College of Liberal Arts & Sciences News and Events

College of Liberal Arts and Science

Medal Winners Marywood University Commencement, May 10, 2009

Back Row (left to right), Stephen Patrick Schneider, Melissa Kreppel, Katherine McCormack, Eric Viscuso

Front Row (left to right), Jenny Shrestha, Lauren Tyrrell, Kaitlin Haley

English Department

• Lauren Tyrrell, English Major, with minors in Writing and Spanish, won First Prize at the national Delta Epsilon Sigma writing contest in the Category "Expository, Informal" for her essay "Failure to Perk" as well as Second Prize in the category "Expository, Research" for her essay "Manifesto:  Manifesting the Ideology of Wendell Berry."

 

 

 

• Dr. Ann Bush, Assistant Professor of English, has been selected to participate in a seminar on Slave Narratives that will be led by Professor David Blight of Yale University, June 7-10, 2009.  Dr. Bush was one of only 30 faculty members selected for this seminar.

• Dr. Laurie McMillian, Associate Professor of English, presented a paper in September: "The P-P-P-P-Pink Guitar: Politics, Poetry, Performance, Play." Lifting Belly High: A Conference on Woman's Poetry Since 1900, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh. 

• Dr. McMillan also had a chapter accepted for an edited volume: "Conversations about Composition: Student Texts across Classrooms."  Teaching Writing with Student Texts. Ed. Chuck Paine, Joseph Harris, and John Miles.

Foreign Language Department

• Jialing Qiu served as visiting professor from Ju County, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China.  Jialing taught Chinese Literature, Mandarin and Chinese during the fall 2008 semester.  Jialing received a Master of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from Hebei University.

"The people here are very honest and generous.  I have never met people like this in my life." said Dr. Qiu.  "I cannot begin to thank everyone for their sincere hospitality.  Sr. Gannon went above and beyond in helping me adjust to this new culture when I first moved here.  Dr. Foley, Hong Miao, and Zhong Geng were also very supportive."

• College Immersion Day - Over 90 gifted foreign language junior and senior students representing 17 local high schools were on campus Wednesday, November 5th experiencing Marywood by participating in Spanish and French games and challenging competitions.  They created their own Halloween themed skits and composed lyrics to Spanish 101 Love Songs from Youtube.  Selected students had an opportunity to interview native speakers from Peru, Mexico, Cuba and Argentina.  At the conclusion of the event, Marywood students taught French and Spanish dances and conducted Marywood's version of "Dancing with the Stars."  The event was run by Marywood University and high school faculty. 

Math Department

• Dr. Chaogui Zhang, Dr. Thomas Kent, and Dr. Craig Johnson will be accompanying 7 math majors to the the Moravian Student Mathematics Conference on Sat. Feb. 21, 2009.

• The Marywood University - High School Math Contest will be held on Saturday, March 21 in the Liberal Arts Center. Registration begins at 9:00 am and the one-hour exam begins at 10:00. There are two levels: Level I is for 9th and 10th graders and Level II for 11th and 12th graders. Cash prizes are awarded for first place ($75) through fifth place ($25) for each exam. Click for more information.

• Dr. Chaogui Zhang published in the Pan American Mathematics Journal, Volume 18, Number 4, October 2008, Title: "Distribution of k-semismooth Integers"

• Dr. Thomas Kent published 2 articles:  Title: The Structure of the s-degrees Contained Within a Single e-degree,Journal: Annals of Pure and Applied Logic and also, with Andrew Lewis, University of Leeds: Title: "On the Degree Spectrum of a Pi^0_1-class" Journal: Transactions of the American Mathematical Society

• Dr. Craig Johnson published, "Using Music Theory to Introduce Groups", Journal: Mathematics Teacher

• Dr. Johnson and Dr. Zhang attended the MAA/AMS Joint Math Meetings in Washington, D.C. on January 5-8, 2009.

Religious Studies Department

• The Religious Studies Department held a conference entitled, "Theory and Practice in Islam" on November 5, 2008, 6:30 p.m., Latour Conference Room, Nazareth Student Center.  Speaker:  Muhammed Cetin, Ph.D., Publications Coordinator at the Institute of Interfaith Dialog.  Sponsored by Marywood University and the Golden Generation Retreat Center.  View conference flyer.

Science Department

• Marywood Science Department graduate George Gavern received his D.O. degree in May from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

• Heather Elizabeth Hosie, a Marywood Biotechnology graduate has been offered an internship on a Malaria vaccine at Walter Reed Army Institute of Reseach. She will work with Dr. Evelina Agnov along with collaboration with Vito G. DelVecchio, Ph.D. of Vital Probes Inc. on this vaccine.

• Biotechnology major Charles Fisher has been accepted for a 2009 summer internship at the University of Wisconsin.  This award is under a NIH REU grant program.

• Marywood University Science Students visit Sanofi Pasteur.   Dr. Lisa Antoniacci along with 30 of Marywood's science students recently spent the day at Sanofi Pasteur in Swiftwater, PA.  During the visit students where provided with detailed information about the vaccine industry, the type of research that is performed at Sanofi, and information about internships.  Sanofi employees from all areas of Research and Development, Environment, Health and Safety, and Legal provided our students with a first hand look at the type of work they perform each day.  Students were taken on a tour of the external campus as well as allowed to tour lab facilities.  It was a great learning experience for our students allowing them to put into perspective the material they are learning about in their lecture and lab classes. The day spent at Sanofi is something that both Marywood University and Sanofi Pasteur hope to continue in the future.

• The Science Department was recently awarded $157,525 from sanofi pasteur, Inc., to purchase a Liquid Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (LC-MS) instrument that will be used to enhance their undergraduate and graduate programs in Biotechnology.  Previously, sanofi pasteur, Inc., awarded the Science Department $100,000 to construct a new Biotechnology laboratory.  This instrument will be used primarily for student and faculty research.

• Dr. Jay P. Clymer, III, Associate Professor of Science, secured a $9,800 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Department of Social Sciences

• History, Pre Law student, Vincent Uher, a member of the Scranton Police Department, will be featured on America's Most Wanted on February 28th at 8:00 p.m.

• The Social Sciences Department, along with the Turkish Cultural Center New York and the Lehigh Dialogue Center will present a conference on "The Politics of Secularism", March 16, 2009, from 5:30 - 7:30, The Latour Conference Room, Nazareth Student  Center.