Facebook pixel Sabbatical Presentation Series Connects the Pepperdine Community Around the Globe | Newsroom | Seaver College Skip to main content
Pepperdine | Seaver College

Sabbatical Presentation Series Connects the Pepperdine Community Around the Globe


Each fall semester, the Seaver Dean’s Office hosts the Sabbatical Presentation Series to catch up with faculty members who recently returned from sabbatical research. In fall 2020, the office hosted seven virtual events featuring research accomplishments of 14 faculty across a diverse range of disciplines and topics. 

“I am always so fascinated to hear about the great scholarship of our faculty and the lively discussion it generates among those who attend,” shares associate dean Kindy De Long. “This year, it was especially interesting to hear about the creative ways that faculty in spring sabbaticals pivoted their research due to the pandemic.”

In previous years, colleagues would enjoy lunch and fellowship during the presentation series. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, colleagues gathered in a Zoom room to share presentations. Despite the new format and the challenges of this year, the virtual format continued to connect the community in meaningful and inspiring conversations about their work. Additionally, the virtual format opened attendance for staff and faculty from Seaver’s international programs to attend. 

“It was a bit different to meet by Zoom rather than in person, but the silver lining was seeing colleagues from our international campuses,” De Long says. 

Congratulations to the following faculty members on their research accomplishments: 

Name
Topic
Kevin Iga Authoring a First-of-its-kind Textbook on Supersymmetry
Julianne Smith Charles Dickens and Marie Corelli: Victorian Drama On and Off the Stage, resulting in two publications Victorian Hands and “The Devil & Miss Corelli
Lincoln Hanks Composing Look Out! A New Concert Piece for Flute and Piano
Courtney Davis Mathematically Modeling the Immune Response to COVD-19
Regan Schaffer The Big Pivot: The Nonprofit Sector and COVID
Ben Postlethwaite  Selling Self-Service, Sex, and Sanitizer: Management Research During COVID, resulting in collaborative publication Women Who Sell Sex: A Review of Psychological Research With Clinical Implications
Kristen Brennan Hua Yan (1682-1756) and the Making of the Artist in Early Modern China
David Simonowitz Public Text and Architectural Identity in Modern Amman
Cynthia Colburn Color, Ritual Spaces, and the Politics of Performance before the Minoan Palaces
Jane Kelley Rodeheffer A Philosopher’s Journey through Brush and Clay
Christina Littlefield Social Gospel Muckrakers
Janet Trammell Natural Isn’t Always Better: The Effect of Environment on Cognition
Louise Lofquist Operatic Legends Geraldine Farrar and Lilli Lehman
Maire Mullins Tending the Wounded in the Civil War: Louisa May Alcott's Hospital Sketches and Walt Whitman's Memoranda for a Year

To learn more about the series, visit the Sabbatical Presentation Series website.