Faculty Focus–October 22, 2024
Faculty members put their knowledge into action so students and others are able to benefit from it. Recently, faculty published research papers, received prestigious awards for their books, presented at conferences, and shared insights with international correspondents.
Sahar Milani
R. Sheldon ’68 and Virginia H. Johnson Associate Professor of Economics Sahar Milani gave a presentation at the Metal and Change Virtual Conference on October 19. The two-day virtual conference brought together scholars from diverse disciplines to explore the key themes and challenges that heavy metal music and culture confront in an ever-changing world. In her presentation, "Teaching Metal Music Culture Through Experiential Learning," she explained how her course, Heavy Metal NYC, taught as part of the NYC Semester Program in 2023-2024, embodies a modified version of Kolb's (1984) experiential learning cycle. “I explained how an emphasis on authenticity within the course allowed students to internalize lessons gathered from the experience, contributing to their personal and professional growth,” she says.
Milani is an innovation economist with research interests that include environmental economics, macroeconomics, and the financing of innovation. At St. Lawrence, she has taught courses on personal finance, environmental economics, natural resource economics, the economics of innovation, and macroeconomics. In addition to her academic interests, she is a heavy metal music enthusiast.
Howard Eissenstat
Laurentian Associate Professor and Chair of History Howard Eissenstat was quoted for a series of articles in the German-language press, including Tagesspiegel, on the death of Fethullah Gülen, the leader of a small but important Muslim sect that had become a political force in Turkey and played a central role in an attempted coup in 2016. Gülen had been living in the U.S. for decades, and Eissenstat shared, “The extensive nature of the purge after the coup, in which people with even the most tangential relationship to the movement were prosecuted and fired from their jobs leading to a sort of ‘social death,’ precludes the possibility of a resurgence of the movement in Turkey.” He also observed, “While Gulen’s presence in the United States was once an irritant, that U.S.-Turkish relations are now so broken that his death will do little to improve them.”
Eissenstat’s research focuses on the intersection of nationalism, religious identity, and policy in Turkey, with recent emphasis on contemporary Turkish politics, including rule of law, minority rights, and the political culture under the AKP. A former Turkey Country Specialist for Amnesty International-USA (2006-2017) and Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy (2017-2020), he has advised the U.S. Military, State Department, and Canadian Foreign Service. He has also provided expert testimony to both the U.S. Congress and the Canadian Senate.
Allison Rowland
Professor of Performance and Communication Arts and Maurer Director of Rhetoric & Communication Allison Rowland has once again earned top honors from the Association for Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine (ARSTM). Her co-edited volume, COVID and... How to Do Rhetoric in a Pandemic (2023, Michigan State University Press), was awarded the prestigious ARSTM Book of the Year Award. This marks a historic moment, as Rowland becomes the only person to win this award twice.
The book, co-edited with Emily Winderman and Jennifer Malkowski, carefully charts how rhetoric is closely tied with the material realities, the economic realities, the pre-existing, and the social inequities that shape disease outcomes. The ARSTM praised the volume’s interdisciplinary impact, potential for teaching future scholars, and the clarity of its writing.
According to the awards committee, the book offers “an exploration of trauma, both in its subject and the experience of the authors. This is an important reminder of the human cost of the pandemic for those who survived, those who grieve, and the ongoing injustices that COVID reveals.
Serge Onyper
Wallace Associate Professor of Psychology Serge Onyper recently published a paper in the journal Nature and Science of Sleep. His research examined the relationship between videoconferencing and sleep and was conducted at St. Lawrence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were students who kept daily sleep journals and reported the number and length of video calls. The study results indicate that sleep was disrupted in individuals who engaged in more videoconferencing for academic or work purposes.
Since joining St. Lawrence University in 2007, Onyper has been blending his passion for teaching with his love of research. With a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Syracuse University, Onyper focuses on cognitive psychology, studying thought processes, memories, emotions, and the connections between sleep, learning, and behavior. At the heart of his work is his commitment to mentoring students, offering them hands-on research experiences and close collaboration in the classroom and laboratory.
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