Faculty Accomplishments

Niamh O’ Leary, Professor of Environmental Studies, participated in a faculty tour of Zurich Bog in Wayne County, NY. Designated by the National Park Service as a National Natural Landmark, Zurich Bog is managed for education, recreation and environmental conservation by the Bergen Swamp Preservation Society.

Elliott G. Smith, Lecturer in Psychology, co-authored the article “Income Inequality and Child Maltreatment in the United States” with John Eckenrode, Margaret McCarthy, and Michael Dineen. An early release of the article will appear in the journal Pediatrics on February 10.

Christina Wahl, Associate Professor of Biology, gave the keynote address at the annual banquet of the Beekeeper’s Association of Southern California (BASC), in La Mirada, California on December 14. The title of her talk was “Inside the Honeybee’s Body: A Brief Tour of Inner Workings for the Curious Beekeeper”. Professor Wahl is a Director of the NYBeeWellness program.

Jack Daniels, Wells Cross Country Coach, just had the 3rd edition of his book, “Daniels’ Running Formula,” published (by Human Kinetics) in January of 2014. Daniels’ Running Formula has been translated into German, Polish and Japanese, and to date has sold over 140,000 copies. Spanish and French editions are under consideration.

Bruce Bennett, Professor of English, received Episcopal Academy’s first Alumni Award for Achievement in the Arts. Professor Bennett was cited for demonstrating “outstanding achievement in the Arts” and commended for his poetry and his teaching: “Bruce Bennett has accomplished what most of us are only able to dream of – he has made a career out of doing what he loves to do.” This Award was presented at The Episcopal Academy during its 2013 Alumni Awards Dinner on November 9th, 2013.

The Wells College Visiting Writers Series, coordinated by Professor Bennett, received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts that will help to cover writers’ fees for the program for the next three years.

Sara A. Levy, Assistant Professor of Education, attended the Annual Conference of the National Council for the Social Studies in St. Louis, Missouri from November 20th through November 23rd. While there, she presented two papers at the College and University Faculty Assembly. Her first paper, “Social Class and the Social Studies,” was part of a three-paper panel that used discourse analysis to examine the 2010 NCSS Curriculum Standards. Each of the papers used a different analytic lens; Professor Levy analyzed the standards through the lens of social class. Her second paper, “‘Half-Half Decaf’: One Multiethnic Youth’s Encounter with Heritage Histories,” examined how one multiethnic high school student negotiates, understands, and interprets the heritage histories with which he is connected. By including the voices of the student’s parents, this in-depth examination illuminates the complex, dynamic processes that are involved in a multiethnic student’s understanding of heritage histories. Both papers were well received and will be submitted for publication.

Milene Morfei, Professor of Psychology, was the featured guest on The Forecast on November 25, 2013. The program, which airs once each month on WRFI 88.1 in Ithaca, is dedicated to climate change. Prof. Morfei shared some of the ways in which the application of psychology can influence human behavior in the context of climate change.

Niamh O’ Leary, Professor of Environmental Studies, attended the Rochester Academy of Science 40th Annual Fall Paper Session in November. Molly Baillargeon ’14 presented a poster co-authored with Professor O’ Leary titled “An Investigation of the Effect of Soil Disking on Gewurztraminer (Vitis vinifera cultivar) Grape Maturation in the Finger Lakes Region of New York” and Professor O’ Leary presented a poster co-authored with Colin Evans ’12 titled “Refining a Transesterification Process: Examining Various Protocols for Converting Waste Vegetable Oil into Biodiesel”.

Bruce Bennett, Professor of English, gave a reading on October 28th of his poetry for the Watkins Glen Writers Group at the Montour Coffeehouse in Montour Falls.

On October 30th, Professor Bennett read his poetry at the Healing Muse launch for Issue#13 at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse.

Siouxsie Easter, Associate Professor of Theatre , recently directed “The Servant of Two Masters” for the fall faculty production. Over 25 students were involved in this production that entertained nearly 400 audience members on Friends and Family Weekend. The production was adjudicated by the Theatre Association of New York State (TANYS) and won 4 TANYS awards:

• Meritorious Achievement in Ensemble Acting to the Cast
• Meritorious Achievement in Costume Design to Barbara Murphy
• Excellence in Acting to Casey Jamieson for his portrayal of Truffaldino
• Excellence in Direction to Siouxsie Easter

Professor Easter and the students will be traveling to the TANYS Awards Banquet in November to receive their awards.

Christina Wahl, Associate Professor of Biology , taught a workshop for the New York State Bee Wellness program at the “Betterbee” company headquarters in Greenwich, NY on October 26. The topic was “Diagnosis of Nosema vs Acarapis woodii in the honeybee, Apis mellifera .” Details of her presentation are available at: http://nybeewellness.com/Microscopy___Anatomy.html.

Cynthia J. Koepp, Professor of History, participated in an international conference entitled: “L’anti-physiocratie: Critiques et oppositions au mouvement physiocrate de la fin des années 1750 au milieu du 19e siècle” that took place on 11-13 April 2013 at the Université Lumiére Lyon 2, in Lyon, France. Her paper, entitled “Resisting Physiocratic Rhetoric and Depictions of the Poor in late 18th century France,” was part of a session on “Rhétorique et literature anti-physiocrate.” She also served as the chair and discussant for another panel entitled “L’opposition à la physiocratie à l’´étranger.”

On 11-13 September 2013 Koepp also participated in an international conference at Princeton University entitled “Putting the Figure on the Map: Imagining Sameness and Difference for Children.” The title of her talk, “An Anthropologist Shows Children a World of Difference: The Pedagogical Imagination of Louis-François Jauffret,” was part of a session devoted to “Internationalism, and Tolerance.”

Siouxsie Easter, Associate Professor of Theatre, was recently featured on two radio programs. Tish Pearlman interviewed Siouxsie for the NPR program “Out of Bounds,” and George Sapio interviewed Siouxsie for the local Ithaca radio show “Onstage/Offstage.” On both programs, Siouxsie talked about her recent directing, installation work, and teaching.

Kurt Pipa, Lecturer of Japanese, planned and conducted a three-week Sustainability Leadership Program for Japanese Youths in July and August of 2013 at EcoVillage at Ithaca and in the city of Ithaca, along with his wife, Chieko Pipa. The program brought together two Japanese teenage students with 17 professionals, educators and activists, and offered the students a series of workshops and lectures in sustainability, sustainable living and leadership. The students also took part in a series of home stays, including a farm stay, and a host of experiential learning activities.

Along with his wife, Kurt also held “Yoku Dekimashita!” (“Well done!”), a weeklong Japanese Language and Culture Summer Camp based at EcoVillage at Ithaca in August, where he taught the Japanese language. The camp, in its second year, included 6 students and employed two high-school interns from Japan as teaching assistants. Both of these programs were activities of Sustena Life Club, an initiative started by Kurt and Chieko in 2012, whose mission is to bring Japanese and other international travelers to Ithaca to share, learn and inspire each other in the field of sustainability.

Christina Wahl, Associate Professor of Biology, presented a talk entitled “VISION IN THE DEEP: Unique Eye Muscle Arrangements Among Larval Stomiiform Fishes” at the annual meeting of the Gilbert Ichthyological Society, on September 28 at Pack Forest in Washington State.

Christopher Bailey, Professor of Chemistry, co-taught along with Professor George Lisensky, a National Science Foundation sponsored cCWCS workshop on “Materials Science and Nanotechnology for Chemists”, held July 21-26, 2013, at Beloit College in Wisconsin. The workshop, which attracted college chemistry faculty from across the country, focused on a chemical view of materials science and the nanoworld and emphasized the incorporation of these ideas into the core chemistry curriculum. Topics and activities included the synthesis of nanoparticles, solid state structures and model building, light emitting diodes (LED’s), X-ray diffraction, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, and the societal implications of nanotechnology.

Bruce Bennett, Professor of English, presented his essay, “The Tree As Trope”: James Merrill”s “Christmas Tree,” at the Merrill Critical Seminar, West Chester Poetry Conference, June 6th, 2013. He also delivered a paper, “Light Verse Need Not Be Light,” as part of the Light Verse Panel at West Chester, June 8th, 2013.

Professor Bennett’s poem “On The Beach” was published in Light (online) http://lightpoetrymagazine.com/revamp/, and two of his poems appear in the online humor magazine, Garbanzo!

Professor Bennett read his poetry as part of a group reading at Barnes & Noble in Ithaca, August 25th, 2013.

Siouxsie Easter, Associate Professor of Theatre, gave a presentation entitled “Teaching it ‘All’: Creating and Maintaining the Curriculum” as a part of the panel entitled “The Rewards and Challenges of Single Person Theatre Departments” during the August 2013 Association for Theatre in Higher Education national conference.

Also, during her sabbatical in the Spring, Siouxsie directed a short play entitled “Clean Slate” written by alumna Samm Vella for the Carnival Girls Productions play festival in Manhattan. She also traveled to Bath, England in March during which time she developed theatre curriculum for the fall and spring semesters and proposed a summer theatre program for Advanced Studies in England. The program was approved and implemented by ASE and Siouxsie will be teaching the inaugural summer theatre school alongside British professors in the Summer of 2014.