CAS Department Updates February 2016

Center for Research on Vermont

The Center recently posted two new videos featuring members of the History Department:

English

The New York Times Sunday Book Review featured a very enthusiastic review of Professor Major Jackson's recent book of poems.

Classical music enthusiast and English Professor Tom Simone co-created a concert series featuring music from the literary eras his students were studying back in 2008. Made possible through a special English Department fund, the Music and Literature Concert Series' two annual concerts were open to the public, too—and free. After a change in the funding allowing only English majors and minors to attend, the series has been reinstated after a two-year hiatus and renamed the President's Concert Series for Music and Humanities. Find out more about the series in the Seven Days article.

UVM alumni Erland Austin Danforth, III, who writes for the Burlington Free Press, was recently named Vermont Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Austin graduated from CAS in 2008 with a major in History and a minor in Geography, and was one of Elaine Harrington’s journalism students. He was previously the Sports Editor at the Bennington Banner, an intern at Vermont Business Magazine, and a reporter at Alexandria Times in Virginia. Read the full story.

Lecturer Sean Witters writes: “The final draft of my essay on authors and the market was accepted by my friend, colleague, and UVM associate at University Augsberg for DeGrutyer's Handbook on the American Novel in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries. Though it looks like final publication is being delayed, it is forthcoming.” 

Associate Professor Hilary Neroni has a new book publication, Feminist Film Theory and Cléo from 5 to 7 (Bloomsbury Academic, January 28, 2016). Four more books in this series, edited by Associate Professor Todd McGowan, are also forthcoming in 2016.

Geography

Dr. Beverley Wemple was awarded a Fulbright research and teaching fellowship in Ecuador, for a six-month period in 2016-17 academic year. The fellowship will be affiliated with the Universidad Politécnica Salisiana in Cuenca, Ecuador, and Dr. Wemple will be conducting research to characterize the morphology of headwater mountain streams in the Ecuadorian Andes.

Dr. Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux and Dr. Darren Hitt from the College of Engineering and Mathematical Science were awarded a FISAR grant in the amount of $35,668 to develop a multi-scale, multi-platform environmental monitoring framework for remote sensing.

Students Caroline DeCunzo and Jack Braunstein worked on a paper in Professor Harlan Morehouse's “Catastrophes” class this past fall, and out of their research with the “Campus Green and Gold” project, their findings have been accepted at an international academic conference. Caroline will travel to Belgium in February to present their co-authored paper, "Technologizing Consent: Reframing Campus Sexual Assault as an Ongoing Catastrophe," at the “Sex and the Academy” conference hosted by the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry (CEVI) at Ghent University.

Dr. Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux is co-hosting the Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop to be held in Vermont at the Burlington Hilton on March 22-24, 2016. Spearheaded by the Vermont State Climate Office, keynotes will be given by heads of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), including its President, VT Governor Peter Shumlin, and VT Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz. Session titles include Food Resilience, Human Health, Flood Risk, Coastal Issue,Hydrometeorological Hazards, Regional and Local Climate Services, and Emerging Needs by Stakeholders.

History

The following history faculty have published books since the last edition of CAS eNews:

The History Department recently hosted a successful event to mark the publication of books by twelve members of the faculty. This “Celebration of Recently Published Books,” held for faculty, administrators, staff, and students, occurred on January 29th in the Billing Library Apse.

Political Science

The Department is excited to announce the creation of a new minor in International Politics that provides opportunities for the study of both the domestic and transnational aspects of international politics.  In an increasingly globalized world, one in which a political development occurring in any one country affects ideas, economics, and politics in most other countries, students seek knowledge that provides them with a rich understanding of the dimensions of politics that transcend national borders.  This minor complements majors and other minors in such diverse fields as languages, global studies, regional studies, history, international business, environmental studies, and international development.

Alex ZakarasAlex Zakaras (pictured at left) has won the 2016 Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy for his paper “Complicity and Coercion: Towards an Ethics of Political Participation.” There were over 45 essays submitted for the prize competition. Alex will be presenting his award-winning paper at the Fourth Annual Workshop for Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy that will take place in Barcelona, Spain, June 1-3, 2016. Read more about his award-winning paper, which will also be published in Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy.

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

Psychological Science

Professor John Hughes was featured in WalletHub’s recent study about financial cost of smoking by state. 

Graduate student Justin Parent’s accomplishments were featured by the Graduate College in the first issue of UVM IMPACT (Fall, 2015).

Dr. Dianna Murray-Close received the Dean’s Lecture Award in 2015 and delivered her address on February 9, 2016. The title was “Beyond Mean Girls:  Understanding the Development of Relational Aggression.”

Graduate students Wesley Sanders and Justin Parent have recently had three articles accepted for publication (Journal of Family Psychology, Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology) from their research on children’s screen time (e.g., iphones, video games), the role of parenting, and the associations with sleep.

Graduate student Sydney Trask was co-winner of "best talk" at the Neuroscience, Behavior, and Health Research Forum on Jan. 22-23.

Sociology

Stephen J. Cutler, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, and his Romanian colleague from the University of Bucharest, Corina Bragaru, have received an "Award for Research Results" from the Romanian Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI) for their co-authored article "Long-term and short-term predictors of worries about getting Alzheimer’s disease" that appeared in Vol. 12 (2015), pp. 341-351 of the European Journal of Ageing.

Associate Professor Alice Fothergill recently flew to Kathmandu, Nepal to deliver a talk entitled Children, Youth, and Disaster: Vulnerability and Capabilities at an international earthquake conference. Research has found that children are greatly affected by disasters, and as climate instability leads to more weather-related disasters, the risks to children will continue to increase. Professor Fothergill also will be touring all of the destroyed World Heritage sites.  While there, she will be meeting with UVM student Emma Squier who is studying in Nepal for her junior year abroad. She chose to study there after taking Professor Fothergill’s Sociology of Disaster course in the 2015 spring semester and learning all about the Nepal earthquake. 

Theatre

Assistant Professor Katie Gough received a grant from UVM’s Office of the Vice President for Research to conduct research next year in Scotland while on her junior faculty research leave.