Toni Phillips, complex director, Residence Life, co-presented the workshop “Assisting Student Parents in Higher Education to Succeed” with Marcelina Rondon, EOP counselor at University at Buffalo, at the fourth biennial statewide conference sponsored by the Buffalo State College Association of Faculty and Staff of African Descent (AFSAD) and the University at Buffalo Minority Faculty and Staff Association (MFSA). The conference was held at the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center in Amherst on June 5. The conference theme was “Proactive Approaches in Higher Education.”

Barbara D. Miller, associate professor, Modern and Classical Languages, has been invited to publish an article based on the paper she presented in May at the 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies, held at Western Michigan University. The invitation came from leading Arthurian scholar Anne Berthelot, professor of French at the University of Connecticut. Miller’s article, “Natural Elements and the Hunt in the Spanish Merlin’s Death,” will appear in Esplumeoir, the journal of La Société Internationale des Amis de Merlin.

Kimberly Hart, assistant professor, Anthropology, attended the EVIA (Ethnographic Video for Instruction and Analysis) digital archives database at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, June 7–20. She has been working on annotating 10 hours of ethnographic footage from her fieldwork in Turkey, based on wedding rituals, using software designed at IU by EVIA, the Annotator’s Workbench.

Lee Ann Grace, assistant dean, International and Exchange Programs, served as lead trainer for the Professional Practice Workshop on Managing the Education Abroad Office at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators 2009 Conference & Expo in Los Angeles, California, May 25 and 26.

Gerhard Falk, professor, Sociology, had his 19th book,The American Criminal Justice System, accepted for publication by Praeger Publishers. This is a critical review of the system and a history of criminal justice in the United States. Falk has published one book each year for the past nineteen years.

Marian Deutschman, professor of communication and interim director of the College and Community Partnerships Office, was appointed to serve on the 21st Century Commission by Lynn Marinelli, chair of the Erie County Legislature, in September 2008. The nine-member commission was formed to analyze and recommend reforms to the Erie County Legislature, including size, term length, term limits, staggered terms, and district versus at-large seats, as well as a review of the time legislators devote to constituent services and community involvement. The commission issued its final report on May 26, and its recommendations moved to the full Legislature. At its July 2 session, the Legislature unanimously approved a local law to reduce the size of the governing body to 13 members and to extend term limits to four years. Voters may have an opportunity to vote on these measures in the November election

John Cabra, assistant professor, Creative Studies, presented a five-day elective course in Spanish for the Universidad de La Sabana’s International School of Economic and Administrative Sciences, in Colombia in June. In attendance were entrepreneurs, students, and faculty. The course was titled “Creativity and Innovation Uncovered: Skills and Tools to Facilitate Creative Problem Solving.”

A chapter by Dolores Battle, senior adviser to the president for equity and campus diversity, titled “Multiculturalism, Language, and Emergent Literacy,” is included in the book Emergent Literacy and Language Development: Promoting Learning in Early Childhood(Paula M. Rhyner, ed.; pp. 192–235; Guilford Press, 2009). Battle’s review of Anne Van Kleeck’s book Sharing Books and Stories to Promote Language and Literacyalso was published in Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica: The International Journal of Phoniatrics, Speech Therapy, and Communication Pathology, 61 (2): 117.

Kevin K. Williams, assistant professor, Earth Sciences and Science Education, presented “Estimating Ice Wedge Geometry Using Near Surface Geophysical Methods” at the Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union, held May 24–27 in Toronto, Canada.

Mark K. Warford, associate professor, Modern and Classical Languages, has published an article, “Architecture, Counseling, and Teaching in the Target Language,” in the European refereed journal Babylonia.