October
The following CLAHS faculty were awarded 4-VA Collaborative Research Awards for 2023–2024 by TLOS (Technology-Enhanced Learning and Online Strategies), working with the Office of the Provost: Amy Azano, Education, Kathy Hosig, Angela Scarpa, and Cathey Sutphin, “Testing the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes in Autism (ECHO Autism) Model for Educator Training in Rural Virginia,” with Micah Mazurek and Rose Nevill; Sweta Baniya, English, and Katrina Powell, English/Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies, “New American Resources: Partnerships and Initiatives at Virginia Higher Education Institutions to Strengthen Virginia’s Migration Support,” with Grant Rissler et al.; and Shalini Misra and Patrick Roberts, Public and International Affairs, and Benjamin Katz, Human Development and Family Science, “Autonomy and Competence in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Study of Emergency and Crisis Managers” with Stephan Marrin and Brie Haupt. These awards provide funding up to $30,000 to support pilot research headed by a Virginia Tech faculty member collaborating with at least one faculty partner in a 4-VA member institution.
The Virginia Tech Army ROTC was selected as this year's recipient of the Department of Defense ROTC and Educational Institution Partnership Excellence Award, which recognizes the top- performing Army ROTC program: #1 of 273 programs nationwide. The three primary selection criteria are overall program quality, educational institution support – which includes support from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences – and other noteworthy achievements.
The United States Army Cadet Command Commanding General, Major General Antonio Munera, presented the award to Colonel Jamie Cogbill, Army ROTC Professor of Military Science, on September 20 at Fort Knox in Kentucky.
Department of Political Science and ASPECT Core faculty members Mauro Caraccioli and François Debrix each received an Outstanding ASPECT Faculty Award from the ASPECT program at the ASPECT Welcome and Award Ceremony, which took place September 13.
ASPECT doctoral student Sam Beckenhauer presented “On the Conditions for Conspiracy Theory Discourse in the United States” at the American Political Science Association’s Annual Conference, which took place virtually and in Los Angeles, California, from August 31 to September 3.
During its August meeting the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors conferred the emerita title on Rosemary Blieszner, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Human Development. Blieszner was honored for her significant contributions to the field of gerontology through her research on friendship, family relationships, and caregiving for people living with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1981, she served in numerous administrative and leadership roles, including Associate Director of the Center for Gerontology, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, Assistant Vice Provost for Enrollment and Degree Management, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, co-chair of the Sesquicentennial Steering Committee, and Interim Dean of the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design. Her contributions as a teacher and scholar were recognized through her appointment in 2002 and reappointment in 2022 as Alumni Distinguished Professor. Blieszner earned her bachelor’s degree from Mercyhurst University, a master’s degree from The Ohio State University, and her Ph.D. from Penn State University.
Tribute was paid to David Burr, Professor Emeritus of History, and his scholarship related to the Spiritual Franciscans, especially Peter of John Olivi, with the publication of Poverty, Eschatology and the Medieval Church: Studies in Honor of David Burr, ed. Michael F. Cusato and Dabney G. Park, The Medieval Franciscans 22 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2023). Burr joined the Virginia Tech community in 1966 and was recognized with emeritus status in 2001; in 2020 he was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.
Nick Copeland, History, was awarded approximately $364,000 from the Science and Technology Studies program of the National Science Foundation for his research project titled “Participatory Water Science and Indigenous Resistance to Extractivism in Guatemala.” Copeland serves as the Principal Investigator for the project, whose team includes Co-Principal Investigators Korine Kolivras, Leigh-Anne Krometis, and Kang Xia. The project explores the role community science — specifically environmental monitoring — plays in environmental justice movements. The three-year grant will allow the team to continue monitoring and water defender training in Indigenous Guatemalan communities. The team also plans to explore through interviews and observations the ways that Indigenous environmental justice movements use water science to address industrial development and how participation in
science shapes the “knowledge, ethics, and skills” of community members.
School of Education faculty Amy Azano and Rachelle Kuehl published “Critical Pedagogies of Place in the Language Arts Curriculum,” Reading in Virginia XIV (2022–2023): 1–13.
School of Education faculty member Tonisha Lane, Higher Education doctoral student Whitley Johnson, and alumnus Johnny Woods published “‘Lots of Talk, but Nothing Formal’: Exploring How Administrators Make Sense of the Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of Early- career Women of Color Faculty in STEM,” Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research 24.1 (2023): 24–30, with Saundra Johnson Austin.
Tom Ewing, Professor of History and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, and De’Vonte Tinsley, who graduated in 2023 with a double major in History and Russian, published “Two Men Who Gave Freedom: The Assassination of Alexander II in the Context of Russian- American Relations,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Newsnet 62.5 (September 2023): 27–32.
Edward Gitre, History, published “Different Realities: A Comparison of Augmented and Virtual Reality for the Sensemaking Process,” Frontiers in Virtual Reality, Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour (section) 4 (2023): 1177855, August 9, 2023, with Lee Lisle et al.
Daniel Hoek, Philosophy, published “Forced Changes Only: A New Take on the Law of Inertia,” Philosophy of Science 90.1 (January 2023): 60–76. The article was profiled in “Mistranslation of Newton’s First Law Discovered After Nearly 300 Years” by Stephanie Pappas, which appeared on the Astronomy site of Scientific American on September 5.
Brett Jones, Education, was awarded a grant of $399,592 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for “Training Computer Science Teaching Assistants to Motivate Students.” The award was made by the NSF’s Directorate for STEM Education, which supports projects to improve teaching in STEM fields for undergraduate students. Among the project’s goals are: improvement of the quality of teaching provided by teaching assistants in computer science departments; development of a teaching assistant training prototype for use in other computer courses at Virginia Tech; and increased representation of minority students in computer science fields.
Jones serves as the Principal Investigator, with Co-Principal Investigators Margaret Ellis and Inyoung Kim.
The College notes with sadness the death of Ann Kilkelly, Professor Emerita of Theatre and
Women’s and Gender Studies, who joined the Virginia Tech community in 1991 and retired in 2016. She developed and led the university’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program from 1991 to 1995. Her applied research in dance garnered her national and international recognition, including two Smithsonian Senior Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Award, and the American Tap Dance Foundation’s “Tap Preservation
Award.” Kilkelly performed in venues such as the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and the New York Tap City Festival and taught master classes in jazz tap around the world. Additional information can be found in the Roanoke Times obituary.
James Klagge, Philosophy, presented the plenary lecture, “Some Early Reactions to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, at the 44th International Wittgenstein Symposium, 100 Years after the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which took place August 6–12 in Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. In addition, Klagge published “Tractatus in Context: Some Highlights,” Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: 100 Years After the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, ed. Friedrich Stadler, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 29 (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2023), pp. 53–66.
Planning, Governance, and Globalization (PGG) doctoral student Walter Landgraf and PGG alumnus Nareg Sefarian published “The Eagle in the South Caucasus: Armenia Tests Alternative Geopolitical Waters” on the Foreign Policy Research Institute blog on September 15.
Barbara Lockee, Professor of Instructional Design and Technology in the School of Education and Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, co-edited AECT at 100: A Legacy of Leadership, Leadership and Best Practices in Educational Technology Management 6 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2023), with Christopher T. Miller et al. Her individual contributions to the volume were: “Reading Between the Lines: A Herstory of Instructional Design and Technology,” pp. 36–72, with 2023 School of Education alumna Rebecca Clark-Stallkamp and Linda Wiley; ”AECT in Its Second Fifty Years,” pp. 305–54, with Miller et al.; and ”Introduction to Part 5 Perspectives: Past, Present, and Future,” pp. 601–02.
Timothy Luke, University Distinguished Professor, Chair of the Department of Political Science, and Interim Director of the School of Public and International Affairs, published “Collective Writing: The Continuous Struggle for Meaning-Making,” Postdigital Research. Postdigital Science and Education, ed. Petar Jandrić, Alison MacKenzie, and Jeremy Knox (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2023), pp. 247–93, with Jandrić et al.
Heidi Anne Mesmer, Education, published “The Alphabetic Principle and Concept of Word in Text: Two Priorities for Learners in the Emergent Stage of Literacy Development,” The Reading Teacher 76.2 (2023): 156–66, with Kristin M. Gehsmann.
ASPECT doctoral student Rebekah Mui presented “Coloniality, the Cross, and the Penetrated Body” at the Political Theology Network Conference, which took place September 7–10 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition, Mui published a guest article, “Complementarian Sexual ‘Asymmetry’: Why Denny Burk Doesn’t Like The Great Sex Rescue,” on the personal blog of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Calvin University.
Joseph Mukuni, Education, published Ethical Leadership: Educational Guide (Kharkiv, Ukraine: National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute,” 2023), with Olga Lapuzina.
School of Public and International Affairs Theo Lim and Shalini Misra were awarded a National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research grant of approximately $1.65 million as Co- Principal Investigators with Principal Investigator John Little, Civil Engineering. The research project, “Convergent Anthropocene Systems (Anthems) – A System-of-Systems Paradigm,” addresses complex socio-environmental problems using a novel systems-of-systems paradigm and modeling approach.
School of Public and International Affairs faculty members Lara Nagle and Max Stephenson, Jr., also Director of the Institute for Policy and Governance, and Planning, Governance, and Globalization doctoral student Neda Moayerian published “Conceptualizing Cross-Sectoral Partnership Building in Two Small Central Appalachian Towns,” Community Development Journal 58.3 (July 2023): 472–91.
Liesel Ritchie, Sociology, is serving as the Co-Principal Investigator with Principal Investigator John Fike, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, on a $2 million grant funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Conservation Innovation Grants. Duane Gill, Sociology, serves as a senior scientist on the grant. The project deals with silvopasture, which has significant potential for improved farm resilience and carbon drawdown as part of a climate smart approach to livestock production. Through their project the team seeks to establish 500 acres of silvopasture across Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee farms and to provide training to Extension agents and consulting foresters, among others. In addition, Ritchie is serving as one of five Co-Principal Investigators with Principal Investigator John Fike on a five-year, USDA-funded project being led by West Virginia University, with $1,143,355 funded to Virginia Tech. The goal of Grazing Regeneratively for Appalachian Sustainable Solutions (GRASS) is to provide voluntary production incentives and improve knowledge and management practices of 135 small and historically underserved farmers in Central Appalachia and contiguous areas of West Virginia and Virginia. This financial and educational support will aid farmer transition from typical livestock systems management to climate-smart practices on working lands. Ritchie’s role is to lead the social science component of the project to examine barriers to and drivers of acceptance and adoption of these climate-smart practices.
Fernanda Rosa, Science, Technology, and Society, published “From Community Networks to Shared Networks: The Paths of Latin-Centric Indigenous Networks to a Pluriversal Internet,” Information, Communication & Society 26.11 (2023): 2326–44, for which she was awarded the 2023 Ida B. Wells-Troy Duster Award from the Science, Knowledge, and Technology section of the American Sociological Association.
ASPECT doctoral student Muhammed Shah Shajahan co-edited the blog symposium “Religion, Rebellion, and Sovereignty: Malabar Rebellion and the Problem Space of Political Theology” with Sadique PK; each essay appeared in July or August as a blog post on the Political Theology Network site, “The Brink.” In addition to the introduction above with PK, Shajahan’s individual contribution was “‘War’ in the Time of The Rebellion: Between Colonial and Decolonial Narratives about Malabar of 1921.”
Ashley Shew, Science, Technology, and Science, published Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (New York, New York: W.W. Norton, 2023). She also is the guest editor for the September 25–30 blog symposium in conjunction with the book and with Harvard University’s Bill of Health; in addition to editing the blog entries, she provided “Symposium Introduction: Addressing Technoableism: Reforming Infrastructure and Disability Representation.”
Department of Sociology faculty members Ashley Reichelmann and Jill Kiecolt, Professor Emerita, coedited Advancing Identity Theory, Measurement, and Research, Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research 10 (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2023) with Jan E. Stets. Their individual contributions to the volume were: Reichelmann and Kiecolt, with Stets:
“Introduction to Advancing Theory, Measurement, and Research in Identity,” pp. 3–14; Kiecolt, “Multiple Identities: The Parent Identity, Gender Identity, and Happiness,” with Professor Emeritus Michael Hughes and alumnus Hans Momplaisir, pp. 229–49; and Reichelmann, “The Structure of Racial Identity: Comparing Non-Hispanic White and Black Americans,” with Matthew O. Hunt, pp. 321–38.
ASPECT doctoral students Sam Beckenhauer and Leah Ramnath co-edited Volume 10, Issue 1 of SPECTRA: The ASPECT Journal (2023). Their individual contributions to the issue were “Letters from the Editors” and “Interview with Sushmita Chatterjee,” pp. 3–4 and 75–83 respectively. The issue includes the following articles and essays by other ASPECT students: Reed Byg, “Pawpaws, Temporal Embeddedness, and Unruly Ecologies,” pp. 27–36; Muhammed Shah Shajahan, “Encounter, Agency and Feeling: Few Remarks on (the Critique of) The Feeling of History: Islam, Romanticism and Andalusia (2020),” pp. 58–64; and Aline de Souza, “Washed Ashore,” pp. 1–2. Department of Political Science and ASPECT Core faculty member François Debrix contributed “Necropolitics and American Hype-Power,” pp. 65–74.
The College expresses its sympathy and condolences to the family and friends of Michael Sporakowski, Professor Emeritus of Human Development, who was a member of the Virginia Tech community for 33 years. He joined the department in 1970 as a professor and served as department head. During his career he worked with Extension and served as a marriage counselor. Sporakowski was elected president of the National Council on Family Relations and served as editor of the organization’s journal for several years. He retired from Virginia Tech in 2003. Additional information can be found in the Virginia Tech In Memoriam.
Vicky Thomas, a senior majoring in German and Mechanical Engineering, was selected as a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) 2023-2024 Young Ambassador; she is one of 18 undergraduates in North America chosen for this honor. Young Ambassadors have studied or interned recently in Germany and are interested in promoting study in Germany at their home universities and colleges. Thomas, who completed an internship with IES Abroad in Berlin this past summer, is the eighth Virginia Tech student to be selected to participate in this program since 2011.
Abby Walker, English, was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for $271,000 as Principal Investigator with Charlotte Vaughn for their project titled “Every Participant Counts: Investigating the Impact of Experimental Language Research on Participants.” Awarded support through the NSF’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences research area, the project explores the role improved science communication methods can have on engaging and educating participants, especially with regard to participants’ grasp of linguistics, which is Walker’s field of study.