Awards & Appointments

Congratulations to Megan Roberts who received Honorable Mention for her story "Corners" in the NCSU's Brenda L. Smart statewide story contest.  In addition, Roberts's story "R Like Me" was a finalist for the Brenda L. Smart Award for Short Fiction (for flash-length stories).  Please see: http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/creativewriting/storycontest.htm

Congratulations to Catherine Smith, Donna Kain, and Kenneth Wilson (Sociology) who have been awarded a $120,000 grant by North Carolina Sea Grant to study public reception and use of risk and emergency information in coastal North Carolina.  The study addresses the need to communicate information about weather-related risks and hazards more effectively to the public.  The project will be led by Smith, Kenneth Wilson, Director of  the Community Research Laboratory, and Kain, Director of Outreach for RENCI's Center for Coastal Informatics and Modeling at East Carolina University.  RENCI at ECU will provide technical and facilities support for the project that will begin in February of 2008.  The three researchers are also faculty affiliates of the Center for Natural Hazards Research.  According to the researchers: "Almost every disaster after-action report identifies communication as a major failing, yet both practical guides on natural hazards and academic scholarship neglect communication as an influence on perception and behavior related to risk. However, preliminary analysis of data collected in a recent pilot study conducted in Dare County, NC, indicates that residents in coastal communities seek, process, and use risk and emergency information in complicated ways, synthesizing expert assessments, past personal experience with storms, family wishes, and practical concerns that may include pet ownership, medical conditions, or congested evacuation routes.  Consequently, developing a more robust model of emergency communication that views communication as dynamic, interactive, and linked to context is vital because communication impacts every stage of disaster management -- preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation."  The research will combine data gathered through surveys and in-depth interviews with the goal of generating a model of risk and emergency communication that foregrounds the ways that different sectors of public seek and respond to information about coastal weather events.  A robust model of communication can be used in assessing vulnerability or resiliency in eastern North Carolina as well as in coastal communities nationally.  The research team plans to share study results with emergency management professionals and public information officers in North Carolina who have the responsibility for providing information before, during, and after hazardous events.

Congratulations to Liza Wieland who won third prize of £500 for her story "Slip, Out, Back, Here" in the Bridport Prize 2007 competition.  Tracy Chevalier was the fiction judge. Over 11,000 pieces of fiction were entered in the competition this year.  Also, Wieland's novel A Watch of the Nightingales has been selected as the winner of this year's Michigan Literary Fiction Award.

Seodial Frank Deena has been appointed President of Guyanese Friendship Forum, 2007-present.

Since last May, Jerry Leath Mills has served on a seven-person national committee of Phi Beta Kappa to decide the annual Christian Gauss Award for "An Outstanding Book in Literary Scholarship or Criticism."  The prize was established by the Phi Beta Kappa Senate in 1950 in honor of Christian Gauss, the distinguished scholar, teacher and dean (Princeton Universitry), who had also served as president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.  Some twenty-plus books were nominated by their publishers and considered by the committee.  The 2007 winner wil be announced in Washington, DC in December.