For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and honors of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent new awards and publications include the following:

Presentations

Trevor A. Dawes, vice provost for libraries and museums and May Morris University Librarian, was an invited speaker at the 2023 in-person Satellite Meeting of the Library Services for Multicultural Populations Section of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in The Hague, The Netherlands, on August 18, 2023. The event was titled “Empowering Diverse Librarianship.” In his talk, “Building an Inclusive Organizational Culture,” Dawes shared information about some of the organizational culture and climate work he and the team at the Library, Museums and Press have been focused on for the last several years and how some of this work can be applied in any library setting. 

Troy Mix, policy scientist and associate director of the Institute for Public Administration (IPA) appeared on Good Morning Wilmington on June 26 to discuss the Move2Delaware Initiative. The conversation focused on plans to position Delaware as the leading state to attract and retain new talent while boosting the economic and social foundation of communities statewide. This initiative is being sponsored in partnership with the Pete DuPont Freedom Foundation and was selected as one of the 2023 Reinventing Delaware Finalist Ideas. The Move2Delaware idea is led by Mix, Linda Parkowski, executive director of the Kent Economic Partnership; Shelly Cecchett, executive director of the Greater Kent Committee; and Scott Malfitano from CSC and chair of the Delaware Workforce Development Board. The Move2Delaware initiative will benefit the state in multiple ways, including serving economic development efforts to fill in-demand jobs within targeted industries by recruiting highly qualified candidates. The team is meeting with potential partners statewide to advance a Move2Delaware pilot program that would recruit ten individuals to move into the state and contribute to the overall economy. IPA is a research and public service center in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration.

From July 24–27, the Associate in Arts Program joined the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration's Center for Community Research and Service to host the Community Development Institute (CDI), a three-year national certificate program that advances leadership skills in the field of community economic development. Twenty-nine first- and second-year members of CDI’s Mid-Atlantic cohort participated in the training at the Community Education Building in downtown Wilmington. 

Publications

Martha Corrozi Narvaez, associate director of the Water Resources Center and policy scientist at the Institute for Public Administration (IPA) co-authored an article titled “Small Wonder, Large Visions,” featured in the American Water Resources Association's May/June Issue of IMPACT magazine. Narvaez and co-author Jennalee Fede (Verdantas) provided readers with insight on efforts to help the state’s water resources remain in pristine condition. The state of Delaware is known as the Small Wonder, a slogan that speaks to its abundance of variety for such a small state. This abundance has been maintained by water resource professionals and researchers who come together through the Delaware Section of AWRA (DEAWRA) to focus on water resource issues in the state and beyond. DEAWRA’s goal is to preserve and protect Delaware’s water resources by ensuring that all related issues and needs are fulfilled. DEAWRA has achieved great success in preserving Delaware’s water resources. Projects include the restoration of the American shad population in the Brandywine River, transforming a contaminated urban site to a multi-faceted community amenity, tracking the spread of COVID-19 through wastewater, ensuring safe drinking water through a lead reduction program, and a number of other projects that have contributed to the betterment of Delaware’s natural landscape. IPA is a research and public service center in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration. 

Faculty and staff from the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration were guest editors for the latest issue of the Delaware Journal of Public Health, which focused on homelessness, poverty and public health. Stephen Metraux, associate professor and director of Center for Community Research and Service (CCRS) served as the lead editor on this issue. Roger Hesketh, CCRS assistant policy scientist, Sean O’Neill, Institute for Public Administration (IPA) policy scientist, and Mimi Rayl, housing initiatives coordinator, CCRS, all joined Metraux as guest editors. Studies presented within this issue bring forth compelling analyses of housing challenges that directly impact more vulnerable communities. It also discusses the importance of providing these communities with housing-specific responses that are intertwined with the services that many of these individuals studied receive from healthcare, social services, and criminal justice systems in Delaware. The issue provides readers with ample information and opportunity to continue doing the work needed to address on-going housing issues across the state. According to Metraux, this issue has the most comprehensive collection of Delaware-specific research pertaining to homelessness and housing ever. Additionally, this issue highlights the research that CCRS and IPA have produced on this topic within the state of Delaware, as the 7 of 21 articles feature Biden School authors. 

Victor Perez, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, and Bill Swiatek, principal planner at WILMAPCO, recently published a commentary in the Delaware Journal of Public Health (pages 60-61). In the issue "Homelessness, Poverty and Public Health,” Perez and Swiatek discussed the disproportionate impact of climate change and heat islands on the homeless. Using transportation infrastructure as an example, they showed how “greenscaping" and slowing unsustainable suburban sprawl with concentrated infill development can help mitigate climate change impacts and also create safer, healthier environments for everyone.

Victor Perez and Asia Friedman, both in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, recently published their paper “Misophonia Matters: A Case Study of the Role of Brain Imaging in Debates Over New Diagnoses.” The case study illustrates the role of brain imaging in promoting and validating new diagnoses. Certain types of sound sensitivity have often been symptoms associated with other, established psychiatric conditions, but have not necessarily been promoted as discrete clinical entities (i.e., diagnoses on their own). Recently, researchers using brain imaging to study misophonia have been instrumental in making claims about the condition and establishing its legitimacy as a separate diagnosis.  

Heinz-Uwe Haus, professor of theatre, published recently under his pseudonym Jean Bodin his first collection of poems in Greek (edition lulu, Mayenne, France) with the title Mouths of the Wind, translated by Marianna Papastephanou. The book combines two of Bodin‘s most successful publications of poetry – „Lorely“ (2014, Englisch) and „Reiss doch die Tür nicht so“ (2015, German) – and excerpts from „Cypriot Memories“ (2022, English). The book is illustrated by the author. The translator summarizes in her afterword: „Uwe’s poetic vision is of a democratic world of transcendence where universal values combat exclusions, divisions and violence: a Civitas Dei in earthly, secular terms where a renewed being-in-the world, itself inexorably immersed in a dramatic stage of a vale of tears where misfortune and loss are inevitable, will at least minimize cruelty.”(p.76) She underlines: “Therefore, Uwe’s poetry is not just an existential, ontological or even religious commentary on human drama. It is also, and deep down, a political poetry of heightened awareness of old and new plagues of humanity that invite thoughtful individual and global change. In Uwe’s vision, however, universalism of cosmopolitan values is not a Eurocentric abstract imperative. The values in question are not an exclusive prerogative of western cultures. They are the crossroads where all cultures meet one another halfway. His cosmopolitanism is an ideal of interconnectivity embodied and incarnated also by himself as his influence worldwide and his advancement of values that are embraced by people worldwide show.” First readers comments: “It is a collection that touches the heart, encourages self-reflection, and reminds us of the power of authenticity and staying true to ourselves”(Afir Stojanova, Sofia/Bulgaria) “Filled with charm, and an abundance of life lessons” (Basilia Pappas, Athens/Greece). “The author … deconstructs commonly accepted attitudes toward love, loss, guilt, faith, absurdity, and wit” (Fred Lapisardi, Brownsville, PA/USA). “Ambitious, brilliant, unsettling”(Odile Popescu,Berlin/Germany)

Tom Eisenberg, assistant professor of economic, recently won the Robert F. Lanzillotti Prize For The Best Paper In Antitrust Economics from the International Industrial Organization Conference with colleagues Manuel Estay (Universidad de Concepción) and Debi Prasad Mohapatra (University of Massachusetts) for “Welfare Effects of Trade Associations: The Case of the Chilean Salmon Export Industry.”

Lerner Professor Amanda Bullough recently partnered with The Case Centre to publish a case collection on Women's Leadership. Bullough is professor of management and global leadership and co-founder and research director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Lerner College. She curated The Women Leaders Case Series for The Case Centre and is co-author on several cases. The series includes teachable cases about real women business leaders based on primary interview data and secondary research,  topics related to culture and gender norms, strengths-based leadership, business diversification, grit and resilience, work-life balance, and so on. The Women’s Leadership Initiative Case Series includes teachable cases about real women business leaders from around the world based on primary interview data and secondary research. Topics include culture and gender norms, strengths-based leadership, business diversification, grit and resilience, work-life balance, and so on. Each case includes a teaching note with teaching strategies, suggested readings, and examples of comments students might make. These cases vary in length and are relevant for a broad audience of learners. 

Accreditation

The AACSB International board extended Lerner College’s global accreditation in business on June 29, 2023. The AACSB peer review team met Lerner College leadership as part of its Continuous Improvement Review, led by former Dean Bruce Weber, during the review period from 2020 through 2022. “Lerner is now in a strong position on faculty sufficiency and qualifications, and faces no major obstacles to remaining fully in alignment with AACSB standards,” said Weber. “The next cycle begins with a 2024-25 self-study and a peer review team visit in early 2026. Dean Oliver Yao will be well supported in the process by the leadership and staff in Lerner,” continued Weber. For more than a century, accreditation from AACSB has been synonymous with the highest standards in business education. Today, a total of 989 institutions across 60 countries and territories have earned AACSB accreditation in business. Furthermore,194 institutions maintain supplemental AACSB accreditation for their accounting programs.

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