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• Six employees with NAU's Office of Residence Life received awards at the Association of Inter Mountain Housing Officers conference in Boise, Idaho, earlier this month. Sue Belatti, academic success coordinator, received the Outstanding Service Award for the region; Glenn Hoge, senior business manager, received the Distinguished Service Award; Melissa Murless, graduate assistant for academic outreach, was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Award for the region; and Brian Ward, assistant director of operations, was awarded the Mid-Level Professional Award for the region.
  
  Four individuals also were among those receiving the conference's Top Six award, recognizing the top six best programs presented during the conference, as voted on by conference attendees. Summer Burke, residence hall director of Mountain View Hall, and Megan Yeo, graduate hall director of Reilly Hall, received a Top Six award for their presentation, "It’s All Greek to Me: Understanding Group Think." Belatti and Murlless received the award for their presentation, "Classrooms Without Walls: Academic Initiatives in a Residential Setting."
  
  Northern Arizona University will host the association's 2007 conference.

• John J. Doherty, librarian at Cline Library and doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Instruction, had his article, "Reference Interview or Reference Dialogue?" published in Internet Reference Services Quarterly, Volume 11, Issue 3, 2006.

• A new book by Kathleen J. Ferraro, professor of sociology and social work, examines the lives of 45 women who were victims of intimate partner violence and were charged with crimes ranging from mail fraud to double homicide. Her book, Neither Angels nor Demons: Women, Crime, and Victimization, was released this month by Northeastern University Press.

• Peter Friederici, assistant professor in the School of Communication, had his article, "Peace Breaks Out in New Mexico's Forests," published in the Oct. 30 issue of High Country News.

• Natalie Hess, professor of Bilingual and Multicultural Education/ESL and coordinator of NAU-Yuma campus programs, was the featured speaker at "Shine the Light on Learning," a conference for adult and family educators in Bloomingdale, Ill., on Nov. 10. Hess presented two sessions—"Bringing Spice and Flavor to ESL Reading and Writing," and "Breathing Life into the Written Text in ESL Classes."

• Roberta Loufek, an undergraduate student in NAU's Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, was appointed director of the National Student Nurses' Association board of directors. Loufek was featured in the Nov/Dec issue of Imprint, a professional magazine for nursing students.

• Rich Rogers, associate professor in the School of Communication, had his article, "From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualization of Cultural Appropriation," published in the November 2006 issue of the journal Communication Theory.

• Peter Schwepker, lecturer of photography in the School of Communication, is featured in an article, "Capturing A Moment," written by 2003 journalism graduate Tayloe McConnell in the November issue of Mountain Living Magazine.
  
  A portfolio of Schwepker's work will also be featured in the March 2007 issue of Arizona Highways magazine.

• NAU biology doctoral candidate and Colorado Plateau Research Station speleologist J. Judson Wynne and NASA-Goddard engineers are conducting overflights of caves in northern Arizona and western New Mexico this week. Air support will be provided by the U.S. Department of Army. The researchers will be capturing thermal signatures associated with cave entrances as part of Phase 1 of the Earth-Mars Cave Detection Program.