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Tuesday, April 1, 10 am to 11 am (Library Rare Book Room)
Dr. Lerong He, Assistant Professor of Commerce
Compensation Committees and CEO Compensation
This study investigates the role of compensation committees in major U.S. firms.
It shows that there is a significant change in the composition of the compensation committee over the years,
characterized as an increasing trend in the percentage of independent directors and a significant drop
in the percentage of interlocked directors and CEO-directors. In particular, the paper finds that the
proportion of CEO-directors in the compensation committee is associated with higher CEO compensation and a
diverse committee is associated with lower CEO compensation. The paper also finds that a larger committee and a
committee with busier board members are associated with higher CEO total compensation. CEOs in firms whose compensation
committee members receive higher payment in the company are paid higher, so are those whose committee members possess
shorter director tenure. Finally, the proportion of female directors in the committee is positively linked with CEO compensation.
Wednesday, April 2, 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm (Library Rare Book Room)
Dr. Michael Barnwell, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Voluntary Inconsideration, Virtual Cognition, and Francisco Suárez
Explaining how some cases of “inconsideration” (omissions to consider) are voluntary is a problem generally overlooked in philosophical discussions of action. The problematic nature of voluntary inconsideration arises from the fact that what is typically required for voluntariness – a mental, intentional state – is in many cases specifically precluded by the fact that consideration is being omitted. Despite the lack of intentional state, there are strong intuitions that many instances of such inconsideration are blameworthy and therefore must be voluntary. In this paper, I argue that Francisco Suárez’s elusive concept of “virtual” cognition may provide a key to understanding how such instances can fulfill the conditions for voluntariness. After arguing that Suárez rightly rejects a popular solution to the contemporary problem of voluntary inconsideration, I propose a particular interpretation of his “virtual” cognition and demonstrate how it may solve the problem.
Monday April 7, Noon to 1 pm (Library Rare Book Room)
Dr. Peter Butera, Professor of Psychology
Sex Differences in Disease Anorexia
Sex differences in immune function occur at numerous levels, including molecular,
cellular, physiologic and organismic aspects of acquired and innate immunities.
Sex differences in immune function also have biological significance. However, the
mechanisms responsible for these effects have rarely been extensively analyzed, especially for
the anorexia that occurs during disease or illness. This presentation will examine possible
interactions between the immune system, sex-specific physiologic mechanisms, and brain mechanisms
controlling eating that contribute to sex differences in disease anorexia.
Wednesday, April 9, 3:15 pm to 4:15 pm (Library Rare Book Room)
Dr. Craig Seal, Assistant Professor of Commerce
Emotional Ability as a Moderator between Emotional Competency and Performance
The purpose of this presentation is to propose a new theoretical and empirical model of emotional intelligence (EI) that incorporates two dominant paradigms in the field today, emotional ability (EA) and emotional competency (EC). The presentation proposes that EA moderates the relationship between EC and performance outcome variables. The model potentially resolves the content domain question by integrating the two dominant paradigms of EI into a unitary construct. The two paradigms of EI are reviewed, the justification for the model is explored, and the potential limitations in testing the model are discussed.
Monday, April 14, Noon to 1 pm (Library Rare Book Room)
Dr. Kenneth Culton, Assistant Professor of Sociology
On Conflict and Identity in a ‘Loctual’ [Local and Virtual] Subculture/Scene
The high value of communication among subcultural groups has been duly noted. When participants in scenes communicate they transmit and reinforce subcultural/scene values—a process essential to both group survival and the construction of subcultural identities. Following the near downfall of zines, scene participants now rely on virtual message boards rather than print media to interactively define who they are. This study explores how the internet reinforces boundaries between two rival local scenes, and in the process helps to shape the identity of participants. Using both online and offline communication data collected on the Long Island DiY [do-it-yourself] punk scene as a test site, this paper offers support for a loctual [local and virtual] (Nogic and Riley 2007) conceptualization of subcultures.
Wednesday, April 16, 2 pm to 3 pm (Library Rare Book Room)
Dr. Thomas Chambers, Associate Professor of History
Bonefields as Tourist Attractions: Constructing Memory at Braddock’s Field and Ticonderoga
Two of Great Britain’s more disastrous Seven Years’ War defeats--Braddock’s Field (1755) and Ticonderoga (1758)--each resulted in significant casualties and hundreds of dead bodies left on the battlefield. In the years that followed, the decaying bones of fallen soldiers resonated with Anglo-Americans seeking meaning from their past. During the Revolutionary War American patriots recalled the war for imperial control of North America as they walked the same ground and reinforced the battlements where they had vanquished a foe—the French—they considered undemocratic and theologically wrong. Yet barely more than a decade later the stridency of that cause had been forgotten, as Americans transformed their one-time British allies into tyrants, even at the spots where British and American soldiers had fought and died together to free North America from “popish” rule. For Americans, battlefields such as Braddock’s Field proved the tyranny and military incompetence of British generals, as well as the valor of the
soldiers, both regular and provincial. Ticonderoga, however, lacked such ideological specificity as memories focused more on the horrors of battle and the bravery of their comrades. The reasons for these differences stemmed more from the process of creating memory and the importance of place than from any sense of historical significance.
Friday, April 18, 1 pm to 2 pm (Library Rare Book Room)
Dr. Robert Kane, Assistant Professor of History
An Imagined Axis: Visions of a Japan-Germany Alliance in U.S. and Japanese Political Discourses of the First World War Era
This project analyzes the fierce internal debates that Americans and Japanese had over the meanings of the First World War and the effectiveness of Wilsonian visions for a postwar world order that would bring lasting peace. On one level, it explains how political actors in both the United States and Japan utilized the German example to support or refute conflicting ideas of national security and representative government at home. Republican opponents of the Wilsonian order, for example, derided the President as another “Kaiser,” and feared that his plan might impede American autonomy and force the United States into league with Japan, the “Prussia of the East.” Key Japanese officials, meanwhile, used German and American models to argue for or against democracy or oligarchic rule, while also stressing Japan’s unique traits and seeing in Wilsonian actions the potential for dictatorship. The main ideological division of the Great War also forced actors in these mutual internal debates to clarify just what they meant by the terms “democracy” and “autocracy.” On another level, then, the project investigates the limits of the terms at the time within the framework of a larger question concerning the democratic peace theory: why as Japanese representative government increased in the 1910s, so, too, did U.S.-Japan tensions?
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