Faculty Sessions
CONVERGE will include two faculty sessions. Session I will take place at 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm and Session II at 2:45pm – 3:45pm. All talks will be offered during both sessions.
Session: For Better or Worse: Royal Weddings Through the Ages
Faculty: Robert Bucholz, Professor of History
Everybody loves a wedding, and we love royal weddings most of all because of their pomp, circumstance, tradition, and the expectation that we are watching a fairy tale come through. It may come as a surprise that, in fact, public royal weddings are a relatively recent phenomenon (starting in 1923) and that, until the late 20th century, most royal marriages were arranged affairs and diplomatic alliances. Love was optional and rare. This talk with pictures and video traces the history of modern royal marriages from Victoria and Albert in 1840 to Meghan and Harry just this year.
About Robert Bucholz, DPhil
Bucholz, who joined Loyola’s history department in 1988, holds degrees from Cornell and Oxford University. He has received several awards for his teaching, most notably the Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence in 1994. Bucholz’s primary research interest is the English court and royal household. Among his vast collection of authored works is his most recent book, London: A Social and Cultural History of the Metropolis 1550-1750 (Cambridge, 2012). In 1997, Bucholz was named Prince of Wales Foundation Scholar for Architecture in America. His work on court ceremony has been commented upon by HRH, the Prince of Wales, who has referred to him as "The Etiquette Man." Bucholz is past President of the Midwest Conference on British Studies and is a frequent presence in the local Chicago news media for commentary on British history and the monarchy.For more on Bucholz, please visit his faculty page.
Session: The 2018 Midterms: A Century in the Making
Faculty: Elizabeth Shermer, Associate Professor of History
Is today’s political acrimony new? Are the fierce midterm elections a response to the 2016 elections? Are the stakes of the 2018 elections unprecedented? Associate Professor Shermer will argue that the 2018 midterms will likely be a pivotal moment in American politics because they are a showdown a century in the making. This can be seen by reconsidering the pitched battles in 1912, 1938, 1964, and 1972 as well as the many forgotten, fascinating men and women who have always made American politics volatile, vibrant, and unpredictable.
About Elizabeth Shermer, PhD
Elizabeth Shermer joined Loyola’s history department in 2012 and teaches a range of courses on American political, economic, and urban history. She also runs an ongoing series of forums, the Behind the Tweets series, which brings faculty and students together to discuss the big issues in the news. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and University of California, Santa Barbara. She has received fellowships from Cambridge University, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. In 2014, she received the Sujack Family Award for Faculty Research Excellence in recognition of her work, which includes newspaper op-eds, journal articles, book chapters, and edited collections. Her most recent book is Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics. She is currently finishing a book on the history of the student loan industry, tentatively titled Indentured Students. For more on Shermer, please see her faculty page.
Session: How Loyola is Playing a Role in Illinois Prison Reform
Faculty: David Olson, Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology
Co-Director, Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice
Numerous factors led to the U.S. prison population tripling from the early 1980s to more than 1.5 million by 2005. Women account for a small percentage of people in prison, but their numbers have increased at a faster rate than men. Given the enormous economic and social costs associated with incarceration, a wide spectrum of political groups support reducing prison populations. However, local government support and solid research are needed to change policies and practices. This talk will examine the rise and partial fall of Illinois’ prison population and Loyola’s role in ensuring there is reform.
About David Olson, PhD
David Olson received his PhD in Political Science/Public Policy Analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was the recipient of the Assistant United States Attorney General’s Graduate Research Fellowship. During his 30-plus years in the field of criminal justice, Olson has worked with a variety of federal, state, and local agencies to develop and evaluate programs and policies, particularly in the area of community and institutional corrections, and to support objective, empirically-based, and data-driven strategic planning efforts. Currently, Olson serves as the Graduate Program Director in the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department at Loyola and also serves on the advisory boards of the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, and the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority through separate gubernatorial appointments. For more on Olson, please visit his faculty page.
Session: Shields Up! Get to Level 2 in Cybersecurity
Faculty: Eric Chan-Tin, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Cybersecurity attacks and privacy/data breaches are happening more frequently—from Equifax to Maersk to Sony to Target to the U.S. government. If big companies cannot protect their computers and data, can you? Definitely yes, if you do not use a computing device. If you do use a computing device, including a smartphone or tablet or even a car, this talk will discuss ways hackers can get to you and how you can prevent them. After the talk, you will be more aware of cybersecurity issues around you and not be tempted by the dark side of cybersecurity.
About Eric Chan-Tin, PhD
Eric Chan-Tin joined the department of Computer Science in August 2018. Previously, he was an associate professor at Oklahoma State. He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota and his BA from Macalester College. His research is broadly on network security and privacy. He tackles a research problem by picking a widely-used system, hacking it, and then fixing it. For more information on Chan-Tin, please visit his faculty page.
Session: Fishes of the World
Faculty: Terry Grande, Professor of Biology
Over half of the world’s living vertebrates—more than 32,000 species and counting— are fishes! They arose and began to radiate more than 500 million years ago, and now exhibit incomparable diversity in morphology, habitat, physiology, and behavior. Come and explore the amazing world of fishes, and why understanding their evolution is critical for understanding our own biology. Learn about the exciting research that is going on in the Grande lab, from using the Fish Tree of Life to understanding the effects of climate change on cod populations to using micro-CT scanning to analyze how fish hear.
About Terry Grande, PhD
Terry Grande joined Loyola’s Biology Department in 1994. She holds MAs in theoretical mathematics and biology from the City University of New York and a PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Illinois. She is the author of dozens of peer reviewed scientific papers and co-author of Fishes of the World, 5th edition. Grande has been a principal investigator on several National Science Foundation (NSF) research grants including the prestigious NSF initiative Assembling the Fish Tree of Life. For more on Grande, please visit her faculty page.
