Campus Notes for The Point (October 23, 2012)

EVENTS AND HONORS

Phong N. Truong, a double major in mathematics and computer science in the College of Science and Mathematics (CSM) won the John W. Ryan Award for 2012. The honor was announced at fall Convocation.

The Ryan Award is given to the student who has achieved the highest cumulative grade-point average for four semesters in residence during the freshman and sophomore years. The annual award is named for John W. Ryan, the first chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston, who served from 1965 to 1968. The first Ryan Award was granted in 1971.

Eric Grinberg, chair of the Mathematics Department in CSM, gave seminar presentations in June at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He also participated in a conference on operator theory and operator algebras in the School of Science at the East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai.

Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies and associate professor of political science in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA), has been appointed chair of the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations. Read more here.

Craig Murphy, a research professor in the Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance in the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies and co-director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability, recently began a year’s leave to serve as a visiting scholar at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Murphy also received the International Political Economy Distinguished Senior Scholar Award from the International Studies Association. For a story on Murphy’s honor, click here.

College of Nursing and Health Sciences (CNHS) PhD candidate Hermine Poghosyan was accepted for a postdoctoral fellowship at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis. The postdoctoral fellowship will focus on reducing ethnic and racial health disparities, particularly in lung cancer cases.

Zeena Zakharia, assistant professor of comparative education in the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), is part of a multinational team that is conducting an in-depth analysis of how the Middle East is portrayed in world history classes in U.S. high schools, and designing new methods to incorporate current historical research into the teaching and learning process.

Steven C. Schatz has joined University College (UC) as the first full-time faculty member in its Instructional Design master’s program. Dr. Schatz has extensive experience as a consultant on technology and as an assistant professor in educational technology at the University of Hartford.

The China Program Center at UC is the recipient of a $100,000 Fulbright-Hays grant from the US Department of Education. The grant will fund a trip for New England teachers to study Chinese culture and language while networking, collecting authentic teaching materials and writing curriculum projects at Shaanix Normal University in Xi’an, China. Wanli Hu is the Director of the China Center and special assistant to the provost for China initiatives at UMass Boston.

PRESENTATIONS, CONFERENCES, LECTURES

Math professor Alfred Noel of CSM served as the principal organizer of an international conference on Representation Theory of Reductive Groups, held in July at UMass Boston. The event was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation through the Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences.  

David Vogan of Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the principal lecturer, and Maureen Title provided essential support throughout the planning and during the event. The conference concluded with a cruise in Boston Harbor on UMass Boston’s boat.

Additional information may be found on the conference web page. The story from the UMass Boston communications office is available here.

Joan Arches, a professor of human services and youth work in the College of Public and Community Service (CPCS) joined faculty members from the five UMass campuses to present “A System-Wide Working Group on Civic Engagement and Service-Learning: How, Why, and So What?” at the International Association for Service Learning and Community Engagement’s 12th Annual Conference in September in Baltimore.  Discussions included the results of a five-campus model of academic collaboration formed to grow and support civic engagement and service learning throughout the system.

Nina Silverstein, director of the undergraduate gerontology program in CPCS, gave an oral presentation on “Meeting the Supportive Transportation Needs of Community-Residing Elders” at the International Conference of Aging, Mobility, and Quality of Life in Ann Arbor, Mich., in June. The presentation was based on a qualitative study exploring the distinctions between aging with disabilities and growing older with some physical or cognitive limitations, and how those distinctions might affect transportation policy and service delivery.

Asgedet Stefanos, associate professor of African studies, women’s issues and multicultural studies in CPCS, presented “Social Differences and Content of Teaching: Towards Redefining Academic Disciplines” at the 25^th National Conference of Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education in New York City in June.

Lisa Kennedy Sheldon, assistant professor of nursing in CNHS, presented at the World Cancer Congress in August. The presentation, “ASCO and Health Volunteers Overseas: Delivering Oncology Nursing Education in Honduras,” described the work of a team of nurses and doctors from the American Society of Clinical Oncology and Health Volunteers Overseas. The team assessed cancer care and resources and provided the first-ever cancer nursing conference in Honduras in 2011. Kennedy Sheldon was also selected as a national semifinalist for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar Program. Dr. Sheldon presented her proposal on June 9 in Chicago.

Laura Hayman, associate dean for research and professor of nursing, presented at the European Society of Cardiology in Munich, Germany, in August. Her presentation was entitled “An Early Start: Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Children and Adolescents.”

Amy Rex Smith, assistant professor in nursing, presented “The Power of Prayer:  A Report From a Program of Prayer Research in Advanced Cancer Patients” at the Innovations in Faith-Based Nursing Education Conference at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind.

Andrea Leverentz, associate professor of sociology in CLA, presented “Layers Of Crime Narratives: How Community, Local, State, And National Narratives Shape Ideas About Crime, Criminals, and Prisoners” at the Racial Democracy Crime and Justice Network Workshop in July in Columbus, Ohio.  

PUBLICATIONS

Gerontology student Yvonne Decelis contributed to the article “Transitioning into a Successful Fall Semester,” which was published in the August issue of Gerontology News.

Joan Arches, a professor of human services and youth work in CPCS, authored the article “The Role of Groupwork in Social Action Projects with Youth,” published in the August 2012 issue of Groupwork: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Working with Groups.

Mine Ertugrul, assistant professor of finance in the College of Management (CM), wrote a paper entitled “Employee-Friendly Acquirers and Acquisition Performance,” which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Financial Research.

Surjit Tinaikar, assistant professor of accounting and finance in CM, wrote a paper entitled “Voluntary Disclosure and Ownership Structure: An Analysis of Dual Class Firms,” which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Management and Governance.

Maria Ivanova, assistant professor of coastal ecosystem management in Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance in MGS and director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability, wrote an online article entitled “The Contested Legacy of Rio + 20” for the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Read the article here. For the Point story on the UMass Boston group that attended Rio+20, click here.

Anamarija Frankic, assistant professor in Environmental, Earth, and Ocean Sciences in CSM and research fellow at the Center for Governance and Sustainability, joined several students in co-authoring a chapter called “Green Boston Harbor Project” in Environmental Leadership: Taking Action in the Face of Scientific Uncertainty.

Emily Jones, assistant professor of nursing in CNHS, presented a paper titled “The Health Status of New England Native Americans and Recommendations for Research” with Cedric Woods at the annual meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association in Uncasville, Conn., in June. Jones also had three scholarly articles published this summer, in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing, Nurse Author and Editor, and Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.

Michael J. Ahn, assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs in MGS has penned a new chapter, “Whither E-Government? Web 2.0 and the Future of E-Government” appearing in Web 2.0 Technologies and Democratic Governance, published by Springer Science+Business. Ahn also published an article in June on “Effective Public Policy Delivery System in the Age of Information Overload – The Role of Imagery on Citizen Perception and Compliance of Public Policy,” in the peer-reviewed Korean Social Science Journal.

Adenrele Awotona, professor at the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters, has published an edited collection, Rebuilding Sustainable Communities with Vulnerable Populations after the Cameras Have Gone: A Worldwide Study. Published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, this 500-page volume focuses on the status of the elderly and the disabled after disasters around the world. The volume also addresses the challenges facing Haiti while rebuilding from an earthquake. It contains selected papers presented at the two international conferences the center organized in 2010.

Samuel Barkin, associate professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance in MGS penned the chapter, “When Regimes Backfire: Institutional Expectations and Environmental Deadlock,” in the Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, second edition, published in July.

Rezarta Bilali, assistant professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance in MGS, authored the chapter “Remembering Intergroup Conflict” in The Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict, published by Oxford University Press.

Political science professor Robert Weiner has contributed to the U.S. section of the World Wide Web Index, published online. The World Wide Web Index is described as “the world’s first multidimensional measure of the web’s use, utility and impact on peoples and nations.”

Maria Ivanova, assistant professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance in MGS and director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability, penned the chapter, "A New Global Architecture for Sustainability Governance,” in the new book, State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity, an annual publication of the Worldwatch Institute that is translated into more than 20 languages.

Director Michael Johnson and PhD candidate Rachel Drew of the PhD Program in Public Policy in MGS co-authored an article published in the September issue of Socio-Economic Planning Sciences titled, “What is Strategic Acquisition? Decision Modeling in Support of Foreclosed Housing Redevelopment.” Jeffrey Keisler of the UMass Boston’s College of Management and David Turcotte of UMass Lowell were also co-authors.

Michael Keating of the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance in MGS co-authored the article “Burkina Faso: Conmpaore’s Continuing Will to Power,” which appeared in the August online issue of the newsletter, African Arguments.

Frank Porell, professor in the gerontology PhD program in MGS, completed a new report, "The Pension Factor 2012: Assessing the Role of Defined Benefit Plans in Reducing Elder Economic Hardships," an update of a similar study conducted in 2009. The report received widespread media attention.

Professor Christian Weller of the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs in MGS penned two columns for the Center for American Progress that appeared in August: “An Economic Snapshot for 2012” and “Middle-Class Economic Security Declines as Wealth Concentration Increases.”