March 10, 2008 (Vol. 7, No. 4)

Quorum Series, Part Four: New Faculty Research

Following is the last segment of the 2008 Quorum Series, presenting highlights of the research being conducted by Lehman faculty.

Zelda Kahan Newman
Gerardo Piña-Rosales
Susan Polirstok
Penny Prince
Gaoyin Qian
Anne Rice
Thomas C. Spear
Mardi Valgemae
Bryan Warde

Zelda Kahan Newman

Zelda Kahan Newman (Assistant Professor, Languages and Literatures) translated into English the Yiddish poems of Rivke Basman Ben-Hayim in Trot ba Trot: Antologye fun der Haynttsaytiker Yidisher Poezye, ed. Elissa Bemporad.

She also published the following articles: "Layered, Buttoned, and Zippered: Borrowing from Hebrew into Yiddish in Dos Yiddishe Vort," Varia, Language Contact, vol. 1, no.1 (forthcoming); (with Noga Rubin) "Shir yafe khadash al shalosh nashim: shir le-furim" (to appear in Hebrew) in Chulyot, vol. 11, 2008.

Professor Newman presented the following papers: "A New Lovely Poem about Three Women: A Purim Poem," Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) Conference, San Diego (December 2006); "Alt Yiddish Literatur: S'iz Nisht vos me Meynt" [Old Yiddish Literature: It's Not What You Think], Sholem Aleichem House, New York (February 2007); "The Yiddish of Satmar Women and Girls," International Linguistic Association Conference, New York City (April 2007), and AJS Conference, Toronto (December 2007).

Professor Newman received a grant to become a fellow at Brandeis University, where she will receive training to teach a course on modern Israel (June 2007). She also received a grant from the National Middle East Language Resource Center for a teachers' workshop in Hebrew at Emory University (August 2007).

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Gerardo Piña-Rosales

Gerardo Piña-Rosales (Professor, Languages and Literatures) published Escritores españoles en Estados Unidos (New York: Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, 2007).

Professor Piña-Rosales delivered the following lectures: "Escritores españoles en Estados Unidos" at the Meeting of the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, Medellín, Colombia (October 2007); "La recepción de Miguel Delibes en Estados Unidos" at Congreso Internacional sobre Miguel Delibes, Valladolid, Spain (October 2007); and "Franz Kafka viendo llover en Macondo" at the Symposium on Cien años de soledad, by García Márquez, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (December 2007).

He was also invited to participate in the Special Committee for the New Grammar of the Spanish Languages and the Committee for the Diccionario de Americanismos at the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, Madrid.

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Susan Polirstok

Susan Polirstok (Acting Dean, Division of Education; Professor, Counseling, Leadership, Literacy, and Special Education) co-edited (with H. Shenkman) The Scholarship of Teaching: Faculty Development Through Cross-Campus Collaboration [Title V Publication] (Bronx, N.Y.: The Center for Teaching Excellence at Bronx Community College, 2007).

Professor Polirstok also coauthored the chapter (with A. Digby) "Accreditation" in Issues in Education, ed. Cynthia Lassonde, Robert Michael, and Jerry Rivera-Wilson (Florence, Ken.: Lawrence Erlbaum & Christopher-Gordon Publishers, in press).

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Penny Prince

Penny Prince (Lecturer, Music) was a featured presenter in the New York State School Music Association Winter Conference in Rochester, N.Y., where she spoke about "Original Musical Theatre for Social Justice," a topic she has researched extensively (November 2007). Professor Prince's original musical, When I Get to Where I'm Going, which premiered at Lehman in May 2007, dealt with the bus boycott movement of the 1950s, and featured a cast of Lehman students, alumni, and community members who collaborated on the script. She is currently planning a new musical to be performed at Lehman in July 2008.

In other news, Professor Prince was awarded her eighth consecutive annual American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Merit Award for music for children (July 2007). She also received her third fellowship award from the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women at an award ceremony in August 2007.

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Gaoyin Qian

Gaoyin Qian (Acting Associate Dean, Division of Education; Associate Professor, Counseling, Leadership, Literacy, and Special Education) presented the following papers at the annual meeting of the National Reading Conference in Austin, Tex. (November 2007): (with L. Tao and L. Pinhasi-Vittorio) "Relationship between in-service teachers' epistemological beliefs and reading instruction practices" and (with L. Tao) "Using a social-cultural frame of reference to examine the literacy development conditions in Song China (960-1279): A case of promises and compromises."

Professor Qian also received a grant from the PSC-CUNY 38 Research Award Program for "Relationship between kinds of in-service teachers' epistemological beliefs and practices in reading instruction" (2007-2008).

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Anne Rice

Anne Rice (Assistant Professor, African and African American Studies) wrote the article "White Islands of Safety and Engulfing Blackness: Remapping Segregation in Angelina Weld Grimke's 'Blackness' and 'Goldie'," African American Review (forthcoming, Spring 2008).

She has also presented the papers: "'I Have Learned Not to Lose Myself': The Child Soldier in African Lyrics, Fiction, and Memoir" at "21st Century Africa: Evolving Conceptions of Human Rights," African Studies Association Conference, New York, N.Y. (October 2007) and "Reading, Writing, and Teaching Feminism at Lehman College" at "What's Feminist About Feminist Pedagogy: Second Feminist Pedagogy Conference," The Graduate Center, CUNY (October 2007).

She was awarded a PSC-CUNY Grant for three weeks of research at the Marion Palfi archive at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona (Summer 2007).

Professor Rice also received a course release from The Graduate Center as part of the CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program, 2008.

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Thomas C. Spear

Thomas C. Spear (Professor, Languages & Literatures) published (in co-edition) Une journée haïtienne (Montréal: Mémoire d'encrier and Paris: Présence Africaine, 2007), a collection of short texts by 40 Haitian authors. He was the invited author at the book launch, which was held at both the Salon du Livre de Montréal, Montreal (November 2007), and the "Remue-méninges haïtien" (Haitian brainstorm) evening for Rumeurs Urbaines, Paris (December 2007). Professor Spear has been interviewed about his book on Haitian radio programs in Brooklyn and Montreal, and it has been reviewed in newspapers, magazines, and on radio programs in Canada, France, and Haiti.

Professor Spear presented the paper "Couper-Coller: à la recherche de l'original" and also chaired the panel "Plagiat, reproduction et 'emprunts'" at the Conseil International d'Études Francophones Conference, Cayenne (French Guiana) (July 2007).

He was the invited and featured guest panelist for the closing symposium of the Mois du Créole (Creole Month) in Montréal, where he delivered the paper "Littératures créoles hors frontières: divergences et convergences." Professor Spear was also interviewed briefly about Creole Month on CPAM radio, Montreal (October 2007).

He presented the paper "Crossover Dreams; Marketing Caribbean Authors in the U.S.," at "Writing the Caribbean In(to) the United States," a special session at the Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention, Chicago (December 2007). Also, as a member of the MLA's Committee on Information Technology (CIT), Professor Spear chaired the CIT session at the convention, "Sampling the Original: Rethinking Appropriation, Attribution, and Copyright."

In other news, Professor Spear was invited to Harvard University, where he read "Work in Progress," a selection of his own fiction, at the City Night Readings Series, "The Art of Words," at Kirkland House, Cambridge. He received the Excellence in Research, Scholarship, & Creative Works Award at Lehman's 2007 Commencement.

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Mardi Valgemae

Mardi Valgemae (Professor, English) published the article "Hoopis teine ooper," Vikerkaar, October-November 2007:102-127.

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Bryan Warde

Bryan Warde (Assistant Professor, Sociology and Social Work) wrote the following articles: "Staying the Course: Narratives of African American Males Who Have Completed a Baccalaureate Degree," Journal of African American Studies, 2007; "Comparison of Role Perceptions of Immigrant Foster Parents of African Descent from English-speaking Caribbean Countries and African-American Foster Parents," Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 5, no. 4 (forthcoming); and "Comparison of Role Perceptions of African American Kinship and Non-kinship Foster Parents," Journal of Family Social Work (forthcoming).

Professor Warde published a review of Handbook of Families and Health: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. D. Russell Crane and Elaine S. Marshall, Families in Society 88, no. 2 (2007): 322.

He also presented the following papers: (co-presented) "A Group Work Model in Child Welfare in Response to a Child Fatality" at the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups, Inc., Jersey City, N.J. (June 2007); "The Cultural Genogram: A Tool for Child Welfare Professionals" at the Annual Conference of the National Black Child Development Institute, Chicago (October 2007); and "Field Instructor Seminar Groups in Public Child Welfare: Powerful Vehicles for Social Work Education" and "Exploring Cultural Context: The Use of the Cultural Genogram with B.S.W. and M.S.W. Students" at the Annual Conference of the New York State Social Work Education Association, Saratoga Springs (October 2007).

In 2008, Professor Warde will present two papers at academic conferences: "The Use of the Cultural Genogram to Explore Cultural Context" at the Region IV Head Start Association, Inc. Annual Training Conference, Atlanta (February 2008) and "Why a Social Work Career: The Narratives of Recently Graduated Anglo, Hispanic, and African American Male B.S.W. and M.S.W. Students" at the First Annual National Conference on Social Work With and For Men, Tuscaloosa, Ala. (April 2008).

He also has received a grant from the New York City Social Work Education Committee to assist in conducting his research study on "Male Social Workers in Child Welfare: A Qualitative Analysis."

In other news, Professor Warde delivered the keynote speech, "Narratives of African American Males in Social Work Education," at The Greater New York Area Schools of Social Work 25th Annual Symposium for Field Instructors, Fordham University (December 2007).

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