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Awards and Honors

Catherine Chin, assistant professor, theology and religious studies, received a fellowship to conduct research at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., for the 2007-08 academic year.

Lisa Gitelman, associate professor, media studies, received a $1,000 fellowship to do research in June on the early history of photography at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass.

Grants

The National Science Foundation renewed a three-year grant of $210,000 per year to physics professors Daniel Sober and Franz Klein to continue their nuclear physics research at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va. The new grant begins on Sept. 1, 2007.

On the Road

At the invitation of Bishop Lawrence Brandt of the Diocese of Greenburg, Pa., Very Rev. David M. O’Connell, C.M., CUA president, joined St. Vincent College President James Towey and Seton Hill University President Joanne Boyle on April 3 to address administration, faculty and staff of the two Pennsylvania schools on the subject of Catholic identity and mission in Catholic institutions of higher learning.

Father O'Connell gave the keynote address to 400 priests of the Diocese of Rockville Centre gathered in convocation at Montauk, New York, on April 18, 2007. 

Father O'Connell will be the keynote speaker for Gannon University's May 5 Commencement exercises. He will be awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from the university, which is located in Erie, Pa.

Jude Dougherty, dean emeritus, philosophy, will deliver a lecture at James Madison University on May 19 on “The Use and Abuse of Analogy and Metaphor in Scientific Explanation” for the Phi Sigma Tau National Honor Society in Philosophy lecture series on “Current Perspectives in Western Philosophy.”

Lisa Gitelman, associate professor, media studies, gave a talk titled “Modes and Codes: Samuel F. B. Morse and the Visual Culture of Text” at the “Mediating Enlightenment: Past and Present” conference at New York University held April 13-15.

Gitelman gave a talk titled “Xerographers of the Mind: The Lost Idea of the Photocopy” at the First International Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory conference held at Duke University, April 19-21.

Nora Heimann, chair and associate professor, Department of Art, is curating a second Joan of Arc exhibition — “Joan of Arc: From Medieval Maiden to Modern Saint” — that opens at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Conn., on May 1 and will close on Sept. 3. Pieces of art in the exhibition are on loan from collections throughout Europe and the United States. Heimann co-curated an earlier Joan of Arc exhibit that was on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington from November 2006 to mid-January 2007.

Ingrid Hsieh-Yee, professor, School of Library and Information Science, presented a paper titled “They Didn’t Teach Me That in Library School! Building a Digital Teaching Commons to Enhance Metadata, Learning and Research” at the Association of College and Research Libraries’ 13th National Conference in Baltimore, March 29-April 1.

She also presented a poster titled “A Comparative Analysis of Google Scholar and Academic Search Premier” at the same conference.

Three members of the CUA community — Gunther Kletetschka, research professor of physics in CUA'S Institute of Astrophysics and Computational Sciences, and physics graduate students Tomoko Adachi and Vilem Mikula — will present their research related to Mars exploration at the Rocky Mountain Section meeting of the Geological Society of America in St. George, Utah, May 7-9. All three will join in a presentation on the topic "Testing the Origin of Martian 'Blueberries': Magnetic Measurements May Be Key to the Answer." Kletetschka and Adachi will present on the topic "Magnetic/Isotopic Characteristics of the Spherule-Rich Impact Ejecta Blanket from the Chicxulub Crater: Analog for Robotic Exploration of Similar Deposits on Mars."

Rev. Joseph Komonchak, professor, School of Theology and Religious Studies, gave a lecture titled “Vatican Council II: Is the Church We Have the Church the Council Envisioned?” at St. Theresa Church in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., on April 16.

Vadim D. Knyazev, associate professor, chemistry, gave a presentation titled “Effects of chain length on the rates of C-C bond dissociation in linear alkanes and polyethylene” at the Fifth U.S. National Combustion Meeting in San Diego on March 25-28.

He participated in a workshop titled “Next Steps in Using Combustion Cyberinfrastructure: A Multi-agency Combustion Workshop” in San Diego on March 28-29.

Knyazev gave a presentation titled “Kinetics and Mechanism of Elementary Reactive Processes in Polymer Pyrolysis” at the 2007 National Institute of Standards and Technology Annual Fire Conference in Gaithersburg, Md., on April 4-5.

Christina Mahony, acting director, Center for Irish Studies, delivered a lecture on award winning novelist Colm Toibin in April at Trinity College in Dublin.

Mary Mazzenga, education archivist, and Jordan Patty, processing archivist, presented papers on the Catholic Church and the labor movement at the spring meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference in Scranton, Pa., April 19-21. W. John Shepherd, associate archivist, chaired the session.

Rev. Paul McPartlan, Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism, will participate in the Orientale Lumen Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, May 7-10. The theme of the conference will be “Liturgical Worship of the Eastern Church.”

Tim Meagher, university archivist, presented a paper on the movie “True Confessions” at the “Screening Irish America” conference at University College in Dublin held April 13-15.

Veryl V. Miles, dean, Columbus School of Law, will deliver the commencement address at Wells College (Aurora, N.Y.) on May 26. Miles graduated from the college in 1977.

Adnan Morshed, assistant professor, architecture, presented the keynote lecture “Architecture as Empowerment: The Female Borrowers of the Grameen Bank Housing Program in Bangladesh,” at the 24th Annual Spring Symposium of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii held April 11-13.

Mario A. Ortiz, assistant professor of modern languages and literatures, gave a multimedia presentation titled “Celia Cruz and the Art of Self-Fashioning” as part of the speakers series sponsored by the University of California, Washington Center, located in the District of Columbia, on April 16.

He presented a paper titled “The Two Sor Juanas in John Adams’ Musical Composition ‘El Niño’” at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association in Puebla, Mexico, on April 19-22.

He gave a presentation titled “Interdisciplinary Approaches in Latin American Colonial Studies” at the First Interdisciplinary Encounter of Musical Research conference organized by Asociación Colombiana de Facultades y Programas de Arte in Bogotá, Colombia, on April 25-27.

Lucia Silecchia, professor, participated in a Vatican-sponsored seminar about global warming titled "Climate Change and Development" held April 26-27 in Vatican City.

Leslie Tentler, professor, history, gave a presentation at the “Shaping American Catholicism” conference at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., on April 13-14.

Monsignor John Wippel, Theodore Basselin Professor of Philosophy, gave a lecture March 22 titled “Thomas Aquinas on the Ultimate Question: Why is There Anything at All Rather Nothing Whatsoever?” at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J.

Performances

Thomas Donahue, chair and professor, drama, organized a free performance of Swift to My Wounded, a play about poet Walt Whitman, for the veterans of the Armed Forces Retirement Home on March 27. Written by Warren Perry, M.F.A. 2006, and performed by Bill Largess, B.A. 1976, the one-man play premiered at Washington, D.C.’s National Portrait Gallery in November 2006.

Gary Sloan, associate professor of drama and head of the M.F.A. acting program, performed a one-man play that he co-wrote, Haunted Prince: The Ghosts of Edwin Booth, in the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium of the National Portrait Gallery as part of the citywide Shakespeare in Washington Festival. Sloan performed the play on March 19 and 26 and April 2, 9 and 16. He co-wrote the play with freelance writer and dramaturge Christie Brown and Shakespeare Theatre Company Assistant Director Stephen Fried.

Publications

Rev. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, professor emeritus, theology and religious studies, wrote a book titled The One Who Is to Come, which was published in April.

William Klingshirn, professor of Green and Latin, co-edited The Early Christian Book with Linda Safran, a former CUA associate professor of Greek and Latin who is now associate professor of fine art at the University of Toronto. Published by The Catholic University of America Press, this anthology of 12 essays focuses on the ways in which books were produced, used, treasured and conceptualized in the early Christian centuries. Philip Rousseau, CUA’s Andrew W. Mellon Professor and director of the Center for the Study of Early Christianity, wrote the book’s introduction. Catherine Chin, assistant professor, theology and religious studies, wrote one of the book’s essays “Through the Looking Glass Darkly: Jerome Inside the Book.” Chrysi Kotsifou, associate visiting curator of CUA’s Semtics/Institute of Christian Oriental Research Library and research fellow at CUA’s Center for the Study of Early Christianity, wrote another of the essays, “Books and Book Production in the Monastic Communities of Byzantine Egypt.”

Rev. Edward Ondrako, O.F.M., adjunct professor, theology and religious studies, published a book titled Progressive Illumination: A Journey with John Henry Cardinal Newman 1980-2005.

Andrew H. Weaver, assistant professor, music, wrote an article titled “Divine Wisdom and Dolorous Mysteries: Habsburg Marian Devotion in Two Motets From Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spirituale” that appeared in the May issue of the Journal of Musicology.

Students

Zachary Foreman, graduate student in the School of Philosophy, presented a paper titled "Hemlock and the First Amendment: Tracing Religious Freedom from the Trial of Socrates to the U.S. Constitution" at The American Experiment: Religious Freedom Conference hosted by the Garaventa Center at the University of Portland, April 12-14.

Kyle Gullings, a student in the master’s program in composition with stage music emphasis, was selected as a composer fellow for the John Duffy Composers Institute, which will take place May 11-14 at Old Dominion University. At the institute, the fellows and professional master composers collaborate with resident dance and theater companies.

Stephen Spotswood, an M.F.A. playwriting candidate, received the Paula Vogel Award on April 21 for winning the national playwriting competition sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts American College Theater Festival. His winning play is titled The Aaronsville Woman.

Kenneth Stilwell, a Ph.D. student in musicology at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, was awarded the Irving Lowens Award for Student Research from the Capital Chapter of the American Musicological Society at the chapter's spring meeting on April 28. The award, which is given to the best paper presented by a student at the meeting, was for his paper, "Rameau and the 'Noble Savage': Interpreting Compositional Approaches to Les Sauvages." At the same meeting, another musicology Ph.D. student, Angeline Smith, was elected Student Representative to the National Council of the American Musicological Society.

Micah Tillman, a graduate student in philosophy, presented a paper titled "Flight from an Ontology of Hope to the Phenomenology of Political Unity: Husserl as Good Samaritan" at Duquesne University's "Symbioses: Political Ontology and a New Metaphysics" graduate philosophy conference held on March 24.

The CUA chapter of the Special Libraries Association, a student group in the School of Library and Information Science, spent March 24 doing volunteer work at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Temple Hills, Md. Students spent the day working on the school’s media center.

More than 70 CUA students traveled to New York City’s Beacon Theatre March 20 for an invitation-only performance by The Allman Brothers Band. The evening represented a milestone for the class and its professor, English Professor Ernest Suarez, who for the last 10 years has been invited with his “Poetry and Rock” students to one of the band’s annual sold-out spring shows at the Beacon.