Centre College Faculty News
Tom McCollough and Lee Jefferson both presented papers at the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium held at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN on Mar. 30-31. Prof. McCollough's paper, addressed his recent work at Khirbet Qana. "Christian Imperialism and the Colonization of a Jewish Village in Lower Galilee: The Archeological Evidence from Khirbet Qana." Lee Jefferson presented a paper which discusses Christian iconography titled "The Enthroned Jesus and the Miracle-Working Christ: An Assessment of Post-Constantinian Christian Iconography."
Donna Plummer presented at the national conference of the National Science Teachers Association held in Indianapolis 29 March - 1 April. Her presentation "Children's Career Aspirations - Where are the Scientists?" was based on interviews with first- and fifth-grade children at a Danville elementary school.
David Anderson’s new study of the annual burden of crime, “The Cost of Crime,” was accepted for publication in Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics.
Sheldon Tapley's works are featured in the May issue of The Artist's Magazine, in an article titled "Master of The Not-So-Still-LIfe".
William (Beau) Weston gave an invited address on "Presbyterian Distinctives" to the presidents conference of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities in Nashville on March 23rd.
William (Beau) Weston gave an invited address "Happiness and Faith," at the Christian Life and Witness conference at Georgetown College on January 24. This draws on his sabbatical project, developing a new course on "The Happy Society."
In October William R. Levin (Art History, emeritus) presented a formal account of his recent research at Wellesley College, outside Boston, in a paper titled “Unifying Themes in Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise.” In November he lectured at Agnes Scott College, near Atlanta, on “Origins, Analogues, and Redemption Theology of the Nursing Madonna Image-Type.” In addition, he gave introductory remarks, titled “Open Door, Open Mind, Open Heart,” and was one of three featured participants responding to questions on pedagogical and other professional issues in the session “The Art of Education: A Panel Discussion with the SECAC 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award Winners” at the sixty-seventh annual meeting of the Southeastern College Art Conference, convened this year in Savannah, Georgia.
Tom McCollough gave the keynote address at Morehead State University to inaugurate their international studies week. The address was entitled, “A Season of Intifadas: Exploring Revolutionary Movements in the Contemporary Middle East.”
Bill Crummett has been named Associate Director for the University of Kentucky’s Center for Advanced Materials. He is in charge of matters with the Center’s associated colleges and universities. The other associate director is Todd Hastings, a 1996 Centre College physics graduate who received his Ph.D. from MIT and is currently an engineering professor at UK.
Rick Axtell presented a paper on the HOPE VI public housing program in Louisville, "The Other Side of Hope" at the University of Louisville's Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research on Oct. 5, 2011. Axtell, with co-author Michelle Tooley from Berea College, presented "The Other Side of Hope: Deconcentration of Poverty and Social Networks" in Louisville's HOPE VI at the annual meeting of Anthropologists and Sociologists of Kentucky at Nothern Kentucky University on Oct. 22, 2011.
Rick Axtell co-led a roundtable discussion at the annual meeting of the Anthropologists and Sociologists of Kentucky entitled "Displacing Injustice: Public Policy Research and Positive Social Change" at Northern Kentucky University on Oct. 22, 2011.
Professor James Morrison lectured on "Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War" at Trinity University (in San Antonio, Texas) on Sept. 27, 2011.
Professor James Morrison participated on September 24 in the biannual Bluegrass Ancient Studies Seminar (BASS) at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. The topic this fall was "Death and the Afterlife in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Chinese Cultures."
Professor James Morrison has published an article, "Divine Voice, Literary Models, and Human Authority: Peter and Paul in the Early Christian Church," in Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy and Religion (Brill 2011) 371-88.
Professor Conrad Shiba presented an invited talk on New Zealand volcanoes and the monitoring of volcanoes on White Island and Mt. Ruapehu for the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes while participating in a 3-week field course on volcano monitoring on the Big Island of Hawaii during July and August.
Students Andrew Augustus and James Melloan and
professor Mykol Hamilton attended and presented a poster
at the International Congress of Psychology and Law.
Students Andrew Augustus and James Melloan and professor Mykol Hamilton attended and presented a poster at the International Congress of Psychology and Law in Miami in March. The project was Voir Dire, Change of Venue, and Legal Desirability: Hidden Jury Bias in High Pretrial Publicity Cases. They analyzed the extent to which potential jurors reveal their biases against a defendant in the jury selection process (voir dire), and how attorneys' and judges' questions affect the potential jurors' honesty about their biases. They based the study on a local murder case, that of Dr. Steven Hall, who was accused or murdering his wife, Isabel Hall, by running over her with their pontoon boat on Herrington Lake. Hamilton was a jury consultant in the case as well as an expert witness concerning a proposed change of venue. For the study they analyzed and compared the degree of "guilty bias" in her change of venue survey of 400 Boyle County jury-eligible residents versus in the 46 potential jurors interviewed in individual voir dire. We found that people were three to seven times more likely to admit to a guilty bias in the phone survey than they were in voir dire, in part because of the way potential jurors were questioned by the judge and attorneys. Justice isn't served if people have biases against a defendant, based on sensationalized news coverage, yet end up on the jury because they hide their biases!
William (Beau) Weston's article, “The College Class at Work and at Home” has been published in Society. Vol. 48, no. 3 (April, 2011). This study compares the work and family values of corporate managers, professionals, and intellectuals. It grew out of an independent study with Olivia Fitzpatrick '10, Scott Meltzer '10, and Kate Pedersen '10.
Senior math major Ryan Curry presented a talk entitled “Elliptic Curve Cryptography—Cracking the K(0,13) Code” at the annual meeting of the Kentucky Section of the Math Association of America in Richmond in March, 2011. Professors Christine Shannon and Marian Anton also made presentations arising out of collaborative student research projects conducted last summer. Professors Jeff Heath, Joel Kilty, and John Wilson attended the meeting along with over 100 math faculty and students from across Kentucky. Jeff Heath was elected to a three-year term as treasurer of the organization.
Professor James Morrison has published a book review of Greenwood, E. Afro-Greeks. Dialogues between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and the Classics in the Twentieth Century in Classical Review 61 (2011) 291-294.
Professor James Morrison presented a paper, "Shipwrecks, Survival, and Storytelling in Homer, Shakespeare, Defoe, and the Modern World," at Oberlin College on March 8.
David Anderson gave a series of lectures on ethics, sustainability, and environmental policy at Yamaguchi Prefectural University in Japan and the Iolani School in Hawaii.
William R. Levin (art history, emeritus) participated in the symposium on Renaissance Painting and the Venetian Style, held recently at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in conjunction with the loan exhibition titled “Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Painting: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland.”
Tom McCollough organized and chaired a session on The New Testament and Archaeology at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Atlanta. Among those presenting papers in the session was Kimberly Bauser a recent Centre graduate and now a Ph.D. student in New Testament studies at Boston College.
McCollough also presented an invited paper at the Symposium on The Gospel of John, Jesus and History on the archaeological excavations at Khirbet Qana and the Gospel of John’s references to Cana of Galilee. The symposium was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The paper will be published by Eerdmans Press in a volume on the Gospel of John and History.
James Morrison gave a talk, "Shipwrecks and the Re-invention of Self in Homer, Shakespeare, Defoe, and the Modern World," at the PAMLA (the Pacific meeting for the Ancient and Modern Language Association) in Honolulu, Hawaii on November 13, 2010; he also chaired a panel on "Shipwrecks in the Ancient World."
David Anderson gave a speech on economic education at the Richmond, Virginia Federal Reserve Bank as part of the International AP Economics Teachers Conference.
Steven Beaudoin presented a paper entitled “Microhistory and the Study of Parliamentary Debates: Victorien Sardou’s Thermidor and the Theater of Politics,” at a special colloquium devoted to the study of parliamentary debate, “Faire Parler le Parlement/Making Parliaments Speak,” in Paris, France in October of 2010.
Beau Weston's history of the college, Centre College: Scholars, Gentlemen, Christians, was released at Homecoming. Click here for more.
A paper submitted by Brent White and six former students has been published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal American Journal of Primatology, 2010, vol. 72, pages 1082-1091. This research has implications beyond the study of primates. It reveals some problems with how we process urine samples when we are using them to estimate the blood concentration of hormones, drugs, toxins, or other compounds. Title: Specific gravity and creatinine as corrections for variation in urine concentration in humans, gorillas, and woolly monkeys. Authors: Brent C. White, Keri M. Jamison, Cassie Grieb, Drew Lally, Cloe Luckett, Katie S. Kramer, Justin Phillips. Article first published online: July 20, 2010. DOI: 10.1002/ajp.20867. ©2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
At its recent annual meeting, convened this year in Richmond, Virginia, the Southeastern College Art Conference named William R. Levin as the recipient of two citations: the Award for Excellence in Teaching, granted each year to a member "who demonstrates an exceptional command of his or her discipline through the ability to teach effectively, impart knowledge, and inspire students;" and the occasionally bestowed Award for Exemplary Achievement, "the organization's most prestigious award, given in recognition of personal and professional development as well as long-standing service to SECAC." Encompassing twelve states but with a firmly established national membership, the Southeastern College Art Conference is the largest regionally based visual-arts organization in the United States, numbering art historians, artists, museum and gallery personnel, art educators, and visual-resources curators as well as institutions of higher education (including Centre College) among its members.
The article “Linking Science and Literacy,” by Donna Plummer , Betty Jo Davis (Toliver Elementary), and Tori Brazier ’08, has been accepted for publication in Science Activities, a journal for K-12 teachers.
As part of their work on the proposed Linguistics Minor, professors Phyllis Bellver, Jennifer Asmuth, Mark Rasmussen, and James Morrison attended a conference (24-26 September) on "Linguistics Programs in Undergraduate Education" in Bjorklunden vid Sjon, Wisconsin, hosted by Lawrence University and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest.
—October 12, 2010
Milton Reigelman was the featured speaker at the August 20-22 Michigan Literary Festival celebrating the life and work of John T. Frederick, the subject of Reigelman’s early book. A fiction writer himself, Frederick taught the first course ever on contemporary American literature, was key in making creative writing a respected endeavor at universities and paved the way for the Iowa Writers Program, and from 1915-1933 edited The Midland, the pioneering “little magazine” that H. L. Mencken called “the most important magazine ever published in America.”
—August 31, 2010
David Anderson traveled to Washington, D.C., to give two presentations at the National AP Conference. His editorial introduction on crime costs appeared in the journal Criminology and Public Policy.
—August 31, 2010
Click here for new faculty and staff.
Donna Plummer presented at the national conference of the National Science Teachers Association held in Indianapolis 29 March - 1 April. Her presentation "Children's Career Aspirations - Where are the Scientists?" was based on interviews with first- and fifth-grade children at a Danville elementary school.
David Anderson’s new study of the annual burden of crime, “The Cost of Crime,” was accepted for publication in Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics.
Sheldon Tapley's works are featured in the May issue of The Artist's Magazine, in an article titled "Master of The Not-So-Still-LIfe".
William (Beau) Weston gave an invited address on "Presbyterian Distinctives" to the presidents conference of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities in Nashville on March 23rd.
William (Beau) Weston gave an invited address "Happiness and Faith," at the Christian Life and Witness conference at Georgetown College on January 24. This draws on his sabbatical project, developing a new course on "The Happy Society."
In October William R. Levin (Art History, emeritus) presented a formal account of his recent research at Wellesley College, outside Boston, in a paper titled “Unifying Themes in Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise.” In November he lectured at Agnes Scott College, near Atlanta, on “Origins, Analogues, and Redemption Theology of the Nursing Madonna Image-Type.” In addition, he gave introductory remarks, titled “Open Door, Open Mind, Open Heart,” and was one of three featured participants responding to questions on pedagogical and other professional issues in the session “The Art of Education: A Panel Discussion with the SECAC 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award Winners” at the sixty-seventh annual meeting of the Southeastern College Art Conference, convened this year in Savannah, Georgia.
Tom McCollough gave the keynote address at Morehead State University to inaugurate their international studies week. The address was entitled, “A Season of Intifadas: Exploring Revolutionary Movements in the Contemporary Middle East.”
Bill Crummett has been named Associate Director for the University of Kentucky’s Center for Advanced Materials. He is in charge of matters with the Center’s associated colleges and universities. The other associate director is Todd Hastings, a 1996 Centre College physics graduate who received his Ph.D. from MIT and is currently an engineering professor at UK.
Rick Axtell presented a paper on the HOPE VI public housing program in Louisville, "The Other Side of Hope" at the University of Louisville's Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research on Oct. 5, 2011. Axtell, with co-author Michelle Tooley from Berea College, presented "The Other Side of Hope: Deconcentration of Poverty and Social Networks" in Louisville's HOPE VI at the annual meeting of Anthropologists and Sociologists of Kentucky at Nothern Kentucky University on Oct. 22, 2011.
Rick Axtell co-led a roundtable discussion at the annual meeting of the Anthropologists and Sociologists of Kentucky entitled "Displacing Injustice: Public Policy Research and Positive Social Change" at Northern Kentucky University on Oct. 22, 2011.
Professor James Morrison lectured on "Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War" at Trinity University (in San Antonio, Texas) on Sept. 27, 2011.
Professor James Morrison participated on September 24 in the biannual Bluegrass Ancient Studies Seminar (BASS) at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. The topic this fall was "Death and the Afterlife in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Chinese Cultures."
Professor James Morrison has published an article, "Divine Voice, Literary Models, and Human Authority: Peter and Paul in the Early Christian Church," in Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy and Religion (Brill 2011) 371-88.
Professor Conrad Shiba presented an invited talk on New Zealand volcanoes and the monitoring of volcanoes on White Island and Mt. Ruapehu for the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes while participating in a 3-week field course on volcano monitoring on the Big Island of Hawaii during July and August.
Students Andrew Augustus and James Melloan andprofessor Mykol Hamilton attended and presented a poster
at the International Congress of Psychology and Law.
William (Beau) Weston's article, “The College Class at Work and at Home” has been published in Society. Vol. 48, no. 3 (April, 2011). This study compares the work and family values of corporate managers, professionals, and intellectuals. It grew out of an independent study with Olivia Fitzpatrick '10, Scott Meltzer '10, and Kate Pedersen '10.
Senior math major Ryan Curry presented a talk entitled “Elliptic Curve Cryptography—Cracking the K(0,13) Code” at the annual meeting of the Kentucky Section of the Math Association of America in Richmond in March, 2011. Professors Christine Shannon and Marian Anton also made presentations arising out of collaborative student research projects conducted last summer. Professors Jeff Heath, Joel Kilty, and John Wilson attended the meeting along with over 100 math faculty and students from across Kentucky. Jeff Heath was elected to a three-year term as treasurer of the organization.
Professor James Morrison has published a book review of Greenwood, E. Afro-Greeks. Dialogues between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and the Classics in the Twentieth Century in Classical Review 61 (2011) 291-294.
Professor James Morrison presented a paper, "Shipwrecks, Survival, and Storytelling in Homer, Shakespeare, Defoe, and the Modern World," at Oberlin College on March 8.
David Anderson gave a series of lectures on ethics, sustainability, and environmental policy at Yamaguchi Prefectural University in Japan and the Iolani School in Hawaii.
William R. Levin (art history, emeritus) participated in the symposium on Renaissance Painting and the Venetian Style, held recently at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in conjunction with the loan exhibition titled “Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Painting: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland.”
Tom McCollough organized and chaired a session on The New Testament and Archaeology at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Atlanta. Among those presenting papers in the session was Kimberly Bauser a recent Centre graduate and now a Ph.D. student in New Testament studies at Boston College.
McCollough also presented an invited paper at the Symposium on The Gospel of John, Jesus and History on the archaeological excavations at Khirbet Qana and the Gospel of John’s references to Cana of Galilee. The symposium was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The paper will be published by Eerdmans Press in a volume on the Gospel of John and History.
James Morrison gave a talk, "Shipwrecks and the Re-invention of Self in Homer, Shakespeare, Defoe, and the Modern World," at the PAMLA (the Pacific meeting for the Ancient and Modern Language Association) in Honolulu, Hawaii on November 13, 2010; he also chaired a panel on "Shipwrecks in the Ancient World."
David Anderson gave a speech on economic education at the Richmond, Virginia Federal Reserve Bank as part of the International AP Economics Teachers Conference.
Steven Beaudoin presented a paper entitled “Microhistory and the Study of Parliamentary Debates: Victorien Sardou’s Thermidor and the Theater of Politics,” at a special colloquium devoted to the study of parliamentary debate, “Faire Parler le Parlement/Making Parliaments Speak,” in Paris, France in October of 2010.
Beau Weston's history of the college, Centre College: Scholars, Gentlemen, Christians, was released at Homecoming. Click here for more.
A paper submitted by Brent White and six former students has been published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal American Journal of Primatology, 2010, vol. 72, pages 1082-1091. This research has implications beyond the study of primates. It reveals some problems with how we process urine samples when we are using them to estimate the blood concentration of hormones, drugs, toxins, or other compounds. Title: Specific gravity and creatinine as corrections for variation in urine concentration in humans, gorillas, and woolly monkeys. Authors: Brent C. White, Keri M. Jamison, Cassie Grieb, Drew Lally, Cloe Luckett, Katie S. Kramer, Justin Phillips. Article first published online: July 20, 2010. DOI: 10.1002/ajp.20867. ©2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
At its recent annual meeting, convened this year in Richmond, Virginia, the Southeastern College Art Conference named William R. Levin as the recipient of two citations: the Award for Excellence in Teaching, granted each year to a member "who demonstrates an exceptional command of his or her discipline through the ability to teach effectively, impart knowledge, and inspire students;" and the occasionally bestowed Award for Exemplary Achievement, "the organization's most prestigious award, given in recognition of personal and professional development as well as long-standing service to SECAC." Encompassing twelve states but with a firmly established national membership, the Southeastern College Art Conference is the largest regionally based visual-arts organization in the United States, numbering art historians, artists, museum and gallery personnel, art educators, and visual-resources curators as well as institutions of higher education (including Centre College) among its members.
The article “Linking Science and Literacy,” by Donna Plummer , Betty Jo Davis (Toliver Elementary), and Tori Brazier ’08, has been accepted for publication in Science Activities, a journal for K-12 teachers.
As part of their work on the proposed Linguistics Minor, professors Phyllis Bellver, Jennifer Asmuth, Mark Rasmussen, and James Morrison attended a conference (24-26 September) on "Linguistics Programs in Undergraduate Education" in Bjorklunden vid Sjon, Wisconsin, hosted by Lawrence University and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest.
—October 12, 2010
Milton Reigelman was the featured speaker at the August 20-22 Michigan Literary Festival celebrating the life and work of John T. Frederick, the subject of Reigelman’s early book. A fiction writer himself, Frederick taught the first course ever on contemporary American literature, was key in making creative writing a respected endeavor at universities and paved the way for the Iowa Writers Program, and from 1915-1933 edited The Midland, the pioneering “little magazine” that H. L. Mencken called “the most important magazine ever published in America.”
—August 31, 2010
David Anderson traveled to Washington, D.C., to give two presentations at the National AP Conference. His editorial introduction on crime costs appeared in the journal Criminology and Public Policy.
—August 31, 2010
Click here for new faculty and staff.