Faculty Focus–September 19, 2022
Faculty members put their knowledge into action so students and others are able to benefit from it. Recently, faculty published journal articles and book chapters and shared their expertise at international conferences.
Cynthia Bansak
Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics Cynthia Bansak co-presented her co-authored paper about student-led teaching in College Fed Challenge classes during the 11th Annual AEA Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education and the third annual virtual conference, #TeachEconConference 2022 held this summer.
Bansak and co-authors Julie Smith of Lafayette College and Christine Storrie of SUNY Oneonta, modified classroom activities into a wide range of macroeconomics courses that typically take two to three class periods to give students experience in learning through teaching preparation and leadership. Through modules, students chose a policy maker to track, completed think-pair-share exercises, and worked with interactive graphing tools provided by the Federal Reserve Economic Day (FRED) tool kit, to develop a deeper understanding of data sources, economic theory, and monetary policy and hone presentation, data analytics, and teamwork skills.
Bansak's work has been published in various academic journals and she has co-authored a textbook on the Economics of Immigration. Among the courses she regularly teaches at St. Lawrence are Econometrics, Labor Economics, The Fed Challenge, and Money and Banking. Bansak received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at San Diego and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University.
Bob Cowser
Professor of English Bob Cowser reflected his book Dream Season, which tells his experience as a player for the Watertown Red and Black football team, the oldest gridiron semi pro team in the United States, during the podcast, The Football Odyssey.
Cowser is the author of three nonfiction books, including Green Fields: Crime, Punishment and a Boyhood Between, which won "Best Memoir 2010" from the Adirondack Center for Writers and was cited in the Best American Essays 2012. His research focuses on the essay, Modernism, and film adaptation. At St. Lawrence, Cowser has taught courses in nonfiction writing, film, and American literature since 1998 and has taught abroad in France, England, and Denmark.
Jeff Frank
Associate Professor of Education Jeff Frank published his paper, "Rethinking the Purposes of Schooling in a Global Pandemic: From Learning Loss to a Renewed Appreciation for Mourning and Human Excellence," in the leading peer review journal, Philosophy of Education. The paper is part of a special issue on the Covid-19 pandemic that Frank is co-editing.
Frank has taught a First-Year Seminar (FYS) titled What Does it Mean to be Educated and courses such as Contemporary Educational Policy, Teaching and Teachers, and American Philosophies of Education. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and education from Columbia University and a B.A. in philosophy from Middlebury College.
Brittany Hollis
Assistant Professor Psychology Brittany Hollis published her article, “Opportunities to More Comprehensively Assess Sexual Violence Experience in Veterans Health Administration Medical Records Data,” in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Hollis’s research examines power-based interpersonal violence, the prevention of sexual violence, and the treatment or response to someone coming forward with a case of sexual violence. She holds a B.S. and Ph.D. from Old Dominion University.
Mert Kartal
Associate Professor of Government Mert Kartal co-authored a chapter addressing the interaction between regime type and international relations in a recently published book titled Handbook of Research Methods in International Relations.
The chapter explores the value of studying types of political regimes for theory building, empirical testing, and policymaking in the study of international relations. The authors argue that regime type has become an increasingly more important determinant of outcomes in global politics. The chapter also outlines future avenues for policymakers and political scientists to better understand the interaction between regime type and international relations.
Kartal's research focuses on the impact of international organizations on good governance. He received his doctorate in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At St. Lawrence, he regularly teaches Introduction to International Relations, International Organizations and Global Governance, and the European Union.
Carolyn Twomey
Visiting Assistant Professor of History Carolyn Twomey presented her paper, “Ritual & Reuse: Early Baptismal Fonts in the Medieval West," during an international conference at Durham University in Northern England.
Her paper takes a material and environmental approach to the reuse of high crosses as stone baptismal fonts and how religious rituals were practiced in the multivalent watery environments of early Europe.
Twomey’s research focuses on rituals and environments of water in the early Middle Ages as well as the cultural and religious history of material culture and sacred spaces from late antiquity to the present in Europe and the Mediterranean.
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St. Lawrence’s Faculty Focus is a regular roundup of noteworthy faculty news.
