The following notes, which were submitted during the Spring 2008 semester, are intended to convey the accomplishments and activities of Providence College faculty and staff members in endeavors beyond the campus.
Dr. Anthony D. Affigne, professor of political science and department chair, served as a panelist at a Brown University session on Latino participation in the Rhode Island presidential primary. The session was held on March 3 at Brown’s A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions. Affigne is a visiting professor of ethnic studies at Brown.
Affigne also presented a research paper in San Diego, Calif., at the Western Political Science Association, entitled “The Racial Framing of Black and Latino Politics.” In addition, he served on two roundtables for the pre-conference Latino Politics Workshop: “Latino Politics in the 2008 Presidential Election,” and “Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Latino Caucus in Political Science, 1998-2008.”
On May 1, Affigne traveled to Montréal, Canada for a meeting of the International Political Science Association. As a representative of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Affigne joined APSA president Dianne Pinderhughes and executive director Michael Brintnall, reporting on the “State of the Discipline” in the United States.
Dr. Nuria Alonso Garcia, associate professor of Spanish, served as a presenter at the 26th Spanish Association for Applied Linguistics (AESLA) International Conference, held on April 3-5, in Almeria, Spain. Her presentation, “Beyond the Limits of the Classroom: Implementing The Service-Learning Methodology to the Spanish Foreign Language Curriculum,” explained how implementing a service-learning methodology to the Spanish language curriculum has proven beneficial.
James B. Baker, professor of art, served as design consultant for a landscape garden exhibit at the 2008 New England Flower Show, held March 8-16 in Boston. The exhibit, which was directed by Harry Eudenbach ’01G, received a Massachusetts Horticultural Society Silver Medal. Baker also exhibited three works in an exhibition entitled, 20th Century Works on Paper, at the Newport Art Museum from January through February 2008.
Dr. Salvatore “Rino” Cappelletti, associate professor of Italian, had more than 20 critical reviews published in Alessandro Manzoni. A Critical Bibliography 1950-2000 (Pisa Roma: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2007). This is the first major English critical bibliography on Manzoni, a famous Catholic poet, dramatist, and novelist.
Cappelletti also published two essays on Italian dramatists and theoreticians of the Commedia dell’Arte, Andrea Perrucci and Flaminio Scala in Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB) volume 339: Seventeenth-Century Italian Poets and Dramatists (Detroit, New York, San Francisco, New Haven, Waterville/Maine, London: Gale Cengage Learning, 2008).
Rev. Edward L. Cleary, O.P., professor of political science and advisor for the Latin American Studies Program, attended an international conference from April 4-10 on Bartolomé de Las Casas, a missionary, Dominican priest, and bishop who lived in the 15th and 16th centuries. The event was held at the Havana Dominican Convent of San Juan Letran in Cuba and marked the 280th anniversary of the founding of the University of Havana by the Dominicans.
Father Cleary also presented a paper, “Catholic Lobbies at the State Level,” at the New England Political Science Association’s annual meeting in Providence, R.I., on April 25.
Christopher H. Day, cataloging and digital projects librarian in Phillips Memorial Library, spoke at the New England Archivists spring 2008 meeting held on March 28-29 at Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I. The topic of Day’s presentation was “The Rhode Island Colored Artillery Regiment: Experiences Digitizing a Civil War Era Document Collection.”
Dr. Susan (Griffith) Grossman, assistant professor of social work, co-presented two papers during the 25th annual BPD (Baccalaureate Programs Directors) Conference in Destin, Fla., in March. She co-presented “Assessing Assessment: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” with Dr. Greg Gross of the College of St. Rose in Albany, N.Y. The second paper, “Transprac: The Building of the Trans-Atlantic Educational Alliance,” was presented with Dr. Gail Werrbach of the University of Maine.
Dr. Aurelie A. Hagstrom, associate professor of theology, gave two presentations at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tenn., on March 13-14. The first, “Building a Civilization of Love: The Mission of the Laity and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” was given to the Aquinas Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar. The second, “New Directions in the Theology of the Laity,” was given before the entire faculty and administration.
Hagstrom also served as the keynote speaker for the Archdiocese of Boston Conference Day on April 4 in Brighton, Mass. The conference drew more than 200 clergy, religious, and lay ecclesial ministers from across the archdiocese. Her talk, “Co-workers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Collaboration of Clergy and Laity in Ministry,” was a theological overview of the 2005 U.S. Catholic Bishops’ document on lay ecclesial ministry.
Dr. Wanda S. Ingram, senior associate dean of undergraduate studies, was voted chairperson-elect of the La Salle Academy (Providence, R.I.) Board of Regents. Ingram will begin her two-year term in August 2008. She was previously elected to LaSalle’s Board of Regents in 2005 and served as chairperson of the school’s Futures Committee in 2006.
Dr. Arthur F. Jackson, associate professor of philosophy, published an article, "The Ethics of Martin Buber," Contemporary Philosophy, Volume XXVII, No. 4, Spring 2007.
Dr. Ronald L. Jelinek, assistant professor of marketing, co-authored an article, “Auditors Gone Wild: The ‘Other’ Problem in Public Accounting,” which was published in the May-June 2008 edition of Business Horizons. The article, co-written by his wife, Kate Jelinek, assistant professor of accounting at the University of Rhode Island, examines the effect of three factors on auditor stress—Sarbanes-Oxley, the shortage of accounting talent, and the lingering skepticism of the accounting industry. It also addresses how, through increasing auditor stress, these factors are impacting organizational, interpersonal, and frontline deviance at large public firms and, in effect, impairing the ability of these firms to serve and build relationships with clients.
Dr. Peter M. Johnson, professor of English, visited Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River, Mass., in January as part of the school’s Distinguished Speaker Program.
Johnson’s novel, What Happened (Front Street Press, 2007), was chosen as Bishop Connolly’s all-school read for the school year. His visit capped the students’ involvement with the novel by being able to share in his comments on the writing process and his work with prose poetry. Also, the German publisher, Arena Verlag, recently bought rights to the novel and will translate and publish it in German, along with an audio version.
On February 2-3, Johnson participated in the Associated Writing Programs Conference in New York , serving on a panel called “Mongrels in the Park: An Investigation of the Prose Poem” and giving a reading to celebrate the 35th anniversary of White Pine Press.
Dr. Gregory L. Light, associate professor of management, had five articles published in various publications over the past year. “Clear Logic of Einstein Field Equations” appeared in the International Journal of Applied Mathematics, Volume 20, 2007, as did “Combined Manifolds and the Conjecture of a Dual Universe with Dark Matter.”
His article, “On a Combined 4-Manifold with Three Gravitational Constants,” appeared in the International Journal of Applied Science and Computations, Volume 14, 2007. “Einstein Tensor in Management Science” was published in the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, Volume 41, 2007, and “Relative Derivatives and the Economic Science” appeared in the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, Volume 40, 2007.
Dr. Thomas R. Miller, assistant professor of health policy and management, was recently selected to serve as a member of Quality Health Partners of Rhode Island’s Board of Directors. In addition, Miller was appointed to the Rhode Island Department of Health/Landmark Medical Center Review Committee. As part of the committee, Miller will provide input to the department on the performance and financial impact of the cardiac surgery services at the Woonsocket, R.I., medical center.
Dr. Francine Newth, assistant professor of management, had an article entitled “The MiFID Business Model: A Strategic Opportunity,” published in the Journal on Management, Volume 2, (2) September-November 2007 edition.
Robert Rambo, assistant professor of accountancy, presented a paper, "An Example of Foreign Currency Forward Contract Hedges of Exposed Receivables under SFAS (Statement of Financial Accounting Standards) No. 149," at the Academy of Accounting, Finance and Economics annual conference December 13-15 in New Orleans, La.
Dr. Cornelius Riordan, professor of sociology, was invited to deliver keynote talks on single-sex schooling during the spring and summer of 2007 in Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; and Warsaw and Cracow, Poland. In addition, he presented a keynote paper on single-sex schooling as part of an educational policy forum at New York University in February 22, 2008.
Siobhán Ross, coordinator of the Instructional Technology Development Program (ITDP), presented at Cape Cod and Islands Library Association’s annual conference on March 20 at the Cape Cod Community College in Barnstable, Mass. Her presentation, “Second Life: Let’s Get One,” focused on academic experiments with the virtual world Second Life.
Janice G. Schuster, assistant professor, coordinator of reference services. and reference librarian in Phillips Memorial Library, recently was elected secretary of the Association of College and Research Libraries’ New England Chapter for 2008-2009. Schuster has been a member of the group for more than 15 years.
Dr. C. Joanna Su, associate professor of mathematics, attended the American Mathematical Society/Mathematical Association of America 2008 Joint Meetings held on January 6 - 9 in San Diego, CA, and gave a talk on her paper “Fibration and Cofibration in Module Theory” in the Geometry and Topology Session. In addition, her paper “On Relative Homotopy Groups of Modules” was published in the International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 2007, No. 10, doi:10.1155/2007/27626.
Dr. Barbara K. Sullivan-Watts, adjunct assistant professor of biology, and Dr. John H. Costello, professor of biology, co-wrote an article, “Ctenophore-Zooplankton-Phytoplankton Dynamics in a Changing Climate: Do the Old Paradigms hold?” The article was published in Science of Ecosystem-based Management: Narragansett Bay in the 21st Century (Springer, 2008). They wrote the article with Dian J. Gifford and Jason R. Graff, both of the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. The book updates the scientific understanding of the Narragansett Bay ecosystem.
Sullivan-Watts also presented a paper, “Patterns in the Science Knowledge of Elementary Pre-Service Teachers Engaged in Inquiry Teaching,” at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching’s annual meeting. The paper was co-authored with Dr. Betty Young, Dr. Rob Pockalny, and Dr. Josef Gorres.
Dr. James J. Tattersall, professor of mathematics and special lecturer in education and in natural science, co-organized a special session on the history and philosophy of mathematics at the first joint meeting of the American Mathematical Society and the New Zealand Mathematical Society held at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand from December 12-15. At the meeting, Tattersall presented a paper, "Mathematical Contributions to the Educational Times from Australia and New Zealand."
He also coordinated the Mathematical Association of America’s (MAA) scientific sessions at the joint meeting of the American Mathematical Society and the MAA on January 6-9 in San Diego, Calif.
Tattersall co-authored two articles with Dr. Shawnee L. McMurran, professor of mathematics at California State University, San Bernardino. “A Note on Submissions from India to the Mathematical Sections of the Educational Times and the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society” was published in Ganita Bharati: The Bulletin of the Indian Mathematical Society in 2007. “Paul Dirac and his Beautiful Mathematics” was published in Revista Brasileria Historia da Mathmatica, also in 2007.
In addition, Tattersall gave an address, “Number, Number, Numbers,” at the spring meeting of the Illinois Section of the MAA at Eastern Illinois University on April 4.
Dr. Sally J. Thibodeau, associate professor and director of the Secondary Education Program, was a member of an NCAA Peer Review Team that Centenary College in Shreveport, La., from May 8-11. During the review, Thibodeau was responsible for aspects of the gender equity and student well-being principles of the NCAA review. This was the fifth time Thibodeau has served as a member of such a team.
The Very Rev. John E. Unsworth, special lecturer of religious studies in the School of Continuing Education (SCE), was the recent recipient of the National Catholic Education Association’s (NCEA) “Distinguished Pastor Award.” The award, which was established in 2007 by the association’s Department of Elementary Schools, recognizes the achievements of pastors selected from nominees representing each of the NCEA’s administrative districts. He is the pastor of St. Brendan’s Parish in East Providence, R.I. He is one of the first local pastors recognized nationally and was selected from nominees representing the 13 New England dioceses. Father Unsworth teaches an on-line, non-credit course in the SCE’s Certificate of Religious Education (CORE) program.
Dr. Tuire Valkeakari, assistant professor of English, recently gave three conference presentations. The first, “Passages to (Be)Longing: Recent Literary Portraits of the Caribbean Diaspora in the United States," took place at the annual convention of the College English Association (CEA) in St. Louis, Mo., on March 27–29.
Valkeakari delivered “Roots, Routes, and Returns: Literary Journeys Back to the Caribbean” during the annual convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA), held in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 10–13. The third presentation, “Interrogations of ‘Home’: The Ambiguities of Return in Caryl Phillips’s Early Fiction,” was given during the annual convention of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), held in Long Beach, Calif., on April 24–27.
On a local note, Valkeakari gave a presentation on Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in the “Critical Eye” workshop organized by the Hartford Stage Theater Company in Hartford, Conn., on March 1 in connection with Hartford Stage’s production of Lydia Diamond’s play based on the debut novel of Toni Morrison.
Valkeakari also wrote reviews of Arnold Rampersad’s Ralph Ellison: A Biography and J. Brooks Bouson’s Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother in American Studies in Scandinavia 39:2 (2007), 114–119.