Westmont Magazine Faculty Footnotes

Activities and awards for Westmont’s outstanding professors

The New York Society of Illustrators’ annual competition has accepted a cover illustration by Scott Anderson (art) for a fall edition of Seattle Weekly. The cover will be included in the annual exhibition at the society’s gallery and published in the competition’s artbook. He also completed a cover illustration for the Scottsdale Times and a feature illustration for Mother Jones magazine.

Stan Anderson (chemistry) co-wrote a paper published in the International Journal of Mass Spectrometry, “A novel projection approximation algorithm for the fast and accurate computation of molecular collision cross sections (III) Application to supra-molecular coordination-driven assemblies with complex shapes.”

Kathryn Artuso (English) has published a book, “Transatlantic Renaissances: Literature of Ireland and the American South” (University of Delaware Press). It follows the Irish Revival and the motifs of female rebirth and cultural regeneration in renowned female protagonists such as Scarlett O’Hara and Cathleen in Houlihan.

Alister Chapman (history) contributed an essay, “Why I Am Still an Evangelical,” to the Huffington Post. His biography of John Stott, “Godly Ambition: John Stott and the Evangelical Movement,” received an Award of Merit from Christianity Today, one of only two awards given in the history/ biography category.

Steve Contakes (chemistry) made two joint presentations at the Southern California Christians in Science Winter Conference in January: “Lessons for Thinking and Talking about Science and Religion from the Chelintsev Affair, a Chemical Counterpart to Lysenkoism”; and “Chemistry, Guns, Gas and Butter: Questions, Methods, and Dialogue at the Interface between Chemical Technology and Christian Responsibility.” He co-presented the first paper with Garrett Johnson ’12, co-organized the conference and chaired a session. Michael Everest (chemistry) presented “Worship through the Lens of the Autocorrelation Function.”

Jesse Covington (political science) co-edited “Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought” (Lexington Books, 2012). The book includes presentations from the conference Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought, which Westmont sponsored in February 2011.

Chris Ecklund (kinesiology) commented on Lance Armstrong’s blood-doping in an interview with KCOY television news.

Charlie Farhadian (religious studies) wrote a chapter, “Soundings from the Liturgical Ecumene: Liturgical Migration, Christian Mission, and Mutual Conversions,” for “Liturgy in Migration: From the Upper Room to Cyberspace.” The book features essays by speakers at the international conference on Liturgy in Migration sponsored by the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music. In August, he will speak at the Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives Conference at Ripon College in Oxford, United Kingdom.

Michael Graves (communication studies) will serve a new term on the editorial board of the Journal of Communication and Religion. He co-authored a paper, “Restore the Harmony: A Generational Reconsideration of Popular Culture and Evangelical Worship Practices,” which will appear in Praeger’s 2013 collection, “Evangelical Christians and Popular Culture: Pop Goes the Gospel.”

Andrea Gurney (psychology) has published a chapter on counseling psychology in “Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions” (Springer, 2013).

Special effects design work by Bob Hamel (theater arts) for the Globe to Globe Shakespeare Festival at the Globe Theatre in London, has appeared in the book “Globe to Globe: The Festival in Focus.” He created decapitated heads for the National Theatre of Bitola’s production of “Henry VI, Part III.”

Allan Nishimura (chemistry) worked with a group at Caltech on “Laser Cavity Ringdown Studies of Peroxy Radical Intermediates in the Oxidation of Volatile Organic Compounds,” which was presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Society in San Francisco. “Fluorescence Quenching by Resonance Energy Transfer,” a collaborative work with colleagues at Point Loma Nazarene University, will appear in Chemical Educator. Shanan Lau ’13 and Hannah Ryan ’13 presented “Laser Induced Fluorescence of 1-Methyl-, 1-Methoxy- and 1-Ethylnaphthalene on Alumina During Temperature Programmed Desorption” and “Observation of Mixed Excimer of 1- and 2-Methylnaphthalene on Alumina” at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Western Spectroscopy Association at Asilomar in January. An article, “Formation of the Mixed Excimer of 1- and 2-Methylnaphthalene on Alumina During Temperature Programmed Desorption,” co-authored by Hannah Ryan ’13 and Shanan Lau ’13, will appear in the Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research.

Edd Noell (economics and business) made two presentations related to his forthcoming book on economic growth. In January, he presented “Making the Case for Economic Growth: ‘Playing the Cards Up Front’ In Light of Modern Moral Critiques” to a session at the American Economics Association conference in San Diego. Later that month, he gave “The Moral Case for Economic Growth” to a Values and Capitalism conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute at Ave Maria University.

Scribner will publish a book by Gregory Orfalea (English), “Journey to the Sun: Junipero Serra and the Dream of California,” in November 2013. His essay, “Sheathing the Sword,” about raising his oldest son, appeared in “Papa, PhD: Essays on Fatherhood by Men in the Academy” (Rutgers University Press, 2011); it will be reprinted in a new anthology, “Not in My Name: Men Rejecting Patriarchal Paradigms” (Vanderbilt University Press).

Ray Paloutzian (psychology) gave a presentation at the University of British Columbia in February: “The Process of Believing as Meaning Making.”

Helen Rhee (religious studies) published a chapter, “The Wealth of Christians,” in “Tertullian and Paul” (Bloomsbury T&TClark, 2013). She gave an interview about the growing interest in patristics among evangelicals for the Aqueduct Project’s GOD (Global Orthodox Dialogue) Talks series (www.aqueductproject.org/godtalks).

Jeff Schloss (biology), who holds the T.B. Walker Chair in the Natural and Behavioral Sciences, has been appointed senior scholar of the BioLogos Foundation. Founded by Francis Collins, BioLogos is a community of evangelicals “committed to exploring and celebrating the compatibility of evolutionary creation and biblical faith, guided by the truth that ‘all things hold together in Christ’” (biologos.org/blog/new-leadership-for-the-biologos-foundation).

Amanda Sparkman (biology) gave a presentation at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting in San Francisco in January, “Long-term elevation of indicators of physiological stress in captive garter snakes,” which she co-authored. In October, she attended the California Islands Symposium in Ventura.

Greg Spencer (communication studies) had two poems published in Windhover: “The Summer of My Gathering Mortality,” and “On the News of Connie’s Near-Passing.”

Randy VanderMey (English) has written a play, “Platinum Circle: A Play in Three One-Acts” (“Cell Division,” “Fleas,” and “Bluetooth Paternoster”) and John Blondell (theater) directed the world premiere at Westmont in February. “The plays are wild and eccentric—mysterious and quite moving,” Blondell says. “They have a vivid, compelling use of language. We have made a show that’s contemporary, off-center, and also energetic and engaging.” In March, VanderMey delivered the Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture at Westmont, “Occasional Poems: Readings and Reflections on a Suspect Genre.”

Recent publications by Paul Willis (English) include an essay, “An Evening with Two Palestinian Poets,” in the current issue of Books & Culture and poems in six anthologies: “Acceptable Words: Prayers for Writers,” “An Even Dozen,” “Gratitude Prayers: Prayers, Poems and Prose for Everyday Thankfulness,” “From Glory to Glory,” “Imago Dei: Poems from Christianity and Literature,” and “One for the Money: The Sentence as a Poetic Form.”