Senior Lecturer Archives - The College of Idhao

By Henry Miller

Amy Truksa

BIO I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to help my audiences become aware of the patterns, rhythms, and processes of universe. In teaching math, I find the same reward in helping my students see and understand the patterns in mathematics. My connections with The College of Idaho are many: my father, Gary Strine, was a professor of physics for 30 years; I am an alumnus of the college; and my husband, Scott Truksa, is both an alumnus and a professor of chemistry. EDUCATION M.A.T. Science Education, Oregon State University (1992) B.S. Biology, The College of Idaho (1989) A.A., Cottey College (1986) PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2011-current Senior Lecturer, Mathematics Department, The College of Idaho 2000-current Planetarium Director, Whittenberger Planetarium, The College of Idaho 1999-2005 Program Resource Director, Sawtooth Methodist Camp, Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho 1998-1999 Adjunct Faculty, Mathematics Department, The College of Idaho 1994-1996 Science Teacher, Caldwell Alternative High School 1993-1994 Discussion Leader, Exchange program between Oregon State University and Asia University, Japan 1992-1994 Science Substitute Teacher, Albany, Alsea, and Corvallis, OR 1992-1994 Saturday Academy Programs, Oregon State University 1992-1993 Co-chair: “Expanding Your Horizons” Workshop, Association of Women in Science 1990-1991 Veterinary Technician, Linn Veterinary Hospital, Albany, OR 1989-1990 Independent Contractor, Bureau of Land Management, Boise, ID; Interagency Scientific Spotted Owl Committee, Portland, OR 1989 Hunting Check Station Manager, Idaho Fish and Game, Boise, ID

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By Henry Miller

Alan Minskoff

BIO Alan Minskoff began lecturing at The College of Idaho in 2001. Minskoff teaches all journalism classes and writes for several magazines. His scholarly interests include historic preservation, the arts, urban issues, wine and wine making. Minskoff brought the Capture the Moment Exhibit of the Pulitzer Prize photographs to campus in 2007. What Minskoff appreciates most about teaching at The College of Idaho is the atmosphere of a small campus and the independent spirit of a liberal arts college. EDUCATION B.A., Lehigh University

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By Henry Miller

Deborah Hartwell

BIO “We travel not to see new places, but to see with new eyes.” –Marcel Proust If there is one thing Deborah emphasizes to her design students, it’s this: Open your eyes to all the beauty that surrounds you on a daily basis, and feed on it like a hungry beast. Pursue it like a hunter and devour it with your eyes to memorize every detail. Whether it is to look in a garbage can, or at a sunset, or at the room you are sitting in, and mine it for visual information about color, texture, shape, and that indefinable thing of beauty. This not only helps you as an artist, but as a person. If you can do this one thing, you will forever be able to see some beauty in any place you are stuck, and therefore forever be able to see your cup as half full rather than half empty. It is the single most artistically and emotionally valuable talent you can develop. Interesting fact: Beyond the theatre world, Deborah is a graphic designer and co-owner of a company that handles all phases of design, production, and installations. She loves to spend as much time as she can with her family at their favorite spot in the mountains. EDUCATION MFA, Theatre Arts – Theatre Design and Production, University of Arizona B.S., Theatre, University of Evansville PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Deborah has worked at the College of Idaho in one capacity or another since 1997. As a lighting designer, costume designer, scenic designer, costume shop supervisor, and most recently, director, she holds over 300 production credits at the College of Idaho, Boise Contemporary Theatre, Opera Idaho, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Balance Dance Company, Drop Dance Collective, LED, Idaho Theatre for Youth, and has worked regionally for such theaters as Arizona Theatre Company, The Chautauqua Conservatory, The Chautauqua Opera Company, and The Gaslight Theatre. Locally, Deborah was awarded an opportunity to be a guest artist for local high schools, teaching a 4-week course in production design, thru the Idaho Commission on the Arts: Arts Education Grant, and co-produced, with Balance Dance Company, a multi-media dance piece about Chicago’s first architectural preservationist. A few of her credits for C of I include: Lighting Design: The Passage, Season’s Greetings, History of Freaks, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Life and Limb, Macbeth, Mineola Twins, The Tempest, The House of Yes, Fiddler on the Roof, The Rover, Good Person of Szechwan, Vinegar Tom. Costume Design: The Water Engine, The Tempest, The House of Yes. Scenic Design: Lapis Blue Blood Red. Director: The Water Engine.

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By Henry Miller

Megan Dixon

BIO Teaching is my great love. It is wonderful to meet students, hear their ideas, and help them learn to express those ideas as part of the ongoing conversation of education. My first PhD was in Slavic Languages and Literature, which means that I learned Russian, Polish, and French, and visited Russia several times. A desire to better understand changes in the world then led me to Human Geography, my second PhD and the basis for most of my teaching at CofI. In many of my classes, once you look at our topics they will seem obvious to you—but you won’t have looked before. I enjoy making people more aware of rivers and canals, soil, economic landscapes, urban development, and the possibilities of messy maps. Every other fall I get to teach Russian History. I also love teaching First-Year Seminar because I want everyone to feel that writing is “theirs.” My favorite exercise is to ask you to write until you surprise yourself! EDUCATION Ph.D., Geography, University of Oregon, 2009 Ph.D, Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999 B.A., Russian, Rice University, 1991 SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH 2026, forthcoming. Mapping socio-ecological interactions in Russia’s hinterland: Grounding the study of diversity. Accepted to Sharafutdinova and Hashamova, eds., Race, Nation, and Nature. 2026, forthcoming. Indigenous place against imperial space: integrating Eurasia into the Russian imagination. Accepted to Bassin and Rudling, special issue of SpatioTemporality. 2026. Book contract from Lexington Press, April 2023. Tentative title: Uncolonizing Russia with Aleksei Ivanov. Due to Bloomsbury Press in September 2025. 2023. “Mapping Metals for Renewable Energy.” StoryMap hosted on Esri platform via College of Idaho institutional account. 2022. Seeking Ecology and Equity Along the Boise Greenbelt. Changing Societies and Personalities 6 (2): 350-363. 2020. Mapping the “Material Substrate” as Analysis of the Capitalocene. EuropeNow 35. 2017. The restructuring of public space in St. Petersburg’s ‘Baltic Pearl.’ In M. Czepczynski and S. Hristova, eds., Public Space: From Reimagination to Occupation. Ashgate. 2016. With J. Graybill. Uncertainty in the Urban Form: Post-Soviet Cities Today. E. C. Holland and M. Derrick, eds., Questioning Post-Soviet. Woodrow Wilson Center. 19-37. 2013. The Southern Square in the Baltic Pearl: Chinese ambition and “European” architecture in St. Petersburg, Russia. Nationalities Papers 41.4: 552-569. 2013. Transformations of the Spatial Hegemony of the Courtyard in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg. Urban Geography 34.3: 353-375. SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS 2025. (Also 2017-2024). “A social-ecological portrait of Lake Lowell.” Presenter at Master Naturalist session on water quality, Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge. Synthesis of research and analysis about Lake Lowell done for and by students in CofI Environmental Studies Capstone courses from 2014-2016 and in succeeding years. 2024. Osher Institute at Boise State University, Short Courses in Russian history, literature, and culture (also 2017-2020, 2022). 2024. “Geography’s contribution to discussion of decolonization: mapping the specificities of socio-ecological interactions” (paper). Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), Boston. November. 2023. “‘Russian’ Identity in the Novels of Alexei Ivanov: considering one end of geopolitics” (paper). Invited Conference in Honor of Geography Professor A. B. Murphy. Eugene, OR. June. 2023. “Imagining ‘Russia’ from east to west: integrating Eurasia into the Russian imagination” (paper). Workshop on Geographical Imaginaries in Central and Eastern Europe: Space in politics, history, culture and religion after 1989. Lund University, Sweden. May. 2023. “Digging Under Regionalization: How to Re-map ‘Russia’ in Eurasia” (paper); co-organizer of session “Words for Mapping Eurasia: Vectors of Colonization and Nation-State Formation.” Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers (AAG), Denver, CO. March. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2023-2025. Title VIII Fellow at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Russia and East European Summer Research Workshop. December 2021. Writer-in-residence at Hemingway House, Community Library, Ketchum, ID. July 2019, 2016. ArcGIS mapping Workshop and attendance at Esri User Conference, San Diego, CA. Supported by Mellon Travel Grants, The College of Idaho. June-July 2017. Short-term Research Grant, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC.

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Amy Truksa

Alan Minskoff

Deborah Hartwell

Megan Dixon