A gathering at the Westchester Campus library honored the faculty and staff whose published work is shaping classrooms, disciplines and communities.
Թϱ University’s New Author Celebration brought together faculty and staff who published new work this academic year, giving the university community a chance to pause and recognize something that often happens quietly: the intellectual labor that occurs alongside teaching, advising and everything else that comes with being an exceptional educator.
President Parish kicked off the event, welcoming the authors and attendees. She acknowledged the difficulty of the current national moment — the kind of difficulty that makes a celebration like this feel not frivolous, but necessary.
She spoke about Թϱ’s 75th anniversary, the “Թϱ Moments” living history display behind her, and what it means to build an institution over generations. But she kept coming back to the people in the room — the ones doing the work.
“I’m really grateful that I have the chance to thank each of you for taking time to be scholars, for leaning into our students, for supporting each other through a challenging time. This is a very meaningful event for me, and I hope that it’s meaningful for you as well.”
President Parish shared what faculty and staff scholarship means beyond the page.
“I think that when faculty and staff publish their work, whether they do it in peer review journals, in trade publications, whether it’s creative outlets or highly specialized technical fields, you strengthen our entire institution. You elevate your profession and you demonstrate that learning is lifelong – it doesn’t need to end.” Parish continued, “When we create new knowledge, we’re doing so not just for the benefit of our students, we’re doing it for the benefit of all of the communities we serve and for our entire nation.”
Provost Kristen Curry Greenwood followed with remarks that grounded the celebration in Թϱ’s academic mission. She spoke about the relationship between research and teaching — not as two separate pursuits pulling faculty in different directions, but as forces that strengthen each other.
“The discoveries you make and the debates you engage flow directly into the classroom. They shape syllabi, inform lectures and open new pathways for student inquiry. When students learn from faculty who are actively producing knowledge, education becomes more than transmission — it becomes participation.”
She also made the case for what peer-reviewed scholarship does for Թϱ’s standing in the world.
“Your achievements also build Թϱ’s reputational capital. Universities are known, as much as any other way, through the work of their faculty – both in the classroom and in their research output. Your books sit on shelves around the world. Your articles circulate across continents. Your research informs policy, practice, and public understanding. When your scholarship is cited, awarded, or debated, Թϱ’s visibility and credibility grow. Your individual excellence is the university’s collective asset.”
Provost Greenwood also noted a personal connection to the occasion — the recent release of the sixth edition of her own acute care handbook — which gave her words an added layer of credibility.
Meet the Panelists
The highlight of the afternoon was a moderated panel, led by Saul Fisher, associate provost for Faculty Affairs. Four authors shared their work and their process.
Nancy Heilbronner, PhD, associate professor of Secondary Education, published “10 Things to Say to Gifted Children: A Guide to Social, Emotional, and Academic Concerns” — a book that draws on her decades as a teacher, researcher and parent of gifted children.
Robert Habig, PhD, associate professor of Biology at Թϱ’s Bronx campus, published two papers: one on coyote expansion across New York City’s green spaces, and one on best practices for keeping students engaged and persisting in STEM.
Stephen Ward, associate professor of Communication and the Arts, served as an editor on a collection of essays about music production pedagogy — a field that has grown from a handful of schools in the 1980s to hundreds today.
Victoria Núñez, PhD, assistant professor of Literacy and Multilingual Studies, contributed a chapter to an internationally edited volume arguing that open access educational resources can help teachers — especially in under-resourced areas — better support multilingual students with disabilities.
Saul Fisher asked panelists to speak honestly about the challenges and rewards of being an author at Թϱ. The answers were candid, practical and funny.
Heilbronner described the discipline required to keep writing when life keeps getting in the way — a lesson she learned from a colleague’s memorable advice about consistency.
“She described writing as a beast. And she said as long as you feed the beast in the closet, he’ll be fine. But, if you go a few days without writing, without feeding the beast, when you open the door, he’ll devour you.”
Habig talked about the particular challenge of doing research at a teaching-focused, undergraduate institution — and how he turns that challenge into opportunity.
“One of the ways that I try to address this challenge is it’s kind of an apprenticeship model. Any student who does research with me, whether it’s in a formal class or an independent project, I always give them the opportunity, if they want to take this project further and publish, I’m willing to work with them to do that.”
He currently has several students in the pipeline for first-author publications.
Ward, who is approaching retirement, spoke about the importance of protecting creative time — and why the book he’s planning needs to exist, even if he has to carve out space to write it.
“It’s really important to carve that time out and to give your ideas an opportunity to flourish. I have an idea for a textbook, so I’m hopefully going to reduce some hours here and phase into retirement, because I just don’t have time to do any serious writing. But the book needs to be written, and I’m the only one with the perspective that I can share. So, I think you know, again, you have to believe in yourself, believe in your ideas and really be selfish and make those ideas come to fruition.”
Núñez connected her chapter to a call for papers that arrived at exactly the right moment.
“Many of our School of Education classes have a textbook, partly because we teach very diverse populations both at Թϱ and the school districts through their unions. But we don’t want classes that are just focused on textbooks, we always want to enrich those classes with multiple resources. So, I have done this research to enrich and find these resources, and then I saw this call for papers and I thought, ‘This could be useful.’”
Research That Lives in the Classroom
When Fisher asked how scholarship connects to teaching — and how teaching shapes research — the answers revealed something important: for these faculty members, the two are inseparable.
Habig described bringing his urban ecology fieldwork directly into the lab, including a DNA barcoding project built around wild bee samples collected at Pelham Bay Park.
“The research that is done connects to the backyards of students. When I did my graduate work, I did field work in Ethiopia and Kenya, and I loved doing that, but there’s so much that you can answer in the green spaces right here. And because students live in the communities, I think that there’s buy-in, because they’re studying biodiversity in their own neighborhoods.”
Ward shared a story from a conference that had stuck with him — and that he now shares with students regularly. A presenter introduced him to Gogo Penguin, a jazz group whose performance style was shaped by the sound of a skipping CD.
“And when I share that with my students, their minds are blown because, A., why would someone do that, but also how fascinating it was to think of glitches in the medium informing production practice and performance practice.”
Núñez talked about using open access resources to anchor the first week of class — before textbooks arrive — and why that choice reflects something deeper about her teaching values.
“I wanted something that could be an activity that everybody could access before they get their textbook, and that also put students learning language at the center of everybody’s minds. Because we can get deep into the weeds of policies and laws and pedagogical practices, and we need to remember this is about kids.”
Why It Matters
After the event, President Parish reflected on why taking time to celebrate authorship matters — especially now.
“It’s essential to celebrate faculty and staff authors because they are creating the intellectual community that we are living in, that we are instructing our students in. And you know, as hard as everyone is working, it’s really important to pause for a moment and spend time celebrating the hard work that has brought these folks to this place.”
Provost Greenwood spoke to the direct impact on students — and on the culture of learning Թϱ works to build.
“Developing that scholarly, inquisitive mind is I think one of the number one ways. That also goes for keeping our faculty current in their own disciplines, having them seek feedback and learning to seek answers to questions and bringing those two connections together.”
The afternoon captured something Թϱ has been building for 75 years: a community where teaching and scholarship feed each other, where curiosity is treated as a professional responsibility and where the people doing the hard work of producing knowledge are given a moment to be seen.