“Publication” Class Notes
Oneya Okuwobi (Col ’01 CM)
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi (Col ’01 CM) released her first monograph, Who Pays for Diversity? Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It with University of California Press, on March 18, 2025. Drawing on accounts of employees from across the workplace spectrum, from corporations to churches to universities, Who Pays for Diversity? details how the optics of diversity programs undermine the competence of employees while diminishing their well-being and workplace productivity. Okuwobi argues that diversity programs have been a costly detour on the path to racial justice, and getting back on track requires solutions that provide equity, dignity, and agency to all employees, instead of defending the status quo. Dr. Okuwobi is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati.
Corinna Barrett Lain (Law ’96)
Corinna Barrett Lain (Law ’96) published Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection (NYU Press 2025). Based on seven years of deep research, this exposé takes readers into the notoriously secretive world of American executions, using shocking revelations about lethal injection to shine a light on the American death penalty more broadly. The story of lethal injection is a story of state law-breaking and cover-ups, fake science and torturous drugs, gross incompetence by woefully inept executioners, and a stunning indifference to the way prisoners die at the hands of the state. She examines all the ways that the state cannot be trusted with the power to take life, and all the ways it has tried to cover that up.
Corinna is the S.D. Roberts & Sandra Moore professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law.
Amey Victoria Adkins-Jones (Col ’05 CM)
Amey Victoria Adkins-Jones (Col ’05 CM) will release her first monograph, Immaculate Misconceptions: A Black Mariology with Oxford University Press, on April 17. The book provides a Protestant and womanist perspective toward the Black Madonna as a subject, thinking about religious notions of sexual assault, purity, and Blackness. The Reverend Adkins-Jones is a professor of theology and African and African diaspora studies at Boston College.
Meena Khandelwal (Col ’85, Col ’88, Col ’95)
Meena Khandelwal (Col ’85, Grad ’88, Grad ’95) has published her second ethnographic monograph, Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women’s Technology in India. It examines traditional, biomass-burning mud stoves, the women who build and use them, and the experts who have been trying to ‘improve’ them for decades. She answers the question of why so many Indian women continue to use wood-burning, smoke-spewing stoves when they have other options. Khandelwal, a professor of anthropology, recently won the 2025 President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Iowa, her third teaching award.
Duncan Clarke (Grad ’70 CM)
Duncan Clarke (Grad ’70 CM) has published a new novel, Murder on the Appalachian Trail. The novel follows a criminal law professor who works with his beloved German Shepherd, a runaway teen and the FBI to solve a series of murders on the Appalachian Trail. Clarke, who has hiked the Appalachian Trail twice, draws on his experience and love of the trail in his writing. Murder on the Appalachian Trail can be found online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It is published by Bell Isle Books. Clarke is a professor emeritus of international relations at American University and is a member of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
Jason Baer (Col ’08)
Jason Baer (Col ’08) has published a short children’s book, Good Morning, Trash Truck. The book, loosely based on experiences from his time in Brooklyn, New York, follows a trash truck and crew as they drive to different parts of the city, collecting the neighborhood trash. The book can be found on Amazon.
Walter Lee Fanning (Med ’70, Intern ’71)
Walter Lee Fanning (Med ’70) has published Microbial Mysteries: A Rocky Road, under the pseudonym Lee F. Walters MD. Microbial Mysteries is the third release in a trilogy of semiautobiographical medical thrillers published by Friesen Press in Vancouver. The novel follows the Walter couple, whose medical careers are caught between an unstable associate and a mafia boss. It is available at various online book sellers.
Bruce Dierenfield (Grad ’77, Grad ’81)
Bruce Dierenfield (Grad ’77, Grad ’81) has published his seventh book, Separating Church and State: How the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union Led the Nation in Religious Liberty (2024).
Daniel Frisch (Arch ’87 CM)
Daniel Frisch (Arch ’87 CM) has published Looking Forward to Monday Morning (ORO Editions 2025), a collection of essays. Frisch is an architect based in New York City and a member of the American Institute of Architects.
Ian Jenkins (Col ’97, Med ’01)
Ian Jenkins (Col ’97, Med ’01) has published Romeo and Julian, a re-telling of the classic play in which queer kids and biracial boys and trans people get to have an adventure even more grand than the original, while taking on present day concerns like racism, homophobia, the substance use disorder epidemic, and resistance against the trying political system we’re living under.
The book includes events up to President Donald Trump’s nominations for major administration posts in 2025. Jenkins worked from the play’s original framework and substituted his own passion and experiences and events straight from the headlines.
Jenkins’ first book, Three Dads and a Baby, was featured on podcasts and morning shows on five continents.
The Kindle version of his new book is for sale now, with the print edition coming soon.
David Hein (Col ’76, Grad ’82 CM)
David Hein (Col ’76, Grad ’82 CM) has published Teaching the Virtues (Mecosta House, 2025), a primer for parents and teachers of secondary school students on how to teach the theological and cardinal virtues as well as such essential traits as humility, patience, perseverance, gratitude, and generosity. Hein is currently distinguished teaching fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.
Rozanne “Roze” Worrell (Col ’82 CM)
Roze Worrell (Col ’82 CM) has published HEARTS: Finding Unexpected Signs of Hope, Comfort, and Joy. The book explores her profound experience of connecting with the divine through “heart-finds” and seeking their meanings.
After a series of significant life events, including the loss of a cherished heart necklace, Worrell started finding hearts. Everywhere. She wasn’t looking for them, but they seemed to be looking for her. From rocks to bits of foil, charms to blotches of oil, each heart-find appeared at a particular time and seemed to deliver a particular message. To Worrell, they were God’s way of telling her, “It’s okay. I’m here. You have all you need.”
Worrell started documenting the phenomenon with photos and journal entries, sharing her discoveries with friends and family members. These “field notes” not only resonated with them but they also started noticing the presence of hearts in their own lives.
Worrell’s approach embraces equal parts coincidence and providence. Her practical take-aways offer a guide to living well no matter the circumstance. In HEARTS, she shares some of her favorite finds–from hundreds found over forty years–conveying how the ordinary and the extraordinary alike can be divine interventions if we’re willing to embrace them.
Debbie Levy (Col ’78 CM)
Debbie Levy (Col ’78 CM) has published A Dangerous Idea: The Scopes Trial, the Original Fight Over Science in Schools, the first of three books she will publish in 2025. Levy will also publish Photo Ark 1-2-3: An Animal Counting Book in Poetry and Pictures and The Friendship Train: A True Story of Helping and Healing After World War II.
Levy’s previous books for children and young adults have put her on the New York Times bestseller lists and earned awards including the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Virginia Library Association’s Jefferson Cup Award.
Libby Buck (Col ’85 CM)
Libby Buck (Col ’85 CM) will publish her debut novel, Port Anna, with Simon & Schuster in July. The book explores second chances and a blossoming romance in a charming port town in Maine.
Cara Goodwin (Col ’07 CM)
Cara Goodwin (Col ’07 CM) has recently been published in CharlottesvilleFamily magazine. Her article is about the science behind toilet training. After a deep dive into current medical research, she distilled the findings into easy-to-understand action items to help parents. This is part of an ongoing series for the publication and will include future articles on sleep in childhood, parenting styles, mother burnout, developmental milestones, childhood anxiety and more. A licensed psychologist, Goodwin is the founder of Parenting Translator and the mother of four young children.
Stephen Cunha (Engr ’91)
Stephen Cunha (Engr ’91) has published The Seven Heavenly Letters: An Exposition of Revelation 2 & 3. Translated from the original Latin, the book is an erudite, pastoral exposition of the seven letters of Jesus Christ to the seven churches by the great sixteenth-century Protestant reformer Heinrich Bullinger. It is Cunha’s third book.
Billy Wynne (Law ’04)
Billy Wynne (Law ’04) will publish The Empty Path: Finding Fulfillment Through the Radical Art of Lessening, with New World Library on March 18. Wynne and his family live in Colorado. His daughter is a first-year student at Cornell.
Andrew Ceperley (Grad ’89)
Andrew Ceperley (Grad ’89) has published Tone Setters in the Academy: How to Build an Inspired Life as a University Administrator. The book offers practical strategies, known as “tone setter mindsets,” to help administrators dealing with challenges such as campus politics, the lack of promotional opportunities, and workplace dynamics cultivate their unique tone, manage energy, and build resilience. Ceperley is a seasoned university administrator, consultant, and a professional certified coach for individuals and teams serving colleges and universities throughout the world.
Cecilia Tomko (Educ ’92, Col ’92 CM)
Cecelia Tomko (Col ’92, Educ ’92 CM) has published Sacred Stones, a novel set in her adopted home of Butler, Pennsylvania, where a man inherits his great-grandmother’s house. When his 10-year-old daughter begins to experience strange visions of the past, each glimpse of her ancestors leads the family closer to bringing long-buried secrets of theft, deceit and betrayal into the light.
Tomko moved to Butler in 2010. Impacted by the closing of a major steel railcar company almost 30 years earlier, much of its Main Street was boarded up. Tomko fell in love with the town and its history, as well as the surrounding beauty of western Pennsylvania. She hopes the book, which is packed with history and descriptions of local gems, will bring positive attention and tourism to the town.
Steven Johnson (Grad ’84, Grad ’90)
Steven Johnson (Grad ’84, ’90) has published Jim Londos: The Golden Greek of Professional Wrestling through McFarland Books. The Golden Greek studies a worldwide icon of the Depression era against a backdrop of immigration, athletic entertainment and Greek identity. It is part of McFarland’s series on strength and physical culture. Johnson writes on a contract basis for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, from which he retired as managing editor.
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