Gaudeamus

Ahmez Hammock-El ’05, Glenarden, Maryland, is an Army reservist as well as a Moravian student. He was called up for active duty in Iraq last spring.

He serves with the motor pool attached to the 228th Aviation Regiment out of Willow Grove. It is stationed in Northern Iraq. Here he is (at right) being inspected by First Sergeant Arlene Nash, with the commander of the unit, Captain Blanchard, in the background between them.

Ahmez says the unit is due back May 19.

Photo courtesy Ahmez Hammock-El

Janelle Brey ’04, Allentown, has been awarded the Roger E. Fox Memorial Scholarship for 2004. Established by the parents of a graduate of the Class of 1987 who died in an auto accident while working for the Quakertown paper, the scholarship is given to a student interested in a journalism career. Janelle, who has had internships at the Morning Call and the Express-Times, won the scholarship in her sophomore year as well. With the endowment yielding more than enough for one scholarship, the English department recommended that the additional money go to Krista Jacobs ’05, York.

Gary Olson, professor of political science and chair of the department, wrote about the daily tally of casualties from the Iraqi conflict on his office door for the October 1 issue of the on-line magazine Common Dreams. You can read it at www.commondreams.org.

Rosalind Remer, associate professor of history (on sabbatical), was interviewed October 10 on Radio Times, a live call-in show on WHYY-FM, Philadelphia. The topic was the contested meaning of the site of the new Liberty Bell Center on Independence Mall. Ros was former program director at the National Constitution Center.

ODK has named Kara Mergl ’04, Sharon, its outstanding leader for October. Kara is a four-year member of the College’s theater company, where she has acted and worked in every aspect of theater production: props, sets, costumes, publicity, programs, box office. She is currently company manager for MCTC and has stage-managed seven productions, including the most recent, Our Town.

Kara has a double major in art history and psychology. According to her program biography: “She hopes one day to come to understand what it that she wants to be when she grows up.” She is a member of Alpha Psi Omega, the theater honorary, and is one of the theater production assistants who use their work-study grants to help put themselves through school. Kara also is resident director of the Hillside dorm complex.

The Gary Rissmiller Trio received the award for jazz group November 17 at the fifth annual Lehigh Valley Music Awards. Gary is the College’s artist-lecturer in drumset.

Stephen Corbesero, associate professor of computer science, attended the 19th annual conference of the Consortium for Computing Sciences at Colleges, October 17-18 at Montclair State University, New Jersey. He presented a paper on “Teaching Systems Administration in a Small-College Environment”—a subject on which he is an expert.

Steve and Benjamin Coleman, instructor of computer science, were coaches for the programming team of the student chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery, a professional society for the field. The team—Robert Koepplinger, Easton, Matty Sarro, Boyertown, and Tyler Worman, Allentown, all ’06, and Fei Sun ’04, China—placed 20th at the regional programming contest held November 8 at Wilkes University. This was one of nine national contest sites, at which a total of 73 schools participated.

Ben also gave a paper at the seventh Joint Conference on Information Sciences, sponsored by the Association of Intelligent Machinery, Duke University, Information Sciences and its publisher, Elsevier, and Harbin Institute of Technology, China, among others. It was held September 26-30 in North Carolina’s “research triangle” near Chapel Hill. Ben spoke on “Lookahead Scheduling of Unrelated Machines,” co-written with Weizhen Mao, his doctoral advisor at the College of William and Mary. Lookahead scheduling, he says, helps the planning process in manufacturing, shipping, and any other environment in which workloads can be predicted.

Diane Radycki, assistant professor of art history and director of Payne Gallery, was one of 90 women artists and art scholars honored by the Veteran Feminists of America for their contributions to the arts between 1966 and 1980. Along with Judy Chicago and Kate Millett (an art historian by training), Diane received a certificate and a medal. The awards dinner was November 6 at the National Arts Club in New York.

Cecilia Fox, assistant professor of biology, attended the Society for Neuroscience meeting, November 7-13 in New Orleans. She participated in workshops that incorporate cutting-edge research into the science and non-science classrooms.

Mary Beth Spirk, assistant professor of physical education and women’s basketball coach, is listed in the 2003-04 edition of the United Who’s Who Registry of Executives and Professionals.

Farewell!

John McDermott, professor emeritus of education and retired vice president for planning and research, left the area in mid-November. He and his wife, Emily, and their cats moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, to be near their daughter Katie and her family. His e-mail remains mcdermott@surfglobal.net.

“The move is, in a sense, a return to my roots,” John wrote. “We’ll be five miles from Amherst College, from which I graduated a few years ago. The Five College setting (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and UMass) is similar to the Lehigh Valley in its cultural resources, so we will not be wanting for things to do. The welcome mat will be out, and the Moravian star will be in the front window.”

Charlie Fuller, in-house shipper and receiver at the Bookstore, retired November 21 and will be moving to South Carolina.

Mildred Rivera-Martínez, associate professor of Spanish, will be leaving us for a while. She has a 2½-year contract with the Peace Corps to be a language testing specialist in its Center for Field Assistance and Applied Research, based in Washington, D.C. Mildred has worked for the Peace Corps, training language teachers, for two years. Now she will travel the world (the Peace Corps has stations in 79 countries) overseeing the language proficiency testing of Peace Corps volunteers. Her leave of absence begins at the end of this semester. ¡Adios!

Incoming!

Our first war baby was born to Marge Beahm, assistant women’s basketball coach, and her husband, Mike, a staff sergeant with the 744th Military Police battalion in Iraq. Mike was home on leave for the birth, and the Morning Call ran a huge photo of him holding Conner James Beahm.

Holly Newell became interim assistant director of student activities and the HUB as of December 1. She comes from Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, where she was assistant director of student activities. She holds a B.S. in human development and family studies and an M.Ed. in counselor education, program of student affairs, both from Penn State.

Terry Kubera has joined the Edu-cation Department as its secretary. She worked at the University of Rochester Medical Center before moving to the Lehigh Valley. Welcome!