Faculty Notes

Jan Borst attended the Midwest Sociological Society’s annual conference in Chicago this spring and presented papers on “Extreme Parenting” and on her course “Family Theory in Film.”  This summer she’ll attend the Smart Marriages Conference in Denver where she will be a panelist speaking about undergraduate marriage and family courses.  She has worked with the second class which completed the Family Life Academy for the Kansas District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  Mrs. Borst is a co-developer and co-director for the two-year program which focuses on family faith development.  Three grandchildren graduating high school will take her and Mr. Borst to three states, including a side trip to Jamestown, Virginia, as the 400th anniversary of its settlement is celebrated.

Dr. Evandro Camara presented a paper at the Midwest Sociological Society in April 2007 and will be on sabbatical this fall.  An article will be published in the journal Estudos de Sociologia (in Brazil), working on a book project during the sabbatical, and will travel to Brazil in connection with this research.

Dr. Jack Melhorn’s schedule is much the same with family, church and community activities.  Jack added president of the Widowed Persons Service to his agenda this year.  He continues with the Juvenile Offenders Review Board, Retired Teachers, Camera Club, and Emporia Area Board of Zoning Appeals.  Mary is still involved as church organist at the Emporia Presbyterian Church and Jack sings in the choir.

                  Trips include visits to family in Sugar Land, Texas and Wichita, KS as well as our yearly visit to Newmarket, near Toronto, Canada.  In late June we will go on a baseball tour, 7 games in 9 days and some city sightseeing.  Jack has never lost his love of baseball from his college days as a pitcher.

Dr. Brice Obermeyer received a Research and Creativity grant in 2006 that provided him with a graduate assistant, Ara Carbonneau, this past year to assist in transcribing over 40 interviews with the Delaware Indians of eastern Oklahoma.  Dr. Obermeyer will also receive further support in 2007 from the Research and Grants Department to expand his ethnographic work on issues surrounding the federal recognition of Indian Tribes.  An article of his on the revival of the last Delaware Big House ceremony in 1944 is scheduled to appear in the edited volume, Histories of Anthropology Annual vol. 3, published by the University of Nebraska Press in December 2007.  Dr. Obermeyer also offers the only American Indian Field School in the Kansas Regents system which took place in late May 2007 with students visiting different Indian tribes in Oklahoma.  An approved Anthropology Track and Minor was also developed by Dr. Obermeyer and will be available to students beginning in the Fall 2007 semester.  Dr. Obermeyer presented at the Plains Conference in Topeka, Kansas and attended the Southwest Social Science Conference in Albuquerque New Mexico with the Anthropology Club.  He also spoke on his research with the Delaware at the AASCK's (Archaeological Association of South Central Kansas) March meeting.

Dr. Nathaniel Eugene Terrell's past year was extremely interesting.  Dr. Terrell is serving on 14 committees, two nationally (America Society of Criminology), one for the state of Kansas (Chairman of the Kansas Board if Indigent Defense Services) and three for Emporia (including President of the Emporia Rescue Mission and Law Enforcement Consolidation Task Force), eight for ESU, and he is still AKD’s advisor.  It was exciting to travel across Kansas talking to lawyers about why the Legislators approved a raise for contract lawyers, but we (the Board and Executive Director) are asking them to accept less or face having a public defender office opened in their area.  Lawyers are an interesting group of people.  Bottom line, the Legislators approved a raised but also told us to find the most efficient manner of operating and saving money.  Yea!  In the capacity of being President of the Emporia Rescue Mission, Dr. Terrell received resignations from the Director, Administrative Assistant, and Cook, all back to back to back.  WOW!  Somebody help Dr. Terrell, help him please! 

Other interesting service activities included being on the Dwight and Ida Newberg Outstanding Senior Selection Committee, being a contestant in ESU’s First Annual Sexiest Legs Contest--Honors Program (no he did not win), a judge for the Psychology Club’s Talent/Karaoke Show, a panelist on Faith on Campus for Christian Challenge and volunteered as a mentor for Gear Up and Youth Friends. Most recently, Dr. Terrell accepted an appointment, by the Emporia City Commissioners, to serve as a board member for the Law Enforcement Consolidation Task Force.  The charge is to see if the Lyon County Sheriff’s Department and Emporia Police Department should be consolidated.

Dr. Terrell’s scholarship agenda, in the past year, moved about as fast as two snails in a mile long race.

Dr. Terrell taught five classes: Society and Personality, Juvenile Delinquency, and Professional Development (fall semester), Social Deviance and Theories of Crime and Delinquency (spring semester).  For his hard work, he is a receipt of the “You Make A Difference Award” in 2007.    Well, that’s enough of that teaching, scholarship, and service.  This summer Dr. Terrell will go on two Super Summer trips (Youth Groups).  He survived the first trip to Salina, Kansas, over the July 4th week with middle schoolers.  He had no clue how emotional young eighth grade females could get.  WOW!  Life lesson!   Next are the high schoolers.  They should have fun.

By the way, with all the crazy things going on, Dr. Terrell did read “Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind,” by Michael Eric Dyson.  There is a reason why entertainers should not play Sociologist.  If you read the book, you will understand what Dr. Terrell means.  Also, the Terrells are looking into increasing the “Nathaniel Terrell Memorial Scholarship.”  Keep us in your hearts.