Faculty

At SVSU, we believe faculty can have the best of both worlds: being able to teach, have meaningful interaction with students, and the support to conduct and present research. Each month faculty work is published in the internal faculty/staff newsletter, the "Interior". See what's new:

November 2009

  • Karen Brown-Fackler, associate professor of nursing, presented “Student Incivility in Higher Education” at the 9th Annual Lilly Conference for College and University Teaching and Learning in Traverse City in September.

  • Deborah Ramirez Bishop, professor of management, and Christopher J. Surfield, assistant professor of economics, presented a paper titled “Hispanic Professionals and Managers: Moving Forward By Looking Back” at the Second Annual Research Forum of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs 2009 Conference and Career Expo in Minneapolis, Oct. 9-10.

  • Karen Brown-Fackler, associate professor of nursing, has been selected by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Commission on Nurse Certification to serve as an item writer for the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) Certification Examination.

  • Julie Foss, assistant professor of modern foreign languages, presented “The Role of L1 and L2 Working Memory in L2 (French) Proficiency” with co-authors David Z. Hambrick and Dallas Dralle (Michigan State University) at the 2009 Second Language Research Forum in East Lansing, Mich. Foss also presented “Talking About Contemporary France” at the 2009 Michigan World Language Association Conference in October.

  • Eric Gardner, professor of English, presented “Christian Recorders and Other (Sometimes Rebellious) Early Black Women Writers” at the Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference in Philadelphia. While at the conference, Gardner also chaired a session on women writers and religion and worked as part of a committee charged with developing the bylaws for a new author society devoted to the study of turn-of-the century black writer Pauline Hopkins.

  • Gladys Hernandez, professor of modern foreign languages, and four students (Trever Cline, Brittany Frost, Kelsey Krueger and Jacqueline Zingg) presented “Cinema in Spanish Classes” at the Michigan World Language Association, Oct. 15-16 in Lansing, Mich.

  • Judith Kerman, professor of English, has been named to a three-year term on the Fulbright Program’s selection committee for Canada and the Caribbean. She was a Fulbright Scholar to the Dominican Republic in 2002 and served as a resource person at the Fall 2009 Predeparture Orientation for Fulbright Scholars in Washington, D.C.

  • Margret McCue-Enser, assistant professor of communication, presented “Lincoln’s Speech to the Washingtonian Temperance Society: Constitutive Metaphor and the Development of Rhetorical Leadership” at the National Communication Association Convention, Nov. 12 in Chicago, Ill.

  • Ed Meisel, lecturer of chemistry, traveled to Lansing Nov. 10 to receive an award, “Most Innovative Greenhouse in Michigan,” sponsored by the Michigan Agri-Science Educators Association and the Horticultural Teachers Association.

  • Marsha Millikin, lecturer of English, presented “Rising like a Phoenix?: Fulfilling the Quest in Sherman Alexie’s Film Smoke Signals” at the Michigan Council of Teachers of English Autumn Assembly, Oct. 30 in Lansing, Mich.

  • Sally Shepardson, assistant professor of biology, presented “Ultrastructural Morphology of Bittacus strigosus Sperm” at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Michigan Entomological Society, Oct. 8-10 at the Ralph A. MacMullan Conference Center in Roscommon, Mich. The paper was co-authored with Kathleen Pelkki, biology laboratory technician, and David Stanton, professor of biology.

  • Stephen Taber, associate professor of biology, has discovered a new species – a large fly from a western Michigan forest. The finding will be published in The Southwestern Entomologist as “A New Species of Tricyphona Zetterstedt Crane Fly (Diptera: Tipulidae).”

  • Robert Tuttle, associate professor of mechanical engineering, had a paper titled “Examination of Steel Castings for Potential Nucleation Phases” accepted for publication in the International Journal of Metalcasting. The paper documents the examination of several industrial castings for nucelation sites. It is the hope of current research at SVSU to use the information from this paper to create stronger steels.

  • Steve Yanca, professor of social work, has coauthored the 10th edition of a textbook, Social Work Practice: A Generalist Approach, published by Allyn and Bacon (2010). He has been the coauthor with the original author, Louise C. Johnson, professor emerita from the University of South Dakota, since the 7th edition (2001). It is a classic in social work education, having been originally published in 1983 as the first practice text written specifically for bachelor’s-level social work students. The text is now part of a trilogy of textbooks that cover the entire generalist social work practice curriculum using the same model of practice, making this a unique contribution to social work education. Also, Yanca presented “Generalist Social Work Practice with Groups: Sharing the Past, Present, and Future” at the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups in Chicago in June.

Those Who Changed Us

Throughout our lives, we recall those teachers who had an impact on us. Here, alumni and students share thoughts on SVSU faculty who changed their lives.

Faculty Member
Joseph Ofori-Dankwa

"He always made time to meet with me to either help clarify something he said in a lecture, or just to encourage me to pursue my dreams."

Willie McKether, 1991, M.B.A. Assistant Prof. of sociology and anthropology, University of Toledo