The Full Lives of Part-Time Faculty

Contingent Professors Marty Achatz and Shirley Brozzo have a combined teaching history at NMU of over 50 years. They have held down full-time jobs, raised families, been involved in the community and also taught many courses at NMU.

Achatz and Brozzo are part-time contingent faculty members who teach less than 12 credits each semester. However, the combined credit hours generated by contingent faculty makes up nearly 9.4 percent of the FTETF at NMU. “If you weren’t really dedicated to teaching, I don’t think you would stay a contingent. Because most contingents I know have second jobs, sometimes third jobs. So, it takes a person who is really willing to juggle their lives and different jobs to be able to teach,” says Achatz, who teaches a variety of courses in the Department of English.

When he’s not in the classroom, Professor Achatz works as a Patient Service Representative for Upper Michigan Cardiovascular Associates. When interviewing for his position with UMCA, he asked if they could accommodate his teaching schedule as a condition of employment, and they did. “The job that I have in cardiology pays for my health insurance and everything, but something that really feeds my soul and my passion is what I do over at the university,” said Achatz.

Brozzo has a full-time job as the Associate Director of the Multicultural Education and Resource Center at NMU but still enjoys extending her day into the classroom. “It’s a great way to connect with the students. You’re right there in front of them, you get to hear what’s happening on campus that you don’t always hear by sitting in the office. Also, it’s important for me to teach back about my culture,” says the Contingent Professor in the Center for Native American Studies.

Contingent faculty joined the NMU-AAUP in 2012. Since then, the union has negotiated an agreement to create a seniority system for contingents. Also, contingent pay per credit hour at NMU exceeds the national average. The NMU-AAUP’s Executive Committee also supported an effort to establish an award recognizing the contributions of part-time faculty at Northern, and Provost Kerri Schuiling instituted the award in fall of 2017. In December of that year, Professor Achatz became the first winner of the Excellence in Part-time Teaching Award. “Because there were so many highly qualified people that I knew had applied for it, I was sort of flabbergasted when I found out that I had won because I know so many of the contingents, and they just work so hard, so the fact that they chose me was kind of humbling,” said Achatz.

This past year, Brozzo became the second winner of the Excellence in Part-time Teaching Award with a little help from Marty. “I was so excited, it is a great honor, and Marty helped me out with my application because he was the first one who went through it.” For Brozzo, the award is also symbolic of the progress part-time faculty have made at NMU. “A lot of people have been instrumental in ensuring that we became part of the union. Making sure we have access to as many things as we can, but there’s still a long way to go. There’s still very much a dichotomy between the full-timers and the part-timers and the us and them that shouldn’t be there. It should be faculty as faculty whether you’re teaching four credits or twelve credits per semester,” says Brozzo.

Achatz says he would still welcome a chance to join the faculty full-time. “I would love to do that, to be able to do something you are really passionate about full-time and get paid for it. I think most contingents would say off-the-record they would almost do it for free because they love it so much, but of course that’s not financially possible. After 23 years, I still do have that desire, I would love to see it happen, but I love being committed to the community and being invested here. It would be wonderful if that would happen but so far it hasn’t,” said Achatz.

Part of Marty’s involvement in the community has been his work as Poet Laurette of the Upper Peninsula.  He has done poetry workshops with public school students all across the U.P. He has also used this position as a means of helping others. “One of the biggest benefits for being Poet Laurette is that I get to organize charitable events for causes that are near and dear to my heart. When they had the Father’s Day flood up in the Keweenaw, I organized a reading, and we raised close to $500 dollars, and I’ve done a lot of readings for Room at the Inn and the Warming Center here in Marquette.”

As if working a full-time job and teaching isn’t enough, Achatz serves as an organist for Mitchell United Methodist in Negaunee and St. John the Evangelist in Ishpeming. “I like to say with the organist stuff, I’m basically working almost seven days a week because the church services are Saturday night and Sunday morning,” said Achatz.

Marty says he owes his musical training to his mom. “When I was a kid, my mom realized that I had ADHD, so she decided I needed something to focus on, and she decided that piano was the thing that I should do, and it actually did the trick. I went from a kid bouncing off of the walls to pounding on the piano for three to four hours each day.” Marty took 12 years of lessons, but does not consider himself a gifted musician but a hard-working musician. This work ethic has clearly carried over into his professional life.

Like Achatz, Brozzo is also an avid writer, and has had more than 40 short stories, poems, essays, and academic papers published both nationally and internationally. She does differ from her contingent colleague in that teaching full-time is not a career goal. “I’ve tossed around the idea, but I really enjoy what I’m doing here, and I do have the advantage of being on campus all day. I jokingly tell my students, that I have the best office hours of anybody because I’m here from 8-5 every day,” said Brozzo.

An Ironwood native, Brozzo has been part of the CNAS program since its inception, and her love for teaching is still evident in her smile as she looks back on her career at NMU. “I’ve been involved with it since I got here in 1990. Once I had graduated, there was an opening, one of the professors was ill for a summer semester, and I got to fill in, and I’ve been teaching ever since, I just love it.” ______________________________________________________________________________

 

Professor Takes NMU to Cameroon and Rwanda

As NMU experiences its sixth straight year of declining enrollment, there are three things we as faculty members can do. We can blame someone or something for causing this situation, we can do nothing, or we can do something innovative to bring new students to our university. Assistant Professor Madison Ngafeeson in the College of Business has chosen to do the latter.

Dr. Ngafeeson is a native of Cameroon, and he spent two weeks this past summer meeting with heads of state, college officials and prospective students in Cameroon and Rwanda. Biology major and pre-med student Rebecca Nyinawabeza, is from Rwanda, and she also helped with recruiting in her home country.

Their goal was to meet with at least 400 students. Through attending academic fairs and personal connections, they met over 600 students and obtained their names and contact information. Professor Ngafeeson knows first hand how important personal connections are. He came to the United States to study largely because he knew someone at Southern University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ngafeeson would later earn a master’s degree in management information systems from Southern University. “When I was living in Cameroon, there was very little information available about studying in the U.S. It took a friend of mine who knew my interests to bring me here,” said Ngafeeson.

Ngafeeson is no stranger to recruiting. He was engaged in recruiting efforts while he was a grad student at Southern University and a doctoral student at the University of Texas-Pan American. “Africa has some of the best and brightest students in the world who without knowing about these opportunities might never pursue an education they might have wanted,” said Ngafeeson.

Ngafeeson said he got involved in this project after President Erickson invited NMU’s international faculty to help recruit students in their home countries. So, Ngafeeson wrote a proposal to NMU Vice-President for Extended Learning and Community Engagement Steve VandenAvond in the winter of 2016, and funding was made available for Dr. Ngafeeson and Ms. Nyinawabeza to reach out to students in Cameroon and Rwanda. “Their work has more than met our expectations,” said VandenAvond.

In addition to meeting with students, Ngafeeson met with university officials to make sure all documentation would be processed properly. “It would be useless for NMU to issue admission letters only to find out the students were unable to come due to paperwork. “We wanted to know what they needed, so we can increase the chances of them getting a visa and coming to NMU,” said Ngafeeson.

Dr. Ngfeeson also met with the Prime Minister of Cameroon Philemon Yang. After the meeting, Prime Minister Yang invited Ngafeeson to meet with his entire cabinet the following week. “When he asked me, I said, Your Excellency, I will do that any day any time,” said Ngafeeson. During the meeting, Professor Ngafeeson shared some of his research regarding the use of information technologies to solve health care problems and the role of leadership in this endeavor.

Ngafeeson says an American education in is highly valued in Africa, and adds that the students there are very motivated. Another reason an education in the U.S. is appealing is resources here are far here better than what students would encounter in Africa. “In Cameroon, a student will go to college for three years, but they will not touch a computer until their third year because there are too many students and too few computers. For example, I did my undergraduate degree in bio-chemistry, but it wasn’t until the last year that we got a chance to go to the labs,” says Ngafeeson.

Dr. Ngafeeson will not know the full results of his recruiting trip for about nine months because it takes about one full year to process clearances for students, but applications are already starting to arrive at NMU. “I believe we can truly partner with the administration to bring more students here,” says Ngafeeson. “First of all, we can revise our curricula and we can teach more online courses and engage in recruitment efforts in whatever way is a good fit for each faculty member. For me, when I go to my country, I don’t connect with the people simply because I’m from Northern Michigan University, but because of my personal connections. I have met with all of the university presidents in Cameroon because they know me and they respect me,” said Ngafeeson.

Dr. Ngafeeson says the traditional markets for international students are China, India, South Korea and to a certain extent Brazil. But he says there are new and emerging markets in Africa. “When I met with the university presidents, I did not see evidence of other U.S. universities having a presence there. So if we are the first to go there, they will choose us even though there are many other universities to choose from in the U.S.” Vice-President VandenAvond says a recent report shows Africa is likely to be targeted by other universities for recruiting international students, “It’s good to be ahead of the trend, and this project not only advances president Erickson’s goal of growing enrollment, it also helps meet another important goal of increasing cultural diversity at NMU,” said VandenAvond.

Ngafeeson feels that if twenty students come to NMU as a result of this trip, it will be a huge
success and could lead to many more students to follow. “Africa is a very collectivist culture, so for each person who comes here, there will be about one hundred people directly aware of where this student is.” Ngafeeson feels this will be natural advertisement for NMU.

VandenAvond says Dr. Ngafeeson’s work builds upon knowledge gained from a previous recruiting trip to China last year led by Sociology Professor Yan Ciupak. VandenAvond also says his staff is still entertaining proposals for continued international outreach, and Dr. Ciupack has been reassigned as the Faculty Director for International Initiatives. “As we try to recruit new students and internationalize our campus, we want to make sure the faculty perspective is maintained,” said VandenAvond. Faculty interested in finding out more about faculty recruitment efforts can contact Dr. VandenAvond or Dr. Ciupack.

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NMU Gets Good PR from PR Faculty

Public relations is a profession devoted to providing a positive image for a client. In the case of NMU pubic relations professors Tom Isaacson and Jes Thompson, they are reflecting a very positive image of Northern on a national stage. In November, Isaacson won the Hall of Fame award from the Public Relations Student Society of America, and NMU students won the Star Chapter award from PRSSA at the PRSSA annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Just a few days earlier, associate professor Jes Thompson had represented NMU as a keynote speaker during the opening session of the National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR Division’s (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) national conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Isaacson says the two awards share a distinctive feature, “Both are a reflection of our recent student work and success. The Star Chapter Award shows that our PRSSA chapter at NMU is active, involved and providing significant added value to our students, while at the same time allowing NMU to be recognized along with much larger universities from around the country.”

PRSSA is an organization with more than 10,000 members nationwide, and during Isaacson’s time as faculty advisor, an NMU student has sat on the 10-person elected National Committee every year. Isaacson knows a little something about this because he served on the National Committee when he was an undergraduate at NMU.

Given the level of involvement by NMU students in PRSSA, Isaacson views his award as having his name on a team award. “An important reason I won, and a reason I’m honored by the award, is that the nomination was initiated and developed by our current PRSSA chapter president Katie Bultman. Katie is a student that embodies everything we value in an NMU student. She stands out in the classroom, and through her extracurricular involvement and her ability has been recognized at a national level. During the summer 2015, Katie was an intern at Fleishman/Hillard, a worldwide PR agency with more than 2,500 employees. Katie was one of only eight interns selected from a nationwide search to work at the agency’s Dallas office.”

Even though Isaacson is the only faculty member devoted full-time to the public relations major in the Department of Communication and Performance Studies, he proudly points out that NMU’s program more than hold its own when compared to much larger universities. “At NMU, we have an impressive level of involvement and success compared to the number of students in our major. Past students’ success helps contribute to future students’ success. This year at the national conference in Atlanta, our current students were able to network with recent alumnus Brian Price, who is now working for Edelman PR in Chicago. Brian presented at a young professionals panel that had more than 200 students in attendance. Our program is known and recognized within PRSSA and PRSA.”

Jes Thompson also contributes to the public relations major, but her main expertise is in environmental communication. Her background and current role as the principal investigator in a National Science Foundation, Climate Change Education Partnership project made her a natural fit for the theme of this year’s conference, Collaboration: Advancing the Role of Science in the Service of Society.

Thompson says being selected as a keynote speaker means that the National Science Foundation is recognizing the challenge of collaboration in multi-disciplinary teams. “I’ve been studying complex teams since my dissertation fifteen years ago, and I’ve been invited to several NSF meetings, but this was my first time as an invited keynote speaker. This invitation and ultimately, the recognition that communication and collaboration matters when solving scientific problems, will help me as I continue my work and build my network here at Northern. It will also help as teams across the country work to improve their productivity by reflecting on the process and how they’re communicating and collaborating.”

Thompson followed the welcoming remarks from the New Hampshire Governor, Maggie Hassan and was immediately preceded by Mr. Alan Alda, actor (M*A*S*H, The West Wing) and founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.

She addressed an audience made up of vice presidents of research and lead investigators on multi-million dollar interdisciplinary projects like wind energy in Iowa and nanotechnology in Arkansas.

Two weeks after her keynote address at the NSF conference in New Hampshire, Thompson was off again presenting at the National Communication Association convention in Las Vegas, Nevada with undergraduate student Jose Aburto. Thompson and Aburto won the Top Paper in Environmental Communication Award. The award included a cash prize and Thompson and Aburto were recognized for their research entitled, Ecosystem-What? Public Understanding and Trust in Conservation Science and Ecosystem Services. Aburto gave a formal presentation highlighting the results of the paper in front of a large audience on Friday, November 19. Aburto is one of Northern Michigan University’s McNair Scholars, and he is majoring in Public Relations with a minor in Sustainability. “Working with undergraduates is very inspiring,” says Thompson. “They bring an eagerness and energy that rejuvenates me! Most importantly, I remember having the opportunity to work as an undergraduate research assistant when I was a student at Northern, and that experience really influenced the trajectory of my career.”

Both Isaacson and Thompson embody what makes NMU such a dynamic place for students to learn. They attended NMU as undergraduates, went on to find success in their profession and have returned to share their expertise with a new generation of students. Isaacson is an assistant professor of public relations and Thompson is an associate professor of environmental communication in the Department of Communication and Performance Studies.

To learn more about Thompson’s research, you can follow these links.

https://sites.google.com/site/jesthompsonportfolio/home/research

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2wPHmyUAAAAJ&hl=en

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NMU Professor Partners with Florida State University to Offer MOOC

Like the printing press, over 500 years ago, the Internet is creating an explosion of shared knowledge. NMU’s Sam M. Cohodas Professor, Tawni Ferrarini is sharing her knowledge with the world by offering NMU’s first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Ferrarini helps Associate Professor of Economics Hugo Eyzaguirre direct the Center for Economics Education and Entrepreneurship at NMU, and she has partnered with the Stavros Center for Economics Education at Florida State University to offer the MOOC.

Her MOOC “Common Sense Economics for Life” is based on her co-authored book Common Sense Economics:  What Everyone Should Know about Wealth and Prosperity. There is no cost, and takes between 10-15 hours to complete. “The MOOC itself is just an appetizer to get people to think about learning more about different aspects of their lives,” Ferrarini said.” So far, over 4,000 students have enrolled in the course in the four semesters she has offered it. “It is incredible outreach, there are so many ways to touch people’s lives now, and you never know when those MOOC points of contact will spill over into your regular courses,” Ferrarini said.

Ferrarini admits that there are a lot of window shoppers in the MOOC world, and only about 4% of those who enroll actually complete the entire course. Nevertheless, she is convinced such online experiences have a place in the future of education. “When you look at the brick and mortar institution and the challenges it faces, you know that transformation is under way, and we are either going to be riding the wave or be drowned by it,” said Ferrarini. “Competition in my world is a good thing. When I see other people succeeding, I have a tendency to ask what are they are doing and how can I learn from it. So, I think it’s a good thing we are being challenged to think about how we are reaching our multimedia students.”

MOOCs do allow for tremendous reach, and her “Common Sense Economics for Life” course has drawn interest from people around the globe. Their experiences vary, and their perspective influences their interactions with course materials and resources. “A man in Venezuela commented about the challenges of having to account for rampant inflation and 90% spike in market prices when putting together a monthly budget. A woman in Syria noted her difficulty in leaving her country to seek economic and political stability. Doing so could be life threatening. So, shopping for a steady local government by voting with her feet was not a viable option in Syria which is the case in the U.S.,” Ferrarini said. U.S. students, especially those living in the remote U.P., can use their MOOC experiences to broaden their understanding of how social, political, business, and economic considerations act and interact to influence decisions by individuals, by sectors or groups and nations. This, in part, helps explain why some nations prosper and individuals make different consumption, investment, and saving decisions across households, states, countries, and time.

In 12-15 hours over any period prior to December 31, 2015, anyone who completes the Common Sense Economics MOOC receive four badges if they earn 80 percent or higher. The Key Economic Elements, Why Some Nations Prosper, Economics of Government, and Financial Fitness badge can be referenced on a resume or posted on LinkedIn or other social media accounts. “The badges may mean little to us who are used to thinking about full degree programs, but to the people who are a part of different global collaborative networks like GitHub, badges do have significance,” Ferrarini said. She also pointed out, “This experience is intended to offer a personal complement to the accredited college campus experience.  It is not a substitute.”

On the for-credit front, Ferrarini and her colleagues in NMU’s Economics Department offer both seated classes and online classes. The Departments minor has been online since 2000. Ferrarini uses the same materials in both offerings. The only difference is how she interacts with students. Ferrarini believes there is still value in the “chalk and talk” method of presentation, but she also recommends faculty consider expanding into online instruction. “You don’t have to know everything about the instructional technology, but you can challenge yourself to make small incremental changes by working with NMU’s Center for Teaching and Learning,” Ferrarini added.

Ferrarini hopes her partnership with Stavros Center at FSU will help NMU grow, gain resources and expertise from a center at a Research One institution. FSU Foundation support made the development of the MOOC possible. NMU receives institutional credit for Ferrarini’s digital work, publications, and content development.

Since 2013 Ferrarini, Dr. Eyzaguirre, and other facilitators have hosted more than twelve Common Sense Economics for Life workshops involving over 200 high school teachers. Ferrarini estimates these workshops will impact over 50,000 students.

Ferrarini feels NMU is a great place because it supports professional growth, development and collaborations with other universities that can help attract, retain, and create new student opportunities at NMU.

Faculty, staff, students and friends of NMU are invited to join and complete the CSE MOOC. Register here. Faculty interested in assigning the MOOC as bonus work can contact Dr. Ferrarini at tferrari@nmu.edu.

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National Media Turn to NMU Sociology Professor for Insight on Police Shootings

Recent high profile police shootings in America brought to light the fact that the U.S. is an extreme outlier among other wealthy nations when it comes to gun ownership, gun violence and police shootings. For example, according to data collected by The Guardian, U.S. Citizens are 100 times more likely to be shot and killed by a police officer than a person in Britain. Journalists following these types of stories are turning to sociologists for context, and    Guðmundur “Gummi” Oddsson, assistant professor of sociology at NMU, has been featured in the Washington Post, the UK’s Independent, The Business Insider and other publications.

Journalists have sought out Oddsson for his expertise in how class inequality relates to violence and social control in society but also because he is from Iceland, one of the least violent countries in the world. There has been one instance of a police officer killing a person in the 71 years Iceland has been an independent country, and it happened in 2013. Prior to that, Oddsson says there had been no such incidents dating back to the time the Icelandic police was formed in 1778 . Oddsson attributes Iceland’s low record of gun violence to several factors. “We are a small, tightly-knit society, very homogenous and with relatively low income inequality, and even though we rank 15th globally in the number of guns per capita, our guns are used for sport and hand guns are very rare,” Oddsson said. Plus, it is not an easy process to get a gun license, which includes a medical examination and a written test. As a result of these factors, Oddsson says people trust each other and trust their law enforcement officers to maintain law and order without using guns, except in rare cases.

Officers in Western countries like Norway, Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand also do not typically carry guns while on duty. In fact, Oddsson says 80% of police in Britain do not wish to carry a gun because they feel it would be counter-productive, that is, provoke more violence. “A country that is struggling with high rates of gun violence, like the U.S., should be able to learn something from other countries that are not plagued by the same problems,” Oddsson said. “A crucial difference is that most people in countries like Iceland and Norway trust law enforcement. In America, there is less trust, especially from the poor and minorities toward the police, and for a good reason. A lot of that distrust boils down to the fact that heavy-handed policing and police shootings take place disproportionately in poor African-American communities in hyper-segregated cities like St. Louis and Detroit. Thus, I think that the most important thing we can do is to build trust between the police and communities that have been most affected by police shootings. And, nothing is more effective for building trust than direct human interaction and treating one another with respect.”

In addition to building trust, Oddsson argues that that reducing income inequality, strengthening the welfare system, increasing legitimate opportunities, and a greater emphasis on education rather than incarceration can help reduce violent crime. He quotes Victor Hugo: “He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” Moreover, he points out that the U.S. represents 4.5% of the global population, but accounts for 25% of the world’s prisoners. In fact, Oddsson says America has a higher incarceration rate than China, North Korea, and Russia. “In Iceland, we view someone who commits a crime as a person who needs help and rehabilitation rather than someone who needs to be punished and put away for a long time,” Oddsson said.

Oddsson received his doctoral degree from the University of Missouri where he studied with noted American criminologist, John F. Galliher.. Gummi’s main area of interest is class inequality and how people think about class. When he teaches his course Social Class Power and Mobility, he talks about class inequality and how the U.S. is an outlier here as well when compared to wealthy developed nations. Research has, for example, shown that poverty can lock people into criminal activity, which can lead to violent interactions with law enforcement.

Like Oddsson’s native Iceland, the U.P. is home to just over 300 thousand people, and Oddsson feels at home in Marquette and at Northern Michigan University. “I chose NMU because I was very impressed with the university, the faculty, and Marquette after doing some research and then visiting when I was brought up here for an interview,” Oddsson said. “This place seemed to offer almost everything of what I was looking for, and the family and I are very happy that we ended up here. Being a faculty member at NMU offers me balance between teaching, research, and family. People here are very friendly and have welcomed us with open arms. Marquette is also a beautiful place and is as family-friendly as one can hope for in the United States. The family and I love the outdoors, and this area is about as good as it gets.”

Gummi and his wife Habby are enjoying raising their three boys Jakob, Oddur and Árni here in the U.P., and Habby has co-founded a local non-profit organization called JJ Packs. The group gives healthy meal packs to schoolchildren in need. Last school year, about 80 children received backpacks with healthy meals every weekend.

Gummi and his family still speak Icelandic to retain ties to their heritage. It is a proud and peaceful heritage that is gaining the attention from some of the world’s largest media institutions.

For more on Professor Oddsson, you can link to his NMU profile page at: http://www.nmu.edu/sociologyandanthropology/gudmundur-gummi-oddsson.

Articles quoting citing Professor Oddsson
http://www.businessinsider.com/american-police-kill-more-people-in-one-day-than-norway-cops-have-in-10-years-2015-7

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/norways-police-only-fired-two-bullets-last-year–and-no-one-died-10374662.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/18/5-countries-where-police-officers-do-not-carry-firearms-and-it-works-well/

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25201471

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2013/08/how-race-and-inequality-influence-size-urban-police-forces/6510/

Selected Scholarly Articles by Professor Oddsson
“Policing Class and Race in Urban America,” Professor Oddsson and his colleagues recently published this article in the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. It examines how racial-economic inequality and poverty influence the size of police forces in large cities (250,000+) in the United States.
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJSSP-09-2012-0085

“Class Awareness in Iceland”
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/01443331011054253

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A Professors’s Life Is Music to His Years

Many people dream of being able to do what they love for a living. Dr. Mark Shevy, an Associate Professor of mass communication and media production in the Department of Communication and Performance Studies, says he isn’t entirely there, yet, but he is finding a good balance between his professional and personal goals. The former Air Force nuclear missile combat crew commander is engaged with activities ranging from psychological experiments to feeding the hungry to dance fitness.

“I like to say that I became a professor of mass communication because I enjoyed watching TV and listening to music,” jokes Shevy. “I end up being so busy, I barely get time to do either, anymore.”

The psychological effects of media, particularly music, are the main focus of Shevy’s research. In recent years, he has published two chapters in an Oxford University Press book titled, “The Psychology of Music in Multimedia.” One chapter details how research and theory in mass communication and music psychology can be integrated. The other chapter, with co-author Kineta Hung at Hong Kong Baptist University, explores the psychological effects of music in television advertising and other persuasive media.
In the summer of 2015, Shevy organized a symposium on music in multimedia for the Society of Music Perception and Cognition conference in Nashville. At the conference, he also presented findings from experiments he has conducted on listeners’ perception of non-diatonic music, a research project he is leading with colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

While in Nashville, Shevy was able to sit in on an all day session at a professional music recording studio. “It was incredible to see how quickly these players could adapt to a song they had never heard before and play it with such confidence and skill,” he said. Shevy also had a chance to watch engineer John Nicholson control the soundboard and ProTools audio software. “Studio musicians in Nashville speak a musical language that few

people outside their fraternity would understand, but John was on the same page with them on all nine songs they recorded that day, and the results were amazing,” said Shevy.

In the year prior, Shevy spent three weeks in Nashville working on a professional movie set, and he traveled to Costa Rica to produce an informational documentary for Strong Missions, an organization founded 10 years ago by a missionary named Charlie Strong to feed children and support poor communities in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

“Although I enjoy working with media, it would be an empty experience if it were only for the sake of self-indulgence,” says Shevy. “Communication is powerful, and it can have an impact on people and society. I want to use it to improve people’s lives.”
Shevy’s service to others extends beyond media production. He is the faculty adviser for the NMU student group, “Marquette Ending Hunger,” which raised thousands of dollars during the 2014-15 academic year for local people in need. The group won NMU’s Program of the Year award in 2015, and Shevy was nominated for student group adviser of the year.

“Marquette Ending Hunger was a natural fit,” says Shevy. “Hunger has been a top concern of mine for a long time, so when Lauren Larsen, the president of the group at that time, said they needed an adviser, I got my family on board and committed. I’m so glad that I did. The students in this group are compassionate, driven, and well organized. They led the way, and I had a front row seat for seeing how far they could go.”

One of the biggest challenges for Shevy is finding enough time to conduct research, produce media, serve the community, and spend time with his wife and three sons. “I’m trying to choose activities that we can all do together, like working with Marquette Ending Hunger.” If an activity can satisfy multiple needs at once, Shevy is more likely to do it. This has led to a surprising path for him in the past few years. Shevy recognized the need for physical fitness and for spending more time with his wife, so they started going to the gym together. There, they saw a dance fitness class called “Zumba.” Although Shevy’s love for music drew him toward the class, his fear of dancing in public kept him away.
“I knew that confronting my fears and stretching my social constraints would be good for me, so when the Zumba instructor invited me to class, I dared myself to go. I was too scared to go alone, so I made Cheri, my wife go with me,” laughs Shevy.
One dare led to the next, and Shevy became a licensed Zumba instructor in December 2014. He taught for a semester at NMU’s PEIF and had students say it was the most fun they’ve had on campus. Currently, he teaches with the group “Z-Dance Fitness” at Dawn Dott Dance Studios.

“Zumba, or other dance fitness classes, can improve physical strength, balance, coordination, and reflexes, but it has a strong emotional effect, too. We drag ourselves into the studio and by the time we leave, we’re smiling and laughing, despite the fact that we’re drenched with sweat,” says Shevy.
Shevy says that teaching Zumba helps him stay healthy, serves people in the community, and provides a unique perspective that ties into his music interests. It’s also an activity that his family can join. Although, he hasn’t been able to persuade his teenage boys, yet.

“I’m thinking less of separating life into work, family, and personal components. I’m looking at it more as just ‘life,’” says Shevy. “I want to find enjoyment in meeting the needs of those around me, and if I can do that by overlapping multiple areas, as long as I am really meeting those needs, I think that’s a life I want to have.”

Editor’s Note: This is the first in what we hope will be a series of articles focusing on NMU faculty members. We will attempt to highlight their passion for what they do on campus as well as what they do off campus. If you know a faculty member who should be featured as one of our passionate professionals, contact Dwight Brady at dbrady@nmu.edu.