Amy Montz, Associate Professor of English, published an article included in the Women’s Studies journal titled “Fashion and the Female Gothic, Or, What to Wear to a House-Burning Party” on August 30, 2021.

Yu-Li Shen, Instructor in English, was awarded honorary mention for the Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award for her original full-length play “Image May Contain.” The play is a dark comedy based on Shen’s experience returning to Taiwan to perform Buddhist funeral rituals for her late father, and it was honored at the Association of Theatre in Higher Education and Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in August 2021.

Rosalie Moffett, Assistant Professor of English, was recently featured in Narrative Magazine for her poem “Resolution.” The poem was featured as “Poem of the Week” by the magazine on August 23, 2021. Moffett is also the author of “Nervous System” and “June in Eden.”

Karla Diekemper, Instructor in Gerontology, has passed the Indiana Health Facility Administrator exam and is now a licensed nursing home administrator in in both Illinois and Indiana. Before joining the USI Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program team, she worked in the long-term industry for more than 32 years as a physical therapy assistant and nursing home administrator. At USI, her area of focus is the long-term care industry, more specifically, the field of gerontology and the administrator-in-training (AIT) program.

Dr. Norma Rosas-Mayén, Associate Professor of Spanish, has recently had her book, “Afro-Hispanic Linguistic Remnants in Mexico. The Case of the Costa Chica Region,” published by the prestigious editorial house Iberoamericana/Vervuert housed in Germany and Spain. The book analyzes “the current speech of the Afro-Mexicans of the Costa Chica region, one of the largest Afro-Mexican enclaves.” Rosas-Mayen’s investigation also examines the current linguistic characteristics and sociolinguistic status of this speech area on the brink of extinction. It advocates on the behalf of those Costa Chica Afro-Mexican communities that have been stigmatized and customarily ignored in Mexico’s nation-state politics.

Rosas-Mayén also earned her second master’s degree in Judaic Studies (online format) from the Universidad Hebraica de Mexico with academic excellence. She received her diploma in May 2021.

Finally, Rosas-Mayén also published her first article in her new area of research (Judaic Studies). Titled “The Judeo-Spanish Dirges in the Northern of Morocco: A Semiotic Analysis,” the article was published in “”Figuras Revista Académica De Investigación” earlier this year. It is meant to offer a semiotic analysis of the dirges (songs of the dead) that were transmitted orally and intergenerationally among the Sephardic Jewish communities that settled in northern Morocco after their expulsion from Spain in 1492.

Rosas-Mayén holds a PH.D. in Spanish Linguistics from Purdue University. She also studied Arabic language at the Al Akhawayn University of Ifrane, Moracco; Sanskrit language and literature at Delhi University, India and French phonetics at the Université de la Sorbonne-IV, France.

Dr. Thomas G. Noland, Professor of Accounting and Chair of Accounting and Finance, has been presented the Journal of Accountancy’s Lawler Award by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) for the article “Why Risk Assessment Merits Increased Auditor Focus,” published in 2020. Noland and his co-authors Dr. Tristan B. Johnson and James Rich, assistant professors in the Department of Accounting at the Mitchell College of Business at the University of South Alabama were recognized in June 2021.

The award is named for the former Journal of Accountancy editor and AICPA senior vice president John L. Lawler. The winner is chosen each year by the board of editorial advisers for the journal.

Noland graduated from the University of Kentucky with a bachelor’s degree before serving as an active duty Army officer station in Hawaii and serving in Korea and Thailand. He earned a master’s degree in accounting and finance from the Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech and pursued his doctorate at the University of Mississippi.

Dr. Crystal N. Steltenpohl ’11, Assistant Professor of Psychology, has published “Improving the Credibility of Empirical Legal Research: Practical Suggestions for Researchers, Journals and Law Schools” in the journal “Law, Technology, and Humans.” This publication is an international, open access, peer-reviewed journal publishing original, innovative research concerned with the human and humanity of law and technology. It publishes collections of articles in special issues and symposiums, and individual articles.

Steltenpohl was one of eight other educators from universities around the world to contribute to the article. The piece addresses empirical legal research and how to evaluate credibility indicators in the practice. The article can be viewed on the “Law, Technology, and Humans” website.

Steltenpohl earned her bachelor’s degrees in English and psychology from the USI. She holds a master’s degree in applied psychology from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a doctorate in community psychology from DePaul University. As a scholar, gamer, and participant in online worlds, her major research interests revolve around how we interact with various technologies, especially those that house online communities.

Dr. Cathy Carey, Dean of the Romain College of Business and Professor of Economics, as been named the 2021 Kentucky Distinguished Economist Award by the Kentucky Economic Association. The award, which has been in given out since 1975, was announced at the KEA annual conference. In a press release about the award, the KEA stated, “As an economist, Dr. Carey has been published in multiple peer-reviewed academic journals, and she has made numerous presentations to local and regional organizations.”

Carey served as program chair and president of the KEA, which identifies and studies the economic problems in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and stimulates closer ties among economists in government, business, labor and education. She also served as an ex officio member of the KEA Board of Director for 12 years and was the editor of the Journal of Applied Economics and Policy for five years. She currently serves on Kentucky’s Consensus Forecasting Group, which is a nonpartisan team of seven economists from across Kentucky that develops projects used for state budget development and long-range planning.

Dr. Kevin Celuch, Professor of Marketing and Blair Chair of Business Science; Dr. Jack Smothers, Associate Professor of Management and Masters of Business Administration Director, and Dr. Kevin Valadares, Professor of Health Services and Chair of Health Administration have published a research article in the Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology discussing supervisor and employee identity coalescence and normative unit commitment. The article’s abstract states, “This research examines how supervisor-subordinate relational dynamics influence how individuals become bound to their work unit.”

The article is available online here.

Dr. Matthew J. Hanka, Associate Professor of Political Science, has published What is Happening in Your Community? Why Community Development Matters, which is available for purchase beginning May 15, 2021.

With a forward by Sue Ellspermann, former Indiana Lt. Governor and current president of Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, the book explores how community development changes a community and why that change matters, while also examining the relationship between community development and social capital. The book also looks at comprehensive community development and collective impact models and several case studies that utilize these models. And it looks at how the transformation and revitalization of a neighborhood through new housing creates opportunities for people everywhere, and how effective placemaking strategies empower diverse groups of people in a community to reimagine their public spaces and the built environment to be more livable, walkable, creative and sustainable while fostering greater connections with people in their community.

The book includes contributions from Dr. Trent A. Engbers, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Master of Public Administration Program; Dr. Mohammed Khayum, USI Provost and Professor of Economics, and Dr. Anne Statham, Professor Emerita of Sociology.

Brett Anderson, Associate Professor of Art and Director of the Kenneth P. McCutchan Art and Palmina F. and Stephen S. Pace Galleries at USI, is the featured artist at the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center in Jasper, Indiana, during May and June 2021. Anderson’s work is primarily with relief printmaking. “For me, engraving and carving are an honest extension of drawing,” he said in a press release from the Jasper Community Arts department. “I see the use of color in the work as both a joyful formal exercise and saccharine flavoring to make the content more palatable.”

Anderson is a native of central Missouri and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of South Dakota.

The galleries at the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center, 100 Third Ave., Ste. A, Jasper, IN, are open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 am. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Noon to 3 p.m. Sunday. School groups, clubs and students are welcome. Admission is free but donations are appreciated.

Dr. Thomas E. Rodgers, Adjunct Professor of History, has published “How Northern Democrats Perceived the Civil War: The Standard Family of Fulton County, Illinois,” in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 113 (Fall/Winter 2020), 121-159.