Ellis College highlights faculty activities and achievements

Peggy Sturba
Dr. Peggy Sturba, professor of English, presented a paper at the International Conference on Romanticism in Manchester, England. Her paper focused on the poetry of an early "mother" of British Romanticism, Anna Letitia Barbauld, upon whose prose Sturba has published in the past. She was eager to share ideas and receive feedback at this conference and to return to the Lake District, which nurtured Wordsworth and Coleridge and so many British Romantics, and which is a short train ride from the site of the conference.

Maryjane Dunn
Dr. Maryjane Dunn, associate professor of Spanish, attended the XII Lecciones Jacobeas Internacionales, a graduate / post-graduate class sponsored by the University of Santiago de Compostela. This year's topic was “El Po'rtico de la Gloria y el Camino de Santiago.”

Jennifer Amox
Jennifer Amox, assistant professor of music, was the cover feature of Flute Talk this spring. In the same issue, she authored a feature article for a series on listening skills in applied flute pedagogy entitled, “Creating an Aural Map.” Amox also performed with the Professional Flute Choir at the National Flute Association: Transforming Artistry in Salt Lake City, Utah. This annual meeting is a performance and pedagogy conference for professional and amateur flutists. She was chosen by audition for the honor of performing in the choir. She has also been actively gathering data and tools to increase student performance and to help plan professional development for AP sister schools. She and Heather Thayer, Assistant Professor of Music, attended an interactive music theory and aural skills pedagogy workshop, “Pedagogy into Practice: Teaching Music Theory in the 21st Century.” The conference will help them make the music theory courses more inclusive of different styles and female composers.

Sally Crain
Sally Crain, instructor of biology, attended the annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. She explored the latest research-based teaching methods and new ways of addressing content to engage 21st century students in the science classroom. She attended several sessions on integrating current topics into biology to illustrate the importance of the fundamentals of biological sciences to the informed citizen. In addition to exploring new content from new perspectives, she had the opportunity to collaborate with other university level science teachers and educators who specialize in facilitating teaching methods courses for students enrolled in teacher licensure programs for secondary education. She soon will be teaching the Teaching Methods in Biological Sciences course to support the new Teacher Licensure Track in Biological Sciences.

Martin Campbell
Dr. Martin Campbell, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, along with several chemistry and biochemistry research students, attended the 2019 annual Spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in Orlando, Florida. Campbell serves on a national committee preparing the next generation of the First Semester Organic Chemistry Examination, which met at the beginning of the conference. This exam is widely used by universities nationwide to evaluate first semester learning success. After completing the committee meetings, he also attended research poster presentations with other Henderson students and networked at the meeting.

Randy Duncan
Dr. Randy Duncan, professor of communication and director of the Comics Studies Program, presented at the Prague Quadrennial in Prague, Czech Republic. Every four years since 1967, the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space has celebrated and inspired innovation in scenography and theatre architecture. For someone who is not a scenographer or even a theatre professor, it is quite an honor to present at the premiere gathering theatre designers, artists and architects. His presentation, “From Stage to Page (and Back Again),” explored how comics creators have been influenced by principles and techniques of theatre, the similar constraints and goals shared by the two art forms, what theatre scene design might borrow from the comics art form, and the possibility of comics creation being incorporated into the training of future scenographers.

Nydia Jeffers
Dr. Nydia Jeffers, assistant professor of Spanish, presented “Remembering Voices: Lost Afro-Latin Poets and Racial Equality,” in Lisbon, Portugal at the Modern Language Association International Symposium. Her topic, antislavery poetry, relates to the Latin American Literature class she taught in 2014. The three poets examined in the presentation have been scarcely studied but they defended the end of racism and/or the end of enslavement of African people: Afro-Argentinian Casildo Gervasio Thompson, Afro-Colombian Candelario Obeso, and Afro-Uruguayan Joaquín Lenzina “Ansina.”

Travis Langley
Dr. Travis Langley, distinguished professor of psychology, organized a panel for the Comics Art Conference in San Diego, California, and also served on three Comic-Con Panels. His Comics Arts Conference panel was titled, “Who is the Black Panther?”: The Psychology of Black Panther, Wakanda, and the Transformative Power of Comic Books.” At Comic-Con, he served on the panels, "The Science of Game of Thrones," "EC Comics 75th Anniversary," and "140-Odd Years of Looking at the Future." The Comics Arts panel was covered by BET (among others).

Trudi Sabai
Trudi Sabaj, assistant professor of nursing, attended the 40th Annual IAHC (International Association for Human Caring) Conference, hosted by Clemson University in South Carolina. The theme of this annual International Interdisciplinary Conference was “Caring and Interprofessional Practice: Re-imagining the Patient Care Experience.” She presented her research, "BSN Students' Lived Experiences of Faculty Helping or Hindering Success" in a podium session.

Paul Glover
Paul Glover, professor of communication, traveled to Germany (Hanover, Frankfurt and Berlin) and Oslo to interview colleagues and students in Germany to get their take on multimedia journalism, specifically how students and employees are asked to multi-task all three phases of audio/video production in the age of convergence and multi-platform distribution. He continued onto the Oslo Rocks festival where ieimedia organization will be covered the week-long event. He interviewed ieimedia teachers and students covering the event. The interviews are for a journal article he is writing for College Media Association Review (CMA).

Doug Heffington
Doug Heffington, assistant professor of geography, led a hike of 40 visitors to observe the progress on the Harris Ridge Trail Project at Radnor Lake in Tennessee. Henderson State University research students and park volunteers have collaborated with the park staff since March 2019 with the objective of reaching the long-term goal of creating a 3-mile trail from Franklin Road to Otter Creek Road.

Constanze Weise
Constanze Weise, assistant professor of history, was selected to be a participant in an NEH Summer Institute “Colonial Experiences and their Legacies in Southeast Asia,” for three weeks in June and July at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. She has also had two recent publications: “Historical Linguistics: Classifications” in Thomas Spear (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2019; and "State Formations" in Africa to 1900: History and Culture, edited by Toyin Falola. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2019.

Michael Taylor
Michael Ray Taylor, professor of communication and chair of the Communication and Theatre Arts Department, received an ECPAC grant to attend the Jewel Cave 200-Mile Celebration held in Custer, South Dakota. Earlier this year, Jewel Cave, a national monument and popular tourist destination, saw its 200th mile of exploration and mapping, making it the second longest known cave in the United States and third longest in the world. In 1959, when cavers Herb Conn, Jan Conn, and Dwight Deal first began to explore the "small" tour cave, it was believed to contain less than 3,000 feet of passage. During the three-day celebration, Taylor also interviewed two National Park bat experts on camera for an ongoing film project involving Henderson Communication and Innovative Media students called, "Saving America's Bats," which focuses on White Nose Syndrome, a disease decimating America's bat populations.