Anton Armstrong, Department of Music
I would like to focus my proposed sabbatical leave in the Spring of 2023 to study in greater depth the choral music and culture of South Africa. This would include not only the choral works based on traditional music of that country, but also the art music that has been created. It is my expectation to do research and acquire information through sources here in the United States as well as information that may be derived through digital technologies. However, it is important to me to experience in person, choral music making with the people of South Africa. Therefore, I would propose that I spend 2-3 weeks in South Africa. I have professional associations with several of the leading White choral conductors in South Africa, but I would like to meet and make connections with Black choral conductors in South Africa and especially those associated with the Lutheran Church in South Africa.
Gwendolyn Barnes-Karol, Department of Romance Languages
My sabbatical project is to complete three articles and a possible fourth on various aspects of post-communicative approaches to world language teaching and learning. Such approaches, emerging as the gold standard for undergraduate language instruction, go beyond conventional curricula that focus on oral communication for daily interactions to feature meaningful college-level academic content that promotes students’ development of textual analysis and critical thinking skills through engagement with “authentic” texts in another language. The project continues 20 years of collaborative work in the field with my co-author, Maggie Broner, and draws from our research, conference papers, and publications to date. The articles will focus on strategies for transitioning students from conventional world language instruction to post-communicative instruction; documenting student learning of content and academic language through textual analysis; creating a culture of reading in undergraduate programs; and post-communicative language instruction and the liberal arts.
Adam H. Berliner, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science
During sabbatical, I plan to work on research projects in my subfield of combinatorial matrix theory. I will continue and ramp up collaborations with colleagues at the University of Victoria and Xavier University. We will investigate refined inertias of sign pattern matrices, which has applications in mathematical biology and dynamical systems. Second, I will start a new collaboration with colleagues at the University of Oslo and the University of Wisconsin. Both projects should lead to publication and future work (including with students). I also plan to attend and participate in the 2022 and 2023 International Linear Algebra Society conferences in Galway, Ireland and Madrid, Spain, respectively.
Vivian Choi, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
During my sabbatical I plan to complete my current book project, develop a new research project, and create new pedagogical and intellectual approaches to further innovate my courses and broader teaching and advising efforts. I have applied for a hybrid teaching/research Fulbright Fellowship to South Korea. If awarded the fellowship, I will teach Anthropology courses at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in the Program for Science, Technology, and Policy. I will also mentor and advise students on anthropological research methods. The experience at KAIST will also open avenues of student exchange. I also hope to use my experience to consider building a concentration or program in Science and Technology Studies. While in Korea, I also plan to develop my next research project, “Sea Change: Experimental Collaborations across the Indian Ocean,” developing site contacts at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, enabling me to refine my research questions to apply for larger grants from the National Science Foundation and the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Lastly, over the year, I plan to finish my book manuscript with a tentative publication date of Spring 2023.
Jill Dietz, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science
My primary research goal is to determine conditions under which the automorphisms of a semi-direct product of two groups are determined by the automorphisms of its factors. Such conditions are known when the product is direct, but the “twisting” action in a semi-direct product makes computations much more difficult because they involve crossed homomorphisms that lack group structure. A secondary goal is to develop student research projects in the area of representation theory, especially in relation to metacylic p-groups. Finally, expanding upon my newly designed Interim course (Math 257), I will develop assignments for some upper-level mathematics courses that ask students to grapple with historical and current issues of equity, inclusion, and access to mathematics education.
Kari Lie Dorer, Departments of Norwegian and Race, Ethnic, Gender and Sexuality Studies
My sabbatical will consist of two large and two small projects. First, I will submit for publication my translation of Fru Muus’ klage [Let Patience Be Your Liniment: The Marriage Scandal That Shook Norwegian-America]. The story uses the marital drama of St. Olaf College’s founder to characterize the broader Norwegian-American community in Minnesota. The scandal is weaved into the contemporaneous debates on women’s legal rights, the role of religion, citizenship, and identity.
My second large project is to research Norwegian involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and the Dano-Norwegian colonies in what is now known as the US Virgin Islands. Residing in Charlotte Amalie during the entire academic year will provide a base for exploring St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. Two smaller projects that I will complete are an update to the Sett i gang textbooks and to develop new exercises on the Godt i gang portal.
Michael Fuerstein, Department of Philosophy
For my sabbatical leave I plan to complete a roughly 175-page book manuscript – currently titled Moral Capital – which provides business leaders with a theoretical framework and concrete method for integrating moral reasoning into business practice. The manuscript is being co-authored with Prof. Subi Rangan of the INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France, where he is professor of Strategy and Management. It is widely acknowledged that capitalism is at an important crossroads: on the one hand the global liberalization of markets has brought more than a billion people out of extreme poverty. On the other, we now confront massive and growing inequality, a climate crisis, and the technological displacement of workers, among a variety of other issues. Regulation is part of the solution to this problem but is not enough. Our manuscript shows how business actors can help address this crisis by turning to foundational ideas in moral philosophy.
Rick Goedde, Department of Economics
I plan to write two related instruction manuals: one for the next person who is going to teach Management (MGMT 251) after I retire, and a manual on Team-Based Learning (TBL) targeted to liberal arts faculty. The manuals are related in that the TBL manual will include examples for the Management course, as well as examples that are more relevant to other faculty. The Management manual will include advice on course content, textbook selection, use of an online business simulation, ideas for guest speakers and videos to show the class, and ideas for equity and inclusion, related to both pedagogy and course content. Although there are many sources explaining TBL, my contribution will be specific examples that are relevant to management, economics, and other liberal arts disciplines. I also plan to relate advice on implementing TBL acquired over 16 years of use in the classroom.
Daniel Hofrenning, Department of Political Science
1. Book project: I seek to write a book that can serve as an introductory text for classes—and also have some wider appeal. I seek to introduce the main topics of the introductory course in a way that simultaneously highlights pressing public problems AND the substance and the methods of political science research in the leading scholarly journals. I believe there is a market for this type of book that is distinct from the main books of the field.
2. Article on the declining significance of income: For much of American political history, income has been a good predictor of party identification and voter behavior. Looking generally (as social scientists are wont to do), when a person’s income increased, one’s propensity to identify and vote Republican also increased. Yet in recent years, that relationship has weakened. There are still plenty of wealthy Republicans, but they have been joined by a class of wealthy liberals. This relationship shows up in voter surveys and also in campaign finance data in which liberal or Democratic candidates–more often than not–have a financial advantage.
3. Environmental Studies: I seek to write an article on the interplay between the advocacy of lobbyists and the nature of mass public opinion. In environmental politics, many observers see lobbyists as the key actor in thwarting progressive environmental policy. I seek to study the interplay between lobbyists and mass opinion.
4. Environmental Studies: I seek to read more broadly on the interdisciplinary role of environmental studies in the liberal arts. This builds upon my career-long interest in the civic mission of the liberal arts.
Chuck Huff, Department of Psychology
I propose to spend my Academic Year 2022 on two related projects. First, writing a summary of a large recent book (Taking Moral Action) for a top tier publication, Annual Review of Psychology. The second, related, project is to write an exploratory article for the academic journal Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality that uses the foundations of the book to explore one contribution current moral psychology could make to understanding spiritual formation in adults.
Abdulai Iddrisu, Department of History
This research examines Muslim women herbalist in Ghana, and the contradictory structures that shaped their lives, as it interrogates the meaning they associate with the tipple appellation of “Muslim,” “Mothers” and “Healers” in multiple spaces. It adopts the life history approach and the use of archival sources to answer questions such as: How do the women effectively negotiate the Muslim and traditional patriarchal spaces, where a) esoteric knowledge, and apprenticeship in the herbal world invariably remains a male domain, b) How and what kinds of new meaning do they associate with their healing practices and role in society? This permits a refocusing of the discourse from a simplistic dichotomy of women as victims and the saved but privileges the individual personal social mechanisms that Muslim women herbalists adopted, and the myriad ways they used the traditional, Muslim, and secular structures to stay significant in society.
Mary Beth Kuehn, Department of Nursing
During my sabbatical, I propose to complete two projects. During Covid-19, challenges within the U.S. Public Health System have been illuminated including chronic underfunding of primary prevention and emergency preparedness, workforce shortages, a severely outdated infrastructure and health inequities. I will conduct research on “How to prepare the Public Health Workforce to meet the population health needs of the 21st Century”. I plan to collaborate with local public health agencies including Healthfinders Collaborative and Steele/Rice County Public Health to better understand the challenges of preparing future public health workers with enhanced digital, cultural/linguistic and relationship building skills to improve population health outcomes. Additionally, I will work to achieve Certified Nurse Educator status which emphasizes leadership, scholarship and service in the nursing profession. This certification is a mark of distinction and pursuit of excellence in my nurse educator role. Both projects utilize my public health skills and expertise to help better prepare future public health workers (healthcare and other students).
Sharon Lane-Getaz, Departments of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science and Education
As co-Director of our dataSTEM program, I will prepare a manuscript about the program during this final year of the NSF-funded grant. The paper will summarize ongoing program evaluations, document programming for our scholars, courses our scholars have taken, research experiences that have been funded, and career paths scholars have embarked upon. I will solicit input and review from Matt Richey (dataSTEM co-Director) and Xueli Wang (external evaluator). As the current instructor for Stat-110A/B this fall 2021, I am modifying lab activities to use jamovi software. Otherwise, the course is essentially unchanged. I hope to address the research question: How does using jamovi software impact students’ understanding of important introductory topics, as measured by the Reasoning about P-values and Statistical Significance (RPASS) scale? Pretest and posttest scores will be compared to those gathered in previous years’ when SPSS software was used. A manuscript will be written to submit for publication.
Laura Listenberger, Departments of Biology and Chemistry
Fat is stored inside cells in structures called lipid droplets. These reservoirs provide fuel for cellular energy demands and sequester toxins away from pathways that lead to cell death. My research aims to untangle the mechanisms underlying fat storage in both healthy and diseased cells. This work includes experiments to (1) identify proteins that facilitate fat storage in alcoholic fatty liver disease, and (2) to uncover evolutionarily conserved mechanisms of fat storage in the single-celled, aquatic organism Tetrahymena thermophila. This work will contribute to our understanding of the function of lipid droplets in health and disease.
Elodie Marlier, Department of Chemistry
Transition metal catalysis of organic transformations is one of the most important classes of reactions to organic synthesis with applications in pharmaceutical, agrochemical and commodity chemical industries. While the use of precious transition metals as catalysts has dominated these transformations, there has been a shift to replace them with their earth abundant first row transition metal counterparts in recent years. This sabbatical leave project aims to isolate late first row transition metal complexes in their +1 oxidation state, study their reactivity and assess them as potential catalysts. This work will build on an existing research program in the field of organometallic chemistry synthesis and continue to develop in an exciting and professionally relevant area. This work will include planning, writing and submitting two grant proposals to ACS PRF and NSF respectively as well as attending and presenting at national conferences.
Sequoia Nagamatsu, Department of English
I will continue to engage with the ongoing marketing efforts for my first novel, How High We Go in the Dark, which will also observe a second set of “launch” events for the trade paperback edition in the United States, UK and commonwealth countries. Beyond supporting my first novel, I will be working on finishing a draft of my second contracted novel, Girl Zero, to be delivered to my publishers. I also intend to draft both a feature film and series pilot script (and associated series/film visioning documentation). These scripts would allow me to both engage in a revision process with my film manager and other collaborators while leveraging/strengthening my position for future negotiations. My ongoing and future work with my publishers and with film professionals not only strengthens my profile as a mid-career writer with a growing international reach, but these experiences also contribute to providing content (and access to visitors) for my publishing and writing courses, as well as laying the groundwork for potential new courses such as a course or unit exploring adaptations.
Jean Porterfield, Department of Biology
I will use Interim/Spring 2023 to grow my unique and shared contributions to a collaborative research project, and to concretize my antiracism work. I am excited to be part of a team of St. Olaf Biology and Chemistry faculty who are bringing different skill sets to study fat storage and metabolism in the single-celled model organism Tetrahymena, and who are bringing aspects of this research into core biology courses. Drawing from my background in evolutionary genetics, I will study DNA sequence patterns that Tetrahymena fat storage genes share with genes from other organisms to identify genetic connections. My antiracism work this far has included mainly educating myself, and developing short activities for students in my various courses. I recently researched for and presented an invited talk about the conflation of socially constructed human races with genetic variation patterns, and I will value the time to expand and disseminate this content.
Joanne Quimby, Department of Asian Studies
My book project, “Abjection Embodied: Bodily Experience and Abject Agency in Contemporary Japanese Literature” examines poetry and fiction by four contemporary Japanese women authors within feminist theoretical frameworks concerned with the performativity of gendered and sexual identities. One of the goals of my research is to examine narrative strategies which construct alternative visions of women’s embodied experiences in contemporary Japanese society. Chapters in progress on authors Itō Hiromi, Matsuura Rieko, and Kōno Taeko argue that the centrality of the body in these authors’ texts problematizes dominant constructions of the female body as the locus of reproduction and maternal instinct, and that through the granting of agency to abject bodies these authors reclaim the body as a performative site for the exploration of non-normative identities, sexualities, and embodiments. My sabbatical research will primarily involve developing a chapter on an additional author, Kawakami Mieko, whose work I will situate within the overall framework of feminist theory and abject agency I have developed for the overall project.
Jeff Schwinefus, Department of Chemistry
I propose to continue to develop an interactive physical chemistry digital textbook for the Mathematica software platform. The Boltzmann distribution links all topics in the textbook and emphasizes probability as the driving force for physical and chemical change. Quantum chemistry is developed in the first half of the textbook and used to inform chemical thermodynamics. Animation graphics and manipulation settings create dynamic figures and plots for the reader. Problem examples in the text and end-of-chapter problems have dedicated space to allow students to directly input their work into their Mathematica textbook. Solutions are provided in collapsible sections for hints or checking answers. Sections in each chapter are collapsible, making the textbook much easier to navigate than a traditional digital textbook. The textbook will offer a lower cost entry for students at institutions that use Mathematica.
Kathleen L. Shea, Departments of Biology and Environmental Studies
My sabbatical project focuses on 1) writing papers on research with students on growth and mortality patterns in forest restoration projects on the St. Olaf Natural Lands, and 2) developing the digital framework needed for classes and/or independent research students to participate in local long-term collaborative ecological research. Documenting results after 30 years for the maple-basswood forest restoration and 27 years for the conifer restoration will provide a better understanding of patterns of succession and future restoration methods. Establishing shared digital resources on collaborative ecological research projects will enable future classes and researchers to continue collecting data and make comparisons over time and by location. Projects include research on tree growth, carbon sequestration, earthworm populations, bluebird reproduction, plant phenology, and soil structure and nutrient levels. Agricultural projects examine soil nutrients and nutrient runoff. Collaborative research provides valuable research experience for students and helps us understand ecosystem response to environmental change.
Hsiang-Lin Shih, Department of Asian Studies
For my sabbatical leave in the Fall Semester and Interim of 2022–23, I propose to work on a book project tentatively titled Symposia with the Absent Souls. During the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, poets wrote at the feasts that the northern warlord Cao Cao (155–220) and his sons hosted in Ye city (present-day Linzhang, Hebei) and beyond. While celebration was a common theme of their symposium poems, the poet-symposiasts also wrote about frustration, separation, war, disaster, and death in their efforts to build and solidify a community. Traditional Chinese poetry tends to separate the “center” (conviviality of court/community/life) from the “marginal” (sorrow of exile/solitude/death). My research will be the first to examine poetry bridging these two spheres of life, showing how the early medieval Chinese court poets employed the dark theme of mortality to bond with one another.
Ariel Strichartz, Department of Romance Languages
My scholarship focuses on how Argentina’s Armenian population has articulated the collective memory of the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) within the broader Argentine context of the return to democracy following the dictatorship (1976-1983). The principal focus of my research is a series of plays treating the Genocide, which have been written and/or staged in Argentina since 1990. For my sabbatical project, I propose to convert three of my conference papers on three different plays into article form for submission to scholarly journals in the fields of Latin American theatre and genocide studies. Developing my scholarship on these rich play texts and their performances will provide opportunities to delve into issues such as the role of the media in memory politics, the internationalization of human rights, and intergenerational transmission of traumatic memory.
Kris Thalhammer, Department of Political Science
Continuing my research documenting and analyzing struggles by individuals, groups and institutions against social injustice, this project focuses on connecting with and learning from multiple groups resisting the ramifications of US policies that span national borders. Rather than simply looking at the organizers and organizations as subjects of study, I will work with members of several of these groups (e.g. RAICES (Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services) in Texas, and NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala), in collaboration with St. Olaf alums to learn their current priorities and strategies and how they see allies from outside the affected groups potentially contributing to their campaigns. This will enhance understanding of contemporary, nonviolent resistance to injustice by connecting more closely with those in grassroots engagement, amplifying their stories and documenting their work to help better understand and interpret strategies for recruiting and using allies across identity groups to change harmful aspects of US corporate and government policies.
Jill A. Watson, Department of Education
My sabbatical engagements focus on my primary research area of instruction for refugee-background students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE): 1) In fall 2022, I will conduct school-based research on the RISA Oral Interaction strategy that I created, have done many trainings and presentations on, and that is currently used in many schools. The project will support RISA in the partner school, and be a keystone of a book that I will complete by summer 2023, entitled ‘The RISA Manual.’ 2) In January 2023, I will do professional training with teachers in Djibouti, Africa, where I’ve developed a St. Olaf course to launch in 2024. 3) In spring 2023, I will complete the Harvard Refugee Trauma Certificate, which will allow me to sharpen my research focus to address the needs of SLIFE (who commonly experience trauma), and improve my ability to prepare teachers to work effectively with traumatized students.