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Humanities and Sciences
WORKING SABBATICALS
 Once every seven years, tenured
faculty at Ithaca College are eligible for a sabbatical leave. These professional
development opportunities allow for a period of academic renewal and encourage
the scholarly activity that is essential to high-quality teaching. This
fall a significant number of H&S faculty have returned from sabbatical
leaves. A report on their activities opens a fascinating window on the breadth
and variety of the intellectual pursuits of the faculty in the school.
- Anthropology
- Michael Malpas spent the year as a visiting professor at the College
of William and Mary and presented papers at regional and national archaeology
meetings.
- Art History
- Nancy Ramage combined some family history with her art historical research
and writing. She and her mother coauthored a book on her great-aunts, the
Cone sisters, who were prominent art collectors in the early 20th century.
The sisters' collection of works by Matisse, Picasso, Gauguin, van Gogh,
and other modern masters is now in the Baltimore Museum of Art. [See the
story in "Faculty and Alumni Books"
on Ramage's book on Greek pottery.]
- Chemistry
- Bill Bergmark brought to fruition some long-term projects. Two began
back in 1985, when he spent the summer at work in the laboratories of Tohoku
University in Sendai, Japan. That work has been a three-way collaboration
among Japanese colleagues, researchers at Boston University, and Bergmark
and his undergraduate students in Ithaca. While on sabbatical leave, Bergmark
wrote two major papers after completing this research, both of which have
been accepted for publication this year.
- Economics
- Frank Musgrave is drafting a textbook on the economics of health care.
- English
- Michael Twomey spent a year at the University of Dresden in Germany,
teaching medieval English language and literature as a Fulbright scholar.
He also completed an article and several reviews and offered guest lectures
at other sites in Germany and the Netherlands.
Fred Madden worked at Oxford University, where he was a member of the common
room and literary society of Green College. His research focused on the
philosophic dimensions of narration in the works of Joseph Conrad.
- History
- Jules Benjamin rewrote about half of his popular text, A Student's
Guide to History, for the seventh edition of the book, which has sold
more than 250,000 copies to date. Bedford Books published the new edition
in November.
- Math/Computer Science
- Osman Yurekli worked at Emory University in Atlanta as a visiting professor,
pursuing his research and preparing papers for publication on the Laplace
and the L2 transforms. While at Emory, Yurekli continued his collaborative
work with former students Ozgen Sayginsoy '97 and Christine Graziado '92;
he and Graziado recently published a paper on the Laplace transform in
the International Journal of Mathematics Education, Science and Technology.
- Philosophy and Religion
- Richard Creel did extensive research on several topics, including value
theory, the nature of time, and the nature of God, all material for a number
of papers.
- Physics
- Charles Spencer rewrote the software he and his students use for their
projects developing computer instruments. The new version is greatly improved
in its features, speed, data-handling capabilities, and ease of use. The
software allows students to develop computer-based laboratory instruments
for research in chemistry, exercise sciences, psychology, and physics.
- Psychology
- Janet Kalinowski taught developmental psychology around the world ---
literally --- as a faculty member in the University of Pittsburgh's Semester
at Sea program. Ports of call included Venezuela, Brazil, South Africa,
Kenya, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan --- where
she also did fieldwork in orphanages, schools, and nursing homes.
George Schuler pursued his interests in educational psychology by studying
the relationship between school design/architecture and student academic
achievement.
Jack Peck continued his long-standing work in collaboration with colleagues
in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell. They are investigating
the behavior of the nervous system as it modulates between rhythmic behaviors
(e.g., walking and running). Interestingly, Peck reports, the nervous system
that drives a lobster stomach is a model system for this research because
the cells are large and identifiable from lobster to lobster.
- Sociology
- Susanne Morgan worked to develop computer-based modules for her classes,
using various data sets on the value of a college education, race and poverty,
age cohorts and attitude surveys, and campus values and behaviors surrounding
sex and alcohol. She uses these modules in collaborative exercises for
her students, particularly in her First-Year Seminar and Research Methods
classes.
Judith Barker spent her sabbatical working on theories of epistemology,
particularly on the ways white working-class women develop value systems
in contemporary culture. Among the more intriguing aspects of this work
was a search for feminist messages in country music, tracing women's voices
back to the '40s. Barker presented a paper on class and epistemology at
the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association and is developing
the work for publication.
Julian Euell spent his time preparing a new course in Urban Sociology,
studying Spanish, and developing new computer applications for his courses.
He also worked in the Dominican Republic on a project studying African
American life there.
- Speech Communication
- Jody Cohen finished her forthcoming book, Critical Powers (Sage,
January 1998). She also initiated a new research program on the role of
communication in democracy, taking a six-week research trip to South Africa,
including two weeks at the University of Cape Town's Centre for Rhetoric
Studies. She is particularly interested in how a society educates people
to communicate in ways conducive to democracy.
- Theater Arts
- Arno Selco pursued his conviction that the futures of the dramatic
media of theater, television, and film will inevitably affect each other
in a powerful way. He took courses in television and film production and
direction in the Park School, and spent a week observing professional television
directors at work in their studios in New York City.
Greg Robbins designed costumes for two productions of Fiddler on the
Roof, one in nearby Auburn and one in Boston. He added more than 500
slides and other lecture material to his History of Costume and Decor course,
concentrating on very recent developments and on overlooked and underrepresented
groups in the field --- female architects, for example.
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