Graduation Tidbits:

Moravian College graduated 380 undergraduates and 38 graduate students. The breakdown is as follows:

• 269 bachelor of arts (including 13 walkers)
• 10 bachelor of music
• 74 bachelor of science (1 walker)
• 12 master of business administration (2 walkers)
• 26 master of education (2 walkers)

Other graduation tidbits:

• 33% of the class graduated with “Latin honors” (summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude – 3.50 gpa or better), the highest percentage ever.
• This was the second-largest graduating class. The largest Class of 2004 welcomed 391 students to the Alumni House.
• Of the students who have now graduated (that is, excluding walkers), the most popular major was sociology (48), followed closely by psychology (45) and management (41).
• This year marked the first graduates in our new biochemistry major, Brynn Lipovsky and Tiffany Schenk.
• 15 students had individually designed majors, ranging from health sciences to music history to marketing communications (among others).
• We had our first graduates in classics in many years, Brent Potteiger and Judith Stevenson (the latter doing an interdepartmental major in classics and history).
• With 16 graduates, nursing had its largest group ever.
• Computer science majors numbered 10, the largest group in several years.
• 20.9% of the class graduated in the natural sciences, up from 14.1% last year.
• With 27 MEDU degrees conferred, this was the largest MEDU cohort yet to complete the program.
• Among the graduates in the MEDU program were a mother and daughter.

Legacy grads included: (alumni connection in parentheses)

Children of Moravian employees who graduated from Moravian College this year included:

• Karima Modjadidi, daughter of Camie Modjadidi, field coordinator in the education department (Karima graduated summa cum laude with honors in psychology)

• Jason Toedter, son of Lori Toedter, professor of psychology

• Michael Trimble, son of Karen Trimble, office assistant in financial aid

Moravian employees who are celebrating their offsprings' graduations from other colleges and universities this year included:

• Ann and Dick Claussen, (director of student activities and coordinator of academic camps), whose daughter Kathleen ("Katie") Claussen graduated from Indiana University – Bloomington (with Highest Distinction, May 2006), with a double Major in Comparative Social Policy and Ideology and Spanish. She will work on a Master's degree at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the Fall.

• Jan Crooker, adjunct instructor in art, whose son, Adam Crooker, just earned his associates' degree from Key West Community College in Communication Design.

• Theresa Kubera, secretary in the education department, whose son Colin Daniel Kubera will be graduating from the United States Air Force Academy, and will be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.

• Eva Leeds, associate professor of economics, whose son, Daniel Leeds, is graduating from Temple University, where he was a double major in classics and mathematics. He is entering a Ph.D. program in economics at the University of Michigan.

• Barbara Liebhaber, assistant professor of music, whose son, David, graduated with honors from University of Pennsylvania, and will be attending law school in the fall.

• Rose Panik, music department and music institute secretary, whose son Joshua graduated from Villanova University with a double major in Marketing and Management Information Systems.

• Ann Stehney, vice president for planning and research, whose daughter, Emily Charlap, is graduating from Union College (Schenectady N.Y.) with a major in Political Science and minors in Religious Studies and Women's Studies.

• Paige Thompson, associate professor of nursing, whose daughter, Abigail Dalton, graduated with a Master of Arts degree with a major in applied behavioral analysis from Penn State, Harrisburg.

• Marie Mayer, Administrative Assistant in Public Relations, whose grandson, Christopher Osipower, graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis with distinguished honors.

Gaudeamus

End-of-year Awards

The Christian R. and Mary A. Linback Award for Teaching Excellence was awarded to Fran Ryan, assistant professor of history.

The Timothy M. Breidegam Memorial Service Award for Faculty and Staff was awarded to Rev. Dave Bennett, college and seminary chaplain.

The James J. Heller Award for Distinguished Administrative Service was awarded to Carol Traupman-Carr, associate dean for academic affairs.

Jan Crooker, adjunct instructor in art, has been one of 30 artists picked to compete in this summer's Rehoboth Art League “Plein Air Paint Out” in Rehoboth, Delaware.

During March, George Diamond, professor of English, attended the 4C's, the Annual Conference on College Composition and Communication of the National Council of Teachers of English in Chicago, Illinois. The aim of this year's theme was an answer to the question: “How does composition reconcile the binaries to build coalitions, culture, and community?” During the conference, George attended sessions on discourse analysis, alternative rhetoric, aids activism, plagiarism, globalization, assessment, personal expression, political and private rhetoric, public discourse, and community engagement. He also chaired a session entitled Writing in Electronic Spaces: Blogs and the Writing Classroom—a session on the cutting edge of personal writing and computer technology.

More recently, George attended the Ninth Colloquium on Judaism and Post-Modern Culture, sponsored by the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University on May 23-24. Participants from Lehigh, Susquehanna, Temple, and Syracuse discussed and critiqued papers on personal and group identity and the relationship between identity and art.

Dana Dunn, professor of psychology, had a busy April. A chapter he wrote on teaching writing which appeared in Dunn, D. S. (2007) - Introducing writing in introductory psychology: Practical matters, teaching resources, and activities. In R.A. Smith's Instructor's resource manual for Weiten's Psychology: Themes & variations (7 th ed., pp. 885-902). Belmont, CA: Thompson. Dana gave an invited talk in April at LCCC to psychology students.

Dana collaborated with three of his students to co-author book reviews currently "in press" (Todd Bennett is a recent graduate).

Dunn, D. S., & Hopkins, S. E. (in press). A downloadable feast in autobiography: The examined life is well worth teaching (and learning from). [Review of the e-book Teaching of psychology in autobiography ]. PTN: Psychology Teachers Network.

Dunn, D. S., & Bennett, T. W. (in press). Steering the elephant in search of happiness. [Review of The happiness hypothesis: Finding modern truths in ancient wisdom ]. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

Dunn, D. S., & Sahlender, L. (in press). Explaining behavior: Attributions meet folk theories to make social meaning. [Review of How the mind explains behavior: Folk explanations, meaning, and social interaction ]. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

Khristina Haddad, assistant professor of political science, traveled to Brattleboro, Vermont to act as outside reader for two Honors projects in political theory at Marlboro College. Marlboro has 320 students and takes a radical and academically rigorous approach to the liberal arts. Marlboro Honors projects (or "Plans" as they are called) incorporate student work from two years of study in addition to independent research performed abroad. Plans are fully interdisciplinary and thus help students make sense of the range of their studies over time. From Brattleboro she continued on to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she attended the annual meeting of the New England Political Science Association. Khristina presented a paper entitled "Finding the tempo giusto: shifting speeds as an act of resistance" on a panel dedicated to courage, bravery, and writing. She argued that students must learn how to shift between the slowness of thought and the speed of courageous writing. She also considered what teachers of political theory can do to convey the plurality of tempo in intellectual, academic, and political life. The term "tempo giusto" is borrowed from the work of Carl Honore (In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed). The panel was an unusual one as papers shared the untypical methodology of reading political theories through the experience of teaching political theory. This approach challenges the teaching-scholarship divide.

Faramarz Farbod, adjunct professor of political science, spoke on April 23, at the 6th Annual One World Forum held at Lehigh University on the topic of the "US Involvement in the Middle East." On May 16, he participated in a Brecht Forum panel in New York City entitled: "Oil, Nukes, Mullahs, Democracy and U.S. Hegemony: The Political-Economy of the Iran Crisis." On May 17, he presented a talk at the Perkasie Mennonite Church, Perkasie, Pa., titled "The Logic Behind the U.S.-Iran Confrontation," which was organized by the Coalition for Peace Action, a grassroots citizen organization that works around peace and justice issues. Today (May 30) Fara is speaking at the Center for Adult Learning in Northampton Community College . His talk is titled: "The U.S. Foreign Policy in the Third World."

Frank Kuserk, professor of biology, and Christy Scholtes '00, recently published a paper based on Christy's Honors research in the Journal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science. The paper, "Isolation and identification of proteolytic bacteria from leaves of the northern pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea," examines the microbial community structure in leaves of these carnivorous plants and is one of the first studies to identify specific bacteria found in these pitcher plants to the species level. The research was conducted at the Tannersville Cranberry Bog where pitcher plants are common inhabitants. While at Moravian Christy's research was supported through a grant-in-aid from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.

Recent biology graduate Jacqueline Jediny '06 and Frank recently presented a poster based on Jackie's research at the Third Annual Mid-Atlantic Ecology Conference held at the New Jersey School of Conservation in Branchville, NJ. The poster, "Benthic macro-invertebrates as bio-indicators of stream quality in a rural/urban transition zone in Monocacy Creek, Northampton County, Pennsylvania," examines the impact of external stresses on the structure of the aquatic invertebrate community as the Monocacy Creek transitions from a predominantly rural area into the City of Bethlehem. The conference was sponsored by the Ecological Society of America. Also participating in the conference was biology graduate, Michael Peek '96, currently an assistant professor of Biology at William Patterson University in Wayne, N.J.

Frank Kuserk recently served on two advisory panels for the College Board. In the first project Frank served as a member of a team charged with establishing standards for the College's Board's Natural Science CLEP examination. The second project was conducted under the auspices of the Center for Educational Policy Research in Eugene, Oregon and focused on establishing criteria that will be used by the College Board in auditing courses and instructors in its Advanced Placement Program. Frank served on a panel of five charged with evaluating courses in the AP Environmental Science Program. Frank has been involved with the APES program for a number of years and will be traveling to Clemson University, SC in early June to serve as a reader for the AP Environmental Science Exam.

Professor of political science, Gary Olson's Commencement speech was published by ZNet (Z Magazine online) and forwarded to 207,000 recipients around the world. So far responses have come from India, New Zealand, Britain, Israel, Nigeria, Australia and Canada. It was also posted all over the net. Tim Wirth, a former Congressman and Senator from Colorado, has sent it all over the world, including to Tom Johnson, former CEO of CNN. Wirth now gives away billions for George Soros and his UN Foundation. Gary was selected by the senior class to deliver the faculty statement to the graduates.

Michelle Schmidt, assistant professor of psychology, presented a paper entitled, “Ethnic Differences in Victimization & Bullying Behaviors” at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence in San Francisco in March.

Connie Unger, assistant professor of education, and Charlotte Zales, associate professor of education, presented at the National Science Teachers Association conference in Anaheim, California (April 5-9, 2006). Their talk was titled, Teaching Science Means Teaching Literacy. The talk enabled participants to develop a lesson that integrates science and literacy processes.

Debra Wetcher -Hendricks, assistant professor of sociology, attended the Lilly-East Conference for College Teaching, in part with funding from the FDRC. In addition to attending the conference, Deb gave a 45-minute presentation, The Case of the Missing A, which evolved from short essay about grade inflation written for the Moravian College's 2005 May Workshop, sponsored by LinC and C.A.T. My 45-minute presentation session engaged attendees by allowing them to grade a sample paper and discuss the large variance of grades given by those in the group. (Assigned grades ranged from B to F.) This analysis led to a discussion about the subjective nature of grading and recent changes in the meanings of each letter grade.