in the August issue of BUILDING Leadership Bridges.

Marc Pomplun, assistant professor of computer science, coauthored the chapter "Saccadic Selectivity During Visual Search: The Influence of Central Processing Difficulty" in The Mind’s Eyes: Cognitive and Applied Aspects of Eye Movements.

Laurel Radwin, assistant professor in the Department of Adult and Gerontological Nursing, published a commentary on the article "Gatekeeping and Legitimization: How Informal Career’s Relationship with Health Care Workers Is Revealed in their Everyday Interactions" in July 2002’s Evidence Based Nursing.

New Directions for Youth Development: Theory, Practice, and Research: A Critical View of Youth Mentoring, edited by Jean Rhodes, assistant professor of psychology, has been published by Jossey-Bass.

Woodruff Smith, associate professor of history, recently published his book Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600 – 1800 with Routledge Press.

"Ventriloquism in the Captivity Narrative," an essay by Assistant Professor of English Rajini Srikanth, appears in White Women in Racialized Spaces: Imaginative Transformation and Ethical Action in Literature, a volume she co-edited for State University of New York Press.

Translations of poems by Li Po, Tu Fu, Wang Wei, and Wang Ch’ang-ling by Taylor Stoehr, professor of English, appeared in the spring/summer issue of Nimrod.

Deborah Whaley, assistant professor of American studies, published the review essay "The Neo Soul Vibe and the Post Modern Aesthetic: Black Popular Music and Culture for the Soul Babies of History" in American Studies.

Enriching ESOL Pedagogy: Readings and Activities for Engagement, Reflection, and Inquiry, co-edited by English professor Vivian Zamel, has been published by Lawrence Erlbaum Press.
Exhibits, Readings, Performances

Edie Mueller, poet and lecturer in English, read from her work at the Newton Public Library.
Mary Oleskiewicz, assistant professor of music, appeared as Baroque flute soloist at the National Flute Association Convention, held in Washington, D.C. on August 15.

Professor David Patterson of the Music Department has been commissioned to compose theme music for the television program "Shattering the Glass Ceiling."

Rebecca Saunders, lecturer in English, performed her monologue "Two Strange Things" at the Playwrights’ Platform Festival of New Works, held in Boston in June.

Appointments and Honors

Lawrence Blum, professor of philosophy, received the social philosophy book of the year award from the North American Society for Social Philosophy for his latest publication, I’m Not a Racist, But...": The Moral Quandary of Race.

Linda Eisenmann of the Department of Leadership in Education was recently elected vice president of the History of Education Society and will assume the presidency in 2003.

Jacqueline Fawcett, professor in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, received a distinguished alumna award from New York University’s Division of Nursing.

Peter Janson of the Music Department was a finalist for the "Best New Age Album of the Year" at the 2002 New Age Voice Music Awards.

Clara Jennings, former dean of the Graduate College of Education, resigned from her post on September 6 to take a new position at De Paul University.

On June 20, Hubie Jones and David Rosen were honored by Jobs for Youth. Jones, special assistant to the chancellor for urban affairs, received an award for distinguished lifetime service to public policy and dialogue. Rosen, executive director of the Adult Literacy Resource Institute, received a distinguished service award.

Peter Langer returns to UMass Boston to serve as associate provost for planning and assessment. Langer previously worked for the university for fifteen years.

Roger Penland of the UMass Foundation will serve as interim vice chancellor for institutional advancement, following Joe O’Brien’s resignation.

Bill Pollard, director of Project REACH, received one of the two highest awards from the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD). In recognition of his outstanding service to AHEAD, Pollard received the Ronald E. Blosser Dedicated Service Award on July 12.

Regina Rodriguez-Mitchell has been appointed interim director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture following the retirement of Phil Hart. She has also been asked to serve as a member of the editorial board for SAGE Race Relations Abstracts.

Kathleen Teehan, vice chancellor for enrollment management, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Boys and Girls Club of New Bedford.

The UMass Boston Chapter of the Golden Key International Honor Society received two "Outstanding Campus Awareness" and "Key Chapter" recognitions at the annual conference in August.

Grants and Research

Kamal Bawa and Rick Kesseli in the Biology Department received a three-year, $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their project, "Evolution of Dioecy from Distyly and the Impact of Recent Landscape Changes on the Reproductive System of Cordia Spp. in Costa Rica."

Bob Chen of the Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sciences Department, in collaboration with colleagues from the New England Aquarium and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, received a New England Regional Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence Grant for approximately $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation.

Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sciences’ Bob Chen, Bernie Gardner, Juanita Urban-Rich, and Meng Zhou received a $468,055 grant for the "Integrated Coastal Observation System" from the Defense UniversityResearch Instrumentation Program, which includes matching funds from UMass Boston of $40,000.

Stephanie Hartwell, assistant professor of sociology, is an investigator on the five-year National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) first Developmental Center Grant, "Center for Mental Health Services and Criminal Justice Research."

With support of a 2002 Healey Endowment Grant, Mary Oleskiewicz, assistant professor of music, conducted research for five weeks over the summer in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, where she uncovered a number of important Baroque musical works, all of which have been considered lost since the 18th-century.

In July, Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sciences’ Curtis Olsen, Sarah Oktay and graduate student Joe Smith collected a second set of sediment cores in New York City’s Lower Hudson River as part of their ongoing project to investigate the geochemical fingerprint of the World Trade Center catastrophe in area sediments.
Assistant Professor Woojin Paik of the Computer Science Department was awarded a faculty proposal development grant for the project "Language Processing (NLP) Methods," using computational linguistics to capture public perception of goods, services, and events on the Internet.

The Institute for Community Inclusion received a $624,643 grant from the Department of Labor to develop a statewide model of partnerships between community-based minority organizations and one-stop career centers.

With funding from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, the Urban Harbors Institute (UHI) completed a comprehensive inventory of the natural and cultural resources in the Weir River Area of Critical Environmental Concern. UHI currently is preparing a similar inventory for the Gulf River in Cohasset and Scituate.

The Auxiliary Services’ Recycling/Sustainability Program "UMBe Green" was awarded a $13,000 grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. The grant will be used to enhance the recycling/sustainability program on campus.

The Environmental Business and Technology Center (EBTC) in the College of Management received a $160,000 grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s Renewable Energy Trust to help Massachusetts solar energy companies grow and create jobs in the Commonwealth.

Summer Activities

In July, the McCormack Institute’s Ed Beard, Sandra Blanchette, Jennifer Reymond, and Michael McPhee met with five visiting board members of a new Polish think tank, The Third Republic Institute. The group was part of the International Visitor Program of the US Department of State.

John McGah, senior research associate at the Center for Social Policy, conducted a week-long summer institute, "Learning Through Homelessness," for middle and high school teachers, with funding from the Gund Foundation and the Paul and Katherine Buttenweiser Foundation.

Director of Creative Writing Askold Melnyczuk led summer writing workshops at Bennington’s Graduate Writing Program and at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.

Lloyd Schwartz, Troy Professor of English and Creative Writing, served on the staff of the New York State Writers Institute during the summer.

The McCormack Institute hosted a visiting researcher from Moldova, Sergui Tutunaru, who helped prepare a joint grant proposal linking UMass Boston and the Academy of Economic Studies in Moldova in an e-Government project.

Obituary

J.P. Goodwin, managing editor of The Mass Media and graduate student, passed away on August 18.

James Williams, a member of university’s staff for eleven years, passed away on July 11. A UMass Boston alumnus, he most recently served as the coordinator of student advising in the Office of Student Service at the College of Public and Community Service.

In the News

Research by economists Randy Albelda and Marlene Kim on disparities for families and employees through Massachusetts two economic booms was featured in the Boston Globe on July 20.

Marc Prou, assistant professor and head of the Haitian Studies Project, was quoted in the June 16 Boston Sunday Globe on building self-esteem of Hatian youths.

An editorial by Padraig O’Malley, senior fellow at the McCormack Institute, on IRA interference with peace and democracy in Northern Ireland was in the Boston Globe on July 19.

Research by the Asian American Institute’s Paul Watanabe and Michael Liu on the levels of Asian American registered voters in Massachusetts was covered by the Boston Herald, Patriot Ledger, Lowell Sun, WBUR, and WBZ from August 5 to 9.

An article by Yung-Ping Chen, the Frank J. Manning Eminent Scholar’s Chair in Gerontology, on the status of long-term care amidst proposed budget cuts to Medicaid was featured in the July 28 Boston Sunday Globe.

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