Westminster CollegeFaires Faculty ForumSpring 2014 ScheduleJanuary 22, 2014Rotua Lumbantobing, Assistant Professor of EconomicsJust Rewards?: Revenues, Race, and the 2003 Expansion of the NBA Playoffs

January 29, 2014Kristianne Kalata Vaccaro, Assistant Professor of EnglishCultivating Writerly Empathy: Training Peer Tutors to Lead Writing Workshops

February 5, 2014 Sandra Webster, Professor of PsychologyOne Year after the Westminster Diversity Climate Report: Recommendations, Reactions and Actions

February 12, 2014Brittany Rowe-Cernevicius, Assistant Professor of Public RelationsPassion and Purpose: The Foundation of a Research Agenda

February 19, 2014David Goldberg, Associate Professor of PhilosophyPostmodernism: The Goldberg Variation

February 26, 2014Jamie Kohler, Assistant Professor/Assistant LibrarianAlmost Seamless: Integrating Library Resources into Research Assignments

March 5, 2014Peggy Cox, Professor of ArtThis is the way sabbatical ends, This is the way… Not with a bang, but a whimper

Spring Break March 26, 2014Jeff Bersett, Associate Porfessor of SpanishDickens and the Spaniards: Defining the European Metropolis

April 2, 2014 Kurt Roscoe, Assistant Professor of Media Art + Design & Andy Schwanbeck, Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Art + DesignInside Studio A: A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of the New Media Art + Design Program (Held in MCC 323)

April 9, 2014Camila Bari de Lõpez, Professor of SpanishThe Happy Captives: Traitors and Translators in the Southern Frontier

April 16, 2014Beverly Cushman, Associate Professor of Religion and Christian EducationLamentations for New Orleans

April 23, 2014Faculty Roundtables

April 30, 2014Undergraduate Research and Arts Celebration

About the Faires Faculty ForumDr. Barbara T. Faires, professor of mathematics emerita, established Faculty Forum in the fall of 1990 during her time as dean of the College and vice president for academic affairs. Since then the forum has continued to provide an opportunity for faculty members to meet weekly to share their scholarship in the best tradition of the liberal arts. Faculty members from all disciplines volunteer to present lectures on their current research, artistic productions, and/or scholarship of teaching and learning. Each forum presents new ideas with innovative lecture techniques. The faculty forum is held most Wednesdays during the academic year, beginning promptly at 11:40 a.m. The Faires Faculty Forum is normally held in the Mueller Theater of the McKelvey Campus Center. Performance forums may be held in other locations.

Just Rewards?: Revenues, Race, and the 2003 Expansion of the NBA PlayoffsIn 2003, the NBA expanded the opening round of its playoffs from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven format. Using data of playoff games from 1990-2013, Dr. Lumbantobing shows that the new format did not, as was commonly assumed, result in fewer upsets. It did, however, generate significant new revenues. Given the NBA’s compensation structure, Dr. Lumbantobing argues that this arrangement illuminates a broader relationship-one with a strong racial component-in which team owners and holders of the NBA’s broadcasting rights disproportionately benefit and labor is denied its true market value.

Cultivating Writerly Empathy: Training Peer Tutors to Lead Writing WorkshopsTogether with several students, Dr. Vaccaro discusses the challenges that Writing T.A.s face during the transition from one-on-one tutoring sessions to group workshops. One such challenge concerns the role of peer empathy in teaching students to self-correct their writing. Dr. Vaccaro offers a brief critical history of empathy in peer tutoring and discusses its application to the workshop series she has coordinated at Westminster for the past three years.

One Year after the Westminster Diversity Climate Report: Recommendations, Reactions and ActionsThe diversity climate at Westminster was assessed during the Fall of 2012 with focus groups, a student survey and an institutional audit. The study results focus on student attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of racial/ethnic, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and disability status diversity. Dr. Webster shares a summary of changes in diversity programming and policies that have occurred in the past year. Q&A to close.

Passion and Purpose: The Foundation of a Research AgendaDr. Rowe-Cernevicius discusses her interest in brand placement by sharing findings from her dissertation and explaining her subsequent research projects. Following a connection made at the International Lily Conference on College and University Teaching, Rowe-Cernevicius developed a new research interest—public relations ethics pedagogy. Her presentation also includes an exploration of using gamification to teach ethics.

Postmodernism: The Goldberg VariationWith trepidation, at best, many contemporary scholars refer to themselves as postmodernists, and at the other end they refuse even the suggestion that a clear depiction of postmodernism is capable of being substantiated. Having identified this unstable foundation, Dr. Goldberg attempts to clarify this problematic state by offering the Goldberg Variation.

Almost Seamless: Integrating Library Resources into Research AssignmentsUsing better sources should equal better student research assignments - in all disciplines. Seamlessly integrating appropriate resources into these assignments should make it easier for students to find the best information available with a minimum of frustration. Ms. Kohler presents her collaborative efforts to integrate library resources into colleagues’ course assignments over the past two years.

This is the way sabbatical ends, This is the way ... Not with a bang, but a whimperSabbatical is that mythic period of time when all things are possible. Scholars dream about it and yearn for it, make proposals, plans, and eliminate all distractions to focus upon research. But what happens when plans A, B, and C don’t go according to “plans”? Join Ms. Cox on a guided tour of paintings created during her sabbatical and find out.

Dickens and the Spaniards: Defining the European MetropolisBefore Dickens became DICKENS™ , he and other writers in England and throughout Europe produced important essays that shaped our understanding of urban life in their respective cities, and even helped to bring about significant and lasting reform. Based on his research completed through his McCandless year, Dr. Bersett analyzes the work done by Boz, as Dickens was known at the time, and two of his most important contemporaries in Spain—Ramón de Mesonero Romanos and Mariano José de Larra.

Inside Studio A: A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of the New Media Art + Design ProgramJoin Mr. Roscoe and Mr. Schwanbeck, Media Art + Design faculty, in the new Studio A and witness first-hand what MA+D students are beginning to experience in this new, exciting program. Observe cutting-edge technologies integrated into the new MA+D curriculum. See how just a few of these experiential learning tools help inspire great design and creativity. Witness high speed imaging and the development of 3D prototypes coming to life. (Held in MCC 323)

The Happy Captives: Traitors and Translators in the Southern FrontierCultural translation is at the core of writing about a violent past to understand the present. In 1994, two writers, one Chilean, Eduardo Labarca, and one Argentinean, María Rosa Lojo, independently and unknowingly published historical novels about a conflictive past in their countries which mirrored a conflictive present. Dr. Bari de Lopez shares highlights of these conflicts explored during her Fulbright semester in Chile, and outlines how native cultures and immigrant minorities are struggling to establish a legitimate intercultural dialog.

Lamentations for New Orleans“Lamentations for New Orleans” is a reader’s theater piece developed out of Dr. Cushman’s research into the forms and genres used in the “City Laments” of Assyria and Babylon. As a response to the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Cushman composed seven laments using the forms, metaphors, and genres of the ancient “City Lament”, during her recent sabbatical.