Professional Expertise

As part of our theme of Community Engagement, World Studies faculty lend their expertise in specialized teaching in a variety of non-credit venues throughout the community:

• Cliff Edwards presented twenty-seven talks at the Steward School, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Westover Hills Library, Ekoji Temple, Chrysalis Group, Richmond Times-Dispatch, among others, and conducted workshops for the MCV Nursing Program and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
• Anders Linde-Laursen presented on Globalization at the VCU Intercultural Festival, and lectured on the Nordic Countries at Fudan University in Shanghai , and on anthropology at the College of William and Mary.
• Eugenia Muñoz spoke on “Doing Business with Latin American Countries” at the Small Business Minority Office of the City of Richmond and conducted a workshop on poetic creation at “Españolización 2005” for Chesterfield County Public Schools.
• Kristin Swenson spoke on “Pain, Suffering and Wholeness from a Scriptural Perspective” in the VCU Clinical Pastoral Education summer program, and on the “Journey to Wholeness and Holiness in the Psalms” at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.
• Christina Turner lectured to the Internacional Health Program, the VCU Honors Program and spoke on “Economiía, Estado y Sociedad: Una Mirada al Paraguay y a la Región en los “últimos Quince Años” at the Centro de Análisis y Difusión de la Economía Paraguaya in Asunción, Paraguay.
• Amina Wadud lectured on “inside the Gender Jihad” at North Carolina State University.
• Lynda Weaver-Williams gave four lectures on Women in the Bible in Norfolk, Virginia.
• Mark Wood addressed a number of groups including the VCU Intercultural Festival, and Virginia Union University.

World Studies faculty are active in the community, lending their expertise to a variety of endeavors, including:

• Christopher Brooks volunteers at Deep Meadow Correctional facility in Goochland/Powhatan for several hours a day every Wednesday to help the inmate population with writing. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Richmond Midnight Basket League (RMBL) which plans activities for “at risk” youth.
• Pat Cummins serves as communion minister to French and Spanish-speaking parishioners who are ill for St. Edwards Church. Turner also co-organized a Virginia Lobby Day (2003), a coordinated effort of the AAUP, Faculty Senates of Virginia, and VCU's Faculty Senate.
• Robert Godwin-Jones works with Henrico and Hanover k-12 school systems for Web development and Blackboard implementation.
• Weiping Wu is a member of the International Committee, Richmond Industrial Development Authority.

Our faculty hold leadership positions in various professional organizations, including:

• McKenna Brown serves on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Endangered Languages, the Yax Te' Center for Intercultural Education at Cleveland State University , and on the Board of Directors as treasurer for the Guatemala Scholars Network.
• Pat Cummins is on the Executive Committee of the Virginia American Association of University Professors and served as the Chair of the Government and Legislative Relations Committee and Co-chair of Higher Education Advocacy Day at the General Assembly. She also chairs the American Association of Teachers of French Commission on Colleges and Universities.
• Chantal Maréchal is a member of the Executive and Advisory Committees of the International Marie de France Society (as Founding Past President) and the Webmaster for the International Marie de France Society.
• Kathy Murphy-Judy serves on the Executive Board CALICO and is the Director of FLEX, Foreign Language Exchange of Greater Richmond.
• Christina Turner was elected District representative for the National Council of American Association University Professors. She is a member-at-large and webmaster of the VCU Chapter of the AAUP and also serves on the Executive Council and as Webmaster for the Mid-Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies.
• Weiping Wu is a member of the Diversity Committee, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Planning Education and Research Member, International Advisory Board, Urban China Research Network. She prepared " Dynamic Cities and Creative Clusters" for the Development Economics Research Group, the World Bank.

Many of our faculty provide consulting, editorial and review contributions within their areas of expertise:

• Anton Brinckwirth reviewed an article for the IALLT Journal of Language Learning Technologies.
• Monika Ciesielkiewicz reviewed Spanish textbooks for Houghton Mifflin and Prentice Hall.
• Pat Cummins is on the Editorial board for the Journal of Language for International Business ( American Graduate School for International Management) and World Business Languages and a reviewer for Modern Language Journal. She also consults with the Virginia Department of Education on the LinguaFolio student assessment project.`
• Paul Dvorak is a reviewer for Modern Austrian Literature, Monatshefte,and The German Quarterly. He also serves on the Editorial Board for Ariadne Press.
• Robert Godwin-Jones reviews for The Comparatist.
• Elizabeth Kissling reviewed an intermediate Spanish language text for Vista Higher Learning Publishers.
• Gina Kovarsky reviewed a manuscript for World Literature Today.
• Anders Linde-Laursen reviewed an article for Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power.
• Eugenia Muñoz reviewed an article for Connatas of the University of Sonora, Mexico.
• Kathy Murphy-Judy reviewed four articles for Calico Review and a textbook for Heinle.
• Angelina Overvold reviewed two articles for George Sand Studies.
• Daniel Perdue serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Forum on Public Policy, a journal of the Oxford Round Table.
• Kristin Swenson contributed two pieces to the Menorah Review.
• Christina Turner reviews for Latin American Essays, Journal of Human Organization, American Ethnologist, Current Anthropology, and Latin American Research Review. She also reviews textbooks for Blackwell Publishing, McGraw-Hill, and Burston House, Ltd., and serves as Managing Editor of Latin American Essays.
• Amina Wadud reviewed Muslim Women Activists by Katherine Bullock for University of Texas Press .
• Weiping Wu reviewed submissions for ten journals, including The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, Journal of Planning Education and Research , China Review , International Migration, Research Policy and Growth and Change. She also reviewed grant proposals for the National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and served as a consultant to the World Bank.

Several of thethe School of World Studies faculty have served as grants reviewers, including for the Council for International Exchange of Scholars Fulbright specialist selection committee (Christopher Brooks), the Department of Education (Pat Cummins), the National Endowment for the Humanities (Paul Dvorak), the National Security Education Program Graduate Education Fellowship program (Christina Turner), and the National Science Foundation (Weiping Wu).