For the Record
December 06, 2019
University community reports recent presentations, publications, honors
For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and achievements of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.
Recent presentations, publications and honors include the following:
Presentations
Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, gave two invited lectures at Peking University in Beijing, China. The first, on Nov. 22, titled "Oscar Wilde: Why His Works and Life Have Achieved Cult Status," surveyed a wide range of recent creative and scholarly productions that make use of Wilde and offered some reasons for his increasing popularity in multiple spheres, including new attention to the politics of sexuality, national identity, celebrity and fashion. The second, on Nov. 25, titled "George Eliot and Two Other Female 'Georges' in the Late-19th Century," used the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Eliot's birth to consider how her reputation has changed across the decades, while focusing specifically on the importance of The Mill on the Floss to two rebellious "New Women" writers of the 1890s. Both talks were sponsored by Peking University's Department of English in the School of Foreign Languages.
John McNutt, professor in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration, and Janice Barlow, policy scientist in the Center for Community Research and Service, presented on data science use by state level child advocacy organizations as part of a program on at the 48th annual Arnova Conference on “Nonprofits and Philanthropy in a Polarized World: Speaking Truth to Power and Using Power to Speak Truth,” held Nov. 21-23, 2019, in San Diego, California. McNutt also discussed data science curriculum in nonprofit and public affairs programs with UD doctoral students Eli Turkel, Mesut Karakoc snd Saloni Sharma, and Heather Carpenter of Notre Dame of Maryland University. In addition, McNutt chaired a session on “Nonprofit Advocacy and Activism in the Data Science World: New Methods and Applications” at the conference.
Honors
Sheng Lu, associate professor of fashion and apparel studies, has received the 2019 Mid-Career Excellence Award from the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA). This award recognizes mid-career faculty who have established a record of productive, independent and impactful scholarly achievements. Lu is internationally recognized as a leading scholar of textile and apparel trade, trade policy and the governance of global apparel value chain. He also received the 2014 Rising Star Award from ITAA in recognition of his research and teaching excellence. ITAA is a professional, educational association composed of scholars, educators and students in the textile, apparel and merchandising disciplines in higher education. The association promotes the discovery, dissemination and application of knowledge and is a primary resource for its members in strengthening leadership and service to society.
Laura E. Helton, assistant professor of English and history, has received an honorable mention in the Modern Language Association’s competition for the annual William Riley Parker Prize for an outstanding article published in PMLA, the association’s journal of literary scholarship. Helton’s article, “On Decimals, Catalogs, and Racial Imaginaries of Reading,” appeared in the journal’s January 2019 issue and was cited by the awards committee as an “astute, passionate and eye-opening essay” that is “beautifully written [and] skillfully organized.” Helton is currently a scholar in residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Publications
Jeffrey A. Raffel, retired professor of public policy and administration, is the author of Lessons Learned: A Memoir of Leadership Development, published by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) Press. Raffel’s memoir recounts such experiences as co-directing polling in Joe Biden’s first U.S. Senate race, facing an anti-busing crowd in his role in the conflict over Delaware’s school desegregation case and founding UD’s School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy (now the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration). He offers insights on being an effective leader and ideas on how to overcome the academic-practitioner gap in teaching, research and public service.
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