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Here are the faculty and staff activities for October 6, 2011.
Faculty and Staff Activities
Dr. Thomas P. Bell, applied engineering, safety and technology, participated as an invited panelist addressing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) initiatives for the new class of Einstein Fellows in the Rayburn House Building in Washington, D.C., on September 1. Bell is the president of the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association.
Dr. Alex DeCaria, earth sciences, completed a four-day course at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, Md. The course, titled “Basic Hazus Multi-Hazards,” teaches the use of a FEMA-developed Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software package for use in earthquake, flooding and hurricane response, recovery and mitigation planning. DeCaria will be incorporating elements of the Hazus software into a new course (GIS Applications for Emergency Management) that he will be teaching as part of the M.S. in Emergency Management degree program.
Dr. M. Ghoreishi, management, had her book, Conscience Capitalism, A Stakeholder’s Approach to Business, published on September 1. The textbook deals with overall ethics and business ethics and is being used in her classes this semester. The book offers an overview of stakeholders’ models and conscious capitalism in a comprehensive and simple way for undergraduate students, but informative for others. The topics of this book emerged from efforts to learn from the recent economical crisis of 2007 – 2010, and supplement the concept of conscious capitalism to the business approach since there has not been as much emphasis on this subject.
Dr. Leroy Hopkins, foreign languages, participated in a seminar from June 25-July 9 in Berlin, Germany, sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG), Neuer Blick, which introduced 20 American teachers of German to multicultural Berlin. Each participant is expected to either make a presentation or prepare an essay based on his or her experiences. As a member of the AATG’s “Alle Lernen Deutsch” (“Everybody is Learning German”), a committee set up in 1991 to develop strategies to improve participation of students of color in the learning and teaching of German, Hopkins attended the workshop to see first-hand what the committee had developed in Berlin and also to gain information for an article, which he intends to write on African Americans in Berlin.
In addition, from August 18-21, Hopkins attended the first ever Black German Convention sponsored by the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Black German Cultural Society, Inc., of New Jersey. He is a board member of the latter group and presented at the convention ideas on how Black Germans and teachers of German can work together. A high point of the convention was a visit to Capitol Hill to be interviewed by the staff of the U.S. Helsinki Commission (“Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe”). The commission is one of two bodies in government that represents both the Legislature and the Executive branch.
Drs. Karen Rice and Heather Girvin, social work, presented their paper, titled “Through Their Eyes: Using Photography to Mitigate the Effects of Trauma” at Fordham University’s Be The Evidence Project: Arts for Individual and Social Change Forum on September 24.
Dr. M. P. A. Sheaffer, English, sang in a concert of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in Royal Albert Hall, London, on July 10, under the direction of conductor Brian Kay. She also sang as an alto ringer with the St. Olave’s Singers in a special noontime Eucharist at St. Olave’s Church in the City of London, which featured Victoria’s “Mass in Eb” on July 26. On August 15, she sang in a festival service for “Maria Himmelfahrt” as an alto ringer in Mozart’s “Mass in ‘C’” with the Augustinerkirche Choir at the Augustinerkirche in Vienna, Austria. In addition, she sang with the Distinguished Concerts International Chorus on September 11, in a special program commemorating the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The program was held in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York.
Dr. Ron Umble, mathematics, and former post-bac student Matthew Kirby, published a paper in the October 2011 issue of the mathematics magazine titled “Edge Tessellations and Stamp Folding Puzzles.” The main result in this paper was discovered by Millersville students Andrew Hall, Matthew Kirby and Joshua York during a research seminar directed by Umble in the spring of 2009. In addition, Umble was an invited plenary speaker at the International Conference on Modern Algebra and its Applications, held at the Batumi State University in Batumi, Republic of Georgia, September 19 – 26. His talk, titled “Non-operadic Operations on Loop Cohomology,” introduced the first example of a new algebraic operation that occurs in nature and can be used to computationally distinguish between certain digitally encoded geometrical objects. And, Umble will give the opening plenary address at the fall 2011 meeting of the Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware Section of the Mathematical Association of America to be held at Bryn Mawr College on November 19. His talk, titled “Mathematical Research Experiences for Undergraduates at Millersville University,” highlights various undergraduate research projects directed by Umble over the past decade.
Dr. Yuan Zhong, biology, chaired session two of the 2011 International Conference on Food Engineering and Biotechnology this summer in Bangkok, Thailand, and made an oral presentation, “Role of ABA in Ethylene-independent Flower Senescence – PP2C as a Positive Effecter of ABA Signaling,” at the conference, which is coauthored by Millersville student Claire Ciafré. This presentation won the Best Paper Award of this conference. She received funding from PASSHE Faculty Development Grants, as well as outside support from the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Oklahoma to research “Comparative Genome-level Analysis of the Terpene Synthase Gene Family in Glandular-trichome-bearing Medicago and Non-glandular-trichome-bearing Arabidopsis.” She had a poster, “Comparative Genome-Level Analysis of the Terpene Synthase Gene Family in Medicago Ttruncatula and Arabidopsis Thaliana,” coauthored and presented by her Millersville student Michael Parker at the 41th Annual Meeting of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania University Biologists, which won second place in the poster presentation category at the workshop.
Retired
Dr. Dennis Denenberg, professor emeritus, elementary and early childhood education, continues to present keynote addresses to conferences and conventions for corporate, teacher and parent groups. On October 1, Denenberg gave a keynote Hooray for Heroes presentation in Austin, Texas, at the Texas State Social Studies Supervisors Conference. On November 1, he will be the emcee for the Dollars for Scholars Gala at The Ware Center at Millersville University Lancaster. And, on November 11, he will give a Hooray for Heroes presentation at the Core Knowledge National Conference in Orlando, Fla.
Obituary
Byron R. Detwiler, 71, of Manheim, professor emeritus of French at Millersville University, died September 19. He was a 1962 graduate of Millersville.
