March 2008

Spotlight: Major
Faculty Awards

Faculty News

In Print & On-Air:
Faculty in the News

Must Reads:
Faculty Books

Around Hunter:
Upcoming Events

Robert Morris’s (Art) new book, Have I Reasons: Work and Writings, 1993-2007, will be published by Duke University Press on March 28.

Around Hunter:
Upcoming Events

Thurs, 3/13/08
7:30PM
Distinguished Writers Series
Classicist and poet Anne Carson will be reading from one of her works. She is the author of Kinds of Water, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos, and Autobiography of Red Glass.

Faculty Dining Rm
West Bldg, 8th Fl
Reserve seats at 212-772-4007.

Congratulations to Peter Carey (English) who has been named a CUNY Distinguished Professor by the CUNY Board of Trustees. The appointment was approved unanimously and announced on January 28 by Chancellor Matthew Goldstein.

Tom Sleigh (English) is the winner of the 2008 Kingsley Tufts Award for his poetry collection, Space Walk. The award - which comes with a $100,000 prize, the largest in the nation for a mid-career poet – is administered by Claremont Graduate University. Sleigh will be honored at a ceremony at Claremont on April 15.

FACULTY NEWS

Using her Presidential Travel Award, Mimi Abramovitz (Social Work) traveled to San Francisco to participate in the Annual Conference of the Council on Social Work Education. Prior to the conference, she moderated an all-day Faculty Development Institute,"Teaching About Racism in the Social Work Classroom: A Power Analysis." Recently, the School of Social Work celebrated Abramovitz's appointment as the Bertha Capen Reynolds Professor at its wine and cheese celebration.

Stuart Ewen (Film & Media Studies) was a co-organizer of “Where the Truth Lies: Symposium on Propaganda Today,” at the School of Visual Arts that addressed the question of where truth ends and “spin” begins. David Brancaccio, host of PBS's "NOW" moderated the discussion.

On January 14, Mary Flanagan (Film & Media Studies) gave a lecture entitled “The Video Game as an Expressive Medium” at Dartmouth College. Focused on the evolution of video games and the medium’s changing influence on society, Flanagan’s lecture included discussions about innovative video games she has developed, including “Foodscotch,” in which players equipped with food stamps progress along a hopscotch board by staying within budget. Additionally, “An 8-bit Moment in Gameplay: [giantJoystick],” Flanagan’s working, large-scale game interface designed for collaborative play, will be the first exhibit featured in UC San Diego’s Calit2, an art-meets-technology space. The exhibit will be on display from February 4 to March 17.

Nicholas Freudenberg (Urban Public Health) is a co-author of “Changing Corporate Practices to Reduce Cancer Disparities,” a paper that was published in the February (19.1) issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. The paper gives evidence that the practices of the tobacco, alcohol, and food industries in product design, marketing, retail distribution, and pricing contribute to cancer risk behavior, incidence, and disparities. It also examines public health strategies designed to reduce the health-damaging practices of these industries and encourage healthier alternatives.

Veronica Gregg (Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies) gave three plenary lectures on “Morality, Decency and the Slave Trade” at the 10th conference of the Society for Caribbean Research, held in Montego Bay. The conference commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the British transatlantic trade in Africans.

The National League for Nurses has selected Joyce Griffin-Sobel (Nursing) and Leighsa Sharoff (Nursing) as Health Information Technology Scholars. The project, funded by a multi-year $1.5 million grant, is supported by HRSA Faculty Development: Integrated Technology into Nursing Education & Practice Initiative. Designed to transform teaching and learning in the 21st century, the project merges informatics, telehealth, simulation, and e-learning to create powerful learning environments in nursing education.

As a result of a two-year-old lawsuit brought by the state of Rhode Island against DuPont, six organizations will receive $1.2 million to fight lead poisoning. Susan Klitzman (Urban Public Health) has been appointed one of two public health experts who will provide guidance in the lead cleanup project.

Annette Mahoney (Social Work), an expert in Caribbean immigration, was awarded the Caribbean American Association's, "Leader Among Peers Award" on December 8. In early February she addressed the 3rd Annual Conference on the Health of the African Diaspora on her work concerning Caribbean adolescents in the United States.

Gary Mallon (Social Work) has been named editor of the Child Welfare Journal--the primary journal in the field of child welfare.

William Mayer (Classical and Oriental Studies) has been elected vice president of the American Classical League. In his new position, Mayer will head the Program Committee and be responsible for organizing the annual Institute, held each year on the last weekend of June.

The Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art—located in the NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University—will feature a sculpture exhibition by Jeffrey Mongrain (Art) from January 24 - March 21, 2008. Mongrain creates both gallery-based works and site-specific pieces.

The Blanton Museum of Art recently displayed the work of Paul Ramirez Jonas (Art) in “Workspace,” a series that explores new developments in contemporary art by featuring commissioned projects by artists from around the world. Ramirez Jonas' works invite audiences to explore/confront patriotism and Americana.

Laura Randall’s (Economics) article, “Socioeconomic Levels and Happiness: the Mexico 2000 and 2006 Panel Studies, and the Pew 2007 Study” was published in December on Mexidata.info. It evaluates the Pew Happiness Survey’s assertion that Mexicans are the happiest people of the 47 nations surveyed.

Speech pathologist Frances Scheffler (Communication Sciences) is the author of “New Tool Screens Babies, Toddlers, for Developmental Delays,” an article in the November-December 2007 issue of Pediatric Nursing. It describes a screening test developed by Scheffler and her colleagues for pediatric nurse practitioners that red-flags developmental problems in infants and toddlers so that treatments can be administered early on.

Clifford E. Soll (Chemistry) is a co-researcher on a study from Weill Cornell Medical College, which has found that new molecular targets offer an alternative, effective means of halting TB, leprosy and other bacterial illness.

IN PRINT & ON-AIR: Faculty in the News

A December 20 Wall Street Journal article, “Don’t Be a Party Pooper,” reported that the New York City Health Department found a high incidence of illness caused by the norovirus in December. The article included Philip Alcabes’ (Urban Public Health) comments on the seasonal virus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea. “This happens from time to time,” he said. “This is not a harbinger of a horrible thing to come in the environment.”

Peter Carey’s (English) visits to Savoy, a Village restaurant, are described in a January Time Out NY article. Carey has been a regular at Savoy for the past four years. “There aren’t many places where you can go and really inhabit,” he said, “I can’t get attached [to the servers], though—what if they were to leave? I’ve had my heart broken before!” On January 26, the Financial Times featured an article Carey authored entitled “Writing and a Tangled Web,” which describes a short holiday Carey took from a work-in-progress, focusing instead on publicity for His Illegal Self and the launch of his new website, petercareybooks.com. Additionally, Carey was interviewed in a February 1 article in the Times Online about his novel, His Illegal Self, and profiled in Good Weekend in a January 19 article entitled "The Many Lives of Peter Carey."

Howard Chernick (Economics) was quoted in a January 26 article in the News Tribune about the government’s efforts to quell economic fears through tax rebates and breaks. “The Fed's action gives some psychological breathing room, but it isn't enough in itself,” said Chernick. “There is a lot of fear out there.” His comments were quoted in numerous other publications around the country, including the Arizona Daily Sun, Palm Beach Post, and Greater Milwaukee Today.

A January 3 msn.com article quoted Erica Chito Childs (Sociology) on the economic squeeze America’s middle class is currently experiencing. “We're very invested in the idea of being middle class," said Chito Childs. "People still have this idea of upward mobility in this country—that they should be able to achieve more, but the current economic situation has made that much more difficult.”

Pamela Falk (Political Science) is featured in a January 9 CBS News video clip speaking about President Bush’s visit to the Middle East, and his attempts at encouraging peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. “What he needs to accomplish is to start the peace process,” said Falk, “and try to get to those final status issues—refugees, the status of Jerusalem, the return of Palestinians, as well as the borders.”

Newsday, The International Herald Tribune, and many other publications around the country quoted Nancy Foner (Sociology) about the verdict concerning the conviction of a millionaire couple who enslaved two Indonesian women. ‘‘This certainly does send a message that people can’t do this,” said Foner. “This is a lesson; I hope this verdict will make people frightened.’’ Foner was also quoted in a January 17 New York Sun article, “New York Spanish, a New Dialect Rises.” “To say that immigrants become American is pushing it,” she said, “they don't all speak English—but their language is more and more influenced by English, and that fits into what we know about immigration.”

Peter Kwong (Urban Affairs and Planning) was quoted in a January 7 article in the Los Angeles Times entitled “Ties to Falun Gong add controversy to the Chinese New Year Spectacular.” “I think some of the tactics used by the Falun Gong are not very welcome," said Kwong. "They are very aggressively pushing their agenda to the extent that some people think it is giving China—and the Chinese in general—a bad name.”

The New York Times quoted Andrew Polsky (Political Science) and his students in a February 2 article entitled "On a City Campus, Excitement and Uncertainty for Primary." Polsky was also quoted in a January 20 article on Breitbart.com about Hillary Clinton’s opposition to President Bush's troop increase in Iraq. "A woman candidate could find it easier to run in peacetime, rather than wartime, but Senator Clinton's tried to position herself as a serious person on national security," he said. "But that means she's staked out a difficult position on the war that won't make it easy for her to get the Democratic nomination." Polsky was also quoted in a February 8 article in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Romney failed the authentic test." "Romney tried to rewrite himself completely," said Polsky. "People just didn't buy it."

A January 28 New York Times article, “For Gay Democrats, a Primary Where Rights Are Not an Issue, This Time” quotes Kenneth Sherrill (Political Science) on the idea that the lesbian and gay voting bloc are likely to be highly involved in politics. “This is a group of people whose lives are intimately affected by government policy,” he said. Additionally, Sherrill was quoted in a February 6 Christian Science Monitor article regarding Senator Clinton's Super Tuesday loss in Connecticut. "Given Clinton's vote to authorize the war, Connecticut is one of the states where I would have looked for an antiwar backlash," said Sherrill. "This is a cohort of the Democratic Party that's really unforgiving on the war."

In December, Marion Somers (Brookdale Center on Aging) spoke with the Associated Press on how to “elderproof” a home, and said the most over-looked precaution is proper lighting. "An older person's vision is often not what it used to be,” she said. “Simply adding more light in every room can prevent all kinds of slips, falls, bumps and bruises."

David Steiner's (Education) involvement in the Teacher YOU Training Institute--a pilot teacher-preparation program--was extensively covered in a February 6 article in Education Week. The program is a collaboration between Hunter and NYC charter schools, and its aim is to offer provisional certification and master's degrees in education. Dean Steiner said that it's Hunter's gain to work with schools "that have among the best performance in the city."

In a December USA Today article entitled, “Guiliani exudes toughness but can rankle,” Joseph Viteritti (Urban Affairs and Planning) commented on the former mayor’s strategic use of rhetoric, specifically his comments that the city school system should be "blown up" to "create the sense of crisis.” “People had to come to terms with the fact that the system wasn't working, and he forced them to do that,” said Viteritti, “Might he have been more delicate? This is New York."

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