Faculty-Staff Achievements, March 4, 2014

Activities

Tim Harper, associate professor and chair, Department of Management and Business, has been elected vice president of the Community Loan Fund Board of Directors. He first joined the board in 2011.

Incorporated in 1985, the Community Loan Fund of the Capital Region is a nonprofit financial institution with a community development mission that provides loans and technical assistance to local nonprofit organizations for housing and community development, to micro enterprises for business and economic development and to individuals for home purchase/repair. The fund has loaned close to $37 million— leveraging just under $166 million—to more than 715 community and economic development projects, creating or retaining more than 1,500 jobs. Additionally, CLFCR has financed 1,099 units of affordable housing and 259 micro-enterprises/small businesses.

“Tim brings more than 20 years of experience in business management, as well as a deep commitment to community development,” said Linda MacFarlane, executive director.  “We appreciate his assistance as we work to create sustainable and vibrant neighborhoods within underserved communities.”

Gordon Thompson, professor and chair, Department of Music, lectured Feb. 24 on “Beatlemania! The Rise of the Beatles, 1963” at Union College in Schenectady as part of its Taylor Time series. This lecture focused on the cultural contexts of the band’s unprecedented emergence from a regional act to national celebrities. He was also a guest speaker for the March 1 symposium, “Tomorrow Never Knows: The Beatles in Text and Image” at the Kislak Center, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. His paper “Reconstructing Abbey Road: History, Mnemohistory and Memories of Working with the Beatles” delved into the nature of collective memory and the recording of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

Publications

Robert Hallock, visiting assistant professor of neuroscience, is the author of a paper titled “Classroom demonstration of the visual effects of eye diseases” accepted for publication by The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2014.  Coauthors include Skidmore students Ann-Marie Raphail and Emily Bach, both Class of 2014.

Jay Rogoff, visiting assistant professor of English, is the author of the poem "Leonine," published in the anthology Obsession: Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Carolyn Beard Whitlow and Marilyn Krysl (Dartmouth University Press). “Balanchine’s Revolution,” his review of Elizabeth Kendall’s Balanchine and the Lost Muse: Revolution and the Making of a Choreographer, appears in the current Ballet Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Winter 2013-14), as does his review of Jessica Lang’s choreographic staging of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at the summer 2013 Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, New York.

Denise L. Smith, professor of health and exercise sciences, coauthored the manuscript “Clotting and fibrinolytic changes after firefighting activities,” which was published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Vol. 46, Issue 3, March 2014. The study was conducted with collaborators at the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute and was funded by a research grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. In addition, Smith and Pat Fehling, professor and chair of health and exercise sciences, recently published a paper titled “The effect of precooling on cardiovascular and metabolic strain during incremental exercise” in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. Skidmore students Logan Arena ’11, Eric Hultquist ’11, and Wes Lefferts ’11, participated in this collaborative research project and are coauthors on the paper. The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate funded the study.

In the News

Rachel Seligman, assistant director for curatorial affairs and associate curator, Tang Museum, was interviewed March 3, after the film 12 Years a Slave won the Oscar for best movie of 2013. She was a source for "Book written by local residents key to making 'Slave', March 3 in the Saratogian.com, and for a March 2 story on WNYT-TV on how the award might foster interest in the story of Solomon Northup.

Ron Seyb, Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Professor in Government, was a source for a March 2 story titled "Skidmore professor weighs in on Ukraine crisis" that aired on WNYT-TV.