In Bloom: Spring has sprung, bringing not only new blossoms but also awards
and honors for various College of Arts and Sciences students and faculty. The
following pages detail some of those honorees.
College welcomes nine new faculty
The College of Arts
and Sciences welcomes nine new faculty members in fall 2008.
Omawale Akintunde, Chair, Black Studies
The college welcomes Omawale Akintunde as department chair and
associate professor of Black Studies. Akintunde earned his Ph.D. in curriculum
and instruction and African American studies from the University of
Missouri-Columbia in 1996.
Before coming to
UNO, Akintunde was an associate professor in the department of teacher
education at the University of Southern Indiana. The focus of much of his
teaching and research has been multicultural education. He currently is serving
on the editorial board of the Journal of the National Association of
Multicultural Education. In addition to his many other publications, he has
authored two books: "Multi-culturalism and the Teacher Education Experience"
and a children's book, "The Adventures of Darrell and the Invincible Man."
His research
interests are "whiteness" and white privilege; race, class and gender studies;
multicultural teacher education; hip-hop; epistemology; critical race theory;
and the social construction of race. Among his plans as chair are to raise the
yearly Malcolm X Festival to the level of an international conference and the
creation of a documentary film series: "What it Means to be 'White':
Implications for the Black Experience in America."
Samantha Ammons, Sociology/Anthropology
Ammons joins the college as an assistant professor of
sociology/anthropology. She is in the final stages of earning her Ph.D. in
sociology from the University of Minnesota, where she has taught research
methods, introduction to sociology, statistics, sociology of family and social
theory.
Ammons enjoys the
give and take of teaching. "Students bring a great deal of knowledge and
experience with them into the classroom," she says. "While I am the instructor,
some days I am also a student." Her research interests are work-family, gender
and organization. Her most recent publication, with Penny Edgell, is "Religious
Influences on Work-Family Tradeoffs" in the Journal of Family Issues in 2007.
In 2006 she was appointed a graduate fellow of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science.
Mahboub Baccouch, Mathematics
Baccouch arrives at
UNO from his native Tunisia via Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, where he earned his Ph.D. in mathematics this spring. In his first
semester as an assistant professor of mathematics he will be teaching calculus,
a course he also taught at 
Virginia Tech.
"I have the two
qualities absolutely necessary to be an effective teacher of mathematics: a
love for math and a desire to share my enthusiasm with others," he says. "A
great teacher is one who gets his students to learn. A great teacher inspires
students to be a part of the world they live in. To be that great teacher, I
let my students know that I am available for help outside the classroom
whenever they need it. Our job as teachers is to give them a deeper
understanding of what is behind the rules and formulas, in a hope that the
rules and formulas then become obvious."
Baccouch's
dissertation has resulted in two publications in The Journal of Scientific
Computing: "The Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Two-dimensional Hyperbolic
Problems Part I: Superconvergence Error Analysis," co-authored with Slimane
Adjerid in 2007; and, "The Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Two-dimensional
Hyperbolic Problems Part II: A Posteriori Error Estimation," published in 2008.
Hassan Barari, Political Science
Barari comes to UNO from the University of Jordan, Amman, where he
has served as assistant professor and senior researcher at the Center for
Strategic Studies. Barari is a current Lafer non-resident Senior Scholar for
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and was senior fellow for the
United States Institute for Peace in Washington, D.C., in 2006-2007. He also is
an active political analyst and columnist in Jordan.
He earned his Ph.D.
in international relations from the University of Durham in England (2001). His
most recent book is "Israeli Politics and the Middle East Peace Process,
1988-2002" (Routledge, 2004). As an assistant professor in UNO's political
science department, Barari also will play a key role in the newly proposed
Center for Islamic Studies. In addition to Introduction to Political Science,
Barari is excited to be teaching a senior- and graduate-level course in Middle
East politics. "Teaching is to inspire," he says. "To instill critical thinking
in, and to empower students for a better future for humanity."
Alan Gift, Chemistry
Gift leaves an assistant professorship at Indiana University South
Bend for an assistant professorship with UNO's chemistry department. He earned
his Ph.D. in chemistry from Purdue University in 2002, after which he served as
a postdoctoral associate at Purdue and a research scientist for Real-time
Analyzers Inc. of Middletown, Conn. While at South Bend, he taught elementary
and analytical chemistry and chemical instrumentation.
"I work with
students to help them see the importance of chemistry and how it relates to the
big picture," says Gift. "For example, the problem-solving skills they learn in
chemistry class are not just useful in the laboratory, they are also beneficial
in everyday life." Gift's most recent publication is "Hyphenation of Raman
spectroscopy with gravimetric analysis to interrogate water-solid interactions
in pharmaceutical systems" in the Journal of Pharma-ceutical and Biomedical
Analysis in 2007 (co-author Lynne S. Taylor).
Ramon Guerra, English
Guerra has been
traveling between Omaha and Lincoln for the last year, building his
dissertation at UNL and building a career at UNO. Guerra explains the
complexities of his dissertation: "In my dissertation, 'Literature as Witness:
Testimonial Aspects of Chicano Self Identity Narratives,' I analyze the
construction of history and the role of testimonial narratives within that
construction by looking at different examples of contemporary Chicana/o
personal narratives. I ask: 'What are the ways that these smaller voices of
history complement, contradict or attempt to expand an ongoing historiography?'
The purpose of providing 
testimony through literature is to provide an 'eye-witness'
encounter of an experience. In the case of contemporary Chicana and Chicano
testimonial narratives, the writing acts as a witness, giving the voice to
those who have seen or experienced the actuality of a momentous period rather
than those who simply seek to report it. The power of literature is transformed
into a 'witness account' by adding an often under-represented voice to the
historiography of our American society." As an assistant professor of English
at UNO, Guerra will teach Chicano and Latino Literature. "Teaching, to me, is
leading students towards an issue or an experience and continuing engagement
with competing discourses that exist in the classroom, as well as the world at
large," says Guerra. "I see my role as a means of generating knowledge vs.
dispensing knowledge."
Larry Menyweather-Woods, Black studies
Menyweather-Woods has taught for the UNO Black Studies department
for many years as an instructor. This fall he celebrates the completion of his
Ph.D. in human sciences from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his new
position of assistant professor at UNO.
His research
interests are the influence of worldview and racial socialization on
death-anxiety beliefs of black American men, black religion and gerontology,
and the authenticity of black American religion. Among the many courses he has
taught are Introduction to Black Studies, Black American Culture, Afro-American
Religion & Theology, and, Theology and Philosophy of Martin & Malcolm.
Zebulon
Miletsky, Black Studies
Miletsky joins the
faculty of the Department of Black Studies as an assistant professor and will
earn his Ph.D. in African American Studies from the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst in 2008.
Among his recent
publications is a review in the Journal of African American History:
"Black-Brown: Relations and Stereotypes" by Tatcho Mindiola Jr., Yolanda Flores
Niemann and Nestor Rodriguez.
His teaching
experience includes courses in race, ethnicity and multiculturalism at Bowling
Green, Boston College, Northeastern University, Monmouth College and the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
James Wilson, Biology
Wilson takes on the role of assistant professor of biology at UNO
and defines that role as critical to our immediate future: "My inspiration for
teaching science comes from my interest in scientific literacy in the general public
and the ability of pseudoscience to live in the void left by a lack of
scientific understanding," he says. "Our world is increasingly dependent on
science and we must understand what science is and how it is performed if we
are to make educated choices about our world."
Wilson earned his
Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University in 2002 and has taught zoology for UNO and
ecology and mammalogy at California State University. Prior to coming to UNO he
was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California. Among his more
recent publications is "Habitat associations by dusky-footed woodrats (Neotoma
fuscipes) in managed mixed-conifer forests of the northern Sierra Nevada" in
the Journal of Mammalogy (co-authored with R.J. Innes, D. H. Van Vuren, D. A.
Kelt, M.L. Johnson, and P.A. Stine in 2007).
Walt Linstromberg
presents a scholarship check to Cassandra Ward, first recipient of the
scholarship in his name.
Linstrombergs establish chemistry
scholarship
Walt Linstromberg
started small. His impact was anything but. "He touched lives from the one-room
country school where he began teaching to the advanced laboratories and clinics
of the world," says Dan Sullivan, a former student and colleague of
Linstromberg.
From 1955 to 1978,
Linstromberg taught chemistry to thousands of UNO students.
"Walt was a rather
formal, thorough instructor who tempered his lectures with humor and stories of
real-life encounters with science," says Sullivan. "No one who ever took any
course from him could ever forget him."
Linstromberg's reach
continues to perhaps millions of more students through the many editions of his
popular text, "Organic Chemistry - A Brief Course." Originally published in
1966, it has been distributed worldwide in five languages.
In his recent
autobiography, Linstromberg wrote, "Writing my textbook was one of the best
things I ever did. Of course, the best thing I ever did was marrying Mittie.
Without her help in typing manuscripts, her patience, and her willingness to be
alone so much with no other company but the kids, I doubt I could have written
my textbook. Not only have I shared two-thirds of my life with her, but all of
my royalties, too. She has earned every dime of it."
The Linstrombergs
and their children, John W. Linstromberg and Kathryn D. Greenough, have worked
with the University of Nebraska Foundation to endow the Walter W. and Mittie W.
Linstromberg Scholarship in Chemistry.
Cassandra Ward, a
UNO senior and chemistry major, is the first recipient of the scholarship. In
addition to her academic success, Ward is honored for her selfless support of
other students within the chemistry program.
Prepared for life: Boocker assumes deanship
Joseph David "Dave" Boocker, the new dean of the College of Arts
and Sciences, considers himself typical of most academics — and of most
students of the liberal arts. "I didn't set out to be an English professor or a
Milton scholar or the dean of Arts and Sciences," Boocker says. He describes
his life's path as one directed, from one year to the next, by education and
practical necessity. "Students need to understand that a liberal arts education
prepares you for life wherever life takes you."
Louisiana Livin'
Life for Boocker
began in Lafayette, La., where his father, a Polish immigrant and U.S.
serviceman, met his mother, then a teacher. During his undergraduate years at
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Boocker majored in English and worked
at a local 7-11 store.
After earning his
bachelor's degree in 1980, he found himself choosing between two paths: 60 additional
credit hours for certification to teach in secondary schools; or, 35 more hours
in a master's English program that might lead to teaching at the college level.
He went for the master's, earning that degree in 1983. But it wasn't until he
had begun work on his Ph.D. in English literature at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln that he developed a true passion for the path down which he
had begun to amble. "For some people, the transforming experience happens
during their undergraduate years," Boocker says. "For me, it happened at the
Ph.D. level."
Milton, Olson
An important source
of inspiration for Boocker was UNL Professor Paul Olson, known for his literary
scholarship, advocacy of civil rights and work on building connections among
schools and communities.
"I chose to
specialize in Milton because that choice gave me an opportunity to work with
Paul Olson," says Boocker. "He is the wisest, smartest man I have ever met."
Since that time, Boocker's research has focused on John Milton's reception and
influence. One of his most recent publications is an article in Milton in
Popular Culture entitled "Milton after 9/11" in which he explores the concept
of evil, the recurrent references to Milton in popular news magazines of the
time, and the effectiveness of labeling acts or people evil.
After completing his
Ph.D. in 1988, Boocker became a professor of English at Tennessee Technological
University then at Western Illinois University. He was politically active at
Tennessee Tech, but it was at Western Illinois where he fully developed his
talent for educational administration as chair of the English and Journalism
department. He tackled curriculum development and review, 15 successful faculty
searches, revision of departmental governance, strategic planning, fundraising
and promotional efforts.
Omaha or bust
He was named dean of
UNO's College of Arts and Sciences in April, replacing Shelton Hendricks in
July. Boocker's wife, Kathy, son Sam (14) and daughter Rebecca (11) are
adjusting to the larger, busier life of Omaha and to Dad being dean of the
largest college in a metropolitan university. Kathy is a yoga instructor and
reads popular fiction in English, German and Russian. Sam and Rebecca are
enrolled in District 66. "They are excited about all the opportunities here,"
Boocker says.
And so is the new
dean. "The college is strong. One of my immediate goals as dean will be to
build on the good work of Dean Hendricks in promoting our college, helping
people to understand what we do and the critical role we play in the lives of
our students and our community."
He can relate from
firsthand experience. "I want to give back to the university system that gave
me so much so many years ago."
