Gaudeamus

Joel Wingard, professor of English, attended the Conference on College Composition and Communication, March 25-27 in San Antonio, Texas. The theme of the 4Cs conference was “Making Composition Matter: Students, Citizens, Institutions, Advocacy.” He met up with acquaintances at the annual Council of Writing Program Administrators’ breakfast and attended the meeting of the Composition at the Small Liberal Arts College special interest group. As for San Antonio’s landmark, the Alamo, its exterior was “all obscured because there was a party for the opening of the film. The buzz was that Billy Bob Thornton was in town. I did not see him, though,” admits Joel.

Neither did George Diamond, professor and chair of English, who also attended the 4Cs conference. He chaired a session on “Technologies of (Hyper) Textual Spaces,” about the development of information technology. He also attended sessions on, among other things, writing in the age of design; scholarship writing; and paranoia in academia. He says one of the most thought-provoking presentations was by Robert Scholes, president of the Modern Language Association, about restructuring the English major to make it more effective.

George and Vanessa Fisher ’05, Allentown, went to “Imagining Jews,” a one-day seminar (March 21) on Jewish writing sponsored by the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University. Participating writers included Gerald Stern, winner of the National Book Award for poetry; Ruth Knafo Setton, writer-in-residence at Lehigh; and Farideh Goldin, author of Wedding Song, the first autobiography of an Iranian Jewish woman.

Alma Miles, visiting professor of nursing, and her husband, Richard Koch, were hosts the week of April 12 to Lorraine B. Josiah, loans maintenance and securities clerk for the ACB Mortgage & Trust Company Ltd., St. John’s, Antigua, West Indies. Lorraine and four other young professionals from the West Indies were spending three weeks networking in the area courtesy of Rotary International.

Lou Carol Fix, artist-lecturer in music (organ), attended the Tannen-berg Symposium and rededicatory recital of the largest extant instrument built (in 1800) by the Moravian organ-builder David Tannenberg, March 19-21 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The restored organ has been installed in a new auditorium designed for it in the Old Salem Visitor Center. Lou says Tannenberg signed a contract to build an even larger instrument for Bethlehem but died before it could be built. Tannenberg was the focus of the first Moravian music conference, held here in 1995, and one of his instruments is at the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth.

Debra Wetcher-Hendricks, assistant professor of sociology, attended the Lilly-East Conference on College Teaching, April 1-3 in Towson, Maryland. She participated in the normal workshops and seminars about student engagement and teaching techniques. But her favorite presentation by far was: “Using Humor as an Instructional Defibrillator.”

Also, Debra’s article with Wade Luquet, “Teaching Stratification with Crayons,” which originally appeared in the July 2003 issue of Teaching Sociology, will be included in the fifth edition of the American Sociological Association’s Social Stratification Courses: Syllabi & Instructional Material.

Librarians Wendy Juniper and Bonnie Falla attended the annual Computers in Libraries conference, North America’s largest technology conference and exhibit for librarians and information managers, March 10-12 in Washington, D.C. Wendy attended sessions in web design and usability; watch for her redesign of the Reeves Library home page this summer. Bonnie attended sessions in navigating, searching, and e-learning.

“A Really Big Struggle” by Jan Crooker

Jan Crooker, adjunct art instructor, is showing her gleaming goldfish paintings in “Something Fishy” at Connections Gallery, Easton, through May 23.

Bob Mayer, professor of education, presented a paper, “Learning to teach young people how to think historically: a case study of one student teacher’s experience,” April 12-16 at the American Educational Research Association meeting in San Diego. The paper was delivered for the Teaching History special interest group.

Bob Brill, associate professor of psychology, chaired a visiting review team assessing the psychology major at DeSales University. The team explored tracks, course offerings, faculty issues, and potential graduate programs.