May 2008

Faculty Accomplishments

Christopher Bailey
Professor Bailey organized Wells College's participation in, and accompanied six students to, the 22nd National Conference on Undergraduate Research, held April 10-12, at Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The students accompanying Professor Bailey (and their field and research advisor) were: Sarah Brower (Biological and Chemical Sciences, Collmer), Allison Inga (Biological and Chemical Sciences, Wahl), Jessica Keller (Biological and Chemical Sciences, Wahl), Erin Kennedy (Religious Studies, Malena), Sara Miller (Biological and Chemical Sciences, Wahl and Schnurr), Mary Wright (Sociology/Anthropology, Olson). This is the 20th NCUR Conference that Professor Bailey has attended with Wells students.

Professor Bailey has been invited to participate in an NSF-sponsored workshop on "Modern Biomolecular Crystallography," to be held June 22-27, at Cal State Fullerton.

Laura Campbell
Professor Campbell was one of two adjudicators for the Central New York Music Teachers competition in Syracuse on April 12. On April 13,she premiered David Borden's "Four Fugues for Flutes" as a member of the Fingerlakes Flutes in Ithaca. On April 18 she performed as a soloist and in a chamber ensemble in "Cold Fusion" at Colgate University. On April 20, she performed on a contemporary music program premiering a work by Rob Paterson at Grace Chapel in Cortland. On April 27 she performed as a member of Music's Recreation in a choreographed version of Milhaud's "Boeuf sur le Toit" in Ithaca. On May 4she performed Shostakovich's 5th Symphony with the Southern Finger Lakes Orchestra in Elmira. May 6 she directed the Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Band for the end of the year concert at Wells and on May 10 we gave the debut concert of the Wells Percussion Ensemble. Professor Campbell will be performing Haydn's "Creation" May 11 in Ithaca.

Deborah Gagnon
Professor Gagnon, Muriel Godbout, and Doug Elias attended the Transformation of the College Library Workshops in Baltimore, MD on March 27-29. The workshops are organized by the Council of Independent Colleges and the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The goal of the workshops is to assist small and mid-sized academic institutions in developing institutional agendas for advancing information literacy on their campuses.

Deborah Gagnon co-facilitated a reading and discussion series on Voluntary Simplicity during the months of February and March, held at St. Catherine of Siena Church, Ithaca, NY. The series was closely tied to the principles and practices of positive psychology.

Deborah Gagnon, Milene Morfei, and John Wells attended The Institute on Global Service Learning on April 25 and 26 at Cornell University. The Institute was presented by the Cornell University Public Service Center and the New York Public Campus Compact.

William Ganis
Dr. Ganis had four texts published in a new catalog for the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation Collection in Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Ganis' contributions focus on artworks in the collection: "Claes Oldenburg: Pastry Case, Fagend study and Typewriter Erasers;" "Larry Rivers: Beauty and the Beast I;" "James Rosenquist: Toaster, Firepole, Time Flowers and White Dreams;" and "Andy Warhol: Marilyns and Flowers."

Dr. Ganis, had his review of Carol Mavor¹s book, Reading Boyishly : Roland Barthes, J. M. Barrie, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Marcel Proust, and D. W. Winnicott, published in Volume 35, Number 5 of Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism.

On May 3 Dr. Ganis traveled with his ARTH 235, Contemporary Art class to Storm King Art Center and Dia: Beacon to view large-scale installations of contemporary art.

Siouxsie Grady
Professor Grady recently directed a staged reading of Belinda Howell's new play "Ain't Odie" at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca. The cast included Liz Howell, class of 2011.

Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo
Professor Lumumba-Kasongo participated in the Wells College 7th Annual Activism Symposium, that was held on March 28, 2008, Aurora, New York. His presentation was entitled: "Beyond Borders: What Does that mean Mean?: A Critique of Theories of Globalization."

During the Academic Year 2007-08, upon accepting the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences' invitation, Professor Lumumba-Kasongo served as an External Evaluator of a candidate who applied for promotion to Full Professor in the Department of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University and the Department of Afro-American Studies, Syracuse University.

Matthew McCabe
Professor McCabe led an intrepid band of six students from his Investment Management and Strategies course to visit a number of financial institutions in New York City. From April 17 to 18, the students met with professionals at Neuberger and Berman, Bank of New York/Mellon, and Lehman Brothers. The students also visited the New York Mercantile Exchange, where they were able to observe the energy futures trading pit.

Milene Morfei
Milene and her husband, Ron, were the guests of honor at "Musical Feast for the Eyes and Ears" on May 8. The event was the sixth annual fundraiser for AURORA of Central New York. AURORA is a nonprofit organization that provides services for people who are blind, deaf, visually impaired, or hard of hearing.

Professor Morfei, Deborah Gagnon, and John Wells attended The Institute on Global Service Learning on April 25 and 26 at Cornell University. The Institute was presented by the Cornell University Public Service Center and the New York Public Campus Compact.

Vic Muñoz
Professor Muñoz and Ednie Garrison had their experimental dialogical piece, "TransPedagogies: A Roundtable Dialogue" accepted for publication in the Women’s Studies Quarterly special issue, Trans, guest edited by Paisley Currah, Lisa Jean Moore, and Susan Stryker. WSQ: Trans will be published in December 2008.

During April 10 – 12, Professor Muñoz participated in the international scholarly meeting, "Native American and Indigenous Studies: Who Are We? Where Are We Going?" which was hosted by the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia, at Athens.

Professor Muñoz was invited to join the Central New York Native American Consortium and attended the April meeting at SUNY Cortland. She is pleased to report that the group will be meeting next at the Wells College Boathouse in July. With financial support from the Office of Institutional Diversity, there will be good food!

Scott Perez
Professor Perez abstract was accepted and he will be giving a presentation titled "Bridging The Gap Between Western Science and Cultural Understanding: Towards Effective Relationships Between Aboriginal Communities and Natural Resource Researchers"at the annual meeting of the Society of Wetland Scientists the last week in May in Washington, DC.

Jaclyn Schnurr
Professor Schnurr's abstract, "If small mammals are excluded in temperate deciduous forests, does seedling recruitment increase?," with co-authors Charles D. Canham and Richard S. Ostfeld, has been accepted for presentation at the Ecological Society of America meeting to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in August.

Susan Tabrizi
Professor Tabrizi participated in the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference in Chicago (April 3-6) by serving as discussant on a panel titled "Information and Uncertainty in Public Opinion."

Christina Wahl
Professor Wahl has been elected to the Cornell Chapter of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society. The society is designed to honor those who have made noteworthy contributions in research, and members pledge “to encourage original investigation in science, to foster companionship and cooperation among scientists, and to maintain honor, integrity and honesty in all scientific activities.” The Society provides the United Nations with practical, expert recommendations for mitigating and adapting to global climate change, it promotes and protects true science education in the classroom, and it leads the grassroots movement to bring researchers and the general public together in meaningful dialogue, to enhance society’s understanding of science and to enlighten sciences’s sense of social responsibility.