Gaudeamus

Nilsa Lasso-von Lang, assistant professor of Spanish, attended the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies conference, February 21-22 at Kutztown University. She presented a paper called “Language in Contact: Spanish and Indigenous Languages in Central America.”

It seems that every time Doris Schattschneider, professor emerita of mathematics, gets ready to speak locally on “Mathematics and M.C. Escher,” it snows. This happened February 17, when she was to speak at Moravian Hall Square, and April 7, when she was to speak on campus. The second date has been reset for 7:00 p.m. Monday, April 28, in Prosser Auditorium.

Doris has an article, “Mathematics and Art: So Many Connections,” in the March issue of FOCUS, newsletter of the Mathematical Association of America. Her scholarship on Escher fits right into its theme, “Mathematics and Art.” You can read it on line at www.mathforum.org/mam/03.

Meanwhile, she and Escher have been around the region. She spoke on “Escher’s Scientific and Artistic Legacy” April 2 at Penn State at atYork and “M.C. Escher: A Most Mathematical Artist” at the spring regional meeting of MAA, April 12 at Wilkes College. She’ll be speaking on Escher today at West Chester University.

Over spring break, she and her husband, David, dean emeritus of Moravian Theological Seminary, were in Slovenia, where she gave two presentations on Escher at the University of Ljubljana: a colloquium on “The many faces of symmetry in the work of M.C. Escher” and a combinatorics seminar, “Escher’s Combinatorial Patterns.”

The Admissions Office hosted some 50 high school guidance counselors from across the country April 1 and 8 as part of the annual LVAIC guidance counselor tour. While on campus, counselors were taken on student-guided tours, heard a performance by four Moravian music students, and asked questions of students during a panel presentation. Admissions officers Amy Whelan and Brion Morro coordinated the event.

George Diamond, professor of English and chair of the department, attended the 2003 Conference on College Composition and Communication, March 19-22 in New York. The theme of the conference was “Re-Writing ‘Theme for English B’,” whose title comes from a poem by Langston Hughes:

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.

George’s paper, “Theme for Post-Colonial English B,” described his English 240 course in post-colonial literature and showed how it fulfills category M5 (cultural values and global issues) of the LinC curriculum.

Jim Mitchell, professor of biology, has been accepted into a diagnostic parasitology course at the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, this summer. The course deals with major protozoan and metazoan diseases, some of which may be used as weapons of mass destruction in the current conflict in Iraq. He also has been invited to serve as reviewer for the new edition of Cleveland P. Hickman’s Integrated Principles of Zoology, a major text for courses in general zoology.

Jill Wagner ’03, Coplay, and Kristin Franks ’05, Media, were presenters at the ninth annual Undergraduate Conference in Women’s Studies, held March 29 at Lafayette College. Jill, an English major, described her honors project on The Canterbury Tales, which was called “More Than Meets the Eye: Chaucer’s Visual Portrayal of the Wife of Bath.” Kristin discussed the influence of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay on the feminist movement of the 1920s in a paper about responses to the sonnets in The Harp Weaver. Jill’s honors advisor is Carole Brown, and Kristin originally wrote her paper for a class taught by Joel Wingard.

There were 30 brave contestants for the Moravian edition of Campus Idol, held March 27. First place was shared by Jessica Smith ’04, Sparta, New Jersey, and Larry Budden ’04, Brick, New Jersey. The runners-up were S. Rachelle Leath ’06, Fair Hill, New Jersey, and Allison Stout ’04, Pen Argyl. The regional competition will be April 24 at St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, and Moravian has chartered a bus for those who want to cheer on the team. Information: Shay Jaymes, Ext. 1493.

Incoming!

Cecilia Fox will be the new assistant professor of biology, replacing Don Hosier, who is retiring at the end of the academic year. Cecelia has an undergraduate degree from Manhattan College and a Ph.D. that she began at the University of Rochester and completed at the University of Kentucky when her advisor transferred there. She currently teaches at Wingate University in North Carolina.

correction: Khristina Haddad will join the political science department with the rank of instructor.