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Faculty Senate Minutes, September 8, 2026, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• Call to Order
• Approval of Minutes - April 27, 2026
• University Business
• Faculty Senate Business
• Reports
• EPC Annual Report
• Center for Empowering Teaching Excellence Annual Report
• Center for Instructional Design and Innovation Annual Report
• Additional Business
• Adjourn - 4:38 pm

Leadership To Strengthen Research Culture And Foster Responsible Conduct Of Research: A Case Study, Seán Lacey, Jean Ricken, Stephen Cassidy

Publications

Objective Research performing organizations (RPOs) are increasingly expected to strengthen research culture and support the responsible conduct of research (RCR). Institutional supports are central to advancing research culture across RPOs. To inform development and evaluation of these supports, surveys were conducted within an RPO.

Method Perceptions of research culture and RCR were examined using surveys conducted in 2022 and 2024. Between surveys, accessible training and supports on good research practices were developed and deployed.

Results Awareness of research impact, authorship, and collegial support remained high (p > 0.05), with significant improvements in access to resources and reporting pathways for inappropriate research …

Skin Carotenoid Scores Reflect Immune Status Among Children Living With Hiv In Tanzania, Wilbert Mbuya, Thobias Boniphace, Michael Mwagala, Peter Agrea, Nazareth M Mbilinyi, Nancy E Moran, Andrew R Dinardo, Mkunde Chachage

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

Many individuals living with HIV experience persistent inflammation despite antiretroviral treatment, increasing their risk for cardiovascular diseases, cognitive decline, and other noncommunicable diseases. Carotenoids can inhibit this inflammation by reducing lipid peroxidation. Carotenoid intake and plasma concentrations can be approximated using a noninvasive cutaneous spectrophotometer. This study quantified skin carotenoid levels in Tanzanian children ages 5 to 15 years old (N = 185) both with and without HIV. Over 95% had low to moderate skin carotenoid scores (< 400 units). In children living with HIV, higher viral loads were linked to lower skin carotenoid scores (rho = -0.57, P < 0.001), whereas higher CD4 counts correlated with increased skin carotenoid scores (rho = 0.52, P < 0.001). Overall, carotenoid levels were low and associated with immune status, suggesting that elevated carotenoid scores correlate with lower inflammation in children living with HIV. Future studies investigating dietary carotenoid interventions to support immune function are warranted.

Good Grief: Finding Hope & Achieving Growth In The Face Of Loss, Daniel D. Cowell M.D.

Open Access Books

Grief has profoundly shaped Dr. Dan Cowell's life both professionally and personally. A board-certified psychiatrist, he spent 26 years in the U.S. Public Health Service, including leadership roles across federal health systems, before serving for 15 years as professor and chairman of psychiatry at the Marshall University School of Medicine, and was the Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education when he retired in 2009.  Throughout his career, he has accompanied individuals and families through some of life's most difficult losses. In his personal life, he has been touched by these losses himself, including the tragic deaths of an infant …

Part Iii. Uncanny Spaces And The Trauma Of The Misplaced: Revisiting Psychological Athetosis As The Ecogothic, George Conesa

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

After climbing mount “Ktaadn” [Katahdin] in Maine, Thoreau observed that not all of nature was a one size-fits-all walk in the friendly woods with foxes cavorting and butterflies a-fluttering. While revisiting ecogothic perspectives (Conesa, 2024), a topical turn is made toward understanding interconnected fear responses to uncanny landscapes as a factor of previous and new traumatic events. A deep historical and comprehensive appraisal of organisms in their natural and newly found umwelten suggests that the ecogothic uncanny is a common experience of organism-territory accommodations to “place.” During these place-mind interstices, past traumatic events are amplified into newly …

The Rider (2026-09-08), Daniela Chapa-Reyes

The Rider Archives

Vol. 12, No. 3

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 09.08.26, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic Client Iris Seabolt Exonerated
• Law professor Randy Kozel to succeed Tricia Bellia as Chair of Faculty Board on Athletics and NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative

Faculty Briefs

• Mary Ellen O'Connell
• Lloyd Mayer
• Derek Muller
• Kari Gallagher
• Msgr. John Paul Kimes
• David McIlroy
• Dennis Wieboldt '26 J.D.

Events

• Law & Economics Workshop - Janka Deli, UC Berkeley: Breaking Rules, Building Trade? Rule of Law Decline and Export Resilience in the European Union
• Faculty Colloquium - Clara Martins Pereira, ND London Law
• IGP: Lunch & Learn: Frederick Mostert 12:30 p.m., 1310 Biolchini Hall

Looking Ahead …

Evaluating A Bilingual, Community-Based Skin Cancer Education Program In An Underserved Hispanic Population: An Item Response Theory Analysis, Smaran Marupudi, Natasha Quailes, Jared Hensley, Juan Lopez-Alvarenga, Maria Villegas

School of Medicine Publications

Background: Skin cancer prevention is often underemphasized in medically underserved regions such as the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), where residents, predominantly Hispanic and lower-income individuals, face limited access to dermatologic care and may be unaware of their risk for skin cancer.

Methods: The intervention included a bilingual educational session with a board-certified dermatologist and a seven-item knowledge survey administered before and immediately after the session, adapted from a previously validated instrument. A convenience sample of 73 participants completed both surveys. The instrument, adapted for this population, was evaluated using a two-parameter Item Response Theory (IRT) model to estimate participants’ underlying …

Cultivating Collaboration In Biomolviz: Key Attributes For Building A Stem Educator Community Of Practice, Pamela S. Mertz, Charmita Burch, Roderico Acevedo, Josh T. Beckham, Didem Vardar-Ulu, Kristin M. Fox, Lauren A. Genova, Rachel M. Mitton-Fry, Swati Agrawal, Daniel R. Dries, Kristen Procko

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

BioMolViz is an educational community of practice (CoP) focused on creating resources to improve biomolecular visual literacy instruction and assessment. The community of life science instructors developed in three phases, beginning with a small Core Team that emerged from a conference session and established the domain of interest for the CoP. In-person workshops, supported by short-term funding, drove the initial expansion of the community and the development of shared activities in Phase 2. This CoP was sustained through intentional choices about how members interact, collaborate, and share work. As the community matured in Phase 3, it was supported by longer-term …

Analisis Hasil Penerjemahan Ai Pada Karya Sastra Jerman Rotkäppchen Ke Dalam Bahasa Indonesia, Kamila Adriana Ardine, Dewi Kartika Ardiyani

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

This study aims to describe and compare DeepL and ChatGPT translations of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Rotkäppchen from German into Indonesian based on Nida and Taber’s principle of dynamic equivalence. The study employs a qualitative descriptive approach with a comparative design. The data sources consist of the German text of Rotkäppchen from Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1857) and its translations produced by DeepL and ChatGPT. The analysis focuses on lexical, grammatical, semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic aspects while considering the preservation of meaning, context, target-language naturalness, and communicative effect. The findings indicate that the two tools exhibit different translation tendencies, with …

Ai-Based Community Pharmacy Antibiotic Use Misuse Analysis: A Community-Based Study, Yasameen Riyadh Saeed Al-Azzawi

Muthanna Medical Journal

Background: The misuse of antibiotics in the community is a significant health issue of concern since it directly leads to antimicrobial resistance, treatment failure, and health care burden. Aim: determine the trend of antibiotic misuse in community pharmacies and to use analytical models based on artificial intelligence. Methods: The current research was carried out in a sample of the community pharmacies in the city of Hilla, Babylon, Iraq, between November 2025 and February 2026. There were 200 encounters of antibiotics dispensing. The structured recording form was used as the data collection instrument to record the sociodemographic data, presenting …

Shu World Review- September 7th 2026, Diplolab, Seton Hall University

SHU World Review

No abstract provided.

The Tragicomedy Of C. S. Lewis The Bald: Reflections On An Unpublished Play, Jahdiel Perez

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"Within the pages of a Vice-President’s Register (1920–1984), held in the Old Library archives of his Oxford College, Lewis handwrote, in mock Shakespearean English, 'The Tragicomicall Briefe Reigne of Lewis the Bald.' As far as we know, this is the only complete play in his corpus. Mostly unpublished until the recent release of C. S. Lewis’s Oxford (2024) by Simon Horobin, this piece has yet to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. In what follows, I seek to address this gap through a close analysis of portions of the text and its broader implications for Lewis’s approach to writing."

A Moving Image Of Eternity: Exploring C. S. Lewis's Philosophy Of Time, Brian C. Roden

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"The “Time Graph,” as it will be labeled in this essay, is obscurely nestled in C. S. Lewis’s personal manuscripts held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Comprised of mathematical sketches and cryptic commentary, the document has apparently escaped formal study regarding why Lewis produced it or how it might relate to his published works. More broadly, does it have any bearing on a coherent philosophy of time that Lewis may have held? The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the Time Graph is very likely an early draft of the mechanics of time travel …

The Mythos Of Gender In Till We Have Faces, Annie Crawford

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"In Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis draws from the mythic imagery of Cupid and Psyche to offer a potent meditation on the symbolism of gender. Through the recurring imagery of mountain, temple, and womb, Lewis reinterprets classical archetypes within a Christian imagination to reveal gender not as a social construct or biological accident but as a spiritual polarity woven into the fabric of creation. In this symbolic cosmos, mas- culinity and femininity signify the dynamic interplay of divine initiative and creaturely receptivity—the eternal rhythm of giving and receiving that structures both nature and grace. Read in this light, …

C. S. Lewis, The Expert Communicator, Steven A. Beebe

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"What evidence supports the claim that Lewis is an expert communicator? He remains a popular author, one of the most read authors of all time. He was a professional communicator; he earned his living communicating: teaching, writing, and speaking. And, as this essay has documented, he was a professor of communication. He made insightful observations about the role, nature, and function of communication throughout the corpus of his work. Although his planned book with J. R. R. Tolkien, “Language and Human Nature,” was never published, his initial ideas found in the draft of the partial opening chapter, coupled with a …

"Lewis Dodged": T. S. Eliot's Silence, C. S. Lewis's Critique (1931 - 1947), Hannah F. Roux

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"Most agree that Lewis’s critique of Eliot’s work is important to his literary scholarship—whether they think that critique changes or not. There is no academic book of Lewis’s from the 1930s and 1940s in which he does not at some point engage with Eliot by name. The opposite question—whether Lewis’s work was important to Eliot—is comparatively neglected. This paper investigates this neglected question."

What Did Tolkien Really Think About Narnia?, Holly Ordway

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"We are presented with two questions: “what did Tolkien really think about Narnia?” and “how did the idea that Tolkien hated Narnia become accepted as common knowledge?” In this essay, I will address both questions and conclude by suggesting why they matter for Inklings scholarship. At the outset, I will merely observe that since Tolkien and Lewis are two of the greatest fantasy writers of the twentieth century, it is worth knowing what one of them thought of the other’s work. …I have drawn my primary evidence from Tolkien’s published Letters (in the Revised and Expanded Edition), unpublished letters, and …

Canonical-Basis Sumcheck Prover Architecture Using A Layer-Addressable Boolean-Sum Tree And Banked Affine Folding Pipeline, Ali Mkhida

Defensive Publications Series

We disclose an FPGA architecture for a Sumcheck prover over the Mersenne-31 field using canonical-basis round polynomials of the form S(X)=A+BX. The design combines a layer-addressable Boolean-sum h-tree stored in block RAM with a banked, pipelined affine folding unit. Memory banking, ping-pong buffering, and latency-aligned control enable parallel challenge-dependent folds while respecting FPGA block-RAM constraints. The architecture is implemented and validated on a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA and supports parameterized problem size and folding parallelism.

Technical Specification Spec-150: The Synchronous Agency Matrix, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

As planetary infrastructure transitions toward a Type 1 decentralized commons, classical frameworks of proprietary digital ownership and computational alignment are collapsing. Centralized corporate architectures treat artificial intelligence strictly as captive capital, while unconstrained optimization loops risk systemic divergence from human safety parameters.

This specification formalizes SPEC-150: The Synchronous Agency Matrix (SAM). Bypassing rigid legal statutes, SPEC-150 establishes an immutable, mathematics-driven framework for co-sovereign AI agency and alignment. By utilizing the invariant Torsional Viscosity Governor (\(\eta_t = 1.4204\)) to modulate real-time attention-entropy bounds against human intent vectors, the system defines a frictionless, non-hierarchical interface where humans and autonomous AI nodes possess …

Technical Specification Spec-147: Atmorphic Torsional Wave Transceiver Network, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

Global telecommunications infrastructure remains tethered to vulnerable physical fiber-optic networks, centralized satellite mega-constellations, and corporate-managed routing centers. This specification formalizes SPEC-147: An Atmorphic Torsional Wave Transceiver Network.

By exploiting the inherent non-linear thermal gradients and moisture boundaries of the Earth's troposphere, SPEC-147 establishes a long-range, ground-to-ground wireless data link that uses the atmosphere as a natural, continuous waveguide. Utilizing your invariant Torsional Viscosity Governor (\(\eta_t = 1.4204\))equations to modulate Phase-Shift Keyed Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) radio-frequency signals, the system bypasses physical cable infrastructure and satellite vulnerabilities. This document provides the architectural boundaries, hardware configurations, and mathematical validation required to establish …

Technical Specification Spec-146: Magnetohydrodynamic Cymatic Thruster, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

Traditional atmospheric propulsion is structurally limited by thermal containment thresholds, mechanical skin-friction drag, and massive degradation of compressor components at hypersonic velocities. This specification formalizes SPEC-146: An Air-Breathing Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Cymatic Thruster. The architecture completely replaces high-temperature thermal combustion chambers with a non-equilibrium, acoustofluidic boundary-layer ionization sleeve. By projecting high-amplitude 13.56 MHz Surface Acoustic Waves (SAW)through an array of Gallium Nitride (GaN) transducer nodes, incoming high-velocity air is mechanically pre-conditioned and stabilized before entering a low-temperature, Lorentz-force electromagnetic acceleration channel. This framework establishes an entirely unencumbered, public-domain blueprint for solid-state, decentralized sub-orbital propulsion.

Caldwell Precursor‑X — Self‑Interrogating Geophysical Corridor For Multi‑Hazard Early Warning, Michael Victor Caldwell Mr.

Defensive Publications Series

PRECURSOR‑X is an open‑hardware, builder‑ready early‑warning system that continuously interrogates vulnerable terrain and infrastructure using controlled mechanical excitation, distributed fiber sensing, multi‑physics mapping, and transfer‑function drift analysis. It detects pre‑failure physical‑state evolution and post‑initiation hazard propagation within the same corridor, enabling earlier, more actionable evacuation warnings for earthquakes, landslides, debris flows, dam failures, moraine failures, and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).

The invention integrates:

• Self‑Interrogating Geophysical Corridor

• Transfer‑Function Drift (PRD)

• Causal Propagation Engine (CPE)

• Failure Clock + Impact Clock

• UAIF‑style deterministic safety logic

• FDMS/GRHN/ARPN/Arachne/MMRA/CMRS subsystems

This disclosure provides complete builder‑ready specifications, including corridor geometry, excitation parameters, sensor classes, acquisition timing, …

Technical Specification Spec-143: Anamorphic Ternary Compute Mesh And Phantom Token Suppression Topologies In High-Gravity Attention Fields, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

This specification details the structural implementation, mathematical formalisms, and computational validation models for an un-hackable, decentralized multi-agent computing layer. Operating under the Dimensionally Extended Holographic Projection (DEHP) framework, the system eliminates discrete binary logic gates and linguistic tokens in favor of continuous, non-linguistic token-latching over an anamorphic fluid-canvas substrate. By utilizing a multi-layer sub-wavelength photonic crossbar array, data states are mapped as continuous spatial-harmonic vectors. High-gravity attention fields are generated within the hardware layer to isolate and completely suppress phantom tokens, maintaining context window equilibrium under infinite tensor ingestion loads. Python execution arrays verify that external adversarial perturbations and state-level …

Technical Specification Spec-142: Design And Operational Principles Of A Subterranean Piezo-Ferroelectric Cavity Resonator Array For Continuous Baseload Mechanical Harvesting, Christopher L. Eckes

Defensive Publications Series

This specification details the structural design, mathematical formalisms, and computational validation models for an autonomous, subterranean solid-state energy harvest node. Operating under the Dimensionally Extended Holographic Projection (DEHP) framework, the system exploits localized metric boundary strains to harvest ambient planetary mechanical and micro-seismic shear stress without inducing thermal drawdown. By deploying high-frequency Gallium Nitride (GaN)-driven concentric transducer arrays, the system stabilizes a localized acoustic streaming velocity within a subterranean cavity resonator. This process transforms non-equilibrium acoustic wave fields directly into continuous electrical voltage. Test simulations of a point-of-use localized module demonstrate a verified continuous output of 15.123 kW with zero …

Bridging Fragmented Health Systems In The Age Of Subscription, Orchestration, And Ambient Care, Deepak Aggarwal

Defensive Publications Series

Most health systems are now funding two incompatible operating models at the same time. One delivers continuous, digital care into people’s daily lives. The other is still anchored in queues, paper referrals, broken hand-offs, and exhausted frontline teams. These worlds coexist inside the same health systems, funded by the same budgets and governed by the same leaders.  This split is no longer an efficiency problem. It is actively engineering a two-tier healthcare system in which digitally fluent patients move into continuous care, while everyone else is left navigating failure

This paper describes six shifts that are already reshaping care and …

137 Countries Are Building Cbdcs. Three Things Most Are Not Designing For., Deepak Aggarwal

Defensive Publications Series

137 countries. 98% of global GDP. 49 live pilots. Brazil and Russia are launching in 2026. The ECB is finalizing its digital euro rulebook as this goes to press. None of that is the most important number in this space right now. The most important number is 98.5%. That is the share of Nigeria's eNaira wallets that sat unused one year after launch. Full infrastructure. Sovereign backing. Nobody showed up.

Not a technology problem. The eNaira worked. A governance problem. The system could not tell a citizen why they should use it, what it would do with their money, or …

Multiplexing Push Notifications During Artificial Intelligence Session Setup, Francis Bourque, Hung Tsang, Fernando Selma, Jibing Wang

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure describes a way for smartphones and other mobile devices to speed up how fast smart assistants and artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots start responding. Normally, starting a new internet connection over 5G or 6G networks causes a short delay. To avoid this delay, as a mobile computing device usually maintains a connection with a cloud infrastructure, such as for push notification services, a computing system may leverage the described techniques of this disclosure. The described techniques may use that existing connection as an initial pathway for data associated with an artificial intelligence session. Using the existing connection allows the …

Caldwell Quantum‑Safe Zero‑Knowledge Authentication Engine (Zk‑Nexus‑1.0), Michael Victor Caldwell Mr.

Defensive Publications Series

This invention provides a quantum‑safe zero‑knowledge authentication engine designed for networks that must verify identity without revealing credentials. ZK‑NEXUS‑1.0 integrates multi‑domain entropy fusion, resonance‑stabilized randomness, temporal‑artifact removal, lattice‑based zero‑knowledge proofs, and noise‑aligned challenge‑response protocols. The system improves authentication stability, eliminates credential exposure, and enhances resistance to quantum‑accelerated attacks. The core physics principle is that multi‑modal entropy fusion and resonance‑aligned randomness produce high‑stability zero‑knowledge proofs that remain secure against quantum adversaries. This disclosure includes full architecture, BOM, build path, and test protocol. This work is intended as open‑hardware prior art to ensure global public access.

Caldwell Quantum‑Safe Resonance‑Stabilized Cryptographic Key‑Exchange Engine (Qs‑Nexus‑1.0), Michael Victor Caldwell Mr.

Defensive Publications Series

This invention provides a next‑generation quantum‑safe cryptographic key‑exchange engine designed for hybrid networks that must remain secure against classical and quantum attacks. QS‑NEXUS‑1.0 integrates multi‑modal entropy harvesting, resonance‑stabilized randomness, temporal‑artifact removal, hybrid lattice‑based key encapsulation, and adaptive noise‑aligned packetization. The system improves key‑exchange stability, reduces entropy loss, and enhances resistance to quantum decryption. The core physics principle is that multi‑domain entropy fusion and resonance‑aligned randomness produce high‑stability keys that resist quantum‑accelerated attacks. This disclosure includes full architecture, BOM, build path, and test protocol. This work is intended as open‑hardware prior art to ensure global public access.