The Quad

More than 100 UMKC A&S faculty and staff attended the 2011 A&S Awards Reception at The Residence on Thursday, September 8th. Interim Dean Wayne Vaught presided and introduced the new faculty present, recognized recipients of system and national awards as well as presented this year’s outstanding teaching and outstanding staff awards in the College.

TEACHING AWARDS

The 2011 Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award for Regular Faculty was awarded to Beth Miller (pictured left), Department of Political Science.

The 2011 Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award for Non-Regular Faculty was awarded to Julie Urbanik (pictured right), Department of Geosciences.

The 2011 Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award for Part-Time Faculty was awarded to Mark Raab (pictured left), Department of Geosciences.

The A&S Alumni Association, represented by Pat Madden (pictured right), immediate Past President of the A&S Alumni Board, presented the 2011 Alumni Good Teaching Award to Jennifer Phegley (pictured right), Department of English.

STAFF AWARDS

The staff awards (after a College-wide nomination process and then an evaluation by peers from outside the nominees’ units) recognize those whose work excels in meeting the “Six R’s” of outstanding staff service. These are respectful, responsible, resourceful, receptive, responsive, and reasonable.

The 2011 College of Arts and Sciences Staff Member of the Year is Susan Hankins, who was the Administrative Assistant in the Department of Sociology until July, 2011 when she became Executive Staff Assistant to the Dean.

There were three runners-up from among the 12 nominees as well: Cathy Slack, Accountant in the Dean’s Office, Alicen Lundberg, Administrative Assistant, Department of Art and Art History and Mandy Seley, Administrative Associate, Department of Psychology.

OTHER RECOGNITIONS

Interim Dean Vaught also recalled for those present that two of the three newest UM Curators’ Professors were from the College: Kathy Goggin (Psychology) and Kathleen Kilway (Chemistry). He also noted that the College had two of its faculty awarded Guggenheim Fellowships this year: Clancy Martin (Philosophy) and Christie Hodgen (English).

In AY2010-2011, the College produced 161,628 SCH.  91 percent were undergraduate hours and 9 percent were graduate hours.

On Friday August 25, 2011 more than 500 students from UMKC and several area high schools took part in the Department of Physics’ Physics Phest held in labs and classrooms of Flarsheim Hall and on the Quad. Organized by members of the department’s faculty and staff, this event allowed the attendees to have opportunities to ask professional and student scientists about their research, tour research labs, watch physics demonstrations and try hands-on physics-based activities. They were able to meet faculty from the Physics Department as well as from Mathematics & Statistics, Chemistry, Geosciences and the School of Computing and Engineering. Others present included science teachers from area high schools and members of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City.  As the accompanying photos attest, the event kept everyone busy and was given a “thumbs up” encouraging the Department to plan for an even better Physics Phest for next year. (Parts of this article were previously used by U-Matters in one of their stories.)

Fifteen A&S Faculty were among those promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure or promoted to Professor in 2011. They were among the 34 recipients recognized at the campus celebration on September 1, 2011 in Pierson Auditorium. We appreciate their contributions to the College and their departments. And, we join in congratulating them.

Those promoted to Associate Professors with Tenure are:

Anthony Caruso, Physics; Christie Hodgen, English Language and Literature;  Caitlin Horseman, Communications Studies; Jennifer Lundgren, Psychology; Erik Olsen, Economics; Melisa Rempfer, Psychology; Liana Sega, Mathematics and Statistics; and Jacob Wagner, Architecture, Urban Planning +Design.

Promoted to Professor are:

Andrew Bergerson, History; Cathleen Burnett, Criminal Justice and Criminology; Stephen Dilks, English Language and Literature; Jennifer Phegley, English Language and Literature; Noah Rhee, Mathematics and Statistics; Victor Tan, Theatre; F. Wayne Vaught, Philosophy.

With the recent naming of Kathy Goggin (Psychology) as a Curators’ Professor  and Kathleen Kilway (Chemistry) as a Curators’ Teaching Professor, the College now has a grand total of 14 faculty members who hold this honor.  They are:

Curators’ Professors

Felicia H. Londré, Department of Theater (1987)
Wai-Yim Ching, Department of Physics (1988)
Max Skidmore, Department of Political Science (1999)
Yanching (Jerry) Jean, Department of Chemistry (2002)
James Durig, Department of Chemistry (2003)
Jerry R. Dias, Department of Chemistry (2010)
Michael B. Kruger, Department of Physics (2010)
Kathy Goggin, Department of Psychology (2011)

Curators’ Teaching Professors

Bruce Bubacz, Department of Philosophy (1998)
David Atkinson, Department of Political Science (1999)
Charles Wurrey, Department of Chemistry (2002)
Joan Dean, Department of English (2003)
Carla Klausner, Department of History (2004)
Kathleen Kilway, Department of Chemistry (2011)

To learn more about the titles and their history, go to:

• http://info.umkc.edu/umatters/2011/06/28/whats-in-a-name-curators-professor-curators-distinguished-teaching-professor/

We welcome to the College Phil Watson who joined the College of Arts & Sciences as Director of Development and Gift Planning on  August 1, 2011 after serving as UMKC’s Director of Gift Planning for the past six (6) years.  Before joining UMKC in 2005, Phil served as Vice President for Advancement at Avila University, as Director of the Olathe Medical Center Charitable Foundation, and as Associate Director of Planned Giving at the Kansas University Endowment Association.  Phil also enjoyed fifteen years in trust & investment management sales and administration, holding senior-level positions with local and regional banks.  Phil grew up in Lawrence and holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Administration degrees from the University of Kansas.  He is a former Certified Financial Planner.  He has served on numerous local advisory boards and fundraising committees and is a past President of the Mid-America Planned Giving Council. 

In his position with the College, Phil will be responsible for securing major and/or planned gifts to support various departments, programs and centers in the College of Arts & Sciences.  Phil has specialized expertise in estate planning and gift planning, including counseling major gift donors on how to minimize the costs of a gift while maximizing the financial and tax benefits of a gift.  He will utilize creative gift planning techniques to help our donors create meaningful gifts that will have an impact on the College and its students.

In FY 2011, the College announced 25 new endowed scholarships for its students.

Jennifer Phegley (English Language and Literature) delivered the keynote address to the Victorian Popular Fiction Associa­tion at the University of London on July 19. She organized and chaired a roundtable discussion on teaching with Victorian peri­odical databases for the Research Society for Victorian Periodi­cals at the University of Canterbury on July 23.  See:

• http://ies.sas.ac.uk/events/conferences/2011/VictorianPF3/index.htm.

Barry Anderson (Art and Art History) has had an active autumn. Two video pieces, Pigeon (2001)

• http://www.barryanderson.com/videos/pigeon-2001/

and Janus (2) (2011)

• http://www.barryanderson.com/video-animations/janus-2-2011/,

will be featured in The Big Reveal, a group exhibition of recent acquisitions at the Kemper Museum

• http://www.kemperart.org/

of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. The exhibition opened September 23 and will be on view until April 15, 2012. He also will be giving a lecture at the museum on November 22. The current issue of KC Studio Magazine features

• http://www.barryanderson.com/2011/09/article-in-kc-studio/

an article on the exhibition and highlights his work.  Two images from his video Junk Yard are currently featured on the

• http://www.barryanderson.com/2011/09/artboards-in-kc/

Missouri Bank Artboards in the Crossroads Arts District in Kansas City. The billboards will be on view for the remainder of the year.

Maude Wahlman (Art and Art History) lectured and signed copies of her book Signs and Symbols – African Images in African American Quilts at the Mingei International Museum in San Diego in conjunction with their exhibit of quilts  BOLD EXPRESSIONS.  For more see:

• http://www.mingei.org/events_travel/calendar/lecture-and-book-signing-dr-maude-southwell-wahlman

The Department of English Language and Literature reports that the department’s Fall 2011 Newsletter is available at:

• http://cas.umkc.edu/english/documents/Newsletter–Fall 2011 Issue 1.pdf.

The many recent activities and achievements of their students, faculty and alumni can be found documented there.

The Department of History reports that U.S. Department of Education has granted a two year extension (2011-2013) of the Teaching American History grant ($260,000) to the Blue Springs School District  for which Louis Potts and Cynthia Jones are the lead historians in this program for high school teachers. They also report that Jessey Choo was awarded a University of Missouri Research Board grant and a Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation grant, which will allow her to spend the 2011-2012 academic year in Taipei and in mainland China pursuing her book-length study of death rituals in medieval China.
      

George Gale (Philosophy) had his new book, Dying on the Vine: How Phylloxera Transformed Wine, reviewed by The Economist this past summer. For more see:

• http://www.economist.com/node/18985809

Kathy Krause (Foreign Languages & Literatures) presented a paper at the European Science Foundation’s Humanities Exploratory Workshop on “A European commercial Trinomial: Italy-Champage-The Netherlands (12th –14th c.)” in Rome, Italy, October 13-15, 2011. Her paper, entitled, “Les Voies de Transmission de “La devisions des foires de Champagne”, explored the complicated manuscript transmission of a small text in Old French about the Champagne merchant fairs. For more see:   

• http://www.esf.org/activities/exploratory-workshops/humanities-sch/workshops-detail.html?ew=10847

The Hand Print Press of the Department of Art and Art History held its national print exhibit in September and October, 2011. The exhibition included works by artists around the country whose pieces combine a variety of media with traditional printmaking processes. Juror for the exhibition was Leesa Fanning, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and adjunct professor in UMKC’s Department of Art and Art History.

Clovis E. Semmes (Black Studies) presented a paper entitled “Black Cultural Entrepreneurs and White Ownership of Black Culture” at the 96th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History in Richmond, Virginia, in October, 2011.  His paper was part of the session on New Studies in African American Business History.  Semmes also published an article, “Charitable Collaborations in Bronzeville, 1928-1944:  The Chicago Defender and the Regal Theater,” in the Journal of Urban History, November 2011 37: 975-991.  For more see:

• http://juh.sagepub.com/content/current. 

He also was an invited speaker for the program, “Constructive Lessons From 9/11,” sponsored by the Institute of Interfaith Dialog, Kauffman Foundation Conference Center, Kansas City, Missouri, September 22, 2011.

The Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology reports that it had about 140 people attend its open house in September. The CJC Department provided food, T-shirts and program information. Several students also decided to apply to UMKC’s chapter of Alpha Phi Sigma — the largest official criminal justice honor society in the U.S. For more about the activities and achievements of the CJC Department, visit

• http://cas.umkc.edu/cjc/news.asp

A&S Total SCH Enrollments in Fall Semesters 2007-2011

   Fall Semester                     2007            2008            2009            2010             2011
   A&S Total SCH                  67411          68452          70803           74760           76726
   % Increase by year                                1.54            3.43              5.59             2.62

Christie Hodgen (English) has learned that her most recent novel, Elegies for the Brokenhearted W.W. Norton & Company (2010), won the 2011 Friends of American Writers Literature Award. For more on the award, see:

• http://fawchicago.org/awards.php

Felicia Londré, (Curators’ Professor of Theatre) was awarded the 2011 Betty Jean Jones Award for Outstanding Teacher of American Theatre and Drama, given by the American Theatre and Drama Society. The award was presented by James Fisher, vice-president of ATDS and chair of Theatre at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. The presentation took place at the Palmer House in Chicago, at the annual convention of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, where ten years ago she received the ATHE 2001 award for Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education.  See:

• http://atdsblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/call-for-nominations-betty-jean-jones-award/

Judy Ancel (Economics) reports that The International Labor Communications Association has awarded First Prize for radio programs in its 2011 Awards to The Institute for Labor Studies for its weekly radio show The Heartland Labor Forum. The winning show was called “The Last Overhaul: The American Airlines/TWA Shutdown – Honoring a Noble Union.” The show was produced on September 9, 2010 by ILS Director Judy Ancel and Heartland Labor Forum volunteer Jeff Humfeld, a member of the Carpenters Union. To listen to the show, go to

• http://cas.umkc.edu/labor-ed/radio.htm.

The Heartland Labor Forum airs weekly on Thursdays from 6-7pm on KKFI 90.1FM Kansas City Community Radio.

Mike English (Visiting Research Professor, Economics) was given “The Rising Star Award” by the Council for Economic Education at its recent 50th Annual Financial Literacy and Economic Education Conference. They write that: “The Rising Star Award recognizes an individual who has served the network for seven years or less and “hit the ground running” by making extraordinary contributions to economic education programs early in his or her career.” Mike serves as President and CEO of the Missouri Council on Economic Education. See

• http://www.councilforeconed.org/news/story.php?story_id=209.

Diane Mutti-Burke (History) learned that her book, On Slavery’s Border: Missouri’s Small Slaveholding Households, 1815-1865 was named the Best Book of the Year by the State Historical Society of Missouri at the 53rd annual Missouri Conference on History was held in Kansas City, April 14-15.

New Letters on the Air was selected as a national winner of the 2011 Clarion Awards form the Association for Women in Communications at its national conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma on October 14, 2011. The award winning entry was by producer/host Angela Elam and featured readings from When She named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women, edited by Andrea Hollander Budy. For more see:

• http://www.womcom.org/awards/Clarion2011.asp – Radio.

We also have learned that the literature panel and staff for the Missouri Arts Council has again given New Letters the highest rating of any literary organization or publication in the state of Missouri. As part of its grant-award process, the Missouri Arts Council rates literary organizations on the basis of (1) artistic excellence, (2) community involvement, and (3) management ability.  New Letters alone received a rating of a perfect 10, representing the quarterly journal and its weekly radio broadcast series.

The Department of English Language and Literatures reports that Sarah Ashlock was awarded first place in the Arts and Humanities Division of the annual SEARCH Symposium with her poster, “Literacy as Independence: The Writing of Hattie Reynolds, 1870-1927” while Jaquelyn Hoermann took second place in the division with her poster, “Speaking Without Words: Silence and Epistolary Rhetoric of Catholic Women Educators on the Antebellum Frontier, 1828-1834.”

The Honors Program also sent us information on Jaquelyn Hoermann who was selected to represent UMKC at Undergraduate Research Day at the State Capitol in Jefferson City.  She was among 40 students selected from the four UM campuses to share their work with legislators and other stakeholders.  Jackie received a SEARCH grant to conduct archival research on women’s rhetorical performances.  In addition, Jackie presented her research at the 45th annual National Collegiate Honors Council conference held in Kansas City fall 2010.

The Honors Program has also reported that Tamara Kamatovic, a German major in the College has won a National Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship.

The Lynn and Kristen Morrow Missouri History Student Prize was awarded  in 2011 to Clinton McDuffie, an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Student in History and English  for the paper, “Sport and Nationalism: The 1904 St. Louis Olympics and National Identity” the State Historical Society of Missouri at the 53rd annual Missouri Conference on History held in Kansas City, April 14-15, 2011.

Joy Swallow (Chair, Architecture, Urban Planning +Design) reports that AUP+D’s senior student’s planning studio – Meta –participated in a public “charrette” October 13th  and 14th,  hosted by the American Institute for Architects at Forest Park Baptist Church in Joplin, Missouri. This intense period of design activity was held to stimulate ideas and further involve the public in the planning and design process and included a review of work by the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team on the 13th with a final public presentation on the 14th.  For more on AUP+D and  the re-building of Joplin see the following links:

• http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x2021664107/Architectural-group-drawing-vision-of-Joplin

Main Street redevelopment a focus of group, at:

• http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x2021665812/Main-Street-redevelopment-a-focus-of-group.

Citizens Advisory Recovery Team Continues, at:

• http://www.fox14tv.com/category/146037/fox-14-video-on-demand.

She also reports that one of AUP+D’s students, Colton Mabis, was awarded a Greenbuild Student Scholarship to attend a conference to further his knowledge of the green building profession. For more see:

• http://usgbckansascity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=280%3Astudent-greenbuild-scholarship-winners-summarize-their-trip&catid=36%3Ahome-public&Itemid=54

Two UMKC geology students presented their graduate research at the annual meeting of over 6000 international participants at the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis during October 9-12, 2011.  Doctoral student, Alivia Alison, presented “Paleoseismic Trenching Along the Dead Sea Transform in the Taba Sabkha in Wadi ‘Arabah, Jordan” and MS student, Julie Galloway, presented “Paleoclimate reconstruction of the Gulf of Aqaba using foraminifera as a proxy”. Both students are supervised by Tina Niemi in the Department of Geosciences.

Julie Galloway

For Fall Semester 2011, 149 students received scholarships through the College and its departments. This does not include the “automatic scholarships” awarded by the campus to incoming freshmen but debited from A&S monies.