W faculty present research at Provost Symposium
Eight Mississippi University for Women faculty members recently presented their research at the annual Provost’s Faculty Symposium on The W’s campus.
Dr. Jill Drouillard, assistant professor of philosophy, kicked off the first session with “Beyond Mother’s Blood: Heidegger’s Nationalism and Contemporary Far Right Populist Movements.”
The presentation described “why it is important to engage with Heidegger’s work in tandem with contemporary politics to understand how his philosophy, whose early work promoted promises of pluralism, could lead to fascist pronatalist politics.”
Dr. Catherine Cotton, interim department chair and assistant professor of speech-language pathology, presented “Developing a Framework for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awareness & Cultural Humility for Speech-Language Pathology Students.”
Her presentation provided “an overview of the development of our framework, discussed quantitative and qualitative data and described how cultural and linguistic considerations could negatively or positively impact interactions and health outcomes for clients of diverse backgrounds.”
Dr. Magan Evans, assistant professor of nursing, followed with her presentation, titled “Care Management, Active Learning, and Mock Trial Simulations.”
In the presentation, Evans addressed “some of the components within the Management of Care subcategory and how active learning strategies such as simulated mock trials can improve student learning outcomes.”
Dr. Ethan Flurry, assistant professor of psychology and family science, closed out the first session with “Conditions That Facilitate Multiple Cue Use May Be Critical to Older Adults’ Metamemory.”
The presentation explained the effect on metamemory judgments by older adults when introducing multiple salient and diagnostic cues.
The second session began with Dr. Jon Fessenden, assistant professor of music, who presented “From Musicality to Pathology: Psychological Theory in the Construction of the Musical Autist.”
Fessenden’s presentation examined the noted link between autism and musicality found by many previous researchers.
Dr. Lestonio Yarbrough, assistant professor of management, presented “Igniting the Next Generation of Heroes: Millennial Firefighters’ Perspectives on Recruitment and Retention in Northeast Mississippi.”
The research focused “on human resource management practices of recruitment and retention for the new generation of employees.”
The penultimate presentation was given by Hillary Richardson, assistant professor and undergraduate research coordinator. It was titled, “Digital Literacy, White Supremacy, and Murder: What the Smith Papers Collection Can Teach Us.”
In the presentation, Richardson discussed “how the Smith Papers collection has provided a deep well for scholarly engagement with undergraduate students, and the technical and contextual challenges the collection has posed, from dealing with technical challenges, to engaging with the legacy of racism in the South, to investigating a 76-year-old murder.”
The final presentation was given by Dr. Travis Hagey, assistant professor of biology. It was titled, “Early Burst of Parallel Evolution Describes the Diversification of Gecko Toe Pads.”
His research examined the toe pads of Geckos by “evaluating parallel morphological differences across families and expanded existing approaches fitting models of trait evolution to use geometric morphometric data.”
The Provost’s Symposium is an annual forum for W faculty to present their research to their peers.
“The Provost’s Faculty Symposium began in 2014 to provide an opportunity to support junior faculty research. Since its inception, the Symposium has expanded to include senior faculty as well as faculty from Fant Memorial Library,” said Patricia Caston, director of sponsored programs and collaborative projects and vice president for academic affairs.