School of Humanities and Social Sciences Instructor of Distance Education George Ackerman, Ph.D., published a new book, “I Love You, Grandma Sharon,” in memory of his mother, who passed away due to Parkinson’s Disease. All proceeds go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Prison Education Program Instructor of Distant Education Lucas Alan Dietsche won the Lived Experience Story Telling Award by Stop the Stigma.
Prison Education Program Adjunct Professor Justin Gallant, Ph.D., presented on Post Reality and the Flux of Temporal Fantasms at SECAC 2025 and SLSA 2025;
Dr. Gallant also published:
Ecoability Anthology 2026- Chapter in an anthology on the intersection of ecology and disability;
Peace studies Journal 2025- Cancer, Garbage, and Mutation: Controlled Artistic Disruptions in Late Capitalism;
Transformative justice journal 2025- Carceral Psychogeography;
Lansing Feminists 2025- Queer and Two-Spirit Resistance;
Murwatt Collective 2025- Activism is messy;
Sublation: Journal of the Blur (2025)- Post-Reality Poetry: A manifesto that will inevitably degrade.
Assistant Professor of Music Melinda Leoce, D.M., recently wrote an article entitled, “No Meio da Roda: When the Music Takes Over, Listen,” covering her research trip to Salvador, Brazil, in May 2024. The article will be published in the February 2026 issue of the Percussive Arts Society’s publication, Percussive Notes.
Director of the Public Administration master’s program Michael Mumper, Ph.D., emeritus professor of political science, was elected president of the Alamosa School Board.
Director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences Colleen M. Schaffner, Ph.D., recently co-published the online technical report, “Disambiguating grappling: Push-pull tangle as an intriguing social interaction in spider monkeys,” with Brill International Publishers.
Dr. Schaffner, along with a research team, published a paper in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology using long term dataset of 23 years, “Social integration in temporal multiplex association networks predicts offspring survival in female geoffroy’s spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi).”
Associate Professor and Department Chair of Sociology Heidi Schneider, Ph.D., recently signed a book contract with Routledge. Her forthcoming book, “Respect and Disrespect in Middle School Classrooms: Student and Teacher Perspectives” will be published in 2026.
In February, the Department of Music Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano James Wehe, D.M.A., will host Wehe/Vynogradov: A Rachmaninov Recital. The recital begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, in Leon Memorial Hall. The performance will feature Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22; Piano Sonata No. 2, Op.36, and selections from Preludes, Op. 23; Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39, Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 17, and more.
Schools and Departments
The Prison Education Program is co-chairing the 12th Annual Transformative Justice and Abolition Criminology Conference.
School of Visual and Performing Arts Director John Taylor, Ph.D., created and completed successfully the “Finish the Final 50 in Year 100” campaign to name all remaining seats in the SLV Federal Bank Main Stage Theatre. At the beginning of the fall semester, there were 54 seats left out of 220 that still needed seat plates after 24 years in the theatre building. Each donation to name a seat plate goes directly to a Theatre Department Scholarship fund. In the 100th year of theatre, Dr. Taylor marks the occasion by getting all seats named. The project was completed six months early.
Dr. Taylor secured a $10,000 gift to underwrite a new theatre project, “The Democracy Project @ Adams State” scheduled for the 2027-2028 academic year.
