Alejandro de Acosta, assistant professor of philosophy, was invited to deliver a talk by an environmental justice organization in Austin, P.O.D.E.R. (People Organized to Defend the Earth and her Resources), in July. His talk was titled "Huntington and 'Mexiphobia'" and addressed recent neoconservative theories about the danger of Mexican immigration and their negative impact on the self-image and everyday life of Mexican, Mexican-American and Chicano communities in the U.S.

Maria Lowe, associate professor, and professors Edward L. Kain and Dan Hilliard, in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, co-authored "The Evolution of an Online Handbook for the Sociology Major at Southwestern University." Professors Lowe and Kain presented this in a poster session at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, Aug. 13-17. At those same meetings, Kain co-led two workshops--an all-day workshop on Teaching and Learning aimed at graduate students and new faculty, and a workshop on "Teaching Sociology for the First Time." He also served on the national Task Force on the Undergraduate Major, which produced a new set of national recommendations for the sociology major. The final report from this Task Force was presented to the Council of the American Sociological Association last week, and will be published later this fall.

La Vonne I. Neal, associate professor, and Alicia L. Moore, assistant professor in the Department of Education, had an article accepted for publication in the "Journal of Curriculum and Supervision." Their article is titled: "Their Cries Went Up Together: Brown et al. v. Board of Education Then and Now."

David Tabb Stewart, assistant professor of religion and philosophy, presented a Seminar on the Gospel of Thomas and Elaine Pagel's book, "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas," at the annual conference of the Society for Values in Higher Education, Hampton University, Hampton, Va., July 23. In addition, Stewart presented his paper "Narratives of Leaving" to the "Celebrating the Search" Morning Group at the same Conference. David Tabb Stewart's paper, "The Parturient's Ritual for a Girl: The Puzzle of Double Pollution," has been accepted for presentation in the "Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible" section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio this November. In addition, Stewart's paper, "Is There a Poem in Leviticus 26?," has been accepted for presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies in Chicago this December.

August 20, 2004

Thomas Howe gave a tour to members of the Cultural Properties Advisory Board in Washington, D.C., of the exhibit "In Stabiano; Exploring the Seaside Villas of the Roman Elite" at the Smithsonian Institution's Natural Museum of Natural History on May 6. Afterward he was invited to testify at the formal two and half year review hearing of the Advisory Board at the State Department with regard to the efficacy of the February 2001 Memorandum of Understanding, which was instituted to reduce the illegal exportation of archaeological artifacts from Italy to the United States. "In Stabiano" is the first exhibit to tour under the terms of the Memorandum, and its use is innovative in that it aims in part to support U.S. and Italian fund-raising for those aspects of the Stabiae Archaeological Park project. He also coordinated and hosted a three-day seminar in May of the Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C., on "Summer, A.D. 79." As well as his own lecture, "Powerhouses of Rome: Art and Life in the Roma Villas of the bay of Naples," speakers included Richard Saller, provost of the University of Chicago on Patronage patterns in the early Empire; Andrew Wallace Hadrill, director of the British School in Rome on evidence for representatives of three social classes at Herculaneum; Kathleen Coleman, Department of Classics from Harvard on the social importance of Roman Gladiatorial spectacles; Bettina Bergman, Mt. Holyoke College on visiting the towns and villas of ancient Campania; and Haraldur Sigurdsson, University of Rhode Island on the eruption sequence of Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Edward L. Kain, professor of sociology and University Scholar, had a co-authored article published in the April 2004 issue of the journal, "Teaching Sociology." Entitled "Greedy Institutions: The Importance of Institutional Context for Teaching in Higher Education," the article is co-authored with Mary C. Wright (University of Michigan), Nandini Assar (Virginia Polytecnic), Laura Kramer (Montclair State), Carla Howery (American Sociological Association), Kathleen McKinney (Illinois State), Becky Glass (SUNY, Geneseo), and Maxine Atkinson (North Carolina State).

Ken Roberts, professor in the department of economics and business, had two papers accepted for publication. The first, based upon his fieldwork in Anhui and Sichuan provinces and forthcoming in The China Journal, documents a major shift in women's migration patterns, from young single women working in coastal export factories to older married women migrating with their husbands and children. The second is a chapter in an edited volume published by Ashgate, Urbanization and Social Welfare in China, that examines the determinants of migrants' occupations in Shanghai. Roberts was also a discussant on a session on migration at the annual meetings of the Population Association of America in Boston.