By Jude Nixon
Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences
This is my first opportunity as Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences (SOAS) to address you in ASpect. I wish first to express my deepest gratitude to Chris Fauske, who served tirelessly and diligently as Interim Dean, holding the office together in order [...]

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By Adrienne Dolberry
Biology Department
George Geyser is a hero and to others he is a lucky slob. However unexpected, the cure for Alzheimer’s is a long awaited relief. George’s discovery is an example that microbes can be used therapeutically. Scientists will continue research on his discovery and possibly find a microbe that helps with other degenerative [...]

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By Dan Albert
Department of History
Interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching has a fairly sound footing on many college and university campuses where this or that institute, “studies” department, or entire school is dedicated not to the tools and techniques of a traditional discipline but to answering a particular question of immediate and practical interest. The humanities contribute [...]

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By Daniel Mulcare
Department of Political Science
Last year, I participated in a Faculty Learning Community, a diverse group of Salem State College faculty that was set up to facilitate conversation and community.1 In our sessions, we explored the multifaceted nature of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL), a cross-disciplinary research methodology that seeks to enable [...]

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By Chris Fauske
Interim Dean, School of Arts and Sciences
As always, I’ve been reading.
Some of it for fun, some of it because I am starting to prepare for a return to faculty in September, and some of it because, well, because it’s there.
A few months ago I picked up Stanley Fish’s new book, Save the World [...]

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By Anita V. M. Shea
Dean (Retired), School of Arts and Sciences
Until 1997, undergraduate research activities in the School of Arts and Sciences were based mainly in selected departments relying on a nucleus of committed faculty or on an occasional grant. In general, those efforts were neither publicly acknowledged nor supported in concept by the college community. That [...]

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By Scott Nowka
English Department
“So why does every letter ’s’ look like a lower-case ‘f’?”
This is the question that always precedes one of the most exciting types of discussions we have in my undergraduate or graduate classes. What does it mean? That my students have ventured out beyond the annotated, comfortably modernized, and silently emended editions [...]

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By David Gow
Psychology Department
Undergraduates Heidi Kien and Sarah Luong have been editing digital sound files—a lot of digital sound files. It is not particularly glamorous work. These files will serve as stimuli for an NIH-funded study into the biological and psychological mechanisms that allow listeners to adapt to and understand accented speech. Like most basic [...]

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By Hollis Pyatt
Department of Geography 
When I first heard about teaching online, I was skeptical. I had visions of taped lectures, impersonal interactions, and the hassle of getting students all together for a chat session. After doing some research into the subject  including talking to those who had successfully taught online, I realized that there are [...]

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By Peter Oehlkers
Communications Department
“What have you learned this semester from your classmates? Not from me, or the text–your classmates?”
I ask this question at the end of every semester in my online global communications class. I am usually heartened and sometimes humbled by the responses. Students will not only praise the open-mindedness and diversity of opinion [...]

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