CAHSS Newsletter

Student Spotlight
Student Spotlight
News
Brittney Heitz-Garcia published her work,
“The Mind of Cancer,” in curetoday.com,
which is an online magazine focused on
providing research and information
about cancer. Heitz-Garcia’s piece focuses
on a cancer narrative and explores the
details of navigating that experience.
Awards
Seniors Lexi Gulke and Jeryn Walgamott worked with
the La Grande Warming Station to create a fundraising
video titled “Carry Me Home” that will support
the Warming Station. Lexi Gulke, who is an Integrative
Studies major with her focus in Communication
and Music, interviewed the Warming Station Board as
well as wrote the music for the video and Jeryn
Walgamott, who is a Music major and Art minor, did
the video production. This music video can be found
at https://youtu.be/aHS-CKGt3Xo.
from the College of Arts,
Humanities, and Social Sciences
Led by alumna Carissa Cummings,
who served as the editorin-chief,
the third volume of the
Eastern Oregon Social Sciences
Journal, which was released in
the Spring of 2020, received the
American Scholastic Press Association’s
first place with special
merit for the category of Colleges
and Universities with over
2501 student enrollment award.
Both the Eastern Oregon Social
Science Journal and Eastern
Oregon Science Journal are partially
funded through student
allocations, but the EOU Foundation
supports their continued
publication. Donations are accepted
online at
eou. www.eou.edu/scijou/
donate. For more information
visit www.eou.edu/scijou.
This newsletter was produced by Senior English/Writing major Brook O’Keefe for practicum
credit under the advising of the Office of the Dean in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social
Sciences.
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Faculty in the Field
Associate Professor of English/Writing
Sheri Rysdam will present her work,
"Rhetorical Ingenuity and the Subversion
of Commonplace Practices in
Women’s Health and Medicine,” as a
part of a roundtable discussion alongside
some of the authors of Women's
Health Advocacy Rhetorical Ingenuity
for the 21st Century at the Conference
on College Composition and
Communication on April 7-10, 2021.
Student Spotlight
As a part of EOU’s Career Services
Center internship program, anthropology
student Chelsey Thompson is developing
a research project titled
“COVID-19 Visual Ethnography -
Oral History of EOU Students”
which will document the experiences
of EOU students during the COVID-
19 pandemic. Thompson will present
this research in the Spring at the
EOU Spring Symposium and other
professional venues.
Professor of English/Writing Nancy
Knowles will have a chapter titled
"Direct Assessment of Student Learning in the Eastern Promise" published in
Utah State University Press’ forthcoming book, Dual Enrollment Kaleidoscope:
Reconfiguring Perceptions of First-Year Writing and Composition Studies, edited
by Christine Denecker and Casie Moreland.
Senior Instructor II of English/Writing James Benton has been developing his
new poetry publication, The Book of Sympathetic
Magic, which will be released during National
Poetry Month in April 2021.
Professor of Political Science Dr. Jeff Dense published a chapter titled
“Economic Impact of Craft Beer Festivals” in the Springer publications book,
The Geography of Beer: Culture and Economics, edited by Nancy Hoalst-Pullen
and Mark W. Patterson.
Senior Instructor of Music Tech
Luke McKern has been hosting
small, outdoor music events with
local musicians across Eastern
Oregon in an effort to keep music
alive during these trying times.
These events are sociallydistanced
and include no more
than twenty participants, all of
whom are invited by McKern,
which ensures that they are lowrisk
for the spread of COVID-19.
Associate Professor of Art Susan Murrell was
asked to present her work as well as participate
in a synchronous online panel discussion titled
“Vital Matter: Landscape Painting in the Anthropocene”
at the College of Art Associations
annual conference.
Associate Professor of Theater Arts Heather Tomlinson
will present her work, Owyhee Life, (top) at
the 11th Annual International Juried Exhibition at
Gallery 110 in Seattle, Washington. This work was
selected from over 1,000 entries submitted worldwide
and will be displayed from February 4– March
10, 2021. Professor Tomlinson
also had her
works, Lycaon 29
(bottom right) and Ascent
to Athena (bottom
left) displayed in the
Annual Open Exhibition
at Art Center East from
December 4-January 30,
2020.
Student Spotlight
Junior Emily Andrews, who is an English/Writing
major and ESOL (English
for Speakers of Other Languages)
minor, completed a teaching practicum
in which she worked with creative
writing students at the La Grande
High School. Along with this, Andrews
is now virtually teaching English
and Science classes to students in
a private elementary school in Ecuador.
Student Spotlight
Senior Lauren Wolf, who is an English/Writing
major and Psychology
minor, completed a Practicum in
teaching during the Fall 2020 term.
During this experience, Wolf worked
with three elementary aged children
who were doing distance learning.
Through this work, Wolf made an
impact on these children by helping
to foster and support their learning!
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PANDEMIC EDUCATION
Associate Professor of Art Susan Murrell, Professor of Art Cory Peeke, Assistant
Professor of Art Nathan Prouty, and Associate Professor of Medica
Arts/Art Micheal Sell presented their work at the faculty exhibit in EOU’s
Nightingale Gallery from January 19-February 12.
PERSERVERANCE
Navigating the logistics of teaching during
these unusual times has been something
that most faculty at EOU have had to overcome.
For some, including Music Professor
Peter Wordelman, this has been more of a
challenge than it has been for others. In
order for Wordelman to continue teaching
choir, he has had to adjust and reconfigure
his teaching practices to continue providing
students with meaningful learning experiences
while also keeping everyone safe. In
his efforts to do this, Professor Wordelman
adjusted the location of his classes, removing
the risers from the choir room as well as
often moving his classes into the lobby of
Loso Hall, Gilbert Center, or even outside
where there was more space to socially
distance. Along with this, Wordelman met
with small groups of students rather than
whole classes and kept practices to thirty
minutes or less. As singing is considered a
high-risk activity, solo lessons were often
held via Zoom and when practices did occur
in person, singers utilized singer's masks,
which were produced as a part of the
Broadway Relief Project.
As the music department navigated through
these experiences, they learned, according
to Professor Wordelman, “to gauge success
in a different way.” However, despite the
altered nature of the music department,
they still managed to produce incredibly
meaningful work. Although they could not
host their annual Christmas Festival, which
usually features over 250 performers, they
created a holiday video that focused on
showing students in academic situations,
which embraced the perseverance and
dedication of the EOU community. Along
with this, the music and theater de
“You learn to gauge
Success in different ways”
-Peter Wordelman
partments, led by Associate Professor of
Theater Kenn Wheeler produced a series of
old-time mystery radio shows called
“Mountie Mystery Theater,” which will be
availableon the EOU YouTube Channel The
production of these shows took hard work
and dedication from students and faculty.
This effort included four students who were
selected as actors, twelve students who
recorded the theme song with Professor
Wordelman, four students who worked on
live sound effects, a group of students who
created and recorded ads for products from
the 1940s with help from Professor Luke
McKern, and Dr. Mio Aoike and piano student
Gian Alvarado who recorded the keyboard
pieces.
These productions are representative of the
perseverance and dedication of all of the
faculty and the students in EOU’s music and
theater departments as they show that,
despite trying times, EOU is a community
that works together to accomplish great
things.
COURSE HAPPENINGS
Assistant Professor of English/Writing Nick Neely led his
Professional Editing and Publishing course in developing a
collection of letters titled “Letters in the Time of Quarantine.”
This collection consisted of letters of personal reflection, which
often discussed current events. In total, the project contained
one letter from each of the fifteen students in the course and
five letters from students from other universities in the Pacific
Northwest.
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Sabbatical
Scholarship
Alumni
Accomplishments
During the 2019-2020 academic year, Associate Professor of History Dr. Ryan
Dearinger took a year of sabbatical to complete a variety of scholarly work,
including presentations, publications, research, participation in workshops, and
guest lectures. The details of Dr. Dearinger’s publications and presentations
during this time are as follows:
Scholarship:
• Completion of the writing and research for his book, Beer’s Dirty Work: Native,
Immigrant, and American Hop-Pickers in the Pacific Northwest, which will be
published later this year.
• Completion of six of the twelve chapters for his book Knowing Nature Through
Labor: Work and Western Landscapes.
• Publication of a book chapter titled “Railroad Construction Workers, 1860-1880,”
in the book A Day in the Life of an American Worker.
• Publication of an article titled “Chinese Immigrants, the Landscape of Progress,
and the Work of Building and Celebrating the Transcontinental Railroad” in the
ninety-sixth volume California History, a scholarly journal, which was released in
the Summer of 2019.
• Publication of three book reviews: Manu Karuka’s Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous
Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (for Journal of Arizona
History); Gordon H. Chang’s, Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the
Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad (for American Historical Review);
and Gordon H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin's The Chinese and the Iron Road:
Building the Transcontinental Railroad (for Labor: Studies in Working-Class History).
Presentations:
• Presentation of his paper titled “The Tacoma Method: A Blueprint for Racial Violence
in the Late Nineteenth Century Pacific Northwest?” at the 134th Annual
Meeting of the American Historical Association in New York, New York.
• Participation as a panelist at the 2020 Beer Culture Summit in Chicago, Illinois.
• Panel Chair for the discussion, “The Pacific in the Gilded Age” at the ” 135th Annual
Meeting of the American Historical Association in Seattle, Washington.
• Lead faculty at the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American
History and Culture Workshop, "Manifest Destiny Reconsidered," which was
sponsored by the University of Utah and took place in June-July, 2019.
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Aaron Reed, an alumnus who studied Anthropology through EOU's online program,
is currently working on obtaining a Master of Arts in Folkloristics and
Applied Heritage Studies at the University of Tartu in Estonia. During his time
at EOU, Reed completed his Capstone project, which focused on museum curation,
and practicum work at Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas. In the Spring
of 2020, Reed also published a paper in the third volume of the Eastern Oregon
Social Science journal. While in his Master's program, Reed is currently continuing
his work in museum studies through the development of a project focused
on how narratives and versions of history are created and established in amateur,
local museums.
Assistant Professor of English Writing Dr. Tabitha Espina completed a variety of
scholarly work throughout the Summer and Fall of 2020, including,
the publishing of her post “Mixing Halo Halo” in the Oregon Humanities “Feed”
issue on December 21, 2020. In this post, Espina writes about moving from the
island of Guam to La Grande, utilizing halo-halo, a Filipino dessert, as a metaphor
for a discussion of identity fluidity. This post can be found at https://
www.oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/feed-fallwinter-2020/posts-7/.
Dr. Espina also presented her work, “Unsettling the Rhetorics of the Politics of
Filipinos on Guåhan” at the International Small Islands Studies Association First
Global Island Studies Webinar on June 24, 2020.
Along with this, Dr. Espina participated in a panel, “Courageous Conversations:
Echoes of Identity,” which responded to the Black Lives Matter movement. This
panel was hosted by the University of Guam Para Hulo’ Island Wisdom working
group and took place on June 25, 2020.
Finally, Dr. Espina has had her research, “People of the Peace: A Transnational
Analysis of United Nations Police Officers,” accepted for presentation in a
themed panel discussion at the Sixteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary
Social Sciences. Dr. Espina will present her work at Oxford Brookes University
on July 21-23, 2021.
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