Dean's Message

Dear Colleagues,

Greetings again, and happy spring! Perhaps spring is just shy of “around the corner”; nevertheless, the outstanding performance of our music students in the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival indeed does put a “spring” in our step. Our WSU Jazz Big Band and four students in voice, instrumental and composition competitions recently took first place in this prestigious competition (see p. 4). And congratulations, also, to Tom Brigham of our Psychology Department, who will be honored at the WSU faculty convocation on March 28 as winner of the 2002-03 Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Instruction (see p. 6). I hope that you will join me and your colleagues to celebrate his award at the convocation ceremony.

We continue to plan and implement new activities that support our college’s programs. Most recently, the college has made available to faculty in our departments a supplemental travel grant program, designed to provide funding of up to $500 to support travel to support research or creative activity. Guidelines for the program can be accessed at our Web site, libarts.wsu.edu, from the “Faculty & Staff” page. We have also launched a new college publication, ask. magazine, designed to highlight the research, teaching and creative work of our faculty and students as well as the achievements of Liberal Arts alumni. The magazine has been distributed to faculty, alumni, WSU administrators and supporters of the college and can be viewed on our college Web site.

This month I ask that you join me in two important activities for our college. Recently, I distributed to our chairs a report produced by our College Committee on Recruiting a Diverse Faculty. The report speaks to the challenges of meeting our diversity goals in faculty recruitment and makes recommendations that we may apply to our recruiting efforts in the years to come. Each department chair in our college will be providing an opportunity for this document to be discussed in our departments. I hope that you will join these discussions and offer your insights and help as we work together to improve our success in this important area. Also, on March 12 at 1:30 p.m. I will deliver my annual “All-College Address” in FSHN T-101. I invite you to join me that day for a discussion of the achievements and future of our college.

As always, best wishes in your continued teaching, scholarship, research and creative endeavors.

Barbara Couture, Dean
College of Liberal Arts

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Worthy of Note

  Armand L. Mauss (professor emeritus, Sociology) was honored in November at the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. One entire session of the conference was devoted to a review of Mauss’ career contributions in Mormon studies and other religious studies. The panel reviewing his work consisted of Charles Y. Glock, professor emeritus of sociology at UC-Berkeley, Mauss’ main doctoral mentor, plus Professors Gary Shepherd (Oakland University, Michigan) and O. Kendall White (Washington & Lee University), and Thomas W. Murphy, doctoral candidate at the University of Washington. About 50 social scientists attended the session, including the first graduate student to work with Mauss at WSU, Reginald W. Bibby (PhD ‘74), and the last, Stacy A. Hammons (PhD ‘00).

  Meredith A. Newman (Political Science) has been selected as the winner of the Public Administration Review Editors’ Choice Award. This distinguished award recognizes exemplary performance as a member of the PAR Board of Editors. The award will be presented at the opening plenary session of the American Society for Public Administration’s national conference in Washington, D.C., on March 16. While in D.C., Newman has been invited to speak at the Brookings Institute on perspectives on diversity for the new Department of Homeland Security.

  John R. Weiss (Music) attended the Northwest Music Educators National Conference in Portland, Ore., Feb. 14-16. He will adjudicate at the High School Solo and Ensemble Festival at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on March 18, at the Eastern Washington Music Educators Association High School/Junior High School Large Ensemble Festival in Spokane March 26-27, and at the Washington Music Educators Association State Solo and Ensemble Festival in Ellensburg on April 26.

  Susan Swan (General Education) has been invited to be a delegate to the People to People Ambassador Program in Eastern Europe in September. The purpose of the delegation will be to learn about women’s involvement and opportunities in scientific fields in the Czech Republic and Hungary, and to encourage and promote women entering into careers in science and technology through sharing of experiences and contact with other women scientists.

  Camille Roman (English) will present two papers at the Twentieth-Century American Poetry Conference sponsored by the American Literature Association in Long Beach, Calif., March 12-15. The first paper, “Editing Cultural Texts in Anthologies,” will focus on Hawaiian plantation work songs drawn from her recently published, co-edited New Anthology of American Poetry, volume one, which brings together pre-1900 poetry for the first time from Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos. The second paper, “Anthologizing Robert Frost,” will examine the history of Frost in 20th-century American poetry anthologies.

  Michael Delahoyde (English) served as an invited panelist for the University of Idaho’s “Page to Stage” discussion of the Eric Overmyer play “On the Verge.” He also led a workshop for UI staff on writing résumés.

  Lori Wiest (Music) organized and presided over the American Choral Directors Association National Choral Conducting Competition held at the national convention of the ACDA in February. The three-day competition has two separate divisions for undergraduate and graduate students, comprised of semi-final and final rounds.

  Will Hamlin (English) has been awarded a Huntington Library-British Academy Fellowship for Study in Great Britain. He will spend parts of June and July in London and Cambridge.

  Steve Burkett (Sociology) has been appointed a member of the Consortium for American Indian Graduate Education. The consortium is dedicated to supporting the progression of Indian students through graduate school. The role of the consortium is to review and discuss current issues affecting American Indians in graduate school and to provide feedback to help the American Indian Graduate Center in Albuquerque, N.M., in partnership with the Council of Graduate Schools, address the variety of challenges American Indian graduate students face, racism within programs and classes, and to provide programs to assist with intervention and increase American Indian involvement in graduate studies nationally.

  John Irby (Communication) has been invited to make a presentation on “Generation Y and Media Habits” to reporters, editors and other department heads at the Sacramento Bee (and McClatchy Newspapers). The Bee is one of the nation’s best daily newspapers with 350,000 circulation (Sunday). McClatchy Newspapers is a leading newspaper and Internet publisher headquartered in Sacramento. The company has 11 daily and 11 community newspapers with a combined average circulation of 1.4 million daily and 1.9 million Sunday. McClatchy’s many honors have included 12 Pulitzer Prizes, three of which were gold medals for public service. The presentation is scheduled for March 28.
     Irby has also been invited to serve as a Blue Ribbon Judge of the California Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspapers Contest. CNPA is a nonprofit trade association representing the daily and weekly newspapers of California. The Better Newspapers Contest is an annual newsroom competition recognizing the most outstanding journalistic achievements published during the 2002 calendar year. Judging will take place in late March in San Francisco.

  Marilyn Lysohir and Ann Christenson (both Fine Arts) are featured in an exhibition titled “In Form: Six Ceramic Artists” at the Archer Gallery on the campus of Clark College in Vancouver, Wash. The show runs April 1-25.

  Amanda Espinosa-Aguilar (English) will deliver a paper entitled “‘Prepare to Be Assimilated’: Some Reasons Why Junior Faculty Leave Academe” at the 2003 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in New York City on March 20. This presentation is part of a roundtable panel, entitled “Mentoring Junior Faculty: Learning Together and From Each Other,” which discusses processes of mentoring and retaining faculty of color during their first three years on an academic appointment.
     In addition, Espinosa-Aguilar will present awards to the recipients of the 2003 CCCC Scholars for the Dream Award at the general opening session. The award honors first-time CCCC presenters who are also members of historically underrepresented groups. Espinosa-Aguilar is the co-chair of the award committee, along with Malea Powell of Michigan State University.

  Buddy Levy’s article “Breaking Down the Door” appeared in the March issue of Writer’s Digest, a national publication. The article, a service piece for writers, discusses how he has managed to impose himself and his work onto the very competitive international outdoor adventure writing scene. In January Levy’s article “Your Own Private Idaho” appeared in the journal Couloir.

  Ann Christenson (Fine Arts) will be visiting artist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, for three weeks in April.

  Tim Kohler (Anthropology) has been invited to speak at the Fudan-Santa Fe Institute Joint Workshop on Biocomplexity to be held at Fudan University in Shanghai May 12-16. Biocomplexity refers to an integrative approach to understanding the interaction between life and environment on all scales from biomolecules to ecological systems. Kohler will speak on interactions between cultures and environments.

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Professional Productivity

  David Pietz (History) has a paper entitled “Controlling the Waters in 20th-Century China: The Huai River and the Chinese Nationalist Government, 1927-1937” accepted for publication in History of Water Control and River Biographies (forthcoming: IUB Taurus, 2003).

  Robert Helm’s (Fine Arts) works were used as illustrations for Scott Poole’s new poetry book entitled Hiding From Salesmen, published by Lost Horse Press, Sandpoint, Idaho. Poole is a surrealistic poet of wit who reads his poetry on weekly radio in Spokane. He is associate director of the Eastern Washington University Press in Cheney.

  Lance T. LeLoup (Political Science) published an article entitled “Budget Theory for a New Century” in Khan and Hildreth, Budget Theory in the Public Sector (Quorum Press, 2002).

  Monica Johnson’s (Sociology) article titled “Further Evidence on Adolescent Employment and Substance Use: Differences by Race and Ethnicity” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. She has also been invited to give a colloquium address on the same topic at Rice University.

  Peter Chilson’s (English) essay “The Road from Abalak: Heat, Wind, Dust, Fear” has been selected for Houghton-Mifflin’s Best American Travel Writing anthology, to be published later this year. The piece explores the Tuareg rebellion in northeastern Niger, West Africa, in the early 1990’s and originally appeared in the summer 2002 issue of the American Scholar. His essay “Tourist of Fire, Prisoner of Dust,” about the West’s 2001 fire season, will appear this spring in the North Dakota Quarterly. His article on what government agencies are doing to protect North American wildlife habitat from road development is forthcoming in Audubon Magazine.

  William Lyons (Anthropology) published a collaborative study with Michael L. Cummings, chair of geology at Portland State University, titled “Sources of Sandstone Artifacts and Pottery from Lost Dune, a Late Prehistoric Site in Harney County, Southeastern Oregon, USA,” in Geoarchaeology: An International Journal.

  Julie Kmec (Sociology) had two journal articles published in February, “Minority Job Concentration and Wages” in the journal Social Problems and “Collecting and Using Employer-Worker Matched Data” in the journal Sociological Focus.

  Mitch Pickerill (Political Science) co-authored an article entitled “Bridging the Lawmaking Process: The Effects of Organized Groups on Court-Congress Interaction,” published in Polity. He also has a book, entitled Constitutional Deliberation in Congress: The Impact of Judicial Review in a Separated System, under contract and forthcoming with Duke University Press.

  Rhonda Blair (editor, English) has had two articles on the Swiss author Max Frisch (1911-1991), dealing specifically with his novel Homo Faber, reprinted in full in the ongoing reference series Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (vol. 121).

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Student Activities and Awards

  Chris Biga (PhD candidate, Sociology) has an article with Jan Stets, “Bringing Identity Theory into Environmental Sociology,” being published in Sociological Theory.

  Michael Brown’s (PhD candidate, History) paper proposal, “Race, Gender, and the Cable Act,” has been accepted for presentation at the Western Law Teachers of Color Conference, to be held at the University of Puget Sound School of Law March 22-24. The paper grew out of research he did for his legislative history project in Orlan Svingen’s (History) History 527 course during the fall of 2001.

  Ten public history students (Jeff Johnson, Caureen Miller, Jon Middaugh, Steve Shay, Mike Brown, Bryce Spencer, Matt Hansbury, Gwen Pattison, Ben Baughman and Steve Biljan) were recently notified that they won the National Council on Public History’s Student Project Award for their work with the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in reinterpreting the Campbell House. The work was done for Janice Rutherford’s History 529 course in spring 2001.

  Diane Krahe (PhD candidate, History) has been hired by Historical Research Associates, Inc. in Missoula, Mont., as a research historian. In November she was notified that she won a graduate student award from the University of Oklahoma Press, which includes a formal invitation to submit a publication proposal for her dissertation (on the history of Indian reservation wilderness preservation) to the press’ editorial board.

  In February Vicky Getz (PhD candidate, Sociology) was an invited speaker at the Kerala Social Forum held in Thiruvanadapuram, Kerala, India. She presented a paper titled “Women and Governance: Gender Transformative Capacity Building.” The forum was one of several statewide conferences prepping for the Asia and World Social Forum.

  Lin Xu’s (MFA candidate) ceramics were selected by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Regional Student Juried Exhibition 2003 at San Diego State University. The pieces will be displayed on the San Diego campus in the Flory Canto and Everett G. Jackson Galleries from March 3-15.

  Azfar Hussain (PhD candidate, English) has been invited to sign a contract with Edinburgh University Press to write three essays—on anticolonial philosophy and literature, the life and works of Albert Memmi, and orientalism—for the Edinburgh Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, to be published next year. Hussain’s paper called “Hearing the Boogie-Woogie Rumble of a Dream Deferred in Baraka: It’s Not Hollywood but the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Stupid!” has been accepted for presentation at the Pacific North American Studies Association conference to be held in April.

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Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival Results

Once again, the WSU Music program has received numerous first-place awards at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival Feb. 19-22:

WSU Jazz Big Band—Outstanding Guest College Band
Anna Webber (sophomore)—Outstanding College Flute Soloist
Scott Tenhulzen (senior, Humanities)—Outstanding College Drum Soloist
Rachel Bade (senior, Music)—Outstanding College Soprano Vocalist
Spencer Morris (MA candidate, Music)—Outstanding College Vocal Composition, Outstanding College Instrumental Composition

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Authors' Recognition Ceremony Planned

The spring Authors’ Recognition Ceremony will be held Thursday, April 3, from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the Honors Hall Lounge.

John Bodley (Anthropology) will discuss his book The Power of Scale: A Global History Approach, with comments from Richard Law (English, General Education). John E. Kicza (History, associate dean of Liberal Arts) will profile his latest book, Resilient Cultures: America’s Native Peoples Confront European Colonization, 1500-1800, with discussant Timothy Kohler (Anthropology). Joan Burbick (English) will present her book Rodeo Queens and the American Dream, to be discussed by Mary Bloodsworth-Lugo (Philosophy, Women’s Studies).

The event will also feature a performance by oboist Amari Barash (Music), as well as remarks on original works on display by artist Patrick Siler (Fine Arts).

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Thomas Brigham to Receive Sahlin Award

Thomas Brigham (Psychology) will be honored with the 2002-2003 Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Instruction.

Brigham began his career at WSU more than 30 years ago and has since taught 10 different courses and developed four new courses of curriculum unique to the University, including “Psychology Applied to Daily Living: Dealing with Friends, Alcohol and Sex” (Psych 106), which has been adopted by several colleges from the University of Mississippi to the University of Idaho, and “Self Control” (Psych 328). Brigham is currently working to develop a new psychology degree aimed at consumers, rather than producers, of psychological knowledge.

As founding director of the Student Advising and Learning Center, he instituted the Excel Program to address the problem of retaining minority students at WSU. His students credit him with changing the way they think about psychology, and many report Brigham’s class the most meaningful course they have taken at WSU.

Brigham’s previous awards include the William F. Mullen Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was recognized nationally when the American Association of Colleges and Universities selected Psych 106 as a national model for AIDS education, and internationally with an Outreach Award of the Association for Behavior Analysis for his work with students of color in the Excel Program.

Sahlin Award recipients receive a plaque and a $2,500 cash award. The award is named in honor of WSU graduates Lee and Jody Sahlin of Spokane, who endowed the program.

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