Westmont Magazine Featuring Faculty
Nathan Huff (art) received a Resident Fellow position with the Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence, France. During this residency, he created artwork inspired by the local landscape. His large-scale painting “Phantom Limbs” is featured in the Wildling Museum’s exhibition “Starry Nights: Visions of the Night Sky” in Solvang, California. He also received an artist’s residency and grant at the Vermont Studio Center.
This spring, Rick Pointer (history) completed 26 years of distinguished service as a Westmont professor and scholar. His new book, “Pacifist Prophet: Papunhank and the Quest for Peace in Early America” (University of Nebraska Press), will be released in the fall. Papunhank, a Munsee Indian and convert to Christianity, searched for a peaceful homeland in the Middle Colonies during the period between the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and the American Revolution. The book explores how he drew on indigenous and Christian principles to promote a way of peace that contrasted with the violence and racial animosity of the time.
An article by Sarah L. Jirek (sociology), “Ineffective Organizational Responses to Workers’ Secondary Traumatic Stress: A Case Study of the Effects of an Unhealthy Organizational Culture,” was published in the journal Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership, and Governance.
Kristi Lazar Cantrell (chemistry) and her collaborators at UCSB have published an article, “Catalytic Prion-Like Cross-Talk between a Key Alzheimer’s Disease Tau-Fragment R3 and Type 2 Diabetes Peptide IAPP,” in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience. Westmont student Sarah Claud also contributed to the article.
Meagan Stirling’s solo exhibition, “Digging a Hole,” appeared at the Bryan Oliver Gallery at Whitworth University from February through March. She also has a piece in the exhibition “Matter and Spirit” sponsored by the CCCU, the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and the Nagel Institute at Calvin College. Meagan and local artist Claudia Borfiga organized an exhibition of prints by Santa Barbara printmakers at the Architecture Foundation of Santa Barbara conveying the unifying theme of “Haven.”
An iPhone photograph by Randy VanderMey (English) has been accepted into a national traveling show based on seasons in the liturgical year sponsored by Christians in the Visual Arts. Another of his photographs was chosen for “Time & Memory: The Virtual Tri-County Juried Exhibition” at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art.
An article by Lisa DeBoer (art history), “The Accidental Ecumenist,” which appeared in The Cresset in 2019, has won the Award of Excellence for a Theological or Scholarly Article from the Associated Church Press in their annual Best of Church Press awards.
A paper by Maryke van der Walt (mathematics), “EMD with shape-preserving spline interpolation,” was published in the February 2020 volume of the journal Results in Applied Mathematics.
Ronald See (psychology) and his colleagues have published a review article, “Neural Substrates and Circuits of Drug Addiction,” in Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine. It provides an overview of various theories of addiction to drugs of abuse and the neurobiology involved in elements of the addiction cycle.
Three Westmont professors wrote chapters for the book “Where Wisdom May Be Found: The Eternal Value of Christian Higher Education” (Pickwick Publications, 2019): Stephen Contakes, “Chemistry, Christianity, and Wisdom”; Russ Howell, “The Joy of Mathematics”; and Dave Wolf, “Transformation and Restoration through Athletics and Kinesiology.” The volume features 27 professors discussing the interrelationship of faith and learning.
Sandra Richter, Gundry professor of biblical studies, has written a new book, “Stewards of Eden: What the Scripture Has to Say About the Environment and Why It Matters” (InterVarsity Press, 2020). She considers “steward” the ideal word to express God’s calling for the Garden he entrusted to us. In Eden, God offered his people a perfectly balanced, breathtakingly beautiful planet animated by majestic flora and fauna that filled the skies and seas and forests. He commands us to “cultivate,” “protect” and “rule” in keeping with his spirit and character.