Augustana sabbatical and pre-tenure paid leave

Sabbatical reports, 2023-24

Umme al-Wazedi, English (spring): I began work on my first monograph, Your Jihad, Not Mine: Speculative Fiction and Critical Jihad Studies. I analyze and explore the debate in the West about the true nature of Jihad and the term’s relationship to violence and critique the distinct strain of exoticism coloring Western readings of the Muslim Other. What if a popular fiction written in the near past portrays an apocalyptic/dystopic picture of the present while portraying Islam and the idea of Jihad in a negative light? The way some Euro-American authors and popular culture manufacture the definition of Jihad and Jihadist and the authority they ascertain creates a complex portrayal of Muslims in apocalyptic/dystopic fiction. This complex picture creates a complicated discriminatory pattern—Muslims are treated like a suspect race and not a religious minority. Shahar Aziz, in her recently published book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, argues that such an approach to creating a suspect race is based on “the racialization of Islam as violent, illiberal, uncivilized, and Anti-American” and Anti-European, which in turn “dooms all Muslims to a lower societal caste regardless of their individual beliefs, lifestyles, and accomplishments.” Many Euro-American authors have used the word Jihadist to mean ghostly warriors who believe death grants these Jihadists eternal bliss and that they do not negotiate with anything. The word Jihad in the Quran has a decisive meaning, but the media and some pulp fiction focus on the surface meaning and is predominantly out of context. In the Muslim community, Jihad is used in the context to mean “personal struggle.” Why do I emphasize this point now? Muslims and non-Muslims have both been terrorized by the constant suicide bombings and terrorist attacks all over the world, so it is time to analyze the real meaning of Jihad. Also, the extent of Islamophobia has racialized the Muslim population. In their very recent book, Cyra Akila Choudhury and Khaled A. Beydoun defined Islamophobia as “a cognizable form of animus toward Muslims and perceived Muslims.” Islamophobia as a fear or hatred of Muslims is racism per se, which has its roots in the cultural representation of the “Other” as being “deviant” or “un-American,” states Amir Saeed. I argue that Islamophobia has become cultural racism—a racism that has become a hegemonic form, as suggested by Ramon Grosfogul (2003), to suppress and oppress a group of people.

Lendol Calder, History (fall): I am writing a book under the working title "Teaching American History in the Age of Trump: One Semester in a College US History Classroom." And I began the work of conceptualizing a book that might appeal to two different audiences: 1) instructors who want to know how my "uncoverage" methods work on a day to day basis, and 2) people who are following the "Ed Scare" as legislators in many states and in the US Congress pass laws regulating how US history is taught in K-16. What does a college American history course look like? Are professors indoctrinating students with their left-wing agendas? Are white students being made to feel "uncomfortable" during difficult discussions of race and gender inequalities? I would hope my book will throw light on these and other matters currently making news headlines on a daily basis. I gave a presentation at the American Historical Association annual meeting in San Francisco in January, 2024 on the topic of my proposed book: "Teaching History in Polarized Times." Over 120 people attended the session, making it one of the more popular sessions at a conference attended by 2,000 historians.

Paul Croll, Sociology (spring): While on sabbatical in Spring 2024, Dr. Paul Croll worked as a Principal Investigator on the American Mosaic Project (AMP) Wave 3 Survey. The AMP project has broadly asked, “How do Americans understand ethnic, religious, and racial diversity?” and “How do Americans respond to calls for greater recognition of diverse groups and lifestyles?” Research from this decades-long project has examined topics ranging from attitudes about diversity and belonging, understandings of racial inequality, beliefs about the role of religion in public life, to colorblind racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, the American diversity discourse, and white racial attitudes. This spring, Dr. Croll had primary responsibility for the survey vendor, survey fielding, and data collection for the project. He obtained bids and pricing for survey vendors and led the vendor selection process. Dr. Croll also was the primary contact with the survey vendor through all phases of the project. Dr. Croll took a lead role in survey development and managed the survey revisions process, working with current faculty in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota as well as other faculty at other institutions with connections to the American Mosaic Project. Later in 2024, Dr. Croll will oversee the survey pretesting, survey fielding, and data collection for the Wave 3 Survey. The AMP Wave 3 Survey will be fielded to a nationally representative sample of 3,200 Americans later this fall.

Rob Elfine, Music (fall): I used the sabbatical time to complete two projects related to future performances: 1) I learned the Goldberg Variations of Johann Sebastian Bach, and 2) completed a series of original compositions for piano solo. I plan to perform the Goldberg Variations in January of 2025. The original compositions will be included on each solo recital that I present for the foreseeable future.

David Ellis, History (spring): For my one-semester sabbatical, I worked on three projects. First, I analyzed data collected as part of a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project, examining the effect of using Reacting to the Past pedagogy (i.e., role-playing scenarios) in both FYI and History courses. I was interested in particular in how this pedagogy helped students acquire or polish skills of both disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning in both disciplinary and interdisciplinary courses. The results showed that the pedagogy helped students make learning gains in both disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning in both kinds of courses. A second project was to read my way into a new field of the Scholarship of Discovery. My past work has focused on the role of Protestants in the tumultuous political and religious reforms around the 1848 revolution. My new project shifts to examine how Rhineland Catholics dealt with a periodically hostile Prussian government in the so-called “Mixed Marriage Controversy” of the 1830s, focusing on Joseph Görres’ work Athanasius, which defends the autonomy of the Catholic Church in matters or marriage and education against incursions by the Protestant-dominated Prussian state. I will present my findings at a conference of the Consortium of the Revolutionary Era in February. In a third project, I developed a 300-level course in British history, filling a gap in our curriculum. I will submit the course proposal through the usual channels of faculty governance this academic year.

Nathan Frank, Physics (fall): My sabbatical furthered my experimental nuclear physics research program associated with Michigan State University (MSU) at the Facility for Relativistic Ion Beams (FRIB) formerly the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) during the fall and J-term (August 1, 2023 – February 1, 2024). I worked on projects related to future experiments, detector development, and finishing existing projects. I traveled to MSU to work with local collaborators to prepare the experimental setup for our first experiments scheduled for Spring 2025. Tests performed on neutron detectors assembled by Augustana students at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) are preparation work for the Next Generation Neutron detector project recently funded by the National Science Foundation. In addition, I traveled to Los Alamos National Laboratory to work on a dissertation experiment related to neutron detection. The work during this sabbatical provides the start of new projects for students to do big physics at small places alongside completing prior experimental work. Results were presented at a talk titled “Resolution Optimization by Trace Fitting a Charged Particle Detector Telescope” at the April 2024 American Physical Society in Sacramento, CA.

Rupa Gordon, Psychology (fall): Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive way to directly record brain activity that is relatively accessible to undergraduate students compared to other neuroscientific methods. However, it is challenging to learn proper data collection and analysis techniques. I completed two EEG projects in order to master the use of this equipment and increase accessibility for Augustana students. First, my students and I analyzed neural synchrony of individual EEG data during asynchronous storytelling: speakers told a story while video and EEG recordings were taken, and listeners later watched videos or heard audio of the speaker while their EEG was recorded. Then, we collected dual-systems data from two individuals simultaneously to measure face-to-face neural synchrony during storytelling. As one of the main benefits for my sabbatical was to the educational and research programs of the College and the Psychology & Neuroscience programs, I developed a Neurophysiology Handbook with detailed instructions and videos to improve accessibility of this technology for future Senior Inquiry and supervised research projects. Finally, I published a SOTL manuscript in the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education showing that my J-term course led to improvement in knowledge of common brain injury misconceptions, and also reduced the students’ willingness to risk future concussion. (Gordon, R. G. (2023). Reducing brain injury misconceptions and willingness to risk concussion with a three-week introductory-level neuroscience course. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 22(1), A51).

Wendy Hilton-Morrow, Communication Studies (full academic year): My sabbatical project was working on a second edition of my co-authored textbook, which will be renamed Queer Identities and the Media. The first edition of the book, titled Sexual Identities and the Media (Routledge, 2015) continues to be the only textbook devoted to LGBTQ representations in the media. Our revised edition will more fully consider the relationship between gender, sexuality and identity, update media examples with attention to social media, dedicate more attention to transgender visibility and drag, and reconfigure some chapters to make concepts more accessible to today’s students.

Jon Hurty, Music (spring): I am completing an e-book called Fundamentals of Choral Conducting. This is the first book of its kind that will include both text and video examples that discuss and demonstrate the basics of conducting a choir. There are two target audiences for this book. First, individuals who would like to have a reference book, which includes a technical manual of the various conducting patterns and rehearsal techniques for choral conducting. Second, instructors in conducting courses who will be able to have a complete, concise reference for teaching a basic course in choral conducting. The content of the book includes: conducting patterns; how to communicate articulation, phrasing, dynamics, cues, fermatas, tempo changes; independence between left and right hands; analysis and score marking; rehearsal techniques and organization.

Tim Muir, Biology (spring): During my sabbatical, I worked with two students to investigate the effects of energy availability on the freeze tolerance of overwintering hatchling turtles. Ectothermic animals, including hatchling painted turtles, must contend with numerous stressors when overwintering, the most pressing being low temperature and negative energy balance. Despite heavy focus on each of those stressors independently, there has been little investigation into how the depletion of an animal’s energy reserves may affect its ability to survive low temperature. In this study, we used a novel technique to manipulate the initial energy reserves of hatchling painted turtles and monitored, using behavioral and biochemical assays, their recovery from multiple ecologically relevant freeze exposures. Although tissue analyses are not yet complete, preliminary findings suggest that turtles with lower energy stores in winter are less tolerant of internal freezing, but that the decreased freeze tolerance is not due to increased oxidative damage or increased global cell damage. This study is unique in that it investigates the dual stresses of negative energy balance and internal freezing faced by overwintering turtles. Moreover, it is only the second study to investigate the effects of multiple freeze exposures on a freeze-tolerant vertebrate animal. We expect that this project will garner high interest from comparative physiologists, and we look forward to sharing it through presentations and publication.

Mari Nagase, World Languages, Literatures & Cultures (Japanese) (spring): “Second Printing Underway! Bakin’s Women-Centric Water Margin for Picture Book Production” Courtesan Water Margin by Kyokutei Bakin (1767-1848), the most famous writer from Late Edo Japan, achieved unprecedented commercial success. This paper explores the four adaptational approaches that contributed to this success: popularization, localization, feminization, and moralization. The adaptational work was published in a “popular” gōkan book, which contained pictures on every page with texts in native kana wrapping the pictures. They were easy to read, cheap, and sold in large quantities, and they effectively broadened the audience base (popularization). Bakin changed the historical and geographical setting of China to that of Japan, replacing the Chinese characters with Japanese (localization). Notably, Bakin flipped the main characters' genders (feminization). Despite these radical changes, Bakin faithfully transmitted the plot, character traits, and character relationships. His heroines inherited the toughness and wildness of the original heroes. While the author exhibited little concern for his heroines’ feminine propriety, he demonstrated great concern for his writing principle, “encouraging virtues and punishing evils,” and rectified the heroines’ moral characteristics (moralization). The result was a thrilling story of righteous, tough women skilled in martial arts. This women-centric, action-based story, appealing to emerging female readership, attained an extraordinary sales record.

Doug Parvin, Philosophy (spring): Traditional theories of rationality suggest that rational agents make decisions by calculating the best possible outcome based on precise beliefs and desires, essentially maximizing their expected benefit or 'utility.' However, this view assumes a) that people have precise beliefs and desires, and b) that people can perform highly complex mathematical calculations in everyday decision-making, both of which seem unrealistic. More modern approaches flip this idea on its head. Instead of assuming that people are explicitly calculating from precise beliefs and desires, they propose that rationality can be inferred from people's behaviors. According to these theories, if we observe someone's actions (or, more precisely, their preferences over risky bets), we can reverse-engineer their beliefs and desires, interpreting their behavior as though they are maximizing utility. I argue that this modern approach has a major flaw: it assumes the very rationality it tries to explain. By starting from the assumption that people act rationally and then fitting their behavior into a utility-maximizing framework, these theories fail to genuinely explain what rationality is. In my sabbatical work, I explore several ways to resolve this issue and move us toward a clearer, more robust understanding of rationality.

Eric Stewart, Religion (full academic year): During my sabbatical, I began work on a book tentatively titled, Having the Form of Piety, that will examine what bodily actions earned people reputations for piety or for impiety in the first two centuries CE. Working from ritual theory, intersectional approaches, ethnic theory, and gender theory, the book details embodied piety in the ancient world, with special attention to Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. The opening chapter of the book relates masculinity, gender theory, and ritual theory. A second chapter considers a meeting between the Judean High Priest Jaddua and Alexander the Great, described by the 1st-century CE Jewish historian Josephus, which violates ordinary expectations for ritual greetings between more powerful and less powerful people in service of Josephus’ project of enabling peaceful relations between Jews and their Roman conquerors. A third chapter deals with the guniaikaria (the diminutive form of women in Greek) described in 2 Timothy 3:6-7. The author of 2 Timothy describes these women’s households as overrun by men who practice all types of vice and whom the author links to Egyptian magicians who opposed Moses during the events described in Exodus. There will be two further chapters examining the roles of enslaved people in bodily expressions of piety.

David Thornblad, Business Administration (spring): I used my sabbatical to study how societal factors in Sweden (free healthcare, free higher education, paid maternity leave) influences entrepreneurship rates. I took a two-week trip to Sweden in February of 2024 to visit a practitioner focused entrepreneurship conference known as TechArena. I also visited KTH, a prestigious engineering focused university in Stockholm. KTH has an entrepreneurship center known as KTH Innovation which helps students and professors launch businesses. Further, I spoke to bankers and lawyers while in Sweden about starting firms. I reviewed the entrepreneurship literature and conducted an empirical study that used the World Bank’s entrepreneurship database to see if societal factors in Sweden also encouraged entrepreneurship across 117 countries. My research suggests that free universal healthcare encourages innovation in a society. It also suggests that free higher education and a highly educated populace drives entrepreneurship. An increased number of paid maternity leave days encourages entrepreneurship; but there is a negative relationship if an employer is expected to pay for the maternity leave as opposed to the government. Lastly, a culture that has a high level of trust between people encourages entrepreneurship. My plan is to submit my research to a scholarly journal.

Amanda Wilmsmeyer, Chemistry (spring): My research focus is in surface chemistry. Atoms at the surface have fewer bonding neighbors than those in the bulk material, creating a different chemical environment for these atoms. The unique chemical and electronic structure of the surface atoms often leads to high chemical activity and influences the fields of health care, environmental protection, catalysis, among many others. However, despite the importance of chemistry occurring at the interface, surprisingly little is known about many different classes of molecule-surface interactions. The focus of this project is to explore the fundamental surface chemistry of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as they adsorb to silica. Series of aldehydes, ketones, and heterocyclic aromatics have been chosen to investigate how small changes in molecular structure affect their adsorption properties. To study the reactions occurring at the surface, infrared (IR) spectroscopy is utilized. The bonds of different functional groups (C=C versus O-H for example) vibrate at different frequencies; therefore, molecules can be differentiated as they adsorb to a surface. Furthermore, the types of interactions between the surface and the adsorbed molecule can be explored. This type of information is critical in determining the adsorption mechanism.

Pre-tenure reports, 2023-24

Mike Augspurger, Engineering (fall): My project investigates the usefulness of ceiling fans for residential climate control in cooler weather. Ceiling fan manufacturers and installers routinely recommend using a ceiling fan in the winter by reversing the rotational direction of the fan. The argument is that a slow reversed flow (SRF) disturbs thermal stratification by moving warm air near the ceiling down into the lived space of the room without introducing a significant wind chill effect. Theoretically, SRF can lower the thermostat setting needed to produce a comfortable lived environment in a room and therefore increase the energy efficiency of the heating system. However, little research has been done to provide guidance about what room conditions would benefit from SRF. My research uses computational simulations to provide this guidance. First, a simulation process for thermal stratification and ceiling fan flows would be developed and then validated against experimental results. Once this work was complete, a set of simulations would be used to determine the effects of SRF in rooms defined by parameters such as ceiling height, room volume, insulation, and flow speed. Finally, an economic optimization model would provide an estimate of when and how SRF should be used, based on environmental parameters.

AKM R. Bashar, Mathematics and Computer Science (fall): Asthma is the most prominent chronic disease in children and one of the most challenging ailments to diagnose in infants and preschoolers. In this study, we have developed classification and prediction models for early detection of Asthma in Children of the USA population based on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) collected and maintained by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. This prediction model can be utilized through the APP built through a web page domain-ed in an Academic website or from a personal web page that can be established through web development. In this study, we have built several machine-learned and statistically learned models based on the data collected from CDC. We have studied several algorithms to develop an algorithm with the highest accuracy. The result shows that "Visiting Doctors", "Duration of Symptoms in the last 30 Days", and several other variables of this nature play a significant role in the building process of the model. In our study, we found the "XgBoost" algorithm provides the highest accuracy when it comes to predicting Asthma based on the behavioral data that were collected by the CDC. Since our model algorithm predicted the outcome based on the available data only. So, in the case of the issue of improving the model prediction accuracy, it is inferred that if we had access to the bigger data resources and data collection process then the accuracy of the model algorithm will be improved significantly.

Rajan Bishwakarma, Economics (fall): During the pre-tenure paid leave, I was engaged in three scholarly pursuits. The first project demonstrates that exposure to high temperatures during pregnancy can impede child growth, possibly through various market and non-market mechanisms. The second project shows that mothers allocate their time equally between boys and girls, suggesting that son-preference may not be an inherent bias but rather a product of cultural and social constraints. The third project delves into the historical and philosophical roots of the study of human capital particularly focusing on the economic approach to understanding child wellbeing before the age of five.

Katie Brown, Communication Sciences & Disorders (spring): During my pre-tenure leave, I analyzed cognitive and speech data collected from a recent study examining speech and cognitive changes in military veterans with combat-related blast exposure. Analysis involved using computer software to mark, measure, and analyze pauses in recorded speech samples of study participants, and then training two undergraduate students in the methods so they could assist with reliability data. Results from this study revealed a significant association between poorer cognitive performance and more severe blast-exposure symptom severity. In addition, results indicated that more severe blast symptoms were significantly associated with slower speaking rate and poorer cognitive performance. In addition, I was able to complete the final manuscript related to my dissertation and submit for publication, submit two conference proposals, take time to study and prepare for the Advanced Practice in Neurorehabilitation Certification Exam, complete a textbook review and multiple manuscript reviews, and continue growing the Parkinson’s disease support group. Finally, I was able to spend time developing a framework for a community initiative focusing on improving outreach and support for people in the Quad Cities with Parkinson’s disease. This initiative was designed to improve quality of life for individuals with Parkinson’s disease by identifying barriers to access to care, areas of needed support, and perceived social support.

Ray Harrison, Chemistry (spring): During my PTPL, I dedicated my efforts towards 1) modifying the preparatory activities for our general chemistry laboratory courses 2) aiding departments in curricular/program assessments. Project 1: Following the theory of meaningful learning, there are three domains in which learning occurs: cognitive (critical thinking and knowledge), affective (interest and motivation), and psychomotor (hands-on skills). While the chemistry laboratory presents a prime opportunity to engage students in the psychomotor domain, the preparatory or “pre-lab” activities are avenues to engage students in the cognitive and affective domains. As supported by the literature, the use of flowcharts, simulations, questioning confidence, offering supporting information, questions with real-world applications, and student-generated products are aspects of pre-labs that can appeal to the affective domain; the use of relevant calculations, procedural information, safety questions, and conceptual questions are aspects of pre-labs that can appeal to the cognitive domain. Project 2: Based on conversations held with department chairs, this project involved the development/revision of program outcomes, as well as the planning of methods of data collection and approaches for analysis.

Stacie Hatfield, Communication Sciences & Disorders (spring): The research project I devoted the majority of my PTPL time to is a qualitative study examining the first-person perspectives of current and former students in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) who have disabilities. While classroom-based accommodations are relatively well-known, there is less information on how to best support students with disabilities in their clinical practicum work. This project included conducting one on one interviews with these students to explore if and how they felt supported or not supported during their clinical educational experiences. Data analysis is ongoing but the goal is to give CSD programs insights into what they are doing well and what they can do better to support students with disabilities in their programs, specifically in the clinical practicum settings.

Jeff Mettler, Kinesiology (spring): It is generally agreed that excessive strain in the plantar fascia can produce small tears in the tissue, which contributes to the development of plantar fasciitis. During my PTPL, some students and I conducted a study to investigate the ability of two treatment methods for plantar fasciitis (over the counter arch supports and low-Dye taping) to reduce plantar fascia strain. Furthermore, I utilized the musculoskeletal model of the foot that was developed during my dissertation to investigate the effects of the same two treatment methods on strains of the spring, deltoid, and plantar ligaments, which are all ligaments that contribute to arch support along with the plantar fascia. The study was conducted on healthy individuals with flat feet, and we collected data during both walking and running.

Cathy Webb, Communication Sciences & Disorders (fall): During my PTPL I was able to work on several research projects that had been on hold. These projects included: 1) continuing a research study being conducted with a Master's student around the use of augmentative and alternative communication for religious participation, 2) writing up dissertation study, which focused on disability-related curriculum in Masters of Divinity programs in the United States, and 3) new work on disability, particularly chronic pain, as a feminist issue. I was also able to start refining several other projects and collaborate with peers to submit a chapter proposal for a book.

Sabbatical reports, 2022-23

Laura Greene, English: During my sabbatical, I designed a new course for the new Integrative Health and the Humanities Minor on Narrative Medicine. The premise of this course is that study of literature and the practice of writing can better equip students for the cognitive and emotional rigors of a career in medicine. I’ve organized the course into three sections, each focused on a significant concern in healthcare which narrative medicine can help address. The first concern is the increasingly reliance on diagnostic algorithms in medicine, and the consequent neglect of the interpretive skills and flexible thinking doctors need when faced with incomplete, inconclusive, or contradictory data. The second concern is the suffering of the sick, whose experience with the medical professions can deprive them of their sense of identity, agency, and self-determination, as well as their status as someone who is credible, whole, worthy, blameless. The third concern is the suffering of healthcare workers, who are experiencing burnout, PTSD, moral injury, and suicide at alarming rates. This course will explore the ways narrative medicine attempts to prevent or cope with these problems, making the practice of medicine both more effective and more humane for all concerned.

Meg Gillette, English: Middle-aged. Midwestern. A society woman. Marjorie Allen Seiffert (1885-1970) looks less like a "typical" modernist than the foils (the women who "come and go / talking of Michelangelo" or "the old lady of Dubuque" for whom The New Yorker would not be written) that so many modernists defined themselves against. Nonetheless, Seiffert, a middle-aged socialite from Moline, Illinois, participated in Spectra, modernism’s most infamous literary hoax, and published hundreds of poems in modernist magazines, most prominently Harriet Monroe’s Poetry: A Magazine in Verse and The New Yorker. These poems—which often dealt with modern love, marriage, and maternity, as well as ageism, resistance, and the growth of age identity—add to the ever-expanding archive of material for scholars interested in gender and modernism as well as those interested in critical age studies. Seiffert’s life and writing also make visible an underappreciated socio-literary context for modern women’s writing: women’s clubs. Learning from Richard H. Brodhead that "American literary history should be rethought as the history of the relation between literary writing and the changing meanings and places made for such work in American social history" (8), my sabbatical research shows how Seiffert drew upon the cultural work and literacy practices of women’s clubs to refashion midlife womanhood and participate in modernism.

Margaret Kunde, Communication Studies: In this article, I rhetorically analyze the Final Report by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capital, released in January 2023, as a jumping off point to explore possible limitations of and opportunities for rhetorical responses to political crises in the wider U.S. public discourse. In contrast to the Report’s tragic centering of Trump as agent, I argue that a comic frame could help bring the scene, or the state of democracy, to a place of interrogation, and allow for a broader accounting of agents, agency, and acts as well as their relationships to one another. Rather than deny an ultimate reckoning of a tragic situation, this article examines the importance of comic processing in service of the greater democratic community. By providing a space to reinterpret and resituate the pentadic motives underlying an act of democratic crisis like the insurrection, a comic frame’s pentadic vision can potentially open up new and transformative ways of understanding our public selves, each other, and our political relationships while still allowing for the expression of warrantable outrage.

Brian Leech, History: I completed three chapters of a scholarly book project, tentatively titled Imaginary Mines: Monster Movies, Sad Songs, Tough-Guy TV and Other Places Where Mining Appears in American Popular Culture. Covering a wide variety of popular culture—from Westerns and horror movies to reality television, country songs, and video games—the book argues that, over the past century, the portrayal of mining in popular culture has become more connected to an imagined American past than to the reality of modern industrial mining. This book will expose the cultural roots of what many call "extractivism," a model of economic development that relies on natural resource extraction for the world market.

Chris Marmé, Economics: I am writing an intermediate macroeconomic textbook. Its working title is Notes on Macroeconomics. The book is vastly different from the majority of intermediate texts in that it is written from a "Post-Keynesian" perspective. What this means is that--like all Post-Keynesians--I argue that the macroeconomic theory found in Keynes’ General Theory was truly a break from both came before and the orthodoxy that was restored with the "neoclassical synthesis". Unlike the handful of other intermediate texts written from this perspective (such as Paul Davidson’s Post-Keynesian Macroeconomic Theory or, my mentor, the late Paul Wells’ Aggregate Economic Analysis: an Intermediate Exposition) I have tried throughout the manuscript to take a less combative stance toward orthodox economics. The book centers around “indefinite preferences”, the idea that market economies are about communicating information between buyers and sellers –when that information is there- and the fundamental uncertainty that Post-Keynesians (following Keynes’ lead) emphasize, is at root is caused by the fact that when you and I save we have no clear idea of when we will draw on these financial resources or for what we will be using them for.

Margaret Morse, Art History: I worked on two research projects during my sabbatical. The first, "Devotion as Accessory: the Rosary and Religious Identity in the Early Modern World", argues that the rosary was the preferred accessory by which lay Catholics cultivated their spiritual lives and proclaimed their religious affiliation and pious status. My project explores the multiple functions of the early modern rosary, from high-end adornment to humble devotional aid, and situates the beads in the larger context of devotional jewelry and the "look" of Catholicism that emerged in the wake of the Reformation. By investigating the rosary at the intersection of both fashion and devotion, I demonstrate how belief was “worn” in early modern Europe, and the role accessories played in constituting religion in everyday life. With my second project, I began to research early modern portraits that depicted individuals in the guise of saints, particularly female saints. Little research has been done on this phenomenon, as art historians tend to treat portraiture as a secular art form. In a period when many noble women were cloistered in convents because of their families’ inability to afford a marriage dowry, these portraits may have been painted in their honor, and served as a way to maintain family bonds and affirm familial piety.

Jamie Nordling, Psychology: For my sabbatical project, I created a social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention for first-year students from marginalized and/or disadvantaged backgrounds (i.e., students of color and/or Pell Grant recipients). First-year advisors were trained to administer the intervention via virtual presentations, and they met with their advisees one-on-one five times over Fall Term. During each meeting, student participants learned the science behind the five SEL topics (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making), completed exercises to strengthen their skills, and were given homework to further develop their SEL strategy use. My overall goal was to create programming during the first year that would lead to student success and better retention rates, which is in line with the second goal of the “Augustana Unbound” strategic plan. I worked with two student research assistants; some of their tasks included writing statistical syntax for all surveys, completing qualitative data analysis, and presenting our project at Celebration of Learning.

Sangeetha Rayapati, Music: This sabbatical project was focused on examining the teaching artist vs. licensed therapist debate in teaching special populations of students, specifically students in prison higher education programs. In an effort to create a “how-to” guide for teaching artists, a thorough understanding of ethical underpinnings and best practices in the arts in prison education was examined for future contribution to the body of research on prison higher education and to help others join in the work of reducing recidivism by formerly incarcerated individuals. Conference attendance and examination of existing resources reveals the breadth of diversity of approaches to inclusion of the arts in prison higher education, with more emphasis on written creative arts as opposed to performing arts and the depth of issues regarding funding of any programming of this fashion. 

Jessica Schultz, Psychology: This sabbatical supported significant progress in projects involving both professional expression and professional development. First, I co-authored a book applying principles of deliberate practice to training clinicians in Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) and a review article of IPT (both are in press). Second, I furthered my work in translating the science of positive psychology to the public with invited presentations on the science of flourishing and psychology of hope to multiple professional and community organizations. Finally, I pursued specialized professional development activities including two weeks of Spanish language school to support my leadership of the Guatemala study away program and nearly 40 hours of continuing education programming in service of my teaching, research, and clinical work.

Austin Williamson, Psychology: It was proposed that individuals form internal working models, both of how support figures behave in general, and of how specific support figures behave individually. Participants were 217 first-year college students in the first semester of their involvement with an athletic team or Greek organization. They reported on the support they perceived to be available from three friends in those organizations at four time-points, over the course of 18 months. Regarding general working models, participants who had more supportive high school friends perceived more support available from their new college friends, even after controlling for their actual experiences with the college friends. Regarding friend-specific working models, friends who were perceived as more supportive at the beginning of the study were perceived as increasingly supportive over time, even after controlling for actual experiences with that friend. These primacy effects illustrate the influence of relationship history on perceptions of social support.

Carolyn Yaschur, Multimedia Journalism/Mass Communications: In October 2022, MJMC professor Dr. Carolyn Yaschur and Sarah Walton, an MJMC, Communication Studies, and Theater Performance triple major traveled to Nepal to teach photojournalism to and mentor girls at the Karuna Girls School in Lumbini. They collaborated with Girl Reports, an international nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls and combating gender inequality through journalism education. Dr. Yaschur is a board member and the curriculum board chair of the organization and worked with journalism professors across the U.S. to design the curriculum that she and Walton implemented. While there, Yaschur also visually documented the daily life of the Pathak family, with whom she and Sarah lived while in Lumbini.

Pre-tenure reports, 2022-23

Melinda Mahon, Business Administration: The purpose of the leave was to pursue a case study writing project to supplement other research I have contributed to in the fields of management and accounting. I planned to organize this research as a teaching case study that could be used as a capstone project in my Organizational Behavior course. This real-life case puts students in the position of the leadership team and asks them to strategize how they would approach the managerial implications of culture change. Students will practice describing the current state of an organization, diagnosing the pain points of the current state, and prescribing a course of action for addressing those pain points. This is a factual case based on a real organization, though names and some details have been changed for confidentiality. I completed a successful live classroom test of the case on October 3, 2023. Now that it has been classroom tested, I am preparing the teaching case for submission to the Journal of Business Cases and Applications.