A large stack of books sit on shelves and the floor in Sociology and Criminal Justice Professor Lisa Waldner's office in the John R. Roach Center for the Liberal Arts on August 13, 2015. The books were temporarily stacked while awaiting new shelving. These images were taken for CAS Spotlight Magazine.

Professional Notes: June 30

Olga Herrera, College of Arts and Sciences, Associate Professor of English, has earned the 2019 Curricular Innovation in Sustainability Award for her work integrating a Sustainable Communities Partnership Arts (SCP Arts) project with the Metropolitan Council into her course, City Lights: Urban Experience (ENGL 203). This annual award recognizes St. Thomas faculty for innovation and excellence in integrating sustainability into a single course. The awards committee is comprised of faculty across disciplines. Read more here.

The following were awarded 2019 Opus College of Business Faculty and Staff Awards:

  • Julie Hays Teaching Award: Diane Matson, Associate Professor of Accounting
  • Susan E. Heckler Research Excellence Award: Kevin Henderson, Associate Professor of Management
  • Faculty Service Award: Sheneeta White, Associative Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
  • OCB Star Award: Josie Visser
  • OCB Influencer Award: Carley Stieg
Patricia Maddox, assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice, recently returned from Nanaimo, B.C. where she completed the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program training. She spent six intensive days at the Nanaimo Correctional facility working with the Guthrie Therapeutic program's "Prison Think Tank" and learning the ins and outs of how to successfully teach a course consisting of both "inside" and "outside" students.
Mark Neuzil and Greg Vandegrift, both of the College of Arts and Sciences communication journalism program, were part of the three-person team that won a first place award in the 2019 national Excellence in Craft contest sponsored by the Outdoor Writers Association of America. They teamed with Minneapolis photographer Dodd Demas to create a video and text package titled “The Surprisingly Interesting History of the Bent-Shaft Paddle,” which was posted and distributed by GearJunkie, a Minneapolis-based company that specializes in outdoor adventures and equipment.
Roxanne Pritchard, professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, published in June as a co-author of the article "Wake up call for collegiate athlete sleep: narrative review and consensus recommendations from the NCAA Interassociation Task Force on Sleep and Wellness” in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Merylann "Mimi" J. Schuttloffel, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Catholic School Leadership and professor of Catholic education, represented The Saint Paul Seminary and the University of St. Thomas as a U.S. delegate at the 2019 World Congress of Catholic Education sponsored by the International Office of Catholic Education (OIEC). Attended by more than 550 participants from 80 countries around the world, the congress was held at Fordham University’s Lincoln Campus June 5-7.
Christopher Thompson, professor of Moral Theology, in collaboration with Sarah Spangenberg (MAT ’19), received a grant from the University of St. Thomas’ Office of Sustainability Initiatives, to produce pedagogical resources for teaching sustainability and integral ecology in seminary and lay formation settings. The materials will also be available for undergraduate instruction.
Christian D. Washburn, professor of Dogmatic Theology, published “The New Natural Lawyers, Contraception, Capital Punishment, and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium” in LOGOS: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 22 (2019), 19-50. He also attended the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue, Round XII: “Ministries of Teaching: Sources, Shapes, and Essential Contents,” at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore in March. Recently, Dr. Washburn published a book review of A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion, by Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert Deltete in Linacre Quarterly (2019): 145-147.
Yohuru Williams, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, documented two other lynchings that occurred in Delaware, both in the 1860s - one in Leipsic and the other in Smyrna.
Rev. Kevin Zilverberg, assistant professor of Sacred Scripture, published his priestly vocation story in Latin, under the title “De vocatione mea ad sacerdotium.” It appeared in Vox Latina, volume 55 (2019), pages 128-133.
Dr. Robert Werner, College of Arts and Sciences, geography and environmental studies, wrote a successful proposal to bring 10 AmeriCorps volunteers to perform home repairs on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation at Fort Thompson in South Dakota.  On behalf of Dacotah Tipis Habitat for Humanity, he also received a grant of $10,000 from the South Dakota Community Foundation to pay for building materials the AmeriCorps team will use.  If you have an interest in volunteering on a Dakota reservation, do contact Bob.