College of Liberal Arts
Dr. Sarah E. Gardner, professor of history and director of the Center for Southern Studies, Dr. Doug Thompson, associate professor of Southern studies, and Dr. David A. Davis, associate professor of English, received a $500,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create an endowment for the Center for Southern Studies.
Dr. Kathryn Kloepper, assistant professor of chemistry, published a chapter, titled “Give Them Something to Talk About: Participation Strategies That Improve Student Learning and Engagement,” in Addressing the Millennial Student in Undergraduate Chemistry, Gretchen E. Potts and Christopher R. Dockery, American Chemical Society, 2014. (ISBN 9780841230125).
Scot J. Mann, associate professor and theatre director, traveled to Gainesville State College where he taught a theatrical firearms safety certification course through the Society of American Fight Directors. All 20 students and faculty participants successfully completed their final adjudication and received certification.Mann also coordinated and directed scenes for Quadworks' “Tunnel of Oppression,” an interactive theater experience designed to display oppression of marginalized groups as part of campus diversity programming.The scripts were written and performed by members of Mann's Integrated Studies 301 class, Mercer Players and local actors.
Dr. Amy Nichols-Belo, assistant professor of international and global studies, presented a paper, titled “Smoke, Dawa, and Hirizi: making Sense of Traditional Healing As a Client-Researcher,” at the 113th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington, D.C.
Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics
Dr. Faye A. Sisk, professor of management, presented to the Global Executive MBA Council Conference in Los Angeles on Oct. 20. Her presentation, titled “Learning by Doing: Leveraging Executive Coaching for Long Term Success.” chronicled the development of Mercer's executive coaching offered as part of the EMBA program. She co-presented with Hallie Crawford, who assisted Dr. Sisk in developing and delivering coaching for the EMBA students. Representative of 47 international EMBA programs were in attendance.
Georgia Baptist College of Nursing
Dr. Tammy Barbé, assistant professor, presented a poster at the Southern Regional Educational Board Annual Conference in Atlanta on Nov. 10.
Desireé Clement, clinical instructor, recently spoke to junior and seniors students at Chattahoochee High School in Johns Creek regarding “Health Careers in Nursing.”
Carmeka S. Greene, clinical instructor, was inducted into Pi Gamma Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. She also assists and volunteers at Panthersville Nursing Home.
Mercer Engineering Research Center
Matthew Harrison, John Land, Owen Bock, Scott Kim, Sean Amirault, Jason Ward, Will Reed, Paul Fithian, Richard Lammons, Chuck Boulware and Nick Hatcher participated on MERC's intramural flag football team, winning the Center's first ever championship.
Michael Lange, Dr. Robert McGinty and Chad deMontford, engineers from MERC's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Directorate, presented papers during the 2014 Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP) Conference, Dec. 2-4, in San Antonio, Texas. Lange's paper was titled “Friction Plug Welding of 2024-T3 Aluminum.” Dr. McGinty's paper was titled “Determination of Flight Loads for the HH-60G Pave Hawk Helicopter,” and deMontford's paper was titled “Investigation of C-5 Honeycomb Floor Panel Dent Limits.”
Penfield College
Dr. Wesley Barker, assistant professor of religious studies, presented two papers in November at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in San Diego, California. The first paper, “Writing Theology Through Indeterminate Flesh,” was delivered to the Bible, Theology, and Postmodernity Group. Her second paper, “The Ambiguity of Desire and the Possibility of Alterity in Irigaray's Ethics of Sexual Difference,” was presented for the Social Theory and Religion Cluster. Dr. Barker's article on feminist psychoanalytic interpretations of motherhood, “Is Mother Other? Desire and the Ethics of Maternality,” for the international peer-reviewed journal Theology & Sexuality was published on Nov. 19.
Dr. Theresa Reese, associate professor of counseling, associate coordinator of the clinical rehabilitation counseling program and coordinator of the substance abuse counselor certificate program, arranged an event on Oct. 21 in observance of Disability Employment Awareness Month. The “Campaign for Disability Employment” featured a presentation on the topic of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) by guest speaker Alexis Pearce. Pearce was a former defense attorney who after some personal problems fell into a serious, deep and lasting depression. His presentation focused on what it took to overcome MDD and make it back to the world of work, albeit as a clerk in a car parts store. Students from various areas of the Atlanta campus joined in for this event. Dr. Reese was an invited speaker for the Georgia Rehabilitation Association's Ethics Symposium on Nov. 7, where she presented on “Coffee, Dinner, Gift… What's next? Sex? Boundaries in Rehabilitation Counseling.” Approximately 40 people were in attendance from the Greater Atlanta Metro area for the four-hour afternoon session. The attendees were masters level certified rehabilitation counselors from approximately 10 state vocational rehabilitation agencies seeking continuing education in ethics to maintain their credential. Dr. Reese was named faculty advisor to a newly approved student clinical rehabilitation counseling organization named DREAM – Disability Recognition Education and Advocacy Movement. The organization was founded by Jonathan Brown. NiShe'e Queen is the first president with Lisa Aguilar as the first vice president.
Dr. Karen Rowland, associate professor of counseling, assisted several counselor education and supervision doctoral students with presentations at the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision conference in Birmingham, Alabama, Oct. 10-11. Thomasina Odom and Dr. Rowland presented “Does Virtual Supervision Impact the Working Alliance between Supervisor and Supervisee?” Yolanda Fountain, Latessa Bayonne and Dr. Rowland presented “Help, I'm Suffocating! Shame and Resistance in Supervision.”Dr. Rowland also presented with master's students in school counseling at the Georgia School Counselors Association annual conference in Augusta Nov. 10-12. Tonia Gatlin, Michael Paden and Dr. Rowland presented “Time Is of the Essence in Middle School Counseling.” Additionally, Dr. Rowland attended the convening of the White House's “Reach Higher Initiative” in San Diego, California, Nov. 17-18, as a member of the Georgia team to plan school counselor preparation programs' commitment to strengthening school counseling and college advising.
Dr. Art Williams, professor of counseling and human sciences, Dr. David Lane, professor of counseling and human sciences, Dr. Kenyon Knapp, associate professor of counseling, and Dr. Theresa Reese, associate professor of counseling, coordinated with Thomas University to present an online doctoral program information session for its online students. This was the first online information session organized by the Department of Counseling and Human Sciences.
School of Medicine
Dr. Harold P. Katner, chief of infectious diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine, gave a lecture at a symposium in honor of Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former surgeon general under President Bill Clinton, on “Non-Occupational Post Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV-1.” The symposium was titled “Exploring Realistic Expectations: The Implications of Treatment as Prevention (TasP), Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP)” and was held on Dec. 3-4 in Atlanta. The talk was sponsored by Empowerment Resource Center Inc. based in Atlanta.
Dr. Kerry Coburn and Dr. Samuel D. Shillcutt, professors in Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, co-authored a special article for the Committee on Research of the American Neuropsychiatric Society, “Pharmacological Management of Persistent Hostility and Aggression in Persons with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review,” in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 26(4):283-312, 2014.
Dr. Edward C. Lauterbach, professor emeritus of psychiatry and neurology, recently co-authored a book chapter, titled “Melatonin In Alzheimer's Disease: Focus On Neuroprotective Role,” along with international collaborators in the book Melatonin and Melatonergic Drugs In Clinical Practice (Srinivasan V et al., Springer 2014). Dr. Samuel D. Shillcutt, professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine, co-edited the book.
Dr. Richard O. McCann, associate professor of biochemistry and director of the graduate program in biomedical sciences, gave an invited talk to the Annual Meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA 86) in Atlanta Nov. 7-9. The title of the presentation was “Agent versus Cause: The Humanities, Health, and Medicine in the Vision of Wendell Berry.” This session was devoted to “Sustainability and the Humanities” in honor of Wendell Berry and included speakers from Pennsylvania and South Korea.
Dr. Eric K. Shaw, associate professor of community medicine, attended the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) annual conference in New York City, Nov. 21-25, and moderated a session on “Health Care Delivery/Health Services Research.” He was also a co-author on an oral presentation, titled “Barriers and Facilitators to Expanding Roles of Medical Assistants in Patient-Centered Medical Homes.”
Dr. James L. Thomas, professor, and Dr. Himangshu S. Bose, professor, published an article on the mechanisms of a key human steroid metabolizing enzyme in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. This was their second published article in the past two months.
Dr. Jacob C. Warren, endowed chair and director of the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities in the Department of Community Medicine, delivered three presentations at the Minority Health and Health Disparities Grantees Conference in Washington, D.C., Dec. 1-3. The conference is supported by the National Institutes of Health in cooperation with Morehouse School of Medicine, and highlights emerging, impactful research in the area of health disparities. Dr. Warren's research presentations focused on conducting community-based participatory research in rural areas, on training future rural health researchers, and on developing culturally-tailored diabetes and hypertension interventions for rural patients.
Tift College of Education
Dr. Jessica H. Garcia, adjunct professor, was recognized by her students at Rosa Taylor Elementary School for 13WMAZ's “My Teacher Is Tops” segment last month.
Townsend School of Music
Dr. Douglas Hill, professor, was the invited clinician for the East Paulding and Creekside High School Symphonic Bands on Dec. 8. Dr. Hill performed in the Brass Quintet at First Baptist Church of Christ with the Chancel Choir for the Dec. 14 “Lessons and Carols” service, directed by Dr. Stanley Roberts, minister of music and professor of music in the School of Music. Dr. Hill performed in the Chamber Orchestra at Liberty United Methodist Church in Macon on Dec. 14. The orchestra was led by John Sweat, choir director and adjunct instructor in the School of Music.
Walter F. George School of Law
Mary S. Donovan, assistant dean for student affairs, was sworn in as a member of the Georgia Commission on Dispute Resolution on Nov. 19. The mission of the Georgia Commission on Dispute Resolution is to help the Georgia Supreme Court fulfill its Constitutional mandate to “provide for the speedy, efficient, and inexpensive resolution of disputes and prosecutions” in the judiciary. The Commission does this by managing a statewide system that offers true and effective alternatives to traditional litigation. Those alternatives – mediation, non-binding arbitration, and case evaluation – give Georgia litigants lower-cost choices for resolving their differences, and they help save scarce court resources for those cases that cannot be resolved without judge or jury.
David Hricik, professor of law, published an article, titled “Bringing a World of Light to Technology and Judicial Ethics” in Regent University Law Review. The third edition of one of the books he has co-authored, Patent Ethics: Prosecution, was published by Lexis/Nexis. In addition, he gave presentations in California and Texas.
Mark Jones, professor of law, co-presided at a panel on “Legal Ethics at the Intersection of Immigration and Business Law” at the 15th Annual Symposium on Legal Ethics and Professionalism, which rotates among four Georgia law schools and was held this year at Emory University Law School on Nov. 14.
Jennifer Sheppard, associate professor of law, presented “Maximizing Experiential Learning throughout Law School” at the Legal Writing Institute's one-day workshop hosted by the School of Law in December.
