In Print

 Leslie Caughell was interviewed by the New American Economy about immigration in higher education, with an emphasis on the contributions of foreign students in the classroom and the economic benefits of immigration to Virginia's 2nd district.

Stephen Leist, is the lead author of "Serving Two Masters: A Profile of the Part-time Church Musician," published in the April 2018 issue of The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians. The article focuses on the challenges and joys of balancing two careers.
 
Audrey Malagon's op-ed commentary, "Vote Auditing Can Ensure Integrity of Elections," was published in the Virginian-Pilot newspaper.

Audrey Malagon's op-ed commentary, "Our soldiers deserve secure votes," was published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

An article by Michelle Vachris titled "These Little PIGS Did Not Go To Mark et: Economic Freedom and the Eurozone Crisis" was published in the 2017 Virginia Economic Journal.
 
Michelle Vachris co-edited "Dystopia and Economics: A Guide to Surviving Everything from the Apocalypse to Zombies." Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge Books (2018). She also contributed a co-authored chapter of the book "Never a Lovely Day: The Wretched Economics of Mad Max: Fury Road."
 
  Presentations and Panels  
 

 














Sue Erickson and Soph ie Ro nde au gave a prese ntation at the APTrust meeting about Hofheim er Library's unique coll aboration with UVA Libraries for long term preserva tion of VWU's Digital Collections. 

Stephen Hock presented a paper titled "Memorializing the Future of Donald Trump in Amy Waldman's The Submission," as part of a panel that he chaired on the topic of "Trump Fiction" at the Northeast Modern Language Assoc iation convention in Pittsburgh, PA.
   
Carol Johnson presented the workshop "How Long is a Paragraph? School Writing Meets Real-World Writing" at the annual Spring Conference on the Teaching of Writing at Old Dominion University.
Eric Johnson presented a poster titled "Arabinogalactan protein expression during spermatogenesis in the model moss, Physcomitrella patens" at the Association of Southeastern Biologists conference in Myrtle Beach, SC.
Susan Larkin , with co-author Sarah Foust Vinson, presented "Moments Worth Living (and Reading): Empathy, Relatability, and Autobiography at the Northeast Modern Language Association Conference in Pittsburgh, PA.
 
Kathy Merlock Jackson chaired the panel titled "The Times They Are A Changin': Creators and Consumer of Prime-Time Television in the Network Era" and presented a paper, "Patty Duke, Marlo Thomas, and Mary Tyler Moore: Three Stars, Three Iconic Shows, and a Young Generation of TV-Watching Females", at the Popular Culture Association Conference in Indianapolis.
 
 
Kathy Merlock Jackson participated in the following three round table discussions at the Popular Culture Association conference in Indianapolis: Two Hundred Years of Frankenstein, Ray Brown and Bowling Green: Roots and Branches, and PCA Summer Institute Research Roundtable. She also introduced Bartholome Award-winner Tom Inge and Governing Board Award-winner The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. 

Dan Margolies gave a talk titled "Reimagined Old Time Music Cultures in the Trainhopping Punk Rock South" at the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Jim White led a series of four lectures at the First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk on "Dreams: God's Forgotten Language." Attendees learned how God communicates through dreams and about the fascinating relationship between the dreamworld and the dreamer.

 Michelle Vachris presented a talk on "Dystopia and Economics: A Guide to Surviving Everything from the Apocalypse to Zombies" at the 2018 Virginia Association of Economists meetings at Radford University. Her student, Ben Astrum, presented his paper, "Why can't we be like Sweden: A comparative economic systems analysis of the US and Sweden" in one of the undergraduate research sessions. 


















Denise Wilkinson presented "Making the Connection in Your Math Class: From Content to Context to Student Success" at the national conference, Teaching Academic Survival and Success, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
    
Other Accomplishments
 
 
The accomplishments of more than 80 VWU faculty and staff were celebrated at the annual "A Feather in Your Cap" event, which took place in Hofheimer Library on April 27.

Kristin Burney served as the team coach for three VWU students who competed in a mathematical modeling competition called SCUDEM (Student Competition Using Differential Equations Modeling). LeMar Callaway '18, Andrew Goad '18, and Cody Little '19 were selected as VWU's team, based on their successes in fields such as mathematic s, biology and engineering.

Mort Gamble received the Outstanding Alumni Award for English from his alma mater, West Virginia University, on April 7 in Morgantown. He was recognized along with other honorees from the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at the University. He majored in English for his undergraduate and master of arts degrees, submitting a novel about the circus as his thesis.       

Brian Kurisky received a $13,000 grant from the CIC/AARP to have 10 VWU students aid older individuals in learning about cyber security and online fraud in the Hampton Roads area at retirement centers.  

Eric Johnson and Dan Margolies received a $1000 INTEL grant, entitled "Pollinator Behavior and Hive Maintenance in a Sustainable Greenhouse Observation Hive at Virginia Wesleyan University."

Jason Squinobal and Katrina Henry
also received a $1000 INTEL grant. Their grant is entitled, "Lecture Demonstrations of Waves for STEM and Music classes."
 
   
   
Audrey Malagon, as part of the SIMIODE organization, received a $450,000 NSF grant to fund a nationwide re-conception of the undergraduate differential equations course through faculty development and student engagement projects. As a co-PI on this grant, she will develop course materials and lead workshops for faculty across the country, hosting faculty and student events over the next 3 years. 
 
Dan Margolies was awarded a 2018-2019 research grant from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections for research on the recorded legacies of bands and musicians connected with Texas immigrant dance halls.   
Kathy Merlock Jackson participated as the outside reader at a thesis defense on April 19 in the history department at Virginia Commonwealth University. The thesis, by Anne Mollino Newton, was titled "Mother Knows Best: The Donna Reed Show, The Feminist Mystique, and the Rise of the Modern Maternal Feminist."
   
Kathy Merlock Jackson received a commendation from Wiley Publishing for "Fifteen Years of Excellence in Editing The Journal of American Culture." She is now associate editor of the Journal Of Popular Film and Television and on the advisory boards of The Journal of Popular Culture and The Journal of American Culture.
Katrina Henry  and Maynard Schaus  received a grant from the Pepsico Recycling Zero Impact Fund to add solar and pedal powered cell phone chargers to the Greer Environmental Sciences Center.

 
Denise Wilkinson served as a peer reviewer for the fall 2018 edition of the Mathematics Teacher Journal. In addition, she served on the abstract review committee and the advisory board for the Teaching Academic Success Skills national conference in preparation for the spring conference in Ft. Lauderdale .
 
Community Engagement
Students in Kathy Merlock Jackson's Communication 327: Children and the Media worked all spring semester with children at Tidewater Collegiate Academy to develop responsible media consumption plans and assess their implementation. At a culminating event on April 26, TCA students shared the challenges they see with technology, the goals they set, their action plans and results, and their final take away conclusions.

Kathy Merlock Jackson's Communication 333: Academy Award-Winning Best Pictures prepared an event, featuring the 1951 best picture winner, An American in Paris, for the residents at Westminster-Canterbury. The class showed the film, provided a printed program, served French-themed refreshments, and led a discussion on movies and cultural memory.


The Downstream Collaborative Project, a semester-long partnership between VWU and Virginia Beach City Public Schools, brought 110 fourth-graders from Alanton Elementary to VWU. Elizabeth Malcolm, Maury Howard, Katrina Henry, Sherie Coleman (VWU graduate), and Bill McConnell's INST 203 students led the fourth-graders in hands-on, environmental science learning activities with the assistance of other science and education students. VWU's partners from the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, Horticulturist Maggie Herrick and Director of Living Landscapes Brian O'Neil were instrumental in helping to coordinate science learning activities for the students.
Technology Corner
Expanding Online Support for Students
As VWU expands its online offerings, the VWU Learning Center has been working to provide online tutoring support for these students. While all students can always come in and work with a tutor face-to-face, Learning Center staff knew that it was important for online students to have access to online help. With this in mind, the Learning Center has partnered with Smarthinking, an online tutoring company through Pearson, to provide students with 24/7 access to tutors for help in writing and with subjects like Math, Science, Business, and Spanish. These online services will be open to all students, not just online students, to provide support to students when the Learning Center is closed on nights and weekends. Students will have access to asynchronous writing feedback, synchronous appointments using a virtual whiteboard, and a variety of Pearson products and resources.

Online tutoring will begin to be offered in summer 2018. At the start of each summer session, students and faculty will be invited to attend virtual information and training sessions about this new resource.

In addition to this new resource, students and faculty will continue to have access to a digital library of tutorials through Atomic Learning, an online provider of over 250,000 training video tutorials, though they are changing their name to Hoonuit.  This resource is available to faculty, staff and students 24/7 from a link on the University homepage.  You can search for content from Excel to Photoshop, WordPress to how to study for an exam, writing a resume to MLA or APA style citation formats. These tutorials can be integrated as an assignment in Blackboard courses and Bb will track the student completion of these video assignments in GradeCenter.  If you need help with integration of Hoonuit into Blackboard, reach out to Robin Takacs,  [email protected] or 455-2112. 

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