In the Spotlight: April 20, 2017
Kudos to these faculty and staff
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- Northern Arizona University is ranked No. 3 on Affordable Colleges Online’s Best Online Colleges 2016-2017 list. NAU was recognized for providing a top-tier education in an online format, supported by outstanding faculty and administrative support. Highlighted was Cline Library’s online database and library staff accessible via online chat and one-on-one phone appointments.
- Michael Amundson, professor of history, recently published a book on the southwest titled “Talking Machine West: A History and Catalogue of Tin Pan Alley’s Western Recordings, 1902-1918.” The book, pictured right, brings together for the first time the variety of cowboy, cowgirl and Indian music recorded and sold for mass consumption between 1902 and 1918. In the book’s introductory chapters, Amundson explains how this music reflected the nostalgic passing of the Indian and the frontier while incorporating modern ragtime music and the racial attitudes of Jim Crow America.
- Venkata Yaramasu, assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems (SICCS), published a book “Model Predictive Control of Wind Energy Conversion Systems” with Bin Wu of Ryerson University. The book, pictured right, provides a comprehensive analysis of model predictive control, a technology that has emerged as a leading approach in the fields of power electronics and energy conversion systems.
- T. Mark Montoya, assistant professor of ethnic studies, recently published a chapter entitled “But It’s a Dry Hate: Illegal-Americans, Other-Americans, and the Citizenship Regime” in White Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies, Volume 2: Higher. Montoya also recently published a journal article entitled “Bad Fences Make Bad Neighbors: Challenging the Citizenship Regime in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands,” in Eurasia Border Review, 7(1): 71-85. Finally, Montoya presented his paper, “The Politics of Taco Trucks, Bad Hombres, and Great Walls: When the United States became Arizona,” at the Association for Borderlands Studies Annual Meetings in San Francisco on April 14.
- Laura R. Umphrey, professor of communication in the School of Communication, published one journal article and two book/encyclopedia chapters this week related to communication studies and research. The first publication describes the constitutive relationship to hope, emotional intelligence, stress, and life satisfaction. The second describes evidence-based policy making in relation to the evolving communications realm. The last describes the relationships between variables within communication research methods.
- Several NAU faculty recently participated in the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies conference in Salt Lake City. Susan M. Deeds, emeritus professor of history, spoke on “Judging Sexual Behavior on New Spain’s Northern Frontier.” Jack R. Ferrell, associate professor of sociology at NAU-Yuma, presented his paper, “Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers’ Movement in Arizona: Nonviolence in the Phoenix Fast of 1972.” R. A. Kashanipour, assistant professor of history, presented “Mayas of the Montana and the Geography of Magic in Colonial Yucatan” and served as a panelist for two roundtable sessions.
