January
The 6th edition of The Law of Schools, Students, and Teachers in a Nutshell by David Alexander, Education, and Kern Alexander, was translated and published in Chinese as 简明美国学校法 by Jianliang Wang (Shaanxi, China: Shaanxi Normal University, 2025) through an agreement with West Academic Publishing.
Sarah Castle, Human Resources Division Director for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, was one of three winners of the Human Resources Leadership All-Star award for 2025. Awardees are nominated by their peers within the Division of Human Resources. Castle was recognized for building the HR practitioner network within the College, partnering effectively with the Dean, finance, and HR; serving on work teams; mentoring individuals interested in learning more about HR; and volunteering to work with students.
Alexander Dickow, Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, published “The Proliferation of Representation in Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty and Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates,” Film-Philosophy 29.3 (October 2025); and “The Weird and the Fantastic: Genre in Theory, Genre as History,” MLN 140.4 (September 2025): 870–88.
“The Nikki Giovanni Immersive Experience” installation was presented in the Cube of the Center for the Arts on December 9, 2025, to honor University Distinguished Professor Emerita of English Nikki Giovanni on the anniversary of her passing. The 15-minute multimedia exhibit, which was created by a team from the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design, the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, and University Libraries, along with several students studying graphic design and creative technologies, presented recordings of six of Giovanni’s poems combined with visuals and music tailored to the poetry. It will also be on display in early 2026 at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Giovanni retired from Virginia Tech in 2022 after 35 years as a professor in the Department of English.
Aarnes Gudmestad, Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, published “A Longitudinal Investigation of Third-person Subject Expression in Additional-language Spanish,” Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 14.2 (2025): 159–84, with Thomas A. Metzger.
Monamie Haines, Science, Technology, and Society, published “Spatio-legal Legacies of Wastewater Surveillance: Biopolitical Lawscapes and Migrant Workers,” Geographical Research 63.4 (2025): 594–605, with Dhiraj Nainani and Janelle R. Thompson.
Three faculty members and one graduate student in the College contributed to The Handbook of Disability-Affirmative Systemic Therapy: Effective Clinical Care with Disabled Clients and Their Families, edited by Human Development alumna Manasi Shankar (New York, New York, and Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2026). Jody Russon, Human Development, published “Disability Justice and the Person-of-the-Therapist Framework,” pp. 283–97, with James Tillett and Shalini Srinivasan. Science and Technology Studies doctoral student Lyndon Frommer and Science, Technology, and Society faculty member Ashley Shew published “Multi-disciplinary Collaboration, Representation, and Fair Research,” pp. 247–67, with Lydia Qualls. Pam Teaster, Professor of Human Development and Family Science and Director of the Center for Gerontology, published “The Intersection of Older Adulthood, Mental Health, and Disability,” pp. 74–85, with Onyinye F. Mbanefo.
Sociology doctoral student Faika Jan was selected to participate in Virginia Tech’s Accessibility Professional Certification Grant Program for the Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies certification.
During its November 2025 meeting the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors conferred the emeritus title on James Klagge, Professor of Philosophy. Klagge was honored for his scholarly work on moral philosophy, metaphysics, and the history of early analytic philosophy that resulted in four books and numerous articles; especially significant have been his publications focusing on Ludwig Wittgenstein. He taught a wide variety of courses across the philosophy curriculum. Klagge served as Chair of the Department of Philosophy from 2007 to 2013. Active in community service, he was an elected member of the Montgomery County School Board from 1996 to 2003, a Silver Life Member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the recipient of community service awards in 2016 and 2018. Klagge earned his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Carol Mullen, Education, published “Navigating Political Roadblocks to Researching Trans Student Policy,” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue 27.1 (2025): 168–74, with Educational Leadership and Policy Studies alumna Jessica Weymouth-German, and “Activity Engagement for Novice Wellbeing Through Mentoring,” The Chronicle of Mentoring and Coaching 9.3 (2025): 49–54, with Ellen H. Reames.
Su Fang Ng, Clifford A. Cutchins III Professor of English, gave a keynote titled “Entertaining Asia in Midsummer Night's Dream” at the Medieval and Early Modern Orients conference, which took place December 11–14, 2025, online and in Cape Town, South Africa. In addition, she published “Peripheral Heroics on the Renaissance Stage,” The Cambridge Companion to British Literature and Empire, ed. Auritro Majumder (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2025), pp. 50–63.
Two CLAHS graduate students are among the group of 10 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows selected to participate in the 2025-2026 fellows program of the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. Joining the current class of the fellows program are Planning, Governance, and Globalization doctoral student Lucas Goodman and Sociology doctoral student Nicole Zdrojewski. The two-year program provides participants the opportunity to develop skills to address key problems caused by the impacts of climate change and build relationships with stakeholder partners. The program includes weekly virtual seminars, small group interaction, and a three-day on-site intensive training session.
Besnik Pula, Political Science, received a 2025–2026 U.S. Scholar fellowship from the Austrian-American Educational Commission (Fulbright Austria). He is spending the Spring 2026 semester as a Visiting Professor of Social Science at the University of Vienna, hosted by the university’s Department of Political Science and the Research Center for the History of Transformations. He discusses the fellowship, its importance, and its impact on his research here. In addition, Pula published “Translating Phenomenology: Alfred Schutz and His Many Afterlives in American Sociology,” Journal of Classical Sociology 25.4 (2025): 418–49.
Kate Renz, Assistant Director of Employer Relations and Career Services, published “Learning Beyond Your Major” as part of the Securing Your Future module in SAGE Skills: Student Success (2025), an online interactive resource for undergraduate students.
Sophia Terazawa, English, published the poem “Suiyōbi,” Poetry Society of America, on August 11. 2025; it was a winner of the 2025 Open Call by the Poetry Society of America. She also published the poems “Monarch de Jure,” “Figured Beyond Measure,” “The Cellist,” and “Oracles, Untended,” Pamenar Magazine, on September 7, 2025; the poems “Days of Fig” and “Recitative,” Stone Poetry Journal (November 2025); and poems from her “September Roams a Vertical Passage,” The Academy of American Poets (Poets.org), Poem-a-Day series, on December 4, 2025. In addition, a new edition of Terazawa’s novel Tetra Nova was published by the87press (Sutton, United Kingdom, 2025).
The Urban Affairs and Planning program in the School of Public and International Affairs was renamed the Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program to more clearly convey the scope of its research activities as well as its academic programs. The program includes two undergraduate majors, Environmental Policy and Planning and Smart and Sustainable Cities, and two graduate degrees, a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning and the Urban and Environmental Design and Planning track of the Planning, Governance, and Globalization doctoral degree.
Jenna Zan, English, published “A Rhetoric of the Unwelcome: Conjuring the Phantom Origins of Karen Nationhood,” Rhetoric Review 44.4 (2025): 346–59.