Faculty/Staff News of Note
April 2002
Dr. Syed Saad Andaleeb, professor of
marketing, recently returned from Bangladesh, where he designed and
conducted a research methodology workshop with faculty members from
six private and public universities. Fourteen faculty members took
part in the workshop, which was supported by a grant from the American
Institute for Bangladesh Studies. East West University in Bangladesh
provided the venue and logistics support.
The outcome of the workshop was four research
proposals addressing the issue of service quality in the private and
public sector organizations in Bangladesh, including such entities as
the nationalized commercial banks and the Telegraph and Telephone
Board. The four proposals are being funded by a consortium of private
universities in support of knowledge generation. Andaleeb has been
asked to serve as coordinator to assist the faculty members to
complete their proposed studies.
Before leaving for Bangladesh, Andaleeb
completed the fifth issue of The Journal of Bangladesh Studies
(Volume 3 No. 2) that he edits. The journal generally addresses policy
issues pertaining to Bangladesh, and has a growing base of patrons
including prestigious U.S. academic libraries. Papers for the
publication are received from scholars in various countries and are
reviewed double-blind. Penn State Erie faculty members have reviewed
some of the papers.
Andaleeb also had two papers accepted for
presentation at the Hawaii International Conference on Business, to be
held June 18-22 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The title of the first paper is
"Gender Issues and Participation in Decision-Making in a Developing
Country." The second paper is co-authored with Carolyn Conway, a
Penn State Behrend student, who conducted an independent study with
Andaleeb on restaurant service quality. The title of the paper is
"Customer Satisfaction in the Restaurant Industry: An Examination of
the Transaction-Specific Model."
Dr. Paul Becker, assistant professor of
mathematics, attended the Allegheny Sectional Meeting of the
Mathematics Association of America to oversee research presented by
students Jennifer Mendes and Benjamin Tabone. Their paper was titled
"Group Rings, Cheese Wheels, and Applications." The meeting took
place April 5-6 in New Liberty, West Virginia.
Dr.
Sharon Dale,
associate professor of art history, presented a paper, "Counting
Virtues: Pietro Castellato's Funeral Oration for Giangaleazzo
Visconti," at the Thirteenth Biennial New College Conference on
Medieval-Renaissance Studies, held March 16 in Sarasota, Florida. Dale
also presented "The Arca di Sant' Agostino: Art at the
Intersection of Religion and Politics," at the Mid-Atlantic
Renaissance and Reformation Seminar held March 23 at Johns Hopkins
University.
Dale
will be on sabbatical in Rome, Italy, for the next academic year.
While there she will present two invited lectures on the Arca di
Sant'Agostino and the Visconti and Lombard Chronicles to the
Medieval Seminar at Leeds University in England.
Dr. Lawrence Downey, assistant professor of mathematics, Paul D. Olson, lecturer in mathematics, and Dr. Pradeep Singh, assistant professor of statistics, attended the Allegheny Mountain Section Meeting of the Mathematics Association of America, held April 5-6 in West Liberty, West Virginia.
Dr. Gregory W. Fowler, assistant
professor of literature and American studies, presented a paper,
"Postmodernism: This Changes Everything!" at the
College English Association annual conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, on
April 6, 2002.
Dr. Anthony M. Foyle, assistant
professor of geology, attended the Geological Society of America's
annual meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, April 3-6. While there he
presented a poster, "Developing a State-of-Knowledge Report for the
Georgia Bight as Part of the South Carolina-Georgia Coastal Erosion
study (Phase II): Initial Findings." He also co-authored two other
posters, "Quantitative Shoreline Change Analysis of the Georgia
coast from Topographic Survey Sheets," and "Quantitative Shoreline
Change Analysis of the Georgia coast from Aerial Photography."
Support for his travel came from South Carolina Sea Grant and Skidaway
Institute of Oceanography.
Dr. Diana Hume George, professor of
English and women's studies, made two presentations at the
Associated Writing Programs Conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana,
March 4-6. Her talks included "American Writers Respond to 9-11"
and a discussion of ethics in essay writing.
Dr. Phylis M. Mansfield, assistant
professor of marketing, presented "Anomie and Disaster in Corporate
Culture: The Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on the Ethical Climate
of Market Organizations" at the Marketing Management Association
Conference held March 1 in Chicago, Illinois. Mansfield received the
2002 Distinguished Paper Award, which is presented by Irwin
McGraw/Hill for the best paper of the conference.
Dr. Brian O'Leary, lecturer in
integrative arts, presented
"Intertextuality in the Biopic: The Case of Alma Mahler-Werfel" at
the Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, held April 12 in
Toronto.
Anna Pilston, assistant librarian, has
had an article, "Wireless Laptops for Library Instruction,"
published by Library Hi Tech News, vol. 19, no. 3, April 2002.
Dr.
Mary Beth Pinto,
assistant professor of marketing, is the co-author of a paper, "Patient
Satisfaction with Outpatient Physical Therapy Care: Instrument
Validation and Identification of Important Components," to be
published in the June 2002 issue of Physical Therapy. Pinto
also co-authored a paper with Dr. Diane Parente, assistant
professor of management, titled "Open Access, Electronic Medical
Records and Patient Satisfaction: Is Automation Better?" The
paper was presented at the 2002 Production and Operations Management
Society Conference, held April 5-8 in San Francisco, California.
Marjorie Podolsky, who retired last
year as senior lecturer in English, received the Marion von Rosenstiel
Award from the Pennsylvania College English Association at the
organization's annual conference, held March 22 in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. The award is given "in appreciation for outstanding
service."
Dr. Clare Porac, director of the School
of Humanities and Social Sciences, and professor of psychology, has
received word that her paper, "The
Effects of Hand Preference Side and Hand Preference Switch History on
Measures of Psychological and Physical Well-being and Cognitive
Performance in a Sample of Older Adult Right- and Left-handers,"
will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal, Neuropsychologia.
Her co-author is Alan
Searleman, a colleague from St. Lawrence University.
Jeanette L. Schnars, lecturer in
biology, attended the Sea Turtle Symposium April 3-8 .in Miami,
Florida.
On Sunday, April 7, Aquatics Director
Jen Slack participated in the 20th Annual Quad Swim sponsored by
Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Slack won the 100-yard event
with a record-breaking time of 54.87. She broke the women's
record of 56.54 set by Kelly Knaus in 1991.
Dr. Pamela Silver, associate professor
of biology, is co-author of a chapter in Freshwater Meiofauna:
Biology and Ecology, edited by S.D. Rundle et al. and published
this year by Backhuys Publishers. Her chapter is titled "The Small
Scale Ecology of Freshwater Meiofauna."
Dr. Peg Thoms, associate professor of
management, traveled to Umeä University in Umeä, Sweden in April to
do several presentations and work with doctoral students . Her first
presentation on April 10, titled "Leadership and Time
Orientation," was to faculty in the university's School of
Business. Her second presentation, "Human Resource Management,"
was to undergraduate students in the School of Business.
Dr. Ray Venkataraman, associate professor of management, is co-author of an article that has been accepted for publication in April 2003 by the International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management. His article is titled"Relationship Between Weibull and AMSAA Models in Reliability Analysis: A Case Study."
Dr. Alfred Warner, assistant professor
of management, presented "The Role of Limited- Scope Consortia in
the Standardization of Complex Products" at the annual meeting of
the Midwest Academy of Management, held April 19 in Indianapolis,
Indiana.
Dr. Darren M. Williams assistant
professor of astronomy and physics, is the co-author of "Earth-Like
Worlds on Eccentric Orbits: Excursions Beyond the Habitable Zone"
published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. His
co-author is David Pollard of University Park. Williams also presented
"Climates of Earth-like Planets at High Obliquity" and
"Locations of Extrasolar Planets Relative to the Habitable Zones
Around Nearby Stars" at the Astrobiology Science Conference 2002,
held April 9-11 at NASA Ames in Moffett Field, California.
An article co-authored by Dr. Chuck Yeung, associate professor of physics, was published in the American Physical Society Journal volume 87, number 4, July 2001. The article is titled "Universal Distribution of Centers and Saddles in Two-Dimensional turbulence."
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