UCA faculty news

Micah Abrams, assistant professor of Chemistry at UCA, is one of four national recipients of the 2008 Hewlett Packard Outstanding Junior Faculty Award from the American Chemical Society. The award is “designed to recognize early success and academic potential in computational chemists who are on the tenure track, but had not yet received tenure,” and it includes a check for $1,000, a special gift from Hewlett Packard and recognition at the Computers in Chemistry poster session awards ceremony at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society next spring in New Orleans. Abrams also published four articles last semester, including a feature article with Daniel Crawford of Virginia Tech that graces the cover of the Journal of Physical Chemistry A, as well as a book chapter in an American Chemical Society Symposium Series with David Sherrill of Georgia Tech.

Lynn Burley, associate professor of writing and linguistics in UCA’s Department of Writing, has been invited to be the linguistics consultant on a video project, “Grammar Tips for Children,” with Schlessinger Media, a distributor of educational videos, DVDs and audiobooks. Burley is the script consultant on a series of grammar videos targeted to students in grades 5-12.

UCA history professor Randall L. Pouwels last month published a new edition of World Civilizations, the textbook he wrote with Philip Adler. Upon Adler’s retirement, Pouwels took over sole authorship of the book. With his extensive training in the history of African and Islamic civilizations, Pouwels has devoted particular attention to adding new material on Asian and African civilizations. The book is widely used in freshman- and sophomore-level courses around the country.

Doug George, assistant professor of sociology at UCA, has been notified that his article, ?Forming a more perfect union: Racial perceptions of unity and division in the United States,? has been accepted for publication in the journal Sociological Focus. This research analyzes interviews from the Lilly Survey of Attitudes and Friendship to assess attitudes on bridging U.S. cultural differences. Although interviewees identify freedom as the principle that unites Americans and racial issues as those which divide, racial variations exist.