College of Liberal Arts
Dr. Craig Byron, associate professor of biology, co-authored the article “Mouse Hallucal Metatarsal Cross-Sectional Geometry in a Simulated Fine Branch Niche,” which was accepted for publication in the Journal of Morphology.
Dr. David A. Davis, associate professor of English, gave a talk, titled “Collards and Consumption in 'A Stroke of Good Fortune,'” at Andalusia, Flannery O'Connor's home, in Milledgeville on Feb. 15.
Dr. Andy D. Digh, associate professor of computer science, attended the American Association of Colleges and Universities Conference, titled “From Mission to Action to Evidence: Empowering and Inclusive General Education Programs,” in Kansas City, Missouri, Feb. 19-21. He participated in a workshop on “Motivating and Empowering Faculty to Teach for General Education and Disciplinary Knowledge.”
Dr. John Marson Dunaway, professor emeritus of French and interdisciplinary studies, organized and hosted the 11th annual Building the Beloved Community Symposium, attended by some 200 faculty, students and community leaders on Feb. 10-11. Keynote speaker was Professor Michael O. Emerson of Rice University, and the theme was “A Mutual Obligations Approach to Reconciliation.”
Dr. Sarah E. Gardner, professor of history and director of the Center for Southern Studies, participated in a roundtable discussion on “A Southern Peace? History, Literary Studies, and the New Southern Studies,” at the American Historical Association Conference in New York City in January. She also delivered comments for a panel on “Print Culture in the Nineteenth Century South” at the meeting of the Southern Intellectual History Circle in Edgefield, South Carolina, in February. She also received a Dianne Woest Fellowship in the Arts and Humanities from the Historic New Orleans Collection.
Dr. Elizabeth Harper, assistant professor of English, authored “'A Tokene and a Book': Reading Images and Building Consensus in Dives and Pauper,” in the Yearbook of Langland Studies, Vol 28.
Dr. Anya Silver, professor of English, had two poems, “To my Body” and “Leaving the Hospital” reprinted in Poetry in Medicine: An Anthology of Poems About Doctors, Patients, Illness, and Healing. ed. Michael Salcman (Persea Press, 2015) p. 164, 325. Her poem, “Klimt, Recumbent Lovers,” was published in Iron Horse Literary Review, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2015, and her poem, “After Death,” was published in One, Issue 4, 2015. Her book, I Watched You Disappear, was a finalist for the Julie Suk award for best new book of poetry published by an independent press in 2014. Dr. Silver served as Ruth Stripling Byer Distinguished Writer in Residence at Wesleyan College in November, where she also presented a poetry reading and a lecture, titled “The Liberal Arts and STEM:A Little Red Riding Hood Story,” that month. She also gave a poetry reading at Callanwolde Arts Center in Atlanta in November.
Dr. Bryan J. Whitfield, associate professor of Christianity, published an article, “Teaching Augustine's Confessions in the Context of Mercer's Great Books Program,” in Religions 6 (2015), 107-112.
Marian Zielinski, professor of theatre, has been unanimously voted into the Juried Artist Membership of Studio Art Quilt Associates following portfolio review in February.
Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics
Dr. Ania Rynarzewka, assistant professor of sports business, co-authored “Barriers of Internal Communication and Information Sharing: A Qualitative Approach,” which was accepted for presentation at the Corporate Communication International Conference on Corporate Communication in June in New York City.
Georgia Baptist College of Nursing
Lana Chase, clinical associate professor, was elected to the board and program committee for advanced practice psychiatric nurse group MAPPING. She planned and implemented two workshops last fall.
Dr. Susan S. Gunby, professor, was appointed to the Nursing Education Committee of the Georgia Board of Nursing. She is also serving as an abstract reviewer for Sigma Theta Tau International's International Research Congress and Sigma Theta Tau's International's Biennial Convention.
Elaine Harris, clinical associate professor, presented a seminar and sharing workshop for newly bereaved parents through the FOCUS (Families of Children under Stress) organization.
Dr. Natasha Laibhen-Parkes, clinical assistant professor, was elected fellowship coordinator for Phi Kappa Phi, and had a poster abstract accepted for the Georgia Association of Nurse Educators (GANE) Conference, Feb. 19-21, on web-based EBP education for improving EBP competence in BSN-preparedness.
James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology
Dr. Graham Walker, John and Judy Zellars Professor of Theology, was elected president of the Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary Foundation and is charged with leading the 55-year-old consortium of nine Baptist universities and seminaries across Asia for the next five years.
Dr. Brett Younger, associate professor of preaching, served as the interim pastor of Santiago Community Church in Santiago, Chile, from July to December. The congregation includes people from 23 countries and 18 denominations.
Penfield College
Dr. Caroline M. Brackette, assistant professor of counseling, was appointed to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council's 2015 Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force. In addition to attending quarterly task force meetings, she will also serve on a work group that focuses on increasing awareness and knowledge of children, youth, parents, and school personnel on practices to prevent the sexual exploitation of children and youth. She was also invited to participate on the American Red Cross Georgia Regional Disaster Mental Health Planning Council to assist in developing a strategic plan for coordinating mental health disaster relief in the Georgia Region. Dr. Brackette is the lead author on a publication with two doctoral students, Sanaz Rezaei and Eniabitobi Kuyinu, titled “Engaging in Social Justice Practices: The Role of Christian Counselors,” in the spring 2015 issue of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity, which has a 30-percent acceptance rate. She also presented at the 2015 Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy on the campus of Virginia Tech University on “Using Motivational Interviewing Techniques to Increase Student Engagement in Class Discussions.” She attended the conference with three doctoral students who also presented sessions, and the presentations are published in the conference proceedings.
Dr. Tim Craker, associate professor of comparative literature and philosophy, presented a paper, titled “The Americas and General Education,” at the 18th annual Conference on the Americas in Milledgeville, Feb. 6-7.
Dr. Kenyon C. Knapp, associate professor of counseling and assistant coordinator of the doctoral program, was invited as an affiliate-level member to the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force.
Dr. Richard H. Martin, associate professor of criminal justice, was appointed to the board of reviewers for the Journal of Education and Training Studies. He completed a peer review of an article on “Canadian Provincial Spending on Secondary Education” for the Journal of Education and Training Studies. Dr. Martin will serve on a Commission for Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies assessment team to evaluate the Princeton University Department of Public Safety for accreditation in March. He co-authored, with recent public safety leadership master's degree program graduate Sharon Ware, an article, titled “Sexual Assaults Among Male Inmates in Georgia Correctional Institutions,” that was accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Law Enforcement Executive Forum. He will attend the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences annual meeting in Orlando, March 3-7, where he is chairing and organizing the Hate Crimes section panels.
Dr. David Purnell, assistant professor of communication, presented at the Doing Autoethnography Here and Now conference, Feb. 26-March 1, in San Angelo, Texas. His presentation, “Coal Miners, Indians, and Me: Fiction, History and Family Narratives,” explored the intersection of fiction and history when trying to fill in the missing gaps of family oral histories passed down generation to generation.
Dr. Kevin B. Williams, assistant professor of healthcare leadership, was invited to be a guest lecturer at Tuskegee University for its annual commemoration of The Presidential Apology for the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study and Annual Public Health Ethics Intensive Course and Conference, March 23-27. This year's theme is “Assuring Ethics from Generation to Generation.” Dr. Williams will present a response paper to the keynote address on “The Affordable Care Act: Challenges and Opportunities” on March 25. Dr. Williams will give a 15-minute response to the address by Dr. Bailus Walker, professor of environmental and occupational medicine and toxicology, Howard University College of Medicine. Dr. Williams and Dr. Walker will also lead a breakout session regarding their presentations. Tuskegee University will be providing Dr. Williams an honorarium, travel and room accommodations.
School of Engineering
Dr. Sinjae Hyun, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and three former students are the recipients of a patent issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Feb. 3. The three alumni are Melissa Pendley (née Sindelar), Haley Swearingen and Bennett Welch, all of whom graduated in 2010 with a B.S. degree. The title of their patent is “Inhalation Airflow Regulation Devices and Methods of Using the Same.” With their computationally and experimentally validated invention, the delivery of inhaled medication to the patients could be increased by up to 300 percent.
School of Medicine
Dr. Jennifer L. Barkin, assistant professor of community medicine and obstetrics and gynecology, was invited to participate as an expert panelist on the “Empowering Women to Seek Needed Care: Postpartum Discharge Project” by the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN).
Dr. Richard F. Camino-Gaztambide, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science and associate professor of pediatrics, became board certified in child and adolescent psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (APBN) in November. This is in addition to his board certification in general psychiatry and addiction psychiatry.
Dr. Albert Jiang, professor of genetics, and colleagues published a manuscript, titled “The Association between Polymorphism of INSR and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: A Meta-Analysis,” in the International Journal of Molecular Science. 2015 Jan 22;16(2):2403-25.
Dr. Jinping Li, assistant professor of histology, and colleagues published a manuscript, titled “Expression and Diagnostic Value of HE4 in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma,” in the International Journal of Molecular Science. 2015 Jan 29;16(2):2956-70.
Shirley Powell, technical director at the histology curricular support laboratory, was invited to give two presentations at the recent Georgia Science Teachers Association Annual Conference held in Macon at the Marriott City Center and Wilson Convention Center, Feb. 5-7. Her presentations on “Futures in Histotechnology” and “Plastination” were well received, and she was asked to present again in 2016.
Dr. Yudan Wei, professor of community medicine, has two research papers recently accepted for publication, “Urinary concentrations of 2,5-dichlorophenol and diabetes in U.S. adults”, in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology; and “Maternal exposure to ambient PM2.5 and term low birth weight in the State of Georgia” in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research.
Dr. Wei-Hsiung Yang, assistant professor of physiology, co-authored two articles, titled “FOXP3 controls an miR-146/NF-?B negative feedback loop that inhibits apoptosis in breast cancer cells” and “FOXP3-microRNA-146-NF-?B axis and therapy for precancerous lesions in prostate,” for the journal Cancer Research. These articles were accepted on Feb. 18. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-2108 and doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-2109
Staff and Administration
Dominique Johnson, academic advisor for Upward Bound, was named to the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission by Macon-Bibb County Mayor Robert Reichert and the Macon-Bibb County Commission and was accepted into the Middle Georgia Regional Leadership Champions program, which is sponsored by the Middle Georgia Regional Commission.
Andre Torrance, sergeant for Mercer Police, was promoted, effective Feb. 19.
Townsend School of Music
Amy Schwartz Moretti, director of the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, associate professor and Caroline Paul King Chair in Strings, performed on the Chamber Music on Main concert series at the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina, Dec. 10. She appeared as concertmaster of the Hawaii Pops concert: Jazz that Rocks: The Music of Blood, Sweat and Tears, Steely Dan, and Chicago, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Jan. 3, and presented a demonstration with McDuffie Center students and percussionist Steve Moretti for the Academy for Classical Education (ACE) kindergarten and first-grade classes, in Macon, Jan. 15. She performed in concerts for the Seattle Chamber Music Society Winter Festival in Benaroya Hall's Nordstrom Recital Hall, Seattle, Washington, Jan. 18-25. While there, she also gave a violin master class for the students of Simon James and a chamber music master class for the students at Seattle University.
Walter F. George School of Law
David Hricik, professor of law, authored “Your Dream Come True? Using Section 285 to Impose Fees on Opposing Counsel,” in 7 Landslide Magazine 15 (2015). He also authored “Bringing a World of Light to Technology and Judicial Ethics,” in 27 Regent Law Review 1 (2014), and was quoted in the article “Rader's Resignation Cited in Ethics Dispute Before U.S. Supreme Court” in the National Law Journal (January 2015). Hricik was moderator and presenter in “Ethics and Life Sciences IP: Inequitable Conduct, New PTO Ethical Rules, and Special Concerns for Contested Matters Before the PTO” at the ACI Advanced Summit on Life Sciences Patents in New York in January. He presented on “Ethical Issues Facing In-House IP Counsel” at the International Performance Management Institute in Newport Beach, California, on “Ethics, Money, and Fee Agreements” at the University of Texas School of Law's 19th Annual Advanced Patent Law Institute in Austin, Texas, and on “Ethical Issues Arising from Prosecution Bars” at the Center for American and International Law 52nd Annual Conference on IP Law in Plano, Texas. All three of those presentations took place in November.
James Hunt, professor of law and business, had his article, “The Constitution, Desegregation, and Public Opinion: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education,” accepted for publication in 37 North Carolina Central Law Review.
Steve Johnson, Walter F. George Professor of Law, had his book, Wetlands Law: A Course Source, accepted for publication by CALI in its eLangdell series of course books.
Teri McMurtry-Chubb, associate professor of law, was chosen to contribute a rewritten opinion for Loving v. Virginia (1967) to Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (Kathryn Stanchi, Linda Berger, & Bridget Crawford, eds. Cambridge University Press). She was one of 24 authors chosen from around the country to contribute to this publication.
Sue Painter-Thorne, associate professor of law, authored “A Strange Kind of Identity Theft: How Competing Definitions of 'Indian' May Deny Individual Identity,” 14 Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal 29 (2015).
Ashley Royal, adjunct professor, is co-author of Annual Supplement to Medical Torts in Georgia: A Handbook on State and Federal Law (Thomson Reuters WestLaw 2014).
Scott Titshaw, associate professor of law, authored “A Transatlantic Rainbow Comparison: 'Federalism' and Family-Based Immigration for Rainbow Families in the U.S. and the E.U.,” in Rights on the Move – Rainbow Families in Europe (Carlo Casonato and Alexander Schuster eds., 2014). Titshaw had his article, “Revisiting the Meaning of Marriage: Immigration for Same-Sex Spouses in a Post-Windsor World” 66 Vanderbilt Law Review en banc 167 (2013), selected to be reprinted in Mary Crock, ed., International Library of Essays on Rights: Migrants and Rights (Ashgate). He served on a panel, titled “Promoting LGBTI Rights – A Shift in Rights-Based Foreign Policy,” for Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP) at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. He presented on “New Frontiers in LGBT Rights in the U.S. and Europe” at a meeting with representatives of NGOs and policymakers from the European Commission and European Parliament at the U.S. Mission to the E.U. He also presented on “Fam-migration Law for LGBT families in the U.S. and the E.U.,” for the Fulbright Seminar on the European Union and NATO in Brussels, Belgium.
