David Ben-Merre, chair and professor of English, has written a new book, O: Apostrophic Ghosts and the Disappearing Acts of Lyric Poetry, which is available for pre-order on the SUNY Press website. The book will be released in October 2025. In poetry circles, "O" is commonly associated with apostrophe—a dramatized turn to call out to an absent friend or idea. This call, however, is made possible by a graphic sign it pretends not to acknowledge. O follows poets who were rethinking the apostrophic "O" alongside its symbolic, iconic, and material forms. Organized conceptually rather than chronologically, the book explores how works by W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, Emily Dickinson, and Terrance Hayes, as well as the singer-songwriter Carly Simon and the band The Cure, each turn at deeply human moments to call forth an alternative to the present. Culminating in an experimental epilogue cowritten with the Romanticist scholar Manu Samriti Chander, O engages with ongoing, sometimes excessive debates about lyric poetry and literary critical method, finding modest ground between their respective sides.

Joelle Leclaire, chair and professor of economics and finance, appeared on Radio-Canada's (CBC Canadian national news) Zone Economic on April 30, for a live national evening news television interview in French with Gérald Filion, to discuss the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

Suparna Soni, associate professor of economics and finance, was invited by her alma mater, the University at Buffalo, to give the annual Pi Sigma Alpha talk for the Political Science Department’s awards ceremony on Wednesday, April 30. Dr. Soni notes: "It was a full-circle moment—sharing my journey, reconnecting with mentors, and celebrating students who are just starting theirs."

Kristen Mruk, special assistant to the provost and Senate, successfully defended her dissertation in practice entitled "Ready or Not? Pre-service Teachers and Emergency Preparedness for School Settings" on April 28.  She will receive her doctor of education (Ed.D.) from the Learning and Teaching in Social Contexts Department of Learning and Instruction at the University at Buffalo at the Commencement ceremony on May 16.

Bridget María Chesterton, professor of history and social studies education, recently published a blog post for the Recipes Project special Spring 2025 edition on "War and Food." Her post considers how a Paraguayan cookbook helped form ideas about the nation following the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870).  In June 2025, she will also publish new book chapter in the text volume A Violent Peace: A Global History of the Interwar Period (University of Kansas Press) entitled "The Chaco War, 1932–1935." She is also currently editing a special dossier on Paraguay, Dictatorship, and Everyday Life for the Middle Atlantic Journal of Latin American Studies (MARLAS). The edition is scheduled for publication in June and will contain her article entitled: "Cooking Up 'Peace:' White Middle-Class Paraguay Women in the Kitchen’s during the stronato."

Associate Professor of English Kim Chinquee's ninth book, her prose poetry collection Contact with the Wild, is being released this month by MadHat Press and is now available for order online. Overview: "Kim Chinquee's Contact with the Wild is a collection of prose poems exploring themes of family, nature, memory, and healing. The poems weave together fragmented narratives, incorporating surreal imagery and dream sequences. Personal experiences, such as the protagonist's childhood on a farm and her father's schizophrenia, are interwoven with reflections on larger societal events, such as a devastating blizzard. The collection utilizes a stream-of-consciousness style to create a visceral and emotional reading experience."  In addition, Chinquee's novella, I Thought of England (published in the Triptych Agency 3: novellas), with Baobab Press will be released on September 9, 2025, and is now available for preorder online.  Overview: "Three novellas, Teresa Carmody's Today Must Be Sunday, Kim Chinquee’s I Thought of England, and Allison Pitinii Davis’s Business, unique in style and narrative, deal with longing, loneliness, fear, and the relationships their characters make, and break, on their way to something like peace, if not happiness. Entering and abandoning social contracts and expectations across the country in the pursuit of the somewhat ethereal notion of contentment, these stories highlight the struggles of women across American cultural eras, armed only with their ability to think and to act. These three novellas describe the harrowing, soul-rattling actions and choices made by women in the pursuit of defining their lives. I Thought of England, a novel-in-flashes, follows a woman’s journey in a new location (for her career) after being a single mom for eighteen years. A recent empty-nester, she falls into a community of competitive runners, along with colleagues in academia. Growing up on a family dairy farm, getting married then divorced early while in the military, living around the world, she carries her past with her through her career, her running, the men she runs with, and the complications that come with them." Recent praise of Chinquee's work: “There is a simplicity to her prose, much of it is pared back and precise. It takes some skill to write so sparingly and requires a self-confidence born from experience and commitment to the craft of writing. Chinquee is a clever writer who is always in control of her material.” —IndieReader “Chinquee’s measured prose breaks over the reader like shallow, slow-moving waves.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is an author who knows how to take nothing for granted!” —Kyle McCord, author of Reunion of the Good Weather Suicide Cult “To read Kim Chinquee’s work is to be startled, touched and affected.” —Pia Z. Ehrhardt, author of Famous Fathers and Now We are Sixty “Kim Chinquee has the dead-eye aim and the precision with language that makes her stories hit the mark again and again.” —Jean Thompson, National Book Award finalist author of Who Do You Love "Kim Chinquee is a master storyteller. She brilliantly balances short-short and longer stories..." —Brandon Hobson, National Book Award finalist author of Where the Dead Sit Talking  "Kim Chinquee is an American original." —Ben Bradlee, Jr, author of The Kid: the Immortal Life of Ted Williams and The Forgotten: How the Abandoned People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America "The girls and women breathing through Chinquee’s pages grapple with the casual cruelty of lovers, parents, and a soul-shattering culture. Hands may be calloused and hearts broken, but pervading every bracing, beautifully crafted sentence is a quiet, insistent strength..." —Dawn Raffel, author of The Secret Life of Objects and Carrying the Body "There is always a roiling subtext beneath the seemingly placid surfaces and tones of Chinquee's stories, a dichotomy which speaks to deep truths about the human condition. Kim Chinquee is a true artist with a true vision..." —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain

Ilya Grinberg, chair and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of engineering technology, has written a book chapter, "Lend-Lease Aircraft on the Soviet-German Front: The Test Case of the Air Battles over Ukraine in 1944," in The German-Soviet War edited by Jeff Rutherford and Robert von Maier, published by Cornell University Press (2025).  

Deborah Silverman, chair and associate professor of communication, has been appointed as vice chair (chair-elect) of the national Commission on Public Relations Education (CPRE), replacing the late Dr. Pamela Bourland-Davis, who died earlier this month. Silverman, the current secretary of CPRE, will become co-chair (PR educators) of CPRE next January for a two-year term, working alongside co-chair for PR practitioners Christopher Brathwaite. Silverman was elected to a one-year term as secretary in 2024, the first year of the commission’s operation as a 501(c)(3) organization, and was elected to a two-year term as secretary in 2025. CPRE, the authoritative voice on public relations education, was founded in 1973 by the Public Relations Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and the Public Relations Society of America to address the quality of public relations education in the United States. Since then, CPRE has issued periodic research reports and recommendations on undergraduate and graduate education in public relations for universities, accrediting bodies, and professional associations around the world. Today, with 24 member organizations in the U.S. and abroad, CPRE operates year-round as a 501(c)(3) organization in partnership with the Institute for Public Relations and continues to offer a forum for public relations education with a global perspective.

Bridget María Chesterton, professor of history and social studies education, won the 2025 Middle Atlantic Conference on Latin American Studies Davis prize for the best article published by a member in the past two years. The article entitled "In Guaraní Lands: Paraguay as a Tourist Destination in the Magazines and Newspapers of Brazil during the Stroessner Era" appeared in the journal Revista Historia Autónoma (Spain).  The article was published in October 2024.

Angela Thering, lecturer of higher education administration and adult education, participated in two events at the 2025 SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology (CIT), held at SUNY Oneonta. She co-presented a session titled Reflections on SUNY-CMU Partnership Opportunities and Realities of Adapting to a Changing Educational Landscape alongside Karen Caldwell (SUNY Potsdam) and Erin Czerwinski (OLI, Carnegie Mellon University). Thering also presented a poster titled The Brightspace Organization Page: A Hub for Graduate Student Engagement and Success, which she co-authored with Andrea Nikischer, associate professor of social and psychological foundations at Buffalo State. This student-centered Brightspace organization page was awarded first place in the 2025 SUNY Online Effective Practice Awards.