Adrian College Announces Faculty Brown Bag Scholarship Series posted 9/19/08
Striving to fulfill the mission for 150 years through scholarship and teaching

ADRIAN, Mich. – Adrian College is pleased to announce this year’s Faculty Brown Bag scholarship series which kicks-off on Friday, Sept. 26, 2008 at 12:00 P.M in Knight Auditorium.

The 2008-2009 Faculty Brownbag Scholarship Series is focusing on scholarly work that discusses and extends the mission of Adrian College with a particular emphasis on social justice issues. All presenters are Adrian College faculty and staff members. This year’s series is focused on the College’s 150th anniversary which takes place in 2009. Each presenter will incorporate the College’s mission statement in some way into their presentations.

The series will offer two tracks: the noon sessions will focus on scholarship and the 4:00 P.M. sessions will focus on teaching and learning.

Dr. Sarah Hanson

The first presentation will be given by Dr. Sarah L. Hanson, associate professor of earth science who specializes in Igneous petrology / mineralogy, and is entitled “Northern Volcanoes: The Eruption May be Sooner Than once Thought.” Recent work on young northern Arizona volcanoes shows that discrete melting events produced intermittent volcanic eruptions over the last few hundred thousand years. Geochemical studies suggest that these volcanoes are younger that once thought, thus have eruption recurrence intervals of less than the previously estimated several thousand years. Hanson received her Ph.D. from the University of Utah.

The second presentation will take place a few days later on Monday, Sept. 29 also at noon in Knight Auditorium. Dr. Richard Koch, professor of English who specializes in creative writing, teaching of writing, American literature, and the Civil Rights Movement, and Dr. Jeffry Berry, professor of English who specializes in Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century British and American Literature, Charles Dickens, African and Caribbean Literature, and Mystery and Detective Fiction will present.

In their presentation “Solomon Northup, Malcolm X, and the Search for ‘Home’ in African American Studies” they will explore the question - why put a nineteenth century slave narrative writer and a 60’s civil rights leader together? Both have been marginalized in different ways, and they will argue for a more prominent home for them in African American Studies.

Koch received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University while Berry earned his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

The Adrian College Faculty Brown Bag Scholarship Series was announced as a new initiative in August 2006 by Dr. Dale Nesbary, dean and vice president of academic affairs. Scholarship is being broadly defined as publications, conference presentations, compositions, exhibition or performances.

Knight Auditorium is located in Valade Hall off of Williams St. All sessions are free and open to the public. Everyone is encouraged to bring a brown bag lunch if they so choose. More information may be obtained by visiting http://www.adrian.edu/faculty_staff/accet/brown_bag.php.