Clark University - Clark News fall 2004
News Briefs (fall 2004)
The University Park Partnership (UPP), a collaboration between Clark University and the Main South Community Development Corporation (CDC), received Massachusetts' first Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration. The award recognizes model collaborations between colleges and community groups and carries a $10,000 prize. It was presented on Sept. 27, during a ceremony at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
"Clark and the Main South CDC are honored to have our University Park Partnership recognized for this award," says Jack Foley, executive assistant to the President. "The Carter Award places great emphasis upon true collaboration, shared decision-making and sustainability, characteristics that we know have been critical to the success of the University Park Partnership."
For years, UPP has improved the lives of the residents in Worcester's Main South neighborhood. For more than 16 years, Clark has spent $6 million, and helped secure $30 million more, on revitalization efforts and has helped rehabilitate buildings, encourage home ownership and business development, improve public safety, provide recreation and improve educational opportunities for the residents of Main South. Clark helped found the Main South CDC and the University Park Campus School, a free neighborhood secondary school that was recently dubbed the only "high-performing" urban high school in the state by MassINC.
Selected from 21 entrants, the other two finalists were the Mission Hill/Fenway Technology Collaborative in Boston, a partnership of Wentworth Institute of Technology and the nonprofit Mission Main Resident Services Corporation; and the Possible Selves Partnership, a project of Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Mass., and the non profit Girls Inc. of Holyoke, Mass. The three collaborations were highlighted through a video presentation at the Sept. 27 ceremony.
More information about UPP is available at www.clarku.edu/local/upp.
Clark to host Regional Mock Trial Competition in February
Clark will host the New England Regional Mock Trial Competition Feb. 25-27, 2005. This dynamic event hasn't been held at Clark since 1998.
The undergraduate Prelaw Society, the Mock Trial Team and its coach Judge Tim Hillman, the Career Services Office and Government Department Chair Mark Miller are working together to bring 20 teams to Clark to debate this year's case. This weekend event will feature four rounds, including a championship round on Sunday to decide the winning team. Awards will be presented in a culminating brunch in Tilton Hall on Sunday.
Alumni are encouraged to help make this prestigious program a success. Clark is seeking:
- Lawyers who can judge the rounds (one on Friday, three on Saturday);
- Volunteers to help the teams and judges find their way around campus.
If you are interested in helping Clark host this wonderful event, please contact professor Mark Miller, mmiller@clarku.edu, or Career Services Director Hilles Hughes, hhughes@clarku.edu.
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Tina Zlody, a staff member in the Visual and Performing Arts Department, received this year's John W. Lund Award for Community Service.
Presented at Fall Convocation, the Lund Award recognizes Zlody's commitment to Worcester artists and her work to revitalize the cultural life of the city. Since 2001, she has been a strong advocate for Worcester's arts community, beginning with her involvement in Worcester Rising and Worcester Artists Rallying Together (wART)/stART on the Street. Zlody has been at the heart of these groups, working to raise awareness of and support for the city's visual and performing artists and its growing arts and cultural district.
Through her involvement with Worcester Rising and wART/stART, Zlody has worked with the Worcester Arts District Task Force, ARTSWorcester, the Worcester Artist Group, many galleries and performance and arts groups. She is also instrumental in planning wART's annual stART on the Street Arts Festival, held in September on Main Street. For the past two years, fundraising for the stART festival has begun with a 50/50 art sale in the Schiltkamp Gallery in Clark's Traina Center for the Arts. Zlody's work to bring the art of area and Clark artists to campus helps fulfill part of the Traina Center's role as a hub for community arts events. She also encourages Clark students to volunteer for stART and has organized shows for Clark student artists.
Zlody is also on the Board of Directors for Worcester's Bijou Community Cinema, runs the Bijou's art gallery and collects books from the Clark community to support a program that teaches homeless mothers how to read to their children.
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The President's Lecture Series continued this fall with a reading and talk by Robert Pinsky, former U.S. poet laureate and creative-writing professor at Boston University. The event was also part of Clark's Higgins Modern Poetry Series and kicked off the Worcester Poetry Fall Festival.
"We're honored to host such an accomplished poet on our campus," says President John Bassett. "The excellence of Robert Pinsky's work is widely recognized, and his strength as a speaker about and reader of poetry is unmatched."
Pinsky teaches graduate creative writing at Boston University, serves as the poetry editor of the weekly Internet magazine, Slate, and contributes to the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS. He served a three-year term as the poet laureate of the United States from 1997 to 2000 and founded the Favorite Poem Project, which celebrates, documents and promotes poetry's role in Americans' lives. The Project has yielded three anthologies. The third, "Invitation to Poetry," will be published this fall and will include a DVD collection of Americans reading their favorite poems.
Pinsky is the author of 17 books including "Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry," "The Want Bone," "Sadness and Happiness" and "Lander's Poetry." His book "An Explanation of America" was awarded the Saxifrage Prize; "History of My Heart" won the William Carlos Williams Prize; and "The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996" won the 1997 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His collection of essays "Poetry and the World" received a National Book Critics Circle Award nomination.
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| Participants in the 2004 Summer Institute for Writing Center Directors and Professionals, held at Clark in July (Photo by Tammy Woodard M.A. '98) |
>From July 11 through 16, some 50 writing-center directors from across the country gathered at Clark for the 2004 Summer Institute for Writing Center Directors and Professionals.
Participants included writing-center directors and professionals from a wide range of colleges and universities, such as Utah Valley State College; Western Illinois University/Quad Cities Campus; Georgia State University; University of Miami; Borough of Manhattan Community College; University of Houston-Downtown; Western Kentucky University; California State University, San Bernardino; University of Maine; Texas A&M University; Syracuse University; Simmons College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among many others. The Institute included workshops about a wide variety of topics, such as teaching models for writing centers, tutor and staff training, tutoring ESL students, administration, assessment, leadership, Web-site design and technology, and publishing and scholarship.
The Institute was organized by Clark's Writing Center Director Anne Geller.
The following faculty were recognized at Fall Convocation for excellence in teaching and research.
- Chemistry professor David Thurlow, Outstanding Academic Adviser.
- Professor Kristen Williams of the Government and International Relations Department, Outstanding Academic Adviser and Oliver and Dorothy Hayden Junior Faculty Fellowship Award.
- Screen-studies professor Timothy Shary, Outstanding Teacher Award and Hodgkins Junior Faculty Award.
- Anne Ellen Geller, director of the Writing Program and Writing Center, Seymour N. Logan Faculty Fellowship.
- Theater professor Gino DiIorio '83, Seymour N. Logan Faculty Fellowship.
- Sociology professor Robert Ross, University Senior Faculty Fellowship Award.
- Professor Laura Hammond of the International Development, Community and Environment Department, Hodgkins Junior Faculty Award.
In addition, graduate student Shiva Aliabadi received the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.
A full listing of faculty and student awards is on the Clark Web site at www.clarku.edu/convocation.
Anton fellowships support 10 undergraduates
Ten undergraduates are pursuing independent scholarly research, creative projects and community-service activities this year with the support of the Anton Fellowship Program. These students undertook projects over the summer, and some will continue their work during this academic year.
The Anton Fellowship Program was established by Barbara '56 and Thomas '56 Anton to give undergraduates more opportunities to explore original research, creative endeavors or public-service projects. This year, the fellowships allowed the following students to pursue intellectual and creative quests related to community development and conflict resolution, environmental and biological science, history, literature and fine art.
- Akosua Ampofo '05 conducted research in Rwanda exploring how members of an impoverished community of "child-headed households" are trying to improve their living conditions.
- Timothy Currie '07 traveled to Southern Peru to study the influence of climate change and market forces on agricultural practices and land-use/cover-change in the Andes.
- David DuBois '05 is examining whether the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in Massachusetts was really a transition from a subsistence-based agricultural society to a modern commercial state.
- Timothy Dzurilla '05 is creating an interactive multimedia ethnography chronicling the experiences of a group of American student volunteers working on a rain forest reservation in Costa Rica.
- Zachary Galen '05 traveled to Berlin, Germany, to study the relationships among jazz music, German philosophy and German culture.
- Alejandra Jaramillo '06 is part of a research team in British Columbia, Canada, investigating conservation policies and projects to protect the threespine stickleback fish, which is a model organism for the study of evolution.
- Susan Munroe '05 traveled by car along back roads and old two-lane highways through parts of Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and is writing about the people she met and the landscapes, cultures and issues she encountered along the way, as part of her senior thesis.
- Alejandra Molina '05 is researching grassroots efforts to achieve conflict resolution and reconciliation in Cyprus, after 40 years of fighting between the Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots.
- Entela Nako '06 is conducting laboratory experiments ultimately aimed at learning why most individuals who carry a particular dominant gene that causes tumors develop cancer while a small percentage who carry the gene do not.
- Sarah Reardon '05 is creating a series of paintings that reflect the cultural diversity of the Clark student community and plans to display the paintings on campus this fall.
This is the fourth year of the Anton Fellowship Program. The fellowships range from $500 to $2,500. Recipients also become members of the Society of Anton Fellows, which meets at special gatherings throughout the year to share their projects and experiences with each other and their faculty mentors. The Anton Fellowship Program is directed by Professor Sharon Krefetz.
Read more about the 2004 Anton fellows on the Clark Web site at www.clarku.edu/discover.
Several members of the Clark faculty have published books during the past year. The following are the most recent titles:
- Art Historian Gauvin Bailey: "The Art of Colonial Latin America, 1492‹1820." Bailey presents the Spanish and Portuguese colonial influence on the art of South America and the southwestern United States. It is considered the only accessible, fully illustrated book on this subject. The book is published by Phaidon Press Ltd., the United Kingdom's leading art publisher.
- Sociologist Parminder Bhachu: "Dangerous Designs: Asian Women Fashion the Diaspora Economies." This book is about London-based Asian women designers, fashion entrepreneurs and style innovators who have created globally influential micromarkets of design and fashion from the hybridizing margins. The book provides insights into the complexities of globalization, which overlooks the pathbreaking economics and cultural role of women as border-crossing designers and creators of new worldly markets.
- Research professor Dick Ford: "War Destroys: Peace Nurtures, Somali Reconciliation and Development," co-authored by Hussein M. Adam and Edna Adan Ismail. The volume presents analyses of the much-needed peace-building process in Somalia and Somaliland from political, cultural, gender, religious and economic perspectives.
- Laura Hammond, professor in the International Development, Community and Environment Department: "This Place Will Become Home: Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia." Drawing on her fieldwork from 1993 to 1995 and regular shorter visits since, Hammond describes the process by which a place is made meaningful for refugees returning from Sudan through everyday practice and social interaction.
- Dorothy Kaufmann, professor of French: "Édith Thomas: A Passion for Resistance." Édith Thomas (19091970) was deeply involved in the traumatic upheavals of her time, most crucially the resistance to Nazi occupation and the collaborationist Vichy regime. The book is based in large part on the previously unavailable diaries that Thomas, a historian, novelist and journalist, chose not to publish during her lifetime.
- Sociologist Robert Ross: "Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops." The book is a lesson in social history and a warning about one of the most important issues facing global business: the reappearance of sweatshops. Ross documents the history and structure of the 20th-century fall and tragic rebirth of sweatshop conditions in the American apparel industry in the context of globalization.
- William Tapply, English Department instructor: "The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing the Modern Whodunit," "Bitch Creek," "Second Sight" and "Gone Fishin': Ruminations on Fly Fishing." See page 7 for more about Tapply's books.
- Research professor Barbara Thomas-Slayter: "Southern Exposure: International Development and the Global South in the Twenty-First Century." This book examines how globalization is affecting ordinary people in the Global South, or "the Developing World" in which poverty is a widespread characteristic.
- Art Historian Kristina Wilson: "Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design During the Great Depression." Wilson's first book offers a fascinating look at how designers in the 1930s mixed avant-garde principles with middle-class taste and marketing savvy to generate a distinctly American streamlined aesthetic. This book will be released in November.
Alumni events are held throughout the country all year long. But this summer, the Clark Alumni Association also tried something a little different.
On Aug. 5, Clark's eight regional communities held informal gatherings for Alumni Community Welcome Day (see page 18). The events were hosted by alumni in Boston, Hartford, Conn., Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, southern Florida, southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C., to welcome alumni from the Class of 2004 and new students from the Class of 2008. According to Elyse Darefsky '79, national chair of the Clark Alumni Communities, the events were successful.
"For our first attempt at something like this, I was very pleased with the turn out," says Darefsky, noting that many of the events had a good mix of new students and alumni. "And that's what the communities are all about."
Parents of new students, she said, were especially pleased to be able to meet other Clark parents in their area and have their children meet before arriving at the University. At First-year Move-in Day on Aug. 20, Darefsky saw many of these parents, who continued to praise the event. In San Francisco, Darefsky added, a high-school student who is interested in Clark walked by the reception, saw the Clark banner and joined the event to learn more about the University.
In the future, Darefsky would like to have more recent graduates involved in the Welcome Day and expand the event to other regions.
"One of the primary goals of our regional communities is to foster communication among alumni living in a particular area. These events showed that Clarkies don't always need a big, formal event with a guest speaker to do that," Darefsky adds. "The Alumni Welcome Day was a chance to get together on an informal basis, just to meet and connect with current and future alumni. It was a terrific first step toward achieving our goal."
More information about the Regional Alumni Communities and how to establish one in your area is available on the Web at: www.clarku.edu/alumnicommunity.
Sixty-seven new incoming students started their college careers not in the classroom, but in the trees at Clark Trek.
This was the second year Clark Trek has been offered as an optional outdoor orientation program for new students. The program takes place one week prior to Clark's on-campus orientation for all new students and is held at Bement Camp in Charlton, Mass., home of one of the largest high- and low-ropes courses in New England. By undertaking some of the more than 60 outdoor challenges at Bement Camp, students learn about problem solving, taking intellectual risks, communication and team building. Some of the challenges include a zip wire, climbing wall and spider web.
Clark Trek is designed to help new students with the transition to college life. In addition to exploring crucial skills, participants develop a close network of friends and make important connections with upperclass students, who serve as group leaders. Last year, 40 students participated in Clark Trek. According to Dean of Students Denise Darrigrand, the decision to continue the program was clear.
"The group of 40 students last year went on to serve as the core of the Class of 2007 and had amazing individual success during the course of their first year," Darrigrand says. "Clark Trek's growth in one year from 40 to 67 participants shows the level of enthusiasm for this adventure."
Learn more about Clark Trek on the Web at www.clarku.edu/clarktrek.
The following tenure-track faculty have joined Clark for the 2004-05 academic year.
- Robert Boatright joins the Government and International Relations Department from the Campaign Finance Institute in Washington, D.C., where he was a research fellow. His term begins in January 2005.
- Odile Ferly joins the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department from Saint Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. Ferly teaches French.
- Amy Ickowitz joins the Economics Department from the University of California, Riverside.
- Lisa Kasmer joins the English Department with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
- Thomas Kuehne joins the History Department and the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies as the Strassler Family Professor in the Study of Holocaust History.
- Deborah Martin joins the Graduate School of Geography from the University of Georgia and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, where she was a summer fellow.
- Kristina Wilson joins the Visual and Performing Arts Department with a Ph.D. from Yale University. Wilson teaches art history.
"Clark has been fortunate the last few years to recruit some of the best scholar-teachers in the world to its faculty," says President John Bassett. "These are people equally committed to their students and to advancing knowledge in their field. A generation of our best is retiring, but there is every indication that their successors will be at least as good, if not better."
>Morgan "Mo" Cassara has joined Clark as the new head men's basketball coach. Cassara replaces Paul Phillips who became the dean of students at St. John's High School in Shrewsbury, Mass.
"I am extraordinarily pleased to welcome Morgan to the Clark family," says Athletic Director Linda Moulton. "His interpersonal skills, strong recruiting network, proven success as a coach and close ties in Worcester are a good match for Clark's outstanding reputation and commitment to athletics. We are confident that Morgan will build upon the rich tradition and success that Paul Phillips brought to the program during the last eight years."
Cassara served as an assistant coach at Dayton University for the 2003-04 season and was previously the head coach at Worcester Academy for four seasons. Considered one of the best preparatory school coaches and top recruiters in the country, he brings to Clark a wealth of experience. His four-year record of 89-20 at Worcester Academy closed with a 25-4 season and Worcester's first New England Prep School championship in 16 years. His championship team has eight players headed to Division I schools next year. Cassara has also coached Boston College's Craig Smith, Georgia Tech's Jarrett Jack and Wisconsin's Jason Chappell. Before taking over at Worcester Academy, Cassara spent two seasons as a college assistant coach, one each at the Citadel and Washington & Lee.
"Clark University has a wonderful tradition of academic and athletic success," Cassara says. "I am thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to be associated with such a special school and basketball program."
A native of Canton, N.Y., Cassara played four years at St. Lawrence University, where he was captain of the university's 1997 NCAA-qualifying team and earned a B.S. degree in physical education. Cassara also holds a master's degree in higher education and administration from Boston College.
Departments
BIOLOGY: David Hibbett was awarded $133,487 in supplemental funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research on "Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life."
EDUCATION: Tom Del Prete was awarded his third year of funding from the U.S. Department of Education. Del Prete received a $330,687 grant for the "Community Teacher Recruitment Induction."
GEOGRAPHY: Graduate student Susannah McCandless, advisers B.L. Turner II and Dianne Rocheleau, received a $12,000 NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research grant for her studies on "Landscape and Livelihood Effects of Land Trusts." Paul Foley, adviser Turner, was awarded a three-year NSF Graduate Fellowship, with $45,000 in the first year. Chunling Liu, adviser Roger Kasperson, was awarded $10,000 in support from the International START Secretariat for her doctoral dissertation research in China. (See also George Perkins Marsh Institute for geography faculty support.)
PSYCHOLOGY: James Laird, Jaan Valsiner, Lee Rudolph and Nick Thompson received a $28,599 grant from the NSF for "Acquisition of Physiological Monitoring Equipment for Research on the Stimuli in Tactile, Auditory, and Visual Domains that Elicit Emotional Responses." Esteban Cardemil received $151,639 in supplemental funding from the National Institutes of Health for his research on "Prevention of Depression in Latino Parents." Elaine Reese was awarded $97,605 in supplemental funds from the National Institutes of Health for her research on "Enhancing Low-Income Children's Emergent Literacy."
GEORGE PERKINS MARSH INSTITUTE: Gil Pontius entered a subcontract agreement with the Marine Biological Laboratory, funded by NSF, for research on "Plum Island Ecosystems Long-Term Ecological Research." The subcontract totals $48,500, with $7,000 granted in the first year. Pontius also received $15,593 in supplemental support from Pennsylvania State University, funded by NSF, for the summer Human Environment Research Observatory (HERO) program with three undergraduate participants. B.L. Turner II was awarded a grant of $149,684 from the NSF for research on "Coupled-Natural Human Systems." Turner also received $60,000 in supplemental funds from Pennsylvania State University, funded by NSF, for research on the HERO program. Seth Tuler, research fellow at the George Perkins Marsh Institute, was awarded a contract of $49,954 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Northeast Fisheries Science Center for a "Pilot Study on Fishing and Related Activities and Environmental Justice Issues in New England." Ron Eastman was awarded a contract of $23,590 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for research on "Gypsy Moth Mapping for Uninfested Portions of the United States." Rob Goble received $199,654 in additional support from the Department of Energy for his research on "Biologically-Based Risk Modeling with a Focus on Cellular Repair Mechanisms for Radiation-Induced Damage."
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Clarknews Fall 2004
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