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Students and faculty awarded the 2003 Susquehanna University Teaching Award to Associate Professor of Sociology Simona Hill. A prolific scholar who frequently collaborates with students and faculty colleagues, Hill holds the Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the Susquehanna faculty in 1998 and is co-director with Associate Professor of English Karen Mura of the Susquehanna Honors Program. She teaches courses in social problems, minorities, family, and ethnicity and pursues wide-ranging research interests in the areas of ethnographic field research, feminist pedagogy, race, gender, and ethnicity. In 2002-03 she served as co-coordinator, with Assistant Professor of English Amy Winans, of a year-long project to educate the campus community about the impact of invisible forms of diversity such as socio-economic status, religion, and sexual orientation. "She has sought consistently to demonstrate not only to her students, but also to her faculty and administrative colleagues, the relationship between wanting to know and the obligation to take action that may well follow from what one comes to learn," said Warren Funk, vice president for academic affairs, who presented the award at commencement.

Associate Professor of Management Paul Dion is the 2003 recipient of the John C. Horn Distinguished Service Lectureship. Memorializing a former chair of Susquehanna's board of directors, the award recognizes outstanding scholarship and conscientious service. The recipient offers a public lecture during the following academic year. A native of Canada, Dion joined the Susquehanna faculty in 1992. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and teaches marketing and marketing research. He frequently publishes research on industrial marketing, purchasing, and marketing logistics. He has developed a national reputation for his work in the areas of industrial market sales and purchasing performance, marketing logistics, and industrial buyer behavior, publishing articles throughout his career in the top journals in these fields. His university service includes directing the Sigmund Weis School of Business London program for two terms. He also pioneered the use of information technology by designing Web-based instructional tools for his classes and an on-line marketing course for Susquehanna's summer session.

The American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) has presented the Susquehanna Department of Modern Languages the 2003 Spanish/Portuguese Academic-Community Partners Engaged Department Award. Associate Professors of Spanish Wanda Cordero-Ponce and Leona Martin, department head, accepted the award during the AATSP's annual meeting in Chicago in August. The award recognizes the department's long-standing commitment to providing strong links between the university and the region's Hispanic community. Department-sponsored initiatives include an annual Latino Symposium, an oral history project conducted with Latino high school students, community dialogues and reading circles, and recreational and academic support for area Hispanic children. The department also works to strengthen bonds with other regional cultures including the Pennsylvania German population, high school French classes, and families from China or with adopted Chinese children.

Assistant Professor of Music David Steinau delivered a paper, "The Artist in Exile: Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Elegies," in January at the University of Hawaii's International Conference on Arts and Humanities. In October 2003 Steinau and colleagues from the departments of music and history collaborated to present a day-long symposium and concert focusing on the seldom-heard works of the German-born composer Eisler accompanied by text from German poet and dramatist Bertolt Brecht. "The Hollywood Songbook: Eisler and Brecht in Exile" began with an afternoon symposium moderated by Assistant Professor of History David Imhoof. Steinau, a tenor, performed more than two dozen selections in their original German text. The university's School of Arts, Humanities and Communications, the Jewish Studies program, and the Holocaust/Genocide Studies program co-sponsored the event.

Assistant Professor of Geological and Environmental Sciences Jennifer Elick presented research at the national Geological Society of America meeting in Denver in May and published two chapters in the field trip guidebook for the 67th Annual Field Conference of Pennsylvania Geologists. The research focuses on her work at northeastern Pennsylvania's Wyalusing Rocks where she uncovered a variety of fossils and traces, including one that may have been produced by Sarcopterygiian, a lobe-finned fish from the Devonian Period approximately 350 million years ago. A sedimentologist and petrologist, Elick received her Ph.D. in geology from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and joined the Susquehanna faculty in 2000. In addition to teaching she directs student research and serves as advisor to the GeoClub.

Professor of Psychology Thomas A. Martin has received two grants from the Gerontology Research Center of the National Institute of Aging for ongoing research focusing on the NEO-PI-R, a standardized personality test. One grant allows him to continue his collaborative research on "Adult Personality and Well-Being in Russia" with colleagues from Susquehanna's sister school Yaroslavl State University. A second grant is for a new project, "Self-Report and Informant Ratings of Personality in Adolescence and Adulthood." Susquehanna students will assist in the project as recruiters and paid research assistants. Martin, a licensed clinical psychologist who joined the faculty in 1987, received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska.

Professor of History Linda A. McMillin has been appointed interim vice president for academic affairs following the departure in June of Warren Funk who served as vice president for academic affairs for eight years and will return to full-time teaching in Susquehanna's Department of Philosophy, Religion and Classical Studies in the fall of 2004. McMillin, who holds the Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, is a former history department head and Honors Program director. In 2002-03, she chaired the self-study team for the university's 2004 ten-year accreditation review by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. McMillin is also a member of the Strategic Planning Advisory Group.

Associate Professor of English and Jewish Studies Laurence Roth has been appointed editor of Modern Language Studies, a national literary journal focusing on English, American and comparative literature, as well as the literatures of the modern languages. Laura de Abruņa, dean of the School of Arts, Humanities and Communications and former president of the Northeast Modern Language Association, the publication's parent organization, will serve as associate editor. Distributed to university libraries and subscribers across the country, the journal is a premiere research publication for study in the humanities. Faculty from the departments of English, modern languages, and art will be editing and redesigning the journal as a multi-disciplinary, collaborative project that will also provide assistantship, internship, and practicum opportunities in editing and publishing for students. Roth is also the author of a new book, Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories (Rutgers University Press).

Associate Professor of French Scott Manning and Assistant Professor of French Lynn Palermo presented a workshop on "Marketing French to Undergraduates: The Use of Advertising Posters in French Language Instruction" at the annual meeting of the American Association of Teachers of French in Martinique in July. Collaborating with students and staff at the university's Lore Degenstein Gallery, the modern language faculty members are using examples from a university-owned collection of French posters to illustrate class activities. Susquehanna parents Joseph and Ann Silbaugh of Shrewsbury, Pa., donated the 1,616 posters to the university in 1997. The collection represents French commerce and culture, including food, clothing, films, festivals and social movements, from 1890 to 1980. Manning and Palermo received a three-year Teaching Innovation Grant from Susquehanna's Teaching and Learning Center to link language studies to local sources and resources.

Professor of English Gary Fincke, director of the university Writers' Institute, has been named winner of the 2003 Flannery O'Connor Prize for fiction writing. One of the highest honors bestowed on a writer in the United States, the prize recognizes the work in Sorry I Worried You, Fincke's fourth collection of short stories which will be published in 2004. Fincke and Associate Professor of English Tom Bailey are co-authors of a series of articles on the teaching of creative writing and publishing with university and mid-list presses in The Writer. The University of Missouri Press published Fincke's third collection of short stories, The Stone Child, in the fall of 2003. His nonfiction book, Kicking Ass, recounting his son's experiences as a rock and roll guitarist, is now under contract with Michigan State University Press, and is scheduled for publication in early 2004. Bailey has had both his short story collection, Talking Like An American, and his most recently completed novel, The Grace That Keeps This World, contracted for publication by Etruscan Press. The story collection will appear in the fall of 2003 and the novel in the fall of 2004.

Assistant Professor of Economics Katarina Keller delivered the keynote address, "Investment in the Levels of Education and the Effects on Economic Growth," at the international conference on "Russian Enterprises: The Transitive Economics" sponsored by Yaroslavl State University in Russia. She also presented the paper at meetings of the Western Economics Association International Conference in Taipei, Taiwan, in January and the National Business and Economics Society Annual Conference, St. Thomas, U.S.V.I., in March.

Allen C. Tressler Professor of Accounting Jerrell Habegger and Associate Professor of Philosophy Jeffrey Whitman have co-authored "A Tale of Two Professions: Accounting and the Military" to be published in the fall 2003 edition of Professional Ethics: A Multidisciplinary Journal. Head of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems and the Department of Management, Habegger also coauthored a paper with Professor Emeritus of Accounting William Sauer. "An Evaluation of the Pennsylvania High School Business Plan Competition" was presented at the International Congress of Small Business in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in June 2003.

Associate Professor of Biology Tammy Tobin-Janzen, Assistant Professor of Physics John Jurcevic, Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences Jeffrey Graham and sociology major Stephanie Scafa '05 represented Susquehanna at the third annual 2003 Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) summer institute in Santa Clara, Calif., in August. Sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and funded by the National Science Foundation, SENCER programs promote science education that helps build a base of knowledge for informed decisions on complex public issues such as water quality, HIV, and energy alternatives. A Susquehanna team, including Assistant Professor of Sociology Shari Jacobson and Dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences Terry Winegar, who attended previous SENCER summer institutes, is working to develop new Core curriculum classes in science.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Michele DeMary has been appointed director of the Arlin M. Adams Center for Law and Society at Susquehanna University. Associate Professor of Accounting Richard Davis and Associate Professor of Philosophy Jeffrey Whitman are associate directors of the center. Established in 2001, the center focuses on the law and its impact on institutions and people, providing a rich learning and experiential resource for students, faculty, visiting scholars, and members of the community.