Professional Notes for Feb. 22, 2017

Dr. Joseph Brom, professor emeritus, Chemistry Department, College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of an article, "Geometry and Electronic Structure of Titanabenzene and Its Valence Isomers," which recently appeared in the Journal of Physical Chemistry A, published by the American Chemical Society. Chemistry graduate John R. Kummer '16 is co-author of the paper.

Dr. Consuelo Cavalieri, Dr. Bryana French and Dr. Salina Renninger, all of the Graduate School of Professional Psychology, with GSPP doctoral students Auma Tindi and Talee Vang, attended and presented at the 10th Biennial National Multicultural Conference and Summit (NMCS) held Jan. 4-6 in Portland, Oregon. The NMCS was founded in 1998 to foster theory development, research, advocacy and practice of multicultural psychology. The conference closed with an apology to the indigenous peoples of the United States, received by the Society of Indian Psychologists (SIP), from Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility (Section 9 of Division 39), a subsection of the American Psychological Association. The apology parallels one given by the Australian Psychological Society as well as the landmark apology to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas from Pope Francis in 2015 for the "grave sins" of colonialism. It marks a hopeful turning point in which these psychologists vow to embrace "listening more and talking less; following more and steering less."

French also participated in the 2017 Midwinter Meeting with APA Division 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology) through her leadership role as director of communications and technology of the society. Presentations at the conference included:

• Cavalieri (co-presenter): "Honoring Original Voices: Addressing Colonization and Reconciliation With Indigenous Peoples"
• Cavalieri, French and Renninger: "Disrupting the Status Quo: Positionality, Pedagogy, and Relational Processes"
• Vang, Tindi and Cavalieri: "Giving Voice to Silenced Epistemologies: Integrating Ancestral and Contemporary Knowledge from African, American Indian, and Hmong Perspectives"
• French (co-presenter): "Counseling Psychology and Social Justice Leadership in the Real World: An Intergenerational Call"

Dr. David Deeds, Schulze School of Entrepreneurship, was recognized as one of the top publishers of research on business model innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry by the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology.

Dr. Hans Gustafson, Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, and Dr. Ozer Asdemir, Accounting Department, Opus College of Business, attended the “Interfaith and Pre-Professional Course Sequence Mid-Grant Workshop” held Jan. 22-24, facilitated by the Interfaith Youth Core and hosted by the Chicago Theological Seminary in Chicago. Gustafson presented on “Case Studies and Problem Based Learning in Interreligious Studies for Undergraduates.” The workshop included faculty delegations from 16 liberal arts institutions that were awarded grants from the Interfaith Youth Core and the Teagle Foundation to assist in developing undergraduate curricular programs in interreligious studies that bridge the liberal arts and pre-professional programs. The St. Thomas grant proposal process was led by Sarah Farnes, Muslim-Christian Dialogue Center, Dr. Barbara Gorski, Opus College of Business, Gustafson and Dr. Dominic Longo, Muslim-Christian Dialogue Center and Theology Department, College of Arts and Sciences. The funding has allowed for the implementation of workshops and events in the 2016-17 academic year that promote the creation of curricular units fostering interreligious understanding through community and workplace engagement. In addition to the leadership team mentioned above, workshops participants include Gail Anderson (outside consultant), Asdemir, John Del Vecchio (Business Law Department, Opus College of Business), Kelly Sardon-Garrity (Service Learning and Civic Engagement), Dr. Brian Shapiro (Accounting Department, Opus College of Business) and Bob Shoemake (Selim Center for Learning).

Dr. Pat Hedberg, Management Department, Opus College of Business, is the author of an article titled "Guiding Moral Behavior Through a Reflective Learning Practice," which was accepted for publication in the Journal of Management Education.

Dr. George Karvel, professor emeritus and the first to hold the Distinguished Chair of Real Estate at the University of St. Thomas, is the author of Kentucky Raider: Private Commodore Perry Snell, CSA and the Capture of General Edward Henry Hobson and his Order Book at Cynthiana, Kentucky, June 11, 1864 (John Hunt Morgan's Last Kentucky Raid). Karvel’s fascination with Civil War history, and Commodore Perry Snell in particular, began as a young child while listening to his family discuss Snell’s mysterious and adventurous story around the dinner table. His book, he said, is an American story "of love, barbarity and courage ... of a common man caught up in great historical events."

Dr. David Kelley, Geography and Environmental Studies Department, College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of an article, “White Bear Lake: Tale of a Disappearing Lake and Efforts to Restore It," which has been accepted for publication by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo, SUNY.

Dr. Ray MacKenzie, English Department, College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of a translation of Utopia from Thomas More to Walter Benjamin by Miguel Abensour. Abensour, emeritus professor of political philosophy at Paris Diderot University, has written widely on utopias and democracy. More information about the book, from Univocal Press, can be found here.

Dr. Jeni McDermott, Geology Department, College of Arts and Sciences, and St. Thomas students Claire Spangenberg and Jack Kellner and former student Chris Jones conducted field research in the mountains of central Nepal late May through June 2016. Spangenberg was awarded a Young Scholar’s Grant for her portion of the project. McDermott’s research explores the type of faulting driving the evolution of the Himalayas in the last few million years with a focus on extensional faults at the crest of the range. The team (assisted by a graduate student from the University of Houston) hiked up the Annapurna base camp circuit to the Machhapuchhre base camp and back, examining the rocks, looking for faults and collecting samples for analysis along the way. After completing the work there, the group traveled up the Marsyandi valley (by Jeep this time) to examine faults in that region as well.

Upon return to St. Thomas, Spangenberg processed the rock samples collected in Nepal for low-temperature thermochronology. She presented the results Dec. 14 at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. The AGU conference is the largest geoscience conference in the world, attracting approximately 30,000 geoscientists from across the globe. Her presentation was titled “Investigating Timing of Slip Along N-S Extensional Faults in the Modi Khola and Marsyandi Valleys, Annapurna Himalaya, Nepal," which she co-wrote with McDermott. Spangenberg also was awarded a travel grant from the American Geophysical Union.

Also at the AGU conference, McDermott served as session chair for a technical session (with co-conveners Alison Duvall of the University of Washington and Colin Amos of Western Washington University) titled “Recent Advances in Tectonic Geomorphology: Dates, Rates, Models, and Beyond,” which received 22 submitted papers and held both oral and poster subsessions.

Dr. Kristian Mortenson and Dr. Richard Sathe, both of the Accounting Department, Opus College of Business, are the authors of an article titled "A Case Study of Group Processes and Student Evaluation of Teaching," which was accepted for publication in Accounting Education.

Dr. Deborah Savage, Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity, is the author of “Man, Woman, and the Mission of the Laity,” which was published in the University of Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal. Her article “Adam’s Gift: Man in the Order of Creation” was published in Humanum Review, the quarterly review of the John Paul II Institute’s Office of Cultural and Pastoral Formation in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Brian Shapiro, David A. and Barbara Koch Distinguished Professor of Accounting and Business Ethics, Dean Maines, director of the Veritas Institute, Dr. Ken Goodpaster, emeritus professor of business ethics, and Dr. Michael Naughton, Koch Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies, are the authors of article titled "Using UNPRME to Teach, Research, and Enact Business Ethics: Insights from the Catholic Identity Matrix for Business Schools," which was published in the Journal of Business Ethics.

Dr. Buffy Smith, Sociology and Criminal Justice Department, College of Arts and Sciences, was the keynote speaker on “Making the Hidden Curriculum Visible on College Campuses," Jan. 4 at Thomas Nelson Community College, Hampton, Virginia.

Dr. Lynn Stansberry Brusnahan, Special Education/Teacher Education Department, College of Education, Leadership and Counseling, and St. Thomas alumna Kristina Trapp Stodolka '06 recently taught educators at Chaska Elementary some simple strategies for the inclusion of students with autism. Stansberry Brusnahan also hosted an Autism Society of Minnesota Skillshop on Feb. 9 on "Poetry and Autism: Turning Perseveration Into Creativity" with Chris Martin, visiting assistant professor at Carleton College. View the Poetry and Autism Program. On Feb. 10, she and several members of the St. Thomas community attended the MN PBS (Minnesota Positive Behavior Support) conference at the Minnesota Department of Education offices in Roseville, Minnesota. There she, with Erin Farrell, Special and Gifted Education Department, College of Education, Leadership and Counseling, alumna Maci Spica '10 and student Eric Ringgenberg, gave a presentation on the use of positive behavior support in schools.

Dr. William Stevenson, Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity, is the author of an article, “From Catharsis to Wonder: Tragic Mimêsis in Aristotle's Poetics and the Catholic Imagination," published in the January 2017 edition of Logos: a Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture.

Dr. Dale Thompson, Business Law Department, Opus College of Business, is the author of an article titled “Teaching the Business Law and Ethics of Arbitration After Concepcion,” which was published in the Journal of Legal Studies Education.

Dr. Muffet Trout, Teacher Education, College of Education, Leadership and Counseling, co-wrote an article, "Preventing the Shut-down: Embodied Critical Care in a Teacher Educator's Practice," that appeared in the journal Action in Teacher Education. The article presents findings from a research study in which Trout explored a teacher educator's practice to understand how she successfully engages her mostly white female students in the study of how systemic forces of oppression play out in K-12 schools. In February, Trout talked about the paper at the national conference for the Association of Teacher Educators in Orlando, Florida.

Trout also co-presented a paper at the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies annual meeting in December. Her paper, "Cultivating Agency: Case Method Teaching With Elementary Teacher Candidates," presented findings from a research study on a method for preparing elementary teachers to teach social studies: the Case Method.

Dr. Artika Tyner, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, provided the keynote address at the Sowers Assembly (Catholic Charities) on "Ending Mass Incarceration and Intergenerational Poverty." She also gave the keynote address at the "Know Your Community" event on personal branding for diverse professionals.

Dr. Paul Wojda, Theology Department, College of Arts and Sciences, is the co-author (with Raymond Tervo, M.D.) of a chapter, “The Ethics of Patient Advocacy: Bending the Rules on Behalf of Patients,” published in a volume titled Ethics in Child Health: Principles and Cases in Neurodisability, (Peter Rosenbaum, Gabriel Ronen, Eric Racine, Jennifer Johannesen and Bernard Dan, eds., London: Mac Keith Press, 2016). The abstract of the chapter is: "There are clearly times when all health professionals – as advocates for children and families – face the dilemma about whether it is right to bend the truth on behalf of the people we serve. Tervo and Wojda have produced a fascinating chapter about the ethics of deception. They cite authorities, both ancient and contemporary, who have reflected on these issues in considerable philosophical detail. Their analysis is likely to support some readers’ views and challenge others’ views."

 

 

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