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End-of-Year Professional Notes

12/11/2019

A round-up of awards, presentations, papers and the other professional achievements of SLU faculty, staff and students. 

Students

SLU Ignatian Teach-In participants

SLU's delegation to the 2019 Ignatian Teach-In in Washington, DC, took part in breakout sessions, faith formation activities and advocacy work on Capitol Hill in meetings with their respective senators and representatives. Submitted photo

Ignatian Teach-In 2019

A group of SLU students, sponsored by the Department of Campus Ministry, traveled to Washington, DC for the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice (IFTJ) in mid-November.

The teach-in is the largest annual Catholic social justice gathering in the United States and is inspired by the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. More than 2,000 college and high school students were expected to attend.

The 2019 teach-in was the 22nd teach-in and honored the memories and legacies of the Jesuits and their companions who were martyred in El Salvador in 1989.

SLU's delegation took part in breakout sessions, faith formation activities and advocacy work on Capitol Hill in meetings with their respective senators and representatives.

Senior Vrushangi Shah was chosen by the Ignition Solidarity Network to not only facilitate a breakout session, but also to deliver an address to the entire gathering from the main stage.

The delegation was co-directed by SLU campus ministers Christy Hicks and Jim Roach.

The delegation’s student leaders are senior Kerry Anderson, senior Aaron Frazee, junior Johanna Berryman and junior Grace Kanary.

Competitions

SLU's MHA Case Competition team.

(From left) Graduate students Shailee Smith, Kavita Sharda, Mashal Ali, Lajju Sudhakar and Steven Howard., Ph.D., at the University of Kansas’s Regional Case Competition in November. Submitted photo

Saint Louis University’s Master of Health Administration Program (MHA) student team took second place in the University of Kansas’s Regional Case Competition on Nov. 1, in Kansas City. The team included second-year graduate students Shailee Smith, Kavita Sharda, Mashal Ali, Lajju Sudhakar and Steven Howard Ph.D.

A Saint Louis University team, including senior Glen Avery, freshman Logan Evans, junior Alex Fagan, junior Jiaying Liang, freshman Anh Nguyen, student Abisiola Ola-Ajose, and sophomore Taylor Streff, competed in the 80th annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition on Saturday, Dec. 7.  Greg Marks, Ph.D., is the faculty supervisor of the SLU Putnam Competition team.

The Putnam Competition is administered by the Mathematical Association of America and is considered the premier mathematics contest among colleges and universities throughout North America.  About 4,600 undergraduates from 570 institutions throughout the United States and Canada competed this year. 

The top five competitors will be designated as Putnam Fellows and awarded cash prizes. 

In the past, Putnam Fellows have gone on to win two Nobel Prizes in Physics and three Fields Medals in Mathematics.

Conferences and Presentations

SLU McNair Scholars in Anaheim.

(From left) Wesley Agee, Derek R. McFarland Jr., Dalia Harris, McNair Scholars from Harris-Stowe State University, Anthony Parker-Gills, SLU academic coordinator, SLU student and McNair Scholar Brandon Hughes , and Jamie Motley, Ph.D., SLU McNair program director, at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Anaheim, California. Submitted photo

Student scholars and staff members from the SLU McNair Program traveled to Anaheim, California, to attend the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), the first time that SLU’s current McNair Scholars have participated in the conference.

McNair Scholars senior Brandon Hughes, and Wesley Agee, Dalia Harris, Derek R. McFarland Jr. of Harris-Stowe State University, joined over 5,500 conference participants, including other emerging researchers, faculty and graduate school recruiters.

The four scholars gave poster presentations in their respective disciplines of biology and psychology, fielding rigorous questions from conference judges and other experienced researchers.

Laurie Shornick, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and SLU McNair faculty mentor, also attended the conference and served as a judge.

Presenters from Generate Health with SLU faculty.

Generate Health panelists Lora Gulley, Marion Davis, Jessica Douglass and Fern Scott stand with SLU faculty members Kelly Everard, Ph.D. (far left) and Fred Rottnek, M.D. (far right) following a panel with first-year SLU medical students. Submitted photos

Lora Gulley, director of community mobilization and advocacy and three community Leaders, Marion Davis, Jessica Douglass and Fern Scott of Generate Health, spoke with the first-year medical students in a clinical interviewing course on Nov. 19.

The panelists spoke to students about their experiences with institutionalized racism and inequities in the health care system, experiences that involved the deaths of loved ones.

The panel’s goal was to help students understand the real-life impact of the social determinants of health and the ways that medical practitioners’ questions and listening skills come into play as patients share their concerns and stories to improve health care outcomes.

FACULTY AND STAFF

Awards

Ethel Frese, DPT, receives the Helen Holzum Whalen Service Award.

Ethel Frese, DPT (left) receives the Helen Holzum Whealen Service Award from the Eastern District Missouri Physical Therapy Association, from its chair, Joel Dougherty, DPT. Submitted photo

Ethel Frese, DPT, professor of physical therapy and athletic training, was recently honored with the Helen Holzum Whealen Service Award for her longstanding and significant professional contributions to the field of physical therapy. The award recognizes outstanding service to the Eastern District Missouri Physical Therapy Association (EDMPTA), and service to the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA).

“Giving back to the profession that I love has given me the opportunity to meet many different physical therapists from whom I have learned so very much,” Frese said. “These service experiences have blessed me with long-term friendships and have made me a better person.  For that, I am forever grateful.”

Joel Dougherty, DPT, eastern district chair of the Missouri Physical Therapy Association (MPTA), presented the award.

Marla Berg-Weger, Ph.D., professor of social work in the School of Social Work in the College for Public Health and Social Justice, was selected as the recipient of the 2019 Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW) Leadership Award on Friday, Nov. 15 at the association’s reception.

The award is given to a faculty member who has made significant contributions in aging research, teaching and scholarship.

Bruce O'Neill, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences, received the 2019 Book Prize from the Society for Romanian Studies for his book, The Space of Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global Order (Duke University Press 2017).

The Society for Romanian Studies awards its book prize biennially for the best scholarly book published in English in the humanities or social sciences, on any subject relating to Romania or Moldova and their diasporas.

Grants

Cathleen A. Fleck, Ph.D., associate professor of art history and chair of the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, is co-investigator and grant recipient on a partnership, "Gateways to Medieval Naples," in collaboration with several institutions including the Bibliotheca Hertziana/Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte in Rome, the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II - Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici in Naples, Italy, and the Center for the Art and Architectural Study of Port Cities at the University of Texas at Dallas and Naples.

Grounded in collaborative on-site study of works of art and animated by collegial exchange of ideas, the seminar to be held in Naples in June 2020 will convene a small group of scholars to share and further develop the latest research on Naples and to chart new methodological approaches to this complex nexus of the medieval world.

The organizing committee has successfully received grants from the Center for Port Cities for $10,000, and from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for the Study of European art for $10,400.

Fleck has also received travel support from the Mellon Faculty Development grant administered by Saint Louis University.

Publications

Amanda L. Izzo, Ph.D., assistant professor of women’s and gender studies, published a chapter “‘US out of El Salvador!’ The Maryknoll Sisters and the Transnational Struggle for Human Rights,” in People’s Peace: Prospects for a Human Future, ed. Yasmin Saikia and Chad Haines (Syracuse University Press, 2019).

Erica Salter, Ph.D., associate professor of health care ethics in the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics, and alumnus Abe Brummett, published a Target Article in the American Journal of Bioethics, “Taxonomizing Views of Clinical Ethics Expertise.

Benjamin Looker, Ph.D., associate professor of American Studies, published the article “Staging Diaspora, Dramatizing Activism: Fashioning a Progressive Filipino Canadian Theatre in Toronto, 1974–2001,” in the Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue d'études canadiennes, Vol. 53, no. 2 (2019): 423–465.

Óscar López, Ph.D., professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, published a review on Memoria, escritura y culturas de Antioquia by María Stella Girón in Estudios de Literatura Colombiana 45 (Jul-Dec 2019): 205-208. López also published “El elogio de los díscolos” (foreword) on  Dialogo de raíces, a short stories book by Santiago Andrés Gómez in Fondo Editorial EAFIT, 2019: 5-14.

Elizabeth Blake, Ph.D., assistant professor of Russian, published her second book, Travels from Dostoevsky’s Siberia: Encounters with Polish Literary Exiles (Academic Studies Press, 2019). She also published a blog post about the book, and was interviewed about the new book for a SLU “Write Stuff” feature.

Simone Bregni, Ph.D., associate professor of Italian, published a new article on video game-based learning, “(Digital) Narrow Streets of Cobblestone: Game-Based Learning as a Preparatory Device & Simulation Strategies for Study Abroad Programs,” in the new issue of Beyond – Journal of International Education.

Cassandra Hamrick, Ph.D., professor of French, published a critical edition of the Salon de 1837, a series of unpublished articles on the annual Paris art exhibition in 1837 by French writer and critic, Théophile Gautier, with Honoré Champion (Paris). The Salon of 1837 edition is one of ten of the writer's art Salons to appear in Volume 1, the first of six volumes scheduled to appear with publisher Champion.

In all, the volumes will cover the entire span of Gautier's art Salons from 1833 to 1872. This is the first time that these writings, which had an important impact on the art world and on art critics like Charles Baudelaire, have appeared in book form.

Julia Lieberman, Ph.D., professor of Spanish, published an essay, “Few Wealthy and Many Poor: The London Sephardi Community in the Eighteenth-Century,” in Ler História: Judeus portugueses na Europa e nas Caraíbas, séculos XVII-XVIII, Issue 74, 2019.

Evelyn Meyer, Ph.D., associate professor of German, published a co-authored article with Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand, “sine mugens nicht erdenken: wand ez kan vor in wenken rechte alsam ein schellec hase: Women's German Medieval-Arthurian Scholarship,” in the Journal of the International Arthurian Society 7:1 (2019): 61-90, on Sept. 1.

Issue 1 of Faceless/Le sans-visage, dedicated to the works of French author Pascal Quignard, was published online in May 2019, with Jean-Louis Pautrot, Ph.D., professor of French and international studies, serving as the journal’s as editor-in-chief. The issue includes an interview with French author Annie Ernaux, and a testimony by sculptor Frédérique Nalbandian, as well as seven refereed analytical articles and four book reviews.

Presentations

Bruce O'Neill, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology, was an invited participant in the workshop, “Social Impacts of Post-Socialist Transition and Policies for the Future,” hosted by the Department of Russian and East European Area Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

The workshop brought together academics across the humanities and social sciences with economists from the World Bank to discuss everyday life and social policy in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall from Nov. 7 to 8.

O'Neill also delivered the talk, “Underground: The Metro, McDonalds and the Mobilization of the Middle Classes in Bucharest,” for the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvaniain Philadelphia on Nov. 6.

Constance Wagner, J.D., professor of law in the School of Law, was invited to present her research on the use of gender equity task forces and best practices to advance the status of women at U.S. universities at Villanova Law School's Annual Endowed Symposium, the Norman J. Schachoy Symposium, on Oct. 25. The symposium’s topic was “Gender Equity in Law Schools.”

Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Ph.D., professor of theological studies, was invited by the Karl Barth North American Society to respond to a diverse group of scholars on a panel dedicated to his most recent monograph, Dogmatics After Babel: Beyond the Theologies of Word and Culture (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), at the 2019 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Diego, on Sunday, Nov. 24.

Panelists included Paul Molnar of St. Johns University and Orlando Espín of the University of San Diego. The panel was well attended, and the book well-received.

Simone Bregni, Ph.D., associate professor of Italian, delivered the presentation, “Video Game-Based Learning in Italian Language, Literature & Culture Courses: Benefits, Challenges & Ongoing Development,” in the session “Gamification & Digital & Analog Game-Based Learning Approaches” at the Italian Language & Culture Conference at Georgetown University on Oct. 26.

Bregni also presented his research and teaching practices on game-based foreign language learning at “Italiano Per Piacere,” a St. Louis-based Italian cultural association and Italian language conversation group, in early October.

Sydney Norton, Ph.D., assistant professor of German, presented “The Political and Social Legacies of 19th-century German Immigrant Activists in Missouri,” for the Tuesday Women's Association at the Ethical Society of Saint Louis on Oct. 21.

Claudia Karagoz, Ph.D., associate professor of Italian, presented a paper, “Of Miracles and Madonnas: Roberta Torre’s Women on the Verge in I baci mai dati,” at the Global Intersections and Artistic Interconnections: Italian Cinema and Media Across Time and Space, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies Conference at the The American University of Rome, in Italy, in June 2019.

Karagoz also gave an invited presentation, “Donne sul crinale: I baci mai dati di Roberta Torre,” at The University of Rome La Sapienza, also in Italy. The presentation was part of a book launch event for the forthcoming collection “Sicily on Screen: Essays on the Representation of the Island and Its Culture,” (ed. G. Summerfield, McFarland 2019).

Kathleen Llewellyn, Ph.D., professor of French, delivered a presentation, “Comic Confessions in Early Modern France,” at the conference Symposium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in June. Llewellyn also chaired a session at the conference, “Using Texts: Agency in Translation, Reception, and Collection.”

Óscar R. López, Ph.D., professor of Spanish, delivered a presentation on Dialogo de raíces at Museo Otraparte, Envigado, Colombia, in August.

Conferences and Symposia

Pascale Perraudin, Ph.D., associate professor of French, co-organized and chaired a double panel on “Images of the Self and Images of Others: The Metaphors of Curation in and about the Arts,” at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, in El Paso, Texas on Oct. 11. She also presented “Curating Colonial Legacies: Reconfiguring spaces of the Self.”

Zdenko Mandušić, Ph.D., assistant professor of Russian, was an invited participant in the symposium “The Role of the ICTY in Understanding the War and Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” hosted by the Harris Institute at Washington University School of Law and the Bosnia Memory Project at Fontbonne University on Oct. 4.

Readings

Gregory Divers, Ph.D., reads recently translated poems by a German-Jewish expressionist, Jakob van Hoddis.

Gregory Divers, Ph.D., professor of German emeritus, reads recently translated poems by German-Jewish expressionist poet Jakob van Hoddis in Berlin. Submitted photo

Gregory Divers, Ph.D., professor of German emeritus, recently co-authored a book of poem translations of the work of Jakob van Hoddis, a German-Jewish expressionist poet murdered in a concentration camp during World War II. The new book is Strong Wind Over the Pale City, translated by Divers and Mitch Cohen (Berlin: PalmArtPress, 2019).

Divers read from van Hoddis’s poems at the Literaturhaus Berlin, in Germany, earlier this semester. Several of the poet’s family members traveled to Berlin from Israel to attend the book premiere.

Lectures and Speeches

Paul Vita, Ph.D., speaks at AUN in Nigeria.

SLU-Madrid's Paul Vita, Ph.D., dean and academic director, delivers the keynote address at the American University of Nigeria's annual Founder's Day Celebration. SLU-Madrid photo

Dean Paul Vita, Ph.D., director and academic dean of SLU-Madrid, delivered the keynote address at the 14th Annual Founder’s Day Celebration at the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola, Nigeria on Nov. 30.

Vita was invited to help celebrate the historic founding and growth of the AUN, Africa’s first development university, founded by Atiku Abubaker, the Nigerian philanthropist and politician, who served as the country’s vice president from 1999 to 2007.

Diane Carlin, Ph.D., professor of communication emerita, presented a lecture on Nov. 10, in New York City for “One Day University on Presidential Debates: Why We Watch and Why They Matter.” Carlin’s lecture was “U.S. Presidential Debates: Why We Watch and Why They Matter.”

Exhibitions

Four aforemas by Óscar López, Ph.D., professor of Spanish, were selected and exhibited in the bibliographic presentation of literary and cultural event “Thinking the Southwest throughout their writers,” held in Valparaiso-Antioquia, on Nov. 7. This event was organized by COMFAMA and Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia.