May 3, 2002

Faculty/Staff Footnotes

Carl Brans, professor of physics, brought to campus Professor Israel Quiros of Santa Clara University in Cuba. Brans and Quiros discussed problems of common interest in general relativity and cosmology. Quiros has done extensive work on the theoretical problems arising from recent observations of accelerating expansion of the universe. The adaptation of standard Einstein cosmology to this data implies the existence of some as yet unexplored "dark energy." Quiros has investigated various scenarios for these fields, including Brans-Dicke scalars, extra dimensions (Kaluza-Klein) models, branes, and others. This work leads to models of stochastic background cosmological radiation of interest to the LIGO gravitational radiation experiment. Quiros lectured on his model at the LIGO facility in Livingston, Louisiana in March. His talk sparked an interest in possible collaboration between the Cuban theoretical group and the American experiment project.

Mark Bush joined Recreational Sports as an operations assistant.

Bernard Cook, professor of history, gave a series of lectures over the Easter break at the University of Banat Timisoara in Romania. The rector of the university invested Cook with an honorary professorship, which the faculty senate had voted to accord to him. The rector also asked him to serve as the American co-director for a Romania-America Center that the university is establishing. In Bucha-rest, Cook was a guest at the Archives of the Romanian Foreign Ministry. In addition to its director, Dr. Dimitru Preda, who served as his host, Cook met with the director of the Romanian National Archives, the Romanian Minister for European Integration, the curator for the 19th and 20th centuries at the Romanian National Museum.

Mary Troy Johnston, associate professor of political science, participated in a panel discussion at the International Studies Association conference in March in New Orleans. The panel titled "The New European Security Dimension," was sponsored by the Atlantic Council based in Washington, D.C. Participants related their experiences as members of the American Briefing Team that went to NATO last summer.

Aihua Li, associate professor of mathematics, coordinated two recent events at Loyola, attracting colleagues from mathematics departments, primarily algebraists, from 13 states and three countries. The first event was the Biever Guest Lecture Series presentation on April 18, featuring Reinhard Laubenbacher, professor of mathematics at Virginia Tech and a senior researcher in the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute. Laubenbacher's lecture, "Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave: The Age of Networks," was preceded by his midday seminar titled "Reconstruction of Gene Regulator Networks." The next night Li and co-organizer Ralph Tucci, professor of mathematics, welcomed 50 algebraists to the South Central Regional Weekend Algebra conference hosted by Loyola. The 37 speakers were divided into four information-packed sessions. The weekend included Friday-night dinner and music at Michaul's Cajun Restaurant, and a Saturday-afternoon crawfish boil behind Audubon Park on the Fly next to the Mississippi River. Loyola students from campus chapters of ACM and Pi Mu Epsilon competed against visiting algebraists in soccer and volleyball.

M. Isabel Medina, professor of law, received a Gillis Long Public Service Award 2002 at the Gillis Long Public Service Awards in March. Medina received the award in recognition of her public service to the Loyola community. Since joining the law faculty in 1991, Medina has given freely of her time to the legal community and Loyola community in a variety of ways. In 1994 she directed and produced The Rules of the Game by Syl Jonesa play by law students that explored race, diversity, and affirmative action in law schoolswhich was attended by the law school student body and the community at large. Medina also helped to organize a number of symposia on a variety of issues including single sex education for the American Bar Association Commission on Women in 1994; children's rights at Loyola in 1997; sexual violence at Loyola in 1998; domestic violence at Loyola in 2000; and immigration law at Loyola in 2002. She is on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union Louisiana Chapter and has served as chair of the University Faculty Senate. More recently, Medina undertook pro bono representation of four aliens currently detained by immigration authorities pending deportation from the United States. Law students earned credit by helping on these deportation cases.

Sue Metzner joins the university community as the new director of the Department of Human Resources. Metzner comes to Loyola with more than 20 years of professional experience in every functional area of human resources. She currently manages her own human resources consulting practice, Professional Human Resource Partners, which she began in 1996. Over the last six years, she has helped numerous small-to-medium sized companies with structuring, formalizing and profes-sionalizing their human resources function. Metzner holds a bachelor's degree in social and political philosophy and a master's degree in sociology of organizations and the workplace, both from UNO. Additionally, she holds the SPHR certification with continuing certification since 1997. Sue also is an adjunct professor in UNO's Department of Sociology. Additionally, she teaches SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) certification classes through UNO's Metropolitan college.

Mark D. Rubinfeld, assistant professor of sociology, presented a paper at the Popular Culture Association Annual meeting in Toronto, Canada, in March. The paper, "After the 1984 New Orleans World's Fair: How the City of New Orleans Turned a Fiasco into a Soho," examined the Riverfront Development project following the New Orleans World's Fair, including the effects of, and controversies surrounding, the gentrification of the Warehouse/Arts District. Additionally, Rubinfeld's Instructor's Manual for Henslin, Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, sixth edition, was published this spring by Allyn & Bacon.

The Rev. John Weling, S.J., dean of University Ministry, leaves Loyola at the end of June to assume the presidency of Verbum Dei High School in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Verbum Dei has an inner-city population and is run by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Dean of University Ministry since 1999, Weling introduced several new programs that led to a stronger ministry profile on campus.

Catherine Wessinger, professor of religious studies, spoke on "Teaching About New Religious Movements and Conflict" to the Emory University faculty seminar. She also addressed the Emory University Religious Studies Honors students at their induction into Theta Alpha Kappa. She gave a public lecture on "Understanding Religious Fanaticism" at Augustana College.