Associate Professor of Management Paul Dion was awarded the John C. Horn Distinguished Service Lectureship and Assistant Professor of Sociology Simona Hill received the Susquehanna University Teaching Award. During commencement exercises on Sunday, May 11,

These awards are determined by open nominations from the faculty and, in the case of the teaching award, also from the Student Government Association. Nominations are reviewed by the Faculty Personnel Committee, which then submits award recommendations to President L. Jay Lemons for confirmation.

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. He has participated on and chaired departmental and school committees, served a term as chair of the management department, directed the Sigmund Weis School of Business London program for two terms, and pioneered the use of information technology by designing web-based instructional tools for his classes and designing an on-line marketing course for Susquehanna's summer session.

Hill holds the Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and joined the Susquehanna University faculty in 1998. She teaches courses in social problems, minorities, family and ethnicity. She also supports the women's studies and diversity programs at Susquehanna. Her research interests are in the areas of ethnographic field research, feminist pedagogy, race, gender and ethnicity. She is co-director, with Associate Professor of English Karen Mura, of the Susquehanna University Honors Program. In 2002-03 she served as co-coordinator, with Assistant Professor of English Amy Winans, of the university's diversity initiative project.

"In both her scholarship and in her work with students, [Hill] 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 faculty awards.

Faculty Staff Notes

Professor of History Linda A. McMillin has been appointed acting vice president for academic affairs following the departure in June of Warren Funk who will return to fulltime 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. Associate Professor Tom Peeler took over as chair for 2003-04. McMillin is also a member of the Strategic Planning Advisory Group. Funk, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of St. Olaf College who holds the Ph.D. from Columbia University, served Susquehanna as vice president for academic affairs for eight years. Before coming to Susquehanna he served as provost and dean of the faculty at Upsala College.

Assistant Professor of Political Science David Schwieder recently presented papers at two national conferences. He presented "Ignorance as a Lesser Evil: Misbeliefs and American Public Opinion" at the 2003 Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting, and "Good Facts, Bad Facts: Misinformation and Public Opinion" at the 2003 annual meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association.

Director of Multicultural Affairs Brian Johnson co-presented a workshop at the Forum for the Future's "Make A Difference" youth conference at Lock Haven University. He presented "Embracing Inclusiveness" with Janice Butler, director of service learning at Bucknell.

The Department of Modern Languages, headed by Associate Professor of Spanish Leona Martin, received the Engaged Department Award by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese at their annual meeting August 3. The award is given to departments of Spanish and Portuguese/Modern Languages/Foreign Languages that demonstrate a departmental mission of community partnerships for academic credit, programs (not simply isolated courses), focus on service-learning, and evidence of college recognition for departmental civic engagement, scholarship and service. It is one of four such awards given nationally.

Lecturer in Business Law Marvin Rudnitsky has been elected as president of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the leading provider of continuing legal education to attorneys in Pennsylvania. It is the education arm of the Pennsylvania Bar Association where he also serves on the board of governors.

Professor of English Gary Fincke, director of the university Writers' Institute, and Associate Professor of English Tom Bailey have been invited by the editor of The Writer to co-write articles on the teaching of creative writing and publishing with university and mid-list presses. The University of Missouri Press will publish Fincke's third collection of short stories, The Stone Child, this fall. 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. (Check out some of the publishing success of Susquehanna students/ recent grads in writing, below.)

Assistant Professor of Theatre Doug Powers recently presented a paper "'A Bright Golden Haze': Lynn Riggs and the Myth of Oklahoma!/Oklahomo" at a conference on the Broadway Musical 1920-2020 at Hofstra University. The Edwin Mellen Press will publish his book, An Eliadean Interpretation of a Cherokee Ritual, this fall. His entry on Tennessee Williams's play Clothes for a Summer Hotel will be printed in the forthcoming Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia, published by Greenwood Press and edited by noted Williams scholar Philip C. Kolin.

Associate Professor of Economics Antonin Rusek presented the paper, "Exchange Rates, Economic Growth and External Stability in EU Candidate Countries," at the 55th International Atlantic Economic Conference in Vienna, Austria, in March. Rusek also recently attended the XIV Annual Strategy Conference organized by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.

Students and Graduates Score Publishing Success

Professor Gary Fincke, director of the university Writers' Institute, shared the following information on the publishing success of current student writing majors and recent graduates.

• Adam Cole '02 won an Associated Writing Programs Intro Award in poetry during his senior year at SU and was subsequently published in the Tampa Review.
• Susanna Lamey '00 won an Intro Award in poetry in 2002 and had that poem published in Puerto del Sol. She has more poems currently in the Mid-American Review.
• Danny Byrne '02 had a short story published this year in Cutbank.
• Roxanne Halpine '01 has a poem this year in the Greensboro Review.
Julie Danho '99 has poems this year in the Mid-American Review.
• Katie Pierce '00 won two Intro Awards this year in poetry, has poems in Willow Springs, Descant and the Mid-American Review, and has won the Wick Student Chapbook Competition for this year and will have her chapbook published by Kent State University.
• Jay Varner '03 had an essay published this year in The Rectangle, the national publication of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honorary society.
• The Rectangle also published an essay by current student Josh Lapekas '04 and awarded Lapekas the Elizabeth Holtze Nonfiction Award for the best essay in this year's issue.