Eight faculty members were awarded sabbatical leaves for all or part of the 2012-13 academic year to pursue a research or other professional development project, according to the December 2011 newsletter from the Provost’s Office. Another six faculty members will spend the next academic year as Jepson Fellows with a half-time teaching load while they pursue a research project that has particular and direct application to their teaching.
The 2012-13 sabbatical awardees and their project statements are listed below:
- Nabil Al-Tikriti, Department of History and American Studies. Project for spring 2013: complete final chapters of monograph on the Ottoman empire and submit final draft for publication.
- David Cain, Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion. Project for fall 2012: complete a collection of essays on Kierkegaard.
- Mindy Erchull, Department of Psychology. Project for fall 2012: analyze collected data, prepare to present project and results for publication on objectification among young women.
- Eric Gable, Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Project for spring 2013: complete book on the archeology of art.
- James Gaines, Department of Modern Foreign Languages. Project for spring 2013: complete series of articles on 18th century literature.
- Stephen Hanna, Department of Geography. Project for 2012-13 academic year: consolidate research and submit book for publication on heritage tourism in Fredericksburg.
- Bruce O’Brien, Department of History and American Studies. Project for 2012-13 academic year: complete book draft for a series on modern England (Academic year 2012-2013).
- Jennifer Polack-Wahl, Department of Computer Science. Project for spring 2013: complete final testing of iTouch to be used in elementary education.
Jepson Fellows and titles of their projects for 2012-13 are:
- Janet Asper, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, “Development of Super-absorbing Organic Gellants for Crude Oil, and a Polymer Themed Organic Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum”
- Julius N. Esunge, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, “Minimizing Insurance Company Risk in a Random Framework”
- Ben LaBreche, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication (English), “Liberty Agonistes: The Problem of Freedom in the Age of Milton”
- Jangwoon (Leo) Lee, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, “A Domain Decomposition Method for Mathematical Models with Random Input Data”
- Jason Matzke, Associate Professor, Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion (Philosophy), “Between Civil Disobedience and Burning Rage: Reframing Radical Environmental Activism within Deliberative Democracy”
- Colin Rafferty, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication (English), “Beyond Truth: A False Memoir in Literature and Culture”
