Dear Colleagues,

What a long, strange semester it’s been! The sheer onslaught of dealing with the twists and turns of the COVID-19 pandemic has produced, I must admit, a psychological exhaustion I have never before experienced. I’m quite sure I am not alone in this. My sincere thanks and deepest appreciation goes out to all of our faculty and staff for the enormous effort involved in the rapid adaptation that was necessary.

Among the disappointments associated with the pandemic were the many celebrations that were cancelled. CAS Honors Day 2020 was one such event. However, thanks to Cindy Scarsdale and her team of students, we created a website for Honors Day, which you can visit to see all of the outstanding students who received scholarships and awards for the College this year. As I wrote to the students, “While we could not physically gather to celebrate, please know that you will always have this achievement as part of your record, and this can never be taken from you.”

Another event that was a victim of the pandemic was the 25th anniversary dinner-gala that was scheduled at the end of June. Yet, with each challenge comes an opportunity. As a physical event, the anniversary gala had space limitations. As a virtual event, those limitations no longer exist. Details concerning a virtual 25th anniversary event are being developed and will be forthcoming. I hope you all will be able to join us to celebrate the College’s anniversary!

But that is not all we have to celebrate. Our students, faculty and alumni continue to achieve great things!

Read Dean Budzban's full letter.

Shannan Mason, PhD student in the Department of Historical Sciences, was awarded the François André Michaux Fund Fellowship at the American Philosophical Society (APS) Library and Museum in Philadelphia, Pa. This four-week residential fellowship will support her PhD dissertation research on John Bartram, a Philadelphia native who generated a burgeoning trans-Atlantic 18th-century horticultural exchange. The APS houses a large collection of Bartram’s letters and research where Mason will have the opportunity to intensely study her theory.

“My argument is that Bartram is a merchant of nature,” said Mason. “This is a big change from the more widely accepted interpretation that he is a sentimental collector exchanging because he was a nature-centric Quaker. I’m pushing against those sentimental interpretations and saying, actually, he was a scientist and a merchant. He was doing these things to foster a sense of intellectualism in conjunction with earning money. I want to see how his material surroundings inside the Philadelphia area influenced his business, if there is a connection. And even if there isn’t a direct connection between his material surroundings and his exchange, I think it would be nice to paint this picture of what exactly nature looked like in material depictions in Philadelphia.”

Read the article.

Department of Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Susanne DiSalvo, PhD, has been honored with the Graduate School’s 2020-21 Vaughnie Lindsay New Investigator Award for her outstanding research contributions and exemplary dedication to educating student researchers.

“I am thrilled to receive the Vaughnie Lindsay New Investigator Award,” said DiSalvo. “It will provide me with the resources to propel my research forward, generate preliminary data to apply for competitive grants, and help me train and fund phenomenal SIUE student researchers in the lab.”

The award supports DiSalvo’s research project, Connecting Unique Outcomes with Dynamic Infection Processes in an Emerging Microbial Symbiosis System, which studies an emerging Burkholderia bacteria-amoebae host system, to investigate the mechanisms and outcomes of bacterial colonization. She will receive a combined $12,500 from the SIUE Graduate School and the CAS to be used in a one-year period.

Read the article.

SIUE alumni Marie Gipson, who earned a bachelor’s in chemistry, with secondary education licensure in 2018, and Benjamin Scamihorn, who earned a bachelor’s in biology in 2018, with secondary education licensure, and a master’s in biology in 2019, are among the numerous educators creatively adjusting their communication and teaching to maintain relationships with their students and ensure positive learning experiences.

“The majority of learning in my class is through hands-on work, analyzing and discussing data, and problem-solving in groups,” Scamihorn explained. “It has been challenging trying to find the balance of what my students are able to accomplish without my and each other’s help. As teachers, we must also be aware of the challenges that our students could be experiencing at home and make sure we have equity at the forefront of our minds when planning our lessons. I try to plan work that challenges my students, but is also manageable and doesn’t greatly increase their stress during this already stressful time.”

Read the article.

Their rebel appeal, undisputable talents, blazing notoriety and even miscarriages of justice, have inspired the creativity of numerous writers and artists throughout the years. These “bad” men are the subject of the second book– “Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers”– penned by Howard Rambsy II, PhD, professor in the SIUE Department of English Language and Literature. 

“Since 2000, black men — many of whom were perceived as bad, insubordinate, or troubling — motivated astonishing output from African American writers. Paul Beatty, Tyehimba Jess, Adrian Matejka, Kevin Young, and the late Amiri Baraka, to name some, concentrated on legendary and disreputable cultural figures as they composed literary works,” wrote Rambsy. “Those writers were of course extending longstanding practices among African American storytellers and artists who have been moved to share captivating tales of bad men for hundreds of years now. The sheer number and high quality of works on bad men produced during the 21st century signal how elemental those figures are to creativity.” 

Read the article. 

The thought-provoking and eye-catching works of SIUE’s Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidates are now on display in the Department of Art and Design’s MFA and BFA Virtual Exhibition, developed by SIUE Digital Photography Professor Abbey Hepner.

Each spring, the creative talents of BFA and MFA candidates are showcased in the Art and Design West Gallery, culminating years of hard work and dedication. This year, event cancellations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic led to the reimagined, alternate exhibition in a virtual format.

“Schools across the country have had to adapt quickly and devise alternative exhibition formats for their graduating MFA and BFA candidates,” Hepner said. “The art and design faculty were aware of many other institutions moving their exhibitions online as stay-at-home orders took hold. Our virtual exhibition was not intended to replace the physical exhibition. Still, we thought it was important for the hard work of our students to be recognized at the end of their final semester. The exhibition is such an important milestone where years of hard work and dedication are on display and celebrated.”

Read the article.