University community reports recent achievements, books, presentations
For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.
Recent achievements, books, conferences, grants, media, presentations, publications and workshops include the following:
Achievements
UD’s Office of Human Resources has announced that Darcell Griffith, senior compensation analyst, has received a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) designation from WorldatWork Society of Certified Professionals, a not-for-profit association that provides certification in compensation, benefits, work-life and total rewards. The Certification Society is an affiliate organization of WorldatWork, the professional association for compensation, benefits and total rewards professionals. Griffith joined the University in January 2008 after working for seven years as a human resources administrator at the University of Pennsylvania. A graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana, she also holds a Human Resources Management Certificate from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
By achieving the CCP, Griffith has joined more than 17,000 other certified professionals who have met the highest level of professional performance and standards of professional practice. Recognized as the world’s standard since 1976, the CCP designation is known throughout the global rewards community as a mark of expertise and excellence in the area of compensation. It is obtained by successfully passing nine comprehensive examinations designed to measure an individual’s level of knowledge about compensation and total rewards management theory and practice. The program covers subject matters such as quantitative analysis, legal compliance, program design and administration, accounting, finance, and strategic planning.
WorldatWork is a global human resources association focused on compensation, benefits, work-life and integrated total rewards to attract, motivate and retain a talented workforce. Founded in 1955, WorldatWork provides a network of nearly 30,000 members in more than 100 countries with training, certification, research, conferences and community. It has offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and Washington, D.C.
Books
Bahira Sherif Trask, professor of human development and family studies, has written a book, Women, Work, and Globalization. The book explores women’s gender roles as they participate in the global labor market and discusses global initiatives that assist women in balancing work and family responsibilities while decreasing their vulnerabilities.
William Lewis, assistant professor, and Sharon Walpole, professor, both of the School of Education, and Michael McKenna, University of Virginia, have co-authored the book Cracking the Common Core: Choosing and Using Texts in Grades 6-12. Just released by Guilford Press, the book is a guide for secondary school teachers and leaders to help them meet the robust reading and writing demands of the Common Core State Standards. It presents a framework for creatively combining literature, informational text and digital sources, and provides teachers strategies for analyzing text complexity, building background knowledge, promoting reading engagement, incorporating discussion and developing text-based writing and inquiry skills.
Conferences
Seventeen female UD students from the Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS) attended the 2013 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computingconference in Minneapolis. The event is a series of keynote addresses and workshops that include leading researchers presenting their current work, networking opportunities with large companies like Microsoft and Google and special sessions that focus on the role of women in today’s computer science, information technology, research and engineering fields. Students in attendance included undergraduates Christina Callis, Katherine Caola, Ashley Casper, Mary Doolin, Melody Lugo, Kelly Peterson, Briana Slater, Rebecca Weinschenk and Mingzhi Yu. Graduate students that participated include Moumita Bhattacharya, Aditi Garg, Rithika Gogineni, Irene Manotas, Juilee Patankar, Pradnya Powar, Vallary Singh and Qi Wang. The CIS department sponsored the group as part of an effort to retain women in computer science. Lori Pollock, CIS professor and member of the executive board of the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing, returned as the group’s adviser.
Grants
Akisha Jones, a doctoral student in the College of Education and Human Development’s Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics Program, was awarded an AERA Dissertation Grant by the American Educational Research Association. The $20,000 award is given to advanced doctoral students who are developing new quantitative measures or methodological approaches for addressing education issues and incorporate subject matter expertise, especially when studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning. Jones’ dissertation focused on “Examining Teacher and Teaching Quality through Predictors of Urban Teacher Effectiveness.”
Media
Research on shear thickening fluid by Norman J. Wagner, Alvin B. and Julia O. Stiles Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is featured on page 7 of the February 2014 issue of the U.S. Department of State e-journal EJ/USA.
Stacie Beck and Eleanor Craig, associate professors of economics, wrote an op-ed article for the News Journal that was published Nov. 6. Titled “Sequestration Prevents a Worst-Case Scenario,” the op-ed argued that the current federal deficit and the resulting debt burden hurt the long-term growth and employment prospects for the American economy and that if Congress and the administration cannot solve the unsupportable spending levels for entitlements, the sequestration approach may be very helpful.
Students in a Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management class (HRIM 488) were featured in the Dec. 4 Delaware Business Bulletin as they gave project presentations.
Presentations
James M. Brophy, Francis H. Squire Professor of History, presented the following papers “Markets of Knowledge. Buch- und Zeitungsverleger in Mitteleuropa 1770-1870,”Institut für Buchwissenschaft, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Nov. 20; “Der Hessische Landbote and the Print Culture of Radicalism,” Der Hessische Landbote in interdiziplinärer Perspektive, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Nov. 23; “Critical Distance: Irony in Popular Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe,” Max-Planck Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin, Germany, Nov. 26; and “Zensur und Verleger in Mitteleuropa 1770-1850: Problemfelder und neue Forschungsergebnisse,” Freie Universität Berlin, Dec. 3.
Jeffrey B. Miller, professor emeritus of economics, gave a talk at the Digital CPA CPA2BIZ Cloud User Conference sponsored by the American Institute of CPAs on Nov. 22. The title of the talk was “Expanding Your Digital Value Via Eldercare and Social Security Advisory Services.”
Farley Grubb, professor of economics, presented his research on “Colonial New Jersey Monetary Regimes” in the session on “What Does Money Mean? World-Making through Currency and Credit,” at the American Studies Association annual meetings, Washington, D.C., Nov. 21-24.
Sheldon D. Pollack, professor of law and political science, presented a paper, “The First National Income Tax, 1862-1872,” on a panel at the 106th annual Conference on Taxation of the National Tax Association in Tampa, Fla., on Nov. 21. The paper is scheduled for publication in The Tax Lawyer, a publication of the Tax Section of the American Bar Association. At the conference, Pollack also served as a discussant on another panel on“Corporate Taxation and History.”
UD had a strong presence at the Oct. 4-5 symposium “American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora” at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, video for which is now available on YouTube. Ikem Okoye, associate professor of art history who works on African art and an exploration of alternative modernisms, spoke during the opening session on the role Africa and African art played in the modernisms of Robert Rauschenberg and Romare Bearden. Camara Dia Holloway, assistant professor of art history, gave an eye-opening paper during a panel on 19th-century portraiture titled “Aglow in the Darkest Vistas: Africa, Racial Fantasy, and the Modernist Self-Fashioning of F. Holland Day.” Julie McGee, University Museums curator of African American art, was also in attendance, as was UD doctoral student Katrina Greene. The symposium was held during the partial shutdown of the federal government and, according to Okoye, “The shutdown probably did reduce the number of UD attendees, but there was still a sense created by us being there that suggested how this department remains a center for the study of American art.”
Publications
Robert L. Hampel, professor of education, is the author of an article titled “New Wine from Old Bottles: Another View of Progressive Education” in History of Education and Children’s Literature, vol. 8, no. 2, fall 2013, pp. 547-550.
An essay by Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and professor of humanities, appears in Oscar Wilde in Context, which has just been published by Cambridge University Press. Edited by Kerry Powell and Peter Raby, this volume presents new research on Wilde’s work and his relations with his contemporaries. Stetz’s chapter, titled “Oscar Wilde and the New Woman,” discusses Wilde and late-Victorian feminism.
Suzanne L. Burton, professor of music education, had a guest article published in the Michigan Music Educator titled Where General Music and Community Meet: Partnerships and Collaborations.
Emily Genshaw, a senior English education major from Seaford, Del., is the author of a short story that was selected for publication in a new book, The Beach House. The book, a compilation of 23 stories selected by an independent panel of judges in the Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Competition, was published by Cat and Mouse Press. The stories feature locations and activities from southern Delaware.
Workshops
The College of Engineering Diversity Committee hosted 16 undergraduate students from across the United States Friday, Nov. 22, for a workshop on applying to graduate school. Led by Raul Lobo, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, the workshop was tailored for students from underrepresented groups in engineering and detailed how to apply, what to expect and how to choose the right school for your needs. “Diversity is the reality of the workplace, so students should be educated in a diverse environment that prepares them for when they leave the university,” said Lobo. Students attended a UD information session, toured the campus, and networked with UD engineering faculty. The day concluded with the students interacting with faculty in their discipline of interest.
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