April 2012 Archives

Professor David Samuels (Political Science) has been named a Distinguished McKnight Professor. The goal of this program is to recognize and reward the University of Minnesota's most outstanding mid-career faculty. Recipients hold the title for as long as they remain at the university. The grant associated with the professorship consists of $100,000 to be expended over five years. Read more

Lecturer Stephen Smith (Classical and Near Eastern Studies), Professor Valerie Tiberius (Philosophy), and Professor Rob Warren (Sociology) are CLA's winners of the 2012 COGS Outstanding Faculty Award. The COGS Outstanding Faculty Award was established in 2010 and is the only award where graduate students nominate faculty they feel have gone above and beyond in their work with graduate students, and a panel of students selects the winners. A reception to recognize the winners will be on May 8th at 4:30 p.m. in the Mississippi Room in Coffman Union.

Associate Professor and Chair Carl Flink (Theatre Arts & Dance) has received the City Pages Best Choreographer recognition in their "Best of the Twin Cities" issue.

Elaine Tarone (Professor of Second Language Studies, Director of CARLA) will be the new Associate Editor for Perspectives at The Modern Language Journal.

Associate Professor Giancarlo Casale (History) has received a year-long residential fellowship from the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence.

Associate Professor Ronald Krebs (Political Science) received a Fulbright Award from the United States-Israel Educational Foundation.

Associate Professor Sarah Chambers (History) received an NEH Faculty Fellowship for 2012-13.

Director Barbara Frey (Human Rights Program) received a Fulbright-Robles award to carry out teaching and research in Mexico from January to May 2013. She will be teaching a seminar on Human Rights Advocacy at FLACSO-Mexico (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales/ Latin American Academy of Social Sciences) in Mexico City. She will also conduct research on the roles and perceptions of civil society organizations regarding human rights protection in the context of major criminal justice reforms.

Associate Professor and Chair Louis Mendoza's (Chicano Studies) book Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States (University of Texas) will be published in June. You may recall that Louis undertook a 8,500-mile bike ride around the perimeter of the U.S. in 2007, and this book is a collection of the conversations about the Latinoization of the U.S. he had with people along the way. Read more

While most researchers have interacted with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) successfully at least once, few can say they fully understand what does and does not require IRB approval, and how to ensure one's research is approved quickly. There are many good resources available to help researchers with this important process, and in CLA-OIT we have worked closely with the IRB to document the processes of our research services to simplify and clarify the process.

The CLA Commencement Committee would like to invite and encourage you to join in the celebration of our students' achievement by volunteering for the spring commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 13th in Mariucci Arena.

The commencement ceremony is the culmination of our students', our own, and our colleagues' hard work, and representation of CLA advisers, counselors, and administrators at this important event demonstrates our commitment to CLA undergraduates and their families.

Professor Edward Schiappa (Communication Studies) will spend the 2012-2013 academic year as a Visiting Professor at M.I.T. in the Comparative Media Studies and Writing/Humanistic Studies programs.

Professor Julie Schumacher (English) publishes her fifth novel for younger readers, The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, (Delacorte) in May.

Teaching specialist Barbara Kierig (Music/voice) was chosen as the 2012 Teacher of the Year by the Thursday Musical Competition in honor of her dedication and service to their organization. She was celebrated at the winners' recital/award ceremony on Thursday, March 29 at the Bloomington Arts Center.

Graduate student Wenjie Liao (Sociology) received a Doctoral Dissertation grant from the National Science Foundation. Wenjie will use this funding to complete a survey on law and collective memory in Chengdu, China. She will be conducting the survey and follow-up interviews this summer.

Graduate student Chunying Xie (Economics) has received the 2012 CURA Dissertation Fellowship. Her project "Dynamic Pricing and Congestion Pricing: The case of the MNPass Program" is cited for having the potential to make a significant contribution to the understanding of traffic management and the estimation of consumer demand of High Occupancy Toll lanes.

Graduate student Jesse Izzo (History), has received a Fulbright grant to work in Israel for the academic year 2012-2013. He'll be at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem working with Professor Reuven Amitai-Preiss on Mamluk/Mongol/Crusader relations in late 13th C. Syria.

The Dance program was recognized at the American College Dance Festival Association North Central Regional Conference this month. The student company, which performed Carl Flink's "Lost Lullabies," was selected to go to the National College Dance Festival May 24 - 27, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In addition, student choreographer Orlando Hunter's work "Mutiny," which he also performed, was selected for the Regional Conference Gala concert presented on April 1 in Madison, Wis.

In collaboration with my colleagues in other colleges and University offices, I recently helped write the following "Call to Action" to the IT community. I share it with you today so that you can see our rapidly changing technology world is not only having an impact on students, faculty, and staff, but it is presenting an enormous challenge to those who provide IT support and services. I welcome your thoughts and perspective on these issues.