Professional Notes

Professional notes

Two Opus College of Business faculty members, Dr. Phil Anderson, Management Department, and Dr. Leigh Lawton, Decision Sciences Department, won the Best Paper award at the national conference of the Association for business Simulation and Experiential Learning March 21-23 in San Antonio, Texas. Their paper was titled "Simulation Performance and its Effectiveness as a PBL Problem: A Followup Study."

Dr. Stephen Brookfield, School of Education, is the author of a chapter, "A Critical Theory Perspective on Faculty Development," in To Improve the Academy: Resources for Faculty, Instructional and Organizational Development (Boston: Anker Publishing, 2007), edited by D. Robertson and L. Nilson.

Dr. Kathy Combs, Finance Department, Opus College of Business, presented "Who Plays the Numbers Games in the Middle of the Day," co-written by Dr. John Spry, also of Finance, at a session on state and local public finance at the 2007 annual meeting of the Midwest Economics Association.

Samantha Lucci and Christopher Scrabeck, sociology majors, have been accepted to participate in the American Sociological Association Honors Program. This competitive program brings together promising sociology majors from across the United States to participate in the association's annual meetings. This year the meetings will be held in New York City. Dr. Meg Wilkes Karraker, Sociology and Criminal Justice Department, serves as the students' faculty sponsor.

Dr. Catherine Craft-Fairchild, English Department, presented a paper, "'Gratitude ... [Shall] Bind You to Good Behavior': Benevolence and Surveillance in the Writings of Sara Scott," at the 38th meeting of the American Society for 18th Century Studies in Atlanta. Part of a panel on "Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women and Charity," Craft-Fairchild's essay examined the mid-century novelist's relationship to 18th century poor law reform.

Dr. Sarah Noonan, School of Education, is the author of an article, "Culturally Sensitive Pedagogy: Mandela's Way," published in the NCPEA Educational Leadership Review, Vol. 8, No. 1 (February 2007). Read it here.

Dr. William Ojala, Chemistry Department, is the principal author of a paper, "Isomeric Schiff Bases Related by Dual Imino-Group Reversals," published in the April issue of the journal Acta Crystallographica, Section C: Crystal Structure Communications. The paper describes the solid-state structures of selected compounds of potential interest in the preparation of new solid materials. Co-authors of the paper are UST students Trina Arola and Barjeta Balidemaj, St. Thomas alumna Nell Herrera '05 and Ojala's brother Charles Ojala of the Normandale Community College chemistry faculty.

Dr. Peter Parilla, Sociology and Criminal Justice Department, presented a paper, "Conceptualizing Justice in Introduction to Criminal Justice: A Content Analysis of Textbooks," at the meetings of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in Seattle.

Dr. Thomas Redshaw, English Department and Center for Irish Studies, is the author of an article, "Unpacking Liam Miller's Crane Bag: Using the Dolmen Press Archive," in An Sionnach, Vol. 2 (spring/fall 2006), pages 114-127. The text was first presented as a lecture to mark the opening last year of the Dolmen Archive at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. An Sionnach is a journal of Irish studies published by Creighton University Press.

Dr. John Spry, Finance Department, chaired a session on financial econometrics and served as a discussant for a session on the economics of education at the 2007 annual meeting of the Midwest Economics Association.