Faculty Newsletter, Spring 2000
Professors Lisa Perfetti and Erika M.Sutherland, co-editors

Dr. Luba Iskold and Dr. John Pearce attended this year’s EuroCALL, the European Computer-Assisted Language Learning Conference, held in Besancon, France, September 15-18.  They presented “Teacher-Produced Software for Language Learning: Does it Really Help?”  The study reports the results of feedback from teachers and students using Muhlenberg’s faculty-developed software made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.  The interactive, multimedia software developed under the Mellon grant was presented in Jacksonville, FL in April 1999 at the International Conference on College Teaching and Learning.  There, Drs. Iskold and Pearce gave a talk titled, “Language Learning and Technology: Is Everybody Happy?”

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Dr. Luba Iskold also gave a presentation on teaching and learning languages with technology at the fifth annual Mid-Atlantic College Conference.  She presented another paper, “The Effect of Group Video Viewing in a Comprehension-Based Foreign Language Curriculum,” at the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association Annual Conference, in which she discusses the findings from her empirical study conducted at Muhlenberg. Last summer, Dr. Iskold designed a new course entitled “Russian Culture and Civilization.”  She will spend part of the coming summer designing another new course entitled “Russian Nobel Prize Winners in Literature” for Fall, 2000. She also designed and developed the Home Page for the Language Learning Center and compiled a collection of web links for all the languages currently offered by the department.

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Dr. Albert Kipa presented his paper “Lessing’s Reception in Russia, Poland and Ukraine” at the international conference of the Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Society at Vanderbilt University, October 28-31. The following month, he presented a paper entitled “Lesia Ukrainka and Goethe” at the 1999 National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in St. Louis.  His article, “Democracy and Education in John Neumann’s and in Jaroslav Pelikan’s works The Idea of a University,” has been included in a collection of essays entitled Civil Society and the Achievement of Liberty.  The book was published by the Ministry of Education of Ukraine in cooperation with Lviv State University.  In addition, his essay, “Pavlo Zaicev, Shevchenko Studies and the Ukrainian Free University,” was published in Prague by the National Library of the Czech Republic in the Conference Proceedings of November 1996 dedicated to the Ukrainian Free University.  Dr. Kipa spoke on “Russia Today” at the AgeWell Center in Bethlehem and, along with Dr. Carol Shiner Wilson, Dean of the College for Academic Life, attended a workshop at the University of Arkansas for international awards advisors.  Some awards discussed were the Truman, Marshall, Rhodes, and Fulbright.