Kelly Laabs, senior economics and accounting major, presented part of her economic honors project at the Southwestern Economics Association meetings, held in San Antonio. She was awarded third place in the competition for outstanding undergraduate papers for her work titled, "The Effects of Texas Medicaid Managed Care on Prenatal Care and Infant Health Outcomes."

Sophomore centerfielder Matt Odom (Westfield HS) was named to the All-West Region 2nd Team by baseball coaches from the West Region. Odom hit .400 this season with 41 rbi and 113 total bases.

Four Southwestern University baseball players were named to the 2003 All-SCAC Team: senior pitcher Forrest Martin, who led the team with 104 strikeouts; fellow senior pitcher James Trombley, who had a team high of eight wins; centerfielder Matt Odom (sophomore), the team's #3 hitter for most of the season with a .400 average; and rightfielder Patrick Mascorro (sophomore) were named to the squad.

SU placed 2nd in the SCAC Championship Tournament. Since 1996, the Pirates either have won (5 times) or finished as runners-up (3 times) in the conference.

April 2003

Junior Lacy Klosterman was recently awarded the Austin Headliners Foundation Journalism Scholarship. This competitive award honors undergraduate students who demonstrate excellence in journalism. Klosterman was nominated for this award by Assistant Professor of Communication Studies David Olson who also assisted her through a rigorous application process.

Southwestern University was represented by 27 students and five faculty at the 49th annual meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association in New Orleans in mid-April. A number of students and faculty made research presentations: Jesse Purdy, "Social interactions in Weddell seals, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica;" Michelle Thibodeau, Beth Goetz, Bryan Neighbors, Amanda Seale, Sara Skladal and Desiree Whitley, "Are sorority members at greater risk for developing eating disorders?;" Jill Hogue, Matthew Hall and Traci Giuliano, "Girls just wanna have...FARM (Female Athletic Role Models);" Beth Goetz, Michelle Thibodeau, Bryan Neighbors, Desiree Whitley, Sara Skladal and Amanda Seale, "Eating disorder symptoms: Comparing women from small and large colleges;" Alexa Hampel, Miriam Matthews and Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus, "Planning for the future: Decision-making among college seniors;" Stephanie Braccini and Steven Schapiro, "The use of a bimanual task to assess tool use, handedness, and grip preferences among chimpanzees;" Maggie Remkus and Steven Schapiro, "The effects of the presence of an infant on the behavior of socially-housed adolescent female chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes);" Maria Kasper and Steven Schapiro, "The number of adult males in a group affects the activity patterns of socially housed male chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes);" Wade Kothmann, Jesse Purdy and Steven Schapiro, "Can chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) learn an eyes open/eyes closed stimulus discrimination task?;" and Rebecca Stelter, Aeron Aanstoos, Stephanie Orin and Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus, "Influence of attractiveness stereotypes and cognitive abilities on children's suggestibility." Special congratulations to Jill Hogue and Michelle Thibodeau who won Psi Chi Regional Research Awards of $300 for their excellent submissions.

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science had a strong showing at 2003 Texas Section Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, Apr. 3-5. Associate Professor Gary Richter presented "Presenting e Again for the First Time." Graduating senior Brittany Kornmann presented "All These Numbers are Driving Me Crazy," based on last summer's research at SU in error correcting codes under Assistant Professor Cameron Sawyer and Associate Professor Therese Shelton, both of whom attended the conference. Graduating senior Casey Douglas presented "Another Delightful Hypergeometric Function Discussion." This year, each session of student presentations was evaluated by faculty judges, and Casey was recognized as the outstanding presenter from his session. Douglas' talk was the result of research with Professor Kendall Richards, who also attended. Graduating senior Pamela Hightower and first-year students Enrique Trevino and Elaine Cheng also attended.

Ana Alcaraz and Janel Owens, senior chemistry majors, have been awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships. These prestigious awards offer recognition and "support for advanced study to outstanding graduate students in the mathematical, physical, biological, engineering, and behavioral and social sciences." Each fellowship carries a stipend, an annual cost-of-education allowance, and offers an international research travel allowance. Ana will use her award to support her graduate work in synthetic organic chemistry at Emory University. Janel's fellowship will sponsor her graduate studies in environmental toxicology at either the University of California-Davis, Cornell University or the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jason Hayes, Manjah Fernandez, and Aaron Bowser (education majors), will present their research at the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Conference in Seattle, Wash., April 10-12. They were invited by the Division for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Exceptional Learners (DDEL) to present their paper titled "Braids, Fades, and Razor Blades: The Educational Function of the African American Barbershop." Their research was funded by the King Creativity Fund and supervised by La Vonne I. Neal, assistant professor of education.

Austen Ross, a junior chemistry major, has been awarded a summer research grant through the Associated Colleges of the South Environmental Monitoring Program. Ross will work with Emily Niemeyer, assistant professor of chemistry, to quantify chemical pollutants in a colonia in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. As part of the grant, he will present his results at a conference at Trinity University in the fall.

Junior Keri Ward and sophomore Coty Maypole presented their research, conducted under the supervision of Gulnar Rawji, associate professor of chemistry, at the 225th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans in late March (22nd to 25th). Their presentation was entitled, "Metal binding studies of lanthanide complexes of 12- and 15-membered bis(amide) macrocycles."

Johnathan Kana, junior music major, has had three works published by the New Music Consortium, a web-based clearinghouse for recently-composed art music by living composers. The Consortium is owned and operated by Carolyn Bremer, a prominent composer of our time and ASCAP member. The process for inclusion in the Consortium catalog is very selective, and after personal review, Bremer chose to offer Johnathan three contracts for his "A Woodland Celebration" for percussion ensemble; "Goodbye, Precious Rose" for soprano, strings, and percussion; and "Return to Hunter-Boy Spring" for flute, strings, and percussion. All three pieces received their world premieres in Alma Thomas Theater by the Composers' Collective of Southwestern University. "A Woodland Celebration" also is being prepared by the new SU Percussion Ensemble for an unannounced future performance.

March 2003

Junior Kyle Ellisor was named to the 2002-2003 Basketball All-SCAC second team and Senior Mike Dunleavy was Honorable-Mention All-SCAC.

Education majors Jason Hayes (sophomore), Manjah Fernandez (sophomore), and Aaron Bowser (first-year), and La Vonne I. Neal, assistant professor of education, had a paper accepted for publication in the journal "Multicultural Education." The title of their paper is "A Razor Sharp Analysis of the Movie Barbershop."

February 2003

Michelle Thibodeau, senior flutist, was a participant in the Florida Flute Association's annual convention in Alamonte Springs, Fla. Thibodeau took part in a session entitled "Suzuki Music from a Student's Perspective" and performed "Carnival of Venice." The Suzuki method of music pedagogy is based on ear training. Suzuki believed that the abilities of any individual are a product of his or her surroundings. Therefore, if a child is surrounded by music from an early age, he or she has the potential to develop into an accomplished musician, despite any physiological differences. For more information regarding the Suzuki Method, please contact Thibodeau at thibodem@southwestern.edu.

January 2003

Catherine Warlick, senior music performance major and flutist, has been named to the 2003 Small College Intercollegiate Band sponsored by the College Band Directors National Association. The SCIB is comprised of 61 students from throughout the U.S., all selected by competitive nomination. The ensemble will be conducted by GianCarlo Guerrero, associate conductor of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra and will perform at the CBDNA national conference on Mar. 29.

Assistant Professor of English Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton and five students attended the National Conference for Peer Tutors of Writing at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in late October. Students Joe Munch, Haeli Colina, Sarah Simmons and Debra LaViolette presented a panel titled "Walking the Line: Dealing with 'Sticky' Situations in the Writing Center." Claire Campbell contributed to the proposal. Beth Moore also attended the conference.

December 2002

Junior Keri Ward and sophomore Coty Maypole presented a poster titled "Metal Binding Studies of Complexes of Selected Lanthanides and Bis(amide) Macrocyclic Ligands" at the 54th Southeast Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in Charleston, S.C., Nov. 14-16. They conducted this research under the supervision of Gulnar Rawji, associate professor of chemistry, during summer and fall 2002.

October 2002

Jonathan Broyles, a senior in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology presented his paper "A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Factors which lead to Religious Doubting" at the Southern Demographics Association annual meetings held at the Omni Hotel in Austin from Oct. 11-13.

September 2002

Education Department students: Melina Berduo, Christine Norquest, Bobby Prince and Ross Salinas and assistant professors of education Alicia Moore and La Vonne I. Neal will present their paper at the National Association for Multicultural Education international conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 30-Nov. 3. The paper is titled: "Lift Every Voice and Sing about Sexual Orientation: Pre-Service Teachers Making a Joyful Noise for Harmonious Classrooms."

Ana Alcaraz, Krystyn Alter, and Janel Owens presented posters at the 224th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Boston, Mass. Ana's poster titled "Two-fold extrusion approaches to tamoxifen" was based on her work with Frank Guziec, professor of chemistry. Krystyn's poster "Acid-base reaction chemistry within reverse micelle systems formed in supercritical CO2" and Janel's poster "Analysis of industrial water pollution within a Mexican colonia" were both based on research conducted with Emily Niemeyer, assistant professor of chemistry.