Faculty & Staff In The News

Edith F. Miller, distinguished professor and director of disability services, and Julianne Albiero-Walton, professor and disabilities specialist in the department of academic enrichment & learning, presented a brown bag lunch session at the 30th annual conference of the Association on Higher Education & Disability (AHEAD), held in Charlotte, N.C., this past summer. Their presentation, titled "Delta Alpha Pi: Why an Honor Society for Students with Disabilities?" explained the purpose and impact of the honor society and provided guidance for establishing chapters at other colleges and universities.

Additionally, Drs. Miller and Walton were sponsored by AHEAD to provide information regarding Delta Alpha Pi in the conference exhibit hall. As a result of this exposure, Delta Alpha Pi gained corporate sponsorship from Texthelp Systems Inc., the worldwide leader of literacy software solutions, who have announced on their website www.texthelp.com that they will offer single user copies of their award-winning literacy software to any student member of Delta Alpha Pi Honor Society at a significant cost savings.

Elaine S. Ackroyd-Kelly, assistant professor, a children's & young adult's literature and curriculum resources librarian at Kemp Library, participated in a three-and-a-half-week European children's literature class conducted in Europe by Salisbury University, Salisbury, Md., this past summer. The class consisted of 28 participants who traveled through six countries in northern Europe, including: Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Poland, and Sweden. While traveling, the group visited many important youth libraries, children's literature related museums, publishers, and illustrators' studios, and also had the opportunity to meet with noted European authors, illustrators, and translators who specialize in books for children and young adults.

Highlights of the trip included a visit to Berlin, Germany, where the group spent three days attending sessions at "Checkpoint Literacy: The 15th European Conference on Reading." While at the conference, Assistant Professor Kelly made an ESU connection with Maureen McLaughlin, professor of reading, who participated in the conference as a presenter.

During a stop in Munich, Germany, the class spent a day at the International Youth Library, which is the largest youth library in the world and is located in Blutenburg Castle. All books acquired by the International Youth Library are donated by countries from around the world, their publishing houses, organizations, and individuals. On behalf of Kemp Library and the ESU University Bookstore, Assistant Professor Kelly donated Pennsylvania children's author Kristin Kane's K Is for Keystone to the International Youth Library's collection.

During the course of the trip, Assistant Professor Kelly also had the opportunity to collect autographs from authors and illustrators of twelve fiction books and numerous picture books, all of which have been donated to Kemp Library's ever-increasing international juvenile literature collection.

Philip J. Briggs, distinguished professor emeritus of political science, spoke in September to a near capacity crowd at the Fraunces Tavern Museum in Manhattan. His lecture on Benjamin Franklin in Paris emphasized Franklin's key role in bringing about the French Alliance during the War for Independence.

Kiki Peppard, switchboard operator and secretary in the department of academic computing, continues her efforts to end maternal profiling in employment in Pennsylvania. In recent months Ms. Peppard has presented and lectured on the topic at a wide variety of locations, including meetings of the American Association of University Women, Pocono Branch; Business and Professional Women, Lehigh Valley Chapter; SSHE Women's Consortium; Bloomsburg University; Muhlenberg College; Daughters of the American Revolution, Fort McClure House; and Women's Way in Philadelphia.

Ms. Peppard's recently published article titled "Profiling Pocono Mothers" was printed in Pocono Parents Magazine and her article "Pampers, Parenting and Politics" was published in Parents Express Magazine, Montgomery County. She was a guest columnist for WFC Resources, Work-Life and Human Capital Solutions with her article, "The Workplace Challenges of Millennium Mothers."
The documentary film "The Motherhood Manifesto" (in which Ms. Peppard appears) was recently featured at the Berks County Film Festival where she was asked to participate in a panel discussion following a screening of the film. During the past year, stories on her work to end discrimination against women and mothers were featured in The New York Times, Lancaster News, Brain Child Magazine, Pocono Record, Morning Call, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pocono Business Journal, The Daily Item and the Standard Speaker. In addition, recent television appearances include The American Law Journal, Comcast TV Newsmakers, Pennsylvania Cable Network and national television news coverage through Ivanhoe Broadcasting's Smart Woman series. Ms. Peppard's advocacy efforts are also profiled in the newly released book Taking on the Big Boys by Ellen Bravo.