ART and ART HISTORY: Assistant Professor Ya’Ke Smith will be at Focus on Faculty speaker Feb. 8 at noon at the Central Library. Smith is currently working on a new feature-length film, “Wolf.” … MFA student, Sydney Webb, was selected late last year as the Southern Graphics Council International Student Representative. SGC International is an educational non-profit organization committed to informing issues and processes concerning original prints, drawings, book arts, and hand-made paper. … Former faculty member Sue Graze will lead a new graduate seminar focused on studio artists for The University of Texas at Austin. … Work by Francisco Moreno (BFA, ’10) will be featured in the latest New American Paintings MFA Annual. Moreno is an MFA student at Rhode Island School of Design. … Kapil Mani Dixit (BA, ‘04) submitted work for auction to benefit the Help Nepal Network. Most of this 17 paintings – inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Frida Kahlo’s The Two Fridas and Vincent van Gogh’s The Bedroom – were sold and proceeds given to the charity. … Photographs of Las Vegas by Associate Professor Leighton McWilliams will be on display this month at 621 Gallery in Tallahassee, Fla. The “Stranger in a Strange Land” exhibit will run through Jan. 28. … Work by MFA student Corey Gossett will be on display Feb. 9-March 31 in his exhibition “There’s No Sun Shining Through” at Gallery 76102. An opening reception and performance will also be held Feb. 9 at 6 p.m. at the Fort Worth Center art gallery. … Bongani Mlambo (BFA, ’10) was featured earlier this month in post on the blog, Ebony Delights.

COMMUNICATION: KXAS/NBC 5 interviewed Chyng-Yang Jang, associate professor of communication technology, about the use of social media by law enforcement, and the potential impact on witnesses of possible crimes. “If I see something suspicious, it might be too much trouble for me to call [police] to provide a clue. But, through social media, I see that it’s not just me but 3 or 4 people that have reported it, then I feel more comfortable putting in my two cents,” Jang said. … Former journalism instructor Phil Vinson opined about the “war on Christmas” in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article last month. … UT Arlington graduate Dr. Sandy Trexler recently announced two new entrepreneurial endeavors, including a new system for weight loss for women, on PRLog.com. … Assistant Professor Dr. Shelley Wigley will spend the spring semester working on a co-authored project about negative Facebook posts on organizational pages and their impact on stakeholder. Wigley also had an article, “A Study of PR Practitioners’ Use of Social Media in Crisis Planning,” published in the Public Relations Journal. … Associate professors Dr. Andrew Clark and Dr. Tom Christie were awarded first place in the open category of the International Division paper competition for the Broadcast Education Association conference. They will present their paper “Bypassing Traditional Media through Shortwave Radio: Expanding the Model of Value Equivalence” at the BEA conference in Las Vegas in April. … Two of Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Dustin Harp‘s research papers have been accepted for presentation at the International Communication Association annual conference this May. … Communication technology Specialist Roby McEuen, will be in Jackson, Miss., this week to judge the American Advertising Federation, the city’s annual advertising competition. … The official Grand Prairie Calendar for 2012 chose a photo by Senior Lecturer Allen Sheffield for the month of November. … Julie Zhu, M.A. graduate, will be graduating from the University of Maryland with a Ph.D. in Communication in May.  She had accepted a position as an assistant professor in Communication at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her area of expertise is Intercultural Communication. … Declan Miller-McGee has been hired by SKY Helicopters in Garland as a helicopter camera operator/videographer. Later this month, Declan will be providing aerials for KDFW and KTVT. … Erick Fernandez has been hired as weekend Technical Director for Univision. Edgar Maldonado and Sonia Salas have been offered internships at Univision. … Two journalism majors have been offered paid internships for summer 2012 through the Dow Jones News Fund program. Bryan Bastible will be a copy editor and page designer at the Beaumont Enterprise while Jose Enriquez will be a copy editing intern at The Dallas Morning News.

ENGLISH: Dr. Ken Hada (PhD, ’00) contributed original poetry to The River White: A Confluence of Brush and Quill (Mongrel Empire Press, 2011). Hada and his brother Duane wrote the book as a tribute to Arkansas’s White River. … Alumna Norma McMahan Taylor (MA, ’79) recently published a book, Valley View Days: 1939-1945, about her childhood in Abilene, Texas, during World War II, the Abilene Reporter-News reported. … Professor Dr. Stacy Alaimo will be a presenter Feb. 24 as part of the Ecological Movement panel held at The George Washington Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute, the organization’s blog reported. Alaimo’s primary interests include the environmental humanities, animal studies and cultural studies.

HISTORY: Sam Nix (BA, ’04) was among the featured speakers for last week’s “Sharing the Dream Banquet,” an annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in Arlington. Nix is the principal of Carter Junior High. … Professor Dr. Andrew J. Milson has co-edited two books slated for release in 2012: International Perspectives on Teaching and Learning with GIS in Secondary Schools and National Geographic World Cultures and Geography. Both books will be used for national and international geography education.

LINGUISTICS and TESOL: Associate Professor Dr. Laurel Stvan was recently awarded a CARE Fellowship by the University of Birmingham (England) for her research at the Centre for Advanced Research in English. … Professor and Department Chair Dr. Colleen Fitzgerald has been elected to a three-year term on the Nominating Committee of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas. … Fitzgerald also gave two talks in December at two different conferences in Australia. She spoke at PARADISEC’s Sustainable Data from Digital Research conference at the University of Melbourne. She also gave a talk at LaTrobe University, part of a workshop organized by LaTrobe’s Research Centre for Linguistic Typology.

MODERN LANGUAGES: Associate Professor and Department Chair Dr. Antoinette Sol, with Dr. Sarah Davies Cordova (Marquette University), has published an early 19th-century play, Le Nègre by Balzac. The play recounts the story of a former slave tormented by his love for his patron’s young wife. … Assistant Professor Dr. Sonja Watson’s article “Poetic Negrism and the National Sentiment of Anti-West Indianism and Anti-Imperialism in Panamanian Literature” was accepted for publication with Callaloo, one of the premiere journals in the field of Caribbean Studies and her article. Another article of Watson’s, “Liminalidad, identidad y ‘conciencia doble’ en Gamboa Road Gang, una novella del Canal,” appeared in the fall issues of PALARA (Publication of the Afro Latin American Research Association), a journal that focuses exclusively on Afro-Hispanic and Afro-Brazilian culture and literature. … Associate Professor Dr. Aimée Israel-Pelletier’s book Rimbaud’s Impressionist Poetics: Vision and Visuality, has been approved for publication by The University of Wales Press & University of Chicago Press as part of the European Visual Culture series.

MUSIC: The Minneapolis Star-Tribune listed a concert by UT Arlington music associate professor and associate director of jazz studies Dan Cavanaugh as a “big gig.” The paper called Cavanaugh “a fine pianist, outstanding composer and heralded university music prof.” … The university recently updated its “on hold” messages and they now include a selection from the Student Jazz Orchestra’s Caravan of Cool. The song included, “Jotma,” was written by Cavanaugh.

POLITICAL SCIENCE: KTVT/CBS 11 interviewed Associate Professor Dr. Allan Saxe about most polls that still show other candidates leading Gov. Perry in the race to become the GOP presidential nominee.

A display board in Gandhi’s Darshan exhibition hall in New Deli, India. (Photo by Dr. Ritu Khanduri)

SOCIOLOGY and ANTHROPOLOGY: Assistant Professor (Anthropology) Dr. Ritu Khanduri spent part of her holiday break in New Delhi, India, researching material for a book on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the famed leader of Indian independence movement. Travel and work was partially supported through the McDowell Center for Critical Languages and Area Studies. She also presented a paper on newspaper cartoons at a conference at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. … Khanduri is also a contributing editor for Anthropology News and writes a monthly column, “J Drive,” that features researchers and scholars from around the world. … Associate Professor (Sociology) Dr. Susan Gonzalez Baker has been invited to serve as a member of the United Way of Tarrant County’s Diversity Committee. The committee oversees improving the diversity of donors, program support and funding and internal diversity awareness. Gonzalez Baker is also director of the Center for Mexican American Studies. … Felix Wong (BA-Sociology, ‘79), director of planning for the City of Mansfield, was featured in an article in the Mansfield News-Mirror. … The Dallas Morning News quoted Dr. Dana Dunn, Associate Professor of Sociology and former provost, in a story about the decreasing numbers of men graduating from college in Texas. Experts say the jobs that men without college degrees have traditionally depended upon — in construction, technical fields and the like — won’t be as plentiful going forward. “The coming years are going to be very telling,” Dunn said. “One could almost predict that we’re going to see some shifts when you look at what’s happening in the economy and the loss of the kinds of jobs men would find their way to when they dropped out.” … Author Angela Martin-Winegar (BA-Sociology, ’11) recently published her latest children’s book, A Very Backward What-If Book (Tate Publishing). Read more about her work at http://angelawinegar.tateauthor.com/. … The Christian Science Monitor interviewed Dr. Ben Agger, director of the UT Arlington Center for Theory, about a Pew Research Institute marriage study. It found that barely half of U.S. adults are currently married, a record low, and the continuing downward trend will result in less than half being married in just a few years. “The Pew data provoke alarmist reactions among the family-values crowd who conclude erroneously that marriage is imperiled,” Agger said. What is happening in American households, he said, is that people are delaying marriage until their mid- to late-20s, and there are increasing numbers of elderly people, especially women, who live alone because their spouses have died. … Assistant Professor Dr. Jason Shelton was quoted in a Dallas Morning News story about non-Christians celebrating Christmas. Shelton noted that while for many in America, Christmas is a profoundly holy time, for others it is just part of the cultural landscape and as American as apple pie. “When you talk about Christmas, you’re also talking about consumerism, American culture, American national identity,” he said. “In a lot of ways, it’s like Super Bowl Sunday. The hard-core fans come out, they invite their friends over and they really watch the game. And then you have all the people who just want to go to the party. They don’t know what a first down is. But no one wants to be left out.”

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The political science and philosophy double-major begins next month a 10-week internship for the U.S. State Department, moving to Rome, Italy, to work at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. She said her work would include researching and writing reports on human rights issues, organizing itineraries for visiting officials and assisting the embassy staff.

“I want to go into this internship with what I’ve learned in the classroom and see how theories are applied in reality,” Simanski said. “The embassy directs and executes foreign policy. It will be great to have a firsthand experience to see how that is handled.”

Simanski applied for the internship last summer while researching opportunities to study international affairs. She said she received unofficial word last fall and confirmation right after Christmas.

After graduation this May, Simanski plans to pursue a graduate degree in an international affairs program only offered by a few universities in the U.S., including Texas A&M, University of California-San Diego and Tufts.

For now, though, her focus is on her upcoming internship and the knowledge and experience she is sure to gain.

“I’ve never been to Europe. I’m excited to visit this part of the world,” she said. “I want to know more about global affairs. There’s only so much you can read from a book.”

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[Written by James Dunning, COLA Communications]

As students consider graduate degrees at UT Arlington, advisors are making a point to help with preparations for careers in academia. Diversifying skill sets and gaining experience through teaching and research assistantships is common advice for those enrolled in a graduate program.

In the Department of English, professors stress the importance of teaching composition courses as well as literature classes to those planning a move into the world of academia.

“Students need to train themselves in more than one area so they will be hirable,” said Dr. Johanna Smith, Associate Professor of English. “In addition to looking at literary theory, we spend time looking at the state of the field and the state of the [job] market. Our department offers workshops for grad students heading onto market, including mock interviews. Some of the experience we gain of searching for department candidates is passed on to our students.”

Students are also encouraged to take advantage of some of the skill-building opportunities that professors support outside of the classroom, advisors said.

“Different options [for students] are there, but they have to take the initiative,” said Dr. Bob Kunovich, Associate Professor of Sociology and graduate advisor. “We have opportunities to TA [be a teaching assistant] or serve as instructional leaders for online courses. There is mentoring that needs to happen outside the classroom. It might be picking a journal [for research submissions], writing letters to the editor or networking at conferences. There is more competition for master students who want to go on [to a Ph.D. program] … and there are a lot of things we do to help them stand out.”

Read more about the current outlook for academic jobs on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website.

To see a full list of Liberal Arts programs available at UT Arlington, visit the Office of Graduate Studies’ website.

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[Written by James Dunning, COLA Communications]

Dr. Charles Knerr

Dr. Charles Knerr, Associate Professor of Political Science at UT Arlington, passed away earlier this month. Memorial services were held January 8 in Arlington.

Dr. Knerr began teaching at UT Arlington in 1976 and served as assistant chair of the Department of Political Science during the mid-1990s. He was a co-founder of the American Collegiate Moot Court Association (ACMA) and faculty advisor for the UTA Moot Court group since its inception in 1996.

ACMA president Frank Guliuzza posted on the group’s website that Professor Knerr was instrumental in starting a national, intercollegiate moot court tournament and the organization to govern the annual event. “Those who participate in the ACMA owe a great debt to its founder,” Guliuzza wrote.

Dr. Knerr spent much of his time outside the classroom promoting moot court, speaking on the issue at more than a dozen pre-law and political science conferences over his 37-year teaching career. He also published several articles on the topic in various journals. His recent research focus included a look at the impact of repealing the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution upon state and local government revenue, as well as case law pertaining to the 2nd Amendment, the 4th Amendment and military tribunals.

“Dr. Knerr was a gifted educator and scholar of public administration,” said Dr. Rebecca Deen, Associate Professor of Political Science and department chair. “The impact he made on countless students is immeasurable, not only in the classroom but also in organizations like the one he founded, Undergraduate Moot Court. He took the time to know people, to invest in students, to see each person with dignity and value.

“Though his passing leaves a void for our department, his legacy is strong. It exists in current students who discovered their voices through moot court and through his former students whose accomplishments are grounded on the foundation his mentoring provided.”

Dallas attorney Andrew Sommerman (’83) considered his former professor a “mentor and friend” and said Knerr was instrumental in helping him get an internship to a law firm and a new direction on life.

“He changed the course of the mighty river, no doubt,” Sommerman said. “Charlie was a true advocate of personalizing education and making sure students had an opportunity to try their chosen career before they entered or pursued it.”

Knerr served in the U.S. Air Force from 1966-1970 and worked for a year at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He earned his Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 1977.

He is survived by his wife, two sons, a mother and a brother. Memorial donations can be made to the American Collegiate Moot Court Association, 3811 Turtle Creek #1400, Dallas, TX 75219, the Moot Court Scholarship in the University of Texas at Arlington’s Department of Political Science, and UT Arlington’s Pre-Law Center Endowment.

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[Written by James Dunning, COLA Communications.]

The fall edition of UTArlington, a university magazine, features several faculty and students from the College of Liberal Arts. Story highlights include:

• Criminology and Criminal Justice Professor Dr. Alex del Carmen on his journey to the United States
• a look at an installation art project by Visiting Assistant Professor Stephen Lapthisophon
• how students are learning about Middle Eastern politics through Political Science Assistant Professor Dr. Brent Sasley
• how Liguistics and TESOL Professor Dr. Colleen Fitzgerald is saving endangered languages
• a review of photos detailing life on the U.S.-Mexico border by alumni Dominic Bracco

A digital copy of the magazine is available online: http://www.uta.edu/utamagazine/wp-content/downloads/fall-2011.pdf.

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The economic downturn has played havoc in the job market, and the education realm is no exception. But the message of the College of Liberal Arts is one of hope and optimism. Dr. Eric Bolsterli, Senior Lecturer of History as well as Assistant Dean in the College of Liberal Arts, said, “What we would like is to see more students graduate with a teacher’s certification.” This confidence is not alone in the Metroplex.

The bleak job market for teachers doesn’t scare a group of students enrolled at Southern Methodist University, the Dallas Morning News recently reported, even though ranks of those forces have been slashed locally, across the state and nationally. At UT Arlington, students who received traditional teaching certificates grew from 288 in 2007 to 325 in 2010, the article said. An estimated 294,000 jobs in the education sector have been lost nationwide since 2008, according to the American Association of School Administrators. In Texas, almost 12,000 teaching jobs were lost during the 2010-11 school year, according to a Texas school finance and accountability research firm.

Though the statistics suggest a hostile job market, numbers can be deceiving and Bolsterli encouraged students to be informed on what’s going on in the job market and plan accordingly.

“We would like to see more of our students become aware of the opportunities in teaching and, if they want to pursue it, that they actually do pursue it and get certified,” he said.

The College of Liberal Arts has begun a new initiative to raise awareness for the teacher’s certification that is available to students. The grassroots movement starts with the advisors as they guide students through the degree plan process, often recommending certification to those who they feel would make a good teacher. For Bolsterli, maturity and responsibility rank high on the character list of prospective teachers. Nancy Gandre, an undergraduate advisor in the Department of History, lists motivation and a high GPA as factors in deciding whether or not to pursue a teaching certification.

“If teaching is what they want to do, then I encourage them to get the certification here,” said Gandre.

While the view of a teaching career has sometimes been unfavorable, due to perceived low salaries, Bolsterli highlighted the fact that those salaries are growing from previous years. “It’s a good career now and we want to get the word out to people,” he said. Not only are the salaries not as low as might be expected, but there is also the opportunity to directly affect the future generations of UT Arlington by acquiring a teacher’s certification.

“The reality is that teachers that we train at UTA are probably going to end up teaching in schools whose students come to UTA. So we can influence the quality of our future incoming classes by producing highly-qualified teachers,” Bolsterli said.

With that in mind, the College of Liberal Arts is certainly prepared to produce the best quality of students through its programs. Students going through the process of obtaining a teacher’s certification at the high school level will major in the subject they are going to teach, then take courses their junior and senior year that teach them pedagogical theory and help to develop their teaching skills. They will also spend time in high school classrooms in addition to student-teaching their final semester. These steps all have a purpose in producing effective teachers. Bolsterli said, “We want them to learn the subject first, then focus on the teaching aspect of it and how you get the knowledge that you know out there to the kids in a way that they will learn it and retain it.”

The College of Liberal Arts has six degrees with teacher’s certifications, including English, History, Journalism/Communication Studies, Art, Music and Spanish. Contrary to what it may seem, acquiring a teacher’s certification does not add hours onto a degree plan, it merely replaces the minor that a student would normally obtain. Students wishing to obtain a teacher’s certification in any of these programs are encouraged to talk to their advisors, not only for practical purposes of how to proceed, but also to hear firsthand why they decided upon a teaching career.

Martha Warren is a Lecturer in the English Department as well as an Undergraduate Advisor. She got her teacher’s certification at UT Arlington and taught in high school for three years before coming back to teach at UT Arlington.

“My grandmother had always wanted to be a teacher herself but didn’t get to have the education to do that,” she said. “So she probably was an influence, but I’ve always loved reading and writing and I’ve always just felt like that was a calling.”

Bolsterli expressed similar sentiments. “It’s really satisfying,” he said. “Helping other people learn is great. It’s a real buzz. That’s why teachers do it.”

Learn more at http://www.uta.edu/libarts/teach.html.

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[Written by Benjamin Muir, COLA Communications]

ART and ART HISTORY: Work by Associate Professor Nancy Palmeri was included in “Neighbor’s,” an art collection coordinated by the Museum of Texas Tech University of Texas and New Mexico artists. … Visiting Assistant Professor Stephen Lapthisophon was named one of 10 finalists in the Dallas Observers‘ MasterMind contest. … Art history Professor Dr. Mary Vaccaro recently had a journal article about Francesco Maria Rondani and the Grotesque Style in Parma Cathedral published in the September issue of “Apollo.” She also gave a conference paper on new attributions of drawn copies by Gatti after Correggio at the annual meeting of Sixteenth Century Studies Society in October. … DFW television station, NBC5, reported on an outdoor mural created by students several years ago for a southwest Arlington neighborhood. … Several Art students participated in the “Roving Museum of Photography” project, which includes two U-Haul moving trucks converted into art galleries moving to various locations in Dallas. … Former instructor Dr. P. Gregory Warden is leaving Southern Methodist University to become president of Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland, next year. … Former adjunct Assistant Professor Debra DeWitte is a co-author of “Gateways to Art: An Introduction to the Visual Arts” (Thames & Hudson, 2011). Ralph Larmann and Kathryn Shields also contributed to the new book.

COMMUNICATON: UTARadio.com will utilize a new audio tool to offer a clearer, crisper sound during the current basketball season. Broadcast sequence coordinator Dr. Andrew Clark said the new Tieline codec will make “it sound like you’re sitting next to our play-by-play guys.” … Nabeel Jaitapker (BA, ‘03) has joined William Peace University in Raleigh, N.C., as a communication and social media marketing specialist. … Advertising Age interviewed Assistant Professor Dr. Mark Tremayne the ratings decline Nickelodeon and other child-oriented cable television networks are experiencing. The Kaiser Family Foundation determined that while the younger set continues to watch TV, more is either prerecorded or watched on other platforms. “It’s very likely not a decline in media use overall but a shift to another type of media,” Tremayne said. … Tremayne also submitted a paper entitled “Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street”” to the International Communication Association (Communication Technology division). … Assistant Professor Dr. Chunke Su’s sole-authored article entitled “Who knows who knows what in the group? The effects of communication network centralities, use of digital knowledge repositories and work remoteness on organizational members’ accuracy in expertise recognition” has recently been accepted for publication in Communication Research. … Communication instructor Michael Putnam was part of a bimonthly lecture series featuring professionals from the business and campus community for the Society for Human Resources Management. Putnam offered advice on the art of networking and mastering common interview questions. … The UTA chapter National Association for the Advancement of Colored People honored broadcast senior Dontae Robison with the Most Distinguished award at the organization’s annual recognition event Nov. 22. … Holland Sanders (BA, ’09) was recently named Marketing Manager for the Fort Worth Opera. … Jared Chism (BA, ’11) has been hired to do social media for AT&T. … Ahsan “Ali” Kahn (BA, ’11) was hired for an internship with Fleishman-Hillard, a leading international communication agency with 80 offices around the world. … Erikka Neroes (BA, ’11) has accepted a position in the Public Affairs office of the Department of Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System. During her final semester, she served as an intern in Senator Wendy Davis’ office. … Erika McMinn (BA, ’11) is an account executive at Concussion, a Fort Worth-based advertising agency. … Emily Suied (BA, ’11), past president of the UTA Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), received a $500 scholarship from the Greater Fort Worth Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. … Zoheb Hassanali (BA, ’11) recently accepted a position as a multi-media journalist with WACH in Columbia, S.C. … Andrew Knaus (BA, ’08) was hired at KTTC in Rochester, Minn. … Hope Ekwue (BA,, ’09) accepted a position as Director of Communications for Strategic Government Resource and is the contracted Public Information Officer for the City of Keller Public Works Department. … Matthew Fisher (MA) has accepted a position as Communications Manager of Multimedia for the American Heart Association. … Chris Ghanbari, broadcast major, is founder of DFW Reporting, an Arlington-based online news outlet. Ghanbari opened the company in January 2009 because of “the need for more positive news coverage in the Dallas-Fort Worth market.” … Public Relations major Kaitlin Hennessy is now Community Relations and Giving Intern at Southwest Airlines.

CRIMINOLOGY: The inaugural Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice Cohort Master’s Program class of 2011 will hold commencement ceremonies at Texas Hall in Arlington on Dec. 17. Thirty-one students from the Dallas-Fort Worth area will be the first to graduate from the program that began in 2009. … Dr. Alex del Carmen, Professor and department chair, said social networking will become a greater community funding tool in a recent Dallas Morning News story where an Oak Lawn neighborhood employed just such a tactic. “We’re going to see a trend of more and more cases where folks are going to be seeking funds through social media outlets. This is a neighborhood that saw a need and got it done.” … Academic advisor Denise Longgrear will receive the Patriotic Employer Award on Thursday, Dec. 8. She was nominated from the award (from the National Employer Support for Guard and Reserves) by a student. … Several Cohort Master’s Program students will present research March 13-17, 2012, at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences annual meeting in New York, NY. Topics include: Victim Identification, The CSI and Media Effect on Jurors, Relationships of Police Officers, and Females in the Juvenile Justice System. … The Center for Criminal Justice Research and Training held its annual fall program Sept. 15 at the UTA Fort Worth Center. The program, “Working Smart in Hard Times: Threat leadership and Creative Resource Management” featured Dr. James C. Quick, Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of UTA’s Goolsby Leadership Academy. More than 30 North Central Texas law enforcement and criminal justice executives attended the seminar. The annual spring program in April will focus on the topic of managing inappropriate social media use among law enforcement personnel.

ENGLISH: Former professor and department chair Dr. Stanton Berry Garner passed away on Nov. 20. He taught at UT Arlington from 1970-88. He was editor of the CEAA Harold Frederic critical edition (Frederic was a late 19th-century American author) that was published at UTA. Dr. Garner was also very active in the Melville Society and the author of a respected biographical study of Melville during the Civil War period. A former U.S. Naval officer, he came from Brown University and was instrumental in bringing recently retired Dr. Tom Ryan (English) to Arlington. … Former professor Dr. Frank Stallings Jr. (Northern Kentucky University) passed away Nov. 26. Stallings taught at UT Arlington during the 1960s. … Professor Dr. Stacy Alaimo was an honorary guest researcher at TEMA: Department of Thematic Studies Nov. 21-Dec. 3 at University of Linköping in Sweden. She presented an invited talk, “States of Suspension: Trans-corporeality at Sea,” and gave a workshop, “Sustainable This, Sustainable That: New Materialisms, Posthumanism, and Unknown Futures,” for the Gender Lab and Meeting Materialities series. … Professor Dr. Ken Roemer gave the keynote address at the Society for Utopian Studies conference at Penn State in October. Representatives from a dozen countries were on-hand. In addition to speaking, Roemer also helped with the selection of exhibition items and contributed an essay to the catalogue for the “Building Expectation: Past and Present Visions of the Architectural Future” exhibit at Brown University. … Associate Professor Dr. Jackie Stodnick has been appointed associate editor for “Old English/ Old Norse” for the new volume of the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Medieval British Literature. … Assistant Professor Dr. Amy Tigner’s article “Preserving Nature in Hannah Woolley’s The Queen-Like Closet; or Rich Cabinet” will be available in December in the book collection Ecofeminist Approaches to Early Modernity (Palgrave). … Senior Lecturer Dr. Tia Black won a 2011 Conference for College Teachers of English (CCTE) Creative Writing Award. The nine poems that won the award were published in CCTE Studies Volume LXXVI 2011. … Connie Meyer, an adjunct online instructor, arranged for her online British Literature class to attend the Dallas Shakespeare Festival’s fall performance of Hamlet in October. Twenty students and their families and friends attended the event. Meyer said students reported making deeper connections with one another in the face-to-face setting as well as having a deeper appreciation for Shakespeare after watching it performed live.

HISTORY: The Center for History Teaching and Learning in El Paso, Texas, recently received a grant to begin the History Survey Project – a collaborative directed by Professor Dr. Andrew Milson. The project will better equip El Paso-area history teachers. … Hollace Ava Weiner (MA, ‘04) was named one of the Texas Women of Influence by the Fort Worth Business Press in a Nov. 9 ceremony. Weiner is a journalist, freelance historian and writer.

SOCIOLOGY and ANTHROPOLOGY: Dr. Ben Agger (Sociology), director of the Center for Theory, was quoted in a Christian Science Monitor piece about the Occupy Wall Street movement’s efforts to use video as an organizational and motivational tool. Agger dismissed the effort, saying: “The revolution cannot be blogged.” … Former visiting assistant professor Dr. Matt Taylor (Anthropology) was recently hired as curator of the El Paso Museum of Archaeology. … Dr. Scott Ingram (Arizona State University) talked with students and faculty last week about sustainability in anthropology during a noon-time lecture sponsored by the Anthropology Club and Lambda Alpha. He will be teaching a class on the subject at UT Arlington during the spring semester.

THEATRE ARTS: Professor Andrew Christopher Gaupp has been invited by the New Play Development Workshop (NPDW) to perform in the showcase premiere of a new play in Washington, D.C., next August. Gaupp, who has directed eight plays for NDPW, is one of 20 actors selected nationally to perform at the annual Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference.

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I prefer, however, to think of these numbers as unique individuals – one by one by one. Three students gained national and international attention this fall. J.C. Derrick, a Communication student who is an Archer Fellow in Washington, D.C., serving as an intern at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, gained a national audience when his piece appeared on the Washington Post online. William Nutt (a graduate student in anthropology) on his first excavation in Italy, discovered what may be the earliest representation of childbirth in Western art. Mr. Nutt, who is supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship, is legally blind. Dominic Bracco, a 2008 double alumnus in Journalism and Spanish, returned to our campus in September to talk about his work documenting the drug war in Mexico. His photographs have appeared in the New York Times Sunday magazine and the Washington Post, and his work has been supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. It’s a privilege to support such talented and dedicated students, and to see their impact in the wider world.

We are also very proud of the people on our campus who have helped to make their achievements and enlightenment possible: the dedicated faculty members, the advisers, the staff members who have helped with computers and equipment. As I read anonymous student evaluations of classes, I see not only direct responses to individual subjects and instructors, but over and over again I read comments about life-changing experiences. Our students are inspired to do their very best because our faculty guides them to recognize that education is permanently transformative. What they learn here each day they will draw upon for the rest of their lives.

Recently, a longtime dream became an emerging reality: the establishment of a Center for African American Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. The chair of the search committee for its first director is Dr. Marvin Dulaney, Chair of the Department of History. The College of Liberal Arts and the School of Social Work are spearheading this initiative, and I am serving on the search committee along with Dean Scott Ryan and faculty from both Liberal Arts and Social Work. I know that our faculty and students and members of the community will benefit greatly from the many activities of this Center, which will support educational, scholarly, and civic missions.

We are experiencing challenges in budget and personnel, as are universities and colleges across the country. But we are undaunted. We know what we do has lasting value and impact, and as we go forward into the new year we celebrate achievements and the opportunity to do even more.

- Dr. Beth Wright, Dean of Liberal Arts

www.uta.edu/libarts

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The life of an educator is a diverse one. On any given day, a teacher will put on a variety of hats according to what role is currently at hand. Melanie Mason is no exception. Though officially a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication, Mason can be found performing a variety of tasks: from putting the final touches on a theatrical scene to sharing an office with her fellow faculty member and husband, Dr. Dennis Maher. In addition to her extensive role on campus, Mason has also been active in the theater life of surrounding communities. She recently sat down with Communications major Benjamin Muir to shed some light on her hybrid involvement in two departments as well as some of her upcoming theater plans.

Q: You share an office with your husband. How does that work?

A: It’s awesome. It really is. We have an opposite days teaching schedule, so it’s really not a problem. But we have been in each other’s pockets for our entire relationship because we do a lot of the same things. The only thing that we have not done is actually acted together on stage. He’s directed me, I’ve directed him, we’ve done projects together, and we’ve been co-presenters and done workshops.

Q: How and when did you get your start in theater?

A: In high school. I did it because I was terrified to give an oral book report in an English class. I took speech and theater because it was the only way I was going to survive and get an A in that class, because I was petrified. And then I thought, “I like this!” I was an introverted, shy person to strangers. I was ridiculous in front of my family, but to other people that didn’t know me I was shy. I think I’ve gotten over it.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your journey to UTA.

A: I came to UTA to finish my undergrad, because I sort of did the “hop around, try-things-out” route. I got my associate’s at Tyler Junior College and loved that, because that was a place where I fit in very well; it sort of appealed to my small, hometown roots. I’m still close friends with my professors there; almost all of them are still there. It was a family. Most theater programs are like that because you spend so much time together you become a family. I did a little bit at Texas State, but I floated the river a lot more than I did anything else. So I came to finish up here and loved it.

Q: What has been your favorite play here at UTA?

A: The ones that I’ve been drawn to the most are the ones with really strong female portrayals that I’ve been able to do. I’m a character actress, so I get to walk in a lot of different shoes that I wouldn’t have been privy to, a lot of different lives that I would have never understood. I’ve gotten to see how women’s position has changed through the decades. I think that’s important and interesting to watch because I’ve always enjoyed so many freedoms. You know, you just take it for granted that women have always been able to do this kind of stuff, and even my mother was not able to do this kind of stuff.

I also like “The Lion in Winter” that was just done here. That was the alumni production and I got to play Eleanor of Aquitane. That was pretty amazing. And we’re bringing it back for Homecoming in February! It’s alumni, faculty, and undergraduates. We’re doing it as a special encore performance for Homecoming in the Bluebonnet [Room of the E.H. Hereford University Center].

Q: What are some other theaters in the area that you’ve been involved in?

A: Theatre Arlington, predominantly. I’ve worked at WaterTower Theatre as their Education Director, and I’ve also directed there, which is really wonderful. I’ve directed at Onstage [in Bedford] and at Main Street Theatre, which is in Mansfield. I’ve also done some work at Creative Arts Theatre and School (CATS). I directed “The Hobbit” this summer at Theatre Arlington. You’re really only supposed to have 25 people for the cast but I needed 34.

Q: Do you have any theater plans over the Christmas break?

A: I did three shows in three months over the summer, so I have taken a break. When we start back in January I am doing a production here that is Natalie Gaupp’s doctoral thesis. It is being student-directed and I am playing in that. It will start in March. That will overlap with remounting “Lion in Winter” which goes up in February. At the end of February I will direct a show at CATS. So I hit the ground running. I’ve had this semester to kind of wind down.

Q: You mentioned earlier that you were not officially a theater arts faculty member but a communication faculty member. How do those work together?

A: Well it’s all about communication. Within the communication department it’s about honing those skills in order to present your own ideas. In theater it’s about honing those skills to present other people’s ideas. Sometimes actors are the shyest people you’ll ever meet, but if you let them inhabit somebody else then they can do whatever they need to.

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Jesse Calderon, Olivia Llanes, Neal Parekh and Verica Todorovic – all political science majors – are busy working on a 30-page legal brief for an international case they will argue in moot court in Vienna, Austria, next spring. It’s one of two legal documents the group is drafting for the mock trial, said Dr. Joseph Ignagni, Professor of Political Science and the group’s adviser.

“They were sent an extensive case,” Ignagni said, “and they will have to argue both sides. The students had to prepare a 30-page brief for their argument, then send it to another [moot court] team across the world. In January, our team will draft another 30-page brief for the opposite argument.”

Writing and research is just part of the preparation for the UT Arlington students attending the Vis Arbitrational Moot hosted by Vienna University held March 28-April 7, 2012. The group is also busy trying to raise $12,000 for trip expenses.

“These students will get experience in arguing a case in front of judges,” said Ignagni. “It’s a nice opportunity to experience the pressure of preparing for a case and dealing with lawyers or judges who grill them pretty intensely.”

In moot court competition, teams of college students research and argue cases through mock trials. Groups from UT Arlington have participated in numerous events throughout the state at various law schools like Texas Tech and Baylor universities, Ignagni said.

This year’s group wanted to repeat the experience of the 2006 team and return to Vienna. Ignagni said the team will be reviewing international law as well as facing others from many different countries – teams mostly made up of law students. It’s a twist that sets the 19-year-old Vienna contest apart.

“Normally moot competition is for undergraduates,” he said, “so this will be quite a challenge.”

Questions or donations for UT Arlington’s Moot Court Club should be directed to Ignagni (ignagni@uta.edu) or Llanes (Olivia.llanes@mavs.uta.edu).

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