Faculty Research News for Summer

La Sierra University faculty members have had a busy summer working on various projects and endeavors. Read more for updates on this work.

La Sierra University faculty members have hardly spent the summer sipping lemonade—whether in England, Jordan, Cambodia, China, India, Washington, Indiana, Minnesota or Riverside, CA, they have been busy! Listed below are several faculty and their various projects and endeavors carried out over the past three months. Some efforts will continue into the fall quarter and beyond. …Stay tuned for additional news about other faculty members’ summer work.

Dr. Lora Geriguis, assistant professor of English
Dr. Melissa Brotton, assistant English professor and Director of College Writing
In June, Dr. Geriguis delivered a paper at the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment held at the University of Indiana, Bloomington on the topic of “Animal Advocacy in Margaret Cavendish’s Poems and Fancies (1653).” At this same conference, Dr. Melissa Brotton, assistant English professor and Director of College Writing also read a paper on “Voices of Earth in the Ecopoetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Here’s a link to the conference program: http://www.indiana.edu/~asle2011/FullProgram.pdf.

In July, Dr. Geriguis delivered another paper, this one at the Defoe Society conference held at the University of Worchester in England on the topic of “Animals as Metonymy and Metaphor in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719).” Here’s a link to that conference program: http://www.defoesociety.org/Defoe%20conference%20-%20provisional%20programme.pdf.

In August a book chapter she wrote was accepted for publication in “New Approaches to Daniel Defoe” (AMS Press, forthcoming 2012) entitled, “A Vast Howling Wilderness: The Problem of Space and Placelessness in Defoe’s Captain Singleton.” The AMS Press website is at this address: http://www.amspressinc.com/index.html

Watch for more news about Dr. Geriguis’s sabbatical work this fall quarter and her October projects.

Dr. Gary Chartier, associate dean, associate professor of law and business ethics, School of Business
This summer Dr. Chartier finished work on a rough draft of his latest book, “Anarchy under Law: Legal Order and Political Action in a Stateless Society.” He is working on finding a publisher. Perhaps as early as next month, he hopes to see the first copies out of his book “Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty,” co-edited with Charles W. Johnson. Minor Impressions, an imprint of Autonomedia will publish the book.

Dr. Rob Thomas, chair, Health and Exercise Science Department
Dr. Thomas has been busy writing a book titled “History of SDA Physical Education in NAD Colleges & Universities.” Each college/university will have a section covering three elements--people, programs, and places (facilities).

He expects to complete the book by next summer with a substantial portion finished this December.

Sari Fordham, assistant professor of English
This summer, Professor Fordham has been busy with Saint John’s University’s renowned Collegeville Institute of Cultural and Ecumenical Research. The institute runs summer writing workshops for ministers from all denominations--they typically get 100 applicants for each week and accept only 12 pastors, Professor Fordham said. She was the writing coach for three of these workshops: “Writing Pastors, Working Pastors: A Week With Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver,” “Apart and Yet A Part” and “Writing and the Pastoral Life: A Week With Richard Lischer.” Here’s a link to the Collegeville Institute website: http://collegevilleinstitute.org/swr.

Collegeville Institute has been running summer writing workshops for six years, and Professor Fordham has been a writing coach for five of those summers. “It’s exciting to meet ministers from a variety of denominations and to talk about writing. It’s also interesting to represent my denomination. I hope next year to encourage some SDA ministers to apply,” she says.

Dr. Lloyd Trueblood, assistant professor of Biology
Dr. Trueblood spent a month at the Rosario Beach Marine Laboratory in Washington.  He worked on a project that examines the effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on metabolic rates of several marine invertebrates.  …More interesting research news to come from Dr. Trueblood.

Dr. Lee Grismer, professor of Biology
Dr. Grismer is at it again, this time capturing a new species of a blind, legless lizard in the wilds of Cambodia last month under protection of armed forest rangers. Then it was off to Beijing at the beginning of September to represent Southeast Asia at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a roundtable of the world’s top scientists. They gathered to discuss the ongoing devastation of various snake populations. Next on the calendar, a herpetological expedition this month up one of the highest peaks in southern Malaysia with two La Sierra University students, one of who won a major grant for this research trip.

Dr. Grismer also wrote a milestone, 728-page book, “Lizards of Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and their Adjacent Archipelagos.” Edition Chimaira in Frankfurt, Germany published the work in June. It is the first comprehensive collection of biological, historical and habitat data on lizards in the Malaysian peninsula. It incorporates 15 years of Dr. Grismer’s herpetology field notes and has more than 500 photographs mostly taken by Grismer. He attended book release events in June, in Frankfurt and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Dr. Margaret Solomon, professor of Administration and Leadership, School of Education
Dr. Solomon departed Aug. 10 for India to launch the second phase of her Fulbright Project researching best practices to provide educational justice for India’s “untouchables.” She returns this month and will undoubtedly have interesting news to pass along.

Dr. Doug Clark, associate dean, professor of biblical studies and archaeology, School of Religion
For the month of July, Dr. Clark and a group of 10 people from La Sierra and other schools excavated a portion of the Tall al-‘Umayri site in Jordan in an effort to help a University of Chicago doctoral student gather information for a dissertation. The group uncovered biblical-era ceramic vessels, a lamp, a broken chalice decorated with a face image, farm walls from 150 B.C. and other ancient elements. They also employed a plethora of technology—Apple iPad computers rather than field notebooks, an x-ray fluorescent spectrometer and a digital camera on an extendable, 40-foot boom. They can manipulate the camera images using a geographic information systems and three-dimensional software to reconstruct the site in three-dimensional graphics, complete with objects and walls in place. Watch for the upcoming story on the homepage!