Seth Oyer, assistant professor of communcation, presented his work on using scavenger hunts to reinforce student learning outcomes during the Fostering Innovation in Teaching with Technology (FITT) Spring Symposium on Tuesday, April 4. The FITT Spring Symposium is a signature element of the FITT Academy, providing a forum for FITT scholars to share their project outcomes.

Gerald Mead, lecturer in the Design and Art Education departments, has a solo exhibition of his small-scale mixed media and found object assemblages, titled Mining the Archive: New Works by Gerald Mead, on view at Studio Hart in Buffalo March 3–25. Mead's work was included in the group exhibition Visual AIDS: Postcards from the Edge at Metro Pictures in New York City January 14 and 15. He received a Juror’s Award for his work in CEPA Gallery’s Members Exhibition in Buffalo January 29–March 5. He also juried the entries for the upcoming 60th annual Allentown Art Festival in Buffalo and the 47th annual 100 American Craftsmen at the Kenan Center in Lockport, and he served on the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s selection committee for a commissioned work of public art for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority’s Allen-Medical Campus Metro Station.

John Cabra, associate professor of creative studies, attended the 60th anniversary celebration of the Fulbright program in Colombia hosted by the ambassador of Colombia to the United States. In attendance were presidents of Colombian universities, the Colombian minister of education, and Fulbright scholars.

Thilo Schaller, assistant professor of music, served as co-producer, recording producer, and engineer on the album "Canada," released on the Traumton label. The album was nominated for an Echo Jazz award. Echo awards are German music prizes awarded by the Deutsche Phono-Akademie (de) to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. The Echo Jazz award, for personalities and production of jazz, has been awarded annually since 2010.

Daniel Cunningham, professor of mathematics, has been notified that his paper "A Strong Partition Cardinal above ?” has been accepted for publication in the Archive for Mathematical Logic. This refereed journal publishes research papers in set theory and mathematical logic. Dr. Cunningham's paper establishes theorems on the consistency strength of the existence of certain strong partition cardinals. The mathematical research presented in this paper was conducted during his fall 2016 sabbatical.

Zhang Jie, professor of sociology and director of the Center for China Studies, published his paper "Impulsivity, Mental Disorder, and Suicide in Rural China," coauthored with Lin Lin, in the Archives of Suicide Research 21 (1): 73–82.

Zhang Jie, professor of sociology and director of the Center for China Studies, published his paper "Social Psychological Factors and Suicidal Intent among Suicide Attempters in Rural China: A Path Analysis" in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 205 (1): 48–53. The study's coauthors were Wang Jin-Yu, Jie Chu, Shi-Hua Sun, Xiao-Lei Guo, and Cun-Xian Jia.

Zhang Jie, professor of sociology and director of the Center for China Studies, published his paper "Life Satisfaction and Degree of Suicide Intent: A Test of the Strain Theory of Suicide" (PDF, 254 KB), coauthored with Yanzheng Liu and Long Sun, in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry 74: 1–8.

Thomas Reigstad, professor emeritus of English, has been appointed to the New York State Education Department’s Principal Preparation Project Focus Group, a project designed to enhance state support for the development of school building leaders. Findings from the focus groups and a related survey will be used to identify the strengths of state-based programs for school building leaders, as well as areas of possible improvement.

Thomas Reigstad, professor emeritus of English, was interviewed by Rachael Gillman, host of the BBC series Witness, for the episode “The Lost Manuscript of Huckleberry Finn,” which aired on February 20. Witness is a production of the BBC World Service that examines key events in history through firsthand accounts and expert commentary. Reigstad, a Mark Twain scholar, talked about the discovery of the missing half of Twain’s original manuscript of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Presumed lost for almost 100 years, the extant half of the manuscript was found in 1990 in a steamer trunk in Hollywood, California, and underwent months of legal wrangling before eventually being reunited with its original half in the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.