Robert Talisse (Philosophy), Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, together Matthew Cotter (History and Humanities Honors) are the main organizers for a conference at the CUNY Graduate Center to honor the centenary of the controversial philosopher, Sydney Hook's birth. Another Philosophy alum, Robert Tempio is also working on the conference. Talisse and Tempio are publishing a new book on Sydney Hook.
Eric Leonard (Political Science) was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. Mark Rendeiro (also Poli Sci) was accepted this year at University of Amsterdam in their Master's of European Communications Program.

Gus Penaranda (Poli Sci) was named Director of the Mayor's Office of Outside Business Investment for the City of Paterson. All graduates from the Pre-Law program who were admitted to Law School are currently in the top half of their respective classes. Ruben Scolavino (Poli Sci and Pre Law) recipient of a Seton Hall Presidential Scholarship Award, graduated from Seton Hall Law School and has accepted a position with the Bronx D.A's Office. Larry Joseph and Rob Francin are both finished their second year at Rutgers Law School. Joseph was named to the Rutgers Moot Court Board.

Women's Studies alumna, Maria Rodriguez was the subject of a feature article in The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education (February 2002), ALatinas Earn Awards for Women's Studies" that highlights her winning the National Women's Studies Association 2001 "Women of Color" essay contest. Four Women Studies alums have returned to teach as adjuncts for the department after completing their Master's elsewhere: Edward Jankowski (Fordham, Psychology), Robin Dwyer (Drew, Theology), Tracy Francese (Monmouth, Psychological Counseling), and Jill Zinckgraf (Rutgers, Public Policy).

The First Annual Anthropology Student Colloquium was held on April 16th in the Machuga Student Center, organized by Assistant Professor Tom Gundling. In total eight presentations were delivered with topics ranging from replication of Native American pottery to the gendered use of sexual slang. Five of the presentations stemmed from the January 2002 short-term Study Abroad Course in the "Land of the Maya" led by Christine Carrelli. Participants spent 15 days exploring the archaeology and ecology of the ancient Maya and their living descendants. They left with a vision of the complexity of the Maya World that cannot be gained from any textbook and with ample material for their presentations on Maya architecture, pottery making, weaving, warfare, and cosmology.

Graduate student, Karen Hollywood's (History) research for her master's degree on Kearney, New Jersey's Scottish population garnered the attention of BBC Radio Scotland, which interviewed her for its show, "The Reel Blend" in April.

Japanese Language Competition. Three students in first year Japanese won prizes in the Japanese speech/skit contest held on March 18th at Seton Hall University. Close to half of the Japanese 111 students spontaneously took part in the contest. This year's contestants included students from three universities, Seton Hall, Rutgers, and WPUNJ. Princeton University has also participated in the contest in the past.

Pre-Law Program. The program is designed to make WPUNJ students from all majors who are applying to law schools competitive with students from the best schools in the country by providing a rigorous academic program in constitutional law and by helping students improve LSAT scores. The special attention students receive from director, Michael Principe and the heightened expectations of performance in his classes resulted in higher LSAT scores and law school acceptances. This year, Andrew Holland and Jessica Rentas were accepted at Rutgers Law School, and Ryan Wells at Arizona State U. Law School.

More importantly, every student who has completed the program and gone on to law school is in the top half of his or her class. In 1999-2000, there were approximately 8-9 seniors in the program, of whom 5 chose to apply to law school. In 2000-01, there were approximately 19 students in the pre-law program and 6-10 who had been taking the LSAT prep course. In 2001-2002, there were 35 students in the program, and 15 who took the LSAT prep course this year.

Sociology. Through an ASA/Ford Foundation grant to MOST, the Department sponsored seven students to work on independent study projects in which they teamed to conduct a social distance survey on campus, analyze the data, and report their findings. The seven students, who conducted the social distance study presented their findings at the Department's student research symposium in February, at the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting in Boston in March, and here at University Research Day in April. Karen Ten Kate presented her research paper at the annual ESS meeting in Boston, and Lori Perlmutter will present her MOST research paper on social distance at WPUNJ at the American Sociological Women's Studies' major, Lisa Lakatos was awarded the Norma Van Dyke Award for Excellence in Women's Studies. She attended the National Women's Studies Association Conference in Las Vegas in June 2002. Nancy Gianni was also awarded the Norma Van Dyke Award for Excellence in Women's Studies.

Association meeting in August. The Department includes the best student papers the department journal, Sociogram. Sociology faculty also provided extensive mentoring to other students working on research projects, most notably Karen Ten Kate, who drew extensive praise for her presentation at the March ESS meeting in Boston.

Philosophy. The Cognitive Science Student Research Group (CSSRG) have assisted Professor Peter Mandik in his own research in the lab, but their primary activities have been to pursue their own research projects in artificial-life-based and robotics-based approaches to philosophy of the mind and philosophically-pertinent cognitive science. The most regular attendees of CSSRG have been students, Michael Collins, Helene Scierzo, Shawn Gaston, Dustin Wetzel, and Carmen DeLuccia. Helene Scierzo -intensely inspired by the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein- is interested in the social basis of cognition. She is pursuing a philosophical analysis of cooperation and competition. Her analysis involves the cognitive scientific techniques of computer simulation and robotic modeling of social interactions between mobile robots that can compete to collect objects. She has been assisted by Michael Collins. Dr. Mandik has worked with Shawn Gaston on categorizing the representational and locomotive strategies of neural network controllers in artificial animals. They presented their research on Political Science. Approximately 17 WPUNJ undergraduates participated in the Model UN at the University of Pennsylvania in the Fall 2002 semester, and once again, they performed well. Another 15 students competed at the Harvard Model UN in February. Both Model UN veterans and students who joined for the first time participated. To prepare, students attended a series of nine workshops covering the history and structure of the UN, as well as the mechanics of model UN competitions. For the second year in a row, the Political Science Student Club was recognized by the WPU Student Government Association as having hosted the "Most Outstanding Educational Event of the year" for its role in hosting the Model U.N. Club event in April. For her efforts, the WPUNJ Alumni Association honored the President of the Model UN Club, Paola Melo, with the Outstanding Senior of the Year award.

"Robotics and Artificial Life" to the WPUNJ Philosophy Club last November.

The Psychology Student Research Conference continues to provide majors with the opportunity to present their research. Psychology majors also present at professional society meetings. This year Psych majors gave 7 research papers at regional and national professional conferences, in addition to the many presentations utilizing the in-house Undergraduate Research Conference. Jacqueline Bonilla, a graduate student, worked with Prof. Bruce Diamond on the Virtual Rehabilitation project at the Kessler Institute and at a community-based facility. Her work resulted in a manuscript of publishable quality. Other graduate students who have worked with Diamond on research and conference presentations include Roberta Braneck and Christa Ten Cate, who have been working on research related to the processing, storage and manipulation of information in preschoolers and college-age adults. Some of the undergraduates working with Diamond have included Xiomara Mendez, Cindy Del Tufo, Courtney Milley, Diana Sebzda and Debbie Erickson. The aims of the research are to inform our basic understanding of memory, executive function and information processing and to relate these findings to both clinical and educational practice.

Student Writing Across the Disciplines. WAC publishes an annual journal of student writing, including research papers, personal essays, and creative writing chosen from nearly 100 entries submitted by teachers in departments across campus. Each student winner receives a $100 gift certificate from the WPU bookstore. The WAC Contest and Publication, "Celebrating Excellence in Student Writing" is now in its third year, and teachers from 12 departments have submitted student work for consideration by a panel of judges. The emphasis is both on high-level student writing and on the interesting, thoughtfully conceptualized assignments for this year's edition of "Celebrating Student Writing Across the Curriculum," the WAC Essay Contest committee chose "08104," an essay on Camden, N.J. by Meishka Mitchell; a paper on Math by Andrew G. Satkowski; "Rethinking My Leisure Reading: Science Fiction in the Wake of September 11th" by Juliana Meehan; an essay on Community Systems by Michelle Kutten; "The ‘Unmanned' Trenches" by Chris Wells; "Forensic Entomology" by Carmen DeLuccia; A Letter in My Defense" by Victoria Surgent; "September 11th" by Dwayne Brown; "Confessing the Past and Future: The Unlikely Parallels Between St. Augustine and Me" by John Findura; "How To Become A Success" by Gregory Winick; "We are the Artists Merging the Internal with the External: A Lesson from Wordsworth" by Christina Avila; "By Hand" by Jennifer E. Smith; and "What is the Opportunity Cost of Selling Drugs?" by Tim Gouraige.