Faculty and Staff Notes

Environmental Studies and Biology professor John Petersen and his company, Community Hub, were honored with the 2024 Civic Collaborator Award by MidTown Cleveland Inc., a community-development organization on the city’s near east side. Based on Petersen's Community Dashboard model of digital screens piloted in the city of Oberlin, the MidTown Community Dashboard promotes social, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability, and includes a newly developed job board and community calendar. Community Hub content is created and maintained by Oberlin students.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey published an essay in Esclavages: Représentations visuelles et cultures matérielles (Paris: CNRS éditions / UNESCO, 2024). Edited by Ana Lucia Araujo, Myriam Cottias, and Klara Anna Boyer-Rossol, the book brings together essays by leading thinkers on the visual and material culture of slavery in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Rarey's essay focused on how to envision anti-slavery resistance in sculpture, print culture, and public architecture in 1700s and 1800s Brazil.

Professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies Cindy Frantz recently published "Evaluating the usefulness of Protection Motivation Theory for predicting climate change mitigation behavioral intentions among a US sample of climate change deniers and acknowledgers" for BMC Psychology with coauthors Luca Bushkin ’23 and Devlin O'Keefe ’22.

Assistant Professor of German Jessica Resvick published two chapters in the volume Taking Stock: Media Inventories in the German Nineteenth Century. Her first piece, “Bookkeeping: Form and Metaphor,” examines the formal and epistemological affordances of double-entry bookkeeping in nineteenth-century science and literature. The second, “Card Counting: The Census,” explores the biopolitical and media historical import of the census, spotlighting literary works by Poe and Kafka.

International Student Program Coordinator Jackie Zubin led NAFSA: Association of International Educations as the Conference Planner for Region VI (Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky) at the recent regional conference in Cincinnati. Assistant Dean and Director of International Student & Scholar Services Josh Whitson was the lead trainer for the F-1 Student Advising: Intermediate workshop and presented on Grant and Award Opportunities for International Education Administrators.

“Empowering ESOL Learners with AI and Information Literacy Skills” was presented by Oberlin’s ESOL Program Director Larissa Fekete and Head of the Conservatory Library Kathleen Abromeit at the NEXT (New Explorations in Teaching) conference, “Bridging Pedagogy and Innovation: AI and Beyond” on November 1. 

Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Religion Shari Rabin was elected vice president (and president-elect) of the Southern Jewish Historical Society at their annual conference in Louisville on November 3.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jessica Madison Pískatá published an essay entitled "Provincializing Energy in the Mongolian Gobi" in the Social Science Research Council's Intersections series on Religion and Energy.

Assistant Professor of Music Theory Christa Cole recently published the article “Hands, Fingers, Strings, and Bows: Performance Technique and Analysis in J.S. Bach’s Largo for Solo Violin” in Music Theory Online, the Society for Music Theory’s open-access electronic journal. Through a close reading of a piece she first learned as a violinist, Cole examines how performance-based perspectives correspond with, conflict with, and create new music-analytical approaches.

Assistant Professor of Music Theory Samuel Gardner was interviewed for an Ideastream story on What Makes Music Scary? Instrumentation, Composition, and Your Imagination.