Kirk has a new book on Elon's fall convocation speaker, former U.N. Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, titled, "Taking Names: The Meaning of Nikki Haley, From American-First Governor to America-First Ambassador." He has published several recent articles on a variety of topics related to India’s politics ranging from “State Homophobia? India’s Shifting UN Positions on LGBTQ Issues,” “What Makes a Successful Indian American Political Candidate?,” “Keeping an Eye on South Asian Skies: America’s Pivotal Deterrence in Nuclearized India-Pakistan Crises.”

Kirk is actively involved as a scholar in his field, serving as a reviewer for journals in his specialty area, and regularly attending and presenting his research at conferences. He has received multiple small grants to support his scholarship over the past few years.  

Idris has mentored Lumen Scholars, teaching and learning apprentices, and students with a deep and abiding love for anthropology, leadership and social justice. His Lumen Prize student, Leena Dahal '17, successfully completed her Lumen project on the topic of “Responding to a post-disaster digital Nepali andolan: Youth agency in online and offline contexts,” presented her findings at the Spring Undergraduate Research Forum and National Conferences on Undergraduate Research, and is now pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge.  

Idris has mentored students who have completed internships at the Center for New North Carolinians in Greensboro. He mentored another student through a teaching and learning apprenticeship in Qualitative Research Methods, where the student learned to prepare a lesson plan, assess the learning of the students, present his own research and keep a teaching portfolio of his work through the semester.  One of his students wrote, “Dr. Idris is undoubtedly one of the best professors and research mentors Elon has ever had."

Gatti has a track record of mentoring several hours of undergraduate research every year for students who are part of the Elon College Fellows, Honors Fellows and those who are driven to go beyond what’s required and fulfill their intellectual curiosity. Her students have presented their research on art history in the premodern world to her classes, and taken their research on La difessa della razza to present at the Spring Undergraduate Research Forum and the National Conferences of Undergraduate Research. 

In addition to mentoring undergraduate research, Gatti has mentored students who’ve completed internships at local museums and art councils as well as other museums across the country.  

Arangala has a strong record of service and leadership on Elon’s campus and off campus on behalf of her discipline. She has served as a reader for mathematics Fulbright applications and has served on the editorial board for Mathematical Association of America Notices. 

Arangala served as chair of University Curriculum Committee for the past three years, where she worked with the Elon Core Curriculum Committee to finalize guidelines for experiential learning credit and helped Elon transition to smartcatalog. She has also served for several years now as the Chair of Department of Mathematics and Statistics. She helped steward the use of the Elon Traveling Science Center with Kerala schools and Cochin University of Science in Technology, served on the Strategic Planning Committee, and has served as past chair of Graduate Council (2015-17, chair 2016-17).

Since coming to Elon, Proudfit has taught more than a dozen different courses ranging from college writing to senior seminars for the English major with literature concentration and the drama and theatre studies major. He has developed and taught several very creative and popular winter term courses including "The Graphic Novel" and "The AIDS Play" that have impacted student learning well beyond the goals of literature and writing. 

Proudfit states that he is proud that he gets to teach “the kinds of exciting courses that change students’ lives” and student comments would strongly indicate that his classes are transformative.  For every criterion in every class, his students always evaluate his teaching well above the university and department averages.  From first-year writing and introductory literature for non-majors to senior capstones, students routinely characterize Proudfit's classes as inclusive, personally engaging and innovative, providing a special environment where “student learning always seems more valuable than anything else”.  

One student from his most recent drama and theatre studies senior seminar described him as the “best person on the planet!” based on this passion, commitment and support for students.

Elon College is pleased to recognize the enormous contributions of these five faculty members to the life and work of the College.  Please join us in congratulating them for their accomplishments. 

For more information on each of these awards, please visit the College's website at /u/academics/arts-and-sciences/faculty-staff/awards/

Elon College, the College of Arts & Sciences recognized Excellence in Mentoring, Service & Leadership, Teaching, and Scholarship among its faculty on Monday, Aug. 20.

Buffie Longmire-Avital, associate professor of psychology, was recognized for her Excellence in Mentoring. Longmire-Avital& consistently applies her expertise to mentor students in deep and meaningful ways. H er undergraduate research students show significant outcomes of their collaborations – presenting at professional conferences and co-authoring manuscripts.  ������impact as a mentor goes way beyond undergraduate research. Through her work as a professor and as coordinator of African & African-American Studies, she mentors, guides, advises and attends to many who could potentially feel marginalized at Elon. 

Safia Swimelar, associate professor of political science and policy studies, and Paula Rosinski, professor of English and director of Writing Across the University, were awarded for their Excellence in Service & Leadership.

Swimelar has provided significant service through her leadership as coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program and as major coordinator for the International & Global Studies Program. She led a thorough review of the International & Global Studies Program and, with the assistance of advisory board members, has made pertinent curricular revisions. In each of her leadership roles, Swimelar consistently draws on her expertise – engaging with members of our community as we seek to deepen our understanding of nationalism and identity politics, ethnic conflict, and human rights. 

Rosinski was instrumental in developing and implementing our QEP relating to “writing across the curriculum.” She has served as the director of Writing Across the University and coordinated the Writing Excellence Initiative since fall 2015. Rosinski has a long record of successfully partnering with faculty colleagues, and students, across campus to strengthen disciplinary writing, through writing institutes, consultations, and workshops.

Shannon Duvall, associate professor of computing sciences, and Polly Butler-Cornelius, senior lecturer in music, were recognized for their Excellence in Teaching.

Duvall is an exceptional teacher of many challenging introductory and upper-level courses including programming languages and graphics and game programming. Her department colleagues know her as a creative, energetic and focused teacher who always “gets the best from her students.” Recently she borrowed from a framework known as “SCRUM” to encourage students to choose their own preferred learning strategies (using individual or team models & flipped or traditional pedagogies).  This approach was highly successful in scaffolding the material for students and engaging them in their own learning process. 

Butler-Cornelius routinely teaches applied voice to well over 100 students majoring in music performance, music in the liberal arts, music production and recording arts, music education, and musical theatre. All of the vocal instruction is individualized to the student and typically endures across six or more semesters. Her chair notes that she holds her students to “very high standards and commitment to steady, rigorous, hard work.” The incredible accomplishments of her students serve as one indicator of her teaching excellence.

Chad Awtrey, associate professor of mathematics and associate director of undergraduate research, and Mina Garcia-Soormally, associate professor of Spanish, were awarded for their Excellence in Scholarship.

Awtrey a nnually publishes multiple research papers in high-quality disciplinary journals, often with student co-authors. He has established a strong track record of obtaining grant funding that enables him to continue his collaborations with math educators, high school students, and undergraduate research students.  Awtrey recently received The Henry Alder Award from the Mathematics Association of America in recognition of his excellence as an educator. 

Garcia-Soormally is a very active scholar and writer. She has developed strong collaborations with a number of colleagues at other universities. Most recently she is working with colleagues on an edited volume relating to Social Injustice in Early Modern Spain. One of her book manuscripts is due to be published this fall and she has signed a contract for the publication of a second book with the University Press of Colorado.

Hope to see you there!

Lewellyn Jones, Angela, Pamela M. Kiser and Beth Warner. 2010. “Social Entrepreneurship: The ‘new kid’ on the university block.” Planning for Higher Education, 38(4):44-51.

Lewellyn Jones, Angela, Warner, Beth, Kiser, Pamela. 2010. “Service-Learning and Social Entrepreneurship: From Strangers to Allies.” Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning & Civic Engagement, North America, 1(2):1-. Available at: http://www.partnershipsjournal.org/index.php/part/article/view/96.
 

Bolin presented her own work, “‘Transing’ Gender and Sexual Orientations: Cross-Cultural and Contemporary Identities,” as a feature in the symposium. The abstract for the symposium follows: 

“Sexual orientations” is an ubiquitous topic in college-level human sexuality courses. Anthropologists’ coverage of this topic challenges Eurocentric cultural-historical and essentialist perspectives and emphasizes the ways indigenous and post-colonial groups address sexual behaviors among same-sex and other sex partners.

The session explored how we as human sexuality instructors address homophobia, gay rights, stereotypes and the diverse theories of origins and etiologies of sexual orientations through various teaching strategies. We discuss issues around disclosing our sexual orientations, boundaries for personal disclosure in the classroom, and how our specific areas of research regarding this issue can be used as a teaching device.
 

If you are a first semester sophomore, and you’re interested in making transformative, positive impacts on your local community, please let us know.  You can access information about the SES program at , as well as the application. 

If you have questions regarding the specifics of the program, please feel free to contact either Dr. Angela Lewellyn Jones (ajones5@elon.edu) or Mary Morrison (mmorrison4@elon.edu). 

Bolin’s work was an invited presentation as part of the “Issues in Teaching Sex: Surgeries, Sex and Beauty” symposium. A summary of the symposium topic follows: 

“While body modifications reflecting gender, social status and age grade are widely practiced, intense controversies exist among human rights groups and within anthropology over (female) genital cutting in particular. Over the past decade U.S. ‘female sexual rejuvenation surgery’ has recast these controversies into cultural context regarding the scope of cultural relativism, conceptualizations of ‘mutilation and beautification, empowerment and oppression/subjugation,’ and how globalization affects these practices. Concurrent dialogues concern the medico-socio-political dimensions of male circumcision (MC) and male genital alterations. This session focused on how anthropologists who teach human sexuality incorporate these discourses and related issues of body ideals into their courses.”
 

Elon students and professors had a strong showing at the Southern Anthropology Society Meetings in Wilmington, NC this past weekend, leading two panels during the two-day conference.

The first panel was chaired by anthropology professor Kim Jones, titled “Social Inclusion in Southern Places: Applied Anthropology in North Carolina and Brazil.” In addition to Jones’ talk on collaboration between Elon and community partners in Brazil, the panel featured three Elon students. Elon College Fellow Lauren Tilly discussed her work on “Developing Culturally Sensitive Assessments for New Immigrant Students in North Carolina.” Elon College Fellow Angela Ramer presented her research on “The Occaneechi Eagles: Learning to Walk in Two Worlds.” And Honors Fellow Julia Roberts shared the results of her study on “Social Inclusion and On-site HIV Testing in a Brazilian Public Hospital.” Roberts’ paper was awarded Honorable Mention for the SAS 2009 Student Paper Competition, and she will be receiving a book prize.

The second panel was chaired by sociology professor Lisa Peloquin, titled “Prospectors to Collaborators: Rethinking Ethnography, Undergraduate Research and the South.” Elon students Michael Sadler, Clementine Wall and Kirsten Rhodes reflected on the challenges of collaboration in and out of the field, exploring the complexities of establishing rapport, portraying people in documentary photography, and negotiating power dynamics among an undergraduate research team. Elon professors offered brief remarks to frame the panel. Dr. Peloquin situated the presentations within the context of theory, practice and discourse, anthropology professor Tom Mould discussed institutional collaboration, and School of Education professor Bird Stasz introduced the field project and the community of Cowee.

The work conducted by Sadler, Wall, Rhodes and Stasz represents the achievements of the first multi-year, interdisciplinary, collaborative research project supported by PERCS: Elon’s Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies. The project, led by Bird Stasz, explores the cultural heritage of Cowee North Carolina located in the heart of the Little Tennessee River Valley. For the past seven months, students and faculty have worked with quilters, documented the stories of elders, participated in the preservation of a community general store, and practiced ethnophotograhy.