Students, Staff, Faculty, Alumni and Friends,
With the new semester underway, the OU College of Arts and Sciences remains committed to keeping our community safe, supported and connected.
This semester, we will continue with a mix of in-person, hybrid and online academic offerings designed to meet the programmatic and personal needs of every one of our students. Last year it was evident that because of the flexibility and devotion of our faculty and staff, and the patience, persistence and adaptability of our outstanding students, we could transition smoothly to alternate methods of teaching and learning.
The college will remain vigilant and continue to adhere to public health guidelines put in place to protect our community. Remember to regularly visit ou.edu/together for details on COVID-19 testing, vaccine updates and information on Norman campus operations.
We would also like to thank so many of our alumni and friends who helped our students who encountered financial hardships due to the pandemic. We are grateful for your commitment and all you do to make our mission possible. Your support each year equips us to prepare the next generation for a dynamic and promising future. We will inevitably face continued pandemic-related challenges this semester, and you can click here to support our college.
I remain confident we will emerge a more resilient, purposeful and connected community, and those strong bonds will enable us to move into the future with confidence and resolve. Thank you all for being such an essential part of our college community.
Sincerely,
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David Wrobel
Dean, OU College of Arts and Sciences
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OU TO HOLD IN-PERSON GRADUATION CEREMONIES THIS MAY FOR NORMAN CAMPUS GRADUATES
The University of Oklahoma will hold six in-person graduation ceremonies in May to honor its graduating students on the Norman campus, whose academic experience has been extraordinarily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, OU welcomes back the Class of 2020, whose graduations were held virtually due to COVID-19, to participate in May's ceremonies. The ceremonies for OU’s Norman campus degree-granting colleges will be held in The Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium from Friday, May 14, to Monday, May 17. Each college has been assigned to a specific ceremony for space accommodation. All ceremonies will be livestreamed for those who are unable to attend. For more information, visit the OU commencement website.
Friday, May 14, 2021 – 7 p.m.
Norman Campus Doctoral Candidates
Saturday, May 15, 2021 – 8 a.m.
College of Arts and Sciences (Master’s Students)
Saturday, May 15, 2021 – 6:30 p.m.
College of Arts and Sciences (Undergraduate Students)
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EVENTS CONTINUE AS PART OF INITIATIVE TO COMMEMORATE THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE
The Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Coordinating Committee is continuing its yearlong initiative to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the massacre with events scheduled for the spring semester. The committee, led by professors Kalenda Eaton and Karlos Hill of the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies, along with Daniel Simon, assistant director and editor-in-chief of World Literature Today, began the initiative last year to provide relevant programming and engage the ongoing university-wide conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion. “We hope faculty and staff from the Norman, OU-Tulsa and OUHSC campuses consider ways they can design small events that involve teaching, research, creative activity and/or community engagement relevant to the centennial and its contexts,” said Eaton. Several commemoration projects have already been planned for the spring semester on OU’s Norman and Tulsa campuses. CLICK HERE FOR SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
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WELCOME PATTY KIMBROUGH
Please join the College of Arts and Sciences in welcoming Patty Kimbrough to the staff. Kimbrough joined the college in January as the senior sponsored programs coordinator. In this position, she oversees and manages the financial activity of multiple departments in grant oversight, regulation compliance, internal controls and accounting procedures. Kimbrough will support departments with sponsored program activities and help navigate university policies and procedures, terms and conditions governing awards, and any federal, state or private industry rules and regulations. She will also work with department staff on training, assistance and to help in understanding the many dynamics of sponsored programs.
In her first year, her focus will be on learning departmental operations and college culture, working closely with departmental staff to build effective relationships and provide further training while also working with the college administration on strategic research planning. This newly created role will continue to evolve but will mainly focus on financial analysis of grants and special projects. Kimbrough has been with the University of Oklahoma for the past 23 years. Previously, she served in OU’s Research Financial Services office, where she worked as a financial coordinator after spending 10 years in Advanced Programs. She is looking forward to her new role and being able to share her knowledge. Kimbrough views herself as a calm, level-headed thinker and believes these qualities will lead to her success in her new position. When asked how she has been tackling working remotely, Kimbrough said she’s been enjoying it and that she’s been extremely productive in the environment. Although some scenarios have been tricky, like finding new ways to keep regular contact with her co-workers, she’s found this time to be a beneficial teaching moment for everyone. In her free time, she enjoys relaxing at Lake Texoma and spending time with her husband. She is looking forward to the warmer weather and being able to spend more time on the water.
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FACULTY AND DEPARTMENT NEWS |
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MELLON GRANT AWARDED TO OU'S NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES INITIATIVE
A recent grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will establish a new fellowship program at the University of Oklahoma to educate and empower students to make a difference in Indian Country. The four-year, $749,240 grant was awarded to the Department of Native American Studies and Native Nations Center at OU, and the funding will support the establishment of the Mellon Foundation Impact Fellows Initiative at OU. The two-year fellowship will be based on three components the Department of Native American Studies has identified for students to achieve excellence and positively impact Indian Country in their future careers: leadership, scholarship and community engagement. “At OU, preparing our students to make a meaningful impact on society is the embodiment of our university’s foundational purpose – that we change lives,” said OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. “This fellowship will inspire our students to lead and advocate for the diverse issues facing Tribal Nations today. We are incredibly grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for establishing this initiative, which utilizes OU’s longstanding legacy of excellence in Native American teaching and research to ultimately benefit communities and people worldwide.” READ MORE
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AMBASSADOR JIM JONES’ GIFT ENABLES DIGITAL ARCHIVES AT OU’S CARL ALBERT CENTER
The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma is the permanent home to a vast archive encompassing decades of public service by former U.S. Congressman and Ambassador James R. Jones. Ambassador Jones has now given a major endowment gift of $1 million to be used for digitizing the materials, hosting his and other collections on one central platform — The James R. Jones Digital Political Archive — and establishing a permanent graduate fellowship to curate the contents. “These archives celebrate Ambassador Jones’ extraordinary career, which was marked by his decades-long commitment to our state and nation,” said OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. “We are honored that the university was chosen to be the steward of such important documents, and we are humbled by the trust that has been placed in us to protect and conserve them. They will be a permanent and revered centerpiece of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center.” READ MORE
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OU NAMES INAUGURAL DIRECTOR OF ITS CENTER FOR QUANTUM RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
Thirumalai “Venky” Venkatesan, an internationally renowned leader in advanced technology innovation, will lead the University of Oklahoma Center for Quantum Research and Technology as director designate before becoming the center’s inaugural director July 1. The center was enabled by a generous gift from the Avenir Foundation and brings together faculty and students with interest in quantum materials, sensors and the scientific study of measurement, as well as quantum communications and computing. “Venky brings the perfect mix of research innovation, scholarly stature and accomplishment, wide-ranging administrative experience, and visionary leadership qualities, including a deep commitment to the innovative multi-college, multi-field convergence-driven research that advances OU’s ambitions,” said David Wrobel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “The college is thrilled to welcome Venky, and is also deeply appreciative of the outstanding efforts of professor Alberto Marino, whose service as interim director of CQRT began at its founding in July 2019 and will conclude in July 2021.” READ MORE
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OU ‘BIG IDEA CHALLENGE’ FUNDS FIVE PROJECTS TO EXPLORE SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL GRAND CHALLENGES
Five research teams at the University of Oklahoma, which include many faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences, will receive internal funding to support innovative research projects. The awards are for the OU Big Idea Challenge, an initiative launched by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships to support the development of transdisciplinary research projects with significant potential for future extramural funding and that address global grand challenges. READ MORE
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Associate professor of English Rita Keresztesi has published Literary Black Power in the Caribbean: Fiction, Music and Film. This volume is groundbreaking in its focus on the creative arts and artists in their evaluations of, and insights on, the relevance of the Black Power message. The author takes a cultural studies approach to bring together the political with the aesthetic, enriching an already fertile debate on the era and the subject of Black Power in the Caribbean
region. The chapters discuss various aspect of Black Power
in the Caribbean: on the pages of journals and magazines,
at contemporary conferences that radicalized academia to
join forces with communities, in fiction and essays by writers
and intellectuals, in calypso and reggae music, and in the
first films produced in the Caribbean.
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Associate professor Waleed Mahdi has published Arab Americans In Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representations. It comes as little surprise that Hollywood films have traditionally stereotyped Arab Americans, but how are Arab Americans portrayed in Arab films, and just as importantly, how are they portrayed in the works of Arab American filmmakers themselves? In this innovative volume, Mahdi offers a comparative analysis of three cinemas, yielding rich insights on the layers of representation and the ways in which those representations are challenged and disrupted. Hollywood films have fostered reductive imagery of Arab Americans since the 1970s as either a national security threat or a foreign policy concern, while Egyptian filmmakers have used polarizing images of Arab Americans since the 1990s to convey their nationalist critiques of the United States. Both portrayals are rooted in anxieties around globalization, migration and U.S.-Arab geopolitics. In contrast, Arab American cinema provides a more complex, realistic and fluid representation of Arab American citizenship and the nuances of a transnational identity. Exploring a wide variety of films from each cinematic site, Mahdi traces the competing narratives of Arab American belonging—how and why they vary, and what’s at stake in their circulation.
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NORMAN POLICE ESTABLlSH RESEARCH AND ASSESSMENT PARTNERSHIP WITH OU'S RUTH KNEE INSTITUTE
The Norman Police Department and Ruth Knee Institute for Transformative Scholarship in the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at the University of Oklahoma have announced a collaborative initiative, Partnership for Evaluating Police. This unique data-sharing and decision-making collaboration is among the first of its kind in the United States. The strategic partnership brings together the police department with social work scholars to provide not only external, unbiased evaluation of police-related community contact data, but also to develop a consultation mechanism to learn more about how to adjust policies and procedures to better serve the needs of the Norman community. The Ruth Knee Institute and OU School of Social Work will serve in an advisory capacity to NPD as an external evaluation partner to access data relating to policing activities to identify how this data could connect socio-cultural realties of the community, and to provide recommendations on how to address the complex realities of policing today. READ MORE
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Congratulations to Erin Freeman, associate professor in the Department of Psychology, who recently became a chair of a subcommittee within the STP Presidential Task Force on Statistical Literacy, Reasoning, and Thinking. STP, Society for Teaching Psychology, is the American Psychological Association's Division 2. Freeman is chairing the subcommittee focused on statistics within psychology majors as a whole. STP’s initial peer-reviewed statistical literacy guidelines were published on the STP website in 2014. Since then, there have been far-reaching changes in the ways in which statistics are taught, and the ways in which changes in best practices for research methodology have driven how statistical analyses are approached. The task force will create updated STP guidelines for statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking to incorporate what we have learned from the open science movement, data ethics initiatives and new analytical approaches.
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BRUNO OCHOA - HOMER L. DODGE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
$240,000 — NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
NOVEL QUANTUM EFFECTS IN STRONGLY CORRELATED MATERIALS
This award supports research and education toward understanding and predicting novel phases of matter in quantum materials, physical systems with a large number of particles where the laws of quantum mechanics are more prominently manifested. The PI will investigate metals where electrons, elemental charged particles that carry electricity, can behave in very odd ways: in some cases they propagate as if they had no mass, like relativistic massless neutrinos, the fundamental particles that permeate the universe, but only when they move in some directions in space; in others, they move in a completely incoherent fashion, reaching thermal equilibration at extremely fast time scales. As they propagate in materials, electrons can form a formidable soup of quantum matter with the most diverse properties. The way that electrons interact with each other in that soup can lead to novel states of matter: from metals that fail to conduct any electricity (known as Mott insulators) to superconductors, materials that conduct electricity without any dissipation of heat, or even regimes where electrons flow like a turbulent stream of water. The theoretical advances in this project will enhance the understanding of known and yet unknown phases of matter and may lead to novel technological applications.
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$22,279.32 — STATE OF OKLAHOMA, WILDLIFE CONSERVATION DEPARTMENT
INTEGRATING STATE AND FEDERAL PERMIT DATA FOR THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES INTO THE OKLAHOMA BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION SYSTEM
Informed and accurate conservation planning relies on access to spatially explicit occurrence data of biological species and ecological communities, both past and present. In Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory, a program of the Oklahoma Biological Survey, is the designated repository for biodiversity information. The OBS-enabling legislation states that the ONHI is to “acquire, archive, process and disseminate information on biological resources and natural areas that is or could be of value to policy and decision makers in the state (§70 3314).” However, data relevant to conservation planning and biodiversity education has been historically dispersed among a number of state and federal agencies and private entities. Collating this information into a single, centralized data repository has proven challenging. To achieve this mandate, ONHI has developed a statewide data repository called the Oklahoma Biodiversity Information System, which currently consists of over 400,000 occurrence records (and growing) of plant and animal species in Oklahoma. ONHI has also developed a web application (available at https://obis.ou.edu/search/) to provide interested parties access to these data. State and federal agencies are adopting OBIS as a platform for archiving and disseminating biodiversity data. OBIS’ foundational partners are the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Oklahoma Conservation Commission, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board and the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History are among other entities that have contributed or will contribute data to this effort. OBIS began in 2015 with initial funding from ODWC. Recently, OHNI received another grant from ODWC titled “Integrating Scientific Collector’s Permit data into the Oklahoma Biodiversity Information System.” This funding will enable ONHI to integrate legacy biodiversity data into the system. These data report the location, number of individuals and condition for populations of rare and federally threatened and endangered species in the state. This award is a validation of the utility of OBIS to state and federal agencies and affirms ONHI’s role as a leader in the conservation of biodiversity in the state of Oklahoma.
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PI: Cameron D. Siler, Associate Curator of Herpetology, Sam Noble Museum, and Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Oklahoma
Co-PI: Jessa L. Watters, Herpetology Collection Manager, Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma
Co-PI: Hayley Lanier, Assistant Curator of Mammalogy, Sam Noble Museum, and Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Oklahoma
Co-PI: Katharine Marske, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Oklahoma
Co-PI: Krithi Sankaranarayanan, Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma
Co-PI: Rebecca Snyder, Director of Conservation and Science, Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden
Co-PI: Brad Lock, Curator of Herpetology, Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden
Co-PI: Lisa Barrett, Postdoctoral Fellow, Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden
$69,376.10 — STATE OF OKLAHOMA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION DEPARTMENT
DEVELOPMENT OF A VIABLE HEAD-START AND RELEASE PROGRAM FOR TEXAS HORNED LIZARDS (PHRYNOSOMA CORNUTUM) IN OKLAHOMA
As part of a unique collaboration between the Sam Noble Museum, a team of faculty in the departments of Biology and Microbiology and Plant Biology at the University of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, and Tinker Air Force Base in this project aims to develop a viable head start and release program to reinforce wild populations of Texas Horned Lizards (Phrynosoma cornutum) in Oklahoma. The Texas Horned Lizard is one of the most charismatic and enigmatic reptile species of the American Southwest, but unfortunately has experienced continued population declines during the last several decades. The project will establish the OKC Zoo’s “Lizard Lab” as the state’s first head start and reintroduction program for Texas Horned Lizards capable of hatching eggs collected in wild populations, raising and maintaining lizards until wild release, and monitoring lizard health pre- and post-release to assess survivorship and improve programmatic success. The primary goals of this work will be to: (1) Establish a best-practice husbandry protocol and animal reintroduction plan for the species; (2) Establish baseline information on survivorship and growth rates of head start lizards released back into their native environments; and (3) Determine whether population genetic and gut microbial community diversity patterns among captive and wild horned lizards are differentially correlated with increased or decreased survivorship in the wild. Not only does this project represent one of the first temporal studies of microbial assemblages for any head start program, but also, the findings will have immediate applicability to head start initiatives worldwide concerning the capacity for reintroduced species to restructure their microbial flora when placed in novel, native habitats.
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RESEARCH FEATURED BY AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
In a recent study led by OU physics and astronomy, a team of scientists determined that the fragmentation of a disk of IRS3B may have recently produced the third protostar in IRS3B, helping inform how systems of multiple stars form in the dense cores inside molecular clouds. READ MORE
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Through the study of ancient DNA from 50,000-year-old Neanderthal fecal sediments excavated in El Salt (Spain), it was possible to characterize elements of the ancient gut microbiota of an extinct archaic human, demonstrating numerous characteristics shared with modern humans. These results provide evidence for an evolutionarily relevant association with specific documented microbiome traits. Researchers in the University of Oklahoma Department of Anthropology, including Courtney Hofman, Cecil M. Lewis and former OU postdoc Stephanie Schnorr, have collaborated on this project, and much of the lab work was conducted at OU’s Laboratories of Molecular Anthropology and Microbiome Research. The results could guide therapeutic or disease mitigation strategies, based on diet and lifestyle, including the revision of the use of xenobiotics, to promote the retention of members of the gut microbiota fundamental to our health. READ MORE
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JUSTIN LUND HONORED BY THE AMERICAN INDIAN GRADUATE CENTER
OU doctoral student Justin Lund was recently selected as the American Indian Graduate Center’s 2019 Graduate Student of the Year. Lund, a member of the Navajo Nation who will be eligible to graduate in May 2021 with his doctorate in anthropology, was chosen because of his commitment to education, leadership and service to his tribal communities. Before pursuing his doctorate, Lund earned his bachelor of science in anthropology and a minor in global health from Arizona State University and a master’s degree in anthropology from OU. During his six years at OU, he has been involved in a variety of research projects, including the development of a microbiome to analyze how student stress might change the microbial communities in the participants’ gastrointestinal tracts over time. Lund has been part of a research consortium of tribal partnerships since its formation – called the Center on the Ethics of Indigenous Genomics Research – which published several manuscripts on the use of deliberation methods to engage tribal communities across the nation to elicit Indigenous perspectives on genomics. Most recently, he assisted research scientist Dr. Jessica Blanchard in developing the Genetics and Ethics Program for Native American students at OU. The program helps to connect Native American students to Indigenous student groups, researchers, mentors and programs to facilitate their future professional success, while also engaging in topics meaningful to them. READ MORE
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MEET OU'S SGA PRESIDENTS AND VICE PRESIDENTS
Several students in the College of Arts and Sciences are among the leaders on OU's three campuses who have transitioned into their new roles as Student Government Association president and vice president. Learn more about these student leaders, including what motivated them to run for office and what they hope to accomplish during their terms. READ MORE
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OU ANNOUNCES FALL 2020 HONOR ROLL
The College of Arts and Sciences congratulates all students named to the fall 2020 honor roll, a distinction given to those who achieve the highest academic standards. A total of 9,299 OU students were named to the fall 2020 honor roll. Of these students, 4,003 were named to the President’s Honor Roll for earning an “A” grade in all their courses. The honor roll recognizes undergraduate students in the academic programs based at OU’s Norman campus and at the OU Health Sciences Center. In most colleges, full-time undergraduate students who completed 12 or more hours with a grade-point average of 4.0 were named to the President’s Honor Roll. Students on the Norman campus with a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher were included in the Dean’s Honor Roll. A searchable honor roll list for fall 2020 is available for download online. Students who are on both the President’s Honor Roll and the Dean’s Honor Roll are denoted by an asterisk.
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Feb. 14
Deadline to make changes to Spring 2021 OTIS.
Feb. 15
Deadline to enter new course changes not associated with program modifications, certificates or minors into Courseleaf.
Feb. 15
Sabbatical leave reports for Fall 2020 only or Spring 2020 and Fall 2020 (two-semester sabbatical) are due to the Dean’s office.
Feb. 23
Chairs and Directors meeting, 9 a.m.
Feb. 24
CASFAM Staff meeting, 10 a.m.
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Feb. 26
The OU Department of Psychology presents "How an IO Psychology Graduate from OU Won the Largest Counterterrorism Grant from the Federal Government in 2020" with Gina Ligon, Ph.D. Click on flyer for full details.
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March 1
Deadline to submit College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Staff Award nominations to Darla Madden at dmadden@ou.edu.
March 4
Deadline to enter preliminary Summer 2021 OTIS into the Teaching Load and Course Enrollment Management System
March 12
Deadline for faculty to email Junior Faculty Summer Fellowship proposals to Robin Riser at robin.riser@ou.edu.
March 12
Deadline for faculty to submit Senior Faculty Summer Fellowship proposals to Robin Riser at robin.riser@ou.edu.
March 15
Deadline for academic units to submit staff performance evaluations to Darla Madden at dmadden@ou.edu.
March 26
Deadline for academic units to submit to the Dean’s office recommendations for reappointment or non-reappointment to a fourth or subsequent year for tenure-track and ranked-renewable term faculty.
March 26
Deadline for academic units to submit to the Dean’s office recommendations for contract renewal or non-contract renewal for renewable term faculty.
March 30
Deadline for academic units to submit spring intersession course proposals to Renee Williams in the Intersession office. They can also be scanned and emailed to reneewilliams@ou.edu.
March 30
Chair and Directors meeting, 9 a.m.
March 31
CASFAM Staff meeting, 10 a.m.
April 2
Deadline for academic unit Committees A to submit chair/director reappointment or CY’20 chair/director evaluations to the Dean’s office.
April 2
Deadline for chairs/directors to submit reappointment or CY’20 evaluation self-assessments to the Dean’s office.
April 12
Deadline for academic units to submit faculty evaluations to the Dean’s office.
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If you have information or announcements for News & Updates, please submit to the College communication office.
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