
September 2004

Dean's Message

Welcome to the 2004–2005 academic year in the College of Liberal Arts! Each fall brings the excitement of new beginnings—and of course some nostalgia for a summer we wish had been longer. This summer, our transition from former dean Barbara Couture’s leadership to planning for the coming year’s activities has benefited from the availability and willingness to assist of many across the college. My sincerest thanks to all!

Initial meetings with the administrative managers of our units, at the College Leadership Retreat, and among Dean’s Office staff focused on several efforts. These include Provost Bates’ emerging Academic Plan for signature focal areas built through multi-unit contributions, increased visibility matching our high quality with effective external partnering, and improving our budget position. Also, Provost Bates has begun the search process for the next dean.

Details of our unit and college plans reveal increasing instances of inter-unit goals as well as longtime strengths within departments. Our very newest faculty and staff are often faced with precisely this balancing act: how to convince colleagues of individual quality while participating in broader developments. Our longer-time folks—and entire departments as well—feel the same tug, often in opposing directions, with regard to resource allocation. How can the Dean’s Office help to place us prominently in Provost Bates’ Academic Plan?

Our discussions will both reaffirm and create long-term, energizing fields of endeavor focused on excellence. Together, we can highlight selected initiatives, speak them in terms concrete to audiences integral to the college’s success, and thereby confirm the highly relevant value of the liberal arts.

And, to be sure, I’ll need your help in many ways!! Thanks in advance for the coming year—one I hope will be full of thoughtful, inspired work toward reinforcing what we have already accomplished, and the immense fun of finding a few major things the world is yet yearning to receive from us.

Best wishes for the coming year!

Erich Lear, Interim Dean
College of Liberal Arts

Worthy of Note

Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe (psychology) was awarded direct costs in the amount of $462,500 by the National Institute of Neurological and Stroke Disorders. She will be principal investigator on a 2004–2008 grant titled “Cognitive Recovery following Traumatic Brain Injury.” She also participated in a National Institute on Aging Summer Training Institute.

Todd Butler (English) was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to attend this summer’s NEH Institute on Early Modern Philosophy. Entitled “The Intersection of Philosophy, Science, and Theology in the Seventeenth Century,” the institute enrolled attendees from a diverse set of institutions, including Yale, Purdue, Iowa State, and St. Olaf.

Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies has invited Mary Jane Maxwell (history, general education) to speak in Cambridge on September 24. She will present her research on Afanasii Nikitin, a fifteenth-century Russian traveler to India, to a select group of early-Slavic scholars.

Cornell Clayton and Mitch Pickerill (both political science) have been awarded the Judicature Award for their paper “The Rehnquist Court and the Political Dynamics of Federalism.” The award is sponsored by the American Bar Association and is given annually to the best paper on law and courts delivered at a regional or national political science meeting. Clayton will also be an invited guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Türkiye Barolar Birligi (Turkish Bar Association) in Ankara, Turkey. His remarks will address the role of courts in the consolidation of democracy.

Freddy Camacho (laboratory animal technician, psychology) has been named Technician of the Year by the Northern Rocky Mountain branch of the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS), recognizing his dedication and longstanding commitment to animal care at Washington State University. The Northern Rocky Mountain AALAS branch encompasses members from universities and biotechnology facilities in eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. Camacho will be given a plaque, honorarium, and all-expense-paid trip to next year’s Northern Rocky Mountain AALAS meeting, to be held on Flat Head Lake in western Montana.

Michael Delahoyde (English) wowed the crowd at the Edward de Vere Studies Conference in Portland with his multimedia presentation of “Edward de Vere’s The Winter’s Tale as Tudor Allegory.” Delahoyde has been invited to be the keynote speaker on “Implications of Oxford as Shakespeare” at next year’s de Vere conference.

Gene Rosa (sociology) has been a consultant to and was an invited speaker at the “Living with Risk” Project Workshop May 19–21 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a joint project of the Center for Global Security Research and International Institute for Strategic Studies. He was also an invited speaker at “The Future of Nuclear Energy in the United States” conference in Paris on May 25, sponsored by the French Center on the United States.

Joe Ayres (retired, communication), Tanichya K. Wongprasert (Ph.D. ’00), and Amy Wolfsen’s (M.A. ’03, communication) paper “Twins: How Similar Are Fraternal and Identical Twins across Four Communication Variables?” was named the top paper for the Communication Apprehension and Avoidance Division of the National Communication Association and will be presented by Ayres at the 2004 convention in Chicago in November.

Terrence Cook (political science) traveled to Yunnan University (Kun-ming, China) May 28 to June 14 to present eleven hours of lectures to differing audiences linked to Yunnan’s new American studies program. Cook spoke of the economic, political, and religious ideas of the American founders.

Lisa McIntyre (sociology) was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation for Excellence in Teaching by the Navy and Marine Corps ROTC.

Marina Tolmacheva (history, associate dean of liberal arts) traveled to Kyrgyzstan in May to complete a grant project under the Central Asian Research Initiative from the Open Society Institute. She visited five universities (in Bishkek, Osh, and Jalalabad) to explore opportunities for academic program cooperation and gave a public lecture on medieval Arabi travelers in Central Asia at the Social Science Research Center of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences at Osh. Tolmacheva returned to Kyrgyzstan in June to interview Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Tajik applicants to the Faculty Development Program sponsored by the Open Society Institute.
Also in June, Tolmacheva traveled to the Rocky Mountain Deans Conference in Medora, North Dakota, where she served as presenter and panel chair in the session on enrollment management. On the WSU campus, Tolmacheva addressed the June 9–11 Enrollment Management Conference, speaking on “Leadership and Liberal Arts.”

Tahira Probst (psychology) presented her paper “Creativity, productivity, and counterproductivity: The ups and downs of job insecurity” at the annual conference of the Academy of Management in New Orleans last month. Probst has also been awarded two grants totaling $19,680 from the WSU Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Program and the WSU Vancouver Internal Grant Program to pilot test the effectiveness of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization’s SOLVE training program aimed at preventing and mitigating psychosocial risk factors in the workplace.

Bill Condon (Writing Programs) has been named coeditor of Assessing Writing, an international journal published by Elsevier Science. Condon’s coeditor, Liz Hamp-Lyons, directs the Language Testing Research Centre at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Azfar Hussain (comparative ethnic studies) has been invited to present a paper on law and political economy next year at the “Asian Americans and the Law” conference organized by the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Gail Chermak (speech and hearing sciences) presented two invited papers on differential diagnosis and management of auditory processing disorder at the University of Connecticut conference on “Auditory Processing Disorders: New Trends in Diagnosis and Management,” held August 6–7. Chermak and former graduate student Jowan Lee will present a paper comparing four tests of temporal resolution September 27 at the twenty-seventh International Congress of Audiology in Phoenix.

Kevin Haas (fine arts) was featured in the second Loyola University Chicago Print Biennial this summer. In May he was a panelist for the Artist Trust in Seattle helping to select visual, literary, and interdisciplinary artists for their Grants in Aid of Projects. He currently has a solo exhibit at the new SNAP Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta, titled Momentary Shifts and Other Traces of the City.

Christine Oakley (sociology) has been elected to represent Region X for Alpha Kappa Delta, the International Sociology Honor Society.

Gail Siegel (arts programming coordinator, Campus Involvement) has been successfully raising money to cover the costs of bringing Nobel Prize–winning playwright, poet, and novelist Wole Soyinka to the Pullman campus for the opening of the February theatre production of Death and the King’s Horseman. Siegel recently submitted a $4,500 grant proposal to Humanities Washington, which has expressed interest in Soyinka’s visit. Members of the Theatre Program feel honored and extremely lucky that Soyinka, who does not make many public appearances, has agreed to come to WSU. The Department of English will also be hosting a mini-conference featuring Soyinka while he is in town.

Julie Kmec (sociology) presented a paper, “Bringing Affirmative Action In: Job Sex Composition and Wages among Registered Nurses,” at the American Sociological Association meetings in San Francisco.

Mimi Salamat (speech and hearing sciences, WSU Spokane) presented two refereed papers, exhibited thirteen refereed posters prepared by current audiology graduate students, gave two lectures on vestibular evaluation and management, and participated in three panel discussions at the International Congress on Neurotology, Neuroaudiology, and Skull Base Surgery in Tehran, Iran, May 14–18.

Otwin Marenin (political science, criminal justice) has been appointed, as the representative of four-year universities, to the Board on Law Enforcement Training Standards and Education. The board advises the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission on issues concerning training requirements, certification standards, and general policies for ensuring professional performance by peace officers in Washington State.

Don A. Dillman (sociology) received a special recognition award from the National Institute for Farm Safety for a historical research contribution, “The Design and Administration of Mail Surveys,” at their annual conference in June. Dillman also has been appointed to a National Academy of Science panel on residence rules for the U.S. decennial census.

Ella Inglebret (speech and hearing sciences) has been selected to receive the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Advancing Academic-Research Careers Award. The grant will support Inglebret’s research to identify factors that underlie Native American student retention and graduation from professional preparation programs in the fields of speech-language pathology and audiology and to examine speech and language assessment practices used with Native American children. In August, Inglebret was a participant in the National Institute for Native Leadership in Higher Education, sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education, at Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico. She was one of forty participants selected from across the country.

A paper coauthored by Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe (psychology) and Ellen Woo (Ph.D. candidate, psychology), “Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Analyses of Everyday Memory Lapses in Older and Younger Adults,” will be presented at the fifty-seventh annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Washington, D.C. Another paper coauthored by Schmitter-Edgecombe and Naomi Chaytor (Ph.D. candidate, psychology), “Improving the ecological validity of executive functioning tests,” will be presented at the twenty-fourth annual meeting of the National Academy of Neuropsychology in Seattle.

Albert von Frank (English) received the lifetime achievement award from the Emerson Society at the American Literature Association meetings in July.

John Irby (communication) is one of twelve journalism professors nationwide selected to participate in the Associated Press Managing Editors’ 2004/2005 National Credibility Roundtables Project. They will join about twenty editors participating in an initiative to make journalism better. Since 2001, more than 150 newsrooms across the country have taken the lead in building bridges of trust between the public and newsrooms. The workshop for professors, editors, and roundtable discussion leaders will be held at Northwestern University September 10–12.

The Idaho Commission on the Arts has awarded Peter Chilson (English) a 2004 Creative Writing Fellowship based on his work in fiction and nonfiction.

Gene Rosa (sociology), Richard York (Ph.D. ’02, sociology), and Tom Dietz were awarded the 2002–2004 Outstanding Publication Award of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association at its national meetings in August in San Francisco. Rosa has the distinction of being the first repeat winner in the history of the award. Rosa has also been appointed for a three-year term to the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the National Academy of Sciences.

Carol Ivory (fine arts) has been invited to chair a panel on Pacific art at the sixth International Conference on Easter Island and the Pacific scheduled for September 21–25 in Viña del Mar, Chile. She will also be presenting a paper on festivals in the Marquesas Islands. All of the participants will continue on to visit Easter Island as part of the conference activities.

Rebecca Craft (psychology) presented “NMDA antagonist modulation of morphine antinociception in female vs. male rats” at the sixty-sixth annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, held in June in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Andrew Duff (anthropology) has received grants from two different Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices; both grants relate to cooperative agreements to conduct research on cultural resources. He received $7,000 to assist with the Cox Ranch Pueblo Summer Archaeological Field School from the Socorro Field Office of the New Mexico BLM. These funds will be used for research expenses related to the WSU summer field course in archaeology offered for the last two summers, and which will be offered again next summer. He also received a $24,965 grant from the Moab Field Office of the Utah BLM. These funds are being used to have two WSU anthropology students, Matthew Landt (Ph.D. candidate, M.A. ’04) and Jennifer Mueller (M.A. candidate), visit previously recorded archaeological sites in the Moab region to assess their condition and any impacts associated with vandalism or increased visitation as the area has become a more popular tourist destination over the years.

Michelle Forsyth and Chris Watts (both fine arts) are featured in a group show, The Spokane River and the Great Forge Park, at the Lorinda Knight Gallery in Spokane. The show will run through September 25.

Megan Sukys interviewed Paul Brians (English) about Common Errors in English on her show “The Beat,” broadcast on the University of Washington’s NPR station, KUOW, April 26. You may listen to the episode on-line at http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram .asp?ID=7179 (Brians appears thirty-eight minutes in). Brians’ photo of the Gestapo memorial in Vienna is included on World War 2 Sites: In the Trail of the Second World War at http://www.ww2sites.com/index.php?action=jump&page=atwien. Eventually it will appear in English, Dutch, and German on this site. The Webmaster has asked permission to use other relevant pictures of Brians’ as well.

Leslie Robison (fine arts) received a commission to do a mural for Pullman Family Medicine. She completed it in April, and it is entitled Seasons of the Palouse.

J.P. Garofalo (psychology, WSU Vancouver) and Kim Lloyd (sociology) have been awarded WSU Foundation New Faculty Seed Grants. The grant program was created to encourage junior-level faculty to develop research, creative, or scholarly programs that have potential for extramural support.

This spring Romana Hillebrand (English) was one of three judges for the 2004 Writers’ League Novel Contest. She read eleven novels and filled out a form for each to explain her evaluation. Most of the novels had punctuation and grammar errors, so she included corrections with explanations. This summer Hillebrand was a member of the Idaho Library Award Committee, judging seventeen 2003 books written in Idaho and about Idaho. She simply e-mailed an evaluation of each book. Hillebrand nominated Priscilla Wegars’ “delightful” book Polly Bemis: A Chinese American Pioneer and hopes Wegars wins the final award.

David Pietz (history) presented a paper, “A Continuous Stream? Huai River Management in the First Decade of the People’s Republic of China,” at the “China’s Interactions with the World: Internationalization, Internalization, and Externalization” workshop held at Peking University in July. In July Pietz also received a Stanford University East Asian Library Travel Grant.

Tim Kohler (anthropology) is organizing and chairing, with Sander van der Leeuw of Arizona State University, a workshop entitled “Modeling Long-Term Culture Change,” to be held at the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, October 25–27.

Joddy Murray’s (English, WSU Tri-Cities) Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) presentation, entitled “White Space as Rhetorical Space: Usability and Image in Electronic Texts,” has been accepted to be included in the 2004 RSA conference proceedings volume due out later this year.

Robert Helm (fine arts) was awarded the Flintridge Foundation Award in Painting for 2004.

On July 17, Helen Burgess (English, WSU Vancouver) spoke on “Imagining the Past, Shaping the Future” at the Shoreline Historical Museum in conjunction with the Smithsonian exhibit Yesterday’s Tomorrows. The traveling exhibit is part of the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street project.

Professional Productivity

Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson (sociology) and Michael Stern (Ph.D. candidate, sociology), with Glen H. Elder Jr., have a forthcoming article titled “Attachments to Family and Community and the Young Adult Transition of Rural Youth” being published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence.

Raymond Sun (history) has published “‘Hammer Blows’: Work, the Workplace, and the Culture of Masculinity among Catholic Workers in the Weimar Republic” in Central European History.

Travis Pratt (criminal justice) coauthored three articles that appeared in print over the summer. The first was “Parental Efficacy, Self-Control, and Delinquent Behavior: A Test of a General Theory of Crime on a Nationally-Representative Sample,” published in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 48(3); the second was “Criminogenic Needs of Girls: What Are the Most Important Risk Factors for Delinquency and Are They Different from the Risk Factors for Boys?” published in the August/September issue of Women, Girls, and Criminal Justice; and the third was “Rethinking the IQ–Delinquency Relationship: A Longitudinal Analysis of Multiple Theoretical Models,” published in the September issue of Justice Quarterly.

Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe (psychology) and Ellen Woo (Ph.D. candidate, psychology) have an article in press with Brain Injury titled “Memory self-awareness and memory self-monitoring following severe closed-head injury.” Schmitter-Edgecombe and Naomi Chaytor (Ph.D. candidate, psychology) have published “Working memory and aging: A cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis” in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 10. Schmitter-Edgecombe has also coauthored two articles in Neuropsychology 18: “Event-based prospective memory following severe closed-head injury,” with Matthew Wright (Ph.D. candidate, psychology), and “Retrieval inhibition in directed forgetting following severe closed-head injury,” with Wright et al.

A new book coedited by Andrew Duff (anthropology) and E. Charles Adams, The Protohistoric Pueblo World, A.D. 1275–1600, was published by University of Arizona Press over the summer. Duff is also coauthor of the volume’s introductory chapter, “Settlement Clusters and the Pueblo IV Period,” and sole author of another chapter, “Settlement Clustering and Village Interaction in the Upper Little Colorado Region.”

Virginia Hyde (English) has contributed an invited essay, “What the Parrots Said: Fable and History in Mornings in Mexico,” to an international collection sponsored by the Lawrence Society of Korea and edited by leading scholars Nak-Chung Paik (Seoul National University), Chong-Wha Chung (Korea University), Michael Bell (University of Warwick), and Keith Cushman (University of North Carolina). The essays are all outgrowths of papers prepared for the International Lawrence Conference held in Kyoto, Japan, last summer.

Azfar Hussain (comparative ethnic studies) has co-guest-edited, with Melissa Hussain (Ph.D. candidate, English), a special issue of Meghbarta. Azfar Hussain’s own article, titled “U.S. Imperialism: Some Perspectives from Latin America, South Asia, and the Arab World,” and his interview with the leading Marxist philosopher Bertell Ollman, titled “A Conversation with Bertell Ollman: Imperialism, Then and Now,” have appeared in this special issue. Contributors include such notables as Noam Chomsky, Rosemary Hennessy, Vijay Prashad, David Barsamian, Peter Hudis, and Jimmy Santiago Baca. Hussain has also been invited to edit the Bengali version of Meghbarta and a book tentatively titled Whither U.S. Imperialism? that will include some of the articles and pieces that have appeared in the special issue of Meghbarta. The book will be published by Biju Publishers in 2005.
Hussain’s essay “Dirty Dialectics and Onions: Theory and Practice against Late Monopoly Capital” has appeared in Panini, and his popular piece “Labor against Capital: Movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America” has appeared in the August issue of People’s Tribune. Hussain’s essay “Toward Eleven Theses on a Political Economy of Praxis” has been solicited for publication in Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory.

Clare Wilkinson-Weber (anthropology, WSU Vancouver) has had an article, “Women, Work, and the Imagination of Craft in South Asia,” accepted for publication in Contemporary South Asia 13(3).

Buddy Levy’s (English) essay “The Setting of Wings” will appear in the fall issue of Big Sky Journal, a Bozeman-based quarterly literary journal. The magazine publishes distinctive “western” voices and has featured such writers as Annick Smith, William Kittredge, Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, and Raymond Carver. The fall issue will be on newsstands in October. Levy’s feature article “Fit to Be Tied” (on the quirky sport of “ride and tie”) appeared in the September 2004 issue of Trail Runner magazine, a national publication. The issue is currently on newsstands and in booksellers.

A book coedited by Otwin Marenin (political science, criminal justice) and Marina Caparini (senior research fellow at the Geneva Centre for the Control of Armed Forces, Switzerland), titled Transforming Police in Central and Eastern Europe: Process and Progress, was published in the summer by Lit Verlag, Muenster, Germany, and Transaction Publishers, New Jersey. Commissioned chapters analyze the successes and failures of reform efforts to promote democratic policing in fourteen central and eastern European countries in recent years.

Victor Villanueva’s (English, associate dean of liberal arts) special issue of College English 67(1) on the “Rhetorics of Color” is now in circulation. It includes his essay on Memoria and the discourse of color.

Jeannette Mageo (anthropology) has published “Toward a Holographic Theory of Dreaming” in Dreaming 14(2-3), the journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams.

Tahira Probst (psychology) coauthored an article in press with the Journal of International Management titled “A managerial and personal control model: Predictions of alienation and organizational commitment in Hungary.” She also coauthored “Sexual minority identity formation in an adult population,” published in the Journal of Homosexuality 47.

Gene Rosa (sociology), with Richard York (Ph.D. ’02, sociology) and Tom Dietz, has the article “The Ecological Footprint Intensities of National Economies” forthcoming in the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

Todd Butler’s (English) essay “That ‘Saluage Nation’: Contextualizing the Multitudes in Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queene” appears in this year’s edition of Spenser Studies. His essay “Bacon and the Politics of the Prudential Imagination” has also been accepted for publication in Studies in English Literature. This summer Butler completed a month-long institute on “Philosophy, Science, and Theology in the Seventeenth Century” held in Madison, Wisconsin, and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Rick Busselle (communication) published an article on television narrative and realism in the European Journal of Communication and an experiment investigating priming effects and the measurement of perceived realism in Communication Research Reports. He also presented papers at the International Communication Association’s annual conference in New Orleans and at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Toronto.

Rebecca Craft (psychology) coauthored “Pharmacokinetic factors in sex differences in delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol-induced behavioral effects in rats,” published in Behavioural Brain Research 154. Craft also has a coauthored article in press with the European Journal of Pain, “Sex differences in pain and analgesia: The role of gonadal hormones.”

Nicholas P. Lovrich (political science, criminal justice) coauthored an article with Meredith A. Newman (University of Illinois, Springfield) published in the winter 2004 issue of State and Local Government Review and titled “The Hearing of Local Government Interests in State Legislatures: The Effects of Prior Service in City or County Government.”

Romana Hillebrand’s (English) sentence pattern article was published in the recent National Writing Project journal The Quarterly. The title is “Beyond Primer Prose: Two Ways to Imitate the Masters.”

Jeffrey Joireman (psychology) and Blythe Duell (M.S. candidate, psychology) have published “Mother Theresa vs. Ebenezer Scrooge: Mortality Salience Leads Proselfs to Endorse Self-Transcendent Values (Unless Proselfs Are Reassured)” in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Archaeologist and acting chair of anthropology Tim Kohler has two chapters in a new volume edited by Charles Redman and others entitled The Archaeology of Global Change (Smithsonian Books, 2004).

Student Activities and Awards

Danella Thompson (M.F.A. candidate) was awarded an honorable mention for her piece entitled Victorian Dress. The award was part of the annual juried exhibition held in Tacoma during August.

Melissa Hussain (Ph.D. candidate, English) is a recipient of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association’s 2004 Charles Davis Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student Presentation. She was awarded the prize for her paper presented at RMMLA’s annual convention last fall, “The Political Economy of Anger: Reading Subaltern Voices in Small Places.” She also received the prize for Best Poetry in the 2004 issue of LandEscapes, WSU’s student literary journal, for her poem “Revolutionary Bookstore.” Also, her article “U.S. Capitalism and Imperialism in the Twenty-first Century: The Gendered-Racialized International Division of Labor” and her interview with Rosemary Hennessy, “A Conversation with Rosemary Hennessy: Capitalism, Imperialism, and Marxist-Feminist Sexual Politics,” both appeared in the February/March issue of Meghbarta.

At the Northwest Anthropology Conference in Eugene, Oregon, Vaughn Kimball (M.A. candidate, anthropology) won second prize in the student paper competition with “The Effects of Multiple High-Ranked Prey Species on the Use of Evenness as a Proxy Measure of Diet Breadth: An Example from the Southeastern Columbia Plateau.”

Michelle Robertson (Ph.D. candidate, sociology) presided over the “Markets, Occupations, and Workplace Inequality” roundtable of the American Sociological Association at its national meetings in August in San Francisco.

Diane Curewitz (Ph.D. candidate, anthropology) has been awarded $11,100 by the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Program in Archaeology to analyze prehistoric ceramics from the northern Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Curewitz’s research will focus on the relationship between the introduction of new ritual practices at the end of the thirteenth century A.D. and increased circulation of ceramics produced specifically for those ritual practices.

Tia-Maria Hoeller (M.F.A. candidate) reports her art entitled Take Five has been accepted into the 2005 edition of the Her Mark calendar, published by Woman Made Gallery in Chicago. Hoeller also will be in a group show, Drawings, from October 14 through November 28 at the Art Ark Gallery in Kelowna, British Columbia.

Judy Hennessy (Ph.D. candidate, sociology) presided over the “Work and Family” roundtable of the Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work refereed roundtables at the American Sociological Association national meetings in August in San Francisco. She also presided over the “Health Insurance and Costs” roundtable in the Section on Medical Sociology roundtables, where she and Alison Cliath (Ph.D. candidate, sociology) presented a paper entitled “The Social Magic of Redefining Children: Expanded SCHIP Material Benefits and Certified Institutional Identities.”

Jennifer Scott (M.F.A. candidate) exhibited her photography during the month of July at the Metro Coffee Company in Casper, Wyoming.

Zach Mazur (M.F.A. candidate) exhibited his photographs at the Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago April 5 to May 7. Further photography was showcased at a group show entitled Manifest ’04 at the Hokin Gallery in Chicago May 19 to June 5.

Alumni News

Ben Baughman (M.A. ’03, history) has been hired as the historic house manager for the eighteenth-century Ezekiel Harris House at the Augusta Museum of History in Augusta, Georgia. The position began May 18, and he is responsible for the daily care of the site, promoting the facility to the public, and the interpretation of the house.

Emily Squyer (B.A. ’04, theatre arts; B.S. ’04, biology), recipient of the 2004 Outstanding Graduating Senior Award for theatre, was accepted into medical school at Penn State University. She begins course work this fall.

Erin Curtis Cassetto’s (M.F.A. ’04) drawings and sculptures were featured at The Loft Gallery in Clarkston, Washington, during the month of June.

Dr. Eric Blinman (Ph.D. ’88, M.A. ’78, anthropology), archaeologist at the Museum of New Mexico, was featured in the article “Unraveling a Mystery: Did the Anasazi Use Ropes to Reach Cliffside Homes?” (National Geographic, September 2004). Blinman taught himself how to make yucca cordage that was similar to strands found in archaeological sites. He then spun two thirty-foot lengths of rope that were used by an experienced climber to reach some of the Anasazi cliff dwellings in southeastern Utah, demonstrating that the yucca rope, while not up to modern nylon rope standards, would have allowed the Anasazi to climb to the cliffside dwellings without the use of ladders or footholds carved in the rock face.

Jody Peterson (Ph.D. ’98, history), an assistant professor of history and political science, won the Centralia College Foundation Exceptional Faculty Award. Criteria for the award include evidence of a commitment to the faculty member’s primary assignment and excellence achieved in his/her area of responsibility, as well as participation by the faculty member in campus activities, civic organizations, community service, and/or professional organizations.

Albee Dalbotten (B.A. ’03, communication) has been hired as executive assistant to the associate publisher of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Ryan Childers (B.A. ’01, theatre arts) will be working for the Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Virginia, an Actors’ Equity–contracted playhouse.

Ann Porter (M.F.A. ’02) opened a mixed media solo show, Twins, this summer at the Chris Kraisler Gallery in Sandpoint, Idaho. The exhibit runs through September 6.

Selene Santucci’s (M.F.A. ’83) solo show Resurfacing opened at the Greenwood Chebithes Gallery in Laguna Beach, California, with a reception July 1 and ran through August 1.

Cynthia Fadem (M.A. ’04, anthropology) won the prestigious R.E. Taylor Student Poster Award at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, held in Montreal. Fadem’s poster, coauthored with faculty advisor Gary Huckleberry, was titled “Archived Sediments and Isotope Geochemistry: Results from the Marmes Site, Washington.” The Taylor Award is given by the Society for Archaeological Sciences to recognize outstanding student research in archaeometrics.

Nick Cochran (B.A. ’04, fine arts) has painted a mural, depicting an underwater horizon with sea creatures, stretching ninety feet around the play area at the WSU Children’s Center. He was featured in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News on May 28 and in the Summer Evergreen on June 17.

Visiting Fellow

This fall the College of Liberal Arts welcomes Karina Narymbetova of Kazakhstan as a visiting fellow under the Junior Faculty Development Program of the American Councils for International Education. Karina is a senior instructor of English at the al-Farabi Kazakhstan State University in Almaty. Her main interests include the teaching of American literature and culture and research on Kazakh literature in the United States. This semester she will be auditing several courses in American studies offered by the Department of English. Karina is hosted by the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies and mentored by Yolanda Flores Niemann. Her office is in 122 Wilson Hall; please stop by and say hello. She can also be reached by telephone at 509-335-4110 (office) or 509-335-3111 (home), or by e-mail at iskander@wsu.edu.

New Chairs and Directors

Rory Ong Acting Director, Program in American Studies	Tim Kohler Acting Chair, Department of Anthropology
George Kennedy Chair, Department of English	Edward P. Weber Director, Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service

Comm Addition Gets Outfitted with New Technology

While most of the students of the Murrow School of Communication were busy doing work or internships for the summer, the school was busy “gearing up” the Communication Addition building with new computer and A/V equipment. The school completed two major projects just in time for the fall 2004 semester.

The first project completed, dubbed the “IT Project,” was the purchase and installation of equipment for two computer classrooms and five research labs: CATI/Survey, Psycho-Physiology, Interview, Focus Group, and the Laboratory for the Study of Children, Families, and Media. The IT project integrated over $450,000 worth of hardware and software, including more than seventy-five new computers, video cameras, audio monitoring, video projectors, television monitors, and special CATI (computer assisted telephone interviewing) equipment. Some of the software costs were reduced through generous donations from Jim Ruddy and Kimberly Kirkland-Ruddy and Norma McKinney.

The next project completed was phase two of the school’s four-phase Avid purchase, the “iNews Upgrade.” This project upgraded the old Newstar system, used in the broadcast news classes, to the current Avid iNews program. The purchase price of $175,000 included installation, training, a new iNews server, twenty computer stations, and the latest software release of Avid iNews. A few of the iNews computers were also installed with Avid’s XP Newscutter software. This allows students to view their original footage and simultaneously edit their script. Then they can edit the footage, according to their finished script, into a complete news package. The iNews system will help students become more efficient with their time, and it will give them extensive hands-on experience with an editing system found in most major broadcast companies.

Welcome to Our New Liberal Arts Faculty!

Tenured and Tenure-track Faculty

Anthropology: Melissa Goodman Elgar
Comparative Ethnic Studies: Lisa Guerrero
English: Donna Campbell
Pavithra Narayanan (WSU Vancouver)
Fine Arts: Samantha Stengel-Göetz
History: Robert McCoy
Psychology: Heidi Hamann
Michiyo Hirai
John Ruiz
Sociology: Lisa Catanzarite
Christine Horne
Andrew Jorgenson
Women’s Studies: Nada Elia

Temporary Faculty and Instructors

Anthropology: Jessica Alfaro
Communication: Mija Shin
Comparative Ethnic Studies: Jocelyn Pacleb
English: Beth Buyserie
Jason Miller
Fine Arts: Donna Langan
Nik Meisel
Joseph Stengel-Göetz
Foreign Languages & Cultures: Mary Jane Neill
Kathleen Seymour
Elena Saveljevna Smith
History: Andrew Duffin
Jeff Johnson
Mary Jane Maxwell
Music & Theatre Arts: Dan Immel
Jennifer Scriggins
Nick Wallin
Psychology: James Wise (WSU Tri-Cities)

Department of Sociology Receives High Honor

The Department of Sociology at Washington State University has received the 2004 DuBois-Johnson-Frazier Award from the American Sociological Association (ASA). Created in 1971, the DuBois-Johnson-Frazier Award is one of the major awards given by the ASA annually and was presented to faculty members of the WSU sociology department at the ASA annual meeting in San Francisco last month.

The award honors the intellectual traditions and contributions of W.E.B. DuBois, Charles S. Johnson, and E. Franklin Frazier. It may be given either to a sociologist for a lifetime of research, teaching, and service to the community, or to an academic institution for its work in assisting the development of scholarly efforts in that tradition.

Gregory Hooks, professor and chair of the sociology department, noted this is the first time the prestigious award has been presented to an entire academic department rather than to an individual sociologist. “Several graduates of our department, however, have received this reward as individuals in the past,” Hooks said. “Our department has developed a stellar record of recruiting and training top-notch minority graduate students. Individually and collectively, they have gone on to very impressive careers.”

Hooks said both faculty and students are most appreciative of the ASA’s recognition of the high professional and academic standards maintained by the sociology department.

“We are deeply honored to be selected to receive this award,” he said. “We will strive to build on the legacy of excellence it recognizes.”

The Department of Sociology at Washington State University has been consistently ranked among the top graduate programs in the nation. The reputation of the department is confirmed by the fact that it has served, in recent years, as the editorial home for several major sociological journals, including American Sociological Review, Criminology, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Founded in 1905, the ASA is a nonprofit membership association dedicated to advancing sociology as a scientific discipline and profession serving the public good. With approximately 13,000 members, ASA encompasses sociologists who are faculty members at colleges and universities, researchers, practitioners, and students. About 20 percent of the members work in government, business, or nonprofit organizations.

A number of WSU sociologists presented their research at the ASA annual meeting, held in San Francisco August 14–17.

Among the research presented was that of faculty members Robert Griffin, Clayton Mosher, Thomas Rotolo, and Laurie Drapela, which examined drug and alcohol use among Asian Americans.

While many similar studies have been done across minority populations, the WSU research marks a rare assessment of the issue among Asians, who have largely been viewed as a single population, possibly concealing important differences in substance use across Asian subgroups. Drawing on a sample of approximately 7,000 respondents in Washington State, the researchers compare drug use prevalence rates across racial/ethnic groups and reveal substantial variation in prevalence rates across Asian subgroups.

Research by Nella Van Dyke, assistant professor of sociology, explored the possibility that the wave of student labor protest and activism in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s was generated, in part, by concerted efforts of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) to engage college youth through its Union Summer student internship program.

Van Dyke’s research provides a statistical analysis of all U.S. colleges, examining the effect of the Union Summer program on the formation of United Students Against Sweatshops chapters and the effect that the anti-sweatshop groups have on campus protest. The research contributes to the literature on labor revitalization by providing evidence of labor’s success in grassroots mobilization.

Deadline: Monday, October 4

Initiation and Completion Grant

The dean’s office has a modest amount of money to support faculty efforts in initiating and completing research or creative projects. The maximum award for a successful submission is $1,200. Eligibility is limited to tenure-track faculty members for whom research or creative activity is part of their job requirements. The applicant must be a member of “Community of Science” or “Community of Scholars” (http://www.cos.com). Preference will be given to members of the junior faculty (not yet tenured).

Edward R. Meyer Grant Development Award

Provides release time for a faculty member to develop a major ($200,000+) grant proposal for submission to an extramural agency or foundation. The $5,000 award consists of $4,500 to be transferred to the applicant’s department for replacement funding for one course and an additional $500, which will be transferred to the department to support the grant preparation (copying, travel, telephone, and other expenses).

Edward R. Meyer Project

The Edward R. Meyer Fund supports the instruction, public education, and scholarly efforts of the regular faculty in the College of Liberal Arts in areas matching the interests and wishes of the donor. Dr. Meyer’s first interest was the preservation of his ninety-five-acre property known as Meyer’s Point, located on Henderson Inlet near Olympia. He envisioned support for use of the site in the study of the natural environment—both in science and in policy—as well as for the promotion of the arts, history, government, and the general education mission of WSU. Dr. Meyer’s other interests included support for faculty and students in studies of world civilization and international affairs, broadly construed, and of mental and physiological health. Review of proposals and the availability of matching contributions will be used to help determine awards; the number of awards will depend on the available funds and the quality of the proposals.

Deadline: Monday, October 4

Boeing Graduate Fellowship in Environmental Studies

This fellowship, carrying a $1,000 stipend, is intended to support the multidisciplinary study of environmental issues, including the sociological, political, historical, cultural, literary, artistic, and scientific bases. Applications are encouraged from students across the broad range of disciplines represented in the College of Liberal Arts. Academic record and a research plan that addresses some aspect of an important environmental issue or problem will be the primary criteria used in selecting the fellowship recipient.

For more information and application materials:

See http://libarts.wsu.edu, click on For Faculty & Staff, then Documents & Forms. Questions about college grant programs and procedures may be directed to John E. Kicza at 509-335-4581 or jekicza@wsu.edu.

Research Agenda on Gun Violence Prevention

Project Description:

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a multi-year, multiple venue gun violence prevention and intervention initiative, funded by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington following responses by the WSU Division of Governmental Studies and Services in Pullman and by the Washington State Institute for Community Oriented Policing in Spokane. This is an excellent opportunity for faculty and graduate students from both Pullman and Spokane to share insight and work collectively on an important project involving gun violence prevention. Although focused in eastern Washington, this project is tied to a network of Project Safe Neighborhood research and community engagement through the Offices of the United States Attorneys and has national-level implications for public policy and criminal justice system outcomes.

PSN Mission:

To establish and maintain more effective firearm-related violence prevention in the Eastern District of Washington, from Asotin to Zillah.

Participants:

WSU and University Extension faculty involved in the research efforts are Nicholas Lovrich, Michael Gaffney, and Travis Pratt in Pullman, and David Brody and Michael Erp in Spokane. Graduate students fulfilling important research functions on this project include Jennifer Albright, Charles Johnson, YuSheng (Linus) Lin, Courtney Bell, and Travis Franklin in Pullman, and Jacinta Gau and Doug Orr in Spokane.

Progress:

The first-year efforts of the Spokane PSN Initiative have successfully solidified relationships among project principals, including university researchers and media partners, established a data collection and crime analysis infrastructure, and enhanced law enforcement response to gun violence. This framework is capable of replication elsewhere within the Eastern District and has been the recipient of two additional funding awards, one to accomplish survey research as pre- and post-implementation test measures of program effectiveness, and another to build upon survey results to fashion targeted responses to citizen concern over violence in areas where high concern over gun violence is present. Importantly, this latter supplemental funding is critical to advancing the investigative efforts of a WSU graduate student working on the project that, not coincidentally, happens to be a Spokane police detective. The Project Safe Neighborhood research partnership is yet another example of university researchers and practitioners working together to implement data-driven management concepts, intending to improve life quality at the neighborhood level, and have improved system responses to significant community problems.

Peace Studies Conference with International Christian University

With support from the Foley Institute, Noriko Kawamura (history, Asia Program) is organizing the first peace studies conference between faculty members from WSU and International Christian University (ICU) in Japan. Nine participants from ICU and fifteen from WSU will hold a conference on “Defining Peace, Security, and Kyosei” on the Pullman campus September 18–21. Kawamura has received an Initiation of Collaboration Grant of $5,000 from the WSU Office of Research for this conference. Conference sessions will be held in CUE 518; faculty and advanced graduate students are welcome to attend.

WSU Participants

Martha Cottam and Otwin Marenin (both political science): “Human Security as an Integrating Concept for Peace, Security, and Conviviality”
Gregory Hooks (sociology): “The Threats to the Environment Posed by Militarism”
Frederick Inaba, M.T. Nziramasanga, and William Hallagan (economics): “Conflict and Economic Development: A Synthesis of Existing Models”
Noriko Kawamura (history): “War Memory and Peace: A Historian’s Case Study”
Mary Meares (communication): “Understanding Peace, Security, and Kyosei: A Communication Perspective”
Michael Myers (philosophy): “Conviviality: Buddhist and Christian Perspectives”
Craig Parks (psychology): “Psychological Dimensions of Conflict”
T.V. Reed (American studies): “Twenty-first Century U.S. Peace Movement: An Interdisciplinary Approach”
Eugene Rosa (sociology): “The Nuclear Legacy in Japan and the United States: A Comparative Perspective”
Steven Stehr (political science): “The Structure of Homeland Security in the United States”
Noël Sturgeon (women’s studies): “Feminism and Environmentalism in a Time of War: Privilege, Security, and Nonviolence”
Edward Weber (political science): “When Lambs Lie Down with Lions, Does Anyone Feel Safe? Understanding the Relationship of Institutions to Peace and Security”

Plateau Peoples Conference: September 29-30, 2004

Faculty, staff, and the Native American Advisory Board to the President of Washington State University are planning the first university conference dedicated to the recognition, celebration, and preservation of traditional cultures of the Plateau.

Mary Collins (anthropology), conference coordinator, said she sees the conference forums and presentations falling into four broad categories: health, education, natural resource management, and preservation of language, history, and culture.

The conference, titled “Honoring the Heritage of the Plateau Peoples: Past, Present, and Future,” comes as the College of Liberal Arts continues work to fund and establish the Plateau Center for American Indian Studies. Collins is also coordinator of Plateau Center planning and predicts the search for a director will begin in early 2005.

Conference presentations and lectures will be held in the CUB and are open to the public. Registration fees entitle attendees to conference literature, two days of lectures, and meals, including a traditional dinner. For more information, visit the conference Web site.

Erich J. Lear Appointed Interim Dean of CLA

Erich J. Lear has accepted the post of interim dean of the Washington State University College of Liberal Arts, effective August 1, 2004. The appointment fills a vacancy created by the departure of Dean Barbara Couture, who served as dean from 1998 to 2004 and is now senior vice chancellor for academic affairs for the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Lear has been director of the General Studies Program for the College of Liberal Arts, an associate-dean-level position, since January 2003 and served as director of the School of Music and Theatre Arts from 1989 to 2000. Lear’s leadership in the school was considered crucial to major projects, including the renovation of Kimbrough Hall and the funding and completion of the digital recording studio.

“I am so pleased that Dr. Lear has agreed to accept the position of interim dean,” said Robert Bates, WSU provost and academic vice president. “He brings great depth of administrative experience at the department and college level, gained at several institutions. His particular knowledge of liberal arts is enhanced by his longtime leadership of the School of Music and Theatre Arts and his current position as director of general studies. We look forward to a smooth transition while we proceed with a national search.”

Lear received a bachelor’s degree in music, master’s degree in the arts, and doctorate in musical arts, all from the University of Iowa. Prior to joining WSU in 1989, his academic career included faculty and administrative positions at Virginia Tech, Morningside College, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and the University of Massachusetts. Lear has been the Region 2 chair and team chair for music accreditation reviews for the National Association of Schools of Music. He also served as administrative curriculum officer on the board of the Washington Music Educators Association. He has published in American String Teacher and served as president of the Washington State American String Teachers Association chapter.

Lear’s wife, Jane, is a law librarian at the University of Idaho School of Law. The couple has two daughters. Sarah is a graduate of Evergreen State College. Rachel is a second-year college student beginning studies at the University of Utah this fall.

Tom Whitacre will serve as coordinator of the Liberal Arts General Studies Program until June 30, 2005. He has been principal advising and operations coordinator for general studies since February 2003. Whitacre’s new role will include coordination of general studies advising for the Pullman campus as well as liaison with general studies advising on the Vancouver and Tri-Cities campuses and in Distance Degree Programs.

Paul Whitney (professor and chair, psychology) has accepted the additional role of liberal arts Distance Degree Programs coordinator. Victor Villanueva (Meyer Distinguished Professor of English) has accepted a part-time associate dean position. Villanueva will provide coordination with urban campuses and assist with tenure and promotion, third-year review, and annual review.

These appointments, effective August 2004, will provide administrative continuity during the search for a permanent dean and complement the appointment of Dr. Erich Lear as interim dean.