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KUDOS

Keith McMahon, professor of East Asian languages and cultures, gave a speech titled “Female Agency and Polygamy in China,” at the Centre for East Asian Research and the McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women on Nov. 8 in Montreal, Quebec.

Scott Watson, professor of tuba and euphonium, and Michael Davidson, assistant professor of trombone, are members of a Kansas City-based Fountain City Brass Band that won the 2007 United States Open Brass Band Championship on Nov. 10 in Chicago, which featured bands from across the United States and the United Kingdom.

Paul Laird, professor of music and dance, presented a paper, “The American Musical On Stage and Screen: An Interdisciplinary Extravaganza,” in October at the University of California-Los Angeles and, along with John Staniunas, professor of theatre and film, hosted “Musical Theatre in 1957,” a symposium celebrating the 50th birthday of Murphy Hall on Nov. 9 and 10.

Kathryn Conrad, associate professor of English, gave the keynote address, titled “Free-Associating Northern Ireland,” at the Mid-Atlantic American Conference for Irish Studies on Oct. 26 at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y.

Richard Hardin, the Frances Stiefel Professor of English, won the 2007 Top Paper Award from the Religious Communication Association for his paper “Apocalypse Then: Tamburlaine and the Pleasures of Religious Fear,” which was also published earlier this year in the Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance.

Joe Potts, Lynne Vanahill and Yuki Watanabe of International Student and Scholar Services; Mark Algren and Kathy Algren of the Applied English Center; and Diana Carlin, professor of communication studies and dean-in-residence at the Council of Graduate Studies in Washington, D.C., attended the NAFSA: Association of International Educators Region II conference Nov. 6-9 in Prescott, Ariz. Potts was on the conference planning committee, and Mark and Kathy Algren presented “Helping Gulf Arab Students Succeed in IEP’s.” Vanahill led a full-day pre-conference workshop, and Carlin presented “Developing a Policy Response to the Bologna Process.” Jane Irungu, the Global Awareness Program coordinator for International Programs, developed the presentation “Identity and Adjustment Issues for Minority Students who are Recent Immigrants: Implications for International Programming and Advising.”

Chris Drahozal, professor of law, presented the paper “Private Ordering, the Lex Mercatoria and International Commercial Arbitration” at the 24th annual conference of the European Association of Law and Economics on Sept. 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark. During the conference, he also chaired a panel discussion on contracts and contractual regulation, and was a discussant for a paper titled “Can Group Litigation Improve Deterrence?” Drahozal recently contributed a chapter on international arbitration law in the United States to the book “International Commercial Arbitration: A Comparative Survey.”

John Peck, professor of law, served as a trustee representing KU at the annual Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation in July in Vancouver and as chair of the Water Section. This year’s Water Section program included talks such as “Western U.S. and Canadian Responses to Water Scarcity,” “Use of Complex Computer Modeling of Groundwater Systems” and “Jurisdictional Waters in the Wake of Rapanos and Carabell.”

RESEARCH MATTERS

Robert DeYoung, Capitol Federal Professor in Financial Markets and Institutions, is one of the first to study the often-controversial industry known as payday lending. Offering loans for no collateral other than a personal check, payday lending has grown into a $28 billion industry. DeYoung has found that most people who use payday loans are chronic borrowers, not one-time consumers. However, these loans can work for some despite their potential pitfalls, he found. For more, and to listen, visit www.researchmatters.ku.edu.