News Archive
Two ¾¨Ó㴫ý students, Benjamin Nelson and Ray Walling, presented their historical research to the Phi Alpha Theta History Conference held at Washington and Jefferson University.
"The Rulings of Judge Webster Thayer: A Statistical Analysis of Prejudice in the Sacco and Vanzetti Case," is a statistical analysis of the rulings of Judge Thayer, who presided over this 1920s case. Nearly 1,000 rulings were entered into a data base to reveal patterns in the judges' rulings.
"Using this data base, we have unearthed an obvious, yet never before seen pattern in the rulings that suggest that the judge was deliberately helping the prosecution convict Sacco and Vanzetti," Walling said.Â
"Generations of scholars have tried to make a case that the judge was biased, but no one really was able to prove it," said Dr. Russell Martin, associate professor of history. "This is truly a big achievement. Their research won the first book award, which is essentially the 'best paper' prize for their session at the conference. I'm incredibly proud of them, as I am of all our students in the history program at ¾¨Ó㴫ý."
"This conference gave us a wonderful opportunity to not only get feed back about our research, but it allowed us to see the methods other students were using in their research," Walling said.
Nelson, a junior history and business administration major, is a son of Thomas and Kathie Nelson of Poland, Ohio, and a graduate of Poland Seminary High School.
Walling, a junior history major, is a son of Carl and Barbara Walling of Landenberg, and a graduate of Kennett High School.
For more information, contact Martin at (724) 946-6254 or e-mail martinre@westminster.edu.
Dr. Russell Martin, associate professor of history at ¾¨Ó㴫ý, recently co-authored a book on Russian history.
"The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century: The Consular and Ceremonial Ranks of the Russian Sovereign's Court,' 1613-1713" was co-authored by Martin, Marshall Poe, Ol'ga Kosheleva, and Boris Morozov.
"It's a print version of an electronic database of Muscovite or medieval Russian elites who held the four highest court ranks, and who were the most important figures at the royal court after the tsar himself," Martin said. "For generations, historians have not had a complete list of the names of persons who held these ranks. The goal of the database project and this book was to provide a definitive list of names of everybody who was anybody at the ruler's court from the turn of the 16th century to the turn of the 17th century.
"The other important aspect of the database project is the fact that this was an academic joint venture' between American and Russian scholars, one of the first to form after the fall of the Soviet Union. My Russian colleagues, Morozov and Kosheleva are leading scholars in Russia on medieval Muscovy.  The future looks bright, as well. With a set of new partners, I am hoping to take the list of names and fill in their biographies with their personal, familial, religious, and economic activities. I hope one day to have a comprehensive electronic biographical dictionary of the Muscovite elite. But that lies many decades in the future."
Martin appeared on A&E Biography in a broadcast on Ivan the Terrible as an expert on the controversial ruler, and has been an expert witness in a Canadian civil trial about the Russian royal family. He is the co-founder of the Muscovite Biographical Database, a Russian-American computerized register based in Moscow of early modern Russian notables. The Neville Island, Pa., native is not only fluent in Russian, but also reads Old Church Slavonic/Russian, French, German, Latin, and Polish.
Martin, who has been with ¾¨Ó㴫ý since 1996, earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University.
For more information, contact Martin at (724) 946-6254 or e-mail martinre@westminster.edu
Kirsten Elstner, photojournalist and freelance photographer for the New York Times and the International Red Cross, will speak Friday, Nov. 11, at 3:15 p.m. in Phillips Lecture Hall located in the Hoyt Science Resources Center.
Elstner's career has taken her to remote locations such as Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and her own backyard of Annapolis, Md., where she is the founder and director of VisionWorkshops, a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring inner-city children through photography.
Elstner will show some of her work with young people. She will also describe her experiences in Afghanistan showing work from her 1992 visit to Kabul, relating her experiences to Khalid Hosseini's "The Kite Runner." Elstner will close her talk leading a discussion on the role that documentary photography plays in perceptions of cultures.
This event is free and open to the public and is supported by ¾¨Ó㴫ý's First-Year Program. Contact Dr. Sherri Pataki, visiting assistant professor of psychology at ¾¨Ó㴫ý, at (724) 946-7361 or e-mail patakisp@westminster.edu for more information.
American folk music and East African traditional music combine in concert at ¾¨Ó㴫ý, Wednesday, March 3, at 4 p.m. in the McKelvey Campus Center Student Lounge.
¾¨Ó㴫ý announces several personal enrichment and leisure courses this fall. Continuing Education classes and seminars are non-credit and are open to all interested individuals. Formal admission to ¾¨Ó㴫ý is not required.
Brian Barrett, a ¾¨Ó㴫ý music performance major from Meadville, will perform his senior recital Sunday, Feb. 23, at 3 p.m. in Wallace Memorial Chapel.
Five ¾¨Ó㴫ý students took first place in the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accounts (PICPA) business competition in Philadelphia Feb. 16.
The competition began in November, when teams from across Pennsylvania submitted business plans for starting a new business from scratch. It was this plan for Steel City Messenger Service that earned the ¾¨Ó㴫ý team a chance to advance to the finals, along with teams from Slippery Rock State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Wilkes University, and Bloomsburg State University.
Thirteen ¾¨Ó㴫ý professors have offered to shave their facial hair for a good cause.
Students and the campus community can stop by the TUB in the McKelvey Campus Center and donate money for the professor they most want to either "save or shave" his facial hair. The professor with the most money collected by Monday, Dec. 11, will either save or shave his facial hair, depending on the public's request.
Gina Sharbaugh, associate director of admissions at ¾¨Ó㴫ý, will visit area high schools to speak with interested students about a liberal arts education at ¾¨Ó㴫ý, requirements for admissions, and financial aid.
Dr. David O. Cushman, ¾¨Ó㴫ý professor of economics and Captain William McKee Chair of Economics and Business, had "Real Exchange Rates May Have Nonlinear Trends" published in the April issue of International Journal of Finance & Economics.
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