Morningside Connect

Spreading the news because we’re FANs of your work!

The Faculty Achievement Newsletter was created in 2014 with the purpose of letting the Morningside community know about the academic achievements of the Morningside faculty and staff.

Scott Arnett (Education) and Earle Knowlton (Graduate Education) have been given permission by their publisher, Kendall Hunt, to write a textbook. The working title is Collaboration in the Transition Process. Arnett and Knowlton will be showing the benefits of using a collaboration model while transitioning students with disabilities from the school system into the adult community. What makes this text different from others is the ability of parents to remove their dependency on the schools and provide transitioning skills to their children well after the public school years.

Bette Skewis-Arnett (Performing Arts) held a workshop at the Sioux City Community Theatre. The workshop was to assist the interested actors auditioning for the roles of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan in the upcoming production of The Miracle Worker by William Gibson. The workshop focused on realistic portrayals of historical figures with disabilities.

Patrick Blaine (English and Modern Languages) was elected to the executive committee of the Film Studies section of the Latin American Studies Association, where he will serve a 3-year term. He also served as a grant reviewer for two programs with the federal Department of Education.

Aaron Bunker (Biology) published a paper containing data collected during graduate school in the Journal of Heart and Cardiology titled “Impaired coronary endothelial vasorelaxation in a preclinical model of peripheral arterial insufficiency.”

Tim Case (Performing Arts) designed two productions this summer for St. Michael’s Playhouse in Vermont, Spamalot and Outside Mullingar. Earlier in the summer he completed the set design for Once on this Island for the St. Louis Black Repertory Company. He is currently finishing up Fiddler on the Roof at the SECT in Sioux Falls and Monster Makers at Lamb Productions in Sioux City.

Steve Coyne’s (English) collection of linked short stories titled It Turns Out Like This won the Many Voices Award and will be published by New Rivers Press. The book comes out in fall of 2016.

Marilyn Eastman (Business) attended a Digital Marketing Boot Camp this August in Chicago, IL. The boot camp is designed to prepare instructors to teach social, digital and Internet marketing subjects in an environment where the content is rapidly changing. She will be teaching the college’s first digital and social media marketing course in the Spring, 2016. Marilyn also recently completed a research study analyzing the effects of instructor background and delivery modality on student perceptions of instructors and of course content of digital marketing subjects. The research paper has been submitted to Marketing Education Review and is undergoing the peer review process.

Geoff Harkness (Sociology) authored a book chapter that was included in The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop, published by Cambridge University Press this summer. The chapter, entitled “Thirty Years of Rapsploitation: Hip-Hop Culture in American Cinema,” examines how hip-hop culture was portrayed in American feature films from 1983-2013, and how these images reflect and comment upon larger issues of race, social class, and gender.

John Helms (Chemistry) published a paper in the journal Marine Chemistry titled: “Spectroscopic characterization of oceanic dissolved organic matter isolated by reverse osmosis coupled with electrodialysis.”

Marty Knepper (English) was guest book review editor for the Spring 2016 issue of the international academic journal Clues: A Journal of Detection. She had a paper accepted for the spring national Popular Culture Association on Ross Macdonald’s reworking of the Oedipus legend in his mysteries. As faculty advisor of ALD, she will be attending the National Alpha Lambda Delta Leadership Workshop in Orlando with four students in October. Last year’s ALD group earned the Order of the Torch outstanding chapter award. The National President, Dr.Susan Huffman, will present the award on campus Oct. 6.

Susie Lubbers (Education) “Methods of Teaching English: How to Engage Students in Classroom Activities.” Presented at The University of Lucerne. Lucerne, Switzerland, May 2015.“Studying in the United States: Chances, Problems and Risks.” Presented at Kantonale Mittelschule Uri. Uri, Switzerland, May, 2015.

“Growth Mindset and Student Motivation.” Presented at Sioux City Community Schools Leadership Academy, June, 2015.She was also an editor of a book of essays on leadership: Jones, G., Knight, M., & Lubbers, S. (Eds.) (2015). Legacies of Leadership. Thomas Buckmiller, 2015.

Brian McFarland (Chemistry) recently had a paper published in the Journal of Polymer Science, titled “Effects of Shell Crosslinking on Polyurea Microcapsules Containing a Free-Radical Initiator”. This paper examined different ways of making polymer systems that could be more stable upon storage, and could be initiated via controlled-release.

Jeremy Schnieder (Writing & Rhetoric) and Aaron Bunker (Biology) published a paper titled “Writing Across the Curriculum in a Human Physiology Class to Build Upon and Expand Content Knowledge” in the Athens Journal of Education. This publication follows their oral presentation over the same topic at the Athens Institute for Education and Research 1st Annual Biology Conference in June 2015; Athens, Greece.

Jeremy Schnieder (Writing & Rhetoric) and Jessica Tinklenberg (Religious Studies) presented a paper at the International Sport and Society Conference in Toronto, Canada. The paper discussed the role of blame in changing perceptions of masculinity following the domestic violence scandals of the 2014 NFL season. The paper will also be published in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of Sport and Society.

Tim Sesterhen (Biology) co-authored a paper accepted for publication. He contributed habitat suitability modeling for different fish species: Withers, J.L., T.M. Sesterhenn, C.J. Foley, C.D.

Troy, and T.O. Höök. in press. Diets and growth potential of early stage larval yellow perch and alewife in a nearshore region of southeastern Lake Michigan. Journal of Great Lakes Research. He also gave a presentation about mosquitoes in the Betty Strong Encounter Center at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. He was then interviewed about mosquitoes for a story that appeared in the Siouxland Life magazine.

Heather Reid (Philosphy) in July gave an invited lecture titled “What Gladiators Can Teach Us about Stoicism,” for The American Academy in Rome Classical Summer School.In August, she gave a presentation titled “An Ethical Definition of Olympic Sport,” at the14th Biennial Conference of the International Olympic Academy Participants Association, Ancient Olympia, Greece. And sometime over the summer, her “Historical-Philosophical” introduction to Philostratus’ Gymnasticus was published in Italian as part of her co-editorship of a new Italian translation of the book titled: Filostrato. Sull’Allenamento. Eds. Paolo Madella, Heather L. Reid, Emanuele Isidori, and Alessandra Fazio. Viterbo (Italy): Sette Citta, 2015.

Kurt Spearing (Biology), with E. Welsh from Badlands National Park, and C.A.Boyd from the North Dakota Geological Survey, have a publication in press in the Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Sciences titled STRATIGRAPHIC AND TAXONOMIC REVISION OF A NORTH AMERICAN FALSE SABER-TOOTHED CAT CUB. It deals with their research on a well preserved juvenile skull of a saber-toothed “cat” like animal.

Rich Yates (Art) presented a poster of his research project “Visualizing Group Creativity” at the University & College Design Association—UCDA Design Education Summit this past May at South Dakota State University in Brookings. Information visualization principles are used to explore and find relationships in the data gathered from group interactions during brainstorming. This approach allows him to explore the processes of group creativity and idea generation, moving beyond individual notions of creativity and to form a better understanding of team idea generation.

Mary Zink (Business) presented, on August 21st, at the Siouxland Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM)annual conference on the topic of “Managing Difficult Conversations.” She has also re-joined the Siouxland SHRM board of directors as College Relations Chair. In this capacity, she will work to connect local college students with local professionals and manage a scholarship program. She has also just been elected to the board of the Siouxland Society of Human Resource Managers as College Relations Chair. Her position involves acting as a liaison with local post-secondary schools and creating and judging a scholarship.

Thank you all for the wonderful work you are doing! Bruce Forbes (forbes@morningside.edu) and David Elder (elderd@morningside.edu), the editors of the Faculty Achievement Newsletter, welcome feedback and submissions at any time.

We plan to publish the Newsletter monthly during the school year, so please submit paragraphs about your achievements to facultynewsletter@morningside.edu.