Faculty News: Summer 2022

Artwork by Arturo Araujo, MFA, Associate Professor, Visual Arts, is featured in ”Conversations, Issue 61, Fall 2022.” Read more here.

Onur Bakiner, PhD, Associate Professor, Political Science, published “What do Academics Say about Artificial Intelligence Ethics? An Overview of the Scholarship” in AI and Ethics. Read the article. He also delivered a lecture at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Colombia, on truth commissions on August 26; the lecture is in Spanish. Watch here.

John C. Bean, PhD, Emeritus Professor, English, published an op-ed, “End Mass Incarceration in Washington Prisons,” in the Vashon Beachcomber.

Caitlin Carlson, PhD, Chair and Associate Professor, Communication and Media, co-authored a number of articles, including:

•  “Pronoun policies in public schools: The case against First Amendment exceptions for K-12 teachers.” Civil Rights Law Journal, 32(2) 261-297. Carlson, C.R. & Hansen, E. (2022).
•  “Access denied: How online harassment limits access to public accommodations offline. Gonzaga Law Review,” 57(3) 551-588. Carlson, C.R. & Henein, L. (2022).
•  “Rethinking Adarand after Prometheus: A rational basis solution to FCC minority ownership policy.” Federal Communications Law Journal, 74(2) 134-170. Terry, C. & Carlson, C.R. (2022).

Josefina Valenzuela Cerda, MFA, Adjunct Professor, Film and Media Studies, was awarded this year’s Women in Film Professional Grant for her Virtual Reality Short Film “The Mirror”, as a screenwriter and producer. She is grateful for WIF’s support to be able to continue with the postproduction of this innovative and immersive narrative that merges film, theatre, and dance, and counted on the participation of SU Film and Media students as professional interns.

Dawn Cerny, Adjunct Professor, Art, Art History, and Design, is one of fifteen recipients of the Joan Mitchell Fellowship. This prestigious fellowship provides unrestricted grant funds over five years and Fellows are invited to participate in one-on-one professional practice consultations; convenings that cultivate a peer learning community; and programs that focus on personal finance, legacy planning, and thought leadership, among other opportunities. She also received the Bonnie Bronson Visual Arts Fellowship. The Bonnie Bronson Fellowship is an annual award made to an artist living and working in the Pacific Northwest. The award is a cash prize and purchase of a work of art for the Bonnie Bronson Collection, which is housed at Reed College and displayed prominently throughout campus. Artists may not apply for this award and the new Fellow is informed with a simple phone call from the selection committee.

Pete Collins, PhD, Associate Professor and Brooke Gialopsos, PhD, Assistant Professor, both Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Forensics, had research cited in "Editorial: What’s keeping people away from jury service?”

Kathleen Cook, PhD, Professor, Psychology, and her collaborators at Seattle University’s Mechanical Engineering Department are presenting a workshop for the National Science Foundation’s Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (RED) conference in September.  The workshop, “Sustaining the Change,” applies the seven aspects of the framework to two case studies and guides participants through applying the framework to their own endeavors.  The goal of the framework is to help researchers, educators, and funding agencies assess change viability and sustainability of their change efforts.  A paper based on this work has been accepted for a special session at the Frontiers in Education conference in Uppsala, Sweden in October. 

Sharon Cumberland, PhD, Professor Emerita, English, published a new book: "Found in a Letter 1959  A Memoir in Poems". The cover art was designed by Josef Venker, S.J. curator of the Seattle University art collection-- "Found in a Letter 1959" is a collection of poems that begin with fragments of letters written when the poet's father, Jack Cumberland, was 38 years old and a Sloan Fellow at M.I.T.  Each poem continues in Jack's voice but imagines him as a man of 90 who can reflect on all the events of his past. The first section of this large-format, illustrated book are 36 "hybrid" poems, followed by the complete letters in the second section. These narrative poems conjure a mid-century past that stands in judgement of the new-century present.

Elizabeth Dale, PhD, Associate Professor, Nonprofit Leadership, in the The Chronicle of Philanthropy, "These groups, while sometimes slow to change because of their size and complexity, should be leading the nonprofit world on diversity and equity issues, says Elizabeth Dale, an associate professor of nonprofit leadership at Seattle University. “These are the organizations that probably have the most resources to start experimenting with change.”" Read the article here.

In partnership with Dr. Laura Lynn, Interim Executive Director of the Office of Native Education in the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Rob Efird, PhD, Professor, Anthropology and Asian Studies, co-edited a special edition of Clearing: Journal of Environmental Education for the Cascadian Bioregion. The special edition is entitled "Indigenous Perspectives and Environmental Education: Connecting Youth with Plants, Places and Cultural Traditions" and is available for viewing on the Clearing website and here.

Christie Eppler, PhD, LMFT, Program Director and Professor, Couples and Family Therapy, presented “Navigating Transparency as a Leader. [Enhanced Education]” virtually at the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy’s Leadership Certificate Conference in August.

As part of their NSF research project on the use of economic incentives for conservation and sustainable development in Ecuador, Tanya Hayes, PhD, Professor and Director, Institute of Public Service and Program Director, Environmental Studies, and Felipe Murtinho, PhD, Associate Professor and Director, International Studies, and Associate Appointments, Institute of Public Service and Environmental Studies,  published the policy report “Incentivos para la conservación: ¿una herramienta que apoya el manejo comunitario sostenido de recursos naturales?” Socio Bosque report 2022 to share with community partners. This summer, they met with officials from the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment to discuss the policy lessons from their study.

Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, PhD, Professor, Modern Languages and Women Gender, and Sexuality Studies, was interviewed for the Colorado Public Radio story “As professors leave, University of Denver confronts a campus diversity challenge.”

Steen Halling, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Psychology, and Sanne Angel gave a presentation on "The uses and abuses of the concept of acceptance in rehabilitation and recovery," at the International Human Science Research Conference at PACE University, New York City, June 14

Jacqueline Helfgott, PhD, Professor, Criminal Justice and Director, Crime & Justice Research Center, and MACJ students Brandon Bledsoe, Katie Kepler, and Ashley Dobbs and undergraduate BSCJ/Forensic Science student Evelyn Madrid-Fierro (who are working as paid civilian Seattle Police Research Analysts through a funded collaboration between Seattle University and the Seattle Police Department) co-facilitated 15 virtual community-police dialogues (5 per precinct) over spring/summer 2022. The dialogues brought together community members and police in a restorative dialogue framework to discuss concerns about public safety from both community and police personnel perspectives at the precinct and neighborhood levels. In the fall the MCPP Research Team will conduct community-police dialogues with Seattle Police Department’s new “Before the Badge” Program – a new training program that engages recruits in specialized training and community engagement 45 days prior to entering the WA State Criminal Justice Training Commission’s Basic Law Enforcement Academy. The dialogues will be held weekly via Zoom and will engage community members with recruits in discussions about precinct and neighborhood-based public safety. Interested community members can sign up here.

An article by Dr. Helfgott and Matthew Hickman, PhD, Professor and Chair, Criminal Justice, Criminology & Forensics, was cited in the Seattle Times story, “What role should police play in mental health calls? Seattle has small, limited crisis staff.”

Audrey Hudgins, EdD, Clinical Associate Professor, Matteo Ricci Institute, presented “Making Mexico Great Again: A Case Study of Migrant Detention and Family Separation in Puebla during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” with Guillermo Yrizar and Elena Ayala, Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, as part of the panel “Restrictions to Mobilities in a COVID-19 Era: Persistence, Resistance, and Human Rights in Central-North America” at the Latin American Studies Association 2022 Hybrid Congress: Polarización socioambiental y rivalidad entre grandes potencias in May. With undergraduate students Cullin Egge, Faye White, and Grace Marston, she worked alongside Ibero Puebla colleagues, Guillermo Yrizar and Elena Ayala, and eight 8 Ibero Puebla students and alumni to conduct two weeks of fieldwork in the Sierra highlands of Veracruz state in support of Radio Huaya, a community development work of the Jesuits, to investigate the effects of labor migration on individuals, families, and communities. Preliminary findings were presented at two conferences in July 2022. The first presentation, titled, “Plataforma Huaya-Puebla-Seattle International Research Collaboration on U.S.-Mexican Labor Migration and Transnational Families,” was presented at the Conference on Migration in North America During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic, hosted by Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP) and El Centro de Investigación e Inteligencia Económica (CIIE). A second presentation titled, “Plataforma Puebla-Huaya: avances en colaboración con Seattle University (SU) (Eje 3: Migraciones),” was shared at the quarterly conference of Plataforma Huaya, held at Instituto Oriente in Puebla, Mexico. Work commenced this summer on write-ups, with the goal of publishing a report, scholarly articles and/or a book based on the initial results of what will be a longitudinal study, the US phase of which will begin this fall. Also, along with colleagues Maria Vidal, Loyola Chicago, and Alejandro Olayo-Mendez, Boston College, she organized and sponsored the quarterly seminar of the Red Jesuita Con Migrantes Centroamérica-Norteamérica (RJM CANA) on September 6, 2022. The seminar featured four panelists on the session’s theme of migrant integration, including Amanda Heffernan of SU’s College of Nursing.

Nalini Iyer, PhD, Professor, Department of English appears on the podcast “Empire Lines,” talking about Balachandra Rajan’s novel “The Dark Dancer.” She has written about this novel in “Revisiting India’s Partition.”

Sonora Jha, PhD, Associate Dean for Academic Community and Professor, Department of Communication and Media, was featured on the Sept 18 episode of "The Deep End Friends" Podcast. She spoke with poet and activist Anastacia Renee who was a visiting writer for the English Department in 2020-21. She was a contributor to 'India at 75' published by PEN America to mark India's 75 years of independence on Aug. 15. “To mark India at 75, PEN America reached out to authors from India and the Indian diaspora to write short texts expressing what they felt. Together they make a historic document. Authors who were born in British India responded, as did India’s Midnight’s Children and grandchildren. Authors from around the globe sent us their thoughts, as did authors from India’s many languages, communities, faiths and castes. Some voices are optimistic, some prayerful, some anguished and enraged. Some suggest defeat, others venture hope, still others are defiant. The authors hold a spectrum of political views, and may be in disagreement about much else, but they are united in their concern for the state of Indian democracy. We invite you to read their ideas of what India was and ought to be, and what it has become.” Read her essay.

Heidi Liere, PhD, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, contributed to a new study, "Rarity begets rarity: Social and environmental drivers of rare organisms in cities,” featured in the National Science Foundation news.

Susan Meyers, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of English and Director, Creative Writing Program, had an article accepted in the new edited collection, Innovations in Creative Writing Research: Methods, Methodologies, Practices, edited by Benjamin Ristow and Jon Udelson. She was awarded a 2022 Individual Artist Grant from 4Culture, in support of her new collection of literary essays, "Invisibility Lessons. In October, she will present at Fulbright's 45th Annual Conference near Washington D.C. In November, she is presenting at the Write in the Harbor Conference in Gig Harbor, WA.

Quinton Morris, DMA, Associate Professor, Violin, has been confirmed in the class of 2022 as the newest professional member of the Recording Academy. As a professional member, he will have voting rights for all music nominees for The Grammy Awards. He will be affiliated with the Pacific Northwest Chapter and attend The Grammy Awards next April in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Christopher Paul, PhD, Professor, Communication and Media, participated in a recent game studies roundtable. "One of the things that drew me to academia was the ability to engage in critique. The point of rhetorical analysis is to think deeply about a text and then make an argument regarding how it works. In my case, I typically take those tools and use them to analyze games and their surrounding discussions. The time, space, and cognitive distance I need to do that work is something that those in industry cannot generally afford." Watch the video here.

Christina Roberts, PhD, Director, Indigenous Peoples Institute; and Associate Professor, English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, spoke on a panel, “'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' and its complicated legacy,” for the Talk of Iowa podcast. Listen here.

Patrick Schoettmer, PhD, Associate Teaching Professor, Political Science, was interviewed for the AP story, “GOP challengers vie for chance to unseat Rep. Kim Schrier.”  

Kirsten Moana Thompson, PhD, Professor and Director, Film Studies, and Theiline Pigott-McCone Endowed Chair (2022-24), produced a message for the 10th anniversary of the Timeline of Historical Film Colors. Watch it here.

Charles M. Tung, Professor, English, was invited to speak in a plenary session, "Making English Programs More Inclusive," at the MLA Academic Program Services Leadership Institute, June 27-30, 2022.  The theme of the 2022 Institute was "Leading Now: A Tool Kit for the Changing Humanities."  An expanded version of his remarks will appear in the ADE Bulletin in 2024.

Marie Wong, PhD, Professor Emerita, Institute of Public Service, Asian Studies, and Public Affairs, wrote a commentary for Northwest Asian Weekly, ” The collateral damage from urban planning.”

Enyu Zhang, PhD, Associate Professor, International Studies, has published "All Roads Lead to Beijing: Systemism, Power Transition Theory and the Belt and Road Initiative" (co-authored with Patrick James) in Chinese Political Science Review.

Zachary D. Wood, PhD, Assistant Professor, Institute of Public Service, was interviewed for “Developer plans Puyallup apartment complex. 42 families forced to move to make room” in the News Tribune.