People & Places: January 2023
People & Places is a monthly highlight of the ongoing professional activities and achievements of faculty, staff, and students of the College.
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies Carl Olson’s essay entitled “Playing with Representational Thinking: A Critical Postmodern Comparison of Derrida, Zhuangzi, and Dogen” was published in Comparative and Continentals Philosophy Vol. 21 (2022): 30-43.
Associate Professor of History Guo Wu was invited to a roundtable discussion “Bridging Cultural and Political Divides: Unique Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching Modern China as CHUS Historians in the Post-Pandemic World” and served as a discussant for the panel “Mapping the Important Changes of 20th Century China: Writing History, Political Maneuvers, and National Transformation.”
Both sessions were held at the 136th American Historical Association annual meeting in Philadelphia on January 6-8, 2023. Additionally, Wu was invited by the editor of the journal Communist and Post-Communist Studies of the University of California Press to review a manuscript.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science & Sustainability and Religious Studies Adrienne Krone was elected vice president of the Society of Jewish Ethics at the society’s annual conference held in Chicago in January 2023. Prior to her election into this new role, Krone served the Society of Jewish Ethics as a Board Member-at-Large (2022-2023), Program Co-Chair (2020-2022), and Co-Coordinator of the Climate Impact Task Force (2019-2020).
Ryan Sesler ’23 and Associate Professor of Biology and Geology Lisa Whitenack traveled to Austin, Texas, to attend the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) annual meeting in January 2023. Sesler presented a poster on his Senior Comp research on how wear affects the mechanics of shark teeth puncturing prey items. Whitenack was a co-author of Sesler’s poster and co-authored a poster on primarily undergraduate institution (PUI) faculty engagement in SICB. She also finished her terms on the SICB Executive Committee and as chair of the SICB Educational Council.
Co-authored with alumni Lindsay Blum ’21 and William Walker ’22, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Sustainability Delia Byrnes published an article on environmental communication pedagogy in Sustainability, vol. 15, no. 1 (2023).
Titled “Undisciplining Environmental Communication Pedagogy: Toward Environmental and Epistemic Justice in the Interdisciplinary Sustainability Classroom,” the manuscript grew from an independent study in the spring of 2021 where Byrnes, Blum, and Walker explored the role of environmental humanities in sustainability discourse. The article argues for the necessity of incorporating diverse knowledge traditions and media genres in environmental curricula and student writing to promote dynamic and ethically-engaged literacies that refuse the exclusionary legacies of academic knowledge production.
Associate Professor of Biology and Geology Lisa Whitenack was interviewed for an article in the Washington Post and for the CBC show “As It Happens”. Both interviews focused on her Shark Week research (PLOS One, November 2022), concerning the demographics of folks deemed “experts” on Shark Week. The opportunity also led to her work being mentioned in the News Quiz on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” on December 10, 2022.
Department of Environmental Science and Sustainability Professors Richard D. Bowden and Terry Bensel, Guy Dunkle ’08, Bailey Kozalla ’22, and Foundation for Sustainable Forests (FSF) Executive Director Annie Maloney coauthored the paper “Academic and non-profit environmental organization collaboration: A case study on forest conservation with Allegheny College and the Foundation for Sustainable Forests” at the 5th World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities, held on Allegheny’s campus in June 2022. The presentation described long-term collaborations that have provided educational opportunities for students and have assisted FSF in its forest conservation activities.
On January 13 and 14, Professor of Mathematics and Director of Faculty Development Rachel Weir facilitated a standards-based grading (SBG) workshop at Spelman College as part of the project “Keeping the STEM Gate Open – The Effects of Standards-Based Grading on the Achievement, Retention, and Agency of Black Female Students,” which is funded by the National Science Foundation. Weir serves as the SBG consultant on the grant, assisting the Spelman math department to convert the grading system for their precalculus course from points-based to standards-based and works with grant holders to develop a toolkit and webinars that math faculty can use to convert their own courses.
Professor of Political Science and International Studies Shannan Mattiace and Professor of Business and Economics Tomas Nonnenmacher’s paper entitled “Internal Migration to Yucatán: Moving for Security” was recently published in Mexican Studies/Estudios mexicanos (38.3, Fall 2022). They presented this work at the National University of Mexico in Mérida, Yucatán, on January 11, 2023. Surprisingly (to them) the presentation was covered by three regional papers and two television stations, including a TV interview and press conference. They are wondering if they can now retire, given that their 15 minutes of “fame” has been achieved!