SFC Authors Corner
The past year was particularly notable for the publication of books by St. Francis College faculty.
Theo Gangi (English) brings
us A New Day in America
(Full Fathom Five Digital),
a work of fiction that begins
with a father’s quest to
save his daughter one year
after a devastating bomb
and a pandemic have
killed millions and destroyed NYC. “For me,
A New Day in America and the post-apocalyptic genre is interesting because the stories
pose an alternate world of worst case
scenarios and Sophie’s choices,” said Gangi.
“We know who we are when supported by
our set structures. Apocalyptic literature asks:
‘Who are we when that security is gone?’”
You can read more of Gangi’s work and
get his first novel Bang Bang on his blog
theogangi.com .
Uwe Gielen (Psychology)
has co-edited with Grant
Rich and written part of
a new collection called
Pathfinders in International
Psychology (Information
Age Publishing). The book
features essays about 17 psychologists and
psychiatrists who have played an important
role in international psychology. From Franz
Mesmer (1734-1815) — whose name is the
foundation for the verb, mesmerize — to
several living figures, the volume follows the
rise of psychology from a Western protoscience to a global form of science and
practice. Pathfinders is Dr. Gielen’s 22nd book.
Earlier last year, Professor Gielen co-edited
another book, International Counseling:
Case Studies Handbook (American
Counseling Association), which takes a look
at how counseling and psychotherapy are
approached around the world.
Emily Horowitz’s (Criminal
Justice) book, Protecting
Our Kids? How Sex Offender
Laws Are Failing Us
(Praeger) puts Dr. Horowitz
squarely in the fight to
change laws that she says
are overly harsh and do
nothing to make society safer. Since the book
was released, Dr. Horowitz published an
editorial in the New York Daily News,
appeared on The Kelly File special on
Fox News, and was quoted at length in
an NBC News story.
Peter Leibman ’71
(Education) has more than
4 0 years of experience as
an educator. He’s shared his
knowledge with hundreds of
St. Francis College students
and now he’s looking to
reach a wider audience
with Launch a Teaching Career: Secrets For
Aspiring Teachers (Rowman & Littlefield).
“This is the perfect time to become a
full-time teacher and yet too many college
graduates cannot secure a teaching position,”
said Dr. Leibman, who began as a teacher
in Bedford-Stuyvesant before becoming an
Assistant Principal at Bishop Loughlin and
later a Principal at schools on Long Island
and in Westchester. “We’ve proven through
the successes of our own students that there
is a right way to get yourself to the head of
the class.”
Eric Platt (History) takes
us back to the 16 0 0s to
examine a major dispute
on religion and political
power in Britain and the
Bestandstwisten: The
Causes, Course and
Consequences of British
Involvement in the Dutch Religious and
Political Disputes of the Early Seventeenth
Century (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). The
book focuses on British involvement in a
serious conflict that arose in the Dutch
Republic during the 1610s over differing
views on religious doctrine, church-state
relations, and the very nature of the Dutch
state (the Bestandstwisten).
“My work, along with the scholarship of
other recent historians, shows that the British
Isles were much more involved with, and
impacted by, other European countries during
the 15 0 0s and 16 0 0s than had previously
been thought.”
Gregory Tague (English)
straddles the fields of liberal
arts and science to take a
comprehensive look at how
humans develop morality
in Making Mind: Moral
Sense and Consciousness
in Philosophy, Science, and
Literature (Rodopi/Brill). “The book is an
interesting study of how our species-inherited
moral sense can differ dramatically from one
individual to another,” writes Dr. Tague. “While
mores pertain to a group, narrative comes
from, and is processed by, the individual and
reaches its high point in the novel.” ●
Faculty Spotlight: Starr Eaddy
By Kareem Cooper ’14
Anyone who takes Professor Starr Eaddy’s health promotion class should be forewarned — you’ll be doing a lot more than just studying for
an exam to pass this class.
U
sing what they’ve learned in Dr. Eaddy’s classes, students each
year organize an educational health fair for the college community.
This hands-on experience gives students a chance to not only make
practical use of classroom material, but also to give something back to the
school, a central tenet of the college’s mission.
The students are responsible for almost everything, from figuring out which
organizations and agencies to invite to showcase their services to creating the
fair’s budget and raising funds
to pay for any expenses. After
the fair is over, students then
research the effectiveness of the
event, surveying participants and
analyzing the results.
“When my students go out to
work, they may be organizing health
fairs for construction workers,
medical students, or law students.
They may not necessarily be
members of those communities;
Starr Eaddy.
8 | ST. FRANCIS COLLEGE TERRIER | FALL 2015
so they really need to know how to ask questions of folks to understand their
health needs,” said Eaddy.
Professor Eaddy also promotes community outreach through a partnership
she developed with New York Cares, the city’s largest volunteer management
organization. “It’s been an incredible partnership in terms of students having
a variety of volunteer opportunities that they can tap into,” she said.
Volunteering allows students to gain work experience and build upon
what they’ve learned. “The most
important thing is that it helps
students get connected to
communities that they belong to
but also communities other than
their own,” said Eaddy. “You get
this exposure to these different
kinds of agencies and how different
organizations and agencies work,
but you also get documentable
experience for resumes that you
can use to further your career.” ●