IN BRIEF

CAMPUS NEWS

The College’s Women in Leadership and Learning (WILL) has been awarded a $20,000 grant for 2007 by the Bunbury Company. WILL has received grants from Bunbury in previous years. The grant will be used by WILL to continue its mission in promoting women by presenting guest speakers, charity events, and the popular Vagina Monologues.

FACULTY AND STAFF

The Board of Governors of the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) and the Trustees of the Alice and Leslie E. Lancy Foundation have awarded the College a competitive grant of $40,000 toward undergraduate research to examine community and environmental transitions in metropolitan Trenton. The grant also covers expenses for students to present their research at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research in Spring 2008. Co-directors Elizabeth Borland and Diane Bates of the Department of Sociology & Anthropology will lead an interdisciplinary team that includes Rachel Adler (Sociology & Anthropology), Martin Bierbaum (Municipal Land Use Center), Curt Elderkin (Biology), David Prensky (Bonner Center and Business), and Antonino Scarpati (School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science). The NCUR/Lancy Foundation initiative has provided grants to colleges and universities throughout the country since 1999, but funds less than 8 percent of proposals received.

David Blake, associate professor of English, published a book titled Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity. It just been released by Yale University Press. This book situates Whitman within a wide context of 19th century popular culture and is described by reviewers as “an engaging, at times eye-opening read.”

Andrea Salgian , assistant professor of computer science, presented a paper titled “Recognition Using Local Descriptors: A Comparison” at the 2nd International Symposium on Visual Computing. The symposium was held in Lake Tahoe, NV, last month. While image based object recognition is an easy task for the human brain, it is a very challenging problem for computers. Salgian's paper, which was very well received, compares several methods for computer-based object recognition and looks at the potential of combining them into one system.

Nino Scarpati of the School of Nursing and Magda Manetas of the Office of Student Life were elected Staff Senate president and vice president respectively last month by the Constitution Council Election. Each will serve a two-year term.

Jo-Ann Gross, Professor and Chair of the History Department, has been invited to serve on the editorial board of a  new biographical journal of social sciences entitled The Central Asian Reader. The journal will focus on the Islamic-background societies and minority groups in European Russia, Siberia, the Caucasus, and  Central Asia. 

Barbara Harmon, program specialist from the College’s Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF), recently returned from volunteer work at Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans.  Harmon, who formerly served in Americorps, offered service in the rebuilding efforts of the 9th ward which is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Harmon hopes to gather a group in the near future to return and offer more services.

Deborah Hutton, assistant professor of art history, had a book published last month titled Art of the Court of Bijapur. The book is an illustrated study that examines the development of 16th and 17th century Bijapuri art in India. It features photographs of elected paintings and architecture, many of which have never before been published.   Additionally, Hutton spoke last month in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of London’s Asian Art Week. 

Tulia Jiménez and David M. Stillman, conversation hour coordinators and associate professors of the modern languages department, presented a paper entitled "Expanding Foreign Language Courses Through Student-led Conversation Hours" last month at the convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) held in Nashville, Tennessee.  

Regina Morin, associate professor of modern languages, had an article titled “Evidence in the Spanish language press of linguistic borrowings of computer and Internet-related terms” that was recently published in the journal Spanish in Context. The article was eviewed last month by the Chicago Tribune.

John Pollock, professor of communications, presented two lectures at professional forums this month on remarkably different topics. On November 9, Pollock spoke at the third annual “Sharing the Light Gala”, a benefit for Liberian orphanages hosted by the MacDella Cooper Foundation, where he shared his experiences in diplomatic communications. On November 14, Pollock addressed the New Jersey Communication, Advertising and Marketing Association (CAMA) and urged his peers in the industry to look beyond the traditional measures of communications “success.” 

Jean Wong, associate professor of special education, language and literacy, has written a book chapter entitled "Answering my Call: A Look at Telephone Closings" which will appear in Conversation Analysis and Language Specific Purposes by Peter Lang, set to be published in the spring. Wong juxtaposes, analyzes, and compares actual telephone conversation closings with those found in dialogues for English as a second language textbooks. 

Qifu Zheng , associate professor of mathematics & statistics, had a paper that recently appeared in the journal Advances of Applied Mathematics. The paper has received considerable attention the mathematics world when, after just a few months of publication, it was addressed by Ole Warnaar of the University of Melbourne in Australia. Warnaar references the theorems that Zheng established in his paper, proving that they can be imitated to obtain further results in applied mathematics.

STUDENTS

Ashley Reichelmann, a junior English education and women's and gender studies major, has been asked to join the Board of Directors for the Friends of Batahola, an international nonprofit organization. The Friends of Batahola Board consists of twenty men and women from across the United States, including Sister Helen Prejean, who work in solidarity with the Nicaraguan people and raise funds to support the Batahola Norte Cultural Center. The Cultural Center furnishes a public library for the area’s residents and offers technical or basic adult education courses to the Nicaraguan population.

Tom Hipper and Brittany Hammer were elected 2006-2007 national president and vice president, respectively, of Lambda Pi Eta, the national communication student honor society with chapters in over 400 educational institutions. Eight of the last eleven national presidents and the last two vice presidents of Lambda Pi Eta have been students from the College, a record for any single college or university.

The 2006 TCNJ Seal Yearbook won two awards in the American Scholastic Press Association’s Yearbook and Magazine Contest. The Seal received a Third Place award in the category for institutions with enrollments over 2,501 students, as well as the award for Best Overall Photography. This is the second consecutive year The Seal has won the award for Best Overall Photography.

Special recognition goes to the entire staff of the 2006 Seal: Editor in Chief Audrey Levine ’07; Treasurer Alex Mazella ’08; Section Editors Angela Crawford ’08, Stacey Diana ’09, Katie Galella ’09, Michelle Martin ’07, Annie Phan ’07, Nancy Sai ’09, Mike Skepner ’07, Cindy Sobieski ’09, Amy Syvertsen ’07, Melanie Weiss ’07, and Greg Zappile ’07; Photo Editor Rich Minevich ’08; and Staff Photographers Heather McGowan ’08, Kari Post ’08, Eve Roytshteyn ’07, Nick Vasta ’06, and Maya Wadya ’09. Tony Marchetti ’96, ’02 was the adviser.