Faculty Focus–June 13, 2022
Faculty members put their knowledge into action so students and others are able to benefit from it. Recently, faculty published journal articles and book chapters, coordinated international conferences, and shared their career journeys as podcast guests.
Cynthia Bansak
Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics Cynthia Bansak presented and chaired multiple sessions at the Eastern Economic Association’s 48th Annual Conference in Montego Bay, Jamaica. As a panelist and session chair, she discussed her experience as the co-editor of the Eastern Economic Journal and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics and organized a session on "Experiential Learning Applications in Economics and Finance.”
Bansak also co-presented a new paper, "The Resiliency of Remittances during the Pandemic: The Importance of Sending Country Economic Conditions," with Nicole Simpson of Colgate University and Norbert Oros ’19, which found evidence that many continents experienced significant rebounds in remittances after the initial drop in March 2020. Health crises, pandemic-induced recessions, and environmental factors boosted, or pulled, remittances into home countries, and home countries with low levels of COVID fiscal stimulus saw a stronger correlation between remittances and new COVID-related deaths.
Bansak's work has been published in various academic journals and she has co-authored a textbook on the Economics of Immigration. Among the courses she regularly teaches at St. Lawrence are Econometrics, Labor Economics, The Fed Challenge, and Money and Banking. Bansak received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at San Diego and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University.
Neil Forkey
Associate Professor and Chair of Canadian Studies Neil Forkey used his expertise to write a review of a work titled “Canada: A Very Short Introduction," which was recently published in the book, “American Review of Canadian Studies."
Forkey’s research focuses on Canadian-American history, North America social and environmental history, and North American borderlands. Among the courses he regularly teaches at St. Lawrence are Intro to Canada, Canadian-American Relations, Modern Canada, and courses in the First-Year Program.
Precious Hall
Assistant Professor of Government Precious Hall co-authored a book chapter, "Poverty in the African American Community: A Twenty-First Century Approach to Measuring Economic Progress," in the publication, "The State of Black America: Progress, Pitfalls, and the Promise of the Republic.”
Hall’s work explores the persistent economic inequality and poverty within the African American community in the 21st century using a model of institutional policies that have contributed to this persistent poverty and ultimately suggests alternative ways with which to measure economic and racial progress in the 21st century. Her teaching interests include American Politics, Race and Politics, Political Theory, Politics and Pop Culture, and African American Political Thought.
Antun Husinec
James H. Chapin Professor of Geology and Mineralogy Antun Husinec, gave a talk and presented his paper at the 35th Nordic Geological Winter Meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. The paper titled, "Depositional environments and sequence stratigraphy in a perennially isolated epicontinental basin: a case study from the Upper Ordovician Williston Basin, North America," sheds new light on the climatic and sea-level oscillations prior to the end-Ordovician glaciation around 445 Mya, which was associated with the first of the ‘big five’ mass extinctions that have swept our planet.
Husinec’s research focuses on the sedimentary record of climatic, sea level, and oceanic changes. Courses he regularly teaches at St. Lawrence include Oceanography, Sedimentology, and Carbonate Sedimentology. He holds a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, finished his post-doc at Virginia Tech, and is a Geosciences Research Affiliate at Colorado State University.
Gisele El Khoury
Director of St. Lawrence’s Language Resource Center Gisele El Khoury co-authored an article titled, “Instructor and Peer Feedback on Oral Speaking Tasks: Extempore, Soundcloud, VoiceThread, and Flipgrid” published by FLTMag.com. The article shares various approaches and tools to give students feedback on their oral production such as input from instructors, peer feedback, and a combination of both types.
El Khoury began her teaching career as an Arabic professor at the University of New Hampshire. At St. Lawrence University, El Khoury teaches Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Arabic, and courses on cultural topics.
Ronnie Olesker
Associate Professor of Government Ronnie Olesker spoke about how transformative academic coaching has been for her writing and career on Cathy Mazak’s podcast, Academic Writing Amplified.
Olesker’s work focuses on international relations and security studies. Courses she regularly teaches at St. Lawrence include Introduction to International Relations, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and Middle East Politics. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and is a former assistant prosecutor at the Central District Attorney’s office in Tel Aviv, Israel.
St. Lawrence’s Faculty Focus is a new regular roundup that features noteworthy faculty news.
