Department News

Anthropology

Emily Dean, Asst. Professor of Anthropology, is currently co-authoring a book (with Bill Sillar) titled Mountains, Myths, and Monuments:  An Andean Landscape Biography as well as contributing to an edited volume: Recent Archaeology at Formative Chiripa. 

Professor Dean received SUU's Outstanding Educator award in May, co-directed the Archaeology Field-school in June (this year students excavated at Fort Harmony and surveyed public lands in the Cedar area), and -- generously funded by a FSSF research grant -- investigated late Inca occupations in the Cuzco, Peru region in July and August. Recently, she and Barbara Frank renewed a $25,000 collaborative grant with Bryce Canyon National Park. This two year project trains and employs SUU students to help conduct archaeological surveys in the park. Emily is excited about the prospect of helping to design and implement a new Anthropology major in the coming year. Please visit the Archeology Field School for more information.

History

Dr. Earl Mulderink will be at a book signing in New Bedford on April 27, 2012 for his newly published a book New Bedford's Civil War.
Please visit the Fordham University Press Review.
Flyer

Dr. Larry Ping had an article entitled, "Gustav Freytag's Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit and the Meaning of German History." accepted for publication in the German Studies Review, which is the premier venue for interdisciplinary studies of German History and Literature. His article is currently "in press" and may be included in the October 2009 issue of the journal.

Dr. Mark E. Miller presented a paper,“The Death Valley Shoshones and the National Park Idea: Aboriginal Subsistence Practices and Sustainable Management in the National Park System,” at the American Society for Environmental History Annual Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, April 2011. He completed book reviews for works published in the Journal of Southern History, the American Historical Review, the Journal of the West, the Journal of Arizona History, and the American Indian Culture and Research Journal.

Dr. Curtis Bostick, Department Chair, was selected for participation in the "Utah Tuning Project," funded by the Lumina Foundation. Professors in History and Physics from three states, including Utah, were chosen to be involved in this major curricula evaluation project. The impetus for this project is the European "Bologna Project," which has been hailed as the 'most significant educational reform' in the modern era.

Dr. James Vlasich, Department of History & Sociology, was interviewed in May 2010 by the Major League Baseball Network. The in-depth hour long interview focused on Dr. Vlasich's expertise on the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Dr. Vlasich's book, "A Legend for the Legendary" is being used as part of research for an upcoming show about the history of the Hall of Fame. Dr. Michelle Orihel's article "'Treacherous Memories' of Regicide: The Calves-Head Club in the Age of Anne" will appear in the Fall, 2011 edition of "The Historian," the journal published on behalf of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. Her current book project, a revision of her dissertation, is tentatively titled "The Contest over the American Founding: George Washington Versus The Democratic Societies." She recently presented papers at a conference organized by the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky in October 2010 and at the meeting of the Society of Early Americanists in Philadelphia in March 2011.

Sociology

Dr. Michael Ostrowsky has been very busy publishing. First, his article "Teaching Tip: An Exercise in Criminological Theory" was published in the July/August edition of The Criminologist, which is the official newsletter of the American Society of Criminology. Second, his review of the book "The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education" has been accepted for publication in the journal Teaching Sociology. Finally, Dr. Ostrowsky's article "Does Marijuana Use Lead to Violent Behavior?" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Drug Education.

Dr. Randle J. Hart has been elected Associate Editor of Sociology (the journal of the British Sociological Association). He is currently the only North American-based scholar on the Associate Editors Board. In March, Dr. Hart was a guest lecturer (via Skype) for a social movement course at the University of Victoria (Canada). He spoke on American radical movements of the twentieth century. As part of his commitment to the American Sociological Association’s Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, Randle mentors a doctoral candidate from the University of Connecticut (Mustafa Gurbuz). He also served as a Sterling Scholars Judge in Richfield, Utah in April 2011. A major revision of his co-authored book chapter on social movements is scheduled to be published in Sociology: A Canadian Perspective (Oxford University Press) in the Fall of 2011. His co-authored article (with Andrew McKinnon, University of Aberdeen) appeared in the December 2010 issue of Sociology. Another textbook chapter on politics and social movements with Howard Ramos (Dalhousie University), Karen H. Stanbridge (Memorial University), and Jack Veugelers (University of Toronto) will appear in Principles of Sociology (Oxford University Press). Dr. Hamal Gurung is the Chair of Women’s Week 2011, SUU and is also a member of the New England Environmental Justice Research Collaborative (NEJRC), which is housed at Northeastern University, Boston.

In Fall 2010, Dr. Shobha Hamal Gurung published a scholarly article, “Nepali Female Migrants and Informalization of Service and Care Work: Service or Servitude?” in the Journal of Workplace Rights, a peer-reviewed journal.  In Spring 2011, she presented the paper “Exploring Public Sociology: Transcending Teaching and Learning Beyond the Classroom” at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) in Seattle, WA, March 10-13, 2011. Also in Spring 2011, Dr. Hamal Gurung attended the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) Winter Meeting in San Antonio, TX, February 3-6, 2011. At this meeting, she discussed the SUU Gender Studies Minor Program with prominent gender scholars in the field, whose input was invaluable. Dr. Hamal Gurung is one of the core faculty responsible for developing the Women and Gender Studies Program at SUU. In Spring 2011, she also completed the Leadership Training provided by the SUU Faculty Center.

In Summer 2011, Dr. Hamal Gurung presented a paper “Ethnography of Intersectionality: Nepali Transnational  Mothers in the United States” at the Netherlands Association for Gender Studies and Feminist Anthropology’s Second International Conference in Amsterdam, July 6-8 , 2011.

<p">She also participated in the American Sociological Association’s Section on Teaching and Learning Workshop “The Best Teachers We Can Be: Learning Scholarly Teaching” in Las Vegas, NV, August 19, 2011. Dr. Hamal Gurung was the discussant for the American Sociological Association Annual Conference’s two regular sessions “Development and Gender” and “Heterogeneity, Migration and Asian-Americans” Las Vegas, August 19-22, 2011. She also attended the Sociologists for Women in Society’s Summer Meeting in Las Vegas, August 19-22, 2011 where she was elected to serve as a SWS representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for three years.

General

Activities/Involvements:
Dr. Randle Hart, Assistant Professor of Sociology, has been awarded the Distinguished Educator award for the 2011-12 Academic Year.

Department Advisor: Andrea Donovan
Contact Information: andreadonovan@suu.edu or call 435-586-5420 for an appointment.
Office: Sharwan Smith Center 205H

If you are interested in the History or Sociology Honor Societies, please stop by our Department in Centrum 225 for more information.