magneticeast_spring10

Magnetic EastThomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences

SP

RIN

G 2

01

0 noteworthy newsIn Memoriam: Keats Sparrow

English Professor and Area Teachers Promote Equity, Excellence, Achievement

Physics Department Receives $868,000 NSF Grant for New Particle Accelerator

Children’s Miracle Network Awards Psychology Professor $12,000 Grant

Urban and Regional Planning Program Seeks to Raise $417,000 for Endowed Distinguished Professorship

ECU Dean White Elected to National Board of Directors, Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences

faculty/staff

accomplishments 14

new positions and promotions 19

emerging leader 20

celebrating student successes 22

treasured pirate awards 24

events 25

2

8

10

6

4 E1

W. Keats Sparrow, dean of East Carolina University’s Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences (June 1990 to August 2005), died on Nov. 11, 2009.

Sparrow’s career at ECU included his service as professor of English, and later, chair of the Department of English. But his most enduring legacy is his deanship, characterized by his impassioned articulation of the mission, scope and composition of the university’s academic cornerstone, and his unfaltering efforts in strengthening the college’s timeless, but always timely, liberal arts mission.

His significant and wide-reaching achievements are so numerous that only a few highlights can be mentioned in this brief space. Sparrow conceived and implemented the Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professorship Program; he created the College’s Development Office, which has resulted in millions of dollars in private funds now augmenting state appropriations; he founded the College’s Center for the Liberal Arts as a primary advocacy agency for the liberal arts; and he established Annual Leadership Development Retreats for department chairs.

American poet, physician and essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes writes in his poem, “The Chambered Nautilus,” words that aptly reflect Keats Sparrow’s dedication to building a liberal arts college that would grow and expand with every new opportunity:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,As the swift seasons roll!Leave thy low-vaulted past!Let each new temple, nobler than the last,Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,Till thou at length art free,Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

“A Briefe and True Report: A History of Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, 1909 to 2004” speaks eloquently of Sparrow’s tenure by quoting the inscription honoring Sir Christopher Wren in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral: Si monumentum requires, circumspice: “If you would see the man’s monument, look around you.”

Keats Sparrow’s monument is more enduring than bricks and mortar, more enduring than wood and stone. Keats Sparrow’s monument is the limitless freedom of ideas characteristic of an eternal academy in which he is, surely now, also dean.

Photo: Keats Sparrow tries on 16th century “styles” at the

Festival Park, Manteo, NC, March 2006.

3

Stephanie West-Puckett, an East Carolina University teaching instructor in the Department of English, is helping area educators through a program that promotes equity, excellence and achievement in 21st century classrooms. Over the past two years, West-Puckett has received $6,000 in project development grants from the North Carolina English Teachers Association, and most recently this fall, she received $4,500 from the National Writing Project.

The grants fund the “Leadership for Equity, Excellence, and Achievement Project” (LEEAP), a collaborative effort between ECU and area teachers. ECU’s Departments of English, and Curriculum and Instruction, provide support for the program through teaching reassignment, time and materials.

LEEAP, co-directed by Beaufort County 8th grade language arts teacher Danielle Lewis Ange, promotes teacher inquiry as a valuable component of professional development, recruits new teachers and develops leadership in members of the Tar River Writing Project (TRWP), and develops and disseminates a region-specific, teacher-initiated body of knowledge of teaching to diversity in North Carolina schools.

For the 2009-2010 academic year, the LEEAP Team has partnered with Northeast Elementary (NES), a K-8 Beaufort County School in Pinetown, NC, to provide high-quality professional development to assist instructional staff in meeting the standards of the newly adopted North Carolina Teacher-Evaluation Process. This yearlong program provides 30 to 45 hours of direct contact and ongoing virtual support for its teacher-research participants at NES, and provides 12 hours of continuing education units and an incentive package that includes books, research materials and personal technologies. Participants explore and engage in equity-focused action research projects and share their work at local conferences, while working toward publication of their findings.

Dawn Wilson, a music teacher at NES and LEEAP Institute participant writes, “As educators, I think we all have questions in the back – and front and sides – of our minds, as we reflect on our teaching. This research project gives me a reason to go ahead and test a theory and have the data to prove, or disprove it.”

NES K-5 instructional technologist and institute participant, Frank Rice, enjoys the collaborative aspect of the LEEAP in-service programming.

“As an action research model, this

engagement with my practice and

students will most likely lead to several

positive outcomes,” said Rice. “Likewise, with a team model we are certain to be successful and gain deeper meanings. I am exploring the ideas of 21st century teaching and learning. It is exciting.”

“I am particularly fond of this National Writing Project-inspired model because it is a grassroots approach to professional development, one that recognizes teacher expertise and authority and places teachers at the center of knowledge-creation as they develop, document and apply best practices for authentic student learning,” said LEEAP co-director West-Puckett. “The group of teachers we are currently working with at Northeast Elementary are some of our most valuable educational resources here in Eastern North Carolina. My own teaching here at ECU is enriched through our collaboration.”

West-Puckett received her master of arts degree in English from ECU in 2001. She completed the TRWP Summer Institute in 2007, to become a National Writing Project Teacher Consultant. While at ECU, West-Puckett has taught composition and writing for business and industry. Her research interests include action research, service learning as composition pedagogy, on-line social networking and educational technologies, and best practices in the teaching of writing and English education. She is also North Carolina English Teacher’s Association Region I Co-director, married to a graphic arts instructor at J.H. Rose High School and is a mother of three (soon to be four) beautiful and inspiring young students.

English Professor and Area

Teachers Promote Equity, Excellence, Achievement

5

This past fall, Dr. Jeff Shinpaugh and Dr. Larry Toburen, East Carolina University physics professors, received a National Science Foundation grant in the amount of $867,982. The NSF grant will be used to replace a 1970s model particle accelerator and supporting instrumentation located in the ECU Accelerator Laboratory in the Department of Physics.

“Jeff Shinpaugh deserves enormous credit for his initiative in deciding to apply for this grant and for all the hard work required to prepare the proposal to the National Science Foundation,” said John Sutherland, chair of the Department of Physics. “The new accelerator

will benefit ECU by providing more

research opportunities for our students

and faculty in the area of biomedical

physics.”

For nearly four decades, the ECU Accelerator Laboratory has provided the facilities for productive experimental atomic physics and radiation physics research. In addition to basic and applied physics research, the laboratory will continue to support interdisciplinary research with the Departments of Anthropology, Biology, Geological Sciences, and the Brody School of Medicine.

Shinpaugh, director of the ECU Accelerator Laboratory, said, “The new system will provide stable, energetic light and heavy ion beams in an energy range of 300 keV to 8 MeV, perfectly suited for continuing and expanding our studies in radiation physics, atomic interactions in gases and solids, and trace element analysis.”

The new equipment will consist of a 2-million-volt tandem ion accelerator and supporting components that include a focusing magnet, analyzing magnet, and beam transport and diagnostic instrumentation necessary for

delivering ion beams to existing and new experiments.Research based on the new accelerator includes studies of radiation effects in biological systems, fundamental processes in ion-atom and ion-molecule collisions, and atomic interactions in solids. Interdisciplinary research is supported through elemental analysis studies for applications in biology, geology, anthropology and medicine.

The new accelerator, which costs roughly $700,000, will be approximately 32-feet-long and weigh more than 12,000 pounds, or six tons. Currently, the old accelerator is housed in the east wing of the Howell Science Complex. Alternate locations for the new accelerator are under discussion, which could provide faculty and students greater flexibility to conduct their laboratory experiments.

Over the past decade, the ECU Department of Physics’ Radiation Physics group has received funding of more than $3 million from sources that include NASA, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Physics Department Receives $868,000 NSF Grant for New Particle Accelerator

7

One of Harriot College’s newest psychology professors is the recipient of a $12,381 grant from the Pitt County Memorial Hospital/ Children’s Miracle Network. Dr. Tamara Warner, assistant professor of psychology, is the beneficiary of the award that will assist in maximizing treatment outcomes for children with sickle cell disease.

The purpose of Project SCORE, which is an acronym for “Sickle Cell – Optimizing Readiness for Education,” is to increase school readiness for children with sickle cell disease by providing developmental screening and evaluations for children ages 3 to 8 who are seen in the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Outpatient Clinic.

“We are so delighted to have been awarded a Children’s Miracle Network grant through PCMH to provide early developmental screenings for children with sickle cell disease who have one of the highest rates of pediatric stroke and are at high risk for academic difficulties,” said Warner. “Through early identification and intervention, we hope to make a significant difference in the lives of these children and families, rather than waiting for them to fall behind and fail in the early years of elementary school.”

Warner is a licensed psychologist and certified heath service provider in North Carolina. She came to ECU in 2007 from the University of Florida and is an active member of the clinical health psychology doctoral program in the Department of Psychology.

She holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Pediatrics Division of Hematology/Oncology, where she established a pediatric neuropsychology clinic. The clinic provides evaluations for children with sickle cell disease, as well as pediatric and cancer survivors, who have difficulties with learning and/or behavior. It also serves as a training site for doctoral students in the clinical health and school psychology programs.

Within her research interests, Warner focuses on health and educational disparities in pediatric chronic illnesses, development of executive functioning in childhood and adolescence, and the effects of adolescent substance abuse and prenatal drug exposure on brain development and behavior.

In addition to the grant from the Children’s Miracle Network, Warner is a principal investigator on a two-year, approximately $400,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health titled, “Brain Development, Behavior, and Cognition in Pre- and Postnatal Cocaine Exposure.”

“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to receive my first NIH grant as a principal investigator. It is a privilege that only a small number of researchers in the country get to experience,” said Warner. “It has taken more than three years of hard work, and I am grateful to my research team, including my co-PI at UCLA and my mentors at the University of Florida.”

As a result of her research, Warner will participate as an

invited speaker at a workshop entitled “Cognitive Control Training Interventions: What are the Neurobiological Mechanisms Underlying the Beneficial Effects?” sponsored by the NIH. The goal of the meeting, which will be held in Bethesda, Md., May 3 and 4, 2010, will be to determine the current state of basic and clinical research on cognitive control and to discuss training interventions that can be executed in combination with genetic approaches, neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques, so that the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie training effects can be better understood.

“Being invited to present at the NIH

workshop in May is a major step in my

research career. It is both exciting and

somewhat intimidating when I look at the

other scientists who have been invited to

speak,” concludes Warner. Warner received her doctoral degree and her master of science degree in clinical and health psychology from the University of Florida in 2003 and 1999, respectively. She completed a master of arts degree in American culture from the University of Michigan in 1996 and earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1992.

Children’s Miracle Network Awards Psychology Professor $12,000 Grant

9Photo: Tamara Warner

The Urban and Regional Planning Program in the Department of Geography is the only accredited undergraduate planning degree program in North Carolina and one of 14 accredited programs in the nation. Each year, the program prepares professional planners with a strong foundation in the knowledge, skills, and values needed to take leadership roles in sustainable development and quality of life improvement in their communities.

Planning is a systematic, creative way to influence and respond to a wide variety of changes occurring in a neighborhood, city, region or around the world. Careers within the planning practice include Land Use Planning, Environmental Planning, Coastal Planning, Emergency Management Planning, Economic Development Planning, Transportation Planning, and Housing, Social and Community Development Planning.

With the steady demand for planners in the public and private sector, the program enjoys a high job placement percentage for all its graduates. Nearly 65 percent of planning alumni remain in North Carolina, demonstrating the influence and impact on current and future development across the state.

To maintain this excellent standard, an endowment committee composed of a small group of dedicated alumni was established in the fall of 2009. Their goal is to create a $1 million endowment for the Planning Alumni Distinguished Professorship in Urban and Regional Planning.

Distinguished Professorships serve as a benchmark for many universities, and endowments provide important financial support through academic programs that benefit students today and well into the future.

Raising $417,000 prior to the end of 2012 will allow this goal to be achieved through matching funds from the UNC General Administration and the C.D. Spangler Foundation. As a lead gift in the fundraising effort, the committee members collectively pledged more than $40,000, and with subsequent donations, the goal is well on its way to being achieved.

The Planning Alumni Distinguished Professorship in Urban and Regional Planning will allow the program to recruit and retain an exceptional faculty scholar who will serve as a model of excellence for the faculty and students in the Urban and Regional Planning Program at ECU, preserving the superior standards for which the program is known throughout North Carolina and the United States.

Anyone interested in providing a gift to the

Urban and Regional Planning Program should

contact Ms. Scott Wells, Major Gifts Officer, at

252-328-9560, or Ms. Jennifer Tripp, Director

of Development, at 252-328-4901.

Program Seeks to Raise $417,000 for Endowed Distinguished Professorship

11

This past November, in continuation of his advocacy and support of the liberal arts and sciences, Dr. Alan R. White, dean of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences. The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the CCAS, which was held in Baltimore, Md., Nov. 11 through 14.

“I’m very happy to have the opportunity

to serve a national organization such as

CCAS,” said White. “I’ve been attending

CCAS annual meetings since I first

became a dean in 2000, and I am pleased

to be able to give back to an organization

that has helped me learn more every

year.”

The Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences is composed of accredited, baccalaureate granting colleges, schools and divisions of Arts and Sciences from across the United States. The non-profit organization provides its member institutions a forum for discussing common problems of higher education related to Arts and Sciences; and encourages, initiates and supports programs and activities to improve the intellectual stature and public understanding of the disciplines within the Arts and Sciences.“This is the main organization for colleges of arts and sciences specifically, and it serves deans, associate deans and department chairs in all the arts and sciences disciplines,” said White. “The CCAS has been a particularly active advocate for the liberal arts. I especially like their motto and activities supporting ‘Networking Arts and Sciences Deans’ and ‘Deans Helping Deans.’”

The Board of Directors of the CCAS consists of 12 members from different institutions across the U.S. This year, White was among 13 candidates vying for seven open positions on the board. He will serve a three-year term as a member of the board.

An active member of CCAS since 2000, White has participated in several CCAS Annual Meeting sessions as a presenter and session facilitator. In July 2009, White was the director of the CCAS New Dean’s Seminar in Denver, Colo. At the November 2009 annual meeting, White served as a session facilitator for a workshop for new deans.

While serving on the board, White will participate in major projects, including reaching out to other national higher education organizations and working on a new National Science Foundation grant that the Council recently received for an ADVANCE project. ADVANCE projects serve to increase the number and profile of women in higher education, not just in sciences, but also across campus.

ECU Dean White Elected to National Board of Directors, Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences

13

White is a plant cell biologist, and earned his bachelor of science degree in biology and his doctorate degree in botany from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After earning his PhD, White joined the North Carolina Research Triangle Institute’s Chemistry and Life Sciences Group as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. He was also a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder.White has been dean of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences since August 2005. His leadership as dean at ECU has resulted in enhanced support for the STEM disciplines, increased collaboration with the Department of Engineering and a greater contribution of the arts and sciences in teacher preparation. Previously, he served as dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at North Dakota State University in Fargo, N.D. (2000-2005), and was chair of the Department of Botany at the same institution (1997-2000).

White has held faculty positions at ECU, Marshall University and North Dakota State University and has extensive published research. In addition to his research on plant cell wall structure and synthesis, White has been a key contributor in the development and testing of the Virtual Cell, a virtual environment for learning cell biology.

AnthropologyHolly F. Mathews, professor of anthropology, was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Directors for the national Society for Medical Anthropology. Founded in 1957, the society has several hundred members in the social sciences dedicated to promoting the study of anthropological aspects of health, illness, health care and related topics.

ChemistryDr. Keith Holmes, analytical chemistry teaching instructor, recently consulted with a number of external industries to acquire additional funding and equipment for the Department of Chemistry. The Golden Leaf Foundation, whose mission is to promote the

social welfare of North Carolina’s citizens and to receive and distribute funds for economic impact assistance, has agreed to provide funding of $99,100 to the department for laboratory equipment. Also, long-time supporter of the chemistry program, Merck, will be donating $15,000 to the undergraduate laboratory program.

Dr. Anne Spuches, assistant professor or inorganic chemistry, received a Leadership Development Award from the Younger Chemists Committee of the American Chemical Society this past fall, allowing her at attend a YCC Leadership Development Workshop in Fort Worth, TX, this January.

English

This past July, The Tar River Writing Project, housed in the Department of English, concluded its third Summer Institute, which brought together 16 K-College teachers to research various writing pedagogies and to develop as writers themselves. English professor Will Banks and English education professor Todd Finley, co-directors of TRWP, facilitated the institute along with the help of Associate Directors Jennifer Sharpe-Salter, Jonathan Bartels and Terri Van Sickle, three area teachers whose English and English Education degrees were earned at ECU. To date, the TRWP has brought over $150,000 in federal and state grants to ECU, monies which have been used to fund the Summer Institute and to conduct a number of teacher-development projects in Eastern North Carolina.

Foreign Languages & LiteraturesLast summer, under the supervision of Paul Fallon, associate professor of Spanish, a new study-abroad program was held in Guadalajara, Mexico. The program was a great success and will be continued this summer 2010, again under Fallon’s direction.

Katherine Ford, assistant professor of Spanish, has authored a new book “Politics and Violence in Cuban and Argentine Theater,” which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in January.

This year, two Spanish professors, associate professor Michael Schinasi and professor Peter Standish, are sharing the department’s coordinating duties for the UNC Consortium Study-Abroad Program, which will be held in Santander, Spain.

GeographyThis past fall, during the Copenhagen Climate Change

negotiations, geography professor Jennifer Arrigo participated in two climate panels for an American Geophysical Union (AGU) project. The purpose of the project was to enable high-quality climate science reporting.

On February 26, the Department of Geography hosted a panel of discussions on “Wind Energy: Alternative or Distraction,” featuring a group of experts who addressed the issues about growing energy costs, the uncertainties associated with a reliance on foreign energy providers, and concerns about the environmental impacts of wind turbines and the economic impacts to property values and local tourism. Speakers included Michael Slattery, lead scientist for the Wind Research Initiative and director of the Institute for Environmental Change at Texas Christian University; Craig Landry, ECU economics professor and interim director of the ECU Center for Natural Hazards Research; Tom Allen, ECU geography professor and director of RENCI ECU; and Pat Long, director of ECU’s Center for Sustainable Tourism.

This spring, two geography faculty members, Dr. Scott Curtis and Dr. Rosana Ferreira, are teaching a course titled “Global Climate Change,” as part of ECU’s Global Understandings program. Using videoconferencing technology, students from four universities located in the United States, Brazil, India and China are working together to come up with original solutions for various climate change issues. Speakers arranged by the State Department address different aspects of climate change in a web-based format, with a question and answer session. The first speaker of the semester was Dr. John

Holdren, science advisor to President Obama, whose videoconference attracted students from many countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, Philippines, Tajikistan, Poland, Argentina, Germany and Taiwan.

Geological SciencesDr. Alex K. Manda, assistant professor of geological

sciences and a water resources scientist in the Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, was selected this fall to participate in “Water Here and There International Fellows” (WH&T IF), an exchange program of emerging young leaders between

China and the United States. The goal of the program is to bring together young professionals from China and United States to address global environmental issues involving water resources. Manda is one of 24 emerging leaders to be selected from a diverse group of young professionals. Participants with backgrounds in recycling, conservation, planning, international development and policy, and higher education were selected to participate in the program. The program includes a virtual exercise and visits to China and the US by the American and Chinese delegations. The virtual exercise held in January, involved working in virtual teams to address policy issues involving water resources. In June, the American delegation will travel to China for three weeks to learn from their Chinese counterparts, as well as develop networks for future collaboration. The Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State funds the program, which is administered by the Association for International Practical Training and the International Fund for China’s

AccomplishmentsFaculty and Staff

15

Environment.

Dr. Michael O’Driscoll, ECU Geological Sciences professor, along with Penn State University professor David DeWalle, recently received notice that a paper they co-authored “Seeps Regulate Stream Nitrate Concentration in A Forested Appalachian Catchment,” which was published in the January-February 2010 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality, also has been selected for inclusion in the Research Highlight program from the American Society of Agronomy - Crop Science Society of America - Soil Science Society of America (ASA-CSSA-SSSA). Their paper may be used in the new CSSA News magazine, News Flash, and in additional news releases.

HistoryDr. Mike Palmer, professor of history, provided his

expertise in the areas of U.S. and Middle East relations during an interview held in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 15. Palmer participated in an on camera interview for the series “Their Archives and Our History,” a historical, documentary series

being produced by Hot Spot Films, a Dubai Media City production house. The series will air on the Al Jazeera television news network later this spring. The current installment of the documentary, which Palmer was asked to contribute, focuses on both American and European influences that affected the Middle East and Gulf areas.

Dr. Larry Tise, Wilbur and Orville Wright Distinguished Professor, will discuss his most recent book on the Wright brothers, “Conquering the Sky,” in Washington, D.C., at noon, April 7, at the Library of Congress’ Center for

the Book. The center sponsors lectures by scholars who have written important new books that have made use of materials from the Library of Congress.

PhysicsDr. Yong-Qing Li recently received two grants from

the Department of Defense for studies of microorganisms using the Raman-tweezers method that he pioneered. Along with co-investigator Dr. Peter Setlow of the University Connecticut Health Center, Li received a grant from the U.S. Army Research Office

for their project titled, “Inactivation of Spores of Bacillus Species by Wet Heat: Studies on Single Spores Using Laser Tweezers Raman Spectroscopy.” The $375,000 grant was awarded for the period from 2008 – 2012. The second grant is a Department of Defense MURI grant in the amount of $1,375,000 awarded to Li and ECU for the period from 2009 – 2014 for Li’s project titled, “Mechanism of Bacterial Spore Germination and Heterogeneity.”

Political ScienceDr. Bonnie Mani, professor of political science, recently

authored a new book “Women, Men, and Human Capital Development in the Public Sector: Return on Investments.”

Dr. Jalil Roshandel, associate professor of political science and director of the college’s Security Studies program, has been accepted as a member of the

International Advisory Board by the French quarterly journal “Outre-Terre, Revue Française de Géopolitique,” published in the French language by the European Academy of Geopolitics.

This past August, Dr. Jalil Roshandel and Dr. Alethia Cook, assistant professor of political science, published a book titled “The United States and Iran, Policy Challenges and Opportunities,” published by Palgrave Macmillan.

PsychologyDr. Erik Everhart has been invited to be the opening

speaker for the National Multiple Sclerosis society’s local chapter conference on February 20. The focus of the talk will be cognitive issues in multiple sclerosis.

Following the devastating shooting at Fort Hood, Dr. Heather Littleton, assistant professor of psychology, was featured in an article on the Miller McCune Web site. The site is dedicated to reporting current academic research that addresses pressing social concerns. Some of Littleton’s research examines

the psychological affects on women following the Virginia Tech shootings. Her research has been featured in many articles. To read the Miller McCune article visit the site at www.miller-mccune.com/news/virginia-tech-study-

contains-lessons-for-fort-hood-1603.

Dr. Lesley Lutes is the recipient of an award from the Wyoming INBRE program (NIH). Her research project “Internet-Delivered Obesity and Cardiometabolic Disease Prevention: Clinical Discovery” is being funded at $100,000 for the 2009-2010 academic year. Also, Dr. Lutes has received an award

from Heath Services Research and Development in the VA. The project is titled “ASPIRE-FA ($1,425,000 for 2009-2012): Coaching Veterans to Healthy Weights and Wellness.”

Dr. Samuel Sears, professor in the Departments of Psychology and Cardiovascular Sciences, provided the keynote lecture to the First Nordic Symposium on Psychological Aspects of ICD Treatment in Lund, Sweden, on December 4, 2009. He addressed the state-of-the-art approaches and research

on the psychological and behavioral aspects of living with cardiac arrhythmias and implantable cardioverter defibrillators. Sears has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles on ICD patient care and quality of life, with recent articles in the major journals of cardiovascular medicine, including Circulation, Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the Journal of Clinical Electrophysiology.

17

Religious StudiesDr. Isaac Kalimi, Religious Studies Whichard Visiting

Distinguished Professor, has just published a new scholarly book on the Chronicles. A scholar of the Chronicles, this 412-page book is “The Retelling of Chronicles in Jewish Tradition and Literature: A Historical Journey” (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009). The book is receiving scholarly attention, as indicated by the decision to hold a special panel session on the book at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Atlanta in November. Reviews from the panel discussion will be published in the Review of Biblical Literature. Kalimi is also the author of the prize-winning

book, “The Reshaping of Israelite History in Chronicles,” along with many other books and scholarly articles.

In this book, Kalimi reveals the history of the book of Chronicles from Hellenistic times to the beginning of critical biblical scholarship at the dawn of the 17th century. This comprehensive examination focuses, first and foremost, on the use of Chronicles in Jewish societies through the generations and highlights the attitudes and biases of writers, translators, historians, artists, exegetes, theologians and philosophers toward the book. The reader is made aware of what the biblical text has meant and what it has “accomplished” in the many contexts in which it has been presented.

Throughout the volume, Kalimi strives to describe the journey of Chronicles not only along the route of

Dr. Beth Thompson, (1/1/2010) joined the faculty of the Department of Biology this

spring.

Mr. Serban Ranca, (1/1/2010) joined the faculty of the Department of Economics this

spring.

Ms. Irina V. Swain and Sarah H. Tyson, (1/1/2010) joined the faculty of the

Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures this spring.

Dr. Tracy Van Holt, (1/1/2010) joined the faculty of the Department of Geography this

spring.

Dr. Eric Horsman, (1/1/2010) joined the faculty of the Department of Geological

Sciences this spring.

Ms. Jing Yu, (1/1/2010) joined the faculty of the Department of Physics this spring.

PromotionsDr. Tom McConnell, Interim Chair of the Department of Mathematics and professor of

biology, has been appointed as the associate dean of the Graduate School, effective

May 15, 2010.

New Positionsand Promotions

Jewish history and interpretation but also in relation to the book’s non-Jewish heritage (namely, Christianity), demonstrating the differences and distinctiveness of the former. In contrast, the majority of commentaries on Chronicles written from the mid-19th century to the present day have contained little or nothing about the application, interpretation, and reception history of Chronicles by Jews and Christians for hundreds of years.

19

An ECU professor, exhibiting the university’s mission of leadership, was recognized this fall for her leadership in teaching. Dr. Anne Spuches, assistant professor of inorganic chemistry, received a Leadership Development Award from the Younger Chemists Committee of the American Chemical Society.

The YCC program recognizes emerging leaders in the profession and helps them prepare for leadership opportunities in their professional careers and through volunteer organizations such as the ACS.

ECU Chemist Recognized as Emerging Leader

As one of 15 recipients of a leadership award, Spuches attended the YCC Leadership Development Workshop in Fort Worth, Texas, Jan. 22 through 24.

“I was very honored to receive the award, and I believe it falls in line with the university’s mission of leadership and service,” said Spuches. “I have enjoyed teaching here at ECU. I especially love the fact that I can be a mentor to undergraduate and graduate students not only in the classroom but in my research laboratory.”

Spuches began teaching at ECU in 2007, after completing four years of postdoctoral research at Dartmouth College. She received her doctoral degree in chemistry from Yale University in 2003 and her bachelor of science degree in chemistry, with honors, from Syracuse University in 1996.

The Mental Health Association in Pitt County awarded the David W. Hardee Scholarship to two ECU students on September 30, 2009. Receiving the $500 scholarships were Ajlana Music, a doctoral student in the Pediatric Health Psychology program, and Emily Sinning, a master’s student in the School of Social Work.

Dr. Susan McCammon and Ms. Cassandra Campbell, co-chairs of the Scholarship Committee, presented the awards at a luncheon for the recipients. McCammon is a professor in the ECU Department of Psychology and Campbell is the Director of Social Work in Pitt County Schools.

McCammon pointed out the growing mental health needs in the community. “It is with pleasure,” she said, “that the Mental Health Association of Pitt County can help two bright and highly capable students continue their studies toward becoming mental health professionals in their respective fields.”

Ms. Music, a native of Bosnia who moved to Robersonville with her family when she was fourteen,

has a master’s degree in psychology. She has participated in numerous internships, including the Brody Pediatric Outpatient Clinic, the Traumatic Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury Units at PCMH, and Greene County, Pitt County and Edgecombe County Schools.

Ms. Sinning has a bachelor of arts degree in psychology, having graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2007. She served as a volunteer crisis counselor at REAL Crisis Center, is president of the ECU Graduate Association of Social Workers, spent a year in community development in New Zealand and was inducted in the National Scholars Honor Society in Spring 2008.

The David W. Hardee Scholarship was established by MHA-Pitt in 1963, in memory of Hardee, a Pitt County native who was a tireless advocate for people experiencing mental illnesses and the first North Carolinian to serve on the board of directors of the National Association for Mental Health (now Mental Health America).

ECU Students Awarded David W. Hardee Scholarship

21

Richard Barnhill and Emily

Wright, graduate students

in the Department of

Geography, presented

their research at the

American Meteorological

Society’s 22nd Conference

on Climate Variability,

January 18 through 22,

in Atlanta, Ga. Barnhill’s

presentation was titled

“Regional Variation of

Convective Structure

at Monsoon Onset

Across South America

Inferred from TRMM Observations.” Wright’s

presentation was titled “Effects of Cold Fronts

on the Onset of the South American Monsoon.”

Both Barnhill and Wright hope to complete the

M.A. program in geography this spring.

Whitney N. Bronson,

a senior anthropology

major, presented a

research poster at the

annual meetings of the

American Anthropological

Association in Philadelphia

this past December. Her

poster, “Fears of Failure: The Perceptions of

Chinese High School and University Students

about Fairness of University Admissions

Processes in Mainland China,” was based on

research conducted in Shijiazhuang, China, with

support from the National Science Foundation

grant awarded to her mentor, Dr. Christine

Avenarius.

Lara Frame, a master’s student in

anthropology, is presenting a poster, “Drilling

Away the Spirits: A Worldwide Study of

Trepanation,” at the 79th annual meeting

of the American Association of Physical

Anthropologists in Albuquerque, NM, on April

15. Drs. Holly Mathews and Linda Wolfe are

supervising Frame’s thesis.

Sean Gough, undergraduate student in the

Department of Biology, received external

funding from the Carolina Bird Club for his

project “Nesting Habitat Disturbance Patterns

and Possible Effects on Bald Eagle Nesting

Success in Eastern North Carolina.” While

working as a volunteer with a contracted state

biologist, Gough has been assessing fledging

success of bald eagles in the eastern part of

the state. He conceived of his project, relating

nesting success to some environmental

variables, with encouragement from ECU

biology professor Susan McRae. Gough will

complete his research this spring, due in part,

from the funding provided by the Carolina Bird

Blub.

Celebrating Student Successes

Jessica Lowenstein Lief, a former graduate

of the medical physics master’s program,

was promoted to the rank of Senior Medical

Physicist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

in Houston, TX.

Joe Luchette, a former graduate student

of the Department of Geography, and ECU

professor of geography Dr. Tom Crawford,

learned this past fall that their 2008 article

“A Public Participation GIS Application for

Citizen-Based Watershed Monitoring in the

Pamlico-Tar River Basin” was selected to

receive the Southeastern Geographer’s Best

Article of the Year Award. “This is a major

region-wide recognition and a great testament

to Dr. Crawford’s work with students and

the geography department’s emphasis on

research,” stated Burrell Montz, chair of the

department.

Derek Swart, a senior majoring in German,

stands before The Heidelberg Castle. Swart is

one of only 60 students nationwide to receive

a 2009 DAAD Undergraduate Scholarship to

study for a year in Germany. Currently, he is

studying German literature and linguistics at

the University of Konstanz.

23

Fall 2009 ECU Treasured Pirate Awards

ECU’s Treasured Pirate Award is designed to reward the special or unique contributions of ECU employees to their college/unit or to the university. The program recognizes any permanent SPA, CSS, or EPA employee within their college or unit. Award recipients receive an award certificate and a gift of their choice from the Treasure Pirate Reward Gift Catalog.

The Treasured Pirate Award program is coordinated by the Staff Development Unit of the Department of Human Resources and is supported through the generous sponsorship of TIAA-CREF.

Congratulations to the Harriot College recipients of the Fall 2009 ECU Treasured Pirate Awards!

Shavon Carey, Department of EnglishMichelle Eble, Department of EnglishCharles Ewen, Department of AnthropologyDenise Mayer, Department of BiologyCindy Mills, Department of EconomicsTina Moore, Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Office of the DeanPercevial Murphy, Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Office of the DeanLorraine Robinson, Department of English

(Treasured Pirate awardees for Spring 2010 will appear in a future issue of Magnetic East.)

Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Events

March 18Dr. Theda Perdue will give the Thomas Harriot lecture in the 2009-10 Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series. Perdue will discuss “Lost and Found Indians in Eastern North Carolina,” at 7 p.m. in Wright Auditorium. For additional information, visit www.ecu.edu/voyages.

March 19Deadline to submit Harriot College Research Award proposals to be awarded for spring 2011. For questions, contact Cindy Putnam-Evans at 252-328-4395 or [email protected].

March 26, 27, 28The Classics Program will be presenting a student performance of Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata,” a ribald play, in the fresh new translation by Peter Green, former Whichard Professor in Foreign Languages & Literatures, and directed by associate professor John Given. The performances will be March 26, 27 and 28 at 8 p.m. in the Great Rooms of Mendenhall Student Center (co-sponsored by Mendenhall/University Unions).

25

English Dr. Ron Mitchelson, Interim Chair

Foreign Languages and Literatures Dr. Frank Romer, Chair

Geography Dr. Burrell Montz, Chair

Geological Sciences Dr. Steve Culver, Chair

Anthropology Dr. Linda Wolfe, Chair

Biology Dr. Jeff McKinnon, Chair

Chemistry Dr. Rickey Hicks, Chair

Economics Dr. Richard Ericson, Chair

History Dr. Gerry Prokopowicz, Interim Chair

Mathematics Dr. Tom McConnell, Interim Chair

Philosophy Dr. George Bailey, Chair Physics Dr. John Sutherland, Chair

Political Science Dr. Brad Lockerbie, Chair

Psychology Dr. Kathleen Row, Chair

Sociology Dr. Leon Wilson, Chair

African and African American Studies

Asian Studies

Classical Studies

Coastal Studies

Ethnic Studies Great Books

Indigenous People of the Americas

International Studies

Leadership Studies

Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Multidisciplinary Studies

Neuroscience

North Carolina Studies

Religious Studies

Russian Studies

Security Studies

Women’s Studies

INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAMS

DEPARTMENTS