Oct 27, 2010 Minutes

Members present: Senators Brown, Feakes, C. Hazlewood, Morey, Huling, Stone, Melzer, Payne, Furney, Martin

Guests: Jensine Coolidge, University Star Reporter

Meeting called to order at 3:30 pm.

The Senate heard the following Faculty Development Leave Proposal presentations:

Ani Yazedjian
Associate Professor
Family and Consumer Sciences
My purpose in applying for developmental leave is to work on five projects. I will use my time to prepare at least three manuscripts based on the proposed projects. In addition, I will oversee the second wave of data collection for a longitudinal project and begin analyzing the results. I will also incorporate the information I collect during my trip to Southeast Asia into the Family and Child Development course I am developing for the certificate in Southeast Asian studies at Texas State. Finally, I will explore alternative funding sources for two completed grant proposals and prepare them for resubmission.

Dittmar Hahn
Professor
Biology
I seek to gain expertise in advanced analyses methods in molecular microbial ecology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany. I have visited this Institute during the summer 2010, and received an invitation from the Chair to stay as a visiting scientist for 7 months during summer and fall 2011, on a research topic tentatively entitled “Evaluation of nitrogenase genes as markers in marine and terrestrial microbial community studies”. The overall merit of this work will include advancing our current successful work and directly improving my own capabilities for research, teaching and future competitive external funding.

Federico Subervi
Professor
School of Journalism & Mass Communication
The goal is to gather data and complete a manuscript for a book on the communication strategies that Democratic and Republican Party candidates for federal and state offices in 2008 and 2010 utilized to win Latino votes. The leave time will allow for the final stretch of this research endeavor that was started during the 2008 presidential elections and is currently ongoing with the 2010 mid-term elections. Pending interviews and data gathering, primarily in Washington, DC, will be done in early fall. The latter part of the semester will be dedicated to the final work on the manuscript.

Rich Radclife
Associate Professor
Curriculum and Instruction
This leave focuses on analysis and publication of findings from a longitudinal study investigating how to build college readiness among at-risk secondary students. I will (a) create a College Readiness Program Guide describing strategies for use by public schools to build college readiness among secondary students, (b) write a proposal to the Hays School District as the site to implement provisions from this Guide (this allows replication of strategies for building college readiness that I piloted from 2005 to 2010), and (c) write a manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal that presents a consolidated version of the College Readiness Program Guide.

Vedaramin Sriraman
Professor
Engineering Technology
The objective of this developmental leave is to “retool” myself after a six year stint in the College of Science in various administrative capacities. The leave is sought for Fall 2011. The plan is to spend two thirds of the time undergoing a faculty internship in a high technology manufacturing company in Central Texas. The internship would allow me to rotate between four functional groups at either Applied Materials or Tokyo Electron and thereby update my knowledge of high technology manufacturing, manufacturing management practices and sustainable development practices. The information gained would further my professional development as well as enable me to bring back the latest in industry to the classroom. For the remaining one third of the leave I propose to complete two manuscripts for submission to the Journal of Engineering Technology. The research work for the papers were completed in the 2004-2005 period.

Tinker Murray
Professor
Health and Human Performance
1. Write two national level grants related to physical activity interventions and health outcomes.
2. Work with leading professionals and colleagues in the areas of exercise science, school health, preschool programming, epidemiology, and public health in the Austin to San Antonio corridor.
3. Enhance my professional skills in teaching, research, and professional service related to the promotion of physical activity and health, which has been described in the research literature as a major public health area for national and international attention for the next 10-20 years.

Dhiraj Anil Vattem
Associate Professor
Family and Consumer Science
Our research using in vitro models has shown that compounds from herbs and spices can repress physiological processes that may contribute to age-related neuro/muscular degenerative diseases. However, further research using in vivo models is warranted to understand their complete therapeutic potential. The objectives of the proposed developmental leave are 1) Obtain training in advanced genetic manipulation techniques necessary to study neuro/muscular degenerative diseases using Caenorhabditis elegans (an invertebrate nematode worm) at Ralph Baumeister’s lab (Germany) 2) Develop and establish transgenic and mutant strains of C. elegans as model systems to study the molecular effects of phytochemicals in our ongoing research.

Matthew L. Juge
Associate Professor
Modern Languages
I intend to produce a series of articles on two related types of irregularity in the structure and use of verbs in the world’s languages that have not received adequate attention. Both suppletion, the use of different roots within a single verb, and morphological mismatch, inconsistency between a verb’s form and its temporal reference, relate to important subfields of linguistics, including semantics, syntax, sound change, and pragmatics. I will examine primary and secondary materials acquired by Alkek for two library grants that I have won to identify the relationships among these phenomena, which will also benefit my teaching.

Kristen G. Ploeger
Associate Professor
Computer Information Systems/QM
Computers, monitors, associated equipment, and cell phones all produce Extremely Low Frequency – Electromagnetic Fields (ELF-EMF). The pulsating magnetic fields have long been associated with negative health effects, including brain cancer and leukemia. Research investigations have attempted to associate increased disease levels among the general population of end users. However, identifying the specific level of ELF-EMF exposure created is difficult. The exposure level is related to the distance between the user and the device. This proposed study is to determine a methodology and measure the level of exposure to ELF-EMF at specific distances.

Sylvia Crixell
Professor
Family and Consumer Sciences
The specific goals of this leave include preparation and submission of two manuscripts and development of one grant proposal. Working titles and target journals for the manuscripts include (1) “Influence of the 2010 benefits change for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on feeding practices in a community in central Texas” for submission to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association; and (2) “Restaurant participation in an community initiative to combat pediatric obesity” for submission to Ecology of Food and Nutrition. The grant proposal(s) will reflect current funding availability and propose a more comprehensive community intervention designed to combat pediatric obesity.

Rebecca Raphael
Associate Professor
Philosophy
I request developmental leave to support work on my second book, Anomalous Bodies and Religious Identities: Essays on Disability, Monstrosity, and Re-embodiment in Second Temple Apocalyptic Literature. The apocalyptic thought of Second Temple Judaism had enormous influence on western civilization, but little attention has been given to its prolific imagery of the body (disabled, monstrous, angelic, demonic, resurrected). On leave, I shall work on chapters about the Enochic literature, the Book of Daniel, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition to developmental leave and a supplemental grant, I am also applying for several external grants in order to fund a full year of research and residence at appropriate facilities.

Christina Conlee
Associate Professor
Anthropology
During my development leave I intend to write a book titled The Rise and Fall of Complex Societies in the Nasca Desert: Archaeological Investigations at the Site of La Tiza. The goal of the leave is to provide time to produce this manuscript that is the result of several years of archaeological work in Peru. This research focuses on the origin, development, and collapse of human society over a period of 5000 years. Once completed, the book will make an important contribution to studies on ancient societies in the Americas and will bring my research to a broader audience.

Max Warshauer
Professor
Mathematics
This is a proposal to develop, test, and evaluate new curriculum that introduces algebra and higher-level mathematics to students in grades 5- 6. The curriculum being developed, along with associated teacher training, will be tested in partner schools that Mathworks has been working with for the past several years. Graduate math-education PhD. students will also be assisting in the project as part of their graduate program. This project will extend our knowledge of the best and most effective ways to teach young students, as well as how to engage students from disadvantaged areas in doing mathematics at a high level.

Thomas Keller
Professor
Mathematics
The planned project is in finite group and representation theory. The goal is to make significant progress on three well- known problems. The first one is the non-coprime k(GV)-problem, which asks for an upper bound for the number of conjugacy classes of certain semidirect products of groups. The second one is Brauer’s k(B)-problem, which is an old and famous problem in the modular representation theory of finite groups. The third problem is to establish strong lower bounds for the number of conjugacy classes in terms of the group structure, particularly the group order, with an emphasis on p-groups.

Francis E. Walsh
Associate Professor
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Beginning with the United States Copyright revisions in the 1970s, I have researched copyright and produced articles and chapters for all revisions of my text, The Law of Public Relations and Advertising. As in the past, I plan to continue this research for additional publications: I have applied for the 2011 Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship at the Library of Congress and for the Fulbright Scholars program to teach and research Chinese copyright law in China. Faculty leave for this period would provide me the support to experience a great research opportunity.