E-town Achievements

Professor of Political Science, Fletcher McClellan, presented a paper, “Rethinking the Undergraduate Political Science Curriculum: A Contingency Approach,” at the American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference, Albuquerque, February 7-9.

Assistant professor of Biology, Anya Goldina, and biology majors, Amal Ismail and Elizabeth Luscavage, presented their research at the annual meeting of the Society for Comparative and Integrative Biology in Austin, Texas. Amal Ismail’s presentation was titled “Assessing the effect of antidepressant Sertraline on agonistic behavior of subordinate crayfish,”  and Elizabeth Luscavage’s poster was  “Invasive crayfish Orconectes rusticus exhibit sexually dimorphic responses to conspecific pheromones.”

Professor of Communications, Kirsten Johnson, published the following articles:

  • I Got a New Puppy! The Impact of Personal, Opinion, and Objective Tweets on a Journalist’s and a News Organization’s Perceived Credibility. Journalism Practice. Taylor and Francis.
  • News Stories on the Facebook Platform: Millennials’ Perceived Credibility of Online News Sponsored by News and Non-News Companies.  Journalism Practice. Taylor and Francis.
  • Work-life Balance in Media Newsrooms.  Journalism. Sage.

Occupational Therapy Program Director, Tamara Hubbert, completed the following book chapters:

  • Client-Centered Care. In K. Matuska (Ed), Ways of Living. Bethesda, MD: AOTA Press.
  • Spirituality. In K. Matuska (D.), Ways of Living. Bethesda, MD: AOTA Press.
  • Practitioner-Client Communication. In K. Jacobs (Ed). The Occupational Therapy Manager, 6th Edition. Bethesda, MD: AOTA Press
  • Occupational therapists’ reflections on meaningful therapeutic relationships and their effect on the practitioner: A pilot study. Annals of International Occupational Therapy, 1(3), 116-126.
  • The mutual journey: Occupational therapists’ meaningful experiences of therapeutic use of self: A phenomenological study.
  •  (Peer-reviewed paper). WFOT Congress 2018. Cape Town, South Africa.
  • A review of four distinct aspects of spirituality incorporated into occupational therapy practice: Client and practitioner perspectives described in the literature. (Peer-reviewed poster). WFOT Congress 2018. Cape Town, South Africa.

Dr. David Bowne, Professor of Biology, and colleagues published an article titled “A broader approach to understanding urbanization effects on freshwater turtles: reply to Lambert and Steen 2019”  in the peer-reviewed journal Conservation Biology.

Associate Professor of Psychology Michael Roy published a pair of articles: Improving time estimation in witness memory in Frontiers in Psychology: Forensic and Legal Psychology and Unpacking, summing and anchoring in retrospective time estimation in Acta Psychologica.

Professor of Social Work Susan Mapp published the following articles:

  • The role of the US baccalaureate social work program director: A national survey. Social Work Education: The International Journal.
  • The role of the baccalaureate social work program director: A qualitative understanding. Journal of Social Work Education.
  • Teaching human rights and social justice in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education.
  • Social work is a human rights profession.
  • Educating students on international social work issues in U.S. social work programs: How is it done? Journal of Social Work Education

Dr. Oya Dursun-Ozkanca, Professor of Political Science and Endowed Chair of International Studies, published a blog post on NATO’s London Summit for FifteenEightyFour, Cambridge University Press’s blog.

Dursun-Ozkanca also published a policy report titled “US-Turkey Relations: How to Avoid a Complete Breakdown?” for ISTANPOL and Heinrich Böll Foundation in February 2020.

Dursun-Ozkanca was interviewed by BBC Radio 5 Live’s Up All Night Program on February 28th, 2020, on the recent Turkey-Syria escalation in Idlib. The interview is available from minutes 1:07 to 1:15 through the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_five_live.

Associate Professor of Music Education Kevin Shorner-Johnson wrote a chapter for the book, Humane Music Education for the Common Good. It is a chapter that challenges assumptions of time and temporal orientations within United Nations Educational Policy. The chapter argues for a rebalancing of individual, future-oriented time with modes of collectivist being in present-centered time. The chapter concludes with suggestions as to how the arts can bring these notions of time into balance and imagine into other forms of ethical care.

Shorner-Johnson also wrote Embracing hospitality through Puerto Rican Bomba y Plena, an article exploring the ways in which music education may need to respond to the crisis of climate change and mass human migration. Looking particularly at Puerto Rican migration, the paper describes a project to apply peacebuilding ethics of hospitality, welcome, and affirmation through the development of an on-campus Puerto Rican Bomba y Plena concert.

Shorner-Johnson also wrote Music Major Anxiety in Pennsylvania Music Educators Association News. This article examines the rapid rise in music major anxiety, and using a new book by Pittman and Karle, explores the neuroscience behind anxiety, fear, and worry. The article then makes practical recommendations about how music schools and music majors can build better-coping skills and support structures for forms of anxiety.

Professors Tara Moore and Kevin Shorner-Johnson presented, “Using Podcasts as a Tool for Undergraduate and Graduate Learning: Audience-centered Learning and Design” at the recent Lancaster Learns Conference. Their presentation explores the new potential for podcasts to be used as audience-centered learning tools. Using theory about the cultivation of audience-awareness, Tara Moore and Kevin Shorner-Johnson explore podcasting as a tool for undergraduate podcast creation (Tara Moore) and as a process of design for graduate education.

Professor of Music Justin Badgerow completed a concert tour of Brazilian solo piano music in the following venues: Royal Irish Academy of Music, Virginia Tech University, University of North Florida, York College, Lycoming College, the Sunderman Conservatory at Gettysburg College, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Sul Ross State University, Angelo State University, Penn State University, and Rocky Mountain College. He was also awarded a grant from the Music Teachers National Association.

Gina Fox, Occupational Therapy Lecturer gave a presentation at the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association (POTA) annual conference. The session was titled: Upper Extremity Device Adherence Following Acquired Brain Injury.

Assistant Professor of Communications Katharine Hughes published a book titled, Graphic Design: Learn It, Do It. It is an introduction to the fundamentals of graphic design and the Adobe Creative Cloud applications used to put these concepts into practice.

Professor of Engineering Dr. Tomas Estrada and Professor of Psychology Dr. Liz Dalton presented a paper entitled “Impact of Student Mindfulness Facets on Engineering Education Outcomes: An Initial Exploration” at the American Society for Engineering Education 2019 Conference in Tampa, Florida.

Richard Fellinger, Fellow in The Writing Wing has contracted with TouchPoint Press to publish his next novel, Summer of ’85. The novel, winner of the 2018 Novel Excerpt Contest at Seven Hills Literary Review, is the story of a mass shooting and an old summer love.

Associate Professor of Modern Languages, Charla Lorenzen presented at the 100th Annual Pennsylvania State Modern Languages Association (PSMLA) conference in October 2019. Her joint presentation with Lecturer in Spanish Raquel Lodeiro from Penn State Harrisburg was titled “Conversation Tables to Promote Face-to-Face Connection for Language Students”. They will also be presenting their research at the Lancaster Learns Conference in February 2020.

Professor of Religion and Asian Studies Dr. Jeffery Long published the following articles in various publications:

  • “Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita,” in Christopher P. Miller, Michael Reading, and Jeffery D. Long, Beacons of Dharma: Spiritual Exemplars for the Modern  Age (Lexington Books)
  • “A Hinduism without Walls?  Exploring the Concept of the Avatar Inter-religiously,” in Jerry Martin, ed., Theology without Walls: The Trans-religious Imperative (Routledge)
  • “Work Is Worship: Swami Vivekananda’s Philosophy of Seva and Its Contribution to the Gandhian Ethos,” in Hussam S. Timani and Loye Sekihata Ashton, Post-Christian Interreligious Liberation Theology (Springer)
  • “Hindu Chaplaincy as Karma Yoga in the Tradition of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda: An Interview with Swami Tyagananda,” in Vineet Chander and Lucinda Mosher, Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
  • “Gender in the Tradition of Sri Ramakrishna,” in Veena Howard, ed.,  The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy and Gender (Bloomsbury)
  • “Religious Experience, Hindu Pluralism, and Hope: Anubhava in the Tradition of Sri Ramakrishna” (Religions 10 (3), 210)
  • “Cautious Hope: Hindu Reflections on Pope Francis” in Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue (Palgrave-Macmillan)
  • “Eternal and Universal Truth: The Idea of the Perennial Philosophy” (Tarka)
  • “Celebrating the Diversity of Perspectives: An Overview of Pluralism” (Tarka)
  • “Encountering the Ultimate in the Bhagavad Gītā: An Experience of Pratyabhijñā (Recognition)” (Open Theology 4 (1), 373-385)
  • “Ahiṃsā and Vegetarianism in Bengal: A Complex Topic” (Journal of Vaishnava Studies, Summer 2018)

Assistant Professor of Biology and Chemistry Dr. Lauren Toote and Professor of Engineering Dr. Brenda Read-Daily received a $23,811 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for their proposal titled, “Simple and Inexpensive Paper-Based Assay for Lead”. This grant is part of the EPA’s People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition and E-town was one of 18 schools that received funding nationwide. Student teams from both the chemistry and engineering departments are working together on this interdisciplinary project and will present their results at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference in June.