Mike Edmiston to retire after 37 years as a faculty member
Bluffton University faculty members were recognized at the academic year-end Dean’s Reception for grants, sabbaticals and other development opportunities that they have been awarded.
The following faculty have received summer 2015 Bluffton University Research Center grants, which provide $3,000 and up to $600 for research-related expenses:
· Dr. Peter Terry, associate professor of information technology and music, for his project, “The Development of a Textbook in Music Fundamentals and Basic Music Theory for Use in MUS 135 and MUS 148.” MUS 135 and 148 are Bluffton’s introductory music and music theory courses, respectively.
· Dr. Ross Kauffman, assistant professor of public health, for “Virtual Reality Development for Teaching and Research.”
· Dr. Matthew Friesen, assistant professor of sociology, for “Parsing the Palate: Strategies, Identities and Framing Conflicts in the U.S. Food Movement.” (He was also recognized at the reception for completing his doctorate in sociology from the University of Oregon last fall. His dissertation title was “Resetting the Table: A Mixed Methods Analysis of the U.S. Food Advocacy Network.”)
Four faculty members, meanwhile, have been granted sabbaticals, including:
· Dr. Sarah Cecire, professor of education, during fall semester 2015. Using Antarctica as a theme or backdrop, she plans to develop interdisciplinary units based on the new Ohio Academic Standards and for use by middle school teachers to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.
· Dr. J. Alexander Sider, associate professor of religion and chair of the history and religion department, also next fall semester. He will prepare an English translation of a recent book whose title in English is “John Howard Yoder: Radical Pacifism in Conversation.”
· Dr. Lucia Unrau, professor and chair of music, whose fall 2015 sabbatical has two parts. As an outgrowth of her 2013 Karl B. Schultz Faculty Scholarship Grant project, “Social Justice as Viewed through the Lens of Arts Advocacy,” she will interview several leading figures in arts advocacy, see what best practices are being used with underprivileged populations in the field, and attend an arts advocacy conference to further her research on social justice relative to arts advocacy. The sabbatical’s second part is a concert tour, both as a solo pianist and with clarinetist Sandra Jackson from Eastern Michigan University.
· Dr. Paul Neufeld Weaver, associate professor of education, Spanish and cultural studies, during spring semester 2016. After spending fall 2015 in Guatemala as a Bluffton faculty member in residence, he will remain there the following spring, learning about and being involved with efforts toward providing bilingual education—primarily Spanish and indigenous languages—in keeping with the 1996 Guatemala Peace Accords. He will evaluate programs for individual students in regions of the country where Mennonites have a presence; study one indigenous language; and offer his services to one of the Mennonite institutions with which he is connected.
The Schultz grant—awarded to Unrau for the 2013-15 academic years—is one of three endowed faculty scholarship grants at the university. The others are the Naomi E. Lehman Faculty Scholarship Grant, awarded to Dr. Gerald Mast, professor of communication, for 2014-16, and the Trollinger Faculty Scholarship Grant, which Dr. Adam Schattschneider, professor of music, has received for 2015-17.
Mast is using the course release time afforded by his grant for ongoing research of digital communication technology use in conservative and old order Anabaptist communities. He has completed most of a draft manuscript of a book to be titled “Working Around the Internet.”
Schattschneider will use his release time for a collaborative project to record and produce a CD of solo and chamber praise and worship music featuring flute, clarinet and saxophone.
Granted a fall 2015 mini-leave—typically a one-course reduction in teaching—was Dr. Martina Cucchiara, assistant professor of history, to further develop the new block course HIST/NTR (Nutrition) 299: World History of Food and Culture.
Also among the faculty recognized at the reception were:
· Dr. Rebecca Janzen, assistant professor of Spanish, as the 2015-16 C. Henry Smith scholar. A committee composed of representatives from Bluffton and Goshen College—where Smith also taught in the early 20th century—selects a scholar to prepare and present a peace lecture on the campuses and in churches. Janzen’s topic will be “Minorities in Mexico: Mennonites, Mormons and Jews and the 21st Century State.”
· Dr. Rudi Kauffman, for his promotion last June from assistant to associate professor of restorative justice.
· Dr. Mike Edmiston, professor of chemistry and physics and chair of the natural and applied sciences division, who is retiring at the end of the 2015 summer term after 37 years at Bluffton. He began his teaching career in 1978 after two years as a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
