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JMU Research, Scholarship & Creative Endeavors
Volume 7, Issue 4
Greetings from JMU Research & Scholarship! 
 
We hope everyone is enjoying summer and finding opportunities to recharge and connect with family and friends.  We are busy as ever in Harrisonburg preparing for the upcoming academic year. Much of that preparation is being led by recent new hires and faculty moving into new positions. Keep an eye out while on campus this fall for both new and familiar faces, including*: 
 
 
ICYMI, check out the 2022 AAAD Research & Professional Development Award Winners. Projects include field research on supporting first-generation college students in New Mexico, Swahili language learning and Human-Environment Interaction study abroad in Kenya, scholarship on Black biography in early U.S. comic books and continued development of JMU Libraries Special Collections’ Black Studies Research Comic Book Collection, and a book project examining the origins and evolution of plantations and their unambiguous connection to slavery in the South.
Congratulations to R&S AVP Besi Muhonja on her new book! Gender and Sexuality in Kenyan Societies: Centering the Human and the Humane in Critical Studies, co-edited by Associate Vice Provost for Scholarship, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Besi Muhonja and Babacar M’Baye, Professor of English at Kent State University, has been published by Rowman & Littlefield in July 2022. This interdisciplinary volume uses ubuntu/utu, a pan-African philosophy that means “I am because we are,” to explore critical humane scholarship within gender and queer studies. Dr. Muhonja is a faculty member in the Department of English; African, African American, and Diaspora (AAAD) Studies; and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the College of Arts and Letters.
The book cover for Dr. Besi Muhonja's new book, Gender and Sexuality in Kenyan Societies.
Office of Research & Scholarship
James Madison University
*not an exhaustive list of new hires and position changes
Virginia Clean Cities Director Alleyn Harned shows off an electric vehicle to a group of students attending a JMU summer camp.
Virginia Clean Cities partners with the Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Energy to showcase an electric vehicle during a JMU summer camp.
Grant Awards
For a monthly listing of recent faculty grant awards, please visit the JMU Office of Sponsored Programs website. Here are some notable awards from March, April, and May 2022:

Jolynne Bartley (Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services) received $62,000 from the Claude Moore Charitable Foundation to provide pediatric respite care to families of children with disabilities/special needs within a 75-mile radius of James Madison University and to serve nursing, and health and human service students through a pediatric clinical course to increase their confidence and ability to care for this population.
 
Corey Cleland and Bisi Velayudhan (Biology) were awarded $119,408 from the National Science Foundation to broaden participation in STEM by supporting the career progression of community college students into STEM at four-year schools, facilitating the transfer and retention of students from under-represented groups.
 
Keigo Fukumura (Physics and Astronomy) received $73,461 from NASA to incorporate the complex system of AGN UFOs by exploiting a practical disk-wind model developed in the context of ideal magnetohydrodynamic framework.
 
Dee Weikle (Computer Science) and Amy Connolly (Computer Information Systems and Business Analytics) received $204,039 from Northeastern University to increase representation of women and minorities in computing majors.
 
Steven Whitmeyer, Scott Eaton, and Shelley Whitmeyer (Geology and Environmental Science) were awarded $14,710 to support students to conduct field research and prepare geologic maps of the southern half of the Rawley Springs, Virginia 7.5’ quadrangle.
JMU Soars in NASA Student Launch
8 students comprising the JMU Rocketry Team are outside holding a purple and gold rocket.
JMU’s inaugural rocketry team recently competed in the NASA Student Launch in Huntsville, AL, on April 23, 2022. NASA tasked each group to design a rocket recovery system that would function without GPS on Mars. After several launch windows, assigned tasks, countless simulations and issues with the ignition system, JMU’s engineering feat received the Rookie Award in Huntsville, recognizing the nine-member team’s two years of hard work. Working with a combination of commercially available parts and parts made by these rising engineers, the multi-faceted experience provided a hands-on and self-directed learning opportunity. Advised by Associate Professor Jacquelyn Nagel (Department of Engineering), Professor Eric Pyle (Department of Geology & Environmental Science), Location Mentor Chuck Neff (Valley Aerospace Team) and Associate Vice Provost for Research and Innovation Keith Holland (Professor, Department of Engineering), the undergraduate students also engaged “over 350 K-12 students through the STEM outreach element of the competition.”
 
Their drive informed the entirety of the project. Dr. Holland explained, “This inaugural team was fantastic to work with. As noted in the article, they approached me in my office in March 2020 (right before spring break and COVID shutdowns). They were so eager to make their mark on JMU and the engineering program by pursuing this opportunity that I could not say ‘no!’ While I did serve in an advisory capacity, their performance is really a reflection of their entire experience at JMU and connectivity to the community.”
 
Holland added, “In debriefings, the NASA review team commented on how well organized, prepared and timely, [meaning] never missing a deadline, responding promptly to organizer requests, etc., the team was.”
 
Having successfully competed against teams six times their size while continually meeting their engineering goals, JMU Rocketry hopes to build and sustain a “lasting aerospace culture at JMU.”
Hart School Named a Top 50 Program and Management Professor Publishes Humanizing Business
From COB Marketing and Communications:
 
The Hart School of Hospitality, Sport and Recreation Management's emergence as a leader in its category has been acknowledged by CEOworld magazine, a respected voice among senior executives and other business leaders across a wide range of industries.
 
In the March 22 issue, the New York-based publication awarded the Hart School a berth among the top 50 hospitality and hotel-management schools in the world for 2022.
 
"It's a celebration of our faculty's success and the accomplishments of our alumni," said Stephanie West, the school's director.
Sergiy Dmytriyev, Assistant Professor of Management, is co-editor of a new book titled Humanizing Business: What Humanities Can Say to Business.
 
The book is part of the highly regarded "Issues in Business Ethics" series published by Springer, and includes contributions from leading business scholars from around the world. It explores how creative pursuits ranging from philosophy to filmmaking can help make business more humane.
 
The book aims to show that people, far from needing to suppress their human feelings, aspirations and beliefs in the workplace, should instead look to business to redefine itself by the human norms of human beings.
Visual and Performing Arts Scholarship at the Sparks Research Symposium
Music Education major Xaiver Williams poses next to his research poster in the Forbes Center lobby during the 2022 Sparks Research Symposium.
R&S caught up with Xaiver Williams (’23 / photo above), representing a student-faculty cohort that worked together in a professional learning community for pre-service music educators. Using disability studies as a lens for their scholarship, the group reconsidered pedagogy, curriculum and other critical aspects of learning ecosystems, particularly as they intersect with inclusion and anti-ableist practices.
JMU Math Partners with Fire Department
JMU Math students presenting to city leaders in Harrisonburg City Hall. The name of their project is on the monitor: Data to the Rescue.
JMU Math students present their findings to local government leaders at Harrisonburg City Hall.
A collaborative project between a JMU mathematics class and the Harrisonburg Fire Department (HFD) is providing students with an opportunity to apply classroom lessons to a real-world challenge in the local community. Students from Math 485: Mathematics for an Industrial Career worked throughout the spring semester to help HFD determine the optimal location for a new fire station based on the department's incident and response data.
 
Harrisonburg Fire Chief Matthew Tobia shared: “The work provided by the cohort of JMU students is the single most impactful body of work I have witnessed in my 35 years in public safety.  Our communities are inextricably tied together, so leveraging the power of these students not only benefits the Fire Department, it more broadly impacts the city and the entire JMU family.”
JMU Receives Congressional Funding for Education Program
R&S federal relations efforts helped secure a $620,000 congressionally directed spending appropriation requested by Senator Kaine and Senator Warner in the FY22 omnibus bill.  This funding will support a component of the College of Education’s Grow Your Own Teaching Fellows pilot program, providing professional learning plans for teacher assistants seeking a pathway to licensure.  Learn more about Grow Your Own and additional College of Education initiatives that offer pre-professional opportunities for high school students, support first-generation students, and help to strengthen the educator pipeline in the Commonwealth. 

WRTC Students Publish 4th Volume of RhetTech

The School of Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication launched RhetTech in 2017, an online journal showcasing “exemplary work being done in undergraduate writing, rhetoric, and technical communication courses around the country.” Run by student scholars in WRTC, RhetTech just launched their fourth volume, which tackles a range of issues, including gaslighting, the reality of eating disorders, and mental health.
Audiology Student Receives Grant to Research the Vestibular System
From Creative Services:

Each year, the American Academy of Audiology (AAA) awards research grants to graduate students studying hearing and balance. Third-year audiology graduate student Erin Hernon was selected last April as a recipient for her research study titled Magnitude Estimates of Speed of Rotation and Angular Displacement as a Function of Frequency. 
On March 31, Hernon had the opportunity to attend the annual AAA conference in St. Louis. At the conference, which she attended with four other members of JMU’s Student Academy of Audiology (SAA), Hernon was recognized for receiving the grant.
 
Materials on Historic Rockingham Houses Available to Researchers
JMU Libraries Special Collections has completed processing the Isaac Long Terrell and Ann Terrell Baker Research on Historic Rockingham County Houses and it is now open for research. Ann Terrell Baker donated her father’s collection of materials related to historic homes and creative architecture in Rockingham County Virginia to Special Collections. The collection includes photographs and research files on some well-known local homes such as the Lincoln Homestead as well as over 50 additional properties. These materials, dating from the 1960’s through the early 2000’s, formed the basis for the books Old Houses in Rockingham County: 1750-1850 (1970) and the follow-up book Old Houses in Rockingham County Revisited: 1750-1850 (2000).
 
Additionally, the first-ever JMU Libraries Magazine was selected as the winner of the American Library Association’s PR Xchange Award for libraries in the $15-20 million budget category in the External Communications category. Special kudos to the team who worked on the magazine, which included Jenne Klotz, Kristen Shuyler, Heather Holsinger (CISR), Bethany Nowviskie, and Emily Blake.
Federal Grant will Support First-Gen and At-Risk Students
From University Communications:
 
James Madison University’s College of Education will receive $1.4 million over the next five years to help eligible high school students in the Shenandoah Valley overcome social, emotional, and academic barriers to achieve success in education beyond high school.
 
The goal of the program, first, is to help first-generation college students and at-risk students find academic success and graduate from high school. Second, the program encourages enrollment and graduation from post-secondary education.
 
“A student’s educational opportunities should not be limited by their financial situation, family history or disadvantaged backgrounds,” said Dr. Amanda Sawyer, an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at JMU, who will oversee the program. “This program aims to support local students who want to succeed in higher education but may not have the opportunity to do so on their own.”
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