DEAN’S NOTE

Greetings, COLS colleagues! We’re into the busy run-up to the end of the semester, with lots and lots of special events. This week I enjoyed serving as a judge for the WiSys Quick Pitch Competition as part of Celebration of Scholarship and Creative Activity, listened to Provost Martini outline the vision for UWO 2.0 at the Chancellor’s Executive Breakfast, and, later today, will have lunch at a welcome event for our Fox Cities faculty and a cocktail at Sturgeon Spirits with University Club.

In the spirit of coming together, please let me put two events on your radar for next Wednesday, April 30. Susan Maxwell (Art) will be our final Faculty Showcase presenter of the year. Her talk will be 11:30am-12:30pm in Swart 113 and online. And later that afternoon the Faculty Committee will be hosting the “farewell to COLS” social at Fox River Brewing Company 4:00-6:00pm, with a toast at 4:30. I hope to see as many of you as possible at both events!

IN THE NEWS

The Whitburn Center is offering a 2025-2026 Graduate Assistantship (pdf) with a $3,000 tuition remission for UWO grads accepted into the MPA program. Preference goes to those with undergraduate degrees from the future School of Public Affairs and Global Engagement. Please share with interested PAGE grads. Due date: June 30, 2025.

PROGRAM UPDATES

• Michael Rogers (Computer Science) presented a paper at the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges: South Central conference in Lake Charles, LA, “A Concurrent Multi-Project Strategy to Engineer a Better Software Engineering Course.”
• Ziyuan Wang (Mathematics) was invited to give a colloquium talk at New Mexico State University titled “Unlocking Uncertainty: How Gain-Probability Analysis Empowers Decision-Making with Gamma Distributions.” He also gave a talk at the 33rd Joint NMSU/UTEP Workshop on Mathematics, Computer Science, and Computational Sciences titled “Bridging Theory and Practice: Gain-Probability Analysis for Gamma Distributions.”
• Amber Lusvardi (Political Science) presented a paper at the Midwest Political Science Association Conference in Chicago, titled “The Modern U.S. Feminist Movement: A Measure of Mobilization across the 50 States.” Her student Amanda Pierron (Political Science, Broadfield Social Science Education) presented a related poster on data she collected as a McNair Scholar during the MPSA undergraduate poster symposium.
• Kinesiology faculty and students attended their state (WATA) and regional (GLATA) association annual meetings over the past month. Kim Calvert and Kevin Biese both presented at the GLATA meeting in Wheeling, IL in early March. All nine first year MSAT students presented their case study research project posters at the state WATA meeting in Oshkosh. Kyle Petit and Kim Calvert also coordinated the state quiz bowl for all athletic training programs in the state to compete. Students Drue Polka and Olivia Davel presented at GLATA on ” What Differences in Cognition Can Be Found Between Those With and Without Anxiety/Depression” and “Preliminary Findings from a 5-year study on the Correlation of Growth Timing and Athlete Strength with Sport Specialization in High School Athletes” respectively.
• Mike Van Esler (Radio TV Film) presented a paper entitled “Syndication In A FAST World: Lineages and Ruptures” at the 2025 Society of Cinema and Media Studies conference in Chicago.

FACULTY AND STAFF RESEARCH

• Linfeng Xie (Chemistry) and James Paulson (emeritus Chemistry) are coauthors of “Rules of engagement for condensins and cohesins guide mitotic chromosome formation” in Science.

STUDENT NEWS

• McNair Scholar Jazmine Peterson and her mentor Alper Camlibel (Criminal Justice) presented their poster “College Students’ Perceptions of Procedural Justice and Satisfaction with Service Delivery” at the 2025 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences annual meeting in Denver.
  
  
• Abby Laundrie (Women’s and Gender Studies major, Political Science minor, and LGBTQ Studies certificate) and Anya Kelley (Journalism major and Women’s and Gender Studies minor) presented original research at the 2025 Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium Spring Conference in Madison. Anya presented the poster “Pregnancy and Prosecution: Life in a Post-Roe World,” and Abby presented the poster “Menstrual Products: Effects on Bodies and the Earth.” Abby was also honored at the conference as a WGSC Student Award Winner.