Dr. Stephen Brookfield, Distinguished Professor, School of Education, recently presented a paper on "Discussion as a Way of Teaching" at the 1999 National Conference of the Professional and Organizational Development Network, the national network of faculty development. The paper was co-presented with Dr. Stephen Preskill, former St. Thomas faculty member, and was based on their book of the same title.
Dr. John Davenport, Special Collections in the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center, delivered a paper, "Chesterton, Ireland, and the Good Friday Peace Accords of 1998" at the Midwest regional meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies, held Oct. 7-9 at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Davenport also contributed a review of Josef Pieper's Faith, Hope, Love (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), to the September-October 1999 issue of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.
Dr. Joe Fitzharris, History Department, chaired a session on "Westward the Course of Politics" with papers on Gov. Gen. C.C. Washburn of Wisconsin and Sen. Gen. James Shield of Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri. He also presented "Union Counter-Guerrilla Operations in Kentucky and Middle Tennessee in 1861-1862" in a session titled "Eating Soup With a Knife: Countering Guerrillas During the U.S. Civil War" sponsored by the Society for Military History. Both sessions were held at the 34th annual Northern Great Plains History Conference Oct. 7-9 in St. Cloud.
Dr. Mel Gray, Graduate School of Business and Economics Department, recently attended the Social Theory, Politics and the Arts conference in Nashville, where he presented a paper, "Who's the Boss? Strong Directors, Weak Boards, and Other Agency Problems in Arts Organizations." The conference coincided with the fall meeting of the Cultural Policy Network, to which Gray serves as the St. Thomas representative. In addition, Gray was notified by the National Endowment for the Arts that he has been awarded a contract to conduct further analysis of the 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, resulting in a research monograph to be published in 2000.
Dr. Meg Wilkes Karraker, Sociology Department, recently was notified that Sociologists for Women in Society has been granted Special Consultative Status as a NonGovernment Organization (NGO) with the United Nations. The executive office of SWS is located at the University of St. Thomas.
Dr. John Kemper, Mathematics Department, was the invited speaker at the Oct. 13 meeting of the Augsburg College Mathematics Colloquium, where he spoke on "Population Dynamics of a 'Rip van Winkle' Species."
Dr. Ellen Kennedy, Service Learning coordinator, spoke about University of St. Thomas faculty development in service learning at the National Colloquium for Academic Deans, Provosts, and Vice Presidents on Service-Learning, Campus-Community Collaborations and Institutional Renewal. Others who participated in the presentation were Mark Langseth, executive director of Minnesota Campus Compact, and Dr. Josephine Reed-Taylor, vice president for Academic Affairs, Minneapolis Technical and Community Colleges.
James Rogers, Center for Irish Studies, attended the Midwest regional meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies Oct. 8-9 at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Rogers presented a paper, "Edwin O'Connor's The Edge of Sadness: Grace, Digressions, and Words of Blessing," which examined the 1962 Irish-American novel about a priest in New England. Rogers also organized and chaired a panel discussion at the conference, titled "Gaels Gone Chic: Teaching Irish Studies in the Age of Riverdance." Panelists considered the relationship of popular culture to the traditional concerns of academic Irish studies.
Terri Topness, Registrar's Office, presented her paper "Putting on Power: Fighting the Mask in W.B. Yeats' 'Leda and the Swan'" at the 1999 Midwest Regional Conference of the American Conference for Irish Studies at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Topness is pursuing a degree in the Graduate Program in English at UST.
