Committees >

Abstract: Traditional two-dimensional Islamic patterns along with their underlying Euclidean geometry have existed for 800 years. This project will add another dimension to some of these designs by creating a geometry of three-dimensional Islamic designs using a recently developed three-dimensional geometry microworld, Cabri 3D.

Wendy Allen, Department of Romance Languages, French –
Academic Year

Project title: "Reflections on the theory and practice of content-based foreign language instruction: the story of Romance Languages at St. Olaf College" Abstract: A project of consolidation, research, reflection, and writing in which I will produce two or three publishable articles on the theory and practice of content-based language instruction as carried out in the Department of Romance Languages. This project draws upon previous presentations made with departmental colleagues and extends our ongoing collaboration.

Wendell Arneson, Department of Art and Art History –
Interim and Semester II

I plan to use the 2007 Interim and Spring Semester to continue my ongoing artistic study and studio work in the area of painting and drawing. The primary focus of this study will be oil painting, with the supporting area of mixed media drawing. While working extensively on this body of paintings and drawings I plan to study in a variety of locations (New York City, Chicago, and Asia). I expect the opportunities to travel and construct an intensive body of work will continue to push my previous conceptions of imagery and content.

Cynthia Book, Department of Recreation, Physical Education and Athletics –
Interim and Semester II

Please accept my request for a sabbatical leave for interim and spring semester of 2007. There are three areas in which I will work: research and publishing, auditing a few classes, and completing our department’s accreditation and internal review.

Research: One project will assess the validity of several ball-handling drills in volleyball. The other will involve collecting data on the number of vertical jump trials necessary to achieve a valid measurement (a test for trend). I will apply for presentations of this work at the American Volleyball Coaches Association and the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance conferences. I will also submit my research for publication within those two organizations.

Auditing classes: I will work on improving the senior seminar course by auditing a few classes at St. Olaf (statistics and research methods, in particular).

Accreditation: It is time for our department to go through a self-study /program review. We will enlist the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) to guide us through this process. A sabbatical leave will allow me the necessary time to complete this review.

Christopher L. Chiappari, Department of Sociology/Anthropology –
Academic Year

During my full-year sabbatical leave I will concentrate on finishing my book manuscript, which is tentatively titled Culture, Identity, and Power: Understanding Maya Religious Experience in Highland Guatemala. Based on my research in highland Guatemala over the past twelve years, the book will consist of an exploration of the varieties of Maya religious experience, focusing on Maya spirituality, Protestantism, Catholicism, and various esoteric supernatural practices such as magic, sorcery and witchcraft. Expanding upon my dissertation, the ethnographic portrayal of the practices, beliefs, and discourses of these traditions will be framed in the context of several theoretical and conceptual issues, including hybridity and syncretism, ethnic and cultural identity, and the ways in which power runs throughout these categories. Of particular interest to me is how individuals and groups construct meaning and culture in daily life in relation to their multiple aspects of identity, especially religion, ethnicity, social class and gender.

Beth Christensen, Music Librarian –
Academic Year

I look forward to a sabbatical leave that includes work in both disciplines of my profession – music, and library and information science. I intend return to some long-standing musical research on American composer Carl Ruggles and the societies of ultra-modern composers active 1920-1935. This research would include visits to music archives at Yale University and the newspaper collection at the New York Public Library. Although Ruggles would be a focal point of this research, I hope to expand my work to include reception history of the music societies that fostered ultra-modern music during the first half of the twentieth century. In addition, I plan to spend concentrated time reading library literature with a focus on information literacy in music. If funding allows, I also hope to visit several music libraries to investigate their use of digital sound in library settings.

Steve Hahn, Department of History –
Academic Year

Title: “To Promote the Best Interests of the British Colonies”: Indians, Enlightenment, and the Literature of Empire on the Southern Frontier

Abstract: My proposed monograph-length study will be the first comprehensive examination of early ethnographic writing in the American south, focusing primarily on several well-known eighteenth-century authors such as James Adair, Bernard Romans, and William Bartram. It aspires to transcend the mere ethnographic content of their writings and will instead consider them as works of literature. I will therefore devote much of my attention to the contexts – intertextual, political, intellectual, financial – in which they were written, published, and read. Most importantly, I seek to explain the timing of the emergence of this genre of literature. Is it simply an accident that the publication of these works coincides with the penetration of the British, and later, American empires in the American south? My preliminary answer to this question is that this body of writing provided the intellectual justification for Indian policies developed in the late British Empire and the early American republic.

Robert Hanson, Department of Chemistry –
Academic Year

I propose to use the 2006-2007 academic year to work on a set of five professional development projects including (1) publication of a book, Introduction to Molecular Thermodynamics, (2) general development in the area of green chemistry, (3) completion of development of a website, the Green Chemistry Assistant, in collaboration with the U.S. EPA and the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute, (4) continued development of Jmol molecular visualization applet, and (5) a number of shorter journal publication projects.

Joan Hepburn, Department of English –
Calendar Year 2007

Title: Let the Restless Dead Speak!

Abstract: Provided that I obtain funding to afford two semesters for my project, and at the
request of the English Department, I am applying for a sabbatical leave from the spring 2007 to the fall 2007 to imaginatively reconstruct the stories of largely enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam/New York whose remains on Wall Street, uncovered by the U. S. General Services Administration (GSA) in 1991, have become a source of critical controversy and much inter-disciplinary research since then. Much of my initial work begins at the site and research library of the African Burial Ground, but includes research at the Schomburg Library in New York and at Howard University in Washington D. C. I plan to publish stories about the lives of the Africans in the Burial Ground, to give talks based on my research, and to design a course at level two or three for credit in our ARMS and AFA programs.

Martin Hodel, Department of Music –
Interim and Semester II

Through virtually my entire career as a trumpet player and teacher, I have performed 17 th and 18 th-century music on modern instruments that are radically different from the valveless—natural, or Baroque—trumpets for which this music was composed. Informed contemporary performance practice and pedagogy demands that a player who performs this vast body of music have a working knowledge of the historical early instruments, the literature itself and period style. I propose to use my sabbatical during Interim and spring semester 2007 to do an intensive study of Baroque trumpet and trumpet literature in Europe with Edward Tarr, the leading expert in Baroque trumpet pedagogy and literature. I will take a hands-on approach, becoming proficient on a historical instrument, and will focus my attention on creating performance editions of 18 th-century music for solo trumpet and choir in Kremsier, Czech Republic. In addition I will seek ways to make my study relevant and practical for teaching Baroque trumpet to my St. Olaf students upon my return.

Gerald Hoekstra, Department of Music –
Interim and Semester II

My principal project will be the preparation of a critical edition of the sacred motets of the Andreas Pevernage (1542/43-1591), one of the leading composers in the southern Low Countries during the latter half of the sixteenth century. The bulk of Pervernage’s motets appeared in a large volume published in Douai, Belgium, in 1578, the Cantiones aliquot sacrae, sex, septem, et octo vocum. Published in six part-books, the volume contains 35 sacred motets, mostly in two partes, and 16 elogia, all, undoubtedly, the fruit of the composer’s years as chapel master at Notre Dame church in Courtai. That such a substantial volume is devoted solely to one composer suggests the recognition Pevernage had achieved by the age of 35. Four additional motets had appeared in an anthology of sacred music published in Venice in the 1560s, and those will be included as well.

Ted Johnson, Department of Biology –
Semester II

The proposed sabbatical project involves three areas if interest. The main project would be to develop advising materials for students interested in careers in the medical area other than being a physician. Secondly a website or manual would be developed with David McKean, Ph.D. of the Mayo Clinic, for use in advising students interested in obtaining a Masters or a Ph.D. in Biology. Finally, case studies will be developed for use in microbiology and immunology classes.

A majority of the sabbatical will be spent in Northfield with short trips to regional medical centers. Potentially three separate publications would result from the sabbatical project.

Kim Kandl, Department of Biology –
Academic Year

I am applying for sabbatical leave for the 2006-2007 academic year. During my sabbatical leave, I will work on four major projects that are varied in their nature and are in different phases of completion. All of these projects are in support of my professional goals that include my work on the elucidation of the role of actin in translation, providing students with rewarding and challenging research opportunities, and continuing to improve my teaching and the experiences I offer students in the classroom and teaching laboratory. The majority of the work will be performed at St. Olaf, but I will travel to visit a collaborator’s lab for approximately six weeks during this time. In addition to working with an established collaborator, the proposed work will have me develop new collaborations and establish local contacts at the University of Minnesota.

Ed Langerak, Department of Philosophy –
Semester I

Title: A Guide to Teaching Ethics Across the Curriculum

Abstract: I propose to develop a six-chapter (and appendix) Guide to Teaching Ethics Across the Curriculum that will bring together ideas raised during my past decade of teaching Ethical Issues and Normative Perspectives (EIN) courses and leading (or co-leading) EIN faculty development workshops. I propose to work in Northfield during Fall, 2006 and Interim, 2007. I project the Guide as a website resource that will also result in several articles and, perhaps, a book.

Gordon Marino, Department of Philosophy –
Semester I and Interim

Abstract: I propose to write a book on the distinction that Kierkegaard draws between despair and depression or melancholy. In this work, I will also explore the dividing line between psychological and spiritual disorders. I will examine theories of melancholy current in Kierkegaard’s times and I also hope to apply some of Kierkegaard’s views on this subject to the debates raging today as to whether or not psychological forms of suffering are best understood according to the disease model.

Nancy Paddleford, Department of Music –
Interim and Semester II

At Indiana University I plan to work with the distinguished pianist Evelyne Brancart on methods of teaching touch and tone production. I would like to study for performance purposes a Bach Prelude and Fugue in addition to studying the interpretation of various other works by Bach.

Moreover, I will practice repertoire by Russian composers with plans to perform in various venues beginning in the spring of 2007. This recital program is in response to my Global Partners seminar to Russia, but also to expand my range of Russian piano repertoire and share that knowledge with my students.

One part of the program will be "24 Preludes, Op. 11" by Alexander Scriabin. I intend to record a compact disc of these preludes in the summer of 2007. The preparation for recording and the actual recording are very time-consuming making a sabbatical leave an ideal time for such an endeavor.

Bill Poehlman, Department of Religion –
Semester I and Interim

Title: Asleep in the Lord or Being with Christ? Images and Implications for Paul’s discussion of life after death in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians and Philippians.

Paul's imagery about life after death in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians and Philippians raises the question of why Paul uses some images for the deaths of others and different imagery for his own death. It is likely that this has something to do with the status of a martyr in Judaism and Early Christianity, and the connections are what I hope to pursue. This involves looking at writings associated with Paul, Revelation, Ignatius and others; it also examining the meaning of gravesites and monuments for the dead of the time and later.

Bill Sonnega, Department of Theatre –
Interim and Semester II

This study analyzes and evaluates discourse about wilderness in contemporary media. By focusing on current film, television, internet and print texts, it considers theoretically how we perceive the intrinsic value of wilderness relative to its representation in multiple and often competing forms of media. The basic theoretical construct for this study is Jean Baudrillard’s notion of simulation; namely, that we have entered an era in which the virtual likeness of an entity has the same reality as the actual entity on which it is based. The most compelling implication of this shift is observed in what Baudrillard terms the hyper-real, which occurs whenever a simulation is perceived to be authentic rather than simply a copy of an original. This study engages Baudrillard’s thesis in reflecting on the hyper-real aspects of media representations of wilderness in contemporary culture.

Nancy Thompson, Department of Art and Art History –
Academic Year

During my proposed sabbatical, I will complete a book manuscript on the Florentine stained glass workshop of Ulisse De Matteis (1827-1910). De Matteis founded his workshop in 1859, just before Italy became a politically unified nation and Florence began its brief tenure as Italy’s capital. The atelier De Matteis participated in the restoration and recreation of Florence’s most important civic and religious monuments, including the Bargello, the Cathedral, Santa Croce and Santa Trinita. My book, which will be the first comprehensive study of De Matteis in any language, explores the relationship between De Matteis’ work and theories of restoration and revivalism in northern Europe and the importance of De Matteis’ work to our understanding of the relationship between art and nationalism in nineteenth-century Italy.

Martha Wallace, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science –
Academic Year

During my sabbatical (Fall 2006/Interim 2007) I plan activities in two arenas. First, I will investigate the adverse effects and possible pedagogical solutions to increased emphasis of federal and state secondary school mathematics skills testing. My focus will be on identifying ways to help teachers teach higher level mathematical thinking, perhaps in the context of skills-based texts, while preparing students to do well in standardized tests. My work will include establishing leadership resources and structures. Second, I will begin the work of the next few years, working with colleagues to formulate plans and identify resources for the St. Olaf mathematics education program as I look toward retirement.