MIDDLEBURY, Vt.—Courtesy of the president’s office, here’s a look at recent accomplishments and publications by Middlebury’s faculty, and in some cases their students.
Jeff Cason (political science, international programs) has been named the first holder of the Edward C. Knox Professorship of International Studies. The professorship, funded by an anonymous donor, was named for College Professor Emeritus Edward Knox to recognize his tireless work in international studies, including his vision for the College’s study abroad program, and his service to the institution in several roles. Cason was awarded this chair in recognition of his leading role in establishing and supporting the international studies program, and teaching and scholarship that serve as a testament to the value of foreign language fluency in understanding and analyzing the politics and cultures of other countries.
Two Middlebury faculty members were recently promoted to the rank of associate professor without limit of tenure: Tom Van Order of the Italian department and Jeff Munroe of the geology department. In addition, Guntram Herb from the department of geography has been promoted to the rank of full professor.
A book by Ian Barrow (history), Surveying and Mapping in Colonial Sri Lanka, 1800-1900, has just been published by Oxford University Press.
Erik Bleich (political science) has been awarded funding for his 2008-09 leave through the American Philosophical Society’s Sabbatical Fellowship program. His book project, Making it Hard to Hate: Limiting Freedom in the Name of Cohesion, analyzes the periodic incompatibility of promoting cohesion across racial, ethnic, and religious boundaries with maintaining deeply held values of freedom of speech and association. Bleich has also received a Small Research Grant from the American Political Science Association in support of the project. That grant will support travel to Berlin, Germany, during his 2008-2009 leave.
Bleich also has had an article, co-authored with Ryan K. Hart ’06, appear in German Politics: “Quantifying Hate: The Evolution of German Approaches to Measuring ‘Hate Crime.’ “ The article credits several current and past colleagues—Chris Klyza, Judy Layzer, and Mark Williams—as well as David Haglund ’06, for his research assistance.
Jeff Carpenter (economics) has co-authored an article with Jessica Holmes and Peter Matthews titled, “Charity Auctions: A Field Experiment,” which appeared in the Economics Journal.
Carpenter also reports his journal article, “Behavioral Development Economics: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World,” has been published in the March issue of Journal of Development Studies. The article was co-authored with Juan Camilo Cardenas.
Jane Chaplin (classics) has been awarded a grant from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation at Harvard University to support her 2008-09 leave. She will be working on intertextuality as an approach to classical historiography and plans to focus on Livy’s portrayal of Scipio Africanus and on the Romans in Arrian’s history of Alexander the Great.
Sunhee Choi and Roger Sandwick (chemistry & biochemistry) have co-authored an article with several Middlebury students: Livia Vastag ’07, Michelle L. Personick ’09, Kurt B. Schaberg ’09 and Benjamin J. Fowler ’09. The article, titled, “The Importance of Pt(II) Assisted Pt(IV) Substitution for the Oxidation of Guanosine Derivatives by Pt(IV) Complexes,” appeared in Inorganic Chemistry.
Ray Coish (geology) has received a fellowship from the Marion & Jasper Whiting Foundation in support of a project titled, The Volcanoes of Italy. The grant provides funding for a trip to Italy during his 2008-09 leave to sample and photograph some of the famous volcanoes and to learn about their origins from Italian colleagues at the University of Pisa. This trip will lead to enhancements in the geology course, “Earthquakes and Volcanoes.”
Molly Costanza-Robinson (environmental studies/chemistry & biochemistry) and Jeff Munroe (geology) received research funding from the Cornelius King Charitable Trust, through a sub-award from the University of Vermont, to continue work on a project titled The Taste of Place in Vermont. As part of this interdisciplinary Vermont maple terroir project, an undergraduate student will be characterizing the sugarbush-scale variability in sap chemistry.
Costanza-Robinson has also published an article in Environmental Science and Technology recently. It is titled “X-ray Microtomography Determination of Air-Water Interfacial Area-Water Saturation Relationships in Sandy Porous Media” and was co-authored with K. H. Harrold and R.M. Lieb-Lappen (both Middlebury alumni).
James C. Davis (religion) has recently published a book, On Religious Liberty: Selections from the Works of Roger Williams, with Harvard University Press. Besides editing the selections, he wrote a major interpretive essay that serves as the introduction to the volume.
A professorship honoring John Elder (English/environmental studies) has been established by the Truscott family. It will be awarded to a faculty colleague who displays a humanistic approach to environmental studies. Currently named the Truscott Professorship, it will be renamed the John C. Elder Professorship in Environmental Studies upon John’s retirement.
Cheryl Faraone (theatre) has received a fellowship from the Marion & Jasper Whiting Foundation in support of a project titled Continuing the Marriage of Science and Art. The grant provides support for a trip to London during her spring 2009 leave, during which she will be investigating the burgeoning number of plays and other performance works that intermingle science, mathematics and theatrical forms. The research will invigorate “Science and Math as Art in Contemporary Theatre,” the interdisciplinary course she teaches with Steve Abbott, and will also benefit audiences at the College and the Potomac Theatre Project.
Bill Hart (history) has published an essay, “As Formerly Under Their Respective Chiefs’: Factionalism and the Founding of Two Exile Mohawk Communities in Upper Canada, 1785-1800,” in the Proceedings of the Northeastern Native Peoples & the American Revolutionary Era, 1760 - 1810, David Naumec, ed., (Mashantucket, CT: Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, 2008).
Nadia Rabesahala Horning (political science), has published an article entitled, “Madagascar’s Biodiversity Conservation Challenge: From Local to National-Level Dynamics,” in Environmental Sciences.
Anne K. Knowles (geography) has edited a book entitled, Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship, with a digital supplement edited by Amy Hillier. The book was published by ESRI Press in Redlands, Calif. (The digital supplement is a CD of teaching materials to help teachers incorporate historical maps, spatial data, and GIS into their teaching of history.)
Michael Kraus (political science) published an essay on “La ‘Charte 77’ vue par les ‘vainqueurs’ et les ‘vaincus’in the volume on L’héritage de la ‘Charte 77’ et la naissance d’un espace public européen, Jacques Rupnik, ed. (La Nouvelle Alternative, Paris, 2008).
An interview with Kraus (who served as senior political advisor to Jan Švejnar, a candidate for the Czech presidency, last winter) by Karel Hvizdala appeared in Czech weekly, Reflex, no. 13, 2008 and in Aktualne.cz (a web-based newspaper) under the title Michael Kraus—muž v pozadí Švejnarovy prezidentské kampaně (“Michael Kraus – the Man behind Švejnar’s Campaign”)
George Matthew Jr. (College carillonneur) published an article on his post-Schoenberg style of dodecaphonic composition, incorporating South Indian solfege disciplines, using as an example his piece In Memoriam Claude Graber. (Claude Graber was a Swiss banker, hotelier, carillonneur, and campanologist.) The article appeared in Campanae Helveticae, the journal of the Swiss Carillon Guild, and was published in German and French only.
Peter Matthews (economics) has been appointed as the James Jermain Professor of Political Economy, in recognition of the breadth and creativity of his work in economics and political economy, and longstanding support of the program in International Politics.
Jeffrey Munroe (geology) has received a Franklin Grant from the American Philosophical Society and a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Special Grant for Exploratory Research program to study the recent history of alpine glaciers in Glacier National Park, Montana. The funding will support laboratory study of sediment cores retrieved in 2007 from a lake below one of the largest remaining glaciers in the park
Andrea Olsen (dance) has received a fellowship from the Marion & Jasper Whiting Foundation in support of a project titled, The Place of Dance—Workshops, Writing, and Course Development. The grant provides funding for attendance at two international workshops during her 2008-09 leave. Participation in these workshops will serve as a resource for her current book project and inform development of a course, “Nature and Creativity,” that she will co-teach with John Elder.
John Schmitt (mathematics) has co-written an article entitled, “A note on minimum K_2,3-saturated graphs.” The article was co-authored with Oleg Pikhurko of Carnegie Mellon University and recently appeared in Australasian Journal of Combinatorics.
Sallie Sheldon (biology) has received funding from the Vermont Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research as a consultant to their new “Streams Project,” which is dedicated to collecting and sharing data from streams in the Lake Champlain Watershed. The data gathered by this project will serve the needs of VT-EPSCoR’s Complex Systems Modeling Group.
Michael Sheridan (sociology & anthropology) has recently published a co-edited book with Celia Nyamweru, African Sacred Groves: Ecological Dynamics and Social Change. The book was published by Ohio University Press. Included in Sheridan’s book is a chapter written by Nadia Horning (political science), titled, “Behind Sacredness: Rules, Local Interest, and Forest Conservation in Bara Country, Southern Madagascar.”
Paul Sommers (economics) has had several articles appear recently. All of his co-authors are Middlebury College students. Titles and references are listed below:
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Brett P. Shirreffs and Paul M. Sommers, “Tee Tests: Playing with Tiger,” Journal of Recreational Mathematics, Vol. 34(1), pp. 1-4.
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Mark J. Shimrock, Peter M. Lefeber, Christian Hansen, and Paul M. Sommers, “Watering Down Coors: The Rockies’ Ball Humidor,” Journal of Recreational Mathematics, Vol. 34(1), pp. 5-7.
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Robert M. Marcoux, Filip Marinkovic, George A. Mayer, and Paul M. Sommers, “Why the NBA Bounced Their New Basketball,” Journal of Recreational Mathematics, Vol. 34(1), pp. 8-11.
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David L. Campbell, Benjamin O. Hanna, Conor A. Lyons, and Paul M. Sommers, “A Poisson Model for No-Hitters in Major League Baseball,” Journal of Recreational Mathematics, Vol. 34(1), pp. 49-52.
Allison Stanger (political science; Rohatyn Center) has been named the first Russell J. Leng ‘60 Professor of International Politics and Economics. The chair was established by a gift to honor Professor Leng’s many accomplishments as teacher and scholar at Middlebury. Stanger’s wide-ranging work in the field of international studies, ongoing support for the international studies program as director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, excellent teaching in the department of political science, and current research on the outsourcing of American national security, all make her a very appropriate first holder of the Russell J. Leng chair.
Frank Winkler (physics) has received funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s General Observer Program for a project entitled SN 1006: The Millennium Supernova Remnant, which involves collaborators from the Space Telescope Science Institute, North Carolina State, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. They are using the Spitzer Space Telescope in an attempt to measure for the first time infrared radiation from the remains of the 1006 A.D. supernova, brightest star ever witnessed in recorded human history.
Grace Spatafora (biology) has had a manuscript published in the April 2008 issue of Microbiology. It is entitled “SloR modulation of the Streptococcus mutans acid tolerance response involves the GcrR response regulator as an essential intermediary.” The manuscript was co-authored with D. W. Dunning, L. W. McCall, W. F. Powell, Jr, W. T. Arscott, E. M. McConocha, C. J. McClurg, and S. D. Goodman. Of note: Daniel Dunning, a Biology major who graduated from Middlebury College in March, 2006, is the primary author on this paper. Dan was employed as a research technician in the Spatafora laboratory from 2006-08. Other Middlebury College co-authors include Lathan McCall [MBBC, ’08], W. “Frankie” Powell [MBBC, ’06], W. Tristram Arscott [MBBC, ’06], Erin McConocha [MBBC, ’07], and Cheryl McClurg [MBBC, ’08].
Phani Wunnava (economics) reports his recent article entitled, “Financial Liberalization and Economic Growth: Lessons from the South African Experience,” has just appeared in International Journal of Applied Economics. The article was co-written with Scott Pardee and David Tswamuno ‘06. The paper is an extension of Tswamuno’s honors thesis under the direction of Wunnava and Pardee.
In addition, Wunnava’s article titled, “Long-Run Relationship between Union and Nonunion Wages—A Vector Error Correction Approach,” appeared in Empirical Economics Letters, in their July 2007 issue. The article was co-written with Bradley T. Ewing.
Dana Yeaton’s play “Redshirts” is a nominee for the 2008 Charles MacArthur Outstanding New Play Award. The play’s first public reading—under its original title, “Tennessee Southern”—was held at Middlebury College in April 2006.