CAS Highlights

Here is a list of some of the professional achievements of the College of Arts and Sciences faculty and students.

Young-ok An (English), has been appointed the new director of the Luann Dummer Center for Women, to begin July 1, 2012. She will succeed Corrine Carvalho (Theology).

Bernard Armada (Communication and Journalism), received the Outstanding Book Chapter Award from the African American Communication and Culture Division of the National Communication Association. He won the award for his chapter, “(Dis)placing the Dissident Body,” which appears in the book, Places of Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials, edited by Greg Dickinson, Brian L. Ott and Carole Blair (University of Alabama Press, 2010).

The Chemistry Department has been named one of five U.S. colleges and universities to receive a prestigious Jean Dreyfus Boissevain Lectureship for Undergraduate Institutions. The lectureship grant, worth $18,500, will bring one celebrated speaker from the chemical sciences to speak to St. Thomas chemistry students for two to three days next fall. Part of the grant also will be used to support the summer research of two undergraduate students.

Craig Eliason (Art History), participated in a “Cross Talk” event at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Sharing the stage, Eliason and Twin Cities artist and type-designer Chank Diesel led a conversation on the inspirations behind type designs.

Simon Emms (Biology), Tim Lewis (Biology), Paul Lorah (Geography) and student Theresa Wondra received a $15,000 Campus Sustainability Fund grant for “Student Restoration of Oak Forest: Analyzing Carbon Storage in a Recovering Landscape.” Under the grant, students will work in partnership with Great River Greening to restore 10 acres of oak forest in the Fish Creek Natural Areas Greenway, located 20 minutes from the St. Paul campus. An outdoor lab will be created that will allow students to study and document the effectiveness of restoration efforts.

Elizabeth Kindall (Art History), (2011). “Envisioning a Monastery: A Seventeenth-Century Buddhist Fund-Raising Appeal Album.” T’oung Pao, 97: 104-159. She also presented, “A Painted Geo-Narrative as Quest Toward Sagehood,” Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Macalester College, Oct. 28.

Amelia Kritzer (English), (2011). “The Absence of Wealth in Recent British Plays about Business” in To Have or Have Not: Essays on Commerce and Capital in Modernist Theatre, ed. James Fisher. Macfarland. She also wrote “Revolution and After: Heroism and Violence in Early National Plays about the American Revolution,” in Violence in American Drama, ed. Alfonso Ceballos Munoz, et. al., Macfarland, 2011.

Kelli Larson (English), worked with four students Jennifer Graffunder (’11), Emily Koenig (’12), Paige Patet (’13) and Samantha Schwab (’13), who served as interim bibliographers for “Current Bibliography,” appearing in the Hemingway Review, 31.2. (spring 2012).

The Twin Cities Math Teacher’s Circle, led by Mathematics Department faculty Melissa Loe, Brenda Kroschel and Cheri Shakiban, was featured in the winter 2012 issue of MTCircular, a publication of the American Institute of Mathematics. The article explained the work St. Thomas faculty members are doing with local school math teachers to improve the teaching of problemsolving skills.

Paul Lorah (Geography), attended the 2011 West Lakes Association of American Geographers annual conference with a group of junior and senior geography students in November 2011. Anne L’Heureux and Julie Rech presented their research, “Land Change in Puerto Rico: Using GIS to Discover the Underlying Processes of Forest Recovery.” Chia Lee presented “Health Accessibility in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area Hmong Community.” Nicholas Yannarelly and Rech presented “Discovering the Buffalo Commons: Using GIS to Target Optimal Lands in the Great Plains for Large Scale Restoration.” Lorah presented his research, “Landscapes of Prosperity: Commodities, Amenities and Development in the Rocky Mountain West,” and served as a judge for undergraduate and graduate student scholarship competitions.

Raymond MacKenzie (English), (2011). Translated Emile Zola’s Germinal (Hackett Publishing).

Shelly Nordtorp-Madson (Art History), (2011). Keynote address, “Scandinavian Medieval Dress: Continuity and Change,” Nordic Spirit Symposium, Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Roxanne Prichard (Psychology), (2011). In collaboration with Vanessa Cornett-Murtada (Music), won the Editor’s Choice award for “Outstanding Neuroscience Pedagogy Article” from the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education for their article “Music and the Mind: A New Interdisciplinary Course on the Science of Musical Experience.”

Mary Reichardt (Catholic Studies), is the editor of the literature section of the recently published New Catholic Encyclopedia − 2011 Supplement (Gale/Catholic University of America Press). Besides editing the literature section, Reichardt wrote the essay on Literature and Catholicism. UST contributors of entries include Ray MacKenzie (English), Martin Warren (English), David Foote (History), Jane Tar (Classical and Modern Languages), Rev. Michael Keating (Catholic Studies), as well as James Rogers (Center for Irish Studies), David Deavel (Catholic Studies) and Andrew Leet (English).

Julie Risser (Art History), contributed chapters on Africa and Pacific art to The Art Museum, published by Phaidon Press.

Heather Shirey (Art History), (2011, July), presented “Pierre Verger’s Candomblé Imagery in A Cigarra,” International American Studies Association Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Kevin Theissen (Geology), published an article, “What Do U.S. Students Know About Climate Change?” in the Dec. 20 issue of the international weekly geoscience journal EOS. The article discusses Theissen’s and other recent research on climate change misconceptions and misinformation in undergraduate classrooms.

Victoria Young (Art History), (2011, December), presented “Modern Catholic Monastic Architecture and Gender: Marcel Breuer and the Benedictines.” Modern Catholic Space conference in London, England.

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