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• Four faculty promotions have been approved for 2006-07: Dr. Karen James (marketing) from associate professor to professor; Frederick R. Parker Jr. (accounting and business law) from associate professor to professor; Dr. Bruce Wampler (accounting) from associate professor to professor, and Dr. R. Blake Dunnavent (history) from assistant professor to associate professor.

James	Parker	Wampler	Dunnavent

• The 2007 Authors in April program will feature Dr. Clyde Edgerton, referred to as the “Tarheel author.” He will conduct a Writer’s Workshop in the Assembly Room of Noel Memorial Library (third floor) on Friday, April 13, and be the featured speaker at the annual Authors in April luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, April 14, at Shreveport Country Club. Edgerton, a North Carolina native who earned bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in English from the University of North Carolina, published Raney, the first of his eight novels, in 1986. It was made into a movie, as were Walking Across Egypt and Killer Diller. Another, Lunch at Piccadilly, is the basis of a musical. His other novels include The Floatplane Notebooks, In Memory of Junior, Redeye and Where Trouble Sleeps. His non-fiction work, Solo: My Adventures in the Air, is a memoir of his flying years, which include service as an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. His works have led to his receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lyndhurst Fellowship, the North Carolina Award for Literature, a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Education Department and five notable book awards from the New York Times. He has also been a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at UNC-Wilmington.

• Dr. Tim Shaughnessy, assistant professor of economics, co-authored an article, “Accounting for Spatial Error Correlation in the 2004 Presidential Popular Vote,” which has been accepted at Public Finance Review. His co-author is Dr. Donald J. Lacombe, an assistant professor of economics at Ohio University.

• Dr. Michael V. Leggiere, associate professor of history and chair of the Department of History and Social Sciences, has been commissioned by Cambridge University Press to complete a two-volume work on the last years of Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign as Emperor of France, titled: 1814: The Fall of Napoleon. Leggiere has completed volume one, which will be published in 2007 with the subtitle: The Invasion of France, 1813-1814. Volume two will be published in 2009 with the subtitle: The War in France. Cambridge University Press is the oldest and most respected academic publisher of European history.

• LSUS Recreational Sports received a $500 Special Activity Grant from the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association and the U.S. Tennis Association to expand the tennis program at LSUS. “We have eight tennis courts on our campus, so there is no reason the tennis program at LSUS could not grow.” said Wendi Stanley, assistant director for recreational sports. The grant was used to host a promotional tennis event, “LSUS Recreational Sports’ Tennis on Campus Day,” in late September.

• Dr. Karen James, professor of marketing and chair of the Management and Marketing Department, has been invited to join the Business Editorial Board of the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT). She was recognized by the Board for her superior contribution in the past year in the peer review of digital scholarship. MERLOT is supported by 27 systems and institutions of higher education as well as the National Science Foundation and is endorsed by Educational Learning Initiative of EDUCAUSE. More than 150 faculty members from these institutions have been performing the peer review of instructional technology, modeled after the peer review process for research and scholarship. MERLOT Board members are selected based on expertise in the discipline, excellence in teaching, experience with technology, and participation in professional organizations. She also presented a comparison of the MOODLE and Blackboard learning systems at the fall Marketing Management Educators Conference in Nashville, Tenn., where she participated in a panel discussion, “What you Need to Know About Student Expectations.”

• Dr. Judith Covington, associate professor of mathematics, presented a paper in late May at a Mathematical Association of America week-long workshop that examined the preparation of secondary teachers. In early June, she evaluated proposals for the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. At an MAA professional development program on teaching Discrete Mathematics in mid-June, she met with the authors of the text currently used on the LSUS campus. After teaching a summer-school class in July, she helped organize and participated in the Project NExT workshops and MathFest, the summer meeting of the MAA in August. She is the co-associate director of Project NExT and was an integral part of a 2 ½-day workshop for new Ph.D. recipients, where she presented a short course on preparing future teachers.

• Dr. La Wanda Blakeney, assistant professor of music, attended a Summer Music Technology Seminar at the University of Oklahoma in mid-July, which showcased Yamaha Clavinovas, the electric pianos LSUS has in its Piano Lab. She conducted hands-on demonstrations and discussed her teaching techniques for effectively using the electric pianos in the classroom. She was also a guest lecturer at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., in late September. She delivered a lecture, “Eloise Milam: Choral Conductor,” to a Choral Conducting class and another lecture, “The Melody Maids,” to a 20th Century Women in Music class.

• Dr. Douglas S. Bible, professor of finance, chair of the Department of Economics and Finance and holder of the Oscar Cloyd Real Estate Super Professorship, and Dr. Stanley Hays, assistant professor of accounting, presented a paper, “Investment Returns and the Effects of Applying the Cost Segregation Depreciation Process for an Apartment Complex,” at the 2006 International Business & Economics Research Conference in October.

• Michael Graham, instructor of fine arts, was among the honorees in September at the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum’s L’Art reception, which recognized the Louisiana artists who have works that are part of the museum’s permanent collection.

• Dr. Lisa A. Burke, associate professor of management and holder of the Joe and Abby Averett Professorship in Business, and Dr. Karen James, professor of marketing and chair of the Department of Management and Marketing, recently received word their paper, “Powerful or pointless: Faculty vs. student perceptions of PowerPoint usage in business education,” will be a feature article in the December issue of Business Communication Quarterly. They co-authored the article with Dr. Holly Hutchins, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Consumer Sciences at the University of Houston.

• Dr. Cheryl White, instructor in history and social sciences, presented a paper, “Undercurrents of Schism in Pre-Reformation England,” at the Mid America Conference on History in September in Fayetteville, Ark. She also chaired a panel, “Images of Power in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.”

• Dr. Megan Conway, professor of French and holder of the Elmer and Barbara Simon Professorship for Excellence in Teaching, presented a paper, “Furieuses Fantasies: Love and Madness in Book I of Helisenne de Crenne’s Les Angoysses douleureuses,” in late October at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in Salt Lake City. She also received an LSUS Faculty Research grant to continue her research on the plays of Olympe de Gouges. She spent a week over the summer researching in the library in Nantes, France, and will continue her work at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

• Casey Harvill has been named assistant director of the LSUS Career Center. A native of Bossier City, she received an associate degree in computer science from Bossier Parish Community College, a Bachelor of General Studies degree and a Master of Arts degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Louisiana Tech University. She has worked in the Human Resources field handling benefits, recruiting and training, and came to LSUS in the Division of Continuing Education’s Incumbent Worker Training Program, where she coordinated multiple grants for several local businesses and assisted in the writing of grants. Her education and work background make her a valuable resource in the LSUS Career Center, which provides career planning and career consulting services to students and LSUS alumni. The Career Center also assists employers to recruit LSUS students and graduates. For more information on Career Center services, go to www.lsus.edu/career.

• Mickey Diez, registrar and director of admissions; Marcia Hunter, student recruitment coordinator; and, admissions counselors LaToya Larry, Vernae Ewing, Carla Anderson and Katie Knicely attended the Louisiana Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers High School Guidance Counselor Articulation Workshop, held on the campus of Bossier Parish Community College, where they provided high school guidance counselors with important information regarding LSUS. Diez participated in a panel discussion, “Counselor to Counselor: Coming Together to Reach a Common Goal,” which explored ways to improve communication between universities and high school guidance counselors.

• Drs. Urška Cvek and Marjan Trutschl, assistant professors of computer science, co-authored a peer reviewed manuscript along with their collaborators at LSUHSC-S and University of California Davis titled, “Translation initiation factor eIF4G-1 binds to eIF3 through the eIF3e subunit,” published in the June 9 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. They also attended the two-week course titled “Integrated Data Analysis for High Throughput Biology” at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York., a private, nonprofit research and educational institution, recognized internationally for its excellence and groundbreaking research in several fields, including bioinformatics. The by-invitation-only course was limited to 22 participants from around the globe. The course was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.

• Rick Parker, professor of accounting and business law; Dr. Harvey Rubin, professor of finance and holder of the Kilpatrick Life Insurance Company Endowed Chair for Insurance and Financial Services; Dr. Tim Shaughnessy, assistant professor of economics, and Dr. Jean Hollenshead, associate professor of psychology, have written a chapter on law and public policy for the The International Handbook on Psychopathic Disorders and the Law. Their chapter is titled, “The Economics of Crime Rooted in Psychopathic Disorders: Aspects of Law, Public Policy, Rehabilitation and Faith-Based Programs.”

• Dr. Sanjay Menon, assistant professor of management and holder of the LSUS India Studies Professorship, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Multicultural Center of the South, located in downtown Shreveport.

• The faculty, staff and patrons of the Noel Memorial Library appreciate the support and generosity of the following persons and organizations making donations of books or periodicals to the library: March: Pearla Despot, George Head, Harold Mohrmann, George Nelson, William Pederson, Robert Pitts, Kay Stebbins, Anonymous (1), Lumania Foundation for Education – Indianapolis, and Colonel Douglas J. Murray – U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo.; April – Robert Leitz, Conway Link, William Pederson and Japanese Literature Publishing Project; May – Harold Chen, Pearla Despot, Wil Peters, William G. Wilson, Anonymous (1), Lumina Foundation for Education – Indianapolis and Negative Population Growth, Inc. - Alexandria, Va.; June – J.W. Wilson, Anonymous (2) and United Nations Development Programme - New York; July – William McCleary, William Pederson and Robert Pitts; August – Susie Davison, Mrs. Norman Dlin, Daniel F. Goodwin, Martha Lawler, Laura McLemore, Harold Mohrmann, Grevyt Press - Brampton, Ontario, Canada, LSUS Communications Department, The Live Oak Press, LLC - Palo Alto, Calif., Ministry of Flanders - c/o Embassy of Belgium U.S., National Historical Publications & Records Commission - Washington, D.C., New Freeway Hall - Seattle, Rand Corporation - Santa Monica, Calif. and Sockrider, Bolin, Anglin & Batte – Shreveport.