At the foundation of Centre College’s transforming educational experience are nationally ranked professors who are passionate about the subjects they teach, both in the classroom and beyond.
Efforts to remain engaged in their academic interests are supported by the College through periodic sabbaticals, designed to provide faculty the opportunity to focus intensely on research, writing or other academic endeavors. After every six years of full-time teaching, tenured faculty are eligible for sabbatical leaves, which typically allow for a half-year release of three courses, though some elect to take a full-year release.
According to Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Stephanie Fabritius, sabbaticals work to strengthen the teacher-scholar model Centre prizes.
“It’s important for faculty to have the time to engage in the scholarly work of their discipline,” Fabritius explains. “Sabbaticals afford the opportunity to accomplish bigger projects, tie up loose ends and finish ongoing projects as well as set the course for the next six years of professional activity.
“Foremost, a sabbatical is an amazing opportunity to refresh, renew and reflect about future scholarly directions,” she concludes. “The experience frequently leaves one recharged, re-energized and ready to return to the classroom and enables one to think about scholarship and teaching in a fresh light.”
Centre’s board of trustees voted at its fall meeting to approve sabbatical leaves for the following 12 faculty members.
FALL TERM 2016
Phyllis Passariello, W. George Matton Professor of Anthropology
During her sabbatical, Passariello will work to compile an updated and annotated bibliography about alternative ethnographic writing and other qualitative research techniques. She also will continue writing anthropological memoirs to be compiled in a book about her life’s work, particularly regarding her extensive fieldwork in the cross-cultural study of the anthropology of tourism and pilgrimage.
FALL TERM 2016 & CENTRETERM 2017
Mykol Hamilton, H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Psychology
Hamilton will design, run and analyze legal psychology experiments, ultimately compiling these studies for publication and presentation at the American Society of Trial Consultants conference in early summer of 2017. Hamilton also plans to finalize work on her novel.
Jim Kelly, Associate Professor of Physics
In the past two years, Kelly has become interested in improved techniques for computing electric fields from continuously distributed electric charges. In spring 2014, he discovered an innovative way to re-express the calculation in terms of a convolution integral, which makes formerly intractable field computation problems now feasible. He plans to expand on this line of research, writing a follow-up manuscript to one that is currently underway, in addition to developing several computer simulations which are enabled by this technique.
CENTRETERM 2017 & SPRING TERM 2017
January Haile, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Haile will be working on a project at Ferm Solutions, a research and development company in Danville. The experiments, which will be used to enhance either biofuel or beverage production, will involve molecular genetics and biochemistry in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems. Ultimately, the research will be submitted for publication in a suitable peer-reviewed journal.
Andrew Roche, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Roche plans to continue work that will ultimately result in a book on Kant’s metaphysics. He will write two papers, each of which he intends to publish first as peer-reviewed journal articles and later present at conferences or other professional meetings during the period of the sabbatical.
KatieAnn Skogsberg, Associate Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience
Skogsberg intends to use her sabbatical time to write and submit two studies for publication in peer-reviewed journals as well as to begin development of a new collaborative project. The existing studies consist of a survey on concussion knowledge and attitudes among equestrians, which is a continuation of work she is doing during her Stodghill Research Professorship. The second study is an investigation of the efficacy of a new attention-training tool developed by her colleagues at “Sense-Labs.” Skogsberg is also planning a third project that will be the beginning of an ongoing collaboration with the University of Kentucky studying mild traumatic brain injuries.
SPRING TERM 2017
Robyn Cutright, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Cutright will be working on a book titled We Are What We Ate: The Story of Food in the Human Past. The book will provide a case study-based approach to the role of food in shaping human biology and culture over the past 3,000,000 years. The book will draw on her own research as well as her experience teaching ANT 384 Paleo-Kitchen: The Archaeology of Food; it is aimed at an upper-level undergraduate and general interest audience.
Chris Paskewich, Associate Professor of Politics
Paskewich will continue work on a book manuscript in development with Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy David Hall that concerns global citizenship and the state. Two chapters have been completed and published as journal articles.
FULL YEAR 2016-17
Beth Glazier-McDonald, H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Religion and Associate Dean
Glazier-McDonald will be working on three amulets, one from Cana of Galilee, Lenny’s Amulet and the Spider Amulet. She also intends to begin research on at least one of the three Mandaean Lead Rolls purchased for the College, which will involve collaboration with Professor of Religion Tom McCollough and Associate Professor of Chemistry Jeff Fieberg.
David Hall, Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy
During his sabbatical, Hall will continue efforts on two projects currently underway, including a book-length project on political philosophy in collaboration with Associate Professor of Politics Chris Paskewich. The second study, in collaboration with Associate Professor of Philosophy Eva Cadavid, addresses the perennial problem of underrepresentation of women in the field of professional philosophy. This project will result in at least one journal article and will likely be presented at further academic conferences.
Bruce K. Johnson, James Graham Brown Professor of Economics
Johnson will be working on the eighth edition of Using Econometrics: A Practical Guide, a leading undergraduate econometrics textbook. He will be co-author, at the invitation of A.H. Studenmund, the author of the first seven editions. Johnson will also focus efforts on a variety of potential journal articles with three different sets of co-authors with whom he has been publishing works over the past decade as well as a project with a new collaborator.
Nuria Sabate-Llobera, Associate Professor of Spanish
Sabate intends to produce a book-length manuscript describing the ongoing recrafting of Latin American national identities, primarily through analysis of fiction writing. This research will feed into a redesign and update of the junior and senior seminars of the Spanish program. Sabate-Llobera also plans to attend professional conferences and workshops related to her studies.
by Centre College News
December 3, 2015
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