The Sporting News preseason guide for college
basketball and Basketball Times have ranked our men’s team No. 1 in
NCAA Division II – the first time that any Bellarmine sports team has
held a No. 1 national ranking.
The ranking comes on the heels of our record-setting
year in 2008-09, when the Knights set new school marks for most wins
in a season (26) and highest national ranking attained (No. 2). As
you’ll recall, the team was narrowly defeated by eventual national
champion Findlay in a nail-biting overtime in the finals of the NCAA
Division II Midwest Regional, finishing the season with a 26-7 record.
This ranking is a well-deserved honor for our team and
our coaching staff, led by Head Men’s Basketball Coach Scott
Davenport. But it is also something that the entire
Bellarmine community, from students to faculty and staff to alumni, can
celebrate and own. Becoming highly competitive in Division II
athletics and competing for national championships, with an eye toward
an eventual move to Division I, is one of the goals of Vision 2020,
and having energized and consistent fan support will be a key part of
this success.
Fans came together as never before last year to cheer
our Knights to victory, and it is my hope that we will do so again
this season. Be sure to support the Knights in their exhibition game
against the University of Louisville at Freedom Hall at 7 p.m.
Wednesday and at home against Kentucky State on Nov. 7 at 7 p.m.
In other exciting athletic news, Bellarmine will be the
host institution for the NCAA’s Division II National Championships
Festival, an Olympic-style event, on Dec. 1-4, 2010.
The Division II Fall Sports Festival will feature 70
teams and more than 800 student-athletes vying for championship titles
in men’s and women’s cross country; women’s field hockey; men’s and
women’s soccer; and women’s volleyball.
Our Knights Hall and Owsley B. Frazier Stadium will
service as the practice and competition venues for volleyball and
soccer, respectively. In addition, University of Louisville’s Trager
Stadium will serve as the field hockey venue and E.P. “Tom” Sawyer
State Park will serve as the cross country venue.
This is the fifth national championship festival hosted
by Division II, which is the only NCAA division to host a multiple
championship festival.
This event, which is designed to create more exposure
and awareness for Division II sports and increase attendance by having
multiple championships in one city, will be a wonderful opportunity
to showcase Bellarmine and our improved athletic facilities on a
national level.
The Bellarmine Emergency Response Team is an excellent
example of student initiative, as it was completely student-organized
and continues to grow because of the dedication of student volunteers.
BERT began as one senior’s service project two years ago and has
grown to 10 student volunteers in a brief period. All members are
certified EMTs. The team is led by junior Evan Kuhl
and the faculty advisor is Dr. David Porta.
You will see the team at all campus events, wearing
standard EMT uniforms. In addition, they will provide CPR instruction
to the campus community. Many of the BERT students were trained
through Louisville Metro EMS and volunteer regularly to assist the
city during large community events, such as the Kentucky Derby, Thunder
Over Louisville and Oaks Day.
The team received quite a bit of positive press in
early October, with Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson commenting:
"Having another highly skilled team in a densely populated area like a
university is a great benefit for our city. Bellarmine’s Emergency
Response Team will be a wonderful complement to Louisville Metro EMS."
Our campus community celebrated and honored the
Franciscan legacy of our university, especially the teachings of St.
Francis of Assisi, at the ninth annual Blessing of the Animals on Oct.
7. About 70 people, and not quite as many dogs (including my own
Rosie and Dooney), participated in this lovely ceremony presided over by
Fr. Adam Bunnell that taps into the very joyful side
of our faith.
We associate St. Francis with a Prayer for Peace
attributed to him, as well as his gentle spirit around animals, of
course, but he has also become the patron of the environment because
of his Canticle of Brother Son and Sister Moon. In light of
this, we made an addition to our program this year, reciting the St.
Francis Climate Covenant Pledge to protect the environment.
An Economic Roundtable
Nearly 200 people joined us in the Cralle Theatre on
Oct. 7 for a thoughtful discussion about the economy.
At this roundtable event, titled “The Economic Storm:
Weather the future by understanding the past,” faculty from the
Department of Economics and Finance took questions from reporters and
audience members about what recession and recovery efforts really
mean, discussed proposals for a realistic fix and helped put the
current situation into historical context.
It was a great community outreach event that also
allowed us to showcase our talented faculty. Participating in the
roundtable were Dr. Frank Raymond, Dr. Dan Bauer, Dr. Myra
McCrickard, Dr. Bradley Stevenson, Mr. Robert Brown and Mr.
Carl Hafele.
International Concert planned
The Music Department will present an International
Concert at 7 p.m. Nov. 16 in the Cralle Theatre. The following faculty
members will perform: Ms. Christina Bouras Recktenwald,
voice; Ms. Karen Lord Powell, violin; Ms.
Kathy Karr, flute; Ms. Marilyn Nije,
clarinet; Ms. Meme Tunnell, piano; Mr. Ya Ya
Diallo, drums; and Mr. Todd Hildreth,
accordion. The concert will feature composers from the countries that
our international students come from, including Austria, Spain, China,
Finland, Canada, Germany, Thailand, Korea, and South Africa, just to
mention a few! Telemann, Schubert, Saint Saens and Berwald are among
the featured composers. A reception will follow the concert.
Hello and Goodbye
Ms. Stephanie Barclay has joined the
Division of Student Affairs as director of campus recreation, a
position that includes operation of the SuRF Center. Ms. Barclay comes
to us from Chicago, where she was the North Park University director
of wellness and intramural sports and a member of the exercise science
faculty. She has a master’s degree from Illinois State University in
exercise physiology and a bachelor’s from the University of Illinois
in kinesiology. Mrs. Alice Kimble, who formerly shared
the responsibility of campus recreation director in addition to her
role as the campus nurse, will now focus full-time on health services
as the director of health services. We extend our thanks to Mrs.
Kimble for so capably holding down both forts, as well as to Mr.
Chuck Vogt for his continued support of campus recreation and
intramurals.
Mr. Carl White
joined the men’s basketball coaching staff as a part-time assistant
coach. He had served as the assistant head and JV coach at Eastern High
School in Louisville since 2005. Prior to coaching at Eastern, Mr.
White was the head coach at Crosby Middle School, and he has worked at
Rick Pitino’s University of Louisville Basketball Camp.
Ms. Lia Ramirez has joined the library
staff as a new circulation assistant, covering the evening shift from
3 p.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday. Ms. Ramirez is a
graduate of Centre College, where she earned a BA in music.
Mrs. Shawna Ropp, director of special
events, resigned in October to spend more time with her infant
daughter, Naomi. Mrs. Ropp was a valued member of the special events
team for nine years, first as assistant director and for the past year
as director. We wish her, husband Scott and Naomi all the best.
Faculty and Staff News and Achievements
Congratulations to Dr. Robert Kingsolver,
dean and director of the Center for Regional Environmental Studies,
on his recent marriage to the former Paula Barth, now Mrs. Paula
Kingsolver.
Mrs. Leslie Maxie-Ashford,
associate dean of Residence Life, and Ms. Janelle Briscoe,
Graduate Hall director, were chosen recently to serve as
representatives to the Kentucky Association of Housing Officers’
governing board. KAHO is the housing and residence association for all
Kentucky post-secondary institutions.
School of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Anthony O’Keeffe,
professor of English, is contributing a chapter, “Mister Secrets:
Digital Multimodal Composing and the Complicated Invitation to Remake
Text, Author, and Audience,” to a digital book, The New Work of
Composing (Utah State Press).
The poem “Adagio” by Mr. Frederick Smock,
assistant professor of English, has been accepted for publication in The
Hudson Review.
The essay “Religion and Broadway: 1900-2005” by Dr.
John Gatton, professor of English, appears in the two-volume
Broadway: An Encyclopedia of Theatre and American Culture,
to be published this December by Greenwood Press. (The editor is Thomas
Greenfield, former dean of Arts and Sciences at Bellarmine.)
Mr. Carlos Chavarria, director of the
Theater Program, has an article published in a special edition of the
Latin American Theatre Journal, which focuses on U.S./Latino theater
artists and comes out this November. The article features an interview
with Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, a Latino immigrant theatre artist who has
been adapting the “Linklater” voice technique for bilingual actors. The
journal is distributed internationally.
Dr. Akhtar Mahmood, associate
professor of Physics, has received a research grant of $25,000 from
NASA to conduct a collaborative research project with CalTech’s Jet
Propulsion Lab to search for extrasolar, Earth-like planets with NASA’s
SIM-Lite project. Two BU students, Ben Draper and
Richard Jelsma, will also be working on this project.
SIM-Lite, currently under development, is one of NASA’s most ambitious
scientific projects. The primary mission goal is to search for
Earth-sized terrestrial planets in the habitable zone orbiting the
nearby stars and to measure the precise positions of these stars to
enable accurate mass determinations of the orbiting planets.
Ms. Christine Hutchins, adjunct
faculty in Global Languages and Cultures, completed a 16.5-hour
training session in October. The Street Law Institute for Court
Interpreters Workshop was sponsored by the state’s Administrative Office
of the Courts’ Division of Interpreting Services. In addition to
teaching Chinese at Bellarmine, Ms. Hutchins is studying to take the
state oral examination in Chinese, which would then make her the first
court-certified interpreter of Chinese in the Commonwealth of
Kentucky.
Dr. David L. Mosley, associate
professor of Philosophy, will present a paper in April 2010 at the
10th International Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology at the
University of Belgrade (Serbia). The conference is sponsored by the
Belgrade University Faculty of the Arts and its theme is “Between
Nostalgia, Utopia and Realities.” His paper is titled “The Sounds of
Saba: the Epiphany Gradual ‘Omnes de Saba’ as a Musical Memory Place.”
Ms. Caren Cunningham, professor of
Art, exhibited at three venues this past summer and fall:
At Yew Dell Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition 2009, she
exhibited three sculptures and sold them all opening night. Yew Dell
Gardens in Crestwood is a botanical garden dedicated to garden
education, exquisite display and research into new and superior plants
for the region.
She installed four sculptures at Hidden Hill Nursery
& Sculpture Garden, a unique mini-arboretum, sculpture gallery and
unusual plant nursery in Southern Indiana about eight miles from
Louisville.
A solo exhibition of 12 limestone sculptures is
currently on display at the Smith Berry Winery in Henry County. The
works are up to 7 feet tall and 1,000 pounds.
From Sept. 11 to Oct. 11, the McGrath Gallery hosted an
exhibit of photographs by Ms. Laura Hartford,
assistant professor of Art. Courier-Journal art critic Diane Heilenman
selected the reception as her “Where I’ll Be” recommendation on
opening night. This fall, Ms. Hartford’s work has also been included in
the exhibits “Contemporary Art at the Kinsey Institute” in
Bloomington, Ind., and “The World Is My Family” in Perm, Russia. On
June 19, the National Infantry Museum opened its doors in Columbus,
Ga. Included in the museum are more than 30 media programs Ms.
Hartford managed through development as an associate producer at Donna
Lawrence Productions between 2004 and 2007.
Mr. Richard Burchard, associate
professor of music, has been appointed composer-in-residence with
Voces Novae for the 2009-10 concert season. Burchard will compose
eight new works for the choir. The appointment will culminate in a CD
release and full performance of Burchard’s works in November 2010.
Mr. David Dominé was
featured as the guest chef on a new cooking show on KET called Southern
Style Gourmet. In Episode 104, "Cooking Adventures," he stops by
host Allison Sobiek’s kitchen at the Doolin House in Somerset to share
recipes from his cookbook Adventures in New Kentucky Cooking.
According to producer Victoria Burrows, “David's flavorful butter
bean hummus and freshly unique lemon lavender crème brulee are a hit
with the crew, but his chicken in red wine with homemade egg noodles
are unforgettable!” Set your DVR: The episode will air on KET1 on
Monday, Nov. 9, at 5 a.m. EST.
Mr. Paul Culligan and Mr. Todd
Hildreth, Bellarmine jazz instructors, will appear in the
upcoming Disney film “Secretariat,” starring John Malkovich, Diane
Lane and James Cromwell. Mr. Culligan and Mr. Hildreth play musicians in
the dance band in a scene depicting the Belmont Ball. The movie,
filmed at the Pendennis Club and Churchill Downs, among other
locations, will be released in 2010.
On Sept. 29, Ms. Meme Tunnell, assistant
professor of Music, participated in a Faculty Trio performance of
chamber music for piano, trumpet, and trombone at the University of
Louisville. The concert included a premiere of a work by Indiana
University composer John Gibson. On Oct. 16-17, Ms. Tunnell was invited
to perform in the Kentucky Music Teachers Association Annual Composers
Recital. The concert was presented as part of the KMTA 2009 State
Conference held at Northern Kentucky University.
Work that Dr. Mary Huff, associate
professor of Biology, did with collaborators at the University of
Louisville has been accepted for publication in the Journal of
Affective Disorders. The paper is entitled “Effect of ethacrynic acid
on the sodium- and potassium-activated adenosine triphosphatase
activity and expression in old order Amish bipolar individuals.” The
authors are Dr. Huff, Xiao-Ping Li, Edward Ginns and Rif S.
El-Mallakh.
Dr. Frank Hutchins, associate
professor of Anthropology, was awarded a grant by the Partners of the
Americas for a project titled “Native Threads: Embroidery and
Indigenous Identity in Northern Ecuador.” The project highlights ways
that indigenous identity in Ecuador is literally woven into the
clothing that women wear. The skills for creating and making
hand-embroidered items are disappearing as machine-made designs are
cheaper and quicker – but less culturally rooted. The grant allows for
a visit to Louisville in early December by an indigenous woman who
still does traditional embroidery. She will visit schools and help
organize an exhibit of hand-embroidered items at the National Embroidery
Museum in Louisville. The grant source is the Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State.
Dr. David Robinson, associate
professor of biology, and Dr. Joann Lau, instructor
of biology, announced the following accomplishments:
Peer-reviewed publication
Lau, JM, NG Cooper, DL Robinson, SS Korban. 2009.
Sequence and in silico characterization of the polygalacturonase
promoter and termination regions. Plant Molecular Biology Reporter
27:250-256.
Robinson, DL, JM Lau, S Porter, BS Wiseman, M Woodrow.
2009. Modular cloning and sequencing: A six-week project in molecular
biology and bioinformatics. In: Tested Studies for Laboratory
Teaching, Proceedings of the 30th Workshop/Conference of the
Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE), University of
Toronto-Mississauga, June 2-7, 2008, edited by Kari L. Clase, Vol. 30,
ISBN: 1-890444-12-X, pp. 111-183.
Grant funded
Lau, JM (Principal Investigator), Robinson DL
(Co-Investigator). 2009. The effect of microgravity on nodule
development in alfalfa. Kentucky Space Grant Consortium. NASA Space
Grant Program, Oct. 2009-April 2010.
NCBI GenBank accessions
Lau, JM, DL Robinson. 2009. cDNA library of ragweed
male flower and pollen; Ambrosia trifida. 303 accessions published
in NCBI dbEST database, so far.
Miles TT, WS Theis, DR Robinson, JM Lau. 2009.
Jasminum multiflorum chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate
dehydrogenase, exons 11-13 (partial cds). Accession GQ372998.
Neumann CA, JA Broaddus, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009.
Jasminum multiflorum chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate
dehydrogenase, exons 9-10 (partial cds). Accession GQ372997.
Keaveny KM, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Jasminum
multiflorum chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase,
exons 7-8 (partial cds). Accession GQ372996.
Shepherd CW, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Coffea
arabica chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, exons
8-11 (partial cds). Accession GQ372995.
Dierfeldt DM, CN Benson, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009.
Coffea arabica chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase,
exons 7-8 (partial cds). Accession GQ372994.
Wallace AN, DL Robinson, JL Lau. 2009. Oxalis
regnellii chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, exons
11-13 (partial cds). Accession GQ372993.
Irwin BM, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Oxalis regnellii
chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, exons 8-11
(partial cds). Accession GQ372992
Metzler MA, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Oxalis
regnellii chloroplast glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, exons
7-8 (partial cds). Accession GQ372991.
Mitchell SN, EB Whitledge, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009.
Acipenser transmontanus spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (ataxin) gene
(partial cds). Accession GQ337865.
Mitchell SN, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Begonia
bowerae glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene (partial cds).
Accession GQ332383.
Brumm CM, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Codiaeum
variegatum glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene (partial
cds). Accession GQ332382.
Zolj S, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Pilea cadierei
glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene (partial cds).
Accession GQ332381.
Pawley, MD, DL Robinson, JM Lau. 2009. Schefflera
arboricola glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene, partial cds.
1365 bp. Accession Number FJ648426.
School of Education
Dr. Anne Bucalos and
Dr. Amy Lingo’s article, “Filling the Potholes in the Road
to Inclusion,” Teaching Exceptional Children Plus, March
2005, was included in the 2008-2009 Annual Editions—Educating Children
with Exceptionalities.
Dr. Anne Bucalos has also been named
as a member of the Education Professional Standards Board’s Reading
Committee for Accreditation Program Review.
Drs. Kathleen and Robert
Cooter delivered a keynote address, “A Messy, Marvelous
Literacy Mission: One Life at a Time in School Reform,” on Oct. 2 for
the Reading Leadership Institute sponsored by National-Louis University
in Chicago.
Dr. Corrie Orthober and Ms.
Sonya Burton made a conference presentation titled:
“Participating in a Civil Rights Workshop” at the Kentucky Council for
the Social Studies on Sept. 24. Also on Sept. 24, Dr. Orthober,
Tara Wasson (MAT teacher candidate and Bullitt
Central High School teacher) and Marcia Clark (Bullitt
Central High School teacher) made a conference presentation titled
“Kids Creating Historical Meaning.”
Dr. Corrie Orthober and Seth
Pollitt, Iroquois High School Social Studies Department
chair and student in Bellarmine’s principal prep program, facilitated
the professional development for Iroquois High School Social Studies
Department to implement JCPS' “Assessment For Learning” initiative on
Sept. 29.
Dr. David Paige presented a session on
“Using Whole-Class Choral Reading in the Middle School Classroom” at
the Kentucky Reading Association’s annual meeting in Louisville on
Sept. 18.
Dr. Dottie Willis also made a
presentation at the KRA, on Sept. 19. Her session was entitled “Divide
and Conquer: Collaborative Literacy Strategies for Mastery of
Challenging Texts.”
On Sept. 14, the Education Professional Standards Board
approved the Master of Arts in Teacher Leadership (P-12) and
Endorsement Program. In addition to recommending program
approval, the committee commended Bellarmine University for presenting
an excellent proposal that can also serve as a model program.