Faculty Research & Creative Scholarship 2020: I-J

Journal Title: Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies
Abstract: This article interrogates both the legal and social identities of Japanese-Melanesians (or ‘Nippo-Kanaks’) residing in the Free French territory of New Caledonia at the beginning of the twentieth century to the years following the Second World War. The first part of the article details how, fearing an imminent Japanese attack on New Caledonia after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the French Empire began the process of deporting nearly all Japanese emigrants residing throughout New Caledonia to Australian internment camps on 8 December 1941. French officials in New Caledonia sequestered all property belonging to the Japanese émigré community, and later sold it to the French public. Nippo-Kanaks, who were children at the time of the incarceration and deportation of their Japanese fathers, maintained a problematized legal identity as Japanese nationals residing in Pacific French territory. Although the French Empire granted French citizenship to mixed race Kanaks in 1946, French authorities in New Caledonia specifically denied French citizenship to Nippo-Kanaks, who then had to petition for French naturalization. The second part of this article interrogates the social identity of Nippo-Kanaks viewed from the perspective of Jeannette Yokoyama, a second-generation Nippo-Kanak whose Japanese father was deported to Australia. Yokoyama’s father was forcibly repatriated to Japan after the Second World War, but by writing letters he maintained communication with his family in New Caledonia. The letters that Jeannette received from her father allowed her to forge personal memories of her absent father that shaped her social, mixed race identity as a Nippo-Kanak. For Yokoyama’s father, the letters served as a means to enculturate Jeannette as a Japanese daughter from afar. Jeannette’s memories of her beloved father, coupled with the embrace of her Japanese heritage, represent a symbolic resistance to French administrators’ efforts to erase the presence of the Japanese community in New Caledonia.
Author: Benjamin Hiramatsu Ireland, Assistant Professor of French

Journal Title: RSC Advances
Abstract: Acid treatment of a triazine displaying both a tethered acetal and BOC-protected hydrazine group leads to spontaneous condensation to yield macrocyclic dimers in excellent yields and purity. The bis-triazinyl hydrazones that form are characterized by 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, 1H-COSY spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and mass spectrometry. By varying the length of the tether—the condensation product of an amino acid and amino acetal—rings comprising 22–28 atoms can be accessed. Glycine and β-alanine were used for the amino acid. The amino acetal comprised 2, 3 or 4 carbon atoms in the backbone. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was employed to assess purity as well as to fingerprint the six homodimeric products. By combining the protected monomers and subjecting them to acid, mixtures of homodimers and heterodimers are obtained. When all six protected monomers are combined, at least 14 of the 21 theoretical dimeric products are observed by HPLC. Single crystal X-ray diffraction and solution NMR studies reveal the diversity of shapes available to these molecules.
Author: Benjamin G. Janesko, Associate Professor, Physical Chemistry, and Director of Graduate Studies

GIF Description: Blue is positive and red is negative. The nearly neutral green regions are involved in carbohydrate-aromatic interactions.
Author: Benjamin G. Janesko, Associate Professor, Physical Chemistry, and Director of Graduate Studies

Journal Title: Journal of Chemical Theory and Composition
Abstract: The way to improve Kohn–Sham density functional theory is to improve the exchange–correlation functionals, and functionals have been successively improved by adding new ingredients, especially local spin density gradients, nonlocal Hartree–Fock exchange, and local meta terms based on kinetic energy density. Here, we present a new kind of functional obtained by adding rung-3.5 terms to a functional including local gradients, local meta terms, and range-separated Hartree–Fock exchange. A rung-3.5 term has short-range nonlocality designed to account for nondynamic correlation; we add two kinds of rung-3.5 terms, one kind modeled on position-dependent Hartree–Fock exchange and another modeled on the spin density at a point interacting with the opposite-spin exchange hole at the same point. Optimization of the functional yields broad accuracy for both ground states and excited states with especially significant improvement for systems with strong correlation.
Author: Benjamin G. Janesko, Associate Professor, Physical Chemistry, and Director of Graduate Studies

Description: Oil on Paper, 24 x 29 in
Artist: Dan Jian, Assistant Professor, Art

Description: Oil on Paper, 24 x 27 in
Artist: Dan Jian, Assistant Professor, Art

Journal Title: Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership
Abstract: Using data is foundational to school leadership; however, when “data” are narrowly construed as academic outcomes, important data perceived as tangential to academics can be backgrounded, ignored, or unused. Today’s school leaders must also attend to data around chronic absenteeism, discipline, learning climate, and social, emotional, and physical well-being—all of which factor into students’ ability and readiness to learn. In this case, educators at Copper Springs Middle School move from frustrations with “poor student choices” to a better understanding of student needs and issues related to food insecurity through the collection and analysis of broader data through an equity lens.
Author: Jo Beth Jimerson, Associate Professor, Education

Journal Title: The Learning Professional
Opening Paragraph: At the heart of effective school leadership are robust instructional leadership practices. An emphasis on instructional leadership is neither new nor simple. We’ve spent the last several years talking with teachers, school leaders, and content experts about how they engage in instructional leadership and the challenges with which they struggle. One takeaway from this work is that much, if not most, of the time, leaders are engaging in their work within a context of instructional mismatch.
Author: Jo Beth Jimerson, Associate Professor, Education