Department of Biology
 Dr. Scott Falke, associate professor of biology, has been chosen as the recipient of the Spencer Family Sabbatical Fellowship for the 2009-2010 academic year. Dr. Falke’s project, a collaborative effort with the University of Kansas School of Medicine, is an attempt to understand the pathogenicity of B. anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax) by focusing on a structural study of the anthrax toxin using electron microscopy. In 2008, this effort resulted in solving a moderate-resolution structure that was subsequently published in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.
“This project will enhance undergraduate research in the Department of Biology at William Jewell,” Dr. Falke said. “In addition, it will enhance a strong undergraduate research relationship with the University of Kansas School of Medicine.”
A generous gift from alumni Bill Spencer ’52 and Joan (Sherrill) Spencer ’54 will fund the Spencer Family Sabbatical Fellowship at William Jewell. “The family’s intent with the gift is to honor the excellent teaching and mentoring skills of the legendary Jewell physics professor Dr. Wallace Hilton,” said Dr. Chad Jolly, Vice President for Advancement at William Jewell. The fellowship provides a full-year sabbatical to a William Jewell faculty member through a competitive application process outside of the regular sabbatical program.
The Spencer gift honors the longstanding tradition of personal attention and faculty and student interaction that Dr. Hilton personified during a long and distinguished career at William Jewell. Its overarching goal is to promote scholarly achievement and faculty excellence among William Jewell faculty consistent with the goals of the College’s strategic plan.
Department of Business and Leadership
Dr. Michael Cook, John W. Boatwright Professor of Economics, has been working with 2007 graduate Joel Bryce. While Joel was a student at Jewell he helped set up a micro lending facility in Mexico. In the process of setting up the facility, a number of questions came up, such as how much interest to charge on the loans. As part of his senior economics project Joel derived an economic model to help answer some of these questions and, in particular, to determine the optimal interest rate. Over the summer of 2007, Joel and Dr. Cook reformulated the model, making it slightly more sophisticated. They presented their new version of the model at the Missouri Valley Economic Association meetings in October 2007. Based on the comments that were received there, they rewrote the paper and submitted it for publication in summer 2008. The paper has now been accepted for publication and will be published by the Journal of Applied Business and Economics in 2009.
Jean Hawkins, professor of accounting, has been recognized by the professional honorary Delta Mu Delta for her 30 years of service as a faculty adviser. Professor Hawkins joined the Jewell faculty in 1976 and soon after began advising members of the Alpha Lambda chapter of Delta Mu Delta. “My reward is working with the students, and the opportunity to work with members of our chapter,” Professor Hawkins said.
Deborah Scarfino, assistant professor of business administration, co-authored an article, “Team-Building Success: It’s in the Cards,” that was published in the March 2009 Business Communication Quarterly.
Dr. Kelli Schutte, assistant professor of business administration, has published the following:
Journal of Christian Higher Education, Volume 4, No. 3, “Fostering An Integrated Life of Purpose in Christian Higher Education,” Kelli Jo Schutte, PhD, 01 November 2008.
Journal of Cooperative Education, Internships, Volume 41, No. 1, May 2007, “Journey or Destination: A Study of Experiential Education, Reflection, and Cognitive Development,” Kelli Jo Schutte, PhD.
Academic Woman at Work and at Home. Fostering an Integrated Life of Purpose in Christian Higher Education. By Kelli Jo Schutte, PhD, Published by VDM Verlag, available in 2009.
Department of Chemistry
Dr. Jason Morrill, assistant professor of chemistry, has published his research on energetic materials in collaboration with the United States Army Research Laboratories in the Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modeling. The citation information for the publication is Morrill, J.A.; Byrd, E.F.C. “Development of Quantitative Structure Property Relationships (QSPRs) for Predictive Modeling and design of Energetic Materials” J. Mol. Graph. Model. 2008, 27, 349-355.
Department of Education
Jeanine Haistings and Dr. Alison Wenhart, assistant professors of education, recently presented with a group of education majors at the SMARTT Conference (Science, Mathematics, Assessment, Research, and Technology Together). The elementary education students organized a workshop setting in which teachers rotated through various stations. At each station, hands-on activities demonstrating the mass, length and/or volume of body organs were completed. The students involved in the presentation were Kristin Eales, Justina Edgar, Sarah Holt, Melissa Kabrick, Kate Rettig and Cole Stretch.
Dr. Carla Mebane ’95, assistant professor of education, and Dr. Wenhart presented at the recent Missouri Association of Multicultural Education Conference. Dr. Mebane’s presentation was entitled “African American students’ satisfaction with white university institutions: What educational leaders need to know.” Dr. Wenhart’s presentation was entitled “Preparing Pre-service Teachers to Educate in an Urban Setting.”
Dr. Wenhart has also successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Preparing Pre-service Teachers to Educate in Urban Settings” at Arizona State University.
Department of English
Dr. Sara Morrison, assistant professor of English, delivered a paper, “ ‘Long, long we shall want her sight’: Donne’s Poetic Reliquaries,” at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
Department of Languages
The article “Service-Learning as a Way to Authentic Dialogue” by Dr. Kathleen Tacelosky, professor of Spanish, was published in the December 2008 issue of Hispania. The article suggests that when dialogue is understood as an authentic encounter with another person, as it is in the philosophical perspectives of Martin Buber and Paulo Freire, it has an important role to play in foreign language instruction.
Department of Music
Jay Carter, adjunct instructor and artist-in-residence, Department of Music, made recent concert appearances with the Choral Arts Society in Handel’s Israel in Egypt (Washington, D.C., metro area); Caldara and Handel Cantatas with the Kingsbury Ensemble (St. Louis); and Bach's Magnificat with the Louisville Bach Society (Louisville, Ky). He made his Carnegie Hall debut in Handel's Messiah with Musica Sacra (New York) on December 22 and 23. In addition to concert performances this fall, he has also taught master classes on early music and voice technique at Washington University and William Jewell College (via the Harriman-Jewell Education Series). Carter was also featured as a countertenor soloist in holiday broadcasts of Bach’s Magnificat with the Yale University Schola Cantorum and Collegium Musicum under the direction of Simon Carrington. He also recently performed with the Choral Arts Society at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.
Kristi Knecht, adjunct string bass instructor, received the Teacher of the Year Award from the Missouri Chapter of the American String Teachers Association.
Department of Nursing
Articles/publications/presentations/recognition
Martha Baird, assistant professor of nursing, was chosen as the recipient of the 2008 Research Award from the Transcultural Nursing Society. This award was for her ethnographic study entitled “Resettlement Experiences of Sudanese Refugee Women.” She was recognized at the 34th Annual Conference of the Transcultural Nursing Society.
Dr. Nancy Crigger, associate professor of nursing, presented student-faculty research at the Blessing-Reiman College of Nursing Research Day: A Comparison of Family Nurse Practitioners’ and the Public Perceptions of the Appropriateness of Providers’ Participation in Pharmaceutical Marketing. Dr. Crigger has also presented recently at the Research College of Nursing Scholarship Day and the Bi-Annual Meeting of the International Centre for Nursing Ethics at Yale University.
Dr. Crigger has also been published recently in Journal of Advanced Nursing, International Journal of Listening, Nursing Ethics, Journal of Holistic Nursing, Journal for Nurse Practitioners and Journal of Undergraduate Nurse Scholarship.
Leesa McBroom, assistant professor of nursing, was recently nominated by her faculty at MU Sinclair School of Nursing for 2009 Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges, as well as nominated for the 2009 MU Nursing Alumni Ph.D. Student for Overall Excellence. She has also been selected as a Board Member to Missouri Nursing Association’s District 18. She also co-authored a review of family-centered interventions to enhance the health outcomes of children with Type 1 diabetes, tentatively scheduled to appear in the May/June, 2009 (Volume 35, Number 3) issue of The Diabetes Educator.
Nichole Spencer, instructor of nursing, Liz Kessler, instructor of nursing, and Vicki Meek, assistant professor of nursing, presented at the 35th Annual National Conference on Professional Nursing Education and Development on October 18. Their presentation was titled “Fighting the Civil War in Nursing Education.”
Jan Witzke, nursing arts laboratory coordinator, was a panel presenter at the recent Cerner Health Conference: “Preparing Today’s Students for the Future of Healthcare Informatics.” Witzke and one of Jewell’s clinical faculty, Diane Backhaus, were co-authors of an article in the Journal of Gerontological Nursing (2008): “How Sweet the Sound: Research Evidence for the Use of Music in Alzheimer’s Dementia.”
A student-faculty study has been accepted for publication in Nursing Ethics, the discipline’s premiere ethics journal. This represents the fifth publication acceptance accomplished by a Jewell faculty-student collaboration: Crigger, N., Courter, L., Hamacher, M., Hayes, K., Shepard, K.(2008). A Study of Public Perceptions of their Providers’ Participation in Pharmaceutical Marketing, Accepted for publication, Nursing Ethics, December, 2008.
Department of Philosophy
Dr. Elizabeth Sperry, professor of philosophy, is the author of “Social Oppression, Relational Autonomy, and Moral Luck,” which has been accepted for publication by Social Philosophy Today. Dr. Sperry also presented her paper, “What’s Wrong with Substantive Autonomy,” at the recent meeting of the Kansas Philosophical Society.
Department of Physical Education
William Jewell College men’s basketball coach Larry Holley ’67 was among 14 individuals and three sports teams inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame recently in Springfield, Mo. Holley, who has been at Jewell since 1979, is among America’s elite and legendary coaches, having won more than 750 games during his career and having received 14 Coach of the Year Awards, including the prestigious Sears/NABC NAIA National Coach of the Year Award in 1996. He has also been selected to four Halls of Fame. He has been named to the Greater Kansas City Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the NAIA Hall of Fame, and the William Jewell College Athletic Hall of Fame. Holley is the career leader in wins among HAAC basketball coaches.
Department of Physics and Mathematics
Dr. Neil R. Nicholson, assistant professor of mathematics, recently gave a presentation entitled “On the Visibility of Lattice Points” at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Expository Math Talk series. Dr. Nicholson also gave a lecture on “Strengthening Kauffman-Murasugi Via a Skeleton” at the University of Kansas Combinatorics Seminar.
Department of Political Science
Dr. Gary Armstrong, professor of political science, was invited by The Fund for American Studies (TFAS) in Washington, D.C., to deliver a keynote lecture at its recent conference, “Negotiating Success: Empowering the Region,” in Brijuni, Croatia. The conference was designed for European alumni of TFAS programs and included an audience of young diplomats, media professionals and business leaders. Professor Armstrong spoke on “The Obama Administration: Main Foreign Policy Themes.”
Dr. Alan Holiman, professor of political science, had his article, “The Case of Nord-Ost: Dubrovka and the Search for Answers,” published in the March 2009 issue of Europe-Asia Studies. The article is about the first citizens’ group organized in Russia to defend the rights of victims of terrorist attacks. Europe-Asia Studies is the premier journal in the United Kingdom for scholarship related to Russian and Eurasian political affairs. Professor Holiman also presented a paper, “Beslan: Mothers in Search of Answers,” at the 40th annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. AAASS is the professional organization of scholars in all academic disciplines who study Russia, East Central Europe and other Eurasian states. Professor Holiman’s paper dealt with two organizations of victims of the 2004 attack on a school in Beslan in Russia’s region of North Ossetia. The groups, Mothers of Beslan and Voice of Beslan, are pressing and suing the Russian government to launch a formal inquiry into the state’s mismanagement of the incident that resulted in the deaths of 331 people, 186 of them children, who were taken hostage by terrorists.
Dr. Rein Staal, professor of political science, had his article, “The Forgotten Story of Postmodernity,” published in the journal First Things in December 2008. First Things is one of the most prominent journals in the U.S. for scholarship integrating faith and public affairs.
Department of Psychology
“Wonder: Worship in Everyday Life?” is the title of a paper presented by Dr. Pat Schoenrade, professor of psychology, Dr. Sally Holt, Belmont University, and Ms. Abigail (Heffernan) Rodriguez ’86. The paper was part of the recent convention of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
The Department of Psychology faculty reports that the Clay, Platte and Ray Mental Health Board has provided funding to help with costs of the mental health community intervention program for 2009. The grant application was prepared by Dr. Schoenrade. This is the 11th consecutive year that such funds have been made available. The program involves cooperation between the psychology department and county public administration offices.
Department of Religion
Dr. J. Bradley Chance, professor of religion and chair of the department, delivered two papers at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). The first paper was entitled “The Synoptic Gospels: Problem, Proposals, and Pedagogical Practice,” delivered to the Synoptic Gospels section of the Society. The second paper was entitled “The Beginning or the End? The End of Acts and the Beginning of Isaiah,” delivered before the Formation of Luke-Acts section. Dr. Chance, who serves as Executive Secretary of the Central States SBL, also attended the annual Regional Coordinators’ meeting, held in conjunction with the annual SBL meeting.
Faculty Promotions
The following faculty members’ advancement in rank has been approved by the Board of Trustees, effective for the 2009-2010 academic year:
- Dr. Mayumi Derendinger, promoted to associate professor of mathematics
- Dr. Scott Falke, promoted to associate professor of biology
- Dr. Paul Klawinski, promoted to professor of biology
- Dr. Kelli Schutte, promoted to associate professor of business and leadership
|
