Medaille College News

Dr. Robert Tian, associate professor of business, presented his paper “E-Commerce Concerns: Cross-cultural Factors in Internet Marketing” at the International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Business Intelligence. The conference was sponsored by the Academic Committee, Society of Management Science of China and was held in Beijing, China, from June 7-8, 2009.

In the paper, Dr. Tian probes cultural influences on Internet marketing and provides a possible solution to solve the cross-cultural problems that often happen to marketers who are doing online business beyond national boundaries through Internet. The full paper is included in the conference proceedings published by the CPS, Los Alamitos, California.

Dr. Michael Lillis, associate professor and chair of the Business Department, has had his paper, “Faculty Emotional Intelligence and Student-Faculty Interactions: Implications for Student Retention,” accepted for publication in the Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice. This paper was the result of a recent mentoring initiative undertaken by Medaille’s Business Department in fall 2008.

Comments from the Editorial Board of the Journal include: ”Sometimes students don’t acquire faculty mentors until they declare a major. . . [S]tudents who make some kind of connection with the University that first year, do indeed tend to stay enrolled and graduate. And, yes we should focus on the faculty side of the equation. Higher Ed would be well-served by the “creation” of a multi-faceted mentoring model, as well as an integrated model of student persistence… “

Two of Dr. Alan Bigelow’s fiction stories have been published. A digital story, “What They Said,” is in the current issue of the online literary journal New River Journal from Virginia Tech, and his work has appeared in an Artist’s Studio update on Turbulence.org (New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.). He was also a finalist in the BIPVAL (Biennale Internationale des Poètes en Val-de-Marne) digital poetry competition.

In May, he presented at the E-Poetry festival in Barcelona, Spain, and at the UDC conference at Buffalo State College. His most recent story, “Higher Math,” is at webyarns.com.

Medaille College has appointed Illana Lane, Ph.D., as acting dean of the School of Education.

Dr. Lane joined Medaille in 2001, most recently serving as associate professor and chair of the elementary education department in the School of Education. She will lead a division of the College that educates nearly 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students across programs in special education, secondary education, literacy, elementary education, student teaching, and teacher certification programs for Canadian students.

She is a graduate of the University at Buffalo, with a master’s degree and doctorate in education, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University.

In addition to being elected to the Amherst Central School District Board of Education in 2008, Dr. Lane belongs to the executive board of the New York State Association of Teacher Educators (NYSATE) and is a member of the Academic Educational Studies Association (AESA).

Dr. Lane takes over for Founding Dean of the School of Education Dr. Francis Murphy, who retired on May 31, 2009.

Brenda Fredette, Ph.D., associate professor of mathematics and sciences at Medaille College, was selected to participate in the annual reading and scoring of the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) Examinations this June in chemistry.

Dr. Fredette began teaching at Medaille College in 1996. She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University at Buffalo, Roswell Park Division, and was promoted to associate professor at Medaille in 2006. She She serves as the faculty advisor for the Life Sciences Club at Medaille, and has been a driving force behind its community activities this past academic year.

Each year the AP Program, sponsored by the College Board, gives more than one million capable high school students an opportunity to take rigorous college-level courses and examinations and, based on their exam performance, to receive credit and/or advanced placement when they enter college. More than 2.7 million examinations from 37 AP Courses are evaluated by over 10,000 AP Readers from universities and high schools.

Dr. Elaine Correa, Courtney Grim, Jim Brace and Dr. Rich Jacob were named Service-Learning Faculty Fellows by the Western New York Service Learning Coalition (WNYSLC), and they attended a three-day Service Learning workshop at Buffalo State College from May 19-21, 2009.

“Students in my photojournalism course will work with Young Audiences of Western New York on portfolio assignments shot on-location at various Buffalo Locations,” offered Grim, associate professor of humanities, as an example of how she will integrate the workshop’s information into her teaching.

This in-depth training focused on the philosophy of service learning, the theory and practice of incorporating service learning into classrooms, and included a tour of local neighborhoods and service learning sites. Faculty participants were accepted to this program after a rigorous application process, and will contribute their proposed courses to the online resources available through the WNYSLC.

Dr. Mary Ellen Mulvey attended the final day’s morning session to work with the four faculty members as they plan to incorporate service learning into their classes. Dr. Mulvey is the Medaille campus liaison to WNYSLC.

Dr. Robert Guang Tian, associate professor of business, published his article “From Internal to External: Challenges against U.S.’s Central Asia Policy” in vol. 56, no. 2 of the Journal of Social and Political Studies.

In the article, Dr. Tian argues that although the U.S. has gained domination in the competition on the Central Asian affairs with Russia and China, the negative effects on the U.S. existence in the Central Asian area caused by the aggressiveness of the U.S. Central Asian policy by the Bush Administrations for its bilateral global strategy cannot be ignored. The U.S. policy in Central Asia has been challenged by both internally and externally parties. He summarizes and analyzes these challenges from different perspectives and provides some suggestions for the policy adjustments.

Central Asia and Caucasus, the Journal of Social and Political Studies, is a leading academic journal in Europe, publishing scholastic works on Central Asia issues. The journal is published by the Institute for Central Asian and Caucasus Studies, and the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Caucasus. 

James Thompson, visiting assistant professor in the School of Education, has been named a book reviewer for Corwin Press, one of the largest publishing houses dealing with education topics. He is currently reviewing A Survival Kit for an Elementary Principal.

Medaille College has named Pamela Jones to the position of Library Director. She began at Medaille as library systems coordinator in 2006, having worked previously as a librarian at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, the Eastman School of Music, and the University at Buffalo. She earned bachelor’s degrees in music and history, and a master’s of library science, all from the University at Buffalo.

Jones is active in the Western New York Library Resources Council and serves as managing editor of the Journal of Library Innovation. Her research interests include workflow redesign, technology management, strategic planning, and organizational management using Web 2.0 services.

Dr. Robert Guang Tian, associate professor of business, has published an article in the Journal of Central Asia and the Caucasus. “Xinjiang and Its Role in Greater Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation” will appear in the first issue of 2009.

The Journal of Central Asia and the Caucasus is a peer-reviewed academic journal, published in both English and Russian.