Jan. 14, 2020 – Frederick Gooding, assistant professor of African American history, authored a book that will hit shelves in May. “Black Oscars: From  Mammy to Minny, What the Academy Awards Tell Us About African Americans” works to analyze the value and visibility of blacks within the Academy as well as within our larger society.

Nov. 22, 2019 – Roma Flowers, associate professor of professional practice in the School for Classical & Contemporary Dance, was presented with The Notch Award for Projection Design in the theater category at the Knight of Illumination Awards USA, which is the leading industry awards program to celebrate lighting, projection and digital content design for entertainment. Flowers won for her design on “A Bon Coeur,” an evening-length solo dance work created and performed by Helanius J. Wilkins.

Nov. 4, 2019 – Michael Sawey, instructor II in the Department of Biology, and April Sawey (Ph.D. ’09) co-authored a textbook titled “Issues in Biology.” Specifically written to appeal to the general public, this text is geared toward non-biology majors. “Issues in Biology” focuses on increasing a student’s scientific literacy and biology knowledge by using current, relevant issues that affect all people. The book is published by Kendall Hunt and is being marketed to universities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Oct. 28, 2019 – The Criminal Justice student team won the Southwest Association of Criminal Justice Quiz Bowl competition in Houston. The event is an annual quiz competition on criminal justice-related topics for schools located in the southwest region. This is TCU’s second title in three years.  

Oct. 28, 2019 – The ChemClub, TCU’s student chapter of the American Chemical Society, was recognized with the Green Chemistry Award. The award, issued by the ACS, aims to increase environmentally friendly chemistry technologies through recognizing outstanding contributions in this area. Congratulations to the members and mentors Kayla Green, Julie Fry and Heidi Conrad of the TCU chemistry department. Special thanks to Conrad, organic laboratory coordinator, for leading the green push. 

Oct. 25, 2019 – Dr. Michael St. A. Miller was inaugurated as the executive vice president and dean of Brite Divinity School at TCU. The inauguration took place in the Robert Carr Chapel Oct. 24.  

Oct. 7, 2019—Babette Bohn, professor of art history, will present a public lecture at the Kimbell Art Museum at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 16 in the Piano Pavilion Auditorium. The lecture is part of the Art in Context series.  In the lecture, as in her upcoming book, Bohn discusses female artists in early modern Bologna, Italy. Women artists were considered rare even beyond the Renaissance, but Bohn discovered that at least 68 women were active artists during her studied period. She found the city to be particularly friendly to their success and features a few of them in her book, “Women Artists, Their Patrons, and Their Publics in Early Modern Bologna.”  The presentation will discuss factors that made this success possible in a time when artistic training for women was quite uncommon.  

Nov. 6, 2018—Ammie E. Harrison, Humanities and Theatre librarian, presented a paper Oct. 12 at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the South Central Modern Languages Association in San Antonio, Texas, titled “Psalmanazar’s Last Laugh: Text as Material Representation of Identity and Place.” The association, whose members primarily hail from Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, seeks to enhance scholarship, teaching and research in the modern languages and literatures.

Ken Stevens, assistant professor of history, recently published two essays in edited works. “From Colony to Republic: The Growth of Revolutionary Consciousness on the Texas Frontier” was published in Judit Kadar and Andras Tarnoc, eds., La Frontera: Reflections of Borders in American Culture (Szeged, Hungary: University of Szeged, 2016) and “The Diplomacy of the Lone Star Republic, 1836-1845,” in Kenneth Howell and Charles Swanlund, eds., Single Star of the West: The Republic of Texas, 1836-1845 (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2017).

Madeline Bush received first place for undergraduate poster presentation in medical microbiology at the American Society of Microbiology Texas Branch Fall Meeting at UT-Dallas last Friday. Her poster also included contributions from former graduate students Kevin Claunch and Chris Evans as well as current graduate student Jacob Malmquist.

–Madeline Bush, Kevin Claunch, Chris Evans, Jacob Malmquist, and Shauna McGillivray.  Role of the ClpXP protease in antibiotic resistance in B. anthracis and S. aureus. Texas Branch of the American Society of Microbiology. Dallas, TX.

A study by David Brockman, adjunct professor of Religion, has been published in Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The study, Religious Imbalance in the Texas Social Studies Curriculum: Analysis and Recommendations, examines how Texas treats religion throughout the curriculum process, from the development of the current social studies curriculum standards to review and adoption of instructional materials for use in classrooms. While most scholarly and media attention has focused on controversies over the teaching of science and history in Texas, Brockman argues that the coverage of religion in the Texas curriculum is equally, if not more important, since religion underlies much of the debate surrounding instruction in other disciplines.

Ken Stevens, professor of History, delivered the Constitution Day lecture, “Alexander Hamilton: American Visionary,” at Tarrant County College Northeast Sept. 16.  He presented a paper at the annual meeting of the East Texas Historical Association at Nacogdoches titled, “Diplomatic Representatives of the Republic of Texas in Washington, 1836-1845” Oct. 14.

Oct. 5– An article by Andrew Forney, Ph.D. candidate in history, is featured in this month’s issue of the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. Titled Radical Rhetoric, Conservative Goals: The Democratic Society of Kentucky and the Language of Transatlantic Radicalism in the 1790s, the article investigates the Democratic Society of Kentucky, arguing that the society crafted a more nuanced position and reshaped Jacobin-inspired rhetoric to suit regional needs.

The Register is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal which provides ongoing scholars/hip on the history of Kentucky as well as an extensive book review section that covers all recent scholarship on Kentucky and its surrounding region as well as the major monographs on U.S. history generally.

Aug. 31–John Horner recently published an article:  Horner, J. D. and B. Schatz, 2016, Resorption of trap nitrogen during senescence and the benefit of prey capture in the carnivorous plant, Sarracenia alata, Plant Ecology, v. 217, p. 985-991. DOI 10.1007/s11258-016-0623-8.

Carnivorous plants occupy nutrient-poor habitats and have evolved a number of mechanisms to allow them to acquire nutrients by capturing and digesting animal prey. This study, with Ben Schatz (Biology major, graduated 2013), examined how nitrogen conservation (via resorption of nitrogen from dying tissues) and prey capture contribute to nutrient relations in a carnivorous plant.

May 9–Kyle Walker, assistant professor of Geography and director of the Center for Urban Studies at TCU, has been published in the journal of Urban Studies and subsequently covered in The Atlantic’s CityLab for his interactive visual tool that demonstrates how evenly distributed the four major ethnic and racial groups—whites, Hispanics, blacks and Asians—are within a Census tract in relation to distance from the urban core. You can read all about it here.

May 2–Jan Lacina, Michelle Bauml and Becky Taylor from TCU’s College of Education co-published the following paper:

Lacina J.,  Bauml, M. & Taylor, B. (2016).  Finding your own way:  Promoting resilience through read-aloud.  Young Children, 71 (2) .

April 27–This week, Matt Chumchal gave two seminars at the University of Oklahoma as part of OU’s Environmental Studies Distinguished Speaker Services. Chumchal was named a Dr. T.W. Adams Distinguished Alumni Lecture Program Speaker for the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences. The title of his seminars were as follows:

An environmental problem hidden in plain sight: small man-made ponds, emergent insects and mercury contamination of biota in the Great Plains. 2016. University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.

Mercury contamination in the south central US: Patterns, causes and consequences. 2016. University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.

Kim Adams (MS Biology ’14,) Matt Chumchal (Associate Professor of Biology) and Ray Drenner (Professor of Biology) had a paper published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.  The title of the paper is Disparity between state fish consumption advisory systems for methyl mercury and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommendations: A case study of the south central U.S. David Donato from the United States Geological Survey was also a coauthor. This manuscript was developed from Kim Adams’ masters thesis in biology.

Adams, Drenner, Chumchal, Donato.  016. Disparity between state fish consumption advisory systems for methyl mercury and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommendations: A case study of the south central U.S.   Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 35:247-251.

Takamasa Ishii, Kayo Yasuda, Masaki Miyazawa, Junji Mitsushita,Thomas E. Johnson, Phil S. Hartman, Naoaki Ishii. Infertility and recurrent miscarriage with complex II deficiency-dependent mitochondrial oxidative stress in animal models. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development 155 (2016) 22–35.

Dean Williams, associate professor of biology, Alexis Ackel, M.S. student in environmental science, and Rachel Alenius, senior biology major, presented the following papers on Feb. 25 at the Horned Lizard Conservation Coalition Meeting held at Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area near Mason, Texas. They were part of a team that helped officials from the Department of Texas Parks and Wildlife revise the state listing for Texas horned lizards using the NatureServe Conservation Assessments tool.

• Williams, D.A. Genetic population structure of Texas horned lizards.
• Ackel, A. and D.A. Williams. Estimating population size of Texas horned lizards in urban areas.
• Alenius, R. and D.A. Williams. Diet analysis of urban Texas horned lizards using morphology and DNA.

TCU hosts North Texas Regional Spelling Bee where 14-year-old Jacob Williams wins by correctly spelling versification. Williams was presented the winning check by SuperFrog and now heads to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. Read the full story at http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/arlington/article63701727.html

Ray Drenner, professor of biology, presented one paper and Matt Chumchal, associate professor of biology, presented two papers at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Texas Chapter of the American Fisheries Society in Kerrville, Texas. The papers were coauthored by former TCU graduate students, Kimberly Adams and Frank Greenhill, and former TCU undergraduates Charlie Gober, Ashlyn Courville and Luke Lossau. Chumchal won the Best Oral Presentation Award and the Best Poster Presentation Award for presentations given by a professional.

The papers and authors were as follows:

• Predicting mercury contamination in game fish in the south central U.S. Drenner, Chumchal and Adams
• Disparity between state fish consumption advisory systems for methyl mercury and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommendations. Adams, Drenner, Chumchal and D.I. Donato
• Effect of pond permanence on aquatic insect-mediated flux of methyl mercury to terrestrial ecosystems. Chumchal, Drenner, Adams, Greenhill, Gober, Courville and Lossau

Join Dr. Hanan Hammad, the 2015 Jean Giles-SimsWise Woman Award winner, Feb. 1 as she discusses her approach to teaching courses that directly involve her Middle Eastern heritage and how to exchange ideas when an instructor’s ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or geographical origin intersect with class topics.

The workshop begins at 12:00 p.m. in room 112 of Rees-Jones Hall.

Hammad earned her Ph.D. in Middle East History with a supporting field of Persian studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Jean Giles-Sims Wise Woman Award goes to the faculty member who best exemplifies the principles of Women and Gender Studies and helps to further the interests of women at TCU.

Jeff Geider, director of the Institute of Ranch Management, discussed the expansive business of cattle on Marketplace last week. Marketplace, with more than 12 million weekly listeners, is the most widely heard business or economic program in the U.S.

http://www.marketplace.org/2015/12/07/business/todays-cattle-business-way-more-cowboys

Dr. Anna Petursdottir in an interview with Laura Grow and Melissa Nosik for a special section of The Behavior Analyst titled “Prominent Women in Behavior Analysis” in November.

The wind-wildlife research lab (Amanda Hale, Tory Bennett and research assistants) recently published papers in collaboration with Dean Williams. Jenny Korstian ’12 will start a Ph.D. program at Texas Tech in January. And Ali Schildt ’12 is in her first year at the Texas A&M Health Science College of Medicine.

• Korstian, Hale and Williams, 2015, High genetic diversity, large historic population size, and lack of population structure in two North American tree bats, Journal of Mammalogy, v. 96, p. 972-980.
• Korstian, Schildt, Bennett, Williams and Hale , 2015, A method for PCR-based identification of bat species from fecal samples, Conservation Genetics Resources, DOI 10.1007/s12686-015-0488-5.

A meta-analysis co-authored by Matt Chumchal, associate professor of biology, has achieved the noteworthy distinction of being in the top 1 percent of cited articles “in its academic field and publication year” (Thomas Reuters Essential Science Indicators). The paper is by Raph Lavoie, Tim Jardine, Chumchal, Karen Kidd, Linda Campbell. 2013. Biomagnification of mercury in aquatic food webs: a worldwide meta-analysis. Environmental Science and Technology, 47: 13385–13394. Lavoie is a recent Ph.D. at Queen’s University in Ontario. Jardine is at the University of Saskatchewan. Kidd is at the University of New Brunswick and Campbell is at Saint Mary’s in Halifax Nova Scotia.

Matt Chumchal, associate professor of biology, was published in Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. The paper titled, “Mercury concentrations in birds from two atmospherically contaminated sites in north Texas, USA,” was co-authored by Sarah Schulwitz, a Ph.D. student from the University of North Texas, and Jeff Johnson, associate professor in the department of biological sciences and Institute of Applied Sciences at UNT.

TCU adjunct professor contributes to religion-focused news site

Religion Dispatches returns to David Brockman, adjunct professor of religion at TCU, for his thoughts about Pope Francis’ recent visit to the United States.

In his article “Why We Should Stop Trying To Pigeonhole This Pope,” Brockman examines recent attempts by politicians and pundits to understand the Pope regarding left wing versus right wing categories of U.S. politics. He argues that the Pope’s approach to issues is more biblical than political, drawing on arguments Brockman developed in his book Dialectical Democracy through Christian Thought published in 2013.

Brockman discusses the Pope’s willingness to wade into hot-button political issues such as immigration and capital punishment but reiterates that he does not sway far from his Catholic and biblical teachings that try to balance individuality with the community. This view highlights the fundamental need for a “community that sacrifices particular interests to share its goods, its interests, its social life.”

Brockman is a religious studies scholar and Christian theologian. He has lectured at TCU and taught at Brite Divinity School and Southern Methodist University over the last decade. He is a published author of several books and articles.

 Religion Dispatches is an independent, non-profit, Webby-nominated source for the best writing on critical and timely issues at the intersection of religion, politics and culture.