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• Paul Ferlazzo, professor of English, presented a paper titled, "Theodore Roosevelt: A Man of Letters in the White House," at the 2007 Joint Conference of the National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations on April 6 in Boston. His paper examined the surprising truth that President Roosevelt was a serious reader of poetry who also wrote essays and reviews about the poets he admired and used his influence to promote the careers of American poets.
• Jean Ann Foley, assistant professor in the College of Education, and Cecilia Ojeda, associate professor of modern languages, presented their paper, "How do teacher beliefs influence technology use in the classroom?" at the 18th international conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education in San Antonio, Texas, on March 27.
• Richard Quartaroli, Cline Library special collections librarian, presented on the status of the Grand Canyon River Guides' Oral History Project, "More Than Fair, the Ladies Speak Up," at the annual Grand Canyon River Guides' Guides Training Seminar, April 1, at Marble Canyon, Ariz. Quartaroli is the humanities scholar for a grant recently funded from the Arizona Humanities Council for support of this project to interview under-represented female boat guides.
• Donelle Ruwe, assistant professor of English, presented "Botanical Rambles: Romanticism, Nature Walks, and the Dissemination of Associationist Philosophy," at Arizona State University on March 30 as part of the 2006-07 Junior Faculty Exchange Lecture Series. Her talk can be viewed online.
• Heather Springer, a graduate student in the English department, has published her essay, "Barrie's Peter Pan," in the Winter 2007 peer-reviewed journal The Explicator. Her essay was written for Donelle Ruwe's special topics course, "The Child and the Book," and discusses Peter Pan in relationship to British militarism and the Boer wars.
• Todd Sullivan, director of the School of Music, was recently elected to the board of the College Music Society. This national organization, a consortium of college, conservatory, university and independent musicians, embraces the performance, academic, creative and educational sides of music.
• Ed Talley, manager for NAU Postal and Shipping Services, presented "Benchmarking: Justifying Your Existence," at the National Postal Forum in Washington, D.C., on March 25-29. His talk focused on counting incoming, campus, student and outgoing mail volumes.
  
  Talley also gave a presentation on his department's web-based student mailbox information and mail forwarding system, giving students online access to their mailbox assignment, combination, proper addressing for USPS, and deliveries from UPS, DHL and FedEx directly to their residence halls.
• Dennis Tanner, professor of health sciences, recently published an article titled, "Dysphagia Malpractice: Litigation and the Expert Witness." It was an invited peer-reviewed article in the March 2007 Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology, the journal of the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences. Dysphagia is a common swallowing disorder seen in stroke and traumatic brain injured patients.
• John Tester, associate professor of mechanical engineering, received the Faculty Educator of the Year Award from the American Society of Engineering Education Pacific South West section. It will be awarded at the annual conference in Reno, Nev., on April 12. Tester is receiving the award for his work in innovative curriculum development and promotion of NAU student participation in national intercollegiate competitions.
• Five individuals from NAU's departments of Physics and Astronomy and Geology presented research results at the 38th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, in Houston, March 12-16. More than 1,500 planetary scientists from around the world attended the conference:

  • Associate professor Nadine Barlow presented "Martian central pit craters: Characteristics, distribution, and comparison with central pit craters on Ganymede."
  • Graduate student Glen Cushing presented "THEMIS observes possible cave skylights on Mars."
  • Graduate student Ryan Godwin presented "Interior morphologies of impact craters on Ganymede."
  • Undergraduate student Marie Enga was a co-author on "Surface changes on Mars: Gradual or episodic?"
  • Undergraduate student Carin Cornwall presented "A study of spatial and temporal distribution of Martian polar cold spots."

  Enga and Cornwall are participants in this year's NAU Arizona/NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Research Internship Program.

• Two students in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics gave presentations at the recent Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 51st annual meeting, held on the NAU campus on March 31.
  • Senior Ryan Sharp, presented "Finding Extreme Outliers in a Multivariate Data Set Abstract."
  • Graduate student Nathan Leonard presented "Modified Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium Abstract of Presentation."