College of Liberal Arts

Dr. Jose L. Balduz, Jr., assistant professor of physics, presented a paper entitled “Effective Length in Extended Causal Sets” at the American Physical Society meeting in Jacksonville, Fla., April. He also co-authored the paper entitled “Alternate Lorentz Transformations of Spacetime Coordinates and Maxwell and Dirac Fields,” presented at the same conference by Rollin S. Armour Jr.

Jay Black, assistant professor of communication and theatre arts, presented a paper titled “The Effects of Memes, Truthiness and Wikiality on Public Knowledge” for the Doctoral Research Conference at Georgia State University, March 23. Black also shot a commercial for the WMAZ Channel 13 news website that played during the morning show.

Dr. Craig Byron, assistant professor of biology, and a collaborative team of investigators are the recipients of National Science Foundation funds for Program Announcement 01-120, Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences-Human Origins: Moving in New Directions. This $940,000 award will be distributed among 11 researchers from eight prominent institutions. This proposal, entitled “Collaborative Research: Integrative Analysis of Hominid Feeding Biomechanics,” also includes a second Mercer investigator, Dr. Qian Wang, assistant professor of anatomy, Mercer University School of Medicine. Byron also recently returned from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting in Philadelphia where he presented a paper entitled “Sagittal Crests, Temporal Fossae, and Their Putative Relationships to Masticatory Function and Encephalization in a Diverse Sample of Strepsirhine and Platyrrhine Primates.”

Dr. Jamie Cockfield, professor of history, reviewed William C. Fuller Jr.’s The Foe Within: Fantasies of Treason and the End of Imperial Russia. The review appeared in the September issue of the American Historical Review.

Dr. Greg Domin, associate professor of political science, was elected to serve as a Councilor to the Social Science Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research for 2007-2008. He and Jessica Lerer also had their article, “Jimmy Carter: Peanut Farmer Turned Human Rights Advocate,” accepted for publication in Twentieth Century Shapers of Baptist Social Ethics, to be published by Mercer University Press.
 
Dr. John Marson Dunaway, professor of French and interdisciplinary studies and director of Mercer Commons, organized and directed the fifth annual Commons Summer Faculty Workshop on Faith and Learning, May 21-25. Fourteen faculty members from six of Mercer’s colleges and schools participated. He traveled in June to France, where he collaborated with Denise Volkoff, associate professor emerita, on his in-progress translation of Vladimir Volkoff’s 2004 novel, The Pope’s Guest. Dunaway also spoke about his mission trip last summer to Democratic Republic of Congo at the Women’s Study Club of Fort Valley, March 20.

Dr. Tia Gafford, assistant professor of English and African American studies, wrote an article, “Split at the Root: The Reformation of the Tragic Mulatto Hero/Heroine in Francis E.W. Harper’s Iola Leroy” published in the May issue of Vanderbilt University’s new online journal, AmeriQuest.

Dr. Bob Hargrove, professor of chemistry and environmental science, returned to Cuttington University in the spring to teach another semester as a volunteer professor. He taught Organic Chemistry II and Physical Chemistry for Biologists from March to May. Cuttington University, located in rural Liberia, West Africa, is affiliated with the Episcopal Church and is recovering from the 14-year civil war involving Liberia and the surrounding countries. Mercer’s Biology and Chemistry departments and Engineering School have provided microscopes, spectrometers, balances and computers to the University over the past two years.

Dr. Curtis Herink, professor of mathematics, presented “A Class of Groups Related to Sudoku” at the 86th annual meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America, held at Georgia Southern University, March 16-17.

Roger Jamison, professor of art, and Sherrie Jamison hosted approximately 25 local potters, Mercer colleagues, students and friends in a five-day firing of his Angama wood-fired kiln at his studio in Juliette during spring break. Roger attended the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts conference in Louisville, Ky., March 15-17.

Dr. Janell Johnson, assistant professor of Christianity, presented two papers at conferences in March: “It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times: Competing Characterizations of Solomon in 1 Kings 9:26-10:29” at the Southeastern Conference for the Study of Religion and “A Dangerous Proposal of Nine Theses: Reflections on The Art of Reading Scripture (2003)” at the Regional Meeting of the National Association of Baptist Professors in Nashville, Tenn.
 
Dr. Leona Kanter, associate professor and chair of sociology, participated in the Asian Studies Development Program’s “Korea Institute” at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, May 27-June 17. She was one of 17 faculty members from colleges across the nation and South America selected for the program. Following a week of lectures at the East-West Center, the group spent two weeks touring South Korea, meeting South Korean scholars in each locale. The “Korea Institute” was sponsored by the Freeman Foundation and the Korea Foundation. She also has been appointed to the Board of the Macon Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Ajaz Karim, assistant professor of earth and environmental science, organized the first Geographic Information Systems User Group Meeting at Mercer University. Twenty-one participants from universities, private firms, and local and state governments attended the meeting. Two Mercer undergraduates, Chi Vuong and Mokshana Wijeyerathne, presented their research projects.

Dr. Eric Klingelhofer, professor of history, was featured in an article in the April 2007 issue of Our State: North Carolina. The article is about the story of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Lost Colony” and discusses Klingelhofer’s archaeological search of evidence for the Elizabethan settlements.

Dr. Achim Kopp, associate professor of Latin and German, presented a paper entitled “Three Moravian Travel Diaries from Early Colonial Georgia” at the 31st Annual Symposium of the Society for German-American Studies, hosted by the University of Kansas, Lawrence, April 27. He also served as moderator for a session on “Topics in Religion.”

Dr. Paul Lewis, associate professor of Christianity, and Eric Spears, director of International Programs, co-led one of the initial Mercer on Mission courses during the first summer term. Respectively, they offered classes on “Liberation Theology” and “The Sociology of Language, Culture and Communication: Brazil.” Twelve students drawn from the Macon and Atlanta campuses participated in academic coursework, as well as service projects in Rio de Janeiro and Vitoria, Brazil.

Dr. Frank J. Macke, professor of communication and theatre arts, presented a specially invited paper, “Liquidity, Flesh, and Embodiment,” at the Exploring Possibilities for Communication Within and Across Cultural Boundaries: State of the Art Research Conference, California State University-East Bay, Hayward, Calif., May 25. He also presented a refereed paper, “The Dream Image of Psychological Development” to the 2007 International Human Science Research Conference “New Frontiers of Phenomenology: Beyond Postmodernism in Empirical Research,” University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy, June 13-16. Macke also has the following articles and books scheduled for publication: “Body, Liquidity, and Flesh: Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty, and the Elements of Interpersonal Communication,” in Philosophy Today 51 (No. 4, 2007) and in Phenomenology 2005, Vol. IV, Selected Essays from North America; “Intrapersonal Communicology: Reflection, Reflexivity, and Relational Consciousness in Embodied Subjectivity” in Atlantic Journal of Communication; “Communication at the Speed of Life: Tele-vision, Intimacy, Community, and Nostalgia” in Valuation and Media Ecology: Ethics, Morals, and Laws; and “Sexuality and Parrhesia in the Phenomenology of Psychological Development: The Flesh of Human Communicative Embodiment and the Game of Intimacy” in Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 38 (No. 2, 2007).

Dr. Randall D. Peters, professor and chair of the Department of Physics, published two articles in the 10th edition of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology: “Anharmonic Oscillator” appears in volume 1 on pages 675-678 and a section in “Chaos” on “Some Mathematical Foundations in Physics” appears in volume 3, pages 744-748.
 
Dr. Andrew J. Pounds, associate professor of chemistry and computer science, co-authored, with others, two papers: “Experimental and Theoretical Studies of the Reaction of the OH Radical With Alkyl Sulfides: 1. Direct Observations of the Formation of the OH-DMS Adduct-Pressure Dependence of the Forward Rate of Addition and Development of a Predictive Expression at Low Temperature” in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry, and “Experimental and Theoretical Studies of the Reaction of the OH Radical with Alkyl Sulfides: 2. Kinetics and Mechanism of the OH Initiated Oxidation of Methylethyl and Diethyl Sulfides; Observations of a Two Channel Oxidation Mechanism” in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. All of the theoretical calculations for these papers were completed at Mercer either using systems located in the chemistry department or on the Olympus Parallel Computing Cluster developed within the computer science department. Pounds also worked under contract with Thomson Learning to complete an online test bank for the honors general chemistry text entitled, Principles of Modern Chemistry by Oxtoby, Gillis and Campion.

Dr. Caryn S. Seney, associate professor of chemistry, and Brittany M. Gutzman, chemistry major, gave a presentation entitled “Preliminary Investigations of Potential Correlations between TEM, Optical Spectroscopy and SERS Data Using Gold and Silver IgG and a-IgG Nanoparticle Conjugates” at the 84th Annual Meeting of the Georgia Academy of Sciences, March 3.

Dr. Charlotte Thomas, associate professor and chair of Philosophy, presented the second annual address to the Great Books Junior/Senior banquet entitled “Being Honored, Being Deserving: An Interpretation of the Chariot Race in Patrocles’ Funeral Games in Homer’s Iliad” at the Woodruff House, March 29.

JoAnna Watson, professor of sociology, led the Mercer on Mission group to Guatemala.

Dr. Laurie White, professor of computer science, attended the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 2007 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Atlanta, March 22-24. She helped Don Allen, a fellow Advanced Placement Computer Science Development Committee member, present the session “Building a Successful AP Computer Science Program.”

Bryan Whitfield, instructor of Christianity, presented a paper, “Second Temple Jewish Readings of the Spies’ Stories,” at the southeastern regional meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature held in conjunction with the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion in Nashville, Tenn., March 18. He also attended the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion Southeast Regional Meeting in Nashville, Tenn., March 16.

Dr. Fletcher Winston, assistant professor of sociology, published an article, “First Day Sociology: Using Student Introductions to Illustrate the Concept of Norms,” in Teaching Sociology 35:2 (2007).

Dr. John C. Wright, professor of psychology, published “Dog Breed Stereotype and Exposure to Negative Behavior: Effects on Perceptions of Adoptability” in Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 10(3), 255-265. Co-authors Allie Smith, BS ‘05, Katie Daniel, BA’ 05, and Karen Adkins, BA ‘05, are graduates of the Psychology Department. An earlier version of the published manuscript presented at the Georgia Psychological Association meeting in Hilton Head, S.C., won first place in the undergraduate poster competition. 

Walter F. George School of Law

Linda Edwards, Macon Professor of Law, spoke to 60 Brazilian federal judges and their staffs about “Legal Analysis and Writing in the U.S.” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 26. She also taught Comparative Property Law at the University of Buenos Aires. Edwards was the plenary speaker at the workshop for New Legal Writing Teachers, hosted by the Association of American Law Schools on July 1. She spoke on “Scholarship By Legal Writing Professors.” She made two presentations at the Association of Legal Writing Directors conference in Denver, Colo., June 16. Edwards was also part of the faculty at the Legal Writing Institute Scholarship Workshop in Boulder, Colorado, June 10-12.

Jim Fleissner, professor, made a presentation to 80 Georgia magistrates and judges at a program sponsored by the Georgia Institute for Continuing Judicial Education, Marietta, May 21. His presentation focused on the Supreme Court’s constitutional criminal procedure jurisprudence. As Deputy Special Counsel in United States v. Libby, he co-authored the government’s sentencing submissions and appeared as co-counsel at Libby’s sentencing on June 5. Most recently, Fleissner co-authored the government brief resulting in the U.S. Court of Appeals’ order denying Libby bail pending appeal on June 29, just hours before Libby’s prison sentence was commuted by President Bush. Fleissner represented the United States in Libby’s appeal of his conviction.

Dr. Ajay K. Banga, professor, published an editorial on “Transdermal Delivery of Proteins” as a guest editor for a theme section in the journal Pharmaceutical Research. This section includes his interview as well as one publication from his laboratory on “Transdermal Delivery of Interferon Alpha-2B Using Microporation and Iontophoresis in Hairless Rats.” He has also been invited to join the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Recent Patents on Drug Delivery and Formulation. Banga was elected to Fellowship status in American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences (AAPS). “AAPS confers the honor of Fellow to recognize individuals for outstanding contributions that elevate the stature of the pharmaceutical sciences and for professional excellence in the field relevant to the mission of AAPS.” He will be  recognized at the AAPS Annual Meeting in November in San Diego, Calif.

Dr. Vanthida Huang, assistant professor, received the Award for Excellence in Research during the 2007 College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences commencement. He and Sonya Chhatwal, MBA ’06 and fourth-year pharmacy student, received the First Place Best Student Poster Award at the 2007 Georgia Pharmacy Association Annual Convention. Their poster was titled “Evaluate the Prevalence of Heterogeneous Resistance in Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates in an Era of Increased Virulence and Treatment Failure."

Dr. Julie C. Kissack, associate professor, received two grants for $4,100 to participate in the Solvay Summer Research Program. Kissack and third-year student Mollie Starkie will work jointly on the project titled “Use of the Investigator Assessment Questionnaire of Antipsychotic Treatment in a Community Mental Health Center.” Second-year student Timothy Pope will assist Kissack on the “Weight Change Evaluation Using the Investigator Assessment Questionnaire Compared to Measurement of Waist Girth and Weight Measured on a Scale.” Kissack also was recognized as a 2007 Faculty Mentor by Wal-Mart Annual Scholarship Program.

Dr. Lisa M. Lundquist, clinical assistant professor, received a $4,900 grant for “Formulary Development and Periodic Update” for Georgia Division of Public Health Cancer State Aid Program.

Dr. Nadar H. Moniri, assistant professor, and Y. Daaka published “Agonist-Stimulated Reactive Oxygen Species Formation Regulates Beta-2-Adrenergic Receptor Signal Transduction” in Biochemical Pharmacology, 74:64-73 Jun 30 (2007).

Dr. Diane Nykamp, professor, E. D Kavanaugh and A.P. Wenker published “Vitamins: The Wise Choice for Women with Cardiovascular Disease” in The Consultant Pharmacist 2007; 22: 6: 490-502.

Dr. H. W. “Ted” Matthews, dean, was appointed chair of the Nominating Committee for the Council of Deans of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

Dr. Ravi Palaniappan, assistant professor, along with graduate students Dilip Devineni and Daniel Ezekwudo, published “Comparison of Zeta Potential and the Osmotic Second Virial Coefficient of Bovine Serum Albumin in the Prediction of Its Colloidal Stability Under Initial and Stressful Conditions” in Journal of Microencapsulation 24 (4)358-370 (2007).

Dr. Gina J. Ryan, clinical associate professor, received the Distinguished Educator Award during the 2007 College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences commencement.

Dr. Chad M. VanDenBerg, clinical associate professor, and V.E. Spratlin received a grant for $101,890 from Avera Pharmaceuticals for “A Multicenter, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study to Evaluate the Safety and Tolerability of AV965 in Elderly Subjects with Age-Associated Memory Impairment.”

Dr. Linda Adkison, professor of genetics and professor of obstetrics and gynecology,
 published Elsevier’s Integrated Genetics. She also published “Fresh Approaches to Teaching Can Yield New Associations – Hermaphroditism” in Society for Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine News 8: 30-33. Adkison was elected to the board of directors of the Society of Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine for Women and to the board of directors of Leadership Macon.

Drs. Linda Adkison, professor of genetics and professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Vladimir Mayorov, post doctoral fellow, published, with others, “Molecular Phylogeny of the Genus Triticum L” in Plant Systematics and Evolution 264:195-216.

Dr. William Bina, executive associate dean and chair of the Community Medicine Department, is chair of the Bibb County Medical Society Pandemic Flu Task Force. Dr. Alice House, assistant professor of family medicine, and Dr. Harold Katner, internal medicine, also participate. The group is developing a plan for private physicians’ offices, should a pandemic occur, and “Influenza Home Care Guidelines” and “Influenza Clinical Treatment Protocols” are being drafted.

Dr. Richard Elliott, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, published “Depression in Primary Care” in Ethnicity and Disease. He spoke on “Physical Health in Chronic Mental Illness” at the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill-Georgia annual meeting in April. He also spoke to the Bibb County Mental Health Court regarding “Diverting the Mentally from Correctional Settings.”

Dr. Alice House, assistant professor of family medicine, was elected president of the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians and has been inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha.

Dr. Harold P. Katner, chief of infectious diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, co-authored “Cytomegalovirus Vasculitis and Mucormycosis Coinfection in Late-Stage HIV/AIDS” in American Journal of Medical Sciences 2007; 333:122-124 and “Resident Grand Rounds: Antibiotic Associated Diarrhea and Colitis in the Hospitalized Patient” in Hospital Physician 2007; 43. He was also quoted in “America’s Silent War: The World’s Richest Country is Battling an African-American AIDS Epidemic,” an article by Sancia Dalley and Roland Webb III that appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Business Response, published by the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. Katner also traveled on behalf of the University to Zimbabwe with Drs. Mike U. Smith, professor of internal medicine, and Drayton Sanders, to see if it was feasible to develop a rotation in that country for Mercer medical students May and June of 2007.
 
Dr. Edward Lauterbach, professor of psychiatry, neurology and radiology, wrote an invited editorial, “Cognitive Substrates and Their Treatments in Neurodegenerative Disease” published in Neurology India. He is the second author of “Etiopathogenesis, Differential Diagnosis and Clinical Management” in Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology 2007;20:21-4, and the second author of “Neuropsychiatric Correlates of Traumatic Brain Injury: A Critical Review of the Literature” in Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 2007;19:106-7. Lauterbach also gave several invited presentations, including “Mood Disorders in Frontotemporal Dementia” at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Neuropsychiatric Association and “Basal Ganglia Structures and Their Clinical Relevance” at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.
 
Janet F. Piskurich, associate professor of basic medical science, wrote “MHC Class II Transactivator (CIITA) Expression is Upregulated in Myeloma Cells by IFN-gamma” published in the April 2007 issue of the Molecular Immunology. In addition, she presented a poster entitled, “IFN-Gamma Up-Regulates Expression of the MHC Class II Transactivator (CIITA) Type IV Promoter in Multiple Myeloma Cells” at the annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists, Miami, Fla., May 19. In addition, she organized the sixth “Casting for Confidence” fishing retreat, held in Forsyth, April 28. “Casting for Confidence” is a retreat program for cancer patients that she envisioned and founded. The mission of this retreat is to promote physical and emotional healing for cancer patients, especially those in early stages of recovery who reside in counties without easy access to cancer support programs.

Dr. Mike U. Smith, professor of internal medicine, was inducted into the local chapter of Sigma Xi.
 
Drs. Melton Strozier, Lee Bowen, and Steve Livingston, of the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department, presented an invited workshop to the World Family Conference in Prague, the Czech Republic, May 17. The workshop was titled “Training Primary Care Physicians to Assess Family Systems.” The workshop shared information with medical educators about the unique training programs at Mercer that train medical students to work with patients and families impacted by chronic illness and disability. The conference was attended by healthcare educators and professionals from 68 countries.

Dr. Nancy Jay, associate professor of finance, co-authored a paper entitled “A Multiperiod Evaluation of Returns Following Seasoned Equity Offerings” that has been accepted for publication in Journal of Economics and Business.

Dr. Vijaya Subrahmanyam, associate professor of finance, with others, published a paper in Managerial Auditing Journal that was one of the top three Highly Commended Papers from the previous 12 months. They will receive an award for this honor.

Dr. Marjorie T. Davis, professor of technical communication, is an invited presenter at the Academic-Industry Leaders Summit in Fall 2007. This summit includes approximately 30 presenters invited by STC to discuss advancing the profession. Davis established the technical communication programs at Mercer, serving from 1991 through June 2007 as department chair.

Dr. Donald Ekong, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, participated in the Governor’s Teaching Fellows (GTF) summer program in Athens, May 14-25. This program provides instructional development opportunities to faculty members in higher education throughout Georgia. Much of the training focuses on how current technology can be used to enhance teaching and learning in higher education throughout Georgia.

Dr. Richard Kunz, associate professor of mechanical engineering, co-authored
with Robert Graham and Max Tavoian a two-part paper entitled “Specimen Optimization by Analysis and Testing,” presented at the Joint Army-Navy-NASA-Air Force 38th Structures and Mechanical Behavior Subcommittee Meeting in Newport, R.I.

Dr. Richard Mines, professor and program director of environmental engineering, presented “Parallel Bench-Scale Digestion Studies” at the 2007 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress, Tampa, Fla., May 15-19. Co-authors of the paper were Dr. Laura Lackey, associate professor of environmental engineering, Mitchell Murchison, BSE ‘06, and Brett Northenor, BSE ‘06, former environmental engineering students.

Drs. Alan Culpepper, dean, and Loyd Allen, professor of church history and spiritual formation, led a group of 20 pastors, many of them members of the McAfee Board of Visitors, on a spiritual renewal pilgrimage to Israel, May 27-June 9. The program is sponsored by the CF Foundation, which has its offices here in Atlanta.

Dr. Alan Culpepper, dean, had his dissertation, “The Johannine School,” which was first published in the Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series in 1975, reprinted this year.

Dr. J. Thomas Kellow, assistant professor of research and statistics, published, with others, the following book chapters and refereed journal articles: “Exploring Potential Mediators of Stereotype Threat in African-American High School Students” in Journal of Black Psychology, “Four Methods to Improve Your Factor Analytic Practice” and “Using Criterion-Referenced Assessments for Setting Standards and Making Decisions: Some Conceptual and Technical Iissues” in Best Practices in Quantitative Methods, “Evaluation of Persons with Mental Retardation as a Function of Special Olympics Participation: An Experimental Analysis” in International Journal of Special Education, “Type, Temperament, and Teacher Perceptions of Ideal and Problem Students” in Journal of Psychological Type, and “Academic Identification and the Effects of Stereotype Threat: Measurement and Interpretation in Real-World Settings.”

Dr. William O. Lacefield, associate professor of mathematics education, presented “The Function of Children’s Literature in the Mathematics Classroom” at the annual conference of the United Kingdom’s Association of Teachers of Mathematics, held at the University of Loughborough, Loughborough, England, April. He presented “Lessons Learned from a Comparative, Immersive Study of Mathematics Education in England, Ireland, and the United States” at the annual conference of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, Atlanta, March. Lacefield and several graduate teacher education students presented “The Power of Children’s Literature in Nurturing Mathematical Representation” at the annual conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Atlanta, March.

Dr. Randall Spaid, assistant professor of education, recently presented a paper and conducted two workshops at the Near East South Asia Council (NESA) of Overseas Schools Winter Teachers Conference in Athens, Greece. Spaid serves as the Principle Investigator for the NESA Virtual Science Fair (NVSF) project sponsored by a grant from the U.S. State Department. The session titles were, “How Much are These Science Students Learning with Their Mentors? A Two-Year Analysis; Putting the ‘Why?’ Into Our Science Classrooms and Projects,” and “Fifth Graders Can Do Inquiry, Too!” The NVSF was recently featured in the May newsletter of the National Association of Independent Schools and has been nominated for the prestigious Blackboard Greenhouse Exemplary Course Award.
 

Dr. Dare Domico, professor, participated in a community education program at Arbor Terrace of Decatur, July 12. The title of her presentation was “Osteoporosis: What You Need to Know to Take Charge of Your Bone Health.”

Ann C. Keeley, assistant professor, successfully completed the Congregational Nurse Course offered this summer. She is now a certified Congregational Nurse.

Dr. Lynn Clemons, assistant professor of organization leadership, presented “Mentoring: An Effective Retention Tool for Adult Learners” at the 2007 Association of Continuing Higher Education Region 7 Annual Conference in Athens, April 2.

Dr. Priscilla R. Danheiser, professor of human services, led seminars on digital storytelling and online course and online program development for the Georgia Governor’s Teaching Fellows Academic Year Symposia Program in April and for the Summer Symposium in May. The Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program was established by Zell Miller to provide Georgia’s higher education faculty with expanded opportunities for developing important teaching skills. The program is jointly sponsored by the University of Georgia Institute of Higher Education and the University of Georgia Center for Teaching and Learning.

Drs. Gail W. Johnson, assistant dean, and Thomas E. Kail, dean, made a presentation at the Association of Continuing Higher Education Region 7 Annual Conference in Athens, April 1-3, entitled “Measuring Undergraduate Adult Learning through Assessment: Lessons Learned.” The conference theme was “From Marginalized to Mainstream: The Impact of Continuing Education.” Johnson served on the Association of Continuing Higher Education Region 7 Conference Planning Committee.

Drs. Thomas E. Kail, dean, and Billy J. Slaton, associate professor, discussed professionalism and education with the Fulton County Deputies assigned to the Fulton County Courthouse on June 18. The presentations were given at the roll calls.

Dr. Hani Q. Khoury, associate professor of mathematics and chair of the Mathematics and Science Department, was an invited delegate to a conference sponsored by UNESCO and the Qatar Foundation in support of their major initiatives to address the literacy challenge in the Arab States. The conference, “Literacy Challenges in the Arab Region - Building Partnerships and Promoting Innovative Approaches,” was held in Doha, Qatar, March 12-14. The conference was addressed via a taped message by First Lady Barbara Bush and was attended by the first ladies of Syria, Lebanon, and Azerbaijan.

Dr. Billy J. Slaton, associate professor, was asked to review six chapters of Harold E. Doweiko’s new edition of his textbook, Concepts of Chemical Dependency, Thomson Publishing.

Dr. Clinton W. Terry, assistant professor of history, wrote an essay entitled “The Urban Civil War,” which will be published by ABC-Clio, Inc., in Civil War: Perspectives in American Social History. His research interests focus on U.S. social and business history.

Dr. Kevin Wickes, associate professor, and Jenny Scott, McAfee School of Theology student, presented at the Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia in Savannah. The workshop was titled “The Princess Behind the Mask -- An Approach to Combining Faith and Science in Dealing with Abuse and Addiction Issues in Women.”

Dr. Kevin Wickes, associate professor, presented at the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children in Savannah. The workshop was titled “The Dynamic Process of Culture in an Organization.”

Dr. John E. Simons, associate professor of choral and church music, served as choral clinician for the Houston County Middle School Honor Choir in May. Over 150 middle school students rehearsed and performed a concert with Simons. Additionally, he presented a daylong teacher in-service for all the choral directors of Houston County Public Schools concerning conducting, selection of repertoire and avoiding teacher burnout. At the end of June, Simons lead 45 members of the Mercer University Children’s Choir on a concert tour to Washington, D.C. The choir gave performances at the historic Sunset Theatre in Asheboro, N.C.; Hallmark Youth Systems and Lakewood Baptist Retirement Center in Richmond, Va.; Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, Heritage Baptist Church, the US Capitol, the US House of Representatives Rotunda, Natural History Museum Rotunda (Smithsonian), and Joint General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and American Baptist Church Convocation in Washington, D.C.; and First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn. Additionally, Simons, supported by the children’s choir, presented a special conference session at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Conference entitled “Voices of Children.” The session explored creative involvement of children in Baptist worship practice using student created poetry, prayer, choral anthems, and several the new hymns from Celebrating Grace: Hymnal for Baptist Worship. The hymnal, a joint initiative of Mercer University Press and the Townsend-McAfee Institute, will be published in 2009. Simons serves as coordinating editor of the project.

Liya Deng, government documents and reference librarian at Tarver Library, submitted a proposal entitled “Getting Them to Love You From Afar: Librarian-Faculty Collaboration in the Design of Distance-Learning Courses.” The proposal has been accepted by the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy, to meet in Savannah, Oct. 5-6.

Betsy Johnson, Career Services director for the Atlanta campuses, received a Certificate in Career Development in May. Completion of four post-graduate classes in career development offered through Mercer’s College of Continuing & Professional Studies are required for this specialization. She also attended the 2nd annual meeting of Alumni Career Professionals in Chicago, Ill., July.

Marc A. Jolley, director of Mercer University Press, gave the address “Baptist Publishing and Publishing Baptists” at the Fellowship of Baptist Historians meeting, Campbellsville, Ky., June 7. He also led a workshop on “CrossWalk: A New Curriculum for Children” with Jim Dant at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, Washington, D.C., June 29.

Marc A. Jolley, director of Mercer University Press, Edmon Rowell, Sr., editor of Mercer University Press, and Dr. Michael Ruffin, CLA ‘78, pastor of The Hill Baptist Church in Augusta, visited Dr. Howard Giddens, CLA ‘35, and his wife, Gladys, CLA ‘37, to present Giddens with a copy of a book of his sermons, compiled by Ruffin and published by Mercer University Press. The book is entitled, Why Be a Christian: The Sermons of Howard P. Giddens. Giddens served as pastor of three Georgia Baptist churches and then as a professor of Christianity at Mercer.

Sarah May, director of Institutional Research, and Cindy Glance, Institutional Research analyst, were elected president and vice president respectively of the Georgia Association of Institutional Research, Planning, Assessment, and Quality (GAIRPAQ). Plans are underway to hold the 2008 GAIRPAQ conference on the Macon campus.

Dr. Craig McMahan, University Minister and dean of the chapel, served as issue editor for the Spring 2007 issue of Review and Expositor. The issue design explores the Gospel of Matthew through the various texts and themes developed in the Common Lectionary cycle A.

Dr. Douglas R. Pearson, vice president and dean of students, co-authored the article “Legal Aspects of Coping with Death on Campus” for the American College Personnel Association’s College Student Death: Guidance for a Caring Campus. Pearson also was selected to serve on the National Advisory Board for the Higher Education Newsletters “Student Affairs Today.”

Bobby Pope, director of Athletics, is the new chairman of the Sports Hall of Fame Authority, effective July 1.

Eric Spears, director of International Programs, and Dr. Paul Lewis, associate professor of Christianity, co-led one of the initial Mercer on Mission courses during the first summer term. Respectively, they offered classes on “Liberation Theology” and “The Sociology of Language, Culture and Communication: Brazil.” Twelve students drawn from Macon and Atlanta campuses participated in academic coursework, as well as service projects in Rio de Janeiro and Vitoria, Brazil.