Phil Hopkins, assistant professor of philosophy, will present a paper titled "All Roads Lead to Misology" this weekend at Fordham, Lincoln Center, in New York, at the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy conference.

Thomas Howe, professor of art, met with the governor of the Region of Campania and officials from the exhibition program and associates program of the Smithsonian institution on Wednesday, Oct. 15. The occasion was the signing of a protocol guaranteeing support for a three months of events highlighting Campanian culture, including an exhibition of original objects from the Roman site of Stabiae near Pompeii. Howe also was invited to serve as the coordinator of a three-day event at the Smithsonian on the Mall titled "July A.D. 79," a series of lectures and dinner events meant to give a panorama of Roman society in the Bay of Naples one month before the eruption of Aug. 24, A.D. 79, which buried Pompeii and Stabiae. Howe is coordinator general of the joint design and archaeological project at Stabiae.

Helene Meyers, professor of English, was an invited participant on the opening roundtable of the American Literature Association's Symposium on Jewish American and Holocaust Literature. The roundtable was devoted to a discussion of critical issues in Jewish American women's literature. At the conference, Meyers also presented a paper titled "Healing Jewish Gender Trouble: Jewish Women Writing Men of Valor." Recently, Meyers contributed the introduction to "The Best Short Stories of Leslea Newman." Professor Meyers has taken a leave of absence this fall to work on her next book, provisionally titled "Identity Papers: Contemporary Narratives of Jewishness."

Patrick Veerkamp, professor of art, William Carrington Finch Professor and Paideia Professor, was awarded the honor of being Mr. Homecoming by Southwestern's Alumni Association. Mr./Ms. Homecoming is an honor given to a member of the faculty as a token of the affection and respect of former students. This award carries a special meaning to the recipient because it symbolizes the strength of the University: the strong personal relationships between students and faculty. It states clearly that alumni recall with appreciation what the recipient contributed to the education and development of former students.

October 23, 2003

Dirk Early, associate professor of economics, recently had his article "The Determinants of Homelessness and the Targeting of Housing Assistance" accepted for publication by the "Journal of Urban Economics."

Laura Hobgood-Oster, assistant professor of religion, will lead a workshop "Range of Strategies and Approaches for Teaching Religion and Ecology " for professors at undergraduate institutions this weekend at a workshop held at Indiana University.

Krista Wilke '03 currently is in the social psychology Ph.D. program at Arizona State; Kelly Turner '03 currently is in the cognitive neuroscience Ph.D. program at UCLA; and Traci Giuliano, associate professor of psychology, had a paper based on their King Creativity Fund Project accepted for publication. Their article entitled "Smoke Screens: Cross-Cultural Effectiveness of Anti-Smoking Messages" will appear in the December issue of the "North American Journal of Psychology." All three authors are very grateful to Joey King for his support!

October 16, 2003

Todd Watson, ITS senior system & network administrator, co-authored a paper which was recently published in the "Astrophysical Journal." The paper titled, "Constraining the Evolution of ZZ Ceti," was a result of collaborative astronomy research spanning over three decades. Todd traveled to Iowa State University in November 2000 to participate in the latter stages of the published research on this star. The paper demonstrates that the star "ZZ Ceti" is the second most stable optical clock known, comparable to atomic clocks and more stable than most pulsars. This research has also led to one of the most accurate methods for dating the age of our galaxy (the Milky Way), as well as a better understanding of the way stars evolve.

October 10, 2003

Frank Guziec, professor of science, and his students, junior Michael Brinkman and seniors Kimberly Larson and Jade Hatley, volunteered their time for three afternoons last week to help the Operation Achievement students light up and get slimed. The Operation Achievement students were treated to not one but two great science experiments in the Fondren-Jones labs. They discovered polymers and got to make and take home their own slime as well as getting to watch an exciting fluorescence experiment with luminol and iron. Operation Achievement thanks Guziec for "Lighting the Fires of Knowledge" in over 60 young middle schoolers.

Phil Hopkins, assistant professor of philosophy, presented a lecture at Baylor on Friday, Oct. 3, on "Zeno and the Nature of Thought."

Kim Smith, assistant professor of art, has published an article in "Aurora: the Journal of the History of Art" (vol. IV). "The Tactics of Fashion: Jewish Women in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna" addresses the ways in which Jewish bourgeois women in turn-of-the-century Vienna used avant-garde fashion as a way to both practice and contest the processes of assimilation. Smith recently returned from Birmingham, England, where she made a presentation at the Modernist Studies Association conference. Her talk, "Hodler and Historiography: The Symbolist Sympathies of Expressionist Art History," was drawn from her newest research project on the intellectual history of art history-specifically expressionist art history-in early 20th century Central Europe.

Preservice teachers, Aaron Bowser, sophomore, and Manjah Fernandez, junior, and La Vonne I. Neal, assistant professor of education, will be the keynote speakers at a workshop for teachers in Austin ISD on Monday, Oct. 13, at the Delco Center. Teachers from k-12 schools will attend. Bowser and Fernandez will present their research about the cultural disconnects between traditional curriculum and societal curriculum. Their presentation is titled "Braids, Fades, and Razorblades: The Educational Function of the African American Barbershop."

October 3, 2003

Jennifer Knight '00 graduate currently earning her Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology at Rice, and Traci Giuliano, associate professor of psychology, recently published their fourth co-authored paper. Their article, "Blood, sweat, and jeers: The impact of the media's heterosexist portrayals on perceptions of male and female athletes," was published this month in the "Journal of Sport Behavior."