In June, two TCNJ staff members and a rising sophomore provided aid to impoverished Guatemalan villagers as part of the “Spring of Hope” project sponsored by a local church.

The work of Anita Allyn, chair of the art department, was exhibited in London’s Tate Modern art museum as part of the museum’s 10th anniversary festival, “No Soul for Sale.”

The College community was saddened by the deaths of Marvin Kurland, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Jonathan Trabilcy ’02, a support specialist in the Division of Information Technology’s User Support Services area, both of whom passed away in March.

TCNJ has joined a select group of primarily undergraduate institutions in the country that house both single-crystal and powder X-ray diffractometers.

Assistant professor of nursing Stacen Keating recently completed a qualitative study that provides insight into the skills nurses need to be successful and the key role they play in patient care.

Lisa Grega, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is helping two New Jersey towns study the feasibility of installing wind turbines that could provide the municipalities with a virtually limitless source of clean, affordable energy.

A panel of faculty and staff convened this spring to discuss what truly defines and legitimizes the family structure.

From May 17–21, CNN will be airing a series of reports examining children’s attitudes toward race. Tabitha Dell’Angelo, an assistant professor of early childhood and elementary education at TCNJ, served as a consultant on the project.

In 2004, TCNJ Foundation received a bequest from Mildred M. Dahne ’32, which earmarked $217,000 to annually recognize faculty excellence. This year’s winner, the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, was recognized for its accomplishments in the areas of excellence in teaching, academic excellence, and student involvement.

Assistant professor of psychology Tamra Bireta studies the intricacies of memory, laying the groundwork for techniques that will help maximize people’s ability to remember as they age. “There seems to be a stereotype of aging that all memory gets worse, and that doesn’t seem true,” says Bireta.

Associate professor of chemistry Stephanie Sen’s research could lead to an environmentally safer method of controlling moths—pests that cause major agricultural damage and deforestation.

A high-powered team of principal investigators will use its recent National Science Foundation award, one of several granted the College this year, to establish a program for the advancement of women in academics.

John C. Pollock, professor of communication studies, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at the University of Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the spring 2010 academic semester.

Concerned with chronic shortages in the availability of transplant organs, particularly kidneys, one TCNJ professor has assembled a point-by-point argument advocating a legal market in human organs as an alternative to the altruistic system.

Professor Avery Faigenbaum, one of the nation’s leading pediatric exercise scientists, says that children as young as 7 can reap the benefits of a properly prescribed and supervised strength-training program.

In September, Mark Kiselica, professor of counseling education, was appointed vice provost of TCNJ. Due to teaching commitments for the current semester, Kiselica has been working as vice provost on a half-time basis, but by the end of the semester will increase his responsibilities to full time.

Students in Lincoln Konkle’s “Springsteen’s Lyrics as Literature” course are examining the timeless, universal themes—such as growing up, love, death, political power, religious faith, and doubt—that are a part of the Boss’s songwriting.

William Keep has a PhD in marketing from Michigan State University and a BA in social science and economics from James Madison College, a residential college at Michigan State. He comes to the College from Quinnipiac University, where he has held the positions of associate vice president for academic affairs and director of assessment for the institution’s School of Business.

John Laughton comes to TCNJ from the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth, where he was most recently a professor and chair of the music department. He also served for seven years as the dean of the university’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. He has more than 30 years experience as a higher education educator and administrator, international arts consultant and performer, and trained mediator.

Benjamin Rifkin received his BA and MA in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University, and his AM and PhD in Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. He comes to TCNJ from Temple University, where he served most recently as head of the Russian section in the Department of French, German, Italian and Slavic Languages.

The National Science Foundation’s CreativeIT Program has awarded four TCNJ professors a three-year grant for the administration of a new, multidisciplinary course that will allow students to construct artificial systems capable of conducting an orchestra and visualizing feedback.

Terry O’Connor, professor of educational administration and secondary education, and Gloria Harper Dickinson, associate professor of African-American studies, are remembered for their endearing legacy to TCNJ, their profession, and their passions.

Students in Yifeng Hu’s Introduction to Communication Studies and New Media and Health Communication classes are exploring how communication takes place within virtual worlds.

Susan Boughn’s senior nursing students have been gaining invaluable clinical experience by working with HomeFront, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness in central New Jersey.

Richard Kamber, professor of philosophy and coordinator of the online philosophy laboratory at The College of New Jersey, will participate in a four-week National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute in Experimental Philosophy at the University of Utah. The institute is designed to enable a small number of faculty members from colleges and universities throughout the United States to work closely with leaders in the experimental philosophy movement.

TCNJ librarians swept up all of the honors granted this year by the Research Committee of the joint Association for College and Research Librarians (ACRL) and the New Jersey Library Association’s (NJLA) College & University Research Section.

In 2008, TCNJ’s Department of Psychology was awarded the Mildred Dahne Award for Faculty Excellence. The department has decided to designated its $8,000 prize to the Laurie Ann Mandara Scholarship Endowment Fund for psychology, said Pete Manetas, TCNJ’s vice president for development.

In his new and insightful book, When Boys Become Parents, Mark S. Kiselica, professor of counselor education, draws on his many years of counseling teenage fathers to offer a compassionate look at the difficult life circumstances and the complicated hardships these young men experience. He dispels many of the myths surrounding teenage fatherhood and shows that, contrary to popular belief, these young men are often emotionally and physically involved in relationships with their partner and their child.

A $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will allow Associate Professor of English Kim Pearson and colleagues from Villanova University to design new ways to bridge together college-level courses in computer science and the humanities.

“I’ve always had a drive to make what I teach meaningful outside of the classroom,” says Cynthia Paces, associate professor of history. Find out how students in her What Happened to Yugoslavia? course helped make a difference in the lives of Bosnian orphans.

For the past several months, patients and staff at Hunterdon Medical Center have been treated to private concerts courtesy of André Tarantiles, harpist and adjunct professor of music at TCNJ.

TCNJ President R. Barbara Gitenstein was one of the 76 college and university presidents and chancellors from across the country asked to serve on the nation’s first Higher Education Cabinet, formed as part of a joint effort by “The New York Times” and “The Chronicle of Higher Education.”

College-aged women have a greater desire for products advertised by thin models, despite the fact that these ads make the women feel self-conscious about their own appearance, according to a study conducted by Karen Becker-Olsen, assistant professor in the School of Business, and Jeremy Kees, a colleague from Villanova University.

A $170,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education will help TCNJ strengthen its Middle Eastern and Central Eurasian studies programs.

William Ball was honored for his efforts to advance civic engagement through the study of engagement and participation, his new approaches to the scholarship of teaching engagement, and his efforts to raise political awareness, involvement, and participation of undergraduate students.

An ESPN documentary about the struggles faced by black basketball players and coaches during the Civil Rights Movement in America used as source material a series of articles written by Professor Emeritus Robert Cole.

The endowment of the Robert C. Cole Journalism Scholarship was announced at a spring dinner for TCNJ’s emeritus professors.

The cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which claims the lives of more than 2,000 infants each year, remains a mystery. But the work of Jeffery Erickson, assistant professor of biology, could open new doors in the search for the cause of this silent killer.

The College community was saddened by the deaths of two longtime faculty members this past academic year. Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Eugenia Shanklin, passed away in October 2007, and Professor of History Alan Dawley, died in March.

Headed to campus? Then be sure to check out Nate Magee’s Web site to see whether or not you’ll need that umbrella. Magee, an assistant professor of physics, recently oversaw the installation of a weather station on the Science Complex roof. The station continuously records a full range of meteorological data that is being used in TCNJ classrooms and is feeding into National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) computers.

Two key administrative posts were filled this past academic year with the appointment of Thomas Mahoney as general counsel and John Collins as police chief/director of campus security.

As a student in Professor Steve Klug’s biology class, Michael A. Palladino ’87 used the first edition of Concepts of Genetics, the seminal text written by his professor. Over the years, the book has been translated into 10 foreign languages. The ninth edition was just published, and Palladino, now a biology professor at Monmouth University, was one of Klug’s coauthors.

Walt Whitman: Where the Future Becomes Present, now available from University of Iowa Press, features 10 essays originally delivered on TCNJ’s campus in 2005 during Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: The Sesquicentennial Symposium. 
The book was coedited by David Blake, associate professor of English, and Michael Robertson, professor of English, both of whom organized the 2005 event. “The book is a wonderful testament to 
all that TCNJ did for Whitman studies during the sesquicentennial of Leaves of Grass,” said Blake.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York named Miriam Lowi, associate professor of political science, as one of only 20 Carnegie Scholars this year. Lowi and her counterparts were selected for their compelling ideas and commitment to enriching the quality of the public dialogue on Islam.

Blythe Hinitz, professor of elementary and early childhood education, was named the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) 2007 Outstanding Teacher-Educator for her “meritorious leadership and professionalism in early childhood teacher education.”

In the past few years, professor Jie Kang of the health and exercise science department has become a go-to fitness expert for many major publications, including The Washington Post, Self, Men’s Health, and Muscle & Fitness. Recently, Kang was contacted by Consumer Reports about writing a short piece on workout tips for those in a time crunch.
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Morton Winston, chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion and director of the Center for the Study of Social Justice, was recently named the Danish Distinguished Chair in Human Rights and International Relations for 2007 –08. This senior Fulbright Research Scholarship provides Winston with the opportunity to spend four months in residence at the Danish Institute for Human Rights in Copenhagen.

For nearly 40 years, William “Bill” DeMeritt was considered one of the most visible faculty members on The College of New Jersey campus. So immersed was he in the everyday fabric of TCNJ that his very presence often seemed an extension of the classroom.

Associate Provost Robert Anderson has been honored as an Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate by the National Resource Center for First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.

Susan Albertine, dean of the School of Culture and Society, was installed as president-elect of the national Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) this November.

Two schools at the College are under the direction of interim deans, and a third is being led by a committee of four department chairs, while the search for a full-time provost is underway.

Professor Jay Hoffman, chair of the Department of Health and Exercise Science, was named the 2007 National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) William J. Kraemer Outstanding Sports Scientist this past summer, in recognition of his research achievements in the field of exercise science. Hoffman was nominated by past winners of the award.