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Faculty/Staff Accomplishments and Departmental News 7/15/20

In this issue, we celebrate accomplishments of faculty in child development and history, and an update from the Campus Store.

Professor of History Dan Fountain was interviewed by CBS 17 News on June 30 to provide a historian’s perspective for a story on a recently discovered time capsule in one of the Confederate monuments in downtown Raleigh. Watch the interview here.

Assistant Professor of Child Development Pamela Norcross shared several recent accomplishments. She has presented two posters at the virtual International Congress of Infant Studies conference (July 6-9) titled:  Effects of Maternal Depression on Sensitivity to Infant Distress and Non-distress; and Novel Predictors of Women’s Social Cognition About Infant Crying: Sleep, Working Memory, and Inhibitory Control.  Norcross has also been accepted as a 2020-21 faculty member representative of the Early Intervention Leadership Cohort sponsored by the Early Childhood Personnel Center (ECPC) in partnership with the Division of Early Childhood (DEC). The goal of the Early Childhood Leadership Initiative is to provide technical assistance and training to emerging and existing leaders to support statewide Comprehensive Systems of Personnel Development (CSPD). Leaders from institutions of higher education (faculty members), doctoral students, and families will have the opportunity to develop and implement an action plan to enhance one of the six subcomponents of the CSPD (Leadership, Coordination and Sustainability, Recruitment and Retention, Personnel Standards, Inservice, Preservice, and Evaluation).  Norcross has been accepted as an N.C. team leader for the 2020 Special Education Legislative Summit (SELS) in July, sponsored by Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE) and Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), where hundreds of advocates will gather in Washington, D.C. (now virtually). She will participate in town hall style meetings with policy experts, receive in-depth training about key issues impacting special education across the country, including legislation, appropriations, mental health, and more; and advance advocacy skills by meeting with members of Congress to discuss the success of children and youth with exceptionalities.

Assistant Professor of History Amy O’Keefe had a book review published in the Journal of Asian Studies. The book she reviewed is Global Entanglements of a Man Who Never Traveled: A Seventeenth-century Chinese Christian and His Conflicted Worlds, by Dominic Sachsenmaier.

Professor of History Greg Vitarbo was interviewed on CBS-17 about the history of monument removal in Europe, as Confederate monuments are being removed here in the U.S. The story aired on June 26.

Campus Store Update
To coincide with the return of prospective students visiting campus, the hours of the Campus Store are changing. They will now be Monday – Friday 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.  We ask that when you visit the Campus Store (as with other locations on campus), that you remember campus and CDC guidelines in regards to health and safety. Please remember to wear a face covering and physically distance yourself from others. Can’t make it to the store? Visit our new website! You can still receive your 10% Faculty/Staff discount by using Promo Code shared via emp_all by Campus Store Manager Emily Kelleher, ’17, on July 7.

Melyssa Allen

News Director
316 Johnson Hall
(919) 760-8087
Fax: (919) 760-8330

allenme@meredith.edu