Highlights from BYU colleges

Family Home and Social Sciences

• Family life professor Jeremy Yorgason recently found that some military children struggle with reintegrating after their parents return from deployment.  The study showed children of parents who reported difficulties such as depressive symptoms or relationship uncertainty had more difficulty reintegrating. Yorgason will continue to research this topic.
• History professor Jeff Hardy recently published a book comparing and contrasting a penal system of the former Soviet Union to that of the United States. Hardy’s book highlights the abuses present in both systems and points out what the United States can learn from the Gulag.

  

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

• Mechanical engineering professors Brian Iverson and Matthew Jones and doctoral student Rydge Mulford worked with NASA to create a better radiator. They have shown this can be done using an origami surface with integrated cavities.

  

• A team of 10 mechanical engineering students took second at the Shell Eco Marathon Challenge. They competed against 56 teams from schools across the United States and Canada. Students built the car, which gets 1,709 miles per gallon, from scratch, including the engine.

  

David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies

• The Utah Pasifika Festival will take place in Provo May 26-28. The festival celebrates Polynesian culture and tradition through art forms such as dance, music and crafts.

Marriott School of Management

• John Bingham will replace Jeff Dyer as the organizational leadership and strategy department chair. Bingham is a Donald L. Staheli Fellow and has taught organizational behavior and strategic human resource management courses at the Marriott School. Prior to coming to the Marriott School, he cofounded two professional service ventures.

  

• The Department of Information Systems recently hosted the annual Association for Information Systems conference. BYU students excelled in the competitions throughout the conference. In addition to competitions, the conference also included team-building activities, service project brainstorming and a tour of local businesses for students from other schools.

  

David O. McKay School of Education

•  The David O. McKay School of Education and BYU-Public School Partnership recently held the ninth biennial conference of Instructional Leadership in the 21st Century. Attendees heard from three keynote speakers and eight additional presenters on topics centered around better teaching practices.

  

• Xi’an International Studies University Preisdent Wang Junzhe recently visited BYU from Xi’an, China. Wang visited with several faculty members, including the associate dean and assistant dean of the McKay School of Education. BYU and the Xi’an International Studies University have a relationship dating back 25 years.

College of Fine Arts and Communications

• School of Communications faculty member Jeff Sheets presented his lecture “Experiment Upon the Word” on May 18. The lecture was part of the Faith and Works Lecture Series.

College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

• University of Michigan geology professor Adam Simon gave a presentation on the importance of resources at the Quey Hebrew Memorial Lecture. Simon spoke on the way resources have been used historically and what they do to influence society today and in the past. He highlighted the way geologists have to study to help maintain the supply of resources necessary for society’s demands.

  

  

•  Purdue University Professor Dr. R. Graham Cooks presented at the Izatt-Christensen Lecture. Cook gave two presentations on mass spectrometry and its applications to life and study today.

College of Nursing

• The College of Nursing will host a “Where will the college logo travel in the next few months?” event to celebrate its 65th anniversary. Students and alumni are invited to print out an image of the logo and take a picture with it on their vacations. They can then post the photo on social media using #Ynursing52.

  

J. Reuben Clark Law School

• Law Professor James R. Rasband will replace Brent W. Webb as academic vice president of BYU starting June 1. Rasband is the Hugh W. Colton Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School and served as dean of the law school from 2009 to 2016. He has been at the law school since 1995, after receiving his juris doctorate from Harvard University.