Douglas M. Andrews, associate professor of statistics, attended a special one-day continuing education seminar on “Re-Inventing Regression Through Graphics” in Cleveland and traveled to the annual Ohio Statistics conference where he talked about careers in statistics with area high school and college students from around the state.

Linda Arena, associate professor of health, fitness and sport, coached the South Team at the College Field Hockey Coaches Association North/South Senior All-Star game at the University of Pennsylvania on Nov. 21.

Imogene Bolls, adjunct professor of English, has published her poems, “First Light on Chacra Mesa” and “Kansas Flint Hills” in The Practice of Peace, and her poems “Bone Field” and “For Laurel, From Taos” in the summer 1998 South Dakota Review. Bolls also published “The Little Permanence” in the third Pocket anthology, Food Poems, and “Dreaming the Iron,” which originally appeared in Glass Walker, was reprinted in the Aug. 30 Sunday Magazine of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Relay Race” and “Three-Legged Race” have been selected for inclusion in the anthology titled Women Runners: Stories of Transformation. Others of Bolls’ poems have appeared in the earlier pocket editions O Listen and Nature.

Leonard Brown, professor emeritus of geography, presented a Saturday conference Nov. 21 on “The World of the Maya” at Young Harris College in Georgia for its Institute for Continuing Learning, an Elder Hostel organization.

Donald Busarow, professor of music, has completed five commissioned pieces. These include four hymn concerto settings and a set of three organ pieces. Busarow also completed his second set of sight-reading materials for the state of Ohio high school choir adjudication events, a group of 24 pieces for all levels and groupings of high school choirs throughout the state. In addition, he has presented five hymn festival programs during the past few months and was the guest organist at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Akron, as part of the church’s recital series.

Jennifer Butler, visiting professor of psychology, co-authored a study with Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University on the effect of supportive audiences on skilled performance. The study, which appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that people perform better on difficult, skill-based tasks in front of hostile audiences than friendly crowds. The New York Times and National Public Radio have both interviewed Butler about the study.

E. Charles Chatfield, professor of history, gave the keynote address at the dedication service for the Charles DeBenedetti Memorial Room of the new Corpus Christi Parish Church at the University of Toledo. The late DeBenedetti was the original author of the book that Chatfield completed at DeBenedetti’s request following his untimely death in 1987. The book is titled An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era.

Kristin Cline, assistant professor of chemistry, presented a poster session titled “Analysis of Copper Carboxylates: An Inter-lab Collaboration Between Analytical and General Chemistry” at the 15th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

Robert Davis, associate professor of English, received the 1998 Matthies Award. The annual award carries a stipend to be used to further the education of selected and worthy teachers. Davis plans to research the gap between literature and composition.

Kent Dixon, associate professor of English, has received two Pushcart nominations for fiction and creative non-fiction. He also received an Honorable Mention in 1997’s Best American Essays for his essay titled “On Burying Dad.” His most recent fiction appeared in The Gettysburg Review, summer 1998.

Trudy Faber, professor and chair of music, has presented several organ recitals, including ones at the Weaver Chapel for the Ohio Theater Organ Association, the Cadet Chapel Summer Concert Series at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Rapid City, S.D., American Guild of Organists Chapter. She also performed a recital on the restored organ at the First Lutheran Church in Bellefontaine, Ohio. In addition, Faber performed during the concert series at The Cathedral of St. Philip (Episcopal) in Atlanta, Ga., and was honored by Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield for her 25 years as the church’s organist.

Kurt Fickert, professor emeritus of languages, published “The Myth of America in Peter Handke’s Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied” in the German Studies Review. He also won an Honorable Mention award in the Blue Unicorn’s annual poetry contest for his poem “Jogging into Day at Coco Beach”

Elizabeth George, assistant professor of physics, has received a $135,383 grant from the National Science Foundation to study how the use of computers in the introductory physics laboratory affects student learning. She hopes to get information about what specific aspects of computer use are important in helping students learn and how computers can be most effectively used in the laboratory. The work is being done in collaboration with a colleague in the school of education at the University of Montreal.

Corwin Georges, professor of theater and dance, was elected to the seven-member National Governance Committee of the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network. He also participated in the National Arts Assessment Training Institute where he helped analyze and develop methods for assessing skills and knowledge in the arts. He also has conducted a number of workshops, including one at the Ohio Arts Council annual conference with Mary Campbell-Zopf of the Ohio Arts Council Arts in Education Program and Susan Witten, director and visual arts consultant of the Ohio Department of Education. In addition, Georges completed his two-year term as president of the Ohio Alliance for Arts.

Matthew Hanson, assistant professor of biology, has joined the biology department. He is an expert in developmental biology and immunology, and he is currently developing a research program on the developmental biology of the mammalian immune system.

Jim Huffman, professor of history, has been appointed chair of the Association for Asian Studies Editorial Board. The board determines which monographs, books and serials the association will publish each year. Choice Magazine has also selected Huffman’s book Creating a Public as one of its 1998 Outstanding Academic Books. In addition, Huffman attended the Midwest conference on Asian Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was a discussant for a panel titled “The Japanese State’s Attempt to Shape Society in Meiji, Taisho and Showa Eras.”

Daniel Kazez, associate professor of music, performed two concerts in Puerto Rico with David Hapner, adjunct instructor of music. One of the concerts was at the Jewish Community Center in San Juan, and the other took place at the national meeting of the College Music Society. Wittenberg, the American Composers Forum and the Los Angeles Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity sponsored the trip.

Ralph Lenz, associate professor of geography and department chair, chaired a session on the environment at the annual meeting of the East Lakes Division of the Association of American Geographers.

Linda Lewis, associate professor of sociology, and Stephen Smith, associate professor of sociology, attended the Midwest conference on Asian Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Lewis was elected to a three-year term on the advisory board as the Northeast Asia representative and also presented a series of lectures during Middfest, an annual cultural festival in Middletown, Ohio.

Tim Lewis, associate professor of biology, received a grant from Ohio’s Division of Natural Areas and Preserves, which will allow him to continue his research of spotted turtles in Ohio. He also received funding with several colleagues from Wright State University through the Ohio Environmental Education Fund to create “cyberbog” at Cedar Bog, a state natural area. The team will gather basic biological and meteorological information to be made available on the Internet to K-12 students for their classroom studies.

Olga Medvedkov, professor of geography, helped coordinate the annual meeting of the East Lakes Division of the Association of American Geographers.

Rochelle Millen, associate professor of religion, has been awarded a grant by the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation of New York. The grant will support research for a volume examining the ethical issues affecting Jewish women in regard to life-cycle events. Millen also presented a paper titled “Weeping Women: Gender and the Mitzvah of Mourning” at the Midwest Jewish Studies Association’s meeting in Chicago.

Paul Miller, professor emeritus of English, gave the centennial reading from the works of Sandusky, Ohio native Blanche Roosevelt, opera singer, novelist and mistress of Guy Maupassant, during the annual meeting of the Symposium on the Culture of the Ohio Frontier. Miller also presented a paper titled “Hemingway vs. Stendhal or Papa’s Last Fight with a Dead Writer” at the conference of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature.

James L. Noyes, professor of computer science, received a $10,000 award from the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges. The award will be used to develop a series of discipline-specific computer models in the departments of computer science, biology, chemistry, geology, physics and psychology, which will then be used in a new course titled “Computational Models and Methods” this spring. Noyes was also selected by Wolfram Research to be one of the Beta Test evaluators for the company’s newest release of Mathematica.

Richard T. Ortquist, professor of history, E. Charles Chatfield, professor of history, and David Mason, professor of biology, have been working with the American Cancer Society to form a Man to Man program in Springfield. Ortquist is the group’s facilitator and was trained by the American Cancer Society. The program is an education and support group for prostate cancer survivors and their partners.

Terry Otten, professor of English, has published an essay on Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison titled “Tar Baby and the Fall Myth.” The essay appears in Toni Morrison (Contemporary Critical Essays), published by St. Martin’s Press and edited by Linden Peach. Otten also attended the Midwest Faculty Seminar on Morrison’s book, Beloved, where he had the opportunity to meet the award-winning author.

Tammy Proctor, assistant professor of history, presented a paper titled “A Sense of Human Brotherhood: Internationalism, Cultural Imperialism and the Boy Scout Jamboree, 1929-1939” at the Northeast Association of British Studies conference in Hartford, Conn.

Sunita Reddy, visiting instructor of geography, chaired a session on landscape abuse at the annual meeting of the East Lakes Division of the Association of American Geographers.

Don Reed, associate professor of philosophy, attended the 20th World Congress of Philosophy in Boston and presented his paper titled “The Critical Role of Weltanschauung.”

Brian J. Shelburne, associate professor of computer science, has co-authored a paper titled “Early Programs on the Manchester Mark I Prototype.” The paper appears in the third 1998 issue of the IEEE Annuals of the History of Computing. The other co-author of the paper is Chris P. Burton, who resides in the United Kingdom and is a member of the Computer Conservation Society.

Jim Swindler, professor of philosophy and department chair, presented “Constructivist Moral Realism” at the annual meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago and at the 20th World Congress of Philosophy in Boston.

Swindler also participated in a two-week Institute on Classical American Philosophy at the University of Vermont and presented commentary on “The Case for Restricting Boxing on Paternalistic Grounds” by Nicholas Dixon of Alma College for the annual meeting of the Central States Philosophical Association in Des Moines, Iowa. In addition, Swindler participated in the annual meeting of the Southwestern Philosophical Society in Tulsa, Okla. and presented commentary on “A Proposal to Change the Tradition of Perfect Being Theology” by Jeanine Diller of the University of Michigan.

Robert Welker, associate professor of education, traveled to Germany to help commemorate the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht or “Night of Broken Glass,” which many historians point to as the beginning of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews. Welker took part in two panel discussions at a conference at the Research and Study Center for Holocaust Education, the first center of its kind in Germany. Welker also joined others in discussing how to teach the Holocaust to students in colleges and schools throughout the world.