May 3, 2002

Junior Amani Farid and Peter Gottschalk, assistant professor of religion and philosophy, made a presentation titled "Islam: Separating Muslims from Misunderstandings" at Temple College on Wednesday, Apr. 17.

A number of psychology students and faculty presented their research in April at the 48th annual Southwestern Psychological Association Convention in Corpus Christi. Jesse Purdy, professor, presented an invited lecture and conversation hour titled "The World of Weddell Seals in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica." Two papers won cash awards in the Psi Chi Undergraduate Paper competition. These included a paper by students Susan Cates, Jenny George, Christina Young, Sarah Fuentes, and Jacquie Muir-Broaddus, associate professor, titled "Fatty Fatty Two by Four: Children's perceptions of teasing," and a paper by students Sara Sabzevari, Laney Walden, Ashlie Brown and Muir-Broaddus titled "Teacher knowledge and practices with respect to ADHD." Student Audrey Dickey, Steve Schapiro, associate professor, et al., presented "Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) personality dimensions and correlated behavior," and student Stephanie Braccini presented a paper co-authored by Michelle Hook, Wade Kothmann, and Steve Schapiro titled "Hand preferences during a bimanual task in a large sample of socially-housed chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)." SU students and faculty also contributed two poster presentations. Bryan Neighbors, assistant professor of psychology, students Sara Skladal, Michelle Thibodeau, Desiree Whitley, Beth Goetz and Amanda Seale presented "A correlational analysis of parent-adolescent relationship dimensions and peer deviance," and Sarah Fuentes, Christina Young, Jenny George, Susan Cates and Muir-Broaddus presented "The relationship between teasing and self-esteem."

Sophomore communication major Scott Rocher was recently awarded the Headliners Foundation of Texas scholarship for excellence in Journalism.

April 22, 2002

Barbara Boucher Owens, associate professor of computer science, and Suzanne Buchele, assistant professor of computer science, attended the South Central Regional Conference of the Consortium for Computing at Small Colleges in Seguin, Texas, last weekend. Owens is on the steering committee of the conference. They brought students Leigh Lambert, Sarah Peterson, and Angela Roles who presented papers on their research. Angela Roles received first prize in the student paper contest, including a $200 cash award, for her paper and presentation titled "Merging Operations on Binary Space Partitioning Tree Representations for Objects Bounded by Curved Surfaces."

The Dept of Mathematics and Computer Science had a terrific showing at the Texas Section Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Apr. 11-13, at Eastfield College in Mesquite.

Gary Richter, associate professor and department chair, presented "Alternative Limit Properties for Teaching Calculus." Cami Sawyer, assistant professor, presented "CWATsets: An Algebraic Topic Centered Around Undergraduate Research." Sawyer is currently teaching this new topic as a special topics course. Senior Charles Lindsey [MORE] presented "Automation of Program Verification." Senior Conrad Miller presented "Simulating Divergent Evolution Resulting from Environmental Gradation." Senior Jed Wilshire presented "CWATset Operations." Also in attendance were Associate Professor Therese Shelton and juniors Daniel Morris, James Sloan, Pamela Hightower, and Brittany Kornmann.

At the MAA student chapter breakfast at the meeting, Stephen F. Austin University received the award for having the most students in attendance. The SU-MAA student chapter plans to propose a different model for determining the award, considering that SU had 7 students out of 1,300 and SFASU had 9 out of 11,000.

Junior Meili Peterson has won a Nolle Scholarship from the National Alpha Office. She submitted a paper of her work in art, and her paper was reviewed by the scholarship committee at the national level. Peterson works with Star Varner in the Art Department.

April 8, 2002

Senior Jenny Carlson has been named a Fulbright grant recipient for 2002-2003. Carlson, an international studies major from Victoria, will use the grant money to travel to Munster, Germany, to work on a project titled "Female Spirituality as Subversion: Exploring Beguine Heresy in Medieval Europe." Carlson will be the sixth Fulbright Scholar from Southwestern. [MORE]

Senior Frances Chu has been awarded a prestigious three-year graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Chu, a biology and chemistry double major from Austin, will attend Harvard University next fall. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in the University's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Chu is only the second Southwestern student to receive an NSF graduate fellowship. [MORE]

April 1, 2002

Maria Lowe, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, will present her paper "'Facing the Dragon in the Cave': Advancing the Cause of Racial Equality at Millsaps College and Tougaloo College" in a session on Race Relations and Social Thought. This paper is part of her larger project on the role of faculty members at Southern colleges and universities in the Civil Rights movement. Ed Kain, professor of sociology and anthropology, is chairing a session of student research titled "Undergraduate Research from a Cumulative Curriculum." He also is serving on the Program Committee for the 2002 meetings.

Two students, Joel Andress and Jason DeLaRosa, will present their research first developed in their capstone course with Lowe. Four students, Jon Broyles, Sarah Christofferson, Karl Shaw, and Angela Stroud, will present papers first developed in the Research Methods class, with Kain. One student, Michelle Belt, will present work done during independent research with Kain. (Students first presented their papers in an on-campus colloquium Mar. 26, and titles of the student papers were listed in the Mar. 22nd "In Focus.")

March 15, 2002

Suzanne Buchele, Rick Denman and Barbara Boucher Owens attended the 33rd Technical Symposium in Computer Science Education in Covington, Kentucky. This is the premiere conference in computer science education, sponsored by ACM/SIGCSE. Owens made presentations at both the opening sessions and luncheons as part of her role as the vice-chair of SIGCSE. She also organized and moderated a panel entitled "Java IDEs: Why and How We Use What We Do." Buchele received a grant from the Computing Research Association-Women group to attend a pre-conference workshop, "Managing the Academic Career for Faculty Women at Undergraduate Computer Science Institutions." Two Southwestern University students, Leigh Lambert and Sarah Peterson also attended the conference, presenting the results of their independent study with Owens on "The Use of Color in User Interface Design." Many SU faculty, staff and students participated as subjects in their research study which was underwritten by a grant also from the Computing Research Association-Women group.

February 15, 2002

Six students participated in the COMAP MCM — the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications Mathematical Modeling Contest. Jason Jones (senior), Amaya de la Garza (junior), and Pamela Hightower (junior) worked in one team. James Sloan (junior), Conrad Miller (senior), and Daniel Morris (junior) worked in another. The students will present their solutions to the open-ended, challenging problem at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Feb 20, in Mood 107. Therese Shelton, associate professor of mathematics, served as the faculty sponsor. Last year almost 500 teams from 265 institutions in 11 countries competed. Please visit www.comap.com [link] for more about the contest.

February 8, 2002

Junior Daria Russell received a $100 Slaymaker-Kinsey scholarship from the Alpha Xi Delta Foundation. Daria received the award for maintaining the highest GPA in the chapter for the 2000-2001 academic school year.

Junior Suzy Prucka recently was awarded a grant (worth $2000) to attend the 2001 Leadershape Institute, by the Alpha Xi Delta Foundation. The grant recognizes not only present involvement in campus organizations, but the recipients' potential for greater leadership in the future. The Leadershape Institute is a six-day "leading with integrity" program at the University of Illinois Conference Center.

January 18, 2002

Senior psychology major Liz Dodd, along with co-authors Traci Giuliano, associate professor of psychology, and psychology majors Jori Boutell and Brooke Moran, recently had an empirical paper accepted for publication. The paper, "Respected or rejected: Perceptions of women who ignore vs. confront sexist remarks," will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal "Sex Roles."