Arts and Sciences News & Events

See news and events in Merrimack College’s School of Arts and Sciences.

News

 |
By: Kara Haase
Merrimack College recently hosted an engaging panel discussion with three accomplished alumni from the Master of Public Administration and Affairs (MPAA) program.
 |
By: Michael Cronin
Andrew Cote, assistant professor of practice and assistant director of bands, also presented at this year’s National Association of Music Merchants Show in Anaheim, CA.
 |
By: Michael Cronin
Under Andrew Cote’s leadership, more student musicians are enrolled at Merrimack than ever before.
 |
By: Michael Cronin
The Revs. Terence Ayuk and Njuakom Romaric this fall will enroll in Merrimack’s Spiritual Direction graduate certificate program.
 |
By: Michael Cronin
Over the past seven years, Laura Kurdziel has worked to expand Merrimack’s Department of Psychology and its curriculum.

Notable & Quotable

Melissa Zimdars, assistant professor of communication, was interviewed by the grassroots media website Weave News for thefourthpartof its “Attack on Academia“series with academics who have endured sustained campaigns of threats and harassment from the alt-right. Zimdars made national headlineswhen a document she created to help her students practice analyzing the credibility of various websites claiming to share news went viral and incurred the wrath of far-right organizations and individuals.

The Imagined Immigration and the Criminal Immigrants: Expanding the Catalog of Immigrant-Related Ignorance is an article published by Dr. Daniel Herda and co-authored by Merrimack alum Amshula Divadkar ’17. In the article, Herda and Divadkar use original data from a sample of college students to examine the crime perception alongside nine established components of imagined immigration, comparing their extent and consequences for a hypothetical anti-immigrant policy.

Eight faculty members from four schools at Merrimack attended the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies conference in Amsterdam last semester. They include associate professors Luis Saenz de Viguera Erkiago and Cinzia DiGiulio of the World Languages and Cultural Studies Department, Civil Engineering Department assistant professor Cynthia Carlson, visiting associate professor Ellen Fitzpatrick, Women and Gender Studies Department professor Simona Sharoni, Graduate Education Department associate professor Susan Marine, Accounting and Finance Department associate professor Ana Silva, and Education Department assistant professor Laura Hsu.

Sociology Associate Professor Daniel Herda presented his research on interpersonal contact between immigrants and citizens at the American Sociological Association virtual conference.

Dan Vlahos,assistant professor of visual and performing arts, was recognized as Designer of the Week by Print Magazine on April 10, 2018.Vlahos sharessome of his work in the local community, his favorite and most challenging projects, and his plans for the future. “Three things that inspire me are graphic design history, my students and contemporary design outside of graphic design (especially architecture),” he said.

Jim Kaklamanos, associate professor of civil engineering and Zampell Family Faculty Fellow, was recently recognized with the Distinguished Service Award from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Tufts University, where he earned his Ph.D., M.S. and B.S.C.E. The Distinguished Service Award is presented to an alumnus or member of the Tufts CEE community who exemplifies service to their profession and the department.

Presidential Rhetoric and Indian Policy is a book recently published by Dr. Anne Flaherty, associate professor of political science public policy and interim associate dean of the School of Liberal Arts.

Assistant professor of communication and media Melissa “Mish” Zimdars, author of “Watching Our Weights: The Contradictions of Televising Fatness in the ‘Obesity Epidemic,’” was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article March 24, 2020 discussing the portrayal of fat women on television.

Joseph Vogel, assistant professor of English, published an article, “The Confessions of Quentin Tarantino: Whitewashing Slave Rebellion in ‘Django Unchained,’” in the March 2018 issue of the Journal of American Culture.

Mish Zimdars, associate professor of communication and media, has recently published a chapter in The Social Media Debate: Unpacking the Social, Psychological, and Cultural Effects of Social Media that focuses on how political disinformation masquerades as local news online and across social media.

Events

Graduate Student Celebration

Graduate Student Celebration is an exciting event where prospective and accepted students can get a glimpse into becoming a warrior through information sessions, campus tours, and opportunities to connect with faculty, staff, and peers!

Arcidi Welcome Center