Catawba College faculty members have recently had scholarly papers published or accepted for publication, or have enjoyed professional achievements outside the college. Following are details of their accomplishments.
Dr. Forrest Anderson, Associate Professor of English, & Associate Provost for Student Academic Success
Catawba Professor of English and Associate Provost for Student Academic Success, Dr. Forrest Anderson, had a book chapter accepted for publication in Conversations with Ron Rash. The chapter is titled “Twisting the Radio Dial: An Interview with Ron Rash.”
Conversations with Ron Rash collects 22 interviews with the award-winning author and provides a look into Rash’s writing career from his first collection of short stories, “The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth” in 1994 through his 2015 novel, “Above the Waterfall.” The collection includes four interviews from outside the United States, two of which appear in English for the first time. Spanning 16 years, these interviews demonstrate the disciplined writing process of an expert writer, Rash’s views on literature on a local and global scale, his profound respect for the craft of the written word, and his ongoing goal to connect with his readers.
Dr. Sheila Brownlow, Chair and Professor of Psychology
Catawba Chair and Professor of Psychology, Dr. Sheila Brownlow, had a paper she authored with 2017 Catawba graduate Jennifer Beach and N. Clayton Silver of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, accepted for publication in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences. The paper titled "How Social Status Influences 'Affect Language' in Tweets" focuses on how status influences the emotional content of short language bursts and provides insight into how language reflects the psychological state and social standing of users.
Brownlow and her co-authors studied the “affect language” in over 2,000 Tweets of 50 famous celebrities across a one-month period. These 140-character language bursts were analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word County (LIWC), which provided percentage of language used to represent various emotional states. Lower-status celebrities (those with fewer Twitter followers) used more positive emotion in their Tweets compared to higher-status celebrities, although negative emotional content did not vary by celebrity status. There was no statistically significant difference between sexes on emotional content. The results of their research suggest that social status may be more important to public use of affect language than sex of the celebrity.
Dr. Jay Bolin, Chair and Associate Professor of Biology, & Dr. Carmony Hartwig, Assistant Professor of Biology
Dr. Jay Bolin, Chair and Associate Professor of Biology, and Dr. Carmony Hartwig, Assistant Professor of Biology, had a paper they co-authored with Peter Schafran of the Department of Biological Sciences at Old Dominion University, and Slavko Komarnytsky of Plants for Human Health Institute of N.C. State University, Kannapolis, accepted for publication in Castanea: Journal of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society. The paper is titled “Application of DNA flow cytometry to aid species delimitation in Isoetes.”
The genus Isoetes is known for morphological convergence and a relative paucity of useful gross morphological characters for identification. Thus the chromosome complements of Isoetes spp. Are key attributes for species delimitation. Like many other plant lineages, polyploidy and reticulate evolution are important drivers of speciation in Isoetes. In the southeastern U.S. Isoetes flora, polyploidy is common. The co-authors used a rapid DNA flow cytometry protocol to generate C-Values for four diploid, one tetraploid, and one hexaploid Isoetes species and conducted preliminary cytological investigations of two communities of Isoetes. Their work showed noteworthy variation in diploid Isoetes 1C-values (1.39 to 3.32), include the smallest 1C-value reported for the genus, Isoetes melanopoda ssp. silvatica. The hexaploid species, Isoetes microvela had the highest 1C-value (4.21) and the tetraploid species evaluated had an intermediate 1C-value (3.37). However, based on the variation in diploid 1C-values measured, a simple 2X, 4X, 6X ratio of C-values was not apparent for diploids, tetraploids, and hexaploids, respectively. All Isoetes taxa measured had significantly different 1C-values. These results indicate that DNA flow cytometry may prove a useful tool for routine Isoetes species identification, systematic work, and for population surveys of Isoetes ploidy level.
Meredith Fox, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts
Catawba College Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts, Meredith Fox, played the leading female role of Cassie in Central Piedmont Community College’s summer production of “A Chorus Line.”
Dr. Racquel Ingram, Chair and Associate Professor of Nursing
Catawba Chair and Associate Professor of Nursing, Dr. Racquel Ingram, had a paper she authored accepted for publication in the journal MedSurg Nursing. The paper is titled “Creating Win-Win Outcomes with Low Health Literacy Patients: A Case Study Approach for Nurses.”
