Photo by Jeff Watts
Library’s “Faculty Coffee” serves up a cup o’ info
More than 80 faculty members met over coffee, cookies, and research databases at last Thursday’s Faculty Coffee in the library’s Mud Box. Representatives from the AU Library, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Anderson Computing Complex were on hand to explain and demonstrate everything from how to incorporate streaming media into Blackboard sites to how to listen to your favorite newspaper.
“It’s a wonderful way to launch the year,” said acting university librarian Diana Vogelsong, noting how the event, now in its sixth year, offers faculty an informal setting for learning about some of the library’s new services.
And there was plenty new to learn about. In the last year the library has added 55 new research databases. A new iPod service loans out iPods filled with podcasts from more than 70 newspapers. The library’s instant messaging service, launched last spring to give researchers expanded access to reference librarians, has extended its hours from between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. to between 1:00 and 9:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. on Friday, and 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on Sunday.
“This is definitely not your father’s library,” said history department chair Bob Griffith, there to catch up on the library’s latest features. “I love the way this library reaches out to faculty and students.”
Beyond showcasing new services, the Faculty Coffee also showed many first-year faculty long-standing services, which were no doubt new to them. Librarians demonstrated the electronic reserve system, a Geographic Information Systems that allows users to chart and display information on detailed maps, and any of the 175 research databases new faculty may have been curious about.
“That alone was very much worth the walk over here today,” said new SOC professor and former senior political editor for CBS News Dottie Lynch, who learned about the “Polling the Nation” database of public opinion polls at the event. “I can already see how I’m going to use that in class.” —MG
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Honors/Awards/Appointments
David Rosenbloom, SPA, and Suzanne Piotrowski, SPA/PhD ’03: received the 2005 Best Article Award from the American Review of Public Administration for their article “Outsourcing the Constitution and Administrative Law Norms,” American Review of Public Administration, vol 35:2, June 2005. Lectures/Presentations
John Douglass and Chris Palmer, SOC: led the panel “An Ethical Approach to Teaching Wildlife and Environmental Film Production,” University Film and Video Association’s annual meeting, Chapman University, Orange, Calif., July. Robert Kramer, SPA: “Using Action Learning in the Classroom,” 33rd Annual Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference, Nazareth College, Rochester, N.Y., June. David Lublin, SPA: moderated the debate between the Democratic candidates for Maryland attorney general, Prince George’s Community College, Largo, Md., July. Richard McCann, literature, CAS: led a fiction workshop, 66th annual conference, Indiana University Writers’ Conference (IUWC), June. Julie Mertus, SIS: participant on the roundtable “Rights Indivisible? Strategy and Structure in the Emergence of ‘New’ Human Rights,” International Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, April. Media
Akbar Ahmed, SIS: appeared on WTTG Fox 5, WRC NBC 4 (Washington, D.C.), and ARY TV (Dubai) to discuss the implications of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, June. Abdul Karim Bangura, SIS and the Center for Global Peace: was interviewed on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the United States response, Voice of America Radio, English Edition, April. Naomi Baron, language and foreign studies, CAS: was interviewed by Myriades (a new online magazine produced in Argentina) on the use of language on the Internet, April. Eugene Fidell, WCL: was quoted by the Associated Press in the article “Congress Seeks to Change Civil War Law,” May. James Heintze, AU Library: was interviewed on the history of the Fourth of July by Radio America, HeraldToday.com, Washington Post, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and the Palm Beach Post, June and July. Marwan Kraidy, SIS: was interviewed by United Press International and La Croix (France) about the Danish cartoon controversy, March. Howard McCurdy, SPA: was interviewed by the Associated Press on how NASA must learn to fulfill its missions on a tight budget, June. Robert Pastor, VP, international affairs: was quoted in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune on how high levels of immigration to the United States affect demographics in Mexico, June. Ira Robbins, WCL: was interviewed by WAMU radio regarding Lee Boyd Malvo’s decision to testify against John Allen Muhammad in the Montgomery County, Maryland, prosecution of Muhammad for the 2003 sniper killings, May. Judith Shapiro, SIS: discussed the history of student activist movements on Voice of America China Branch, June. James Thurber, director, CCPS, and SPA: was quoted on the $10 billion (as of 2004) lobbying industry, Washington Post, March. Emilio Viano, SPA: was interviewed on CNN on the nationwide arrest of over 400 juvenile gang members across the U.S.; on Spanish National Radio on the current situation in Iraq on the occasion of the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion; on CNN on the use of personal insults against President Bush by President Chavez of Venezuela; on CNN on the existence or not of a civil war currently in Iraq; on French television TF1 on the report that TSA staff at 21 U.S. airport failed to detect explosives carried into secure areas through security checkpoints; on CNN on the massive military operation by U.S. and Iraqi forces against insurgents in Sunni areas in mid-March; on NPR Radio on the temporary halt of the Moussaoui trial because of possible witness tampering; on Radio Mitre (Buenos Aires) on “ethnic cleansing” in Iraq; on Radio Union (Caracas) on the U.S. concerns expressed by Secretaries Rice and Rumsfeld over the direction of Venezuelan government’s foreign policy, March. Daniel Yu, SIS staff member, and Chelsea Farrell, student: were quoted in an Associated Press article about a study on tattoos published on the Web site of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, June. Papers Presented
Erran Carmel, Kogod: coauthored “Configurations of Global Software Development: Offshore versus Nearshore,” international workshop on global software development, International Conference on Software Engineering, Shanghai, May. Robert Marshak, SPA: copresented “Organizational Discourse and the New OD,” Seventh International Conference on Organizational Discourse, Vrije University, Amsterdam, July. Published Works
Robert Durant, SPA: chapter, “Globalization, Regulatory Regimes, and Administrative Modernization in Developing Nations: Toward a Theoretical Framework,” in Handbook of Globalization, Governance, and Public Administration, Marcel Dekker, 2006. Katharine Kravetz, Washington Semester Program and SPA: “Transforming Communities: The Role of Service Learning in a Community Studies Course,” in The International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, vol. 18, no. 1. Abdul Aziz Said, director, Center for Global Peace, and SIS, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, SIS, and Meena Sharify-Funk, graduate student, SIS: edited Contemporary Islam: Dynamic, Not Static, Routledge, 2006. Steven Taylor, SPA: “The Political Influence of African American Ministers: A Legacy of West African Culture,” Journal of Black Studies, vol 37, no 1, September 2006. |
