College of Continuing and Professional Studies
Dr. Caroline M. Brackette, assistant professor and associate program coordinator of Ed.S. in school counseling, conducted a book proposal review for Sage Publications for a new academic text on counseling theories. She was also invited to be an officer on call for the American Red Cross program that ensures that mental health coverage is available year-round for disaster victims.
College of Liberal Arts
James Eric (Jay) Black, assistant professor, wrote an essay, titled “Silent Cal and the Invisible Audience: The Sociotechnological Significance of the Presidential Voice,” which will be published in ETC: A Review of General Semantics 69, no. 1 in January.
Craig Coleman, associate professor, was included in “Dream Makers and Risk Takers,” an exhibit of art held in conjunction with the 2011 TEDx conference of the same name at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C. The show was on display from Oct. 3 to Nov. 3 at the Max L. Jackson Gallery on the campus of Queens University. Coleman’s works in the show were subsequently featured on the Knight Foundation’s “Knight Arts” website in an article about the event. His work was also included in “Sliding Scales,” an art exhibit at the Macon Arts Gallery, exploring macro and micro imagery as art. The show was on display from Sept. 2-30. In October, Coleman participated as a juror of photography for the Georgia National Fair.
Dr. John Marson Dunaway, professor of French and interdisciplinary studies, published a review of Marie Cabaud Meaney, “Simone Weil’s Apologetic Use of Literature: Her Christological Interpretation of Classical Greek Texts” (Oxford UP: 2008) in St. Austin Review, Nov/Dec 2011, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 39-40.
Dr. Creighton Rosental, associate professor, published a book Lessons from Aquinas: A Resolution of the Problem of Faith and Reason, with Mercer University Press, 2011. For more on the book, go to http://www.mupress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=536
Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics
Dr. Steven McClung, associate professor, sports management program director and Master of Business Administration program director, along with Savannah Professional MBA students Shawn Herrmann and Thomas Anderson will have the manuscript, ”The Product Placement of the Gulfstream Aircraft brand in the HBO Television Show Entourage,” published in the conference proceedings of The Association of Marketing Theory and Practice conference in Myrtle Beach, S.C., in March.
Dr. Sharon S. Seay, associate professor, and Janet Woods, adjunct professor, co-authored “The Economic Impact of FASB’s Proposed New Lease Accounting Standard,” in the Journal of Finance and Accountancy, Vol. 8, pp. 45-57 in December.
Georgia Baptist College of Nursing
Dr. Susan S. Gunby, professor, was invited by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing to present a webinar for the Leader Development in Nursing Academia Series. The title of the webinar was “Legal Aspects of Academic Nursing.” The presentation was made on Oct. 12.
School of Engineering
Dr. Behnam Kamali, professor of electrical and computer engineering, published an article, titled “Some Classical Applications of Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing,” in the October 2011 issue of International Journal of Intelligent Technologies and Engineering Systems.
School of Medicine
Dr. Edward C. Lauterbach, professor emeritus of psychiatry and neurology, recently co-authored “Psychopharmacological neuroprotection in neurodegenerative disease, part III: criteria-based assessment,” In the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 2011;23:242-60. He also participated in a scientific advisory board meeting for Avanir Pharmaceuticals and published with Brazilian colleagues, “Fontenelle LF et al. Obsessive-compulsive symptoms among patients with blepharospasm and hemifacial spasm,” in General Hospital Psychiatry 2011;33:476-81.
Dr. Andon Placzek, assistant professor of neuroscience, co-authored a paper with collaborators at Baylor College of Medicine, titled “Suppression of PKR Promotes Network Excitability and Enhanced Cognition by Interferon-gamma-Mediated Disinhibition,” which was published in the Dec. 9 issue of Cell.
Dr. W. Patrick Roche, associate professor, has been selected to lead a team from south Georgia to southeastern Turkey in May for the Rotary Foundation. He was chosen for his experiences in foreign travel leading medical mission trips, though the travel to Turkey will be a non-medical group study exchange, during which he and four young professionals will be hosted in Turkish homes and study all aspects of Turkish culture. Two Mercer University graduates, Johnna Bussell and Gabrielle Washington, will be among team members. In addition to Mercer, Dr. Roche represents the Macon Rotary Club and the Rotary District 6920 in the exchange; a similar group will come from Turkey to Georgia during the same month, with hosting by local Rotarians.
Dr. Mike U. Smith, professor, was an invited speaker at a graduate seminar in science education on Dec. 8 at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va. He spoke about teaching evolution and the nature of science. Dr. Smith was also the featured speaker at the closing service of the National Week of Prayer Churches United Weekend Dec. 4 at the Greater New Hope Ministries in Warner Robins. Dr. Smith also spoke at the World AIDS Day Symposium at Spelman College in Atlanta on Nov. 10. His presentation was titled “HIV Infected and Affected Youth: Three Families I Have Known.” On Nov. 3, he co-authored a paper presented at the American Evaluation Association annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., titled “Native STAND: The trials and tribulations of adapting and implementing a peer educator program for Native American youth in Indian country,” with several co-authors. On Sept. 8, Dr. Smith presented a paper, titled “Native STAND: An adolescent peer education program for Native Americans” at the School of Medicine and Medical Center of Central Georgia Joint Research Conference in Macon.
Staff and Administration
Mike Kondorf, corporal, was awarded the Officer Of The Year for Mercer Police. Corp. Steve Gaines in Macon and Ricky Jones in Atlanta each won the Top Gun Award for best firearms qualifying scores.
Betsy Fitzgerald, executive director of The Grand Opera House, has been appointed to the national Alumnae and Alumni Board of Goucher College and to the Georgia Arts Network Board of Directors.
Tift College of Education
Dr. Ron Knorr, assistant professor, and Angie Barnett, graduate student, presented “Using Data to Inform Instructional Practice” at the annual meeting of the Georgia Educational Research Association meeting in Savannah on Oct. 22. Dr. Knorr also presented a paper, “Elements of Teaching Online,” at the annual meeting of the South Carolina Association of Teacher Educators held Oct. 15-16 in Florence, S.C. Additionally, he presented both a paper, “Employment in Higher Education,” and published a chapter in “A Century of Leadership: Biographies of Kappa Delta Pi Presidents,” at the International Convocation of Kappa Delta Pi in Indianapolis, Ind., Nov. 3-5.
Townsend School of Music
Dr. Douglas Hill, professor, performed in the Chamber Orchestra at Mt. Zion Baptist in Bolingbroke as part of the church’s Christmas Cantata on Dec. 11. On Dec. 16, Hill was the guest conductor for the Milton High School Wind Ensemble in Atlanta. Hill and Townsend School of Music faculty member, Dr. Tom Gibson, also discussed scholarship and performance opportunities at Mercer with the musicians in the award-winning Milton High School Wind Ensemble. Hill performed in the Liberty United Methodist Church Chamber Orchestra in the Christmas favorite, “The Many Moods of Christmas,” composed by Robert Shaw and Robert Russell Bennett. The performance was presented on Dec. 18 in Macon.
Walter F. George School of Law
Stephen M. Johnson, associate dean for academic affairs and professor, wrote an article, titled “Disclosing the President’s Role in Rulemaking: A Critique of the Reform Proposals,” that was recently published at 60 Catholic University Law Review 1 (2011). His article, “In Defense of the Short Cut,” will be published in the Kansas Law Review.
David Oedel, professor, and alumnus Frank C. Jones have been serving Georgia as assistant attorneys general to Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens in Georgia’s constitutional challenge, with 25 other states and the National Federation of Independent Business, to the Health Care Reform Act of 2010. The U.S. Supreme Court in November granted leave for the litigants in that case to argue for five-and-a-half hours before the court in March, the most oral argument allotted for any case before the high court in the past 46 years. The court specifically granted review for the states’ claim that the act’s unprecedented expansion of Medicaid, now no longer just for the poor, is a usurpation of the states’ autonomy to direct their own tax revenues to locally preferred projects such as education, health, environment, safety and economic development. Oedel has been a primary architect of that constitutional claim in the litigation, spurred on by conversations with constitutional law students at Mercer Law School and lawyers from around the state and the nation. In September, Oedel also accepted an invitation to speak at two forums in China comparing intellectual property legal regimes in the two countries, and on financing small and medium-sized enterprises in China compared with financing of such enterprises in the West. Oedel earlier in the year taught and studied in China concerning the privatization of previously nationalized economic activities.
