A Georgia Baptist Institution
SPRING 2009 A+ Facult accomplishments Dr. Sam Baltzer, professor of music, produced, directed, and conducted Young Audience concerts for approximately 3,000 area school children in December. In addition to directing the “WINDS of the Season” community Christmas concert, Dr. Baltzer recently served as a clinician for Pepperell High School’s concert band.Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (’82), scholar-in-residence and associate professor of English, was nominated for the 45th annual Georgia Author of the Year Award for her book A Little Daily Wisdom. She had her translation of The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counsel released by Shambhala’s New Seeds Books in April. In addition, she has been invited by Christianity Today to write several “Classic Faith for Modern Times” columns on topics including Lent, Hildegard of Bingen and Catherine of Siena. Dr. Butcher’s recent radio appearances include an interview by Moody Broadcasting Network that aired on “Prime Time America”; an hour-long interview, along with novelist Raymond L. Atkins, on the topic of Halloween stories, which aired on Rome’s Georgia Public Broadcasting affiliate; and an interview with Chicago radio station WGNJ, 89.3 FM. She has written and recorded numerous commentaries that aired on the local NPR station. In addition, she is a regular guest of Nelle Reagan on “Talk of the Town” on Rome’s WRGA radio station. She has contributed new research to the sixth edition text of Origins and Development of the English Language by John T. Algeo and contributed the neologisms achievatron and frenemies to American Speech, a quarterly of linguistic usage published on behalf of the American Dialect Society by Duke University. Recent speaking engagements include being invited to participate in a Christian Contemplative Prayer Retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Ga. Chris Crawford, assistant professor of theatre, served as site coordinator and I-Mag video and camera director for Club H.O.G. XXV, the national Harley owner’s group rally and festival. He recently did lighting design for The Sound of Music at Centre Theatre and served as an adjudicator for Theatre Macon’s production of Cows Don’t Fly for the American College and Theatre Festival.Dr. Robert Darville, dean of the School of Business Adminstration, took part in an intercity visit to Chattanooga that was sponsored by the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce. In February, he was a panelist for the Seven Hills Rotary Club’s economic roundtable discussion on President Obama’s stimulus package proposal. Dr. Patricia DeWitt, assistant vice president for planning and institutional effectiveness, presented a paper titled “Civility in the Classroom: Faculty and Students Weigh In” at the Southern Association for Institutional Research.Dr. David Fillingim, associate professor of philosophy, presented a paper titled “The Cowboy Poetry Phenomenon” and responded to a panel on popular music during the annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association in the South/American Culture Association in the South. He recently completed service as the association’s president. In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of the journals Students in Popular Culture and Studies in American Culture. Dr. Fillingim also performed as part of a Poets and Singers Showcase at the Sixth Annual Southeastern Cowboy Festival and Symposium at the Booth Western Art Museum. He was a member of the planning committee for the 13th Annual Georgia Cowboy Poets Gathering, held in Douglasville in February. Dr. Matthew Hoch, assistant professor of music, presented a clinic titled “A Healthy Belt is Not an Oxymoron: Using Traditional Vocal Pedagogy to Teach Musical Theatre Styles” at the Georgia Music Educators Association In-Service Convention. The presentation featured three of Shorter’s musical theatre students and was designed to help high school choral directors apply their classical training to teach musical theatre styles in a healthy and stylistically appropriate way. In September, he presented a paper, “The Structural and Dramatic Role of the Piano in Richard Strauss’s Krämerspiegel, Op. 66,” at the national conference for the College Music Society.In February, Dr. Hoch sang in an all-German performance of Haydn’s Die Schöpfung in Carnegie Hall in New York City under the direction of Helmuth Rilling. The choir was comprised of professional singers from the United States and Germany. In October, he sang the bass solos in Bach’s Cantata BWV 80, “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” at Emory Presbyterian Church in Atlanta with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Hoch recently wrote a deck of Knowledge Cards™ titled What Do You Know About Country Music?, which were released in August 2008. Two additional decks, one about opera and one about the Beatles, are scheduled for release in May. Dr. Kirsten C. Kunkle, visiting assistant professor of music, served as an instructor of vocal and choral techniques at Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp in Michigan and performed there as a soloist for the voice faculty showcase. She was guest soloist for Music Under the Stars with the Toledo Symphony.In January, she, along with Shorter professors Dr. Matthew Hoch and Dr. Linda Lister, was an adjudicator for the Classical Singer High School Competition. Dr. Linda Lister, associate professor of music, contributed to a book, The Brontës in the World of the Arts, published in September by Ashgate. She wrote a chapter on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in opera and song.Ben McFry (’04), assistant professor of English and German, presented a paper, “The Monk, the Jew, and the Jesuit: The Praxes of The Cloud of Unknowing, The Zürau Aphorisms, and The Practice of Everyday Life,” at the 2008 Southern Comparative Literature Association Conference. Dr. Anthony Nichols, assistant professor of computer science, had an article, “Empirical assessment of college student-athletes’ persistence in e-learning courses: A case study of a U.S. National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics institutuion,” accepted for publication by The Internet and Higher Education Journal.Dr. Angie O’Neal, assistant professor of English, had an essay, “Form and Phantasm: The Poetry of Blake’s Eternal(ly) Slender Bodies,” published by Cambridge Scholars Press in the volume Engaged Romanticism: Romanticism as Praxis. In addition, her personal narrative, “Minding the Gap,” was published in InterVarsity’s The Well. Rhonda Radcliff (’04), assistant professor of leadership, made a presentation titled “Generations in Today’s Workforce” to Cobb County’s professional administrative staff.Elizabeth D. Robbins, assistant professor of music, conducted the Floyd County High School Honor Choir in February and the Whitfield County Elementary School Honor Choir in March. Tom Smith, associate professor and director of bands, served as a clinician and conductor for the Georgia District 7 Honors Jazz Ensemble clinic. The event, sponsored by the Georgia Music Educators Association, attracted more than 100 student participants.Dr. Kathi Vosevich, visiting instructor of English, continues to develop marketing collateral materials and documentation for Intel Corporation to promote and educate media on WiMAX technology; she also developed real-world case studies on WiMAX for the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona in February. In addition, she has written and published several articles for Faulkner Information Services, including vendor reports, tutorials and market reports. Dr. Sherri Weiler, assistant professor of music, is serving on the editorial board of the Journal of Singing, a peer-reviewed international publication of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. In addition, she recently became nationally certified as a personal trainer by the American Council on Exercise, specializing in strength training for the older adult.DeWayne Williams, library technician, and Michael Wilson, librarian for Professional Studies, were co-presenters of a session titled “Using Moodle’s Wiki and Forum Functions to Manage Collaborative Assignments in an Information Literacy Course” at the Southeastern Library Association/Kentucky Library Association Joint Conference. |
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