Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Charles Cable received a Certificate of Meritorious Service in January at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta, Ga. Certificates of Merit are presented by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of service to the MAA. Cable served the local section of the MAA for more than 30 years, giving many talks, organizing local meetings, and serving on numerous committees. He was also an editorial reviewer for Mathematics magazine for five years and was the first associate editor of FOCUS. From 1973 to 1975 he served as chair of the Allegheny Mountain Section of the MAA.
Professor Emeritus of English Frederick S. Frank has authored Guide to the Gothic III: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, 1993-2003, published by Scarecrow Press. Guide to the Gothic III offers researchers and students a comprehensive bibliographical survey of Gothic scholarship and criticism of the 20th and 21st centuries. Over 1,600 new annotated entries covering 1993-2003 are included, along with 4,055 shortened entries from the previous two volumes in the series. New individual author studies are included, as well as special sections on such topics as Gothic chapbooks and Gothic Revival architecture and a new section on teaching Gothic fiction with TV and audiovisual materials.
Associate Professor of Political Science and Environmental Science Mike Maniates was the 2005 speaker for the annual environmental studies lecture at John Carroll University in October. Maniates was also a featured speaker this year at the College of Atlantic. Maniates has also been asked to continue his participation in an international workshop group, funded by the Hewlett Foundation via a grant through the Kennedy School at Harvard University, on consumption, overconsumption, and sustainability. He traveled to Bonn this fall and in February will travel to the AAAS meetings in St. Louis to work with others to develop a set of policy and scholarly strategies for First- and Third-World researchers and policymakers. Maniates first joined this group last year at a set of meetings in Thailand that were organized around Confronting Consumption, a book he co-edited.
Assistant Professor of Geology Rachel O'Brien supervised a team of eleven students during July and August on research related to the French Creek watershed and funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The title of the grant is “Adaptation and implementation of a watershed model: The French Creek Watershed Research Program at Allegheny College.” The work completed this summer represents the last phase of the research project, which involved not only students but Associate Professor of Geology Ron Cole and Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Caryl Waggett. The multidisciplinary research effort integrated facets of geology, hydrology, chemistry, and environmental science. O'Brien and her students are planning to submit results of their work for presenting at upcoming professional meetings.
Professor of Religious Studies Carl Olson's new book, Original Buddhist Sources: A Reader, in which Olson edits and translates selections from original Buddhist texts, has been published by Rutgers University Press. It is a companion volume to Olson's The Different Paths of Buddhism: A Narrative-Historical Introduction, which was published earlier this year by the same press. His essay “Ontology, Altarity, and Difference: A Comparison of Eliade's Method and the Postmodern Philosophy of Deleuze” was published in Intalniri cu Mircea Eliade/Encounter with Mircea Eliade, edited by Mihaela Gligor and Mac Linscott Ricketts and published in 2005 by Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cartii de Stiinta, in Romania.
Professor of Art and Gallery Director Robert Raczka exhibited an art installation, Nature Lover, in the Special Projects Gallery, The Brew House, Pittsburgh, and recently had his work included in numerous group exhibits: Torrid, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; Annual Invitational Exhibition, Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, Pittsburgh; Media Tonic II, Pittsburgh Filmmakers; Accelerating Sequence, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta; Teaching Artists from Western Pennsylvania, Manchester Craftsman's Guild, Pittsburgh; Visual Matter, East Ohio Street window projects organized by Artists Image Resource, Pittsburgh; New Names/New Work, Gallery 339, Philadelphia; and Art of the Park, Concept Art Gallery, Pittsburgh. He also curated the exhibit inkjet, presented at Artists Image Resource in Pittsburgh, which included the work of Allegheny art faculty George Roland and Sue Buck and alumni Bill Rodgers, Eva Wylie, and Mark Perrott.
Laura Susan Rohleder '07 completed the 2005 NASA Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. An intensive six-week summer program offering an in-depth examination of life sciences research and flight operations, SLSTP is a highly competitive program for college undergraduates studying life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science. Students participate in the conceptualization, design, and execution of experiments dedicated to enabling human exploration of space as well as assessment of the environmental impacts of a launch site.
Professor of Geology Bob Schwartz supervised Bekah Ost '06 and Jesse Thompson '07 during June on a project that involved deciphering the faulting and sedimentation record in Montana over the past 50 million years. Their work, which has implications for interpreting paleoclimate, builds from work that Justin Pierson '05 completed for his senior project under Schwartz's supervision. Pierson and Schwartz presented and published their findings at a meeting of the Geological Society of America last spring. Related to this project, Schwartz also supervised Michael Haney '02, Ann Widrig '00, and Mary Beth Spinelli '00 during field research in Montana as they discovered and documented evidence for the oldest ocean basin yet known for the central Rocky Mountains. Their work has implications for oil and gas resources in the western U.S. as well as for understanding the paleogeography of North America. Haney, Widrig, and Spinelli have also presented results of their research with Schwartz at professional meetings, and Schwartz is finishing a journal article on the subject.
People & Places, published monthly during the academic year by the Office of Public Affairs, reports on the professional activities of members of the College community and highlights student achievements. Please submit items to people@allegheny.edu. We reserve the right to edit copy for length.
