Camille Holmgren's teaching exercise "Lost at Sea" was awarded Exemplary status by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers' On the Cutting Edge program. This program for faculty development supports excellence in geoscience education through a variety of workshops, web-based resource services, and related activities.
James Grunebaum's article "Preference for Friends" was published as "Im Zweifel für den Freund" in Aufbau 12: 20–21 (A. Mink, trans.; Zurich, December 2013).
Kimberly Blessing, professor and chair of the Philosophy and Humanities Department, recently published the following chapters and articles:
She also presented two talks: "Theism, Atheism, and Meaningfulness of Life" at the 110th annual meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 20–23; and "Theism, Atheism, and the Meaning of Life" at Atheism: The Contemporary Debate, a symposium inspired by the recent publication of The Oxford Handbook on Atheism, held at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, on December 6.
John Thompson, associate professor, Computer Information Systems, participated in a panel presentation, “How Green Are Your Operations,” at the Green Computing Summit in Washington, D.C., on December 2. His talk was drawn partly from his blog entry, “Green Computing: How to Reduce Our Personal Carbon Footprints,” at Innovate Blog, where he was invited to be a staff writer.
A piece by Lorna Pérez, assistant professor, English, “Substitute Geographies,” was accepted for publication in the anthology OtheRican: Voices of the Greater Puerto Rican Diapsora (Aurora Levins Morales and Vanessa Perez Rosario, eds.).
Jodelle Magner, assistant professor, Mathematics, presented “How Many Reflections?” at the Western New York Mathematics Consortium’s annual conference, WNYMath, held in Clarence, New York, on November 15. The conference highlighted mathematics educators from across Western New York. Magner’s presentation had teachers explore the relationship between the number of reflections and the angle between a set of hinged mirrors. Teachers were also introduced to historical connections of the mathematics in a kaleidoscope and the relationships they discovered.
Michael Johnson, associate professor, Modern and Classical Languages, delivered his paper “Forty Years and Twenty-Eight Centuries On: Looking Back at 2001: A Space Odyssey” in the Film Studies section at the 2008 annual conference of the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association, held in Niagara Falls, Ontario, October 31–November 2.
Kimberly Hart, assistant professor, Anthropology, organized a panel with Vasiliki Neofotistos, University at Buffalo, titled “The Intimacy of Transgression” for the American Anthropological Association’s 107th annual meeting in San Francisco, California, November 19–23. She presented her paper “On the Margins at the Middle: Sunni Muslim Critiques of Turkish Modernity.” Hart was also a discussant for the session “Ethnographic Perspectives on Publics in Contemporary Turkey,” organized by Kabir Tambar and Jeremy Walton, doctoral candidates at the University of Chicago.
Reva Fish, assistant professor, Educational Foundations, has developed an interactive DVD titled “Addressing Learning and Behavior Difficulties: An Interactive Guide for Elementary Teachers.” The DVD provides classroom strategies for dealing with student issues in 10 areas and will be distributed to elementary school teachers in the Buffalo Public Schools.
Roger Firestien, lecturer, International Center for Studies in Creativity, delivered the closing seminar for the 2008 class of the United States Veterans Administration leadership training program in San Antonio, Texas, on September 18.