Faculty Research & Creative Scholarship 2020: Q-R

Journal Title: EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education
Abstract: This article describes results of a professional development (PD) program for inservice science teachers. The PD integrated experiential learning to enhance participants’ literacy regarding energy production and associated environmental costs. The PD focused on six energy sources and environmental politics that must be navigated to make decisions about their sustainability. Participants toured energy extraction/production sites including coal mines, hydroelectric dams, wind farms, and nuclear power plants. At each site, participants encountered differing perspectives on the environmental costs and benefits of the energy sources. Group discussions allowed for sharing participants’ thoughts on each perspective and mathematical modeling was used as a tool for evaluating each energy source. Data included pre- and post-content assessments and PD evaluation surveys. Analysis revealed the role that experiential learning played in changed perspectives on energy production, content knowledge growth, and impacts on the participants’ own classroom teaching.
Author: Sarah Quebec Fuentes, 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: Sarah Quebec Fuentes, Associate Professor, Education

Journal Title: Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences
Abstract: Lighting design is an essential aspect of interior design, however, as of 2019 only 6% of universities offer students the opportunity to study lighting design in depth as part of their Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA) accredited undergraduate interior design program (Council for Interior Design Accreditation, 2019). This paper attempts to make a case for including lighting design as an indispensable part of interior design education while also promoting Family and Consumer Sciences Body of Knowledge (FCS-BOK). The rapid and ongoing advancements being made in luminaire design, lighting controls, and energy conservation necessitate attention and further expansion of lighting design education within interior design programs.
Author: Shweta L. Reddy, Associate Professor, Fashion Merchandising

Journal Title: Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences
Abstract: The purpose of using technology in education today is to provide students with an opportunity to learn a given topic at their own pace and convenience. Integrating technology into education is of considerable value because using technology effectively has the potential to make learning meaningful (Kirschner, 2015). Within a decade, technology has transformed education by affecting (a) the method of delivering course content to students, (b) student engagement with course content outside class hours, (c) the capability of a teacher to create different learning opportunities for students of diverse learning styles, (d) and the ability to convert course information into knowledge bytes for students of varied educational back-grounds and abilities. In this short span of time, the purpose of using technology in education has shifted from merely delivering course content to aiding students in learning the content. Using technology in education is more like "the idea that you can learn something without directly learning it" (Henriksen et al., 2019, p. 86). In other words, even though technological competence may not be the objective of a course, learning the technology will certainly help in achieving the objective of the course.
Author: Shweta L. Reddy, Associate Professor, Fashion Merchandising

Description: As an American educator with decades of experience, Dr. Deborah J. Rhea had a burning desire to know why Finland's educational system was top ranked in the world, while the United States fell in the middle of the pack. She made it her mission to learn what she could.   Rhea took a six-week trip to Finland, where she lived and learned from the best in their schools and government. During that period, her observations revealed that her generation experienced life and education very differently from children today. The philosophies and principles she saw reflected in the Finnish educational system helped open her eyes to the many wrong turns that the United States has made in education over the last thirty years. What's more, Rhea presents the right moves needed to get the country back on track for a healthier, happier method of educating children.   In this study, an experienced educator compares the educational approaches of Finland and the United States, considering ways that the latter might be adjusted and improved.
Author: Deborah Rhea, Associate Dean for Health Sciences & Research and Director of Let's Inspire Innovation 'N Kids (LiiNK) Center

Journal Title: Mathematische Zeitschrift
Abstract: We prove that any smooth foliation that admits a Riemannian foliation structure has a well-defined basic signature, and this geometrically defined invariant is actually a foliated homotopy invariant. We also show that foliated homotopic maps between Riemannian foliations induce isomorphic maps on basic Lichnerowicz cohomology, and that the Álvarez class of a Riemannian foliation is invariant under foliated homotopy equivalence.
Author: Ken Richardson, Professor and Graduate Director, Mathematics

Journal Title: Documenta Mathematica
Summary: We study properties of the mean curvature one-form and its holomorphic and antiholomorphic cousins on a transverse Kähler foliation. If the mean curvature of the foliation is automorphic, then there are some restrictions on basic cohomology similar to that on Kähler manifolds, such as the requirement that the odd basic Betti numbers must be even. However, the full Hodge diamond structure does not apply to basic Dolbeault cohomology unless the foliation is taut.
Author: Ken Richardson, Professor and Graduate Director, Mathematics

Description: The Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studiesprovides scholars and students of American Studies with theoretical and applied essays that help to define Transnational American Studies as a discipline and practice. In more than 30 essays, the volume offers a history of the concept of the "transnational" and takes readers from the Barbary frontier to Guam, from Mexico's border crossings to the intifada's contested zones. Together, the essays develop new ways for Americanists to read events, images, sound, literature, identity, film, politics, or performance transnationally through the work of diverse figures, such as Confucius, Edward Said, Pauline Hopkins, Poe, Faulkner, Michael Jackson, Onoto Watanna, and others. This timely volume also addresses presidential politics and interpictorial US history from Lincoln in Africa, to Obama and Mandela, to Trump.　 The essays, written by prominent global Americanists, as well as the emerging scholars shaping the field, seek to provide foundational resources as well as experimental and forward-leaning approaches to Transnational American Studies. y prominent global Americanists, as well as the emerging scholars shaping the field, seek to provide foundational resources as well as experimental and forward-leaning approaches to Transnational American Studies.
Author: Sarah Ruffing Robbins, Lorraine Sherley Professor of Literature

Journal Title: International Bulletin of Mission Research
Abstract: In writings by Nellie Arnott, who taught for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Angola from 1905 to 1912, we find a complex interplay between affiliation and distancing in portrayals of her students and their communities. A somewhat different version of Arnott and her students appears in narratives written by editors and contributors to her main publication venue, Mission Studies: Woman’s Work in Foreign Lands. This essay investigates discursive tensions between her own narrative stance and that of her magazine managers, whose views on racial issues often displayed stereotypical bias against, and limited knowledge about, Angola.
Author: Sarah Ruffing Robbins, Lorraine Sherley Professor of Literature

Journal Title: Journal of Business, Economics and Environmental Studies
Abstract: Purpose: Omni-channel retailing is a new retail phenomenon. Consumers in the omni-channel environment do not rely on one channel but integrate different channels from the same retailers freely during a particular shopping journey. The purpose of this study is to better understand omni-channel shoppers in the fashion retailing context. The present study uses consumer characteristics -- fashion innovativeness, technology innovativeness, and fashion purchase involvement -- as determinants predicting consumers’ omni-channel shopping intentions for fashion products.
Research design, data, and methodology: Data were collected from 403 U.S. consumers, and the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to test proposed hypotheses. The survey for this research consisted of three parts. The first part measured consumer traits in terms of their innovativeness and purchase involvement. The second part was designed to measure consumers’ omni-channel shopping intentions, and the third part gathered consumer demographic information.
Results: The findings confirmed that fashion innovativeness, technology innovativeness, and fashion purchase involvement positively affected consumers’ omni-channel shopping intentions.
Conclusions: Fashion retailers should integrate various customer touchpoints and offer mobile-enabled technologies to boost consumer traffic to both online and offline stores. They also need to create a shopping environment that is optimized for customer engagement in various shopping processes and allow them to explore different shopping channel options for best purchase decisions.
Author: Jay Sang Ryu, Associate Professor, Fashion Merchandising