Accomplishments - March, 2021
Jan Thompson, director, School of Journalism, recently directed a virtual master class for the New York Metropolitan Opera Guild. Participants were American countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and F. Paul Driscoll, editor of Opera News. The film crew consisted of three alt.news/SIU Carbondale alumni.
Leslie Duram, professor, earth systems and sustainability, will give a virtual presentation, “Climate Change 101: Plant-based Eating for Individual Action,” to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on April 1. The summit will focus on how plant-based foods help fight climate change and improve the environment, and Duram’s presentation will focus on diet and greenhouse gas emissions.
David J. Gibson, professor, plant biology, recently published a chapter “Temperate subhumid grasslands” in Global Typology of Ecosystems, the first comprehensive system for classifying and mapping all ecosystems on Earth, based upon function and composition. Developed by over 100 scientists worldwide, the online typology will allow for coordinated international conservation assessment and management.
“Snake Road: A Field Guide to the Snakes of the LaRue-Pine Hills,” by Joshua J. Vossler, associate professor, library affairs, was published in March by Southern Illinois University Press. Vossler catalogs 23 native snake species by name, lists identifying features and estimates the probability of spotting them and what visitors can expect at what is known worldwide as Snake Road.
Edward Benyas, professor of oboe and conducting, School of Music, will conduct Puccini’s “Suor Angelica!” the only production of Winter Opera St. Louis this season at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, March 19-21. He also conducted its production of Donizetti’s “The Daughter of the Regiment” in 2020.
Jan Thompson, director, School of Journalism and faculty adviser to alt.news, directed the six-camera video production “Taking Up Serpents” at Chicago Opera Theater. Filmed on location at the Studebaker Theater, the performance was recorded under strict COVID-19 regulations. Three SIU alumni were also involved, with the editing process accomplished from four locations: Chicago, Northbrook, Park Ridge and Carbondale.
Dawn Null, assistant professor, human nutrition and dietetics, provided healthy eating tips for a recent WalletHub piece on “2021’s Most Overweight and Obese Cities in the U.S.”
“18 Months After November,” a full-length virtual play by Jacob Juntunen, associate professor, theater, received a perfect review on the Chicago website Theatre by the Numbers. The play is available for free on YouTube.
“Critical Perspectives on African Genocide: Memory, Silence, and Anti-Black Political Violence,” co-edited by Alfred Frankowski, associate professor, philosophy, was published in February. Frankowski’s "Hermeneutical Aesthetics, Commemoration, and Mourning in Post-Genocide Rwanda" also appears in this interdisciplinary collection that covers the importance of remembrance, issues of silence and denial, political rhetoric, mass incarceration and environmental racism as genocide.
Select piano works of German composer and pianist Clara Schumann recorded in 2019 by Junghwa Lee, associate professor, piano, will be released March 19, 2021, by Centaur Records. The works commemorate Schumann’s birth in 1819.
David R. Burns, associate professor, radio, television, and digital media, served on the Illinois Arts Council Agency 2021 Artist Fellowship Awards Peer Review Selection Panel. The Artist Fellowship Awards is the largest publicly funded grant delivery system for artists in the state of Illinois.
Sarah Lewison, associate professor, radio, television, and digital media, and Ellen Esling, a graduate student in geography and environmental resources, collaborated with Concerned Citizens of Carbondale on a grant proposal through the Illinois Department of Human Services’ “Healing Illinois” program. They will receive $2,800 as part of a larger award to complete “The Brownfield Between Us,” a documentary about Koppers, a former wood treatment facility in Carbondale.
Kenneth Stikkers, interim chair, philosophy, recently presented a Zoom seminar “‘Growth’: Paradigm of the Crisis of Economic Science” hosted by the Institut de démographie et socioéconomie Faculté des Sciences de la Société, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. The presentation was on Stikkers’ work in the philosophy of economics.
Kayeleigh Sharp, instructional development specialist with the Center for Teaching Excellence and adjunct assistant professor, anthropology, presented an online seminar “Archaeology at a Distance: Engaging Learners in Remote Classrooms” as part of the Society for American Archaeology Online Seminar Series on Feb. 23. The series offers professional development opportunities for students and archaeologists seeking to enhance their skill sets or knowledge base.
Sarah Lewison, associate professor, radio, television and digital media, is screening a new video, “Chicken Tenders,” and a collaborative project, “Inheritance,” within Collective Communities: Actions on Environmental Crises, at the Weinberg/Newton Gallery in Chicago through March 27.
Faith Miller, associate professor, dental hygiene, was a panelist on the Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging – Transforming Words into Action virtual panel at the American Dental Hygienists’ Association Dental Hygiene Leadership Summit in January.
Maria Franca, associate professor, communication disorders and sciences, was recently voted president-elect of the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She will begin the three-year presidency cycle as president-elect this fall, moving into the presidency in 2022 and then serving as past president in 2023.
