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Nine MSU professors receive sabbaticals to work on cutting-edge research

Nine faculty members at Montana State University-Bozeman have been awarded sabbaticals for the 2003-04 academic year, according to MSU Provost David Dooley. Their projects to be completed during the sabbaticals range from completing a three volume book to study of wobbling neutron stars. The nine faculty members granted sabbaticals, their academic department, term of the sabbaticals and proposed projects are:

Alex Babcock, psychology, will be on sabbatical spring ’04. During his sabbatical he will travel to the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand to research the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is sensitive to stroke and the target for such degenerative diseases including epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. Babcock will study with Dr. Wickliffe Abraham, an internationally recognized specialist on the hippocampus.

Alanna Brown, English, will be on sabbatical for the entire 2003-4 school year. During the year she will work with editors at the University of Nebraska Press on developing her manuscript, "Mourning Dove: Her Life, Letters and Transcription of Thirty-seven Salish Narratives" into three volumes. Mourning Dove was an acclaimed Salish storyteller and author.

Edward Dratz, chemistry, will be on sabbatical during spring semester next year. He will travel to the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin and to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. to work with advanced mass spectrometers used to study proteomics, the science that researches proteins expressed by cells, often in response to stimuli or disease. Dratz hopes his work during his sabbatical will help him write a proposal to obtain National Science Foundation funds to establish a Proteomics Research and Training facility at MSU.

Bennett Link, physics, will be on sabbatical all next year. Link will study the spin variations of neutron stars. Link believes some neutron stars wobble on their spin axes, much like a poorly thrown football. Link will travel to Cornell University’s Arcetri Observatory, the University of British Columbia, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Arcetri Observatory in Florence, Italy, which has a strong program in the study of neutron stars.

Bonita Peterson, business, will be on sabbatical during the spring semester next year. An accounting professor specializing in fraud investigation, Peterson will work with the country’s three leading academicians in the area of fraud research and education. Peterson’s goal will to be to improve the fraud education of MSU accounting students.

David Scheerer, media and theatre arts, will be on sabbatical in the fall. During that time he plans to complete a documentary film, "The Mirror and the Hammer: Robert Flaherty and the American Documentary." Flaherty was a pioneer American documentary filmmaker. Scheerer’s two-hour documentary on the great documentarian, will be submitted to a Public Broadcasting Service’s series. It will also be used in film and communications classes to teach an important aspect of filmed documentary history.

Linda Sexson, history and philosophy, will be on sabbatical the entire academic year to work on her book, "Adorned with Cuts: Nineteenth Century Children’s Books and the Fluidity of Religion." Sexson’s book is about the religion and culture of early children’s books of the 19th Century, including chapter books, tracts, penny books, toy books and primers. As with another of her books, "Ordinarily Sacred," Sexson will analyze religion, as portrayed in the books she studies, with the culture of the time. This will be Sexson’s fourth book. Others include: "Hamlet’s Planets: Parables" and "Margaret of the Imperfections."

William Wyckoff, earth science, will be on sabbatical the entire academic year while he completes "On the Road Again: Montana’s Changing Landscape 1920-2000." The book, exploring the state’s changing cultural and physical landscape, will include 60 photographs of many Montana locations taken between 1918 and 1934. He will compare them to contemporary photos of the same sites. The book, which Wyckoff will submit to an academic press, will be available to both academic audiences as well as a book of interest to the general Montana population.

Sara Jayne Steen, English, will be on sabbatical for the fall 2003 semester. Steen’s researching a new book on a cluster of remarkable early and mid-seventeenth-century English women writers whose lives and writings were closely interconnected with the cultural and political upheavals of their era. All of the women were associated with the extended Cavendish-Stuart family, either by blood or liaison; all incorporate social and political issues into their writing; and all present themselves as characters within their works.

Contact: Pat Chansley (406) 994-4373

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