Faculty-Staff Achievements

Giuseppe Faustini, professor of Italian, published a scholarly article, “Niccolò Machiavelli: Belfagor” in Machiavelliana, An International Journal of Machiavelli Studies (Vol. II, 2023, Pisa-Roma, pp.17). This study on Machiavelli’s “Belfagor” traces the history and development of the Belfagorian theme from its earliest Eastern oral legends and fables to Western written folktales, to Medieval exempla, as well as the Sicilian novella “Lu diavulu zuppiddu,” the Latin “De daemone uxorem recusante,” “Dante’s Inferno XVI,” Jehan Le Fèvre’s mid-15th century old French “Les Lamentations de Matheolus,” and the four major Italian versions published in mid-16th-century Italy.

Tammy C. Owens, professor of American studies, was invited to be the Women's History Month guest speaker for Texas State University's Department of History and Women’s and Gender Studies on March 23. Owens’ talk was titled "Telling Her-Stories in the Dark: Transgressing Fear, Race, and Place to Be Women in the American South." Drawing on her current book research, Owens told the stories of three haunting geographies that black girls and women have navigated to save their own lives and those in their southern communities.

Dennis Schebetta, assistant professor of theater, gave a presentation at the Mid-America Theater Conference in Minneapolis titled “Do Robots Dream of Electric Audiences? The insurmountable task of staging Heddatron.”

Rodrigo Schneider, assistant professor of economics, co-authored a paper published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The paper — “Does Legal Change Induce Behavioral Change in Domestic Violence Against Women?” — evaluates the impact of a policy in Brazil that imposed criminal sanctions on and promoted rehabilitation programs for known perpetrators of acts of domestic violence exclusively against women and we found that the law contributed to a 22% reduction in assault-related hospitalizations among women as compared with men.  

Sylvia Stoner-Hawkins, senior artist-in-residence in voice in the Music Department, hosted the Eastern Regional Conference and Student Auditions of the National Association of Teachers of Singing from March 17-19. The conference welcomed over 200 voice faculty and students from colleges in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia. Organized by Stoner-Hawkins with the assistance of voice instructors Casey Gray and Irina Petrik, the conference included presentations by Petrik and Floydd Ricketts, visiting associate professor and choral conductor, and collaborative piano by Richard Cherry. Music Department Chair Jeremy Day O’Connell, Director of Conferences and Events Wendy LeBlanc, Zankel Managing Director Zhenelle LeBel, and Academic Administrative Assistant Vicki Tremper also contributed. Fifteen Skidmore students participated, and eight qualified to compete in the national round. 

Jess Sullivan, associate professor of psychology, published a paper, "Stay away, Santa: Children's beliefs about the impact of COVID-19 on real and fictional beings," in the journal Developmental Psychology.

Marketa Halova Wolfe, associate professor of economics, and Joerg Bibow, professor and chair of economics, contributed to an article in The Conversation, “Federal Reserve bows to bank-crisis fears with quarter-point rate hike, letting up a little in its fight against inflation.”