Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Percussion Ross Karre served as video director for the world premiere of a new work by performance artist and theater-maker Autumn Knight, hosted by Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Will Parsons has been awarded an Organic Syntheses PUI Summer Research Grant. This award will contribute to support of student/faculty research in his laboratory over the next two summers.

Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Pérez was interviewed by the Elyria Chronicle Telegram for a story about the response of faith communities the new immigration enforcement landscape in Lorain County. Pérez's opinion article “Building a Culture of Mercy, Not a Culture of Fear” was published by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on February 16, and she was featured in an NPR story about what it’s like to take sanctuary in a church. The Jesuit publication America Magazine published a review of her new book Sanctuary People: Faith-Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities (NYU Press, 2024).

Professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies Cindy Frantz was featured in a February episode of the podcast Climate Change and Happiness, which explores personal aspects of climate change. Frantz discussed her research on people's connectedness to nature and her work on how communities adapt to climate change.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Danielle Godon-Decoteau recently coauthored a study about how Asian Americans racially identify. Self-identification in an open-ended format generated responses beyond what check-box approaches tend to convey. The paper was published in the Asian American Journal of Psychology. 

Conservatory Library Head Kathy Abromeit publishes book, Music Information Literacy: Inclusion and Advocacy, with coeditor Dyani Sabin ’14. In the face of the last decade’s events and increased public awareness of issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), we in music libraries can do things to create the space in our teaching for optimal creativity and connection by and with our library users. Multi-author collection by activist librarians.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey's book Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press, 2023), was named one of three finalists for the 2024 Outstanding First Book Prize from the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora. The prize "honors a single-authored book focused on Africa and/or the African diaspora submitted by or on behalf of a scholar, activist, and/or artist who has not previously published a single-authored monograph."

Student Affairs staff Melanie Hawkins and Rebecca Morrow cohosted a roundtable discussion on learning and development at the annual Ohio College Personnel Association conference on February 10. Discussion points among the approximately 50 attendees included the incorporation of the ACPA/NASPA competencies as a framework for the development and delivery of ongoing training among student affairs practitioners.

Lecturer in German and Russian Olesya Ivantsova presented her paper “Submerging into the Shadows: Joseph Roth’s Travelogues from Post-Revolutionary Russia” at the 2025 Modern Language Association Annual Convention in New Orleans focusing on the notion of the subterranean in Roth’s travelogues and analyzing how the Austrian author’s travel accounts from the 1920s Soviet Union became crucial for his development as a writer.

Lecturer of Creative Writing Amanda Hodes won the 2024 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry for her debut poetry collection, Into the Into of Earth Itself (forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2026). The national award is sponsored by Fresno State University’s Master of Fine Arts Program.