Professional Notes
Teresa Collett, School of Law, wrote an article, “Applying Catholic teaching: Family life,” which appeared in the Oct. 8 issue of The Catholic Spirit. The article is the 10th in a 13-part series of the U.S. bishops’ 2007 document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States.”
Talia Nadir, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center, and Dr. Debra Petersen, College of Arts and Sciences (Communication and Journalism Department), presented a panel session, “Embedded Librarians: Librarian and Faculty Partnerships,” at the second annual Metronet Information Literacy Project Conference on “Information Literacy: The Bridge to College Readiness” June 20 at the University of Minnesota. Also at the conference, Donna Nix, Keffer Library, moderated a panel titled “High School and College Connections”; speakers on the panel were from Macalester and Concordia. Nadir and Nix also served on the planning committee for the conference.
Dr. Mark Neuzil, College of Arts and Sciences (Communication and Journalism Department), won second prize in the Society of Environmental Journalists annual awards for online journalism during the four-day Minnpost series "Ethanol in Minnesota." The series, which ran in January, was written by Neuzil and Ron Way. The award was announced this month at the SEJ's annual conference in Roanoke, Va. The awards committee said: "In Neuzil's entry, judges liked that the slide show was edited to tell a story, instead of just offering several slides on a theme. It was the only entry to do so. Of all the entries, they decided this one had the best display of video and the best video, too.” Among the attendees were Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III and singer Kathy Mattea. The SEJ, with 1,400 members, is the only U.S.- based membership organization of working journalists dedicated to improvements in environmental reporting.
Dr. Thomas Dillon Redshaw, College of Arts and Sciences (English Department), attended the 32nd annual meeting of the Midwest Regional American Conference for Irish Studies Oct. 10-11 at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul. He delivered a paper on the poet John Montague’s recent memoirs, titled “Rebel Lover: The Making of Montague,” and took part in a reading by Irish-American poets at the Central St. Paul Public Library.
Dani Roach, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center, has been named to the National Information Standards Organization’s Cost of Resource Exchange Working Group. This group of nationally recognized experts from libraries and vendors is charged with developing standards that will facilitate the exchange of cost, fund, vendor and invoice information among integrated library systems, business systems, electronic resource management systems and other interested parties, such as subscription agents. The standards are intended to promote seamless linking among these systems to minimize duplication of data entry. The committee has three goals: define and develop a list of data elements exchanged among these systems; create transport protocol useful for moving the data elements among these systems; and develop “use cases,” which will aid users in understanding the capabilities of the protocols. The selection process for membership in NISO committees is competitive.
For the second time in its history, one of the personal essays with which New Hibernia Review customarily opens has been selected as one of the year’s notable essays by the editors of the Best American Essay series. “Tourmakeady Snow” by Christine Cusick of Seton Hill University (winter 2007) is a memoir that tells of a trip the author took to Ireland with her father not long after he was widowed; to quote from the editors’ note, “ Although there was no agenda to visit her grandfather's home town of Tourmakeady, County Mayo, the family found themselves inexplicably drawn there – where together, they faced an old and unadmitted wound that could, at last, begin to heal.” The Best American Essays 2008 volume was edited by New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik, and the series editors consider thousands of essays each year. Eamonn Wall’s personal essay “The Black Hills, The Gorey Road,” which appeared in the winter 1998 issue, also was selected as a notable essay in 1999.
