Ruth S. Holmberg Grant for Faculty Excellence awards announced

The newly established Ruth S. Holmberg Grant for Faculty Excellence awards funds to deserving faculty for professional development.

Of the 41 proposals received in summer 2014, seven faculty members earned awards—selected tenured or tenure track faculty who are promoting “innovative or creative research and engagement or advancement of an academic discipline.”

Dr. Victoria S. Steinberg, Dr. Michelle White, Dr. Joshua Hamblen, Dr. Lingju Kong, Dr. Shewanee Howard-Baptiste, Dr. Michael Thompson, and Dr. John P. Lee submitted proposals to a selection committee comprised of UTC deans and a select group of professors, who forwarded their recommendations to the Provost’s Office.    The seven received funding for the 2014-15 academic year.

Dr. Victoria S. Steinberg, Associate Professor of French, Modern & Classical Languages & Literatures who also teaches Africana Studies, spent part of her summer completing a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer institute on Literature, the Arts, and Cinema in North Africa since Independence.  She also visited Indiana University in Bloomington, where she completed research on the extensive African Studies holdings there.  She did not have access to the films.

She proposed “a study of West and North African films of return. This theme is of particular importance because the narrative of return reframes questions of identity in terms of exile/return and culture/nationalism; the story of return offers a more sympathetic view than the gaze of an outsider towards the frictions of border crossing of all sorts.”

With help from the Ruth Holmberg Grant, Steinberg will be able to pay for airfare to FESPACO, a bi-annual film festival where current African Cinema debuts in the West African nation of Burkina Faso.

“Filmmakers accompany their films and often remain accessible to attendees to discuss their works, even offering speeches and discussion panels in addition to casual conversation. Attending this film festival is the only way to access these rarely distributed films and the only way to develop the contacts for later access to these filmmakers and their works,” wrote in her proposal.

Steinberg plans to write articles and create courses related to her research.

Dr. Michelle White, UC Foundation Professor of History, has completed research and is working on the manuscript Catherine of Braganza: Charles II’s Neglected Queen for Palgrave Macmillan’s Queenship and Power series.  A reduction in her course load with the Ruth S. Holmberg Grant for Faculty Excellence will allow her to complete the story about the queen consort of Charles II (1630-1684).

Little has been written about Catherine.  White wrote in her proposal that her book will provide a unique perspective with the exploration of “issues of international trade and diplomacy as well as the changing tastes and customs of the Restoration period… Finally, at its heart, my analysis will bring to life the story of a queen whose influence (both domestic and foreign) was far greater than has heretofore been determined.”

With assistance from the Ruth Holmberg Grant, expenses for a dozen trips to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for himself and a student, will allow Dr. Joshua Hamblen, UC Foundation Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics, Geology and Astronomy to conduct experimental nuclear physics research with the n3He experiment.  In his proposal, Hamblen explained that this collaborative work of scientists, students, and engineers from around the world will allow him to write for scholarly journals, as well as strengthen his “collaboration with ORNL and ensure that UTC will play an active part in this innovative research program.”

Hamblen further explained in his proposal that “UTC students will also receive the invaluable opportunity of working on an experiment at a world-class facility and networking with outside faculty and scientists in order to better position themselves for research internships and graduate studies at other labs and universities.”

Dr. Lingju Kong, Professor in the Department of Mathematics, has been active in research for more than 15 years.  He sees the potential for several professional papers to be written at the conclusion of his project to address the existence of positive periodic solutions of nonlinear telegraphic equations.  The Holmberg Grant allows Kong to teach one less course to work on the research.

Dr. Shewanee Howard-Baptiste, Assistant Professor, Exercise Science in the Department of Health and Human Performance, will use funding from the Holmberg grant to provide health education for 100 school teachers in Haiti.  As the current Health Education Coordinator for the Haitian American Caucus (HAC), Howard-Baptiste plans to offer workshops and training in CPR, First Aid, health education, while practicing cultural competency and cultural humility.  In turn, the teachers’ education will positively impact the lives of nearly 4,000 students in a year.

After Howard-Baptiste completes the workshops, she can use her experience to educate her own students at UTC.  She also plans to develop a manuscript for a peer-reviewed publication.

 

In summer 2015, Dr. Michael Thompson, UC Foundation Assistant Professor in the Department of History, will travel to several archival institutions with assistance from the Holmberg Grant to conduct research for a book-length study on the topic of “Labor, Race, and Comparative Disease Susceptibility in the Urban Old South.” In his proposal, Thompson explained:

“During the mid-nineteenth century, medical theories were infused with contemporary notions of race, class, ethnicity, and nativity. Over a century of ensuing historical and scientific inquiry into epidemic diseases has verified some past beliefs and refuted others. These theories, though often fallacious, shaped decisions and policies that had significant repercussions for the history of the South and its people. Remaining cognizant of subsequent medical discoveries and modern epidemiological realities, scholars nevertheless ought to take seriously the antiquated and frequently mistaken views of eras past so as to benefit from what those ideas reveal. This project

seeks to do so through a reconsideration of antebellum racial medicine and controversial theories concerning the comparative susceptibilities of the region’s racially and ethnically diverse inhabitants.”

Dr. John P. Lee, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, looks forward to including undergraduate student researchers to study newly prepared chemical compounds.  Here’s how he will use the funding:

“This project will give students the opportunity to work on one of the most important scientific challenges facing society today, the utilization of a by-product, carbon dioxide, to make a useful chemical,” Lee explained in his proposal. “This work should result in both a student co-authored publication in a peer-reviewed journal and in a student presentation at a Regional or National American Chemical Society meeting.”