Tag: faculty

Jennifer A. Polack-Wahl, Professor of Computer Science, and Jacob Bowman, junior Computer Science Student, iPhone/iTouch app Short Vowel Mahjong is now free on iTunes.  In the last three days 109 downloads have occurred.  The downloads have primarily been in the United States but they included Australia,  Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, China, Hong Kong, France, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Korea, UK, and Spain.

This app was made specifically at the request of Heather Howe a Kindergarten and First Grade teacher at Hartwood Elementary. Heather wanted a game that would reinforce short vowel recognition.  Jacob and Jennifer A. Polack-Wahl brainstormed a variety of ideas and decided on a Mahjong style game.  The list of words we used was approved by Heather and included approximately seven different words in each vowel (a, e, i, o, and u).

The app is for anyone who wants to help their children or students to reinforce short vowel sounds or start short vowel recognition.   You do need either an iTouch or iPhone with IOS 4.0 to play the game.  We want to find out how to make it better so we can aid elementary education, we are in it for the kids.

Continue to check out http://hartwood.umwblogs.org/ for more games in education.  Our ice cream Math game is our next to be submitted to the app store.

Claudia Emerson, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and the current Poet Laureate of Virginia, will read from her work at Writers in the Library at 7 p.m. Sept. 27, in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Hodges Library auditorium.
Emerson’s four books, “Pharaoh, Pharaoh (1997),” “Pinion, An Elegy (2002),” “Late Wife (2005),” and “Figure Studies (2008),” were published as part of Louisiana State University Press’ signature series, “Southern Messenger Poets,” edited by Dave Smith. “Late Wife” won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Her poems have appeared in “Poetry,” “Prairie Schooner,” “Smartish Pace,” “The Southern Review,” “Shenandoah,” “TriQuarterly,” “Crazyhorse,” “New England Review,” and other journals. An advisory and contributing editor for “Shenandoah,” Emerson has been awarded individual artist’s fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts and was also a Witter Bynner Fellow through the Library of Congress. She was awarded the 2008 Donald Justice Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Emerson is a professor of English and the Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.
A reception will be held following the reading. Both are free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Emerson’s reading is sponsored by the Department of English and the UT Libraries. For more information, visit http://www.lib.utk.edu/writersinthelibrary/.

Gary Stanton, associate professor of historic preservation, is participating in “Taming the Wilderness” on Sunday, September 26. This living history event will take place at Ellwood Manor at the Wilderness Battlefield. Gary speaks at 1 and 3 p.m. on the architecture of the period. More information is at http://www.fowb.org/tamingthewilderness

Suzanne G. Houff, professor of education, had her third book, an essay collection titled “The Classroom Facilitator: Special Issue Questions,” published in July by Rowman & Littlefield. Houff edited the essays, which were written by eight other education faculty—Laurie Abeel, Teresa Coffman, Norah Hooper, Jane Huffman, Nicole Myers, Kavatus Newell, Patricia Reynolds and Sharon Teabo—and Director of Distance/Blended Learning John St.Clair.

Emile Lester, assistant professor of political science and international affairs, will participate in a national symposium at Roberts Wesleyan College to promote conversation on how public schools, religion and the First Amendment intersect. The symposium will be held October 10-11 at the New York college. The audience — school practitioners, academics, attorneys, school board members, community, religious and student leaders — will be invited to join the conversation with 10 authorities in the field. Other scheduled participants are Richard T. Foltin, director of the National and Legislative Affairs for the American Jewish Committee;  Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief; Colby May, senior counsel with the American Center for Law and Justice; David Scott, director of Project PATCH, Northport School District, Long Island; Muhammad Shafiq, executive director of the Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue, professor of Islamic and religious studies at Nazareth College and Imam of the Islamic Center of Rochester; Stephen Solomon, professor, New York University; Kathy Wildman, World Religions teacher, Fairfax, Va.; and Jay Worona, general counsel, New York State School Boards Association.

For more information or to register, visit www.roberts.edu/symposium or call 585/ 594-6562.