News Archive

Facultivities: Democracy, social media and climate change

WVU Tech’s faculty members are dedicated to the advancement of the fields they teach. Outside of the classroom, they’re researchers, writers, presenters, go-to experts and road warriors who share their passion for learning with the world.

Here’s what our faculty members were up to in November:

Andrea Kent, Ph.D. (Political Science), presented a research paper, “Democracy and the Winner-Loser Effect: A Comparative Study of the Americas,” at the Northeastern Political Science Association’s 46th Annual Conference in Boston, Massachusetts in mid-November. Her paper was part of a panel of papers on Latin American Politics.

Dr. Kent said she is grateful to the WVU Tech College of Business, Humanities and Social Sciences for helping fund her trip to the NPSA conference: “This is a tremendous opportunity to share my research agenda with the political science community and to get high-quality peer feedback on my project as I work towards publication,” she said.

Mark Jones, (Sports Studies) gave two presentations – “ABC’s of Negligence” and “Branding Your Organization Through Social Media” (with WVU Tech senior sport management student, Aquila Fox) – at the 2014 West Virginia Association for Health Physical Education Recreation and Dance Convention on November 1.

Dr. Janis Rezek (Sociology), Dr. Mark Wilson (Economics), Dr. Martha Maus (Spanish) and Dr. Andrea Kent (Political science) were selected by the West Virginia Consortium for Faculty and Course Development for International Studies (FACDIS) to attend the annual faculty development workshop in Morgantown, West Virginia, November 6-7. Tom McGraw (Health Services Administration) was also selected, but was unable to attend.

This year’s workshop, entitled Global Climate Change: Science Meets Society, focused on different ways to approach the issue of climate change in the classroom. Dr. Kent attended the panel “Climate Change and Security: Research, Policy, and Teaching,” led by Dr. Idean Salehyan from the University of North Texas. Dr. Wilson’s panel was headed by Dr. Kendra Sweeney from The Ohio State University, entitled “Climate Worlds: Geographies of a Changing Planet.” Drs. Rezek and Maus attended the panel “Living Climate Change: Using Anthropological Encounters and Actions in Teaching,” headed by Dr. Susan Crate from George Mason University.

The purpose of FACDIS is to provide resources and training to university faculty members and secondary school teachers in the state in order to add and expand upon international content in the classroom. Find out more about FACDIS.