HTC Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecture Series

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  How Diseases Have and Will Shape the History of Humanity

  Paul E. Richardson

  Paul E. Richardson describes how he worked with his students and collaborators to build a COVID test for the campus. The project weaves together topics and skills taught to students in his biochemistry courses with real-world undergraduate research projects. This project perfectly encapsulates the teacher-scholar model, where Coastal Carolina University faculty focus on high quality teaching and engaged learning opportunities.

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  Memento Mori: The Fragility of Life

  Charles Clary

  Charles Clary, associate professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Coastal Carolina University, is the winner of the 2022 HTC Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award. Clary’s recent exhibit, "Memento Viveraddidle," was on display at CCU’s Rebecca Randall Bryan Gallery, and he delivered a corresponding lecture as the 2022 HTC Distinguished Teacher-Scholar, titled "Memento Mori: The Fragility of Life," on Tuesday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. in Edwards Recital Hall.

  Titles of both the exhibit and the lecture are Latin; Memento Viveraddidle translates to "remember to live," and Memento Mori, "remember you must die." Clary’s recent period of work drew from a dark time in his life. His "Memento Mori" collection, as well as the upcoming lecture, were inspired by the death of his parents. Clary's work was about Memento Mori, a collection of traumas. But the newer work is much more colorful and more hopeful. Clary calls the new exhibit Memento Viveraddidle, "because it talks about coming to terms with the past. To remember to live because one day you will die. It’s almost a reclaiming of my life, to some extent, and learning not to live in that grief constantly."

  [Text taken from Tapestry Magazine, Summer 2022]

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  Misadventures in Archaeology: Charles Conrad Abbott and the Evolution of a Discipline

  Carolyn Dillian

  Carolyn Dillian presents a lecture examining the life and career of Charles Conrad Abbott across the transition in archaeology from an amateur hobby to professional science through the lens of debate about human evolution in the 19th century. The lecture pulls together various strands of knowledge and research from the late 19th century about the origins of humans in the New World. Throughout the late 1800s, debates erupted about the credibility of Abbott's work due to contradictory beliefs from William Henry Holmes. Abbott was a prolific writer, leaving behind personal diaries covering much of his adult life, as well as extensive correspondence and published works that document the rise and fall of his career. Abbott's story is one of a developing understanding of human evolution and the professionalization of a discipline. This presentation will touch on these elements of the Abbott’s work and provide a unique insight into the life and legacy of a publicly discredited 19th century archaeologist.

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  A Taste of Paradise: Medicine, Trade, and Consumption in the pre-Modern Mediterranean

  Florence Eliza Glaze

  Florence Eliza Glaze talks about her recent research of the history of medicine and pharmacy, the changing nature of mercantile activity and commodity exchange in the medieval Mediterranean, and the entrance of Greek and Arabic medical knowledge into the Latin West. The talk pulls together various strands of knowledge from the scientific, commercial, pedagogical and conceptual realms of the pre-modern Mediterranean to pinpoint when new medicinal processes began.

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  Observations Upon a Blazing World: Reading, Writing and Creating in a Digital Age

  Jen Boyle

  Jennifer Boyle speaks about the transformative effects of digital technology on American life in this lecture. The talk focuses on the core aspects of her research and teaching: how transformations in media make knowledge possible. The talk emphasizes how moments of significant media transformation should be understood in historical context, and how such re-contextualization can lead to innovative interventions in our own digital age.

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  Prey Capture by a Local Charismatic Species: The Venus Flytrap

  John J. Hutchens

  Coastal Carolina University science professor John Hutchens speaks on the topic “Prey Capture by a Local Charismatic Species: The Venus Flytrap” in this lecture.

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  Fins, Flukes and Flippers: The Ecology and Management of Bottlenose Dolphins in the Carolinas

  Robert F. Young

  Robert Young speaks on the topic “Fins, Flukes and Flippers; The Ecology and Management of Bottlenose Dolphins in the Carolinas” in this lecture. Research on dolphins has practical applications for the management and health of coastal ecosystems and fisheries. In a broader sense, however, people are fascinated by dolphins in general, and insights into their behaviors and ecological roles have always instilled a passion for the natural world and marine conservation in general.

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  Confronting Crisis: The Politics of Sustainability in the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands

  Pamela Martin

  Based on her extensive research on sustainable development and environmental politics in Ecuador and the Galapagos, Pamela Martin describes the challenges involved in ongoing efforts to balance economic, social and environmental issues relating to energy development and oil extraction in those areas.

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  Billboard Music Popularity in Good Times and in Bad

  Terry F. Pettijohn II

  Terry F. Pettijohn II presents research on his “Environmental Security” hypothesis. The proposed project looks at how social and economic conditions influence our social preferences. Particular attention will be focused on pop music and how musical preferences are shaped by current events in our culture.

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  Preparing the next generation: Virtual archaeology and cultural heritage

  Arne R. Flaten

  Arne Flaten's lecture focuses on Ashes2Art, an innovative program that develops virtual reconstructions of ancient monuments. The talk combines history, cultural heritage, archaeology and international intrigue with the computer innovations viewers see on the Discovery and History channels.

  Since 2005, the award-winning Ashes2Art project has focused on innovative pedagogical and interactive undergraduate research methods of studying, interpreting, archiving, preserving and digitally disseminating materials related to virtual archaeology and culture preservation of world heritage sites. Under faculty supervision, students design the materials, including 3D digital reconstruction of ancient monuments, along with educational videos, digital panoramic photographs, web designs, thematic essays, onsite GPS data collection and educational lesson plans.

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  We read, therefore we are: Novel reading in the age of neuroscience

  Maria K. Bachman

  Maria Bachman's presentation introduces the effect that cognitive theory and neuroscience are having on literary study. The application of cognitive theory to literature may prove to be the defining element of literary criticism in the early twenty-first century.

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  Birds on the Edge of Two Worlds

  Christopher E. Hill

  Hill discusses his extensive research involving the salt marsh sparrow, a bird indigenous to the shoreline of the U.S. Southeast. His scholarly paper on the bird's unusual mating habits, considered a hot topic by bird enthusiasts, appeared in the prestigious international journal AUK and received various other media attention.

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  Diagnosing the Beating Heart of Our Atmosphere: A Puzzle for Future Generations

  Varavut Limpasuvan

  As concerns and debates grow over global climate change, scientists forge ahead toward grasping a better understanding of climate variability. In the atmosphere (an integral component of our climate system), research efforts are unraveling its fundamental global pattern that accounts for much of the changing wintertime meteorological conditions. As the "heart" of our atmosphere, this pattern beats in time but becomes arrhythmic in association with unusual atmospheric occurrences 30,000 feet above ground. To date, our limited knowledge of the atmosphere at these lofty heights and computational constraints make the diagnosis of this heart condition difficult and uncertain. With rapid development in technology that will allow us to better observe and simulate the atmosphere, this difficulty, which clouds our ability to assess future climate change, may be overcome by future generations.

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  Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Ten Iconic Scenes in the Wilderness of Classic American Fiction

  Steven L. Hamelman

  Scenes are the trees and trees make the forest. Iconic scenes deep­en and broaden the reader's understanding of our national psychology, our appetite for myth, our ideological bearings. Encompassing contradiction, ambiguity, poetic intensity, and emotional diversity, they stand out like illuminated signs in the under- and overgrowth to guide the reader willing to brave the vast wilderness of American fic­tion in order to gain insight into American character and culture.

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  Tourists in Paradise: Making the Nature Connection in Coastal South Carolina

  James O. Luken

  Economic development in the coastal zone of South Carolina has repeatedly relied on the unique characteristics of coastal ecosystems. There is perhaps no better example of this relationship than in Horry and Georgetown counties, where indigo, rice, cotton, tobacco, fish and wildlife, and forest products have, through time, dominated local commerce. Most recently, tourism and residential development are the twin engines of local commerce. The quick transition of the coastal economy from one based on agricultural and natural products produced by the land to one based on tourism and residential development has spawned much controversy regarding how land is used, managed, and regulated. The controversy is perhaps heightened by the fact that historical land uses and disuses as well as regional environmental conditions in coastal South Carolina conspired to produce an area that is still rich in biological and ecological diversity.

  The goal of this paper is to explicitly examine the connection between ecological conditions of coastal South Carolina and the people who come here to visit or live. Rather than focusing on environmental problems such as pollution that inevitably follow people, I will focus on trends in land use and the factors that shape the landscape. Here I define the landscape as the mixture of visible elements in an area (i.e., forest, water, cropland) perhaps best seen from an airplane but still consciously and unconsciously perceived by visitors and residents as they travel on the ground from one place to another. I will draw on recent hypotheses regarding how humans view and derive benefit from nature when nature is experienced as a landscape. Lastly, I make suggestions for how community leaders and residents in coastal areas can manage and develop their landscapes to enhance the quality of nature experiences and thus quality of life for both visitors and residents.

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  Castles of Sand and Steel: The Collision of Growth and Policy with the State’s Advancing Shoreline

  Paul T. Gayes

  There is often a close association between the history, culture and economy of an area with its regional environment. The location of initial settlements in an area, development of commerce, agriculture and industry as well as regional cultural identities often bear a strong imprint of the nature of the landscape and natural resources in which they develop. Reference to the South Carolina coastal zone as "The Low Country" and "The Grand Strand" is as likely to stimulate impressions of the region's economic base and culture as to be associated with the nature of the region's landforms and habitats.

  The increasing shift in population and infrastructure towards the nation's shoreline is challenging coastal resource managers and planners to both support an important economic engine for coastal states and the health of the natural setting that is, in large part, the basis for growth. The progressive intersection of the relative mobile natural shoreline and the largely static, and increasingly massive, coastal infrastructure further complicates coastal management. In addition, as the shoreline migrates so does the boundary between private and public interests which add an additional dimension to beachfront management.

  There are but two real options to address sea level rise and shoreline erosion available to society; retreat from the moving coastline or defend and hold the shoreline in its present position. South Carolina took a leadership role in the country and enacted an innovative policy of retreat. That policy was based on the need to maintain the public beach as a critical public resource and one of primary importance to sustain the rapid growth and economic development of the coastal zone. It has also undertaken an intermediate policy of using beach renourishment to delay the implementation of the long-term retreat policy. This interim policy has now been at work for two decades. In that time, the amount of infrastructure has grown and the forces driving shoreline change have continued to act.

  The interim option of beach nourishment may be effective in many sections of the coast for decades to come. In some areas, however, this option will become increasingly less effective and force the difficult task of developing the mechanisms to implement the long-term policy or abandoning the policy and return to the practice of armoring the shore with cement and steel that was proliferating prior to 1985. Either long-term option, retreat from or defend the shoreline, will prove to be costly and difficult to implement. This paper examines the forces driving shoreline change, the options available to address this change, defines the present state policy and considers the prospect of future implantation of the policy.

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  Achieving the Dream: Values, Change and Service to the Community

  James F. Eason

  Much of my adult life has centered around my career as a teacher and my 28-plus years of employment as a professor in Coastal's E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration. In my presentation, I will focus briefly on my quest to become a teacher, but more importantly, I will discuss how Coastal has evolved and established itself as a dominant player in higher education in this region.

  In many ways my growth as a teacher parallels Coastal's evolution from a small two-year college to a comprehensive university offering both baccalaureate and graduate degrees.

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  Nine Nutrition Tips for a Healthier South Carolina

  Sharon H. Thompson

  Nutrition confusion abounds in our country. What kind of diet should one choose-low-fat, low-carb, high-protein, vegetarian, high-fiber, or functional foods? In the age of lnternet and global communication -- along with an increasing interest in nutrition and health -- it is not surprising that Americans remain confused about nutrition. In addition, much of the nutrition information reported by the media is sensational, insufficient, or taken out of context.

  Unfortunately, our culture is one that thrives on quick fixes for busy lives. We want to lose weight in 24 hours after taking a magical pill that makes the entire process easy. Frustration from trying one fad diet after another often promotes binge eating and night eating syndrome. Also, when our sole goal is to lose weight, we are willing to try anything, regardless of whether it is a healthy choice or not.

  This study will counter some of the food and nutrition misinformation by summarizing research findings from a wide array of scientific, credible sources. The information presented here is not a quick fix, but a lifestyle nutrition plan. Nine nutrition tips will be outlined here along with information on causes of death that are related to poor nutritional choices -- with a special emphasis on statistics from South Carolina. These nutrition suggestions provide a plan to avoid obesity and also help provide protection from some of the chronic diseases that are the major causes of death in our state and nation. Think of these suggestions as one lifestyle plan to prevent many chronic health problems.

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  Why We Should All Be Waccamaw Waterwatchers

  Susan M. Libes

  The history and future of Horry County are entwined with those of the Waccamaw River. Until the advent of bridges and paved roads in the 1930s, the Waccamaw was the major commercial transportation artery, making the river the center of business and residential life. In modern times, the river has evolved into a significant and unique commercial and recreational resource, supporting residential real estate development and ecotourism. The river is also a source of drinking water and a federally per­mitted receiving body for treated effluent. It is part of a vast watershed that controls water drainage and purity over two counties in North Carolina and two counties in South Carolina. Maintaining these often-conflicting functions will be central to enabling development and to sustaining the quality of life that stimulates development.

  The Waccamaw River is arguably the most significant body of water affecting the history and future of the region. Today the Conway Riverwalk attracts residents and visitors to a thriving commercial center with shops and restaurants, a park and marina, while the banks of the Waccamaw - from Winyah Bay to Lake Waccamaw in North Carolina - are experienc­ing unparalleled growth at the edge of a significant freshwater source for thousands of citizens.

  Polluted stormwater runoff from commercial and residential properties, changes in hydrology caused by ditching and draining wetlands, and the loss of pervious surfaces threaten the future of the Waccamaw and every­thing along its banks. Maintaining a clean, navigable river is essential for the health and welfare of future generations and for the pleasure of those who enjoy hunting, fishing, swimming, boating, hiking and birding. In many ways, the future of the Waccamaw defines the future quality of life for its residents and visitors. As I will describe, our collective efforts will be needed to solve our current problems and minimize future ones.

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  Us and Them: Why the World Puzzles America

  Richard O. Collin

  After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Coastal Carolina University staged a series of impromptu forums for students, faculty, and members of this commu­nity. That morning, we learned that nineteen Arab men had loathed America enough to kill themselves and three thousand innocent people by flinging hijacked airplanes into office buildings in New York and Washington. Not unreasonably, our audiences demanded to know why it happened.

  In this paper, I want to explore some aspects of the Us and Them rela­tionship. First, I'll try to show that a year after 11 September we are less popular on the world scene than we ever imagined possible, and specu­late on the reasons for this surge of anti-American feeling. Second, I'll suggest why systemic failures in our school systems and media establish­ment have led us to know and care little about the rest of the planet. Third, I'll try to show that when the collapse of the USSR left the United States as the leading economic and military power in the world, our lead­ers moved to establish what political scientists call "hegemony" over the rest of the world. "Hegemony" is a ten-dollar word describing American efforts to exert power over other countries without submitting to any international constraints on our own behavior. I'll conclude by proposing that we look for ways to live more harmoniously with our neighbors.

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  I'll Meet You in the Field: the Intersection of Education and Community

  Sally Z. Hare

  I am a reader.

  That is one of my birthright gifts.

  I can still remember the first day and the first word I learned to read. My first-grade teacher was wearing a yellow dress that day I learned to read the word "rain" - and with that word came the understanding, the knowing, that I could unlock print and make sense of it.

  I looked forward to my sixth birthday because that meant I could get my first library card. I read everything - books, magazines, newspapers, signs, cereal boxes, recipes, directions. I would read under the covers by flashlight after bedtime.

  I know I have learned a great deal about the intersection of education and community. And I know that I will continue the learning for a lifetime. I have learned that the journey to that field beyond the ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing is an inward journey even as it is an outward one.

  I have learned that everyone I meet along the way will be my teacher if I am open to learning from him or her.

  I have learned to love paradox. I have learned that the path to the field is a path I can only travel alone - and the path is made by walking, or perhaps by dancing or skipping, with Others.

  So I'm grateful that you are traveling with me.

  Thank you for meeting me in the field.

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  The Life and Times of the English Language: An Unauthorized Biography

  Stephen J. Nagle

  As speakers of English, we are the fortunate inheritors of a language that now spans the globe as a language for the professions. For this reason, speakers of English have a distinct advantage as professionals and consumers. Products and services are promoted and delivered in English. We can travel world-wide in English, at least to a limited degree, and we can be hired co work in English, our native or adopted language, in many parts of the world as well.

  It is therefore a bit surprising that we speakers of English pay so little attention to the intri­cacies and history of our language, once just a dialect spoken by farmers and seafarers near the southern and eastern shores of the North Sea. Compared with other surviving European languages, all of which have changed and evolved as natural languages always do, English has been through quite a journey, enriching and diversifying itself along the way.

  With all of my students of the history of the English language, and especially my under­graduates at Coastal Carolina University, I have tried to present a representative overview, while focussing on how our language today contains secrets of our linguistic and cultural past and at the same time blends cultural concerns and linguistic principles to create tomorrow's language. It is this sociocultural dimension of language that I wish to pursue further here.

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  From the Forest to the Sea: South Carolina's Productive Estuaries

  Richard F. Dame

  The coast of South Carolina is a broad and gently sloping plain bordered with barrier islands and beaches interspersed with tidal inlets and rivers. These inlets and rivers are termed estuaries and are defined as semi-enclosed bodies of water with free connections to the ocean where sea water mixes with freshwater from land runoff. This combination of freshwater runoff, geological structure, and the interaction with tides and waves from the sea means that every estuary is unique. But, it also entails some commonality between estuaries.

  When the American Indians arrived on the Carolina coast, there was an abundance of living resources. The Indians essentially lived in harmony with nature, but along the coast and particularly in estuaries, shell mounds that record their utilization of shellfish, clams, and oysters are common. The early European settlers to South Carolina used estuaries not only as a source of fisheries and agricultural resources, but also as major conduits for transportation between the coastal seaports and the productive areas of the interior. After centuries of relatively low human population density along the coast, this highly productive area is now undergoing intense development that is rapidly altering the structure and function of its estua­rine ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize and identify the common trends and patterns exhibited by these systems in South Carolina and to show why our estuaries are so productive.

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  So Fine a Beach: Peter Horry's Summer of 1812

  Roy Talbert Jr.

  Horry is South Carolina's largest county and the home of the internationally known Grand Strand and Myrtle Beach, but the reading public knows very little about the person after whom it is named. There is no biography of Peter Horry, not even an essay of any length. For nearly two hundred years, when professional historians noticed him at all, they paused for a few humorous and embarrassing anecdotes and ignored the several ways he earned considerable historical significance. Invariably, they got his dates wrong. Even the modest stone at his grave is incorrectly marked.

  In 1812, Peter Horry reckoned that he was born on March 12, 1743 or 1744, in what is now Georgetown County. He came from Huguenot stock a descendent of Elias, the original Horry who fled France for the religious freedom of colonial South Carolina. Peter always regretted that his family did not return him to the old country for an education, and what learning he got came at a free school established by the Winyaw Indigo Society. He also retained bad memories of his days as a youth apprenticed to a Georgetown merchant. Conditions were horrible, and he might have run away, had not his aunt, Magdeline Horry Trapier, helped him.

  "Even now," he wrote of the experience, "tho 50 years have Passed, I feel what I cannot describe." Peter's family developed rice plantations on the North, or "French," Santee and on Winyaw Bay. Eventually he possessed four plantations, the best known of which is Belle Isle, now a marina and community south of Georgetown. Dover and Prospect Hill adjoined Belle Isle, and Cove plantation was on the Santee.

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  The Story Way of Knowing in the Context of Community

  Sara L. Sanders

  Twenty-one years ago when I began teaching, I didn't think about ways of knowing at all. I taught as I had been taught and considered teaching content the point. Now I think of myself as teaching people instead of subjects and look for the answers to these questions: What is knowing? What is education? What is learning?

  The first "truth" I learned about teaching was that a sense of community among the learners makes a dramatic difference in what is learned. I began to understand this when I taught in the intensive English Program for Internationals at the University of South Carolina. Students there were far from home, learning a new language and a new culture. They were most comfortable and most successful when they felt supported in this massive undertaking by their teachers and fellow learners.

  We thrive and learn when our stories and the stories of others are heard and honored. Through the specific story, the universal truth is revealed.