What I Did This Summer

So. You’re. Off. All. Summer.

That’s a common assumption people outside of academia tend to make about professors: They work from September until May and then they, well, play. Some sun. Some Shore. Some travels. Maybe a few books with some big glasses of lemonade.

The truth for professors at Rowan University (and, we admit, elsewhere as well) is quite different. They research. They teach. They write books. They give presentations. And, OK, they go to the Shore, too. But, odds are the faculty who are teaching come fall have been doing a lot more in June, July and August than vegging.

And, so, here, Rowan profs provide a take on that perennial childhood writing assignment: What I did on my summer vacation.

Mark Berkey-Gerard, associate professor, Journalism Department, College of Communication & Creative Arts

Whenever I travel to a different country, I see my own life and culture in new ways.

In July, I traveled to El Salvador with a delegation of teachers and professors from the Philadelphia area. The primary goal of the trip was cultural exchange, a chance to meet with Salvadorans and to listen and learn from one another.

For 10 days we traveled to the cities of San Salvador and Santa Ana, to the rural countryside near the lower Lempa River and to half a dozen villages in the mountains of Chalatenango. We met with local educators and students, as well as religious leaders, artists, community organizers, farmers, elected officials, human rights advocates and environmental activists.

Personally, the trip served as a way to re-examine my own work as a journalist, researcher and teacher.

We visited many sites connected to the civil war. I was particularly interested in learning about the role of the press during the conflict. We heard eyewitness accounts of survivors of civilian massacres, including a mother who took us inside the house where her three children were killed. We also met with lawyers and others who continue to investigate human rights violations and exhume and identify the remains of those killed decades ago.

The trip was also a way to explore U.S.-related issues like immigration, the environment and free trade. Middle school students told us about gang violence in their schools. We climbed to the top of a mountain with a man who is working to ban mining on farmland. We toured clean water projects, job collectives and youth programs that aim to improve life in El Salvador so that people do not feel they have to go north for a better life.

For me, the highlight was the in-depth conversations with other teachers. We found we had much in common, and I was inspired by what they are able to accomplish with limited resources. For example, I met a high school principal who built a fully functioning FM radio station in a remote town and brought in a BBC reporter to train the student journalists.

I came home with new energy and insights that I hope to incorporate into my work at Rowan. And I hope to return to El Salvador in the near future.

Dr. Gregory A. Caputo, chair and associate professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, College of Science & Mathematics

On June 17-18, I, along with Dr. Jeff Hettinger from Physics and four students from my research group, attended a conference on Bacteria-Materials Interactions at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. This meeting brought together an international group of scientists and clinicians to share research and findings on how bacteria interact with surfaces (including those of medical devices), how to mitigate infections, and emerging trends and needs relating to reduction and clearing of infections during surgeries for implantation of orthopedic and other medical devices. I presented a talk on our work on antibacterial silver-based coatings as well as chaired a session on novel approaches to antibacterial surfaces.

Dr. Rob Wieman, assistant professor, STEAM Education Department, College of Education

This summer, I have been working on research connected to improving the instruction of mathematics and improving the instruction of mathematics teachers.  I have also been involved in several different collaborations with other mathematics teacher educators to design materials for use in mathematics methods classes, as well as materials for other math educators.  I have submitted revisions to two papers for publication, and I have been working on four other different papers, soliciting feedback and revising.  I also have attended a conference where I met with colleagues who are helping me develop a series of interactive storyboards that we use to depict common teaching scenarios and then ask our teacher candidates to analyze and respond to them. I also have been working on creating a webpage for a catalog of video resources that I have developed. Finally, I have been working on my courses and will be working on writing a grant that will provide scholarships for students who want to study to be math and science teachers. 

Dr. Catherine Neary, instructor, Molecular Biology Department, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, School of Osteopathic Medicine

Summer is a busy time in a research laboratory. I will spend as much time as I can in the laboratory, trying to complete work for submission in a manuscript. I have two students working with me: one GSBS student starting her thesis work on AMPK signaling in cancer metabolism and one SOM student working on a project examining acidification of the tumor cell environment. I still teach in the classroom in the summers, in the PreMatric program for incoming first-year medical students. Finally, the new Master’s in Histopathology program I have developed with another faculty member has been approved!

Dr. Kaitlin Mallouk, instructor, and Dr. Smitesh Bakrania, associate professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering

Dr. Smitesh Bakrania and I (along with many other Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering faculty) attended the American Society for Engineering Education’s 122nd Annual Conference & Exposition in Seattle, Washington. While there, we participated in many workshops and presentations on best practices in engineering education and also presented our own work related to what we do at Rowan to provide the highest-quality engineering education possible. Our efforts were rewarded when our paper "Consumer Reports Inspired Introduction to Engineering Project” was chosen as the best paper in the Division of Experimental and Laboratory Oriented Studies. Dr. Bakrania and I accepted the award on behalf of ourselves and our co-author, Dr. Krishan Bhatia, also a professor of mechanical engineering.

Carla Sbrana, educational technologist, Rowan Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, and adjunct, College of Education

I love teaching, and for eight weeks this summer I had the wonderful opportunity to be the facilitator of an online course working with 16 dedicated Rowan faculty and staff members who wanted to improve their online teaching abilities. This course (Faculty Online Teaching) was developed through a partnership between the Rowan Faculty Center and Rowan Online. This is the second time this course has been offered, and both times it has left me feeling like a "proud parent," with the course I developed being extremely successful and my "students" applying what they have learned to both their online and face-to-face classes before they have even finished the course. And as an added bonus, I still can get in some beach time.

Dr. Edward (Mickey) Smith, Foreign Languages & Literatures Department, College of Humanities & Social Sciences

I have traveled often to Germany with Rowan students, and this summer was no exception. My course Masterpieces of German Literature in English Translation covers such subjects as the 16th German religious reformer Martin Luther, the Grimm Brothers Folktales and the writers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. To visit the sites where great authors worked is transformative. We saw the Gutenberg printing press museum in Mainz; the castle in Eisenach where Luther translated the Bible; and the study in Wittenberg where Goethe composed “Faust,” his account of the man who sold his soul to the devil. Students were transformed by their experience and the memories they made will always be with them.

Tess Nielsen, adjunct supervisor of student music teachers, College of Education

On May 31, I completed my Choral Conducting Fellowship with the Continuo Arts Foundation. The fellowship concluded with a performance at St. John Church in Summit, New Jersey. Throughout the year, I refined my choral conducting skills under the guidance of Dr. Candace Wicke, artistic director. I assisted in the leadership of Continuo’s seven intergenerational choruses. And I conducted an 80-voice chorus and chamber orchestra and performed with Sonare, Continuo’s professional chamber chorus. In March 2015, Sonare served as the symphonic chorus for the musical Hunchback of Notre Dame at Papermill Theater.

Bill Smith, instructor, Mathematics Department, College of Science & Mathematics

I squirreled myself away in our home on Martha’s Vineyard for a month. (I know, what a sacrifice!) During June, I spent about four hours a day rewriting and restructuring my summer Structures II course.  Obviously, with the intention of having it carry over into the fall semester as well. Since I had so much extra time, I attended a webinar, Reaching Students: Putting the Book to Work to Improve Undergraduate Instruction, sponsored by the National Academies Press. Finally, I took an eight-week Rowan online course titled Faculty Online Teaching (facilitated by Carla Sbrana). 

Dr. Laura Schultz​, assistant professor, Mathematics Department, College of Science & Mathematics

I have spent two weeks during each of the past nine summers grading Advanced Placement Statistics exams. For the past four years, I have served as a table leader, supervising the work of other educators as they score these exams. I returned (in June) from Kansas City, Missouri, where a group of approximately 830 high school AP statistics teachers and university statistics professors scored approximately 200,000 student exams. I also was selected to give a "Best Practices" presentation this year.  

Edward H. Moore, professor, Public Relations and Advertising Department, College of Communication & Creative Arts

School might be out for summer, but school administrators across the U.S. are working with me to keep students in school and succeeding. I am helping schools improve their communication to better engage parents and communities to support student success. The research is clear. When parents and communities are engaged, graduation rates and test scores go up and remediation rates go down. I also presented at the National School Public Relations Association's annual seminar in Nashville in July. And I presented to the New Jersey School Public Relations Association’s annual meeting on the Rowan Glassboro campus in June.​

Seth Bergmann, associate professor, Computer Science Department, College of Science & Mathematics

My primary activity this summer is preparing a new (graduate-level) course that I have not previously taught, Advanced Cryptography. In addition, I am continuing with a research project called Open Source Textbooks. This project promulgates the creation of textbooks by individuals collaborating on the Internet, much in the same way that open source software (Linux, Mozilla, Apache, Android apps, etc.) is produced. The result will be high-quality textbooks that are free for students, as opposed to standard textbooks produced by publishing companies that can cost over $200 each. I have completed one such textbook (Compiler Design), and another (Introduction to Computer Science, using Java) is nearing completion.  The Compiler Design book has already been adopted for use at universities around the world. Another (non-academic) activity for this summer is that I competed in the World Masters Athletics Championships in Lyon, France, in August.  In addition to competing in four events, I toured the cities of Nice and Bourg Saint-Maurice (French Alps) when not competing.

Dr. Bryan Appleby-Wineberg, associate professor, Music Department, College of Performing Arts

This summer, I was invited to be the only American soloist and a cornet teacher at the second annual North American Brass Band Summer School held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Summer School is a nearly two-week brass band camp for brass musicians from all over North America and is associated with the world-class Nova Scotia International Tattoo.

I was honored to share cornet teaching duties with the solo cornetist of the #1 ranked brass band in the world, The Cory Band.  My other colleagues were from the United Kingdom, and there was also an American who taught tuba.

In addition to teaching, I performed as a soloist or featured artist on all 13 concerts/tattoo performances and on an additional performance LIVE for a CBC morning TV program.

I have already been invited to be on the faculty again next year.

Dr. Dianne Ashton, professor, Religion Studies Department, College of Humanities & Social Sciences

This year, on my summer “vacation” I’ll be writing an article for a collection to be published by Princeton University Press; writing a teacher’s guide to my most recent book (Hannukah in America: A History, published by New York University Press, 2013); and working on a book that will bring out the 1864-1865 diary by Emma Mordecai, resident of Richmond, Virginia. I also am reading as much as possible for a new course on religion and food. I also am working with colleagues in my department on various administrative duties. And I’m continuing to work as editor for American Jewish History – that doesn’t stop for summer, either. In fact, it gets busier!