Top News

SIX FACULTY-STUDENT RESEARCH PROJECTS RECEIVE FUNDING

Southwestern has awarded $118,549 to fund six faculty-student research projects during the 2010-2011 academic year. The projects will enable more than 20 Southwestern students to conduct research with faculty members, particularly during the summer.

  • Steve Alexander, associate professor of physics, received $8,788 to build devices that can be used in his electronics class.
  • Barbara Anthony, assistant professor of computer science, received $10,653 for a project in which she and her students will use Ruppert’s Algorithm to develop code that will improve computer simulations that can be useful across a variety of disciplines.
  • Romi Burks, assistant professor of biology, received $15,455 to continue her research on an exotic applesnail named Pomacea insularum
  • The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry received $64,300 that will enable all of its faculty members to work with student researchers over the summer. Twelve students will be funded through this grant.
  • Paula Desmond, assistant professor of psychology, received $14,956 for her research on the impact of fatigue on driving performance.
  • Sandi Nenga, assistant professor of sociology, received $4,396 to conduct an assessment of a new program for Hispanic high school students that Southwestern is starting this summer.

LATINA SORORITY FOSTERS NEW RELATIONSHIPS

“Lead with Integrity, United through Service” is the motto of a new Latina-based sorority that is being formed at Southwestern.

Kappa Delta Chi was founded in 1987 by four women attending Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Each of the founding sisters shared a driving desire to foster relationships between the Latina population at their university and to serve their community. They valued qualities such as unity, honesty, integrity and leadership, and used them to develop a rich service-based sisterhood that supports the American Cancer Society as its official philanthropy.

Since becoming a nationally recognized organization in 1991, KDChi has grown to include about 3,000 sisters in more than 40 chapters across the United States. It will soon expand further to include Southwestern.

The group has 11 charter members at Southwestern who will be initiated April 17. After securing their first pledge class in the fall, the group will qualify for official chapter status.

Read the rest of the story here.

Events

THEATRE DEPARTMENT PRESENTS ‘ESCAPE FROM HAPPINESS’ APRIL 21-25

The Theatre Department is presenting George F. Walker’s “The Escape from Happiness” from April 21-25 in the Jones Theater.

The play is a dark and comic vision of the struggles of one very idiosyncratic family to achieve wholeness, peace and stability in the face of a complex and adversarial world. It received a DORA Award (the Canadian equivalent of the Tony Award) for Outstanding Play of the Year in 1992.

The Wednesday and Thursday performances will be at 7 p.m., the Friday and Saturday performances will be at 8 p.m. and the Sunday matinee will be held at 3 p.m.

Tickets for the Friday performance are $18 for adults, $14 for seniors 63 and over, $10 for youth ages 16 and under and $8 for students.

Tickets may be purchased online at southwestern.tix.com or by calling the box office at 512-863-1378.

FOUNTAINWOOD OBSERVATORY TO HOLD PUBLIC VIEWING NIGHT APRIL 23 

The Fountainwood Observatory will host its last public viewing night of the semester on Friday, April 23, from 8-10:30 p.m.

Public Viewing Nights are always free and open to the public. The observatory is located on the northeast side of campus adjacent to the Rockwell Baseball Field (see #6 on the campus map at    http://www.southwestern.edu/map). Faculty members from the Physics Department at Southwestern as well as observers from the Williamson County Astronomy Club will be on hand to guide viewing. 

For weather-related updates about viewing nights, call the Fountainwood Observatory hotline at 512-863-1242.

Public viewing nights will begin again in September.

WIND ENSEMBLE TO PERFORM APRIL 25

The Southwestern University Wind Ensemble will perform in concert on Sunday, April 25, at 7 p.m. in the Alma Thomas Theater. The program will feature Ticheli’s “Angels in the Architecture” with guest vocal soloist Dana Zenobi, Holst’s First Suite in E flat conducted by senior Magen Comley, and four dances from “West Side Story” by Leonard Bernstein.

It is free and open to the public. 

JAZZ BAND TO PERFORM APRIL 27

The Southwestern University Jazz Band will perform in concert on Tuesday, April 27, at 7 p.m. in the Alma Thomas Theater. The band will perform a diverse program of compositions from legendary jazz composers such as John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Ellis Marsalis.

It is free and open to the public.

Media Coverage

The Williamson County Sun covered the Cesar Chavez dinner.

The Williamson County Sun ran an article about first-year student Kadidiatou Magassa and her trip to southern Africa this summer to work at the Baylor International Pediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic.

The Williamson County Sun ran an article about the Student Works Symposium and the faculty-student research projects that were funded for 2010-2011.

Notables

Psychology majors Kathryn Bollich, Whitney Laas, Lauren Margulieux and Stacy Mathis received a Psi Chi Regional Research Award for the paper they presented at the Southwestern Psychological Association Meeting held in Dallas April 8-10. The paper, titled “‘Shy to ‘Fly’: Testing the Effectiveness of Self-Presentation Strategies of Shy Individuals,” was written with Traci Giuliano, professor of psychology.

Several other psychology students presented papers they had written at the conference. Stacy Mathis and Amanda Burkett presented a paper titled “When to Whistle-Blow: Factors that Effect Perceptions of Informants of Academic Cheating”; Anya Lopez-Fuentes presented a paper titled “Gender Differences for Negative Alcohol Consequences in Specific Areas of Functioning” written with Professor Bryan Neighbors; Kelsey Horick presented a paper titled “Peer Attachment Security and Eating Disorder Problem Dimensions Among College Women,” which was also written with Neighbors; Meagan Anderson and Caitlyn Carnes presented a paper titled “Examining the Relationship between Perceived Emotional Intelligence and Trait Worry” and another paper titled “Exploring the Relationship between Perceived Emotional Intelligence and Adaptiveness in Coping” that were written with Professor Paula Desmond; and Julia Poritz and Sarah Fritz presented a paper titled “Exploring Emotional Intelligence and Coping within a Transactional Model of Stress,” also written with Desmond.

Animal behavior major Jessica Bolton was one of two winners of the H. Wayne Ludvigson Memorial Student Prizes for best student paper presentations at the Southwestern Comparative Psychological Association annual meeting held in Dallas April 8-10. Bolton received the award for her talk titled “‘Who’s Your Daddy’: Kin Recognition in Prepubescent and Adult Rats,” which was based on a paper she wrote with Brittany Ford, Carissa Winland and Professor Fay Guarraci.

Several other psychology and animal behavior students presented papers at this conference. Morgan Mingle, Alexander Hall, Bolton and Guarraci presented a paper titled “The Paradoxical Effects of Morphine on Sexual Motivation in Female Rats,” Mingle and Professor Jesse Purdy presented a paper titled “Conditioned Anti-Predatory Behavior in Mulloway,” and Winland, Ford, Bolton and Guarraci presented a paper titled “Chronic Exposure to Methamphetamine Affects Sexual Behavior in Female Rats,” which was written in collaboration with Charles Haycox, Mark Maynard, Douglas Clements, Christine Wise and Professor Russell Frohardt from St. Edward’s University. Winland, Ford, Bolton and Guarraci also were collaborators on a paper titled “MePD Intracranial Infusions of Methamphetamine Have no Effect on Female Sexual Behavior,” which was presented by the same team from St. Edward’s.

Four students from Southwestern are attending the Second Undergraduate Research Conference on Chinese Studies in Atlanta, Ga., April 16-18. The symposium is sponsored by the Associated Colleges of the South’s China Initiative Committee.

Eva Cheng is presenting a paper titled “Lu Xun and Reflective Identity.” Elise Huff is presenting a paper titled “Zhao Mengfu’s Handscroll ‘Autumn Colors’: Antiquity and Politics in Early Yuan Painting.” Derry Jameson is presenting a paper titled “Shen Zhou’s Lofty Mount Lu: Revitalizing Antiquity” and Lindsey Waldrop is presenting a paper titled “The Pupil becomes the Iconoclast?: Yuan Hongdao’s Poetic Theory and Writings.” Carl Robertson, associate professor of Chinese, is chairing the conference session on “Art, Poetry and Literature: Through Cultural and Political Perspectives.”  

Four current students and one recent graduate from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology are presenting their research at the annual meetings of the Southern Sociological Society in Atlanta, Ga., April 21-24. December graduate Laura Burrow is presenting her paper titled “Breaking the Cycle of Abuse: Why Advocates Work to End Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.” Alex Brown will present a paper titled “How to Accurately Interpret a Peer’s Social Class: Symbols of Class Status and Presentation of Self in College Students.” Lauren E. Hamlett will present a paper titled “Hot Spots for Swine Flu: Preparing for the New Influenza A (H1N1) Pandemic in London Schools.”

Jessica Herbst will present a paper titled “Sometimes You Have to Sell Your Soul a Little Bit’: Maintaining Meaning and Identity in the Midst of Non-Profit Politics.”  Herbst’s research has been chosen to receive the 2010 Odum Undergraduate Student Paper Award. This is the fourth time in five years that this top award has been given to a sociology student from Southwestern.

Callie Paige will present a paper titled “Capital Matters: The Familial Effect on the College-Bound Student.”

The papers being presented by Burrow and Herbst are a result of work done in their capstone course under the direction of Maria Lowe. Hamlett did her capstone research in the London program under the direction of Edward Kain. Brown and Paige developed their papers as part of a course taught by Sandi Nenga.

Kain will co-lead a workshop at the conference on “Preparing for a Program Review.”  He will also receive the 2010 Southern Sociological Society Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award.

Communication studies major Lili McEntire presented her paper titled “Lol Mom and Dad, Who’s txting now: Remedying Middle-Aged Resistance to Text Messaging through Advertising” at the Southern States Communication Association Conference in Memphis April 7-11.

Mary Grace Neville, associate professor of business, had a chapter published in a new book titled Mending the World: Social Healing Interventions by Gestalt Practitioners Worldwide. Her chapter is titled “When Poor is Rich: Transformative Power of I-Thou Relationships in a Brazilian Favela.” It is based on her experience living in a poor Brazilian community in 2001.

Several works by Mary Visser, professor of art, will be featured in an exhibition titled “Drawing On Sculpture,” which will be on display in the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery at the University of Dallas in Irving through May 2.

Junior political science major Sarah Wooley presented a paper titled “The Fiscal Impact of Water Supply Issues in the West” at the Western Political Science Association meeting in San Francisco April 1-3. She currently is co-authoring a paper with Professor Gilbert St. Clair on the Texas budget for the 2010-2011.