Dr. David Sturges, associate professor of management, marketing and international business (MMIB) in the College of Business Administration, was among 10 professors recently recognized as recipients of the 2006 Hormel Meritorious Teaching Awards which were announced at the Fourth Annual Marketing Management Association (MMA) conference. The award is sponsored by Hormel Foods Corporation for excellence in collegiate marketing education.

Nominated by MMIB chair Dr. Fuat Firat, Sturges’ honor was in part based on his innovative teaching program “Technology Application for Critical Thinking” (TACT). TACT incorporates a myriad of the latest technologies such as online streaming video, online discussion boards, electronic classroom activity processors and electronic presentations to provide an entertaining, interactive, self-motivating, learner-centered educational technique regarded as important in fostering and enhancing critical thinking in students.

The MMA is an international association that includes 400 members worldwide that is dedicated to developing more effective marketing educators and scholars. Sturges earned his Ph.D. in organization theory and policy from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas).

At UTPA since 1989, Sturges has served as director of the Ph.D. Program (1993-95); interim director of the Institute for International Business Research (1993-95); and MMIB department chair (1999-2005).

With the help of The Metropolitan Center at Florida International University (FIU) Dr. Jessica Lavariega Monforti from the UTPA Department of Political Science and Dr. Lisa García Bedolla of the University of California-Irvine released a poll Feb. 23 showing significant social and political changes in the Cuban and Cuban-American community in Miami-Dade.

The countywide telephone poll of 600 adult Cubans and Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade was conducted from Feb. 6-19, 2006 in both English and Spanish. Monforti and Bedolla, both independent outside researchers, spearheaded the poll. The University of California-Irvine provided funding for the survey.

The poll results demonstrate that foreign policy and security concerns unrelated to Cuba rank at the top of the most important political issues in this community and in terms of top concerns for the 2008 Presidential Election. In addition, respondents reported relatively high rates of non-traditional types of political participation.

Dr. Zen Faulkes, graduate program coordinator in the Department of Biology, recently had the following articles published: “The locomotor toolbox of spanner crabs, Ranina ranina (Brachyura, Raninidae)” in Crustaceana 79(2): 143-155; and ”Digging mechanisms and substrate preferences of shovel nosed lobsters, Ibacus peronii (Decapoda: Scyllaridae) in the Journal of Crustacean Biology 26(1): 69-72.

Dr. Bailey Wang, CCC-A, an associate professor and audiologist in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, recently published “Let's Get Real! Understanding the Distinctions Between Aided SRT and WRS: The 50 percent point on the performance-intensity function curve is just a point – not the whole picture" in the February issue of The Hearing Review (2006), 13, 2, 22-30.

The article is a tutorial to discuss an over-simplified assumption and approach that have been generally accepted/used in hearing aid fitting and orientation. In the field, the hearing aid aided speech recognition threshold has been used to predict the maximum speech processing performance for the hearing aid users in hearing aid selection, fitting, orientation, counseling, and rehabilitation. However, the relationship between the speech recognition threshold and maximum speech processing performance has not been thoroughly studied yet and the approach of that prediction is just based on an assumption that seems to be reasonable for acceptance.

In the article, a thorough hypothetical consideration for the relationship between the speech recognition threshold and maximum speech processing performance was deliberated and then supported with empirical clinical data to show that the original assumption can not be made with academic foundation and accuracy. With support from one figure of theoretical curves of subject's speech processing performance and six figures of clinical performance-intensity curves, the manuscript clearly demonstrated that the speech recognition threshold is just the 50 percent data point on the curve and individuals may show a response with exactly identical 50 percent point while their response pattern, slope of the curve, and maximum speech processing performance may be totally different from each other. Therefore, the approach of predicting subject's hearing aid aided performance based on that 50 percent point is oversimplified and without accuracy, and the mindset of professionals, in the area of hearing aid fitting/selecting and the establishment of realistic expectation of the possible hearing aid benefits, may need to be modified accordingly.

Much of Wang’s time and efforts have been devoted to the writing of this article, such as 22 hours were used to draw and have the 16 curves carefully placed in the “Figure 2” of the article. It is anticipated that the “Figure 2” would be cited frequently whenever professionals are teaching the concepts in classrooms or in clinical audiology in the future.

Dr. Bimal K. Banik, a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, England, and several undergraduate students presented several posters at the Annual Meeting of the Texas Academy of Science in Beaumont, March 2006.

Marcellino Medina, Louis Canales, Jacobed Marquez, Clarissa Alvarez, Ramon Garza, Calista Aguilar and Hector Aguilar are all undergraduate students working in Banik’s research group exploring synthetic organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry of drug design including anticancer and antibacterial agents.

The students presented the following posters at the meeting: M. Medina, L. Canales and Banik, “Isolation and Structural Modification of Eugenol,” P25-CJ; I. Garcia, R. Garza and Banik, “An Expeditious Iodine-Induced Three Component Reaction,” CJ-29; H. Aguilar, K. Gomez and Banik, “Bismuth Nitrate-Catalyzed Oxidation and Acetylation Reaction of Hydroxy b-Lactams,” P24-CJ; C. Aguilar, J. Marquez and Banik, “Bismuth Nitrate-Induced Reaction of Indole with Carbonyl Compounds,” P23-CJ; J. Marquez and Banik, “Synthesis of Anticancer b-Lactams Through Cycloaddition Reaction,” CJ-31; and C. Alvarez and Banik, “A Simple Protection of Carbonyl Compounds via Bismuth Nitrate-Catalyzed Reaction,” CJ-28.

Dr. John Bokina, a professor in the Department of Political Science, chaired and served as the discussant on the "Political Threats, Cycles, and Catastrophes" panel; and presented his paper, "Spartacus in the Enlightenment,” at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago, Ill., April 22.

Dr. Eric J. Romero, assistant professor of management, and Kevin Cruthirds, lecturer in the Department of Management, Marketing and International Business, recently published an article titled “The Use of Humor in the Workplace” in the Academy of Management Perspectives.

Dr. Alonzo Cavazos and Dr. Catherine Faver, both faculty members in the Department of Social Work, made two presentations at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association held in San Antonio, April 13-15. The presentations were titled, “Hierbas (Herbs), Hierberías (Herbal Shops), and Curanderismo (Spiritual Healing)” and “Cultural Competence and Curanderismo: Lessons from the Field.”

Dr. Steven Schneider, English department chair, had two articles published in national higher education publications this spring. In March, The Chronicle of Higher Education published his article titled “Crossing Borders with Poetry and Art,” regarding his work with public school teachers in South Texas and the “Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives” project that he conducts with his wife Reefka, an artist. The project employs the experience of ekphrasis – art conceived in response to a poem or a poem conceived in response to a work of art. Their poetry-art workshop depicts Texas-Mexico border life and the economic challenges of the people in this region through Reefka’s portraits of area people with corresponding poetry for each drawing composed by Schneider, a published poet.

The second article titled “Teaching Culturally Relevant Literature” was published in the April 10 issue of The Hispanic Outlook on Higher Education. The article described how he and other UTPA faculty have successfully employed culturally relevant texts to increase the interest in and amount of reading by UTPA’s predominantly Hispanic student population as well as to improve their critical reading and writing skills.