Faculty & Staff Accomplishments

We are excited to share recent accomplishments from Whitworth faculty and staff members. Accomplishments are listed by date of achievement, with the most recent first. 

Benjamin Brody, DMA, professor of music, has a new book out titled, At the Weaving of Creation. It's a collection of 50 hymns he's written over the past seven years that have been sung all over the world. Some are a collaboration with other artists who've written the lyrics, including Thomas Troeger and Jacque Jones. It is Brody's second book and is available now. 

Jeremy Wynne, Ph.D., associate professor of theology, will participate in a debate at the St. Augustine Center at the University of Idaho on April 10, 2024. The topic of the debate is the Catholic dogma of purgatory, and it has been framed in terms of the scriptural basis of this doctrine, the witness of the tradition from the patristic era to today, and the broad "common sense" reasoning to support it.

D. Berton Emerson, Ph.D., associate professor of English and director of the George F. Whitworth Honors Program, has authored a new book, American Literary Misfits: The Alternative Democracies of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Print Cultures, UNC Press (2024). The study of nineteenth-century American literature has long been tied up with the study of American democracy. Just as some regions in the United States are elevated to stand in for the whole nation – New England is a good example – D. Berton Emerson argues the same is true for American literature of the nineteenth century; a few canonical texts overrepresent the more motley history of American letters. Emerson examines an eclectic group of literary texts that have rarely, if ever, been considered representative of the nation because of their unseemly characters or plots, divergence from dominant literary trends of the era, or local particularity. Emerson’s unique contribution is revealing these texts and the people they represent as rich with political knowledge. Such texts show us a different kind of democratic politics: one that is egalitarian, disorderly and radical rather than homogeneous.

Scott David Miller, DMA, professor and director of voice studies, recently returned from a five-month residency as Visiting International Scholar at Mahidol University College of Music in Bangkok, Thailand. Mahidol University is the premier music college in Thailand, offering bachelor's through doctoral degrees as well as an on-site boarding school (Young Artist Music Program, or YAMP) for promising high school musicians. Miller taught voice performance, diction and solo vocal literature seminars in addition to presenting master classes to students in classical and musical theatre performance from the high school through doctoral levels. He also presented an off-campus master class at Tuplane House in Bangkok for singers in the Greater Bangkok Metropolitan Region. 

Anthony Clark, Ph.D., professor of Chinese history and director of Whitworth's Asian studies program, recently appeared on two international television programs on Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), the world's largest Catholic network. He was a guest on the shows "EWTN Live" and "Bookmark," to discuss his book, Catholicism and Buddhism: The Contrasting Lives and Teachings of Jesus and Buddha.

Kraig Wheeler, Ph.D., Hugh Johnston Professor of Chemistry, and his students, Katelyn N. Koch '24 and Aaron J. Teo '24, had a paper accepted in Chemical Communications, a high-impact chemistry journal, titled "Dual Space Divergence in Small-Molecule Quasiracemates: Benzoyl Leucine and Phenylalanine Assemblies," (February 2024).

Bendi Schrambach, Ph.D., professor of world languages & cultures, has written an article titled, “Charismata and the Book of Margery Kempe,” which will appear in the academic journal Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, vol. 46, issue 1 (forthcoming 2024).

Charles Andrews, Ph.D., professor of English, has authored a book titled, The English Modernist Novel as Political Theology: Challenging the Nation, Bloomsbury Publishing (February 2024). Description: Exploring novels by Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh and Sylvia Townsend Warner as political theology – works that imagine a resistance to the fusion of Christianity and patriotism which fueled and supported the First World War – this book shows how we can gain valuable insights from their works for anti-militarist, anti-statist and anti-nationalist efforts today.  

Renee' M. Schoening, Ed.D., director of school counseling and SEL graduate programs, has been invited to present at several events in 2024. Feb. 6-8, she was a presenter at Character Strong's School Counseling Summit in conjunction with National School Counseling Week. She also spoke at the Washington School Counselor Association conference in March and will present at the American School Counselor Association in July.

Philip Measor, Ph.D., assistant professor of engineering & physics, along with his student Jacob Blomdahl and Professor Aaron Putzke, presented at Phototonics West 2024, the world's largest photonics conference. “3D printed microfluidic particle sorting device,” SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, Calif., Jan. 29, 2024. Also, presented by Philip Measor: “A scalable microdevice fabrication method for low resource environments via 3D printing,” SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, Calif., Jan. 27, 2024.

Davey Henreckson, Ph.D., director, Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith & Learning and assistant professor of philosophy, has been awarded a fellowship through the Center for Christianity and Public Life (https://www.ccpubliclife.org/public-life-fellowship). The Public Life Fellowship Program is a nine-month program serving an intergenerational class of Christians interested in intensive, community-based learning about the intersection of faith and public service.

Alan Mikkelson, Ph.D., professor of communication studies, along with Oregon State University professor Colin Hesse, received a Top Four Paper award from the Interpersonal Division at the Western States Communication Association. Their paper is titled, "Organizational Communication Patterns as Predictors of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Citizenship Motives." The award was presented in February 2024.  

Vange Ocasio Hochheimer, Ph.D., professor of business & economics, was named a Spokane Journal of Business 2024 People of Influence. To be recognized among the People of Influence, candidates must be decision makers in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area who are working to improve quality of life in the Inland Northwest. In addition to thought leaders and industry innovators, honorees are people who give back, both in the business world and the community at large. The nominees were recognized during an event on Jan. 24, 2024. 

Gregg Brekke, assistant professor of world languages & culture, and Mark Killian, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology, co-authored an article published in WAESOL Educator titled "Pre-service teacher beliefs: Does perceptual learning style matching increase initial L2 vocabulary learning?" WAESOL Educator, 49(1),12-17 (January 2024).

Ingrid Van Duyne, assistant professor of occupational therapy, along with Nathan Salvador, published an article in The Journal of Life Care Planning titled "I Have Transitioned, I Wish I Would Have Known…Case Studies of Expectations," The Journal of Life Care Planning, (21)2 (2024).

Julia Stronks, Ph.D., professor of political science, had a commentary piece published on Spokane Favs, titled "Analysis: Did Colorado Supreme Court Make Right Decision to Keep Trump off State's Ballot?," (Jan. 1, 2024).

Aaron Hitefield, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science, co-authored an article with Keith L. Dougherty titled, "The Effects of the Great Compromise on the Constitutional Convention of 1787," Sage Journals (December 2023).

Vange Ocasio Hochheimer, Ph.D., professor of business & economics, was appointed to Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown's transition team on the Economy and Workforce Committee, (November 2023).

Aaron Griffith, Th.D., assistant professor of history, was elected to the American Society of Church History council (December 2023). The ASCH is a scholarly community dedicated to studying the history of Christianity and how it relates to culture in all time periods, locations and contexts. 

Fred Johnson, Ph.D., professor of English, authored the following articles and poems in 2023: “Selling San Narciso: Pierce Inverarity as Insider-Innovator in The Crying of Lot 49,” Orbit: A Journal of American Literature, 11.1 (2023); “Literary Immigrations Module, Grade 12: Reading and Responding to American Immigrant Literature,” with Molly Johnson, published through Washington state’s Bridge to College Program; “Leaving the Bridge," Ekstasis (October 2023); “Drift Back and Sleep," Ekstasis (June 2023).

Aaron Griffith, Th.D., assistant professor of history, authored an article titled, "You Won't Find God Through an Al Chatbot," TIME magazine (September 2023).

Megan Hershey, Ph.D., professor of political science, co-authored a book along with Amy Patterson and Tracy Kuperus titled, Africa's Urban Youth: Challenging Marginalization, Claiming Citizenship, Cambridge University Press (August 2023).

Davey Henreckson, Ph.D., director, Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith & Learning and assistant professor of philosophy, co-edited and co-authored The Liberating Arts: Why We Need Liberal Arts Education with Jessica Hooten Wilson and Jeffrey Bilbro, Plough Publishing (2023).

Robert D. Francis, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology, was among five co-editors of a special issue for the journal, Teaching Sociology, the top pedagogical journal in the field. As "tweeted" by the journal itself, one of the articles in that volume was the most-read article in Teaching Sociology of 2023. 

Megan Hershey, Ph.D., professor of political science, co-authored an article with Michael Artime titled, “The Reel Politics of International Crisis: Benedict Cumberbatch’s Appeal for Syrian Refugees,” Political Studies Review, 21:2, 357-75 (May 2023).

Aaron Griffith, Th.D., assistant professor of history, authored an article titled, "The Complicated Commodification of Easter," TIME magazine (April 2023).

Aaron Griffith, Th.D., assistant professor of history, authored an article titled, "What Asbury's Christian Revival Says About America's Need for Connection," TIME magazine (February 2023).

Aaron Griffith, Th.D., assistant professor of history, authored an article titled, "Crime Concern and the 2022 Midterms," PRRI Spotlight (January 2023).