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

Recent presentations and publications include the following:

Presentations

Mark Serva, associate professor of management information systems at the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, presented “Developing and Revising Problems” at UD’s Problem Based Learning Workshop in January. Serva worked with fellow members of the Institute for Transforming University Education (ITUE) to support attending professors in their efforts to implement problem-based learning (PBL) in their classrooms. Compared to traditional lecture, PBL encourages students to construct a deeper sense of understanding, as well as develop a greater appreciation of the material. Serva believes that PBL can be effectively integrated into all college classes. He is also honored to have collaborated with ITUE's innovative thinkers for the past 20 years.

On Feb. 21, Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, was an invited participant in an online research seminar organized by the University of Essex's Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Literary Studies (UK) to examine the impact of the British TV docudrama "Mr Bates vs the Post Office" and its implications for the use of literature and media in representing issues involving law and technology. Stetz is also a member of the founding Advisory Board for this Centre.

Michael Fernbacher, assistant director in Community Standards and Conflict Resolution, a unit within the Division of Student Life, with colleagues James Bond (University of Maryland), Alyssa Reddy (Christopher Newport University) and Jill Childress (Linn-Benton Community College), presented a concurrent session at the Association for Student Conduct Administration (ASCA) International Conference in Portland, OR in January. In the session, titled “AI and AI: The Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity,” the presenters described and demonstrated various generative artificial intelligence platforms, discussed ethical use of these platforms by students, faculty and staff and explored how faculty are identifying and responding to unethical and dishonest use by students.

Publications

Rodrigo Vargas, professor of ecosystem ecology and environmental change, was a contributing author of the 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture National Climate Change Roadmap. The resource includes an assessment of the state of climate adaptation research in agriculture, forestry and working lands, along with key needs and gaps. For each gap, the authors identified research questions to address the impacts of climate change on agriculture, food systems, forests and natural resources.

Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, continues her career as a poet with three new publications: "Nightbirds," a poem in Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature (sponsored by Syracuse University); "Dinner Party," a poem in the February 2024 issue of Stone Poetry Quarterly; and "Class Trip," a poem in Finding Harmony (Written Tales Chapbook, Vol. XII), edited by Kevin Saitta and sold through Amazon.

Heinz-Uwe Haus, professor of theater, published an article, "Theatre as a Transcultural Event: Notes on European Identity," in the recent issue of The European Legacy. Haus explores how theater, in the aftermath of World War II, served as a laboratory for the investigation, analysis and construction of dramatic models that became a means of transcultural communication. As attested by the continuing success of the experimental approaches of Brecht, Grotowski, La Mama and Suzuki, this endeavor reflected the struggle of people from different cultural backgrounds to understand and accept each other. One of the reasons theater continues to have the potential to promote transcultural integration is that it deals in concrete particulars with universal resonances.

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