Scholarship and Academic Life

The Blumenthal Foundation of Charlotte has awarded the University $22,500 for a collaborative initiative that will increase the profile of and engage the public in issues about the natural environment.

The newly published “Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas” by English professor Jeffrey Leak has been praised for “shining a piercing light” on the elusive Dumas, who has remained a mystery even to his fans.
Leak, through interviews with Dumas’ family and friends, along with writers who knew Dumas, examined the author’s life and writing.

Faculty author and national expert on election administration Martha Kropf will discuss how the 2000 election continues to affect policymakers nearly 15 years later in the final installment of the 2013-14 Personally Speaking Lecture Series. This free, public talk is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 20, at UNC Charlotte Center City. A reception will follow.

James Tabor, professor and chair of religious studies, will discuss the relationship between Israel and the United States at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 12, at UNC Charlotte Center City, Room 204, as the fourth speaker in the 2014 Great Decisions lecture series.

 Local communities can expect the number and asset size of philanthropic foundations to increase, due to the rise in health care consolidations driven by health care reform. In the past, assets of this kind may have been underused or even undocumented.  A new database created by UNC Charlotte researchers can help bridge this gap.

James Walsh, associate professor and associate chair of political science and public administration, will discuss defense technology at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 5, in UNC Charlotte Center City, Room 204, as part of the 2014 Great Decisions lecture series.
Walsh’s research and teaching interests also include international human rights, national security policy and European integration. Currently, he is studying the relationships between terrorist attacks and human rights abuses and is completing a book on the politics of international intelligence sharing.

Parallels between social media blogs, tweets and other virtual media to that of writings in 17th-century France is the focus of the next Personally Speaking talk scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 13, in the J. Murrey Atkins Library.

For the first time in five years, 2014 is poised to be a “recovery year” for the North Carolina economy, UNC Charlotte economist John Connaughton reported today in his quarterly forecast for the state.

The website Heritage Daily compiled the top 10 archaeological discoveries for 2013, and number five was the Early Roman period mansion discovered by a team co-directed by James Tabor, chair of religious studies.

Jean-Claude Thill, the Knight Foundation Distinguished Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, was named a 2013 Fellow of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) at the organization’s 60th annual North American Meetings of the RSAI in Atlanta, Ga. He is the sole U.S. regional scientist to be recognized this year, along with scholars from Japan, Sweden and Italy. Worldwide, RSAI has a cadre of 70 fellows.