September
Danna Agmon, History, published “The East India Companies and the Seven Years’ War,” The Oxford Handbook of the Seven Years’ War, ed. Trevor Burnard, Emma Hart, and Marie Houllemare (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2024), pp. 285–302, with Philip J. Stern.
Shannon Bell, Sociology, is one of the organizers of the Forest Botanicals Region Living Monument project funded by Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia. The monument’s Storywalk Trail recently was opened to the public; located in one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, the trail highlights plants that can be used for medicine and food. More about Bell’s work on this project and her related research can be found here.
The article by David Bieri, Public and International Affairs, titled “Schumpeter’s Gesetz and Gestalt in Space: Exploring Evolutionary Economic Geographies of Money and Finance,” was recognized with the Best Paper Award 2023 by the Editorial Board of the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. The article appeared in Volume 16, Issue 3, pp. 561–86 of the journal.
Ralph Buehler, Public and International Affairs, published “The Challenge of Measuring Walk Trips in Travel Surveys: Problems of Undercounting and Incomparability Among Countries and Over Time,” Transport Reviews 44.5 (2024): 937–43, and “Socioeconomic Variations in Walking Rates in the United States: Recent Evidence from the 2022 National Household Travel Survey,” Journal of Transport & Health 38 (September 2024), Article 101875, both with John Pucher; and “Trends and Determinants of the Mobility of Older Adults in the USA and Germany, 2001–2017,” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 183 (May 2024), Article 104065, as well as “Travel Behavior of Older Adults in the USA, 2001-2017,” Travel Behaviour and Society 36 (July 2024), Article 100783, both with John Pucher, Rico Wittwer, and Regine Gerike.
The College is delighted to welcome the following Collegiate, tenure-track, and tenured faculty. Joining CLAHS as a Collegiate Assistant Professor is Debra Freas, History. New tenure-track Assistant Professors are: Laura Halcomb, Sociology; Sarah Henry, Education; Zhuofan Li, Sociology; Harley Locklear, Education; Andrew McCumber, Sociology; Casedy Thomas, Education; Heidi Williams, Sociology; and Matthew Zimmerman, Communication. Hired as Associate Professors are Janine Joseph, English; Matthew Salesses, English; and Dara Wald, Public and International Affairs.
The following CLAHS faculty are participants in DA 2.0 proposals that were funded to develop a Phase 2 proposal. Participating in Ecological and Biocultural Restoration are Shannon Bell, Sociology, and Jessica Taylor, History. James Ivory, English, is part of Human-Systems Integration in Healthcare. Todd Schenk, Public and International Affairs, is a member of Invasive Species: Mitigating a Global Threat to Health, Economic, and Environmental Security. Included in the Learning Landscape Laboratory project is Melanie Kiechle, History. Among team members of Pandemic Prediction and Prevention is Julie Gerdes, English. Amy Price Azano, Education and Director of the Center for Rural Education, serves as co-director of Rural Environments. Shalini Misra, Public and International Affairs, is the director of the Virginia Tech Public Interest Technology Collaborative, which also includes Benjamin Katz, Human Development and Family Science, and Patrick Roberts, Public and International Affairs. Tina Savla, Human Development and Family Science, directs Whole Health Research at Virginia Tech, which includes Matthew Fullen, Education, and Julie Gerdes. Information regarding several of the project is available here and here.
School of Education doctoral student Josh Thompson and postdoctoral associate Clint Whitten published “Queerly Rural, Rurally Queer: An Autoethnographic Literary Analysis of Hillbilly Queer,” Study & Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature 6.2 (2024): 62–91.
Joseph Eska, English, edited The Method Works: Studies on Language Change in Honor of Don Ringe (London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) with Olav Hackstein, Ronald I. Kim, and Jean-François Mondon. Eska’s own contributions to the volume are “The Continental Celtic Dialect Continuum,” pp. 3–19, and “Forced to Force? Remarks on the Architecture of the Left Periphery of Early Irish and Absolute/Conjunct Morphology,” pp. 179–94, with Mondon.
Patti Fisher, Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management, published “Gender, Financial Literacy, and ‘Do Not Know’ Responses,” Journal of Personal Finance 23.1 (2024): 6–21.
Instructional Design and Technology doctoral student Lumbini Barua and Barbara Lockee, Professor of Instructional Design and Technology in the School of Education and Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, published A Review of Strategies to Incorporate Flexibility in Higher Education Course Designs,” Discover Education 3 (2024), Article 127.
I’yana James, a senior Public Relations major, was the recipient of The Hoda Kotb Scholarship, a $20,000 award sponsored by Conagra Brands. James traveled to New York, ostensibly to present Kotb, an alumna of the College’s broadcast journalism program, with a basket of Virginia Tech-branded merchandise as part of Kotb’s birthday celebration, and was surprised by the announcement of the scholarship and the presentation of the check.
Rachelle Kuehl, Education, published “Representing Rural: A Critical Content Analysis of Contemporary Middle Grade Novels Set in Rural Places,” Research in the Teaching of English 58.4 (2024): 379–404, with Karen Eppley. In addition, she coedited “Rural Young Adult Literature: Considering Diversity and Combatting Erasure,” a special issue of Study & Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature, 6.2 (2024), with Chea Parton; her individual contribution to the issue was the introduction, pp. i–v, with Parton.
Charles Lowery, Education, published the following: “Perceptions of Political Literacy Among Aspiring School Leaders in a Rural Mid-West University Preparation Program” with Chetanath Gautam and Michael E. Hess, and “When Complexity and Uncertainty Became Life: Delaware School Principals’ Roles and Leadership Practices During COVID-19 Crisis – A Mixed Method Case Study” with Shelley Rouser and Chetanath Gautam, both in International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation 19.1 (2024): 1–21 and 157–82 respectively; and “Conflict, Crisis, and Controversy in Schools: Critical Literacy for Educational Leadership Response and Responsibility,” Journal of Educational Controversy 16.1 (2024), Article 4.
Timothy Luke, University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science, published “Beyond Prepper Culture as Right-Wing Extremism: Selling Preparedness to Everyday Consumers as How to Survive the End of the World on a Budget,” Conspiracy Theories and Extremism in New Times, ed. Christopher T. Conner, Matthew N. Hannah, and Nicholas J. MacMurray, The Frankfurt School in New Times Series (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2024), pp. 379–98.
Carol Mullen, Education, published the following: “Charter Movement Controversy: An American Public Charter School Case Study,” Education Inquiry 15.3 (2022): 367–84, with 2021 Educational Leadership and Policy Studies alumna Tara Bartlett; “The Teacher Psychology of Career Switchers Connected to School Leadership: A Mixed-Methods Study,” Leading & Managing 30.1 (2024): 1–23, with 2024 Educational Leadership and Policy Studies alumna Amanda Flanagan; and “How Principal Professional Development Supports Instructional Leadership Needs and Interests,” Leading & Managing 30.1 (2024): 53–74, with Educational Leadership and Policy Studies alumna Rebecca Hall.
Katrina Powell, English and Director of the Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies, edited Beginning Again: Stories of Movement and Migration in Appalachia (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2024).
Besnik Pula, Political Science, published Alfred Schutz, Phenomenology, and the Renewal of Interpretive Social Science (New York, New York: Routledge, 2024).
Liesel Ritchie, Sociology, is serving as the Co-Principal Investigator on a $1.97 million project titled “Virginia Leveraging Cooperative Extension to Build an Enduring Capacity for Equitable and Inclusive Resilience in Rural Agricultural Communities Across Coastal Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware” with Principal Investigators Wendy Stout, Virginia Tech Coastal Collaborator Center, and Julie Shortridge, Biological Systems Engineering. The project, funded by the Climate-Ready Coast Initiative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is a joint, multistate effort that includes the establishment of a regional collaborative to support climate resilience in rural communities in the Delmarva region, where agriculture plays a key role in the local economy and culture. In addition, Ritchie is the Principal Investigator on “Floodplain Administrator Needs Assessment”; Micah Roos, Sociology, serves as Co-Principal Investigator, and Sociology master’s student AJ Likosar is the project’s graduate research assistant. The $144,000 project is funded by FEMA to assess training needs of local floodplain administrators around the United States and in Puerto Rico.
Rachel Scott was appointed Chair of the Department of Religion and Culture. A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2005, she is also a core faculty member in the ASPECT program. Scott’s research focuses primarily on Islamic law, modern Islamic political thought, and religion and secularism, and she has published two books as well as numerous book chapters and articles. In 2014-2015 she was awarded a Certificate of Teaching Excellence from the College. Scott earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Oxford and her doctoral degree from the University of London.
ASPECT doctoral student Aline de Souza performed as part of the quadruple bill Sounds in Motion at the Cube in the Moss Arts Center on August 23. The performance was included in the Cube Fest 2024 “Immersive Indigenous Experiences,” a music festival celebrating indigenous artists forging new creative paths with technology and tradition.
Sophia Terazawa, English, published the poem “Secret Garden,” The Swannanoa Review 2 (August 2024).
The College is pleased to welcome Sarah Turner as Director of Alumni Relations; in this role she will spearhead the College’s alumni engagements efforts. Before becoming a member of the Virginia Tech community, Turner held leadership roles at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine and Concord University; most recently she served in the role of Vice President for Advancement at Concord. Turner joined the Office of the Dean Leadership Team on July 22.
Please submit items for inclusion in subsequent issues of the newsletter to
Associate Dean Debra Stoudt at dstoudt@vt.edu.