Accolades Test

Harriot College faculty will provide students a break in fees and make a few classes more affordable during the 2023-24 academic year through Joyner Library’s Alternative Textbook Program. Faculty chosen to participate in the program receive $1,000 and are paired with a personal librarian to assist them in transitioning their course materials into free resources for students and building more inclusive, diverse, and localized course materials. Harriot College faculty chosen for the 2023-2024 Alternative Textbook Program include Alethia Cook (Political Science), Helen Dixon (History), Michelle Malkin and Michele Stacey (Criminal Justice and Criminology), and Vera Tabakova (Economics).

Harriot College faculty and instructors have proven they make a major difference in the lives of their students. ECU students who reside on campus nominate faculty and instructors, who have had a positive impact on them throughout the semester, for an Honored Instructor Recognition award given out by Campus Living. Each faculty nominated receives a copy of the student’s comments from their nominations, and they are presented with an Honored Instructor Recognition certificate at a social event sponsored by Campus Living. This year’s event was held on April 18 in the Ballard Sounds, with special remarks from Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs Brandon Frye. Harriot College faculty honored with this year’s recognition include Patrick Harris, Marisa Myers and Miriam Watts (Biology); William Allen, Rosa Alvarez-Bell, Subodh Dutta, Eli Hvastkovs, David Rudel and Joi Walker (Chemistry); Richard Allsbrook (Criminal Justice and Criminology); Anna Froula, Joshua Gardner, Timm Hackett, Amanda Klein, Christian Matthews, Randall Martoccia, Gera Miles and Sean Morris (English); Dylan Jarrett, Larkin Murphy, Sarah Tyson and Tricia Wilson-Okumura (Foreign Languages and Literatures); Misun Hur (Geography, Planning and Environment); Ajamu Dillahunt-Holloway (History); Gerry MacLeod and Daniel Wimmer (Mathematics); Thomas Eamon, Hanna Kassab and Marie Olson Lounsbery (Political Science); Regina Dewitt and Eric Maertz (Physics); Antonija Augustinovic, Mark Bowler, Jeannie Golden and Ray Taylor (Psychology); and Danielle Koonce and Jennifer O’Neill (Sociology).

Harriot College is pleased to announce the names of faculty selected for the Summer 2023 Faculty Success Program (FSP). One of the flagship programs of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD), FSP is a nationally recognized virtual, intensive professional development program designed to enhance productivity through coaching and peer support. Harriot College selects the participants and offers funding in partnership with college departments, THRIVE, and REDE to cover all costs to participate in the program, an almost $5,000 investment per faculty member. This spring Harriot College selected the following participants: Laura Mazow (Anthropology); Anne Spuches (Chemistry); Desiree Dighton and Marame Gueye (English); Anuradha Mukherji (Geography, Planning and Environment); Adriana Heimann Rios (Geological Sciences); and Edu Leorri and Marianne Montgomery (Harriot College Dean’s Office). This summer, the college is pleased to provide support for Michele Stacey (Criminal Justice and Criminology); Matthew Cox and Constance Haywood (English); and Courtney Baker and Mark Bowler (Psychology).

Blakley Brooks (Anthropology) presented a paper, “Using International Virtual Exchange to Enhance the Classroom Experience” at the Society for Applied Anthropology annual meetings. The paper focuses on the development of an international virtual exchange module for the Anth 3018: Peoples of Central and South American course. For the course module, Brooks partnered with Universidad Latina de America from Mexico and Universidad Piloto from Colombia to have students discuss issues related to migration and human rights in Latin America. The development of this course module was supported by an International Virtual Exchange grant from the ECU Office of Global Affairs and Global Partners in Education.

Megan Perry (Anthropology) presented a workshop about “The Excavation and Ancient Contexts of the Petra North Ridge Aphrodites” at the Aphrodite-al ‘Uzza Conservation Collaborative, held May 2 at the American Center of Research, in Amman, Jordan. Perry is co-director of the Petra North Ridge Project. Researchers on the project unexpectedly discovered two marble statues of Aphrodite at the ancient Nabataean capital prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Found amidst 4th-century AD domestic debris, both sculptures preserve fragile remains of ancient painting (or polychromy) and are among the most important statues of imported marble discovered at Petra in recent decades. Their fragmentary condition and corroding interior iron pins (from multiple ancient repairs) have required a detailed multidisciplinary conservation treatment. The hybrid workshop included presentations on the discovery of the statues and their ancient historical and cultural contexts and described their recent conservation in preparation for their public exhibition in The Petra Museum.

Tim Christensen (Biology) has created bridges across campus through his photographic exploration of insects in our world. Recently, his work has been featured in the North Carolina Literary Review and in the 18th International Alternative Processes exhibition at the Soho Photo Gallery in New York. In addition, he has completed his MFA exhibition titled “Neotype: Replace what is lost.” He celebrates our insect partners using a fusion of digital and historical wet plate collodion photography.

Colin Finlay (Biology, M.S. student in Biology) was awarded a fellowship through the North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute Competitive Grants Program. The fellowship will fund a year-long investigation of nutrient processing in the Town Creek green stormwater infrastructure. The study will contribute to our understanding of naturebased solutions to nutrient pollution. Read more about the fellowship and project here.

Carter Stancil (Biology, doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Biology, Biomedicine, and Chemistry (IDPBBC)), has been selected as a recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. This is a competitive three-year fellowship. Stancil’s research will investigate the evolutionary ecology and eco-physiology of an invasive body-snatching parasite that creates “zombie crabs” by eliminating host reproduction and changing behavior. She will carry out her research in April Blakeslee’s and Michael Brewer’s biology labs. Read more.

Kayla Weinfurther (Biology, M.S. in Biology ‘20) is the lead author of the paper, “Evidence for a parabasalian gut symbiote in egg-feeding poison frog tadpoles in Peru,” which recently was published in the journal Evolutionary Biology. Weinfurther, her mentor Kyle Summers (Biology) and co-authors (which includes Adam Stuckert, a former doctoral student of Summers, and Ariane Peralata – Biology faculty), discovered that a species of poison dart frog has developed a symbiotic relationship with a species of protist that lives in the guts of tadpoles and this protist produces enzymes that allow tadpoles to better digest eggs that are fed to the tadpoles by their parents. This symbiotic relationship is thought to facilitate the ability of this poison dart frog species to coexist with other poison dart frog species that rely on the availability of detritus to sustain them.

James Anderson (Criminal Justice and Criminology), with colleagues from the ECU School of Social Work, Northeastern State University, and Grambling State University, published “Crisis intervention teams and police shootings of people with mental illness: A public health issue” in the Journal of Law and Criminal Justice.

Heidi Bonner (Criminal Justice and Criminology) presented research on stressors among correctional staff and staff turnover intent during the Statewide Warden’s Meeting on March 22.

Sara Bryson (Criminal Justice and Criminology), with colleagues from the University of Central Florida and the University of South Carolina, published “Parents, peers, and low self-control: Exploring the impact of time varying factors associated with deviance in early-and middle-adolescence” in the Journal of Criminal Justice. In addition, Bryson, with colleagues from the University of Tennessee, published “How to write an annotated bibliography” in the Journal of Criminal Justice Education.

The Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology Mock Trial Association (MTA), developed by Heather Douglas (Criminal Justice and Criminology), held its annual student-run mock trial recently at the Pitt County Courthouse. Douglas serves as the MTAs primary advisor. Read a story on page 1 of the East Carolinian here. Michelle Malkin (Criminal Justice and Criminology) was quoted in the article, “North Carolina Has High Rate of Problem Gambling Before Sports Betting Legalization, Expert Says,” reported on by Gaming Today.

Margaret Bauer (English), as editor of the North Carolina Literary Review, is the debut editor to be interviewed for the new web feature of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ). President Debra Rae Cohen and Vice President Eugenia Zuroski chatted with Bauer for the new feature found on the CELJ website. Helena Feder (English) interviewed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for, “The Art of Living,” which has been published in the new issue of The Writer’s Chronicle.

Adrian Flores (English, BA ’23; and Political Science, BA ’23) recently helped make care packages for migrant farmworkers who will be working in North Carolina this summer. Flores knows how much this can make a difference because he once was in their position. Watch the CBS17 news video story here and learn more. Cameron Green (English) authored a flash fiction piece, “Goldmouth,” which has been published in the spring issue of The Citron Review.

Mark Johnson (English) recently traveled to Portland, Oregon, where he presented the preliminary findings of research on task complexity and the use of cohesive devices in second language writing at the American Association for Applied Linguistics conference. The paper, “The Effect of Task Complexity Features on L2 Writers’ Use of Cohesive Devices,” examines how complex features of a writing task impact second language writers’ use of cohesive devices found to predict human ratings of an essay’s organization. In addition, Johnson’s paper, “Formal Genre-Specific Knowledge as a Resource-Dispersing Feature of Task Complexity,” recently was published in a special issue of the journal Languages. The special issue attempts to re-examine task complexity as it is often researched in second-language writing.

Kirstin Squint (English) gave a presentation at UNC-Pembroke’s Southeastern Native Studies Conference, “Inside North Carolina Literary Review 2023: Highlighting North Carolina’s Indigenous Voices.” She presented an overview of the forthcoming issue and discussed her experience as Guest Feature Editor. Other featured panels engaged with scholars and community members and stirred up excitement for NCLR’s 2023 issue. In addition, Squint presented “Tribalography, Water, and Retelling Removal in Joy Harjo’s ‘An American Sunrise’” at the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures (ASAIL) virtual conference. This paper is part of a larger research project exploring the relationship between water and trauma in Southeastern Indigenous stories.

Nelson Adeniji (Geography, Planning and Environment, M.S. student in Geography) was selected to receive a National Science Foundation Travel Award for the 2023 Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Summer Institute in San Antonio, TX. Adeniji is one of 10 graduate students nationwide who will be joining early-career faculty in engineering and the social sciences for a series of workshops and networking events to learn more about the NHERI community.

Rachelle Berry (Geography, Planning and Environment) authored an article, “Wake Work: Unearthing the Legacy of Slavery at the United States’ First Publicly Chartered University,” published in the journal GeoHumanities. In the paper, Berry and their coauthors from the Athena Learning Collective reflect on their racial justice advocacy in seeking to hold the University of Georgia accountable for building on top of a slave burial ground.

Hong-Bing Su (Geography, Planning and Environment) has published an article, “Large- Eddy Simulation of Reynolds Stress Budgets in and Above Forests in Neutral Atmospheric Boundary Layers,” in the journal Boundary Layer Meteorology. In the paper, Su and his co-author examine the role of pressure perturbations associated with turbulent coherent structures in and above forests. Findings from the research may help improve parametrizations of the turbulent exchange of energy and greenhouse gases (water vapor, CO2) related to land-forest-atmosphere interactions in large-scale weather and climate models.

Helen Dixon (History), and her HIST 3405/5005: History of Ancient Greece class of 38 students, is putting together a faculty- and student-curated Public History exhibit at the Greenville Museum of Art, “Classically Inspired: Exploring Ancient Greece through the GMoA Collections.” Students are researching and writing object labels for 30 items from the collection with connections to ancient Greek history, religion and myth, ceramics, architecture, or sculpture. They will work to find ancient Greek objects and primary sources from other museums to illustrate their label research. The exhibit will be open for about a month in May 2023. In addition, Dixon also co-authored an article, “How inperson exchanges enhance creativity,” in Inside Higher Education.

John Tucker (History) has published a book chapter, “Mencius and Japanese Confucian Philosophy,” in the volume, Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius, edited by Yang Xiao and Kim-chong Chong.

Chris Jantzen (Mathematics) has accepted a visiting scholar position, from a previous collaborator, for this summer in China. Jantzen will spend a month at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, during the July 1 – August 15 timeframe, where he will research representation theory and related aspects of number theory.

Peter Francia (Political Science) led a discussion group on careers in election polling at the “Road Maps and Pathways to Research” virtual event hosted by the Southern Association for Public Opinion Research (SAPOR) on April 6.

Hanna Kassab (Political Science) published “Trading Human Rights for Cheap Products: The Rise of China and the End of the Liberal World Order in the Context of the Russia-Ukraine War” in Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal Vol. 8, No. 3, (437-478).

Jay Morris and Peter Francia (Political Science) presented results from a Center for Survey Research poll on worker satisfaction and employee-employer relations in North Carolina to the NC Chamber on April 11. Read more here. Samantha Mosier (Political Science) presented at the Second Annual Johnston Coastal Sustainability Symposium held by the Bald Head Island Conservancy. The talk, “Sustainability – Challenges in Policy and Planning with a Moving Target Concept,” focused on the challenges of having a singular definition for sustainability and resiliency that can be used as a launching point for public policy and planning. Less than half of all U.S. local governments have established sustainability plans and policies, and most do not include performance measurements. Given the challenges in developing and executing these plans, the talk highlighted how public and elite views are similar and different when conceptualizing sustainability and resiliency as action concepts.

Hua “Daniel” Xu (Political Science) presented his research on the “Impacts of ACA Medicaid Expansion on Access to Care and Rural Health” and chaired a panel on “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on Education Policy” at the Midwest Political Science Conference in Chicago. He also presented a paper co-authored with Master of Public Administration student, Mehak Rathore, on “The Local E-Government in North Carolina: A Preliminary Assessment of County Government” at the North Carolina Political Science/Public Administration Alliance Annual Conference in Wilmington, NC. Stay Connected East Carolina University Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences 1002 Bate Building, Mail Stop 511 Greenville, NC