Last month, several Lee University students presented at the annual national conference of Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace and Justice (PCPJ).

Pradip Subedi and Rachel Stern at Acting on AIDS booth

The mission of PCPJ is to encourage, enable, and sustain peacemaking and the search for justice as an authentic and integral aspect of the Pentecostal and Charismatic community.  As well, they wish to inform people of national and international issues regarding injustice and oppression, and to facilitate action that encourages peace. 

Six students from the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department had the opportunity to present at PCPJ through the Council on Revolutionary Endeavors (CORE), which is composed of three groups: Invisible Children, Acting on AIDS, and the International Justice Mission.

Ellie Morse presenting at PCPJ

PCPJ has offered to the students involved in CORE an opportunity to published on the PCPJ website in order to promote a continued relationship with the student organization. Dr. Murl Dirksen said that he hopes students will continue to be involved. 

“I think anytime students can make presentations at conferences professionally, it is good for students and Lee.  People are exposed to the quality of students we have here.  We have great students, and I’m always proud of them going to conferences,” he said.

Ellie Morse, Katie Johnson, and Amanda Mitchell at Global Gift Shop display for PCPJ

 In reference to the PCPJ conference and the students’ concern with social justice, Dirksen continued, “I think Lee students were happy to be affirmed that what they are doing is right and valuable.”

Dr. Matthew Krepps is now on the Community Advisory Panel for the Arch Chemicals, Inc. and Olin Corporation Companies.

The Community Advisory Panel (CAP) is a small, representative group of citizens who meet with plant management and employees to discuss issues of mutual interest including environment, health, and safety as it relates to the chemical manufacturing process. The CAP provides a forum for open dialogue between these citizens and plant management to better understand the risks involved with the chemical manufacturing process and address safety issues of its employees and the plant’s operational impact on the greater community.

Both companies are located in Charleston, TN, just north of Cleveland.  These discussions and presentations in bi-monthly meetings provide CAP members with information that helps them serve a vital role in community outreach.

There are about 35 members on the panel and they meet bi-monthly to receive a safety report from both companies and have a discussion or lecture from an invited guest speaker.

Krepps earned his Ph. D. in Inorganic Chemistry and is also a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Guild of Organists.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the National English Honor Society, held the Second Annual Graduate and Undergraduate Student Conference on Literature, Composition, and Rhetoric on October 16 and 17.  Two Lee University students, Emily Carlisle and Mallory Leonard, were accepted to present their papers at the convention.

Carlisle presented her paper “The Eternal Poet” in a panel on Studies of American Literature.  Her paper, which she wrote for 20^th Century American Drama, focuses on Tennessee William’s play Suddenly Last Summer, and she subverts the protagonist’s perceived death.  The reading slot for her was 7:30 a.m., and she says, “If you have to read your paper before the sun also rises, it is always a good idea to discuss Tennessee Williams’ religious hauntings in order to get the synapses firing.”

In her paper, “Struggle Against Water: A Deeper Look at Queen Gertrude in Hamlet,” Leonard uses feminist literary criticism to claim that Gertrude’s character serves as a warning to women who may give into patriarchy and deny their own femininity.  She claims that Ophelia and Gertrude are opposites: Ophelia embraces her feminine nature and escapes the patriarchal structures around her through suicide, but Gertrude fears to follow and remains trapped in the world of men which destroys her.

This is the first conference at which either has presented, and both found the reading useful.  Leonard says, “Overall, the experience was beneficial.  This was my first experience reading one of my papers in front of anyone else, and I’m very glad I did it.  I look forward to participating in more conferences in the near future.”

The Nillie Bipper Creative Arts Festival is held the first weekend in October.  This year was the 42^nd annual show, and it is a function of the Cleveland Creative Arts Guild.  Professor John Simmons is a Vice President in the Guild and Co-Director of the Festival.

One of the exhibitors at the Festival

There are typically about 70 exhibitors from throughout the Southeast, and as far away as Michigan, Ohio, and Florida.  The show is juried and only accepts quality handmade arts and crafts such as painting, ceramics, woodworking, fabric art, stained glass, and jewelry.

Each year there is also free musical entertainment and the exhibitors donate a sample of their work as a door prize.  The event is held at the Tri-State Exhibition center off Exit 20 on I-75.

Simmons has been involved with the festival since 1997 and was also involved from 1971-1984.  He says, “The festival is important to me because it gives craftspeople, both local and distant, a chance to show their creativity and gain some income from their talents.”

Earlier this month, Dr. Christie Kleinmann partnered with Oak Gove Elementary School to give the students in her Public Speaking class first-hand experience.

Students Taylor Presley (left) and Jared Powers (right) reading to their group

In order to teach delivery, phrasing, and voice inflection, Kleinmann took her students to Oak Grove Elementary to read children’s books to the Kindergarten class.  Kleinmann says that she always uses children’s books for this lesson because you have to focus on vocal variety for it to work.

Students Vicente Nudman (left) and Matt Bryant (right) learning how to overcome a kindergartner's eagerness

Oak Grove was especially interested in this partnering because some of the children there have parents who may not read to them.  This way, they were able to see older students showing them that reading is worthwhile.

The Lee University students were able to work on audience adaptation.  While a college student may have a short attention span, a kindergartner’s is even worse.  Students worked on their vocal variety, facial expressions, and began learning how to think on their feet, all while helping others.  Kleinmann says, “These are the gifts God has given us to help others.  We don’t have to do the great and grand, but it’s the little things.”

This year, new faculty joins the College of Arts and Sciences.  Professor Jeff Ringer, Dr. Wendy Steinberg, and Professor Alan Wheeler are new additions in the English, Psychology, and Anthropology discipline respectively.  

Professor Ringer, pictured middle, at his wedding

Professor Jeff Ringer is a Lee alum finishing his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition through the University of New Hampshire while teaching here at Lee.  His dissertation is on Evangelical Identity and Academic Writing, which he says is an important reason he is here.  “Part of the reason that attracted me to coming back here was teaching students who were the subject of my dissertation.  I hope to continue researching and help design courses and programs that involve students and writing majors with research.”

Dr. Steinberg teaching her Statistics class

Dr. Wendy Steinberg, who taught previously at Eastern University, feels her charge is to teach Statistics and Research Methods effectively.  The class is her passion, and as many students are afraid of statistics, her goal is “to help them find it enjoyable, fun, and useful.”  To her, that is the definition of success, and she believes it’s possible. She is the author of Statistics Alive, an introductory text on the subject.

Professor Wheeler with Byamba

If he were to accomplish anything while here at Lee, professor Alan Wheeler says, it would be to give students a broader perspective of the world while encouraging them to draw closer to Jesus.  He always felt called to be a missionary, but God had other plans.  He became an anthropologist because he has a “natural love for the exotic, the distant, the unusual.”  Here, he is pictured with Byamba in one of Mongolia’s remotest regions, only accessible traveling by moose trails for over 100 miles.  The only contact this tribe had prior to Wheeler’s visit was Hungarian scientist 40 years ago. Wheeler is working on a doctorate from the University of Cambridge.

This past July, nine Lee University students participated in the survey and excavation of an important historical site in eastern Tennessee.  Each summer for the past three years, anthropology professor Dr. Richard Jones, and Quentin Bass, Archaeologist for the U.S. Forest Service, have teamed up to teach the Archaeology Field Methods course as an archaeology field school doing real culture resource management projects in the Cherokee National Forest.

This year, Quentin Bass arranged for Dr. Jones and the students from Lee to work under the direction of Brett Riggs and Stephen Davis, both well-known archaeologists from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  The site they worked on was established in the 1830’s as a military camp to keep settlers lured by the gold rush out of Cherokee lands.  During the same decade the fort was used to collect the Cherokee for removal, and, in that sense, it is part of the beginning of the Trail of Tears.

The summer field school participants. Back row, from left to right: Quentin Bass, Stephen Davis, Johann Furbacher, Ward Jones, Lance Greene, Brett Riggs, and Richard Jones. Front row: Sarah Anderson, Ali Carlton, Felicia Wright, Tona Headrick, and Stacy Cohl.

Lee students were trained in a variety of archaeological techniques, after which they assisted in detailed surveying and mapping of the site, and assisted in the excavation of several site features.  One student participant, Stacy Cohl, said about the experience, “We were able to actually dig in the dirt.  What I was expecting was a lot of fetch and carry work.  A lot of ‘Hey you, inexperienced student, haul this dirt over there!’  What I got was completely the opposite.  We, the students, were the ones getting down in the dirt and doing the digging.”

Students also learned that excavating in the Cherokee National Forest involved digging through thick root mats, avoiding yellow jacket nests, getting chigger bites, doing a tick check at the end of each day, and always smothering oneself in insect repellent, which did not seem to deter the mosquitoes. Cohl said, “Despite all the ticks and gnats and rain—and partially because of them—we were able to really experience the field and understand what this ‘archaeology’ thing was all about.  We could actually call ourselves archaeologists by the end of it.”

Dr. Jones said, “Being invited to participate in research at such an important historical site offers an extraordinary opportunity for our students to be involved in significant archaeological research.  At most institutions, undergraduates are rarely afforded such opportunities.”

Lee University successfully hosted a variety of events in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.  Dr. Michael Laney, who coordinated many of the events, was very pleased with the outcome of the celebrations.  The celebration was community based and extended beyond the Lee University family, including and off campus keynote speaker, Ms. Rae Lewis Thornton, who is an HIV/AIDS activist.

Additionally, the “Dream Keepers Award” was presented to African American middle school and high school students who had at least a 3.0.  UMOJA performed at the presentation, and the Harlem Gospel Choir sang that evening.  Tied into these festivities was the Inaugural Reception, which was hosted by Dr. Murl Dirksen.

Alexander Steffanell recently discovered that his article about Jeronima  Nava y Saavedra, a female mystic writer from the Colonial Spanish American period.  The article was published in the Latin American Women Writers Encyclopedia (Eds. Maria Claudia Andre and Eva Paulino) in 2008.  

The article centers around the “spiritual autobiography,” Autobiografia de una monja venerable, of Nava y Saavedra, a nun in the Convent of Poor Clares in Bogota, Columbia, who lived  from 1669-1727.  Oftentimes, being part of a convent was the only way for a woman’s voice to be heard, and Nava y Saavedra’s autobiography joins the ranks of other Spanish American female mystics’ works.  

Steffanell points out that Jeronima del Espiritu Santo “employs rhetorical and discoursive strategies as she reveals her desires, dreams, and inner conflicts.”  These are presented as discussions between herself and her confessor, and contain elements of an imaginary world laden with eroticism and explorations of her sexual identity.

Posted by Amber Mear

Lee University’s Asian Studies Program will be presenting an Asian Studies Seminar on January 26-30, 2009. The sessions will take place from 6-8 p.m. each night in room 114 of the Helen DeVos College of Education. Topics will include business, language and religion.

Monday night’s discussion of Eastern religion and philosophy will be taught by Lee’s Associate Professor of Intercultural Studies, Edley Moodley. Tuesday’s discussion of Thai language and culture will be taught by Professor of Education JoAnn Higginbotham. Wednesday’s topic will be Business in Asian Markets, taught by Assistant Professor of Business, Guy DeLoach. Japanese language and culture will be discussed on Thursday night by Associate Professor of English Arden Jensen. The week will conclude on Friday with Assistant Professor of Chinese Phebe Gray’s discussion of Chinese language and culture.

These events are free and open to the public. For additional information, contact Murl Dirksen at mdirksen@leeuniversity.edu.

Submitted by the Office of Public Information