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In This Issue
Dean's Note
Education Majors Promote Partnership
Fall History Poster Expo
Fall 2019 AKD Induction Ceremony
Spring Sociology Brown Bag Sessions
Fall Psychology Poster Session
Alumni Spotlight
Faculty News
Upcoming Events
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Dear Friends of SSME:
Now that the Gasparilla Festival is behind us and February is just about here, both students and faculty have nicely settled into the routine rhythms of the spring semester. At the same time, we are engaged in several selected activities that are far from routine. For example as you will read below, on January 23, 2020 the University of Tampa’s Board of Trustees met and approved the promotion to Associate Professor with tenure of Dr. J.E. Sumerau in Sociology. Similarly at the same meeting the trustees approved the promotion to Full Professor of Dr. Antony Erben in the Education Department. I would like to personally congratulate both of these colleagues as they have been extraordinary contributors to their students, respective departments, and the university for quite some time. Well done J and Tony!
I am also pleased to note that we are actively recruiting the inaugural class of students for our new bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science, which will launch in the fall 2020 semester. As noted below, on February 6 at 4:00 in the Martinez Athletic Center, Ms. Tiffany Tatsumi from the Society of Actuaries, along with local actuary Matt Lamb will make a presentation to interested students and faculty about the actuarial profession titled, “Actually … what is an Actuary?” I would encourage all students who may have an interest in learning more about the actuarial profession to attend.
And lastly, you may have heard that UT is establishing a new degree program in Computer Science in the College of Social Sciences, Mathematics & Education. I am actually quite excited about this development as computer science, along with Mathematics, Mathematical Programming and Actuarial Science help establish a strong cluster of programs in applied mathematics and computational sciences that will strengthen and broaden the academic and career opportunities for our UT students. So look to future newsletters later this year to learn about new faculty members in statistics and computer science that will be joining this growing cluster in the information sciences.
Until then, I invite you to read below about many of the extraordinary activities and accomplishments of our students and faculty.
Sincerely,
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Jack M. Geller, Ph.D., Dean
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Education Majors Promote Partnership
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Education majors
Bridget Ruggiero,
Katie Graber,
Kristen Cote, and
Amanda Koehler presented information about The University of Tampa’s education department’s partnership with at-risk students at the
Berkeley Academy with Clinical Education Director and Lecturer
Merrie Tankersley and Coordinator of Secondary Clinical Education
Megan Civil. This presentation took place on October 26, 2018 in Norfolk, Virginia at Convo, Kappa Delta Pi’s (KDP) annual convocation. Convo is more than just an annual convocation—it’s one of KDP’s longest-standing traditions. The workshops, idea exchanges, keynote speakers, and networking opportunities make Convo truly a one-of-a-kind experience. These students had the opportunity to meet education experts, present and attend education related workshops or poster sessions, and get training as chapter leaders.
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In photo: Cecilia Wolf, Erika Petersen, Andrea Fonseca, and Linlin Li.
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IDT Students Develop Training
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After a local engineering company contacted Assistant Professor Suzanne Ensmann looking for instructional designers to develop training for their company, UT Instructional Design and Technology alumni and students stepped up to the plate to contribute their talents and expertise.
"I am super impressed with all the work you have done for this project. What I have seen so far has exceeded my expectations."
- Carlo Lebron, SCS Engineers
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Bradley Soutas and his poster on Sunzi’s The Art of War
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On December 5, 2019, students in HIS 102 World History to 1500 exhibited their research posters at the 8th Annual History Research Poster Exhibition, which was organized by Associate Professor
Elizabeth Littell-Lamb. The posters were the products of students’ semester-long research into historical documents written before 1500. Posters were divided into five subject categories and judged by faculty judges including: Assistant Professor of Geography Stephen McFarland, Assistant Professor of History Ed Pompeian , Professor of Instruction I, History Kelly Palmer , Associate Professor of English and Writing Joseph Letter, and Associate Professor of English and Writing Daniel Dooghan. Each judge selected the best researched and most informative poster for a final round of judging. Then, Associate Professor of History Spencer Segalla and Director of the First-Year Experience Edesa Scarborough had the incredible task of selecting the best poster among the five finalists.
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The result was a tie between biochemistry major
Marisilla Gray and her poster on Hesiod’s Theogony in the category on ancient Greece and finance major
Bradley Soutas and his poster on Sunzi’s The Art of War in the category on ancient China. Also worthy of mention are the three other finalists:
Khamoron Milian and his poster on Herodutus’ Xerxes Invades Greece in the category on ancient Greece,
Charles George and his poster on The Twelve Tables in the category on ancient Rome,
Megan Boyetter and
Quinn Jasco and their poster on the Pyramids Texts in the category on ancient Egypt.
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Actually? What's an Actuary?
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Join us from 4:00 - 5:00 pm on Thursday, February 6, in the Sword and Shield Room to learn about UT''s new actuarial science program. A representative from the
Society of Actuaries and a practicing actuary from the Tampa area will discuss this in-demand and high-paying profession.
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Fall 2019 AKD Induction Ceremony
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On November 20, 2019, eight students were inducted into Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD), the International Sociology Honor Society. To be inducted into AKD, students must have completed at least 12 credit hours in sociology and have at least a 3.3 GPA overall and a 3.0 GPA in sociology courses.
UT Sociology Alumna
Mandi Barringer, Ph.D. was the guest speaker for the event. Barringer is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at the University of North Florida.
Fall 2019 AKD inductees include
Bryanna Davis,
Paige Gallo,
Lauren Jones,
Jaime Weiss,
Christina Pasca,
Savannah Andrews,
Jasmine Simmons, and
Felicia Hyndman.
Assistant Professor
Pina Holway serves as faculty advisor to AKD.
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Fall 2019 AKD Inductees along with sociology faculty, Assistant Dean Leslie Jones, Dean Jack Geller, and guest speaker and UT sociology alumna Mandi Barringer, Ph.D.
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Spring Sociology Brown Bag Sessions
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The sociology department will be hosting Brown Bag Sessions during the spring semester. Students are invited to bring their lunch and listen to a presentation by a member of the sociology faculty.
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Wednesday, February 5
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Brevard Community Room
Part-Time Professor
"'Our Child is Mentally Ill:' Multi-Voiced Narrative Analyses of Family Response Following a Diagnosis of Mental Illness."
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Wednesday, March 4
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
TBD
Assistant Professor
"Cancer: A Social Disease"
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Wednesday, April 8
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
TBD
Professor of Instruction I
"Unraveling the Wild: The Cultural Logic of Animal Stories in Contemporary Social Life"
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Applied Sociology Internship Panel
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On November 15, 2019, Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) and the sociology club co-hosted an Applied Sociology Internship Panel. During the panel, sociology students and alumni spoke about their experiences with sociology internships and the SOC480 experience
Panelists pictured from left to right: Sociology student Bridget Maloney, Sociology Student Thais Gobbi, Sociology Student Jaime Weiss, Sociology Alumnus Cameron Moskol
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Fall Psychology Poster Session
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On December 4, students presented posters displaying their research in psychology. These posters represented the wide array of topics studied in the science of psychology. The topics ranged from research ideas posed by students taking their first-ever psychology class to culminating projects in the psychology major. There were 49 posters with approximately 94 students presenting.
Students in Professor
Steve Blessing's Cognition of Game Playing class demonstrated games they had created or an experiment they developed that examined a cognitive concept within a game context.
Teams of students in Associate Professor
Michael Stasio's General Psychology class conducted original research projects by investigating any research question in psychology as it related to The Walt Disney Company in order to learn about psychology as a science.
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Students in Assistant Professor
Benjamin Marsh's Cognitive Psychology class presented a variety of research projects in the field of cognitive psychology.
Teams of student in Assistant Professor
Jennifer Blessing's General Psychology class selected a “myth” in the field of psychology and researched the history of the myth and studies conducted to determine if the myth is plausible, busted, or confirmed. They also designed a potential experiment one could conduct to test the myth they selected.
Thank you to UT's Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry for their support.
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Rachel Baranowski
'15 Government and World Affairs
Senior Program Associate at International Republican Institute
Washington, District Of Columbia
By Rachel Baranowski
Being a first-generation student pursuing a degree in government and World Affairs at UT from 2011-2015 exposed me to a variety of opportunities including a plethora of courses, campus clubs and social organizations where I gained close friends and became highly interested in international affairs. However, it was challenging at times to manage feeling guilty for leaving home and not helping support my family as well as navigating college life such as academics and social clubs. Therefore, I relied on my professors, specifically Dr. Fridy, Dr. Coleman and Dr. Myers to help guide me on the best courses to take to create a path to pursue my career in international affairs. Not being afraid to ask for help and finding supportive professors who provided substantive feedback and guidance on making my goals a reality was critical to my professional growth. After taking an international development course with Dr. Fridy, I learned of his study abroad program to Ghana which enhanced my interest in international affairs. Having the opportunity to travel to Ghana in 2014, allowed me to experience first-hand the development challenges on the ground and apply the knowledge I learned from my courses to real-life events. Following the study abroad, I was encouraged by Dr. Fridy to participate in the Political Science conference in New Orleans, where I explained my first research paper using SPSS data. The encouragement from my professors led me to be more comfortable with research and public speaking which are both vital in my current position.
My time at UT was invaluable, I was introduced to so many people and opportunities that shaped my personal and professional self. Being able to be vulnerable and ask for guidance from peers and professors as well as being receptive to that guidance and feedback was incredibly beneficial to me. I would encourage more people to ask for help when needed or seek out guidance from those who are currently where you would like to be in the future. The immense amount of opportunities and supportive staff helped me pave the path toward work in international affairs where I currently am working on democracy and good governance in East Africa.
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UT Alumna Named as Finalist
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UT alumna
Sommer SanFilippo was named as a finalist for Hillsborough County Public Schools' Teacher of the Year. SanFilippo is a reading resource teacher at Mendenhall Elementary in Tampa. She received a bachelor of science degree in elementary education in 2015 and a master's of education degree in curriculum and instruction in 2016. Congratulations, Sommer!
See a
video of SanFilippo receiving news of her selection as a finalist for Teacher of the Year.
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Congratulations to the following CSSME faculty members who have been approved by the UT Board of Trustees to receive tenure and/or promotion beginning in the Fall 2020 semester.
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Associate Professor of Education
Tony Erben has been approved for promotion to Professor.
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Assistant Professor of Sociology
J. Sumerau has been approved for promotion to Associate Professor with tenure.
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Criminology & Criminal Justice
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Assistant Professor
Tim Hart continues to advance his research agenda in the area of innovative quantitative analytic methods. He recently contributed a manuscript to the edited volume,
Geographies of Behavioral Health, Crime, and Disorder: The Intersection of Social Problems and Place. His paper, “Hot spots of crime: Methods and predictive analytics”, offers a new conceptual definition of predictive policing, an overview of some of the most commonly used methods to identify crime “hot spots” retrospectively, prospective hot spot analysis, and predictive policing analytics. The edited volume is available now through SpringerLink’s GeoJournal Library book series.
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Assistant Professor
Suzanne Ensmann, Associate Professor
Tony Erben, and Associate Professor
Tammy Shimmel were awarded a Research Innovation and Scholarly Excellence (RISE) grant for the 2019-2020 year. The goal of this initiative is to design, develop, and deliver interactive instruction on digital devices for underserved children in Haiti to support and improve learning outcomes. Instructional Design and Technology graduate and education undergraduate students have been diligently working to develop stories and educational games to teach English for beginners to be delivered to the
CARHA orphanage, a non-profit organization established to empower Haitian families, in spring.
The Department of Education also awarded Fall 2019 Special Project funding for Ensmann to incorporate a facial expression reader into her Inquiry and Measurement class. The goal for this is to analyze the facial reactions the games evoke and provide the IDT students with the formative evaluation to improve game designs. The intention is for the students to see which strategies added into the games capture the interest and attention of the players so they may improve the instructional design of the interactives being developed for the RISE grant.
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Coordinator of the Master's in Educational Leadership Program
Adrianne Wilson facilitated a visit to the
Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, GA on January 10, 2020 for Admin Day. Wilson, along with 8 students in the M.Ed. program in Educational Leadership, participated in a full-day, in-depth professional development workshop for school leaders from across the country. Participants learned how to build rapport and enhance relationships among staff, parents, and students; communicate effectively; build staff morale and prevent burnout; challenge and support students; foster community support; create teacher leaders, engage every child in the learning process and much more.
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Adrianne Wilson (right) and M.Ed. students at The Ron Clark Academy.
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Assistant Professor Suzanne Ensmann and IDT alumnae Angela Ward, Andrea Fonseca, and Erika Peterson co-authored "
A Case Study for the 10-Step Approach to Program Evaluation" that was published in
TechTrends. This paper examines a practical hands-on application used to evaluate instructional programs of two real-world cases in both the corporate and educational settings. The 10-Step Evaluation for Training and Performance Improvement (Chyung 2019) was selected to be piloted in an Introduction to Program Evaluation graduate-level course. Evaluating training programs, students facilitated collaboration between academics and practitioners across multiple disciplines focused on improving programs and human performance.
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In photo: Andrea De Fonseca (on program evaluation site), Andrea De Fonseca, Suzanne Ensmann, Ph.D., Erika Petersen, and Angela Ward.
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History, Geography & Legal Studies
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Professor of History
Terry Parssinen's paper "'Accursed Weed:' The Cigarette in 19th c. Britain and America" has been accepted for publication in the
FCH Annals: Journal of the Florida Conference of Historians, a publication of Florida Conference of Historians.
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Lecturer
Taofik Bahadi
presented "TX Family of Link functions for Binary Regression" at the third annual International Conference on Statistical Distributions and Applications that was held in Grand Rapids, MI on October 10 – 12, 2019. Bahadi presented on the topic of using TX Family for Binary Regression, in which he compared the mixed distribution outlined by
Baz’an et al. and the generating distribution coming from the TX Family as applied to binary distribution, such as presented in
Aljarrah et al. Bahadi was pleased to have been able to contribute to the discussion on behalf of The University of Tampa.
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Associate Professor
Netra Khanal co-authored "
Reliability Models Using the Composite Generalizers of Weibull Distribution" that was published in the December 2019 issue of
Annals of Data Science. The Weibull distribution is a popular distribution used in probability and statistics due to its versatile nature of modeling real world data. However, there are many cases where the classical Weibull distribution is unable to capture the true phenomenon under study. In this study, the researchers analyzed the order of compositions of probability distributions with Weibull as a base distribution. The usefulness and effectiveness of the composite generalizers and their order of composition were investigated by studying the reliability behavior of the resulting
distributions.
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Faculty members from UT's mathematics department presented their research at the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Joint Annual Meeting that was held in Denver, CO on January 15 - 18.
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Lecturer of Mathematics
Stephanie Branham presented "Assessing Preparedness for Business Calculus." Branham discussed findings of an examination of prerequisite courses for Business Calculus at universities across the country and an assessment of student success rates at The University of Tampa.
Associate Professor/Assistant Dean
Leslie Jones co-presented "Strengthening the Connection between Business Calculus and Business Courses." Jones and colleague discussed the current trends in mathematics requirements for business programs and how mathematical concepts are incorporated into business content and how their findings are guiding the restructuring of our business calculus course, informing our recommendations to the business school, and enabling mathematics faculty to speak with more confidence about the relevance of what they are teaching.
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Associate Professor/Chair of Mathematics
Netra Khanal presented "Differential Equation Model for Carbon Dioxide Emission and the Impact of Major Contributors." Khanal discussed the development of a differential equation to model carbon dioxide emission while considering the impact of solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels as an input function. The proposed model is expected to be useful to understand the dynamics of major attributing variables and their impacts on the rate of change of carbon dioxide emission.
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McAnally presented "A Integrable Hierarchy, a Bi-Hamiltonian Reduction, and Some Explicit Solutions" at the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Conference on Analysis of Partial Differential Equations that was held in LaQuinta, CA on December 11 - 14, 2019. McAnally also served as Chair of the session titled "Equations of Mathematical Physics and Other Applications I."
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Political Science & International Studies
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Associate Professor/Chair
Liv Coleman's
book review of
Our Unions, Our Selves: The Rise of Feminist Labor Unions in Japan by Anne Zacharias-Walsh was published in
Pacific Affairs, a peer-reviewed, independent, and interdisciplinary scholarly journal focusing on important current political, economic and social issues throughout Asia and the Pacific.
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Professor
Mary R. Anderson was nominated and elected to serve a 3-year term on the Executive Council of the
Southern Political Science Association, one of the oldest and largest political science associations in the US. SPSA publishes the
Journal of Politics, which is one of the top journals in the discipline.
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Faculty members from the political science and international studies department presented their research at the Southern Political Science Association Annual Meeting that was held in San Juan, PR on January 8-11.
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Professor
Mary R. Anderson presented “Women and Political Ambition: An exploratory examination of confidence” that she co-authored with Assistant Professor
Kathryn VanderMolen and Lakshmi Jayaram. Their key findings suggest that the confidence gap between men and women disappears when men and women are candidates for political office. The qualitative findings corroborated the empirical results by helping the researchers to better understand the experiences of women candidates and identify sources of confidence that motivated women to run for office. Three themes emerged from their interviews with eight women who have run for office: 1. Support from family and friends, 2. Knowledge about the issues, and 3. Professional and voluntary experiences in leadership.
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Assistant Professor
Jonathan Lewallen presented "The Attention Dynamics of Cybersecurity in the U.S. Congress" that examines the role that changing technology plays in the development of cybersecurity policy in the United States as a boundary-spanning problem. He also presented "Member Dissent in Congressional Committee Reports." that analyzes whether and how turnover and leadership term limits in Congressional committees hinder agreement over agenda setting and policymaking by limited expertise and repeated interactions among committee leaders and members. Lewallen also served as a discussant in a roundtable discussion on New Directions in Public Policy Research.
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Associate Professor
Liv Coleman presented "Think Global, Hack Local: County-Managed Elections and the Fate of American Democracy" at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Coleman discussed cybersecurity and election integrity. Coleman also participated in a roundtable discussion on Politics, Big Data, and New Technology.
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Assistant Professor
Jennifer Blessing presented the poster “Busting Myths to Increase Critical Thinking and Interest in Psychology” at the 42nd Annual National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology on January 3-6, 2020. This detailed a study about assigning projects on psychology myths to help students develop more understanding of the need for empirical work on human behavior. She also presented a Participant Idea Exchange titled “Bringing Theories to Life: Best Practices in Service Learning.” This exchange brought people together to discuss the types of psychology courses and the related issues that permit students to work in the community to extend their knowledge outside of the classroom.
Blessing received a 2020 Walden University Research & Applications for Social Change Grant. She and her co-PI, Eric Brosch (from Walden University), are excited to start their project titled “Impact of LEGO Robotics Enrichment Curriculum on STEAM Interest in Minority Girls in Grades 4 and 5.” Blessing will be assessing students’ talk about science concepts during their interactions with a new LEGO robotics curriculum. This extends her research on the development of science knowledge in children.
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Associate Professor
Erin Koterba, along with UT alum
Faith Ponti ('17) and
Kaitlyn Ligman ('17), authored "'Get out of My Selfie!' Narcissism, Gender, and Motives for Self-Photography among Emerging Adults" that was recently accepted for publication in the journal
Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Their study aimed to unpack links between gender, narcissism, and selfie-taking behaviors and to document motives for taking selfies. Results of their study indicated that grandiose and exhibitionistic aspects of narcissism are tied to selfie–taking. Further, though no gender difference emerged for selfies taken alone, selfies featuring others were more common among women. Finally, participants frequently cited narcissistic motives for taking selfies.
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Professor
Ryan Cragun's
book review of
The Varieties of Nonreligious Experience: Atheism in American Culture by Jerome Baggett was published in
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, which is considered to be the top academic journal in the field of religious studies.
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Providing our students with outstanding out-of-classroom experiences is a hallmark of the College of Social Sciences, Mathematics and Education. This may include participating in an overseas travel course; being mentored on an undergraduate research project; or traveling with faculty mentors to present research findings at an academic conference. But of course, these important out-of-classroom activities take additional resources. The College of Social Sciences, Mathematics and Education is committed to assisting all students gain the benefits of these experiences. Help support these experiences for all students. Make a small contribution today.
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Mark your calendars for the following upcoming events at UT:
- February 5: Sociology Brown Bag Session, Brevard Community Room, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- February 5: Psychology Guest Speaker, Austin Community Room, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
- February 6: Actuarial Science Presentation, Martinez Athletic Center, Sword & Shield Room, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
- March 4: Sociology Brown Bag Session, SFB 287, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- March 25: Holocaust Guest Speaker, ICB 210, 4:00 - 5:50 p.m.
- April 8: Sociology Brown Bag Session, SFB 287, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- April 29: Undergraduate Research Conference, Plant Hall, Fletcher Lounge, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
- May 8: Graduate Hooding Ceremony, Plant Hall, Fletcher Lounge, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
- May 9: Commencement, Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall
If you have an upcoming event that you would like advertised in the newsletter, please send your event information to Laura Gicker at
lgicker@ut.edu.
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