Pitt-Bradford faculty present papers, publish during fall term

BRADFORD, PA – Faculty at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford presented papers, received accolades, published book chapters and took part in other academic work during the fall semester.

Dr. Helma de Vries-Jordan, assistant professor of political science, presented a paper titled “The Impact of Exposure to LGBTQIA Contracts: A Study of Online and Offline Political Participation” at the Northeastern Political Science Association’s 2014 annual meeting in Boston.

Dr. Donna Dombek, associate professor of education, made a presentation at The Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators 43^rd Annual Teacher Education Assembly in Harrisburg. Her presentation was called “Do as I say and as I do: Modeling Good Pedagogy through Foundations Course Instruction.”

Dr. Mihaelaa-Christina Drignei, assistant professor of mathematics, made two paper presentations on Sturm-Liouville equations. The first was at the TCSSE International Conference of Science and Technology in New York. The second was at the American Mathematical Society’s Fall Eastern Sectional Meeting in Halifax, Canada.

Two theatrical productions by Dr. Kevin Ewert, professor of theater, were named to the year’s 10-best productions in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C., area by Indy Week. Critic Byron Woods recognized “Festen” at Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, which Ewert directed, and “HMLT,” a truncated version of “Hamlet” at Little Green Pig, for which Ewert served as assistant director.

Dr. Richard G. Frederick, professor of history, had chapters on the elections of 1920 and 1928 published in “A Companion to Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover,” edited by Katherine A.S. Sibley and published by Wiley Blackwell in October. Frederick and other contributors to the book made presentations at a conference surrounding the book held at Williams College. Frederick’s presentation was on “The Politics of the 1920s,” and included a consideration of Harding’s reputation, the discombobulation of the Democratic Party and observations on the 1928 election.

Dr. Tony Gaskew, associate professor of criminal justice, presented a paper titled “Rethinking Prison Reentry: Transforming Humiliation to Humility” at the Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict at Columbia University in New York.

Dr. Tracee Howell, executive associate to the president, delivered “The Alchemy of Alan Moore: Magic as Narratological Device in ‘Promethea’” at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference, arguing that Moore’s text may be read as a radically instructive guide to the comic/graphic novel medium. At the same conference, she served as chairwoman of a panel exploring the presentation of magic in literary and historical texts as intriguing cultural phenomenon.

Dr. Nancy McCabe, professor of writing, wrote an essay/review for the Los Angeles Review of Books, “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Me,” published in December.

She also wrote several invited guest blog posts for All Things Laura Ingalls Wilder, Campaign for the American Reader and the Spalding University MFA Program Blog related to her new book, “From Little Houses to Little Women: Revisiting a Literary Childhood.”

She also became a regular blogger for Ploughshares literary magazine and debuted her own blog, Rereading Childhood. Finally, McCabe gave a talk on the history of memoir at Spalding University as well as readings and talks at local and regional organizations.

Dr. Denise Piechnik, assistant professor of biology, presented a paper titled “STEM-Sense: Students Building and Using Sensors for data Collection in Biology Laboratories” at the annual Association for College and University Biology Educators meeting at the University of Portland in Portland, Ore.