2005-2006

Recipients

Faculty Vitality Projects

Fall 2005

Presentation at the Association for Applied Behavior Analysis Conference
Natalie Allen, Teacher Education
Dr. Allen will travel to the Association for Applied Behavior Analysis Conference in Atlanta, Georgia to present a poster summarizing the benefits of sustained silent reading study on the self-management of writing in secondary students with disabilities. She will write two articles on the sustained silent reading technique and its applications.

Designing and Generating Instructional Events with UML Diagrams
Delroy Brinkerhoff, Computer Science
Computer-based instruction is a growing field. Dr. Brinkerhoff will design software to generate computer-based instruction from Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams.  UML may be used as a language for describing processes, entities, and actions not only in computer programming, but in education as well.

Adjudication Workshops for KCACTF
Larry Dooley, Performing Arts/Theatre
Weber State University participates in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Dr. Dooley seeks to become a judge to determine which presentations are worthy for this festival. In order to do so, he needs to attend an adjudication workshop. This should help Weber State students and faculty to better understand the adjudication process and be more successful in submitting works. In the past, many WSU performances have been invited to KCACTF regional festivals and two have been presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Contested Public Landscapes: The Importance of Names and Ownership Boundaries in Federal Land Management (Conference Panel)
Sara Dant Ewart, History
Dr. Ewart’s proposal is to attend the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) annual meeting in Minneapolis Mar 29 – Apr 2 and chair a panel with the title above. The ASEH is the pre-eminent professional organization for environmental history. She also plans to meet with publishers’ representatives at the meeting and develop monographs that, when published, will bring prestige and recognition to Weber State.

16th Conference of the International Association of Hispanic Women Writers (AILFH)
Alicia Giralt, Foreign Languages
Dr. Giralt will host this prestigious international conference, with over 100 participants.  Previous sites include Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.  AILFH has members in 21 countries; its mission is to “foster the study of Hispanic literature...written by women.” The conference site alternates between a US location in even-numbered years, and a non-US location in odd-numbered years. This opportunity with both showcase Ogden, and provide Weber State students and local residents with a unique educational and cultural opportunity. This proposal is for a release from a single course commitment to allow her to effectively plan the conference.

Cross-Cultural Inquiries in Visual Art: Istanbul, Turkey
Suzanne Kanatsiz, Visual Arts/Sculpture
Professor Kanatsiz is spending a one-semester sabbatical in Turkey at the invitation of Sabanci University. While her expenses and those of her family are to be paid by Sabanci, she will use the Hemingway funds to produce new works integral to critical discourse in contemporary art, including funding the materials and supplies for these new projects to be inspired by her Turkish experience and displayed in both Turkey and in the United States. Her aesthetic combines the use of Arabic calligraphy, excerpts from the Koran, and labored design that references her Middle Eastern roots.

2005 U.S.–China Joint Education Conference
Shirley Leali, Teacher Education
Dr. Leali has joined a delegation, sponsored by People to People Ambassadors, which will travel to China and participate in a Joint Education Conference. Her invitation was based on her demonstrated expertise in mathematics education. There were over 20 participants, drawn from institutions around the world. Among the topics discussed were common problems, comparison of recent findings, and evaluation of areas for future collaboration.

Spring 2006

Love and Logic Instructor Training
Joyce Buck, Child and Family Studies
Professor Buck is a certified “Love and Logic” instructor, and uses this training in her Child and Family Studies classes. This training, to be held in May 2006 in Denver, Colorado, will allow her to continue and expand her certification in this area.

Physical Science Education for Pre-Service Elementary School Teachers
Brad Carroll, Physics                                                                                                                As with the proposal from Dr. More in Chemistry, Dr. Carroll is proposing to attend the 19th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. Their jointly-taught class at Weber State, Phys/Chem 1360, uses a “physics-first” approach to teaching physics and chemistry to elementary school teachers in training.

The Art Quilt: Twelve New Compositions
Judy Elsley, English
Dr. Elsley studies the quilt as a form of communication and has published extensively on quilting in literature and quilts in culture. Her previous attendance at the 2005 Split Rock Arts Conference has been beneficial in helping her to develop new quilting techniques, which she is implementing in her own work; she proposes to attend this year’s Split Rock conference, held in July 2006 in Minneapolis, to extend her skills in art quilting as well as her scholarship in this field of research.

Muslim Communities in Contemporary Europe
Kathy Herndon, English
The Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) is sponsoring a summer seminar, “Muslim Communities in Contemporary Europe” in Paris, France and Amsterdam, The Netherlands in June 2006. Dr. Herndon will use the experience gained on this trip to help in teaching her class “Middle Eastern Women Writers” (English 3730).  From 1975-1985, Dr. Herndon lived in Iran and the United Arab Emirates, and has used that experience as a basis for her understanding of Muslim culture. Recent demonstrations and frictions between Muslim communities and other Europeans has made the study of this area an especially timely topic.

Content Management and XML at the Society for Technical Communication’s Annual Conference in Las Vegas
Becky Jo McShane, English
Dr. McShane teaches in two technical writing courses: Document Design (English 3190) and Content Management (English 4110). The Society for Technical Communication’s annual meeting is in Las Vegas in May of this year; this conference in a nearby location will allow Dr. McShane to train in Extensible Markup Language (XML), a language used to create and manage web pages, at low cost compared to commercial courses.

Physical Science Education for Pre-Service Elementary School Teachers
Michelle More, Chemistry
Dr. More proposes to chair a session at the 19th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education as well as present a paper on teaching physical science to pre-service K-6 teachers. In addition, a paper on this topic, “Terra Firma: ‘Physics First’ for Teaching Chemistry to Pre-Service Elementary School Teachers” has been accepted by the Journal of Chemical Education, one of the pre-eminent journals in the field.

American Sociological Association Career Workshop on “Combining Family and Academic Work – Experiences and Best Practices”
Marjukka Ollilainen, Sociology and Anthropology
At the request of the society president, Dr. Ollailainen is leading a career workshop at the American Sociological Association meeting in Montreal, Canada in August 2006. Five faculty members, at various stages of their careers, will serve as a panel for this workshop.  Additionally, she will serve as presider over the “Sex & Gender” section at the meeting, both ensuring the smooth running of the session but also providing prepared remarks for discussion of each paper in the session. This is Dr. Ollailainen’s area of research interest as well; in her published work, she has studied faculty’s ability to balance work and home responsibilities.