Clark University - Clark News fall 2005
Newsbriefs (fall 2005)
Ten undergraduates are following their intellectual curiosity this year with the support of the Anton Fellowship Program. These students conducted research this summer in all parts of the globe, and some will continue their work through the academic year. All of the students will present their work at Fall Fest of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities or at Academic Spree Day.
- Sarah Abrams '08 taught English in a school in a sugar-cane cutting village in the Dominican Republic and conducted research on Haitian immigrant families, focusing on what influences their decisions about their children's education, and what impact their children's education has on their access to health care and job opportunities.
- Rebe cca Dezan '06 organized and ran an after-school youth soccer program in Xela, Guatemala, and in a remote mountain community on a coffee plantation in the highlands.
- Sean Hurley '06 researched the "green market" by interviewing owners and customers of environmentally friendly businesses in Portland, Maine, Burlington, Vt., suburban Philadelphia and two cities in Oklahoma.
- Michael LaFrancis '06 conducted research at the University of Virginia's William Faulkner Collection, studying influences on Faulkner's work and specifically on his novel "The Sound and the Fury."
- Christopher Miller '06 is developing a photography exhibit and hand-made book on the history of the Standard Foundry in Worcester—an abandoned, dilapidated building that was built during the 19th-century Industrial Revolution and was for several generations a thriving factory that employed thousands of immigrants to Worcester.
- Gwladys Ngo Tegda '06 spent the summer at the Eth ics Institute of South Africa in Pretoria doing research on South Africa's new Code of Conduct, created to clean up government corruption, and assessing current ethics management in the public sector. The Ethics Institute plans to publish her written report, including her recommendations on how to improve ethics management.
- Elizabeth Waste '07 developed a history of the hammer dulcimer—a musical instrument that's a member of the zither family—and took lessons to learn to play it.
- Larissa Price '06 was in Uruguay this summer conducting research at the Biblioteca Nacional in Montevideo and at the Museo de Revolucion Industrial in Fray Bentos for a history of the livestock industry in Uruguay and the influence of that country's economic policies on it.
- Adam Tomczik '06 researched Jack Kerouac's vision of America, looking at his novels, journal entries, letters and correspondence and then traveling across the United States this summer, by car and by bus, retracing Kerouac's travels.
- Evan Wilson '06 spent several months interning and doing volunteer work with the Child Hope Initiative Project in squatter settlements in an area of Namibia with high rates of unemployment, crime and HIV/AIDS.
This is the fifth year of the Anton Fellowship Program, which was established by Barbara '56 and Thomas '56 Anton to give undergraduates more opportunities to explore original research, creative endeavors and public-service projects. The fellowships range from $500 to $2,500. Recipients also become members of the Society of Anton Fellows, which gathers at special events throughout the year to share their projects and experiences with each other and their faculty mentors. Professor Sharon Krefetz directs the program.
Read more about the 2005 Anton fellows on the Clark Web site at www.clarku.edu/offices/research/.
| On Campus: |
|
The following faculty were recognized for excellence in teaching and research at Fall Convocation, the official start of the academic year, held on Aug. 31.
- Gauvin Bailey, Oliver and Dorothy Hayden Junior Faculty Fellowship Award.
- Amy Richter, Hodgkins Junior Faculty Award.
- Deborah Robertson, Outstanding Teacher Award.
- John Rogan, Hodgkins Junior Faculty Award.
- Valerie Sperling, Outstanding Academic Adviser.
- Mark Turnbull, University Senior Faculty Fellowship Award.
In addition, Zachary Christman and Sarah Hastings received Outstanding Teaching Assistant awards.
A full listing of faculty and student awards is on the Clark Web site at www.clarku.edu/convocation.
The Higgins University Center underwent a transformation this summer to turn the building into a true hub of st udent life. After surveying students to learn how they wanted to use the building, renovations were made to the following areas.
The ground floor—The Grind—now has:
- a new performance space;
- video games and pool tables, which were moved from Dana Commons;
- new furniture.
The first floor now has:
- a renovated main cooking and service area;
- a redesigned dining room;
- late-night food service;
- a coffee house-style eating and lounge area in the Bistro;
- a lounge where the General Store was;
- a patio with tables, chairs and wireless network access outside the new lounge.
Third floor now has:
- a new work area for student organizations.
Judy Earls has been named director of Alumni and Parent Admissions Program (formerly the Alumni Admissions Program) in the Admissions Office. She succeeds Tricia Uber '94, who is taking on other roles in the Admissions Office.
Earls is no stranger to Clark, having worked in the Admissions Office for the last nine years. She was the assistant coordinator of the Alumni Admissions Program and had been serving as senior assistant director of admissions/coordinator for transfer admissions before taking on this new role. Earls is pleased to be back working with alumni and is developing volunteer programs focused on parents.
"I've always enjoyed getting to know Clark's remarkable alumni. The opportunity to be back working with alumni, and also the parents of Clark students, was one I couldn't pass up," Earls says.
If you're interested in joining the Alumni and Parent Admissions Program, e-mail Earls at jearls@clarku.edu.
|
"The Hard Way," a new play by Theater Program Director Gino DiIorio '83, recently won the 2005 BBC World Service/British Council Playwright Competition. DiIorio's play was the best overall by a native English speaker. He received a cash award and an all-expense-paid trip to London to see his play being recorded for broadcast as part of BBC Radio's Play of the Week series.
"The Hard Way" takes place in Sunset Valley, Texas, in 1885. Tyrus Cole, a horse trainer, lives on a ranch with his invalid sister, Mary, whom he has confined to a root cellar. Mary, who is intelligent and at times displays a mystical quality, is never seen throughout the play, but her presence is felt through her wonderful singing voice and her acerbic wit. When Dwight Foley arrives at the ranch seeking help with his horse, he and Mary fall in love and begin plotting the demise of Tyrus. Their plan escalates, and, in the end, the three find themselves trapped in a complex web of greed and secrets.
DiIorio, who joined Clark in 1989, has acted in many films, soap operas and television commercials, as well as more than 100 plays in New York City and regionally. Among his many awards, he won a Berilla Kerr Award for Playwriting in 2003 and his play "Winterizing the Summer House" received a mainstage production at the New Jersey Repertory Theatre in fall 2002. The play was also chosen as one of the top 10 plays in the 2002 Writer's Digest national play competition.
Clark is undergoing an accreditation review with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), a process that happens every 10 years and includes public comment.
Clark has been accredited by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education since 1929 and was last reviewed comprehensively in 1995. The University has been conducting a comprehensive self-study over the last year-and-a-half and will have an evaluation visit on Nov. 13—16, 2005, by a team representing the NEASC's Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. The public is also invited to submit comments about Clark to the commission.
Comments must address substantive matters related to the quality of the University, and they will not be confidential. The commission cannot guarantee that comments received after Nov. 16, 2005, will be considered.
The commission is one of eight accrediting commissions in the United States that provide institutional accreditation on a regional basis. Accreditation is voluntary and applies to the institution as a whole. The commission is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and accredits approximately 200 institutions in the six-state New England region.
Written, signed comments must be received by Nov. 16, 2005, and must include the author's name, address and telephone number. Submit comme nts to:
Public Comment on Clark University
Commission on Institutions of Higher Education
New England Association of Schools and Colleges
209 Burlington Rd.
Bedford, MA 01730-1433
E-mail: cihe@neasc.org
Clark faculty pride themselves on providing undergraduates with extraordinary opportunities to participate in original research and scholarship. In the sciences, many undergraduates even coauthor articles with their faculty mentors. In the 2004-05 academic year, the following undergraduates coauthored articles with chemistry faculty that were published in print and online journals.
- Linsey Stiles '05, a pharmacology Ph.D. student at Tufts University, coauthored with the late chemistry professor Don Nelson "Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Complexes Between Wild-Type and M utant Anthrax Protective Antigen Variants and a Model Anthrax Toxin Receptor" and "Analysis of Complexes Formed between Anthrax Protective Antigen and Models for the Human Anthrax Toxin Receptor," both published in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics (2005).
- Elysia Alvarez '05 coauthored with Nelson and graduate student Jingyan Zhao "Prediction and Analysis of Complexes between the Anthrax Protective Antigen Heptameric ‘Pre-Pore' and the Anthrax Lethal Factor and between the Anthrax Lethal Factor and MPKK-2 Peptide Substrate Models," published in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics (2005). Alvarez is continuing to study anthrax as a research associate at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute.
- Brian Wells '04, a science teacher at Auburn High School in Auburn, Mass., coauthored with Chemistry Department Chair Mark Turnbull, Physics Department Chair Christopher Landee and other researchers at Washington State Universit y and the University of Idaho "Design and Synthesis of Magnetic Ladders: Structure and Magnetic Properties of Cu(2,3-dimethylpyrazine)Br2," published in the Journal of Molecular Catalysis (2005).
- David Azar '02, who is finishing his M.D. at Vanderbilt University, and Jessica Mendes '05, a chemistry Ph.D. candidate at the University of Vermont, coauthored with chemistry professor Alan Jones "Segmental Dynamics of Head-to-Head Polypropylene and Polyisobutylene in Their Blend and Pure Components." The article was published in Macromolecules (2005) and was also coauthored by Ernie Krygier, Clark's Introduction to Chemistry lab director, postdoctoral fellow Guoxing Lin and researchers at Penn State.
Priscilla Elsass, associate dean of Clark's Graduate School of Management, was recently selected for the 2005-06 American Council on Education (ACE) Fellows Prog ram. Elsass is one of 40 college and university senior faculty and administrators in the country to receive the ACE fellowships.
The ACE Fellowship Program is the nation's premier higher-education leadership development program, preparing senior leaders to serve American colleges and universities. ACE fellows spend an extended period of time on another college or university campus, working directly with presidents and other senior leaders to observe how they address strategic planning, resource allocation, development, policy and other issues and challenges.
Elsass is spending the 2005-06 academic year working with Ahmed Abdelal, provost of Northeastern University in Boston. She joined Clark's Graduate School of Management in 1991 and has particular research interests in demographic diversity in work teams, team dynamics, job stress and control in the workplace.
According to Kaplan and Newsweek, Clark University is the place to be.
Clark was recognized by the 2006 Kaplan/Newsweek Guide as one of "America's 25 Hot Schools" and earned the designation "Hottest for Student Research." The guide appeared on newsstands on Aug. 22.
Jay Matthews is the Newsweek contributor and Washington Post reporter who authored the "hottest colleges" article. This perennially popular section of the guide profiles a handful of dream schools and recognizes each for a choice attribute. The list was developed based on admissions trends and interviews with teachers and students. According to Matthews, all of this year's "Hot Schools" are "creating buzz among students, a broad array of educators and admissions experts," and each "is effectively preparing students for the complex world."
"I have a long list of high-school guidance counselors and teachers whom I consult whenever I want to know which colleges are delivering the most value to students," said Matthews, who also listed Clark in his college guide "Harvard Schmarvard." "They tell me that Clark University has become one of the places most often mentioned by high-school graduates who come back to visit their old counselors and say, ‘that college you sent me to is terrific, just like you said.'"
Political scientist Paul Posner received the Northeastern Political Science Association's (NPSA) Pi Sigma Alpha Best Faculty Paper Award for a paper he presented at the NPSA's 2004 conference, held in November 2004 in Boston. Posner will accept the award at the 2005 NPSA conference in Philadelphia in November.
At every NPSA conference, each panel chair may nominate a paper for consideration for either a faculty or graduate-student award. The nominated papers are reviewed by an Award Committe e of faculty who look for a well-written paper that addresses new theoretical ground or makes an important theoretical contribution to the discipline and is relevant to the political process. Posner's winning paper is titled "Development and Collective Action under Neoliberal Democracy: Argentina, Brazil and Chile in Comparative Perspective."
Posner teaches courses in comparative politics, democratic theory, Latin-American politics, environmental politics and inter-American relations. His current research focuses on democratization and political participation in developing regions, particularly Latin America. He is also interested in the impact of economic globalization and related state reforms on social organization and collective action in both developing and developed countries, and in comparative environmental policy and democratization in developing countries. Posner is currently writing a book titled "Popular Participation in Chile's New Democracy."
Departments
BIOLOGY: Todd Livdahl was awarded a new three-year grant totaling $223,500 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research on "Ecology of Large and Small Scale Mosquito Invasions." Deb Robertson received $11,340 in supplemental funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for summer undergraduate research support for her research on "Nitrogen Assimilation in Marine Algae." Graduate student Andrew Wilson (adviser David Hibbett) was awarded a $12,000 Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant from the NSF for research on "Phylogeny, Taxonomy and Eco logy of Calostoma." David Hibbett was awarded $142,625 in supplemental funds from the NSF for his collaborative research on "Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life."
EDUCATION: Tom Del Prete was again awarded funds from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education for the "Clark-Worcester Curriculum and Knowing Project" to improve teacher quality. The grant totals $132,632.
GEOGRAPHY: Yuko Aoyama was awarded a $17,000 grant from the National Geographic Society for research on "The Geography of Cultural Production in the Age of Globalization." Graduate students Jacob Brenner, Alex Pulsipher and Paul Foley received NSF Graduate Research Fellowship support. These awards, which total $121,500 for the 2005-06 academic year, provide three years of dissertation research support in the form of a stipend and an institutional cost-of-education allowance. This is Brenner's first year of the fellowship. Graduate student Stentor Danielson (advisers B.L. Turner II and colin polsky) was awarded an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant of $11,237 for his research on "Discourses about Wildfire in New Jersey and New South Wales." Graduate student Timothy Currie (adviser Turner) was awarded a two-year fellowship totaling $41,500 from the Environmental Protection Agency for his doctoral dissertation research on "Weathered Livelihoods: The Influence of Climate Change and Market Forces on Agricultural Practice s and Land-Use/Cover-Change at the Altitudinal Limit of Cultivation in the Andes." (See also George Perkins Marsh Institute for other geography faculty support.)
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT: See George Perkins Marsh Institute below.
PHYSICS: Chuck Agosta was awarded a three-year grant totaling $347,600 from the Department of Energy for his research on "Novel Superconducting States in Actinides and Other Anisotropic Superconductors."
Research Centers
GEORGE PERKINS MARSH INSTITUTE: Roger Kasperson was awarded a new grant of $139,112 from the Packard Foundation for research on "Sustainability Science and Technology Project: Vulnerability Partnership Team." Dale Hattis has again s uccessfully acquired funds from the Environmental Protection Agency with a new two-year agreement totaling $98,603 for research on "Quantitative Analysis of Empirical Data on Age-Related Susceptibility to Carcinogenisis from Non-Mutagenic Carcinogens." Tim Downs, Laurie Ross, Rob Goble, Halina Brown and Octavia Taylor were awarded $212,552 in continuing funds from the NIH for their research on "Strengthening Vulnerable Communities in the Worcester Built Environment." Ron Eastman received $38,502 in supplemental funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for his research on "Gypsy Moth Risk Mapping for Uninfested Portions of the United States." Gil Pontius was awarded $9,000 in additional support from the Marine Biological Laboratory, funded by NSF, for summer support for his research on "Plum Island Ecosystems LTER."
|
 |
|
Clarknews Fall 2005
|
|
|
|
