Faculty & Staff News

 

Henderson State University honored faculty members for their years of service at a ceremony April 19 in the Garrison Center Banquet Room.

Five faculty were recognized for 30 years of service, including: Doug Gilpin, professor of theatre arts; Janice O’Donnell, assistant professor of chemistry and director of Henderson Seminar; Jimmie Harper, associate professor of computer science; Lea Ann Alexander, director of library/associate librarian; William Martin, professor of political science.

Honored for 25 years were: Richard Miller, assistant professor of aviation; Michael Lloyd, professor of mathematics; and Gary Smithey, professor of AIS and coordinator of MSE in AIS.

Rick McDaniel, professor and chair of the Department of Physics, was recognized for 20 years.

Honored for 15 years were: Anna Smith, assistant professor of biology; Larry Monette, associate professor of political science and chair of social sciences; Paul Williamson, professor of psychology; Renae Clark, associate professor of business information systems; and Troy Hogue, instructor and director of aviation. [Read more…] about HSU honors faculty for years of service

An opinion piece by Dr. Michael Taylor, professor and chair of communication and theatre arts at Henderson State University, was recently published in the New York Times.

Entitled “Fighting to Save America’s Bats,” the column addresses the economic consequences of a pathogen that has decimated bat populations across the country.

Taylor is also a fellow of the National Speleological Society and the author of several books on caves.

 

 

 

Dr. Steven Knight, director of bands at Henderson State University, and Dr. Shaun Popp, assistant director, recently attended the Southwestern Division Conference of the College Band Directors National Association in Houston.

The conference was an opportunity for college and university band directors to discuss various topics relevant to the profession. It included clinics and presentations by notable music educators and performances by outstanding university bands within the region.

Twelve Henderson band students accompanied the professors to participate in the Intercollegiate Honor Band.

David Sesser, assistant librarian at Henderson State University, will attend the Arkansas Museums Association 2018 Conference held at the Calico Rock Museum and the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, a conference for both academics and museum professionals.

The meeting will give Sesser, who initiated and teaches courses in Henderson’s Museum Studies Program, the opportunity to network with museums across the state to connect future students with internships and jobs. He will present a paper entitled Creating a Museum Studies Program, which will explore the background of Henderson’s academic program and its early successes.

Dr. Angela Boswell, dean of the Ellis College of Arts and Sciences at Henderson State University, presented a paper at the Texas State Historical Association annual meeting this month entitled “Fear and Loathing in Texas: Women’s Experience of the Civil War in Texas.”

The presentation was part of a panel on “Women and Texas History: The Civil War Years.” Boswell also attended the yearly meeting of the advisory board of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, of which she has been a member for seven years, and, as chair of the association’s fellowships committee, presented three awards to junior scholars to help fund their research.

Book finalist
While, at the conference, Texas A&M University Press announced that Boswell’s forthcoming book, The Women’s History of Texas, was one of three finalists for the Robert A. Calvert prize. The Calvert Book Prize is an award created in honor of Robert A. Calvert, author of one of the authoritative textbooks in Texas history and professor of history at Texas A&M, who died in 2000.

The Calvert Prize provides a cash award and recognizes the best book manuscript accepted the preceding year by the Texas A&M University Press on the history of the American South, West, or Southwest. The Calvert Prize hopes to encourage the submission of better manuscripts as well as improve the quality of books about the Southwest.

Leah Sexton, an advisor for the Academic Advising Center at Henderson State, received the quarterly Staff Award of Excellence on March 2. “Leah makes it her mission to know more about her advisees than just their name,” her nomination letter states. “She shows a genuine interest in knowing them as an individual and treats every student as they are just as important as the next.” Sexton is eligible for the President’s Staff Excellence Award. She received several gifts and will be presented a plaque at the staff awards luncheon.

Dr. David Bateman, associate professor of chemistry, and Dr. Brad Rowland, assistant professor of chemistry, will attend the American Chemical Society National Meeting in New Orleans March 18-22 with 10 Henderson State undergraduate research students and members of the HSU Chemistry Club.

The theme of the meeting is Nexus of Food, Water, and Energy with about 15,000 attendees from around the world. In addition to individual research presented by Henderson undergraduate research students, Rowland and Bateman will be giving an oral presentation entitled “Implementation and analysis of a placement exam in first year chemistry courses at Henderson State University: Results, assessments, and outlook.”

Bateman and Rowland are also co-advisors of the HSU Chemistry Club and will be accepting the ACS Outstanding Student Affiliate chapter award and the Green Chapter Award at an awards ceremony during the meeting. Henderson is one of only 52 outstanding chapters and one of 56 Green chapters chosen from more than 1,000 student chapters nationally.

The students will have the opportunity to attend talks, visit the graduate student recruiting fair, interview for jobs at the career fair, and attend the vendor exhibition. The Chemistry Club will participate in the Chemistry Demonstration Exchange to share successful demonstrations conducted at events like Family Science Night and Henderson Halloween. 

Dr. Nydia Jeffers, assistant professor of Spanish at Henderson State University, will present papers at two conferences in the next two months.

At the 2018 Southern Conference on Language Teaching in Atlanta, Georgia, March 15-17, Jeffers will present a paper to connect 10 vocabulary learning researchers with 10 tech tools to get and/or generate listening and lexical materials for the Spanish language and culture courses.

At the 2018 Southeast Coastal Conference on Language & Literatures in Savannah, Georgia, April 5-6, she will present a paper comparing the black female protagonists’  response to white supremacy and slavery in two narratives, the French novella “Ourika” (1823) by Claire Duras, and the Venezuelan short story “La Sibila de los Andes” (1840) by Fermín Toro.

This paper will be considered for possible inclusion in a peer-reviewed journal published by Georgia Southern University. 

William Henshaw and Douglas Gilpin, both professors of theatre at Henderson State University, will attend the United States Institute Of Theatre Technology 2018 National Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida March 12-18.

The USITT is the national conference for professional theatrical design and technology. There are also meetings of the sister international group OISTAT as well as sessions about world theatre. 

Gilpin will serve on the Design Expo Committee, overseeing the set up and running of the major 2018 Design Expo Exhibition, and he will also enter a scenic design in this juried invitational exhibition. 

Henshaw will help run the Queer Roundtable session, a group he cofounded, assist the costume commissioner and run for a national office in the organization.

Gilpin and Henshaw will also mentor five current Henderson students and several alumni who will also attend the conference, helping them navigate the schedule, network, and search for graduate programs. They will all have the opportunity to attend multiple workshops and sessions relevant to their fields and explore international and national design styles, design software, and the production design process.

Both Henshaw and Gilpin have attended the conference for many years.

“I return from these conferences recharged and rejuvenated as an educator and as a designer,” Gilpin said.

Dr. Patti Poblete, assistant professor of English at Henderson State University, will present a paper, “Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces: Writing Program Administrative Work in Fostering Resilience,” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Kansas City, Missouri in mid-March.

The focus of the paper will be on how to introduce (possibly) sensitive content to students in a way that respects their boundaries and experiences while encouraging them to find ways to productively participate in difficult conversations.

She will also be attending the Association for Teachers of Technical Writing which will also be meeting in Kansas City immediately prior. Poblete has been an active participant in both conferences, in somewhat different capacities for several years, serving on the executive committee for the Asian/Asian-American Caucus presenting a number of times at CCCC.

She acts as a social media correspondent for both CCCC and ATTW, serving as part of a team of attendees who document panels and events for folks who are not able to physically travel to the conference.