Faculty/Staff Accomplishments 3/3/21

In this issue, we celebrate the accomplishments of faculty and staff in the Art, Business, Communication, Counseling Center, English, History, Music, the Paralegal Program, and Religious and Ethical Studies.

Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies Steven A. Benko was a guest on the WUNC podcast Tested. He was interviewed by Dave Dewitt about the ethics of vaccine distribution and how different ethical theories connected to different ways of thinking about who deserved priority, what to do about end of day doses, and the pros and cons of attempting a patterned distribution.

Counseling Center Assistant Director Dr. Shanita Brown is the recipient of the North Carolina Counseling Association’s Jane E. Myers Wellness Counseling Award. This award recognizes a member who has encouraged clients to increase their holistic wellness and exemplifies leadership and advocacy.  Brown received the award in a virtual ceremony on February 25.

The third legal textbook co-written by Marisa Campbell, Director of the Paralegal Program, Introduction to Paralegal Studies: A Critical Thinking Approach, has been published by Wolters Kluwer.

Professor of English Rebecca Duncan served as guest editor of Issue 96 of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany (Fall 2019-Fall 2020).  In this capacity, she curated a series of essays celebrating the centenary years of publication of Woolf’s first two novels, The Voyage Out and Night and Day.  The publication is now available online. Duncan’s review of the novel Play On! by former Meredith professor Judy Dearlove appears in the current issue of the North Carolina Literary Review.  The issue can be viewed on the North Carolina Literary Review website.

Professor of History Dan Fountain was interviewed by The New York Times for an article about a controversy in Chicago over statues of Abraham Lincoln. The article was published on February 18, 2021.

Professor of Art Shannon Johnstone is one of eight artists included in an exhibition at the Orlando Science Center. Several mural prints from her “Stardust and Ashes” series are part of the exhibition titled “Love and Loss Across Species Lines: The Neuroscience of Attachment”. The work will be on display until May 16, 2021.

Professor of Music Kent Lyman was the featured guest clinician in an online piano master class sponsored by the Charlotte Piano Teachers Forum on Friday, February 5, 2021. Dr. Lyman worked with three piano students of middle school and high school age, who are preparing for the upcoming Performance Festival of the North Carolina Music Teachers Association. The class was conducted over Zoom, while teacher members of CPTF observed from their respective locations. Lyman has innovated a method of working with students in Zoom lessons, by sharing pre-recorded performances from the students to optimize sound quality, then working with the students over Zoom in real time.  While working with students, he is able to share the score of the music being played for all to see, and the markings he makes on the score show up in real time on all screens, making details of fingerings, dynamics, and other interpretive suggestions immediately viewable for all to see.

On Saturday, February 13, 2021, Lyman was a featured guest on PANC LIVE, a Youtube telecast sponsored by the Piano Academy of North Carolina. The hour was shared between Lyman and Dr. Dylan Savage, a colleague who teaches piano at UNC-Charlotte.  Lyman and Savage were in the doctoral program at Indiana University at the same time, where their friendship and professional association began. They are now both working and teaching in North Carolina and contributing to the musical life of the community.  PANC LIVE is produced by Frank Pittman, former music faculty member at Meredith College. In this installment of the program,  Lyman shares stories about his childhood and his early dreams of being a professional musician, his professional training from high school through graduate school, his long association with and professional activities in South Korea, and his current activities as President-Elect of the North Carolina Music Teachers Association. The program is viewable on YouTube.

Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems Megan Martin has recently published a paper in the Decision Sciences Journal titled “Navigating the Best Path to Optimality in a University Grants Administration Workload Assignment Problem.” You can view the article online. Martin, along with her coauthor, presented research titled “Optimizing Product Test Scheduling With In-Process and At-Completion Inspection Constraints” at the Decision Sciences Institute 49th Annual Conference.

As part of COM Week, February 22-26, in a session facilitated by Associate Professor of Mass Communication Doug Spero, TV producer Susan LaSalla spoke with students and alumnae about her 43 year career at NBC news, including her role at The Today Show.  Assistant Professor of Communication Alan Buck led a session with Byron Pitts, co-anchor of ABC’s Nightline, who spoke to students, alumnae, members of the campus community about his life journey and issues of race in the industry.