Knox College President Teresa Amott announced today gifts and pledges from donors of $5 million toward renovation of the College’s historic Alumni Hall. The fundraising drive is now halfway toward the estimated $10 million total to re-open the 123-year-old building.

“In October, when alumni Gerald and Carol Vovis, and Richard and Joan Whitcomb, donated a total of $2 million, I was confident that their lead gifts would pave the way toward more good news,” Amott said. “Today, as Knox marks this 175th Founders Day celebration, support for Alumni Hall has surpassed $5 million.”

Amott made the announcement at the February 18 meeting in Galesburg of the College’s Board of Trustees.

Exterior work began in December, with restoration of the massive exterior stairways. Knox also has engaged two architectural firms — Holabird Root of Chicago and Metzger-Johnson of Galesburg — and met with students, faculty and staff, to plan the space allocation.

Trustee Mark Kleine spearheaded the task force that developed the Alumni Hall plan and dubbed it the Gateway Project.

“Part of the vision for Alumni Hall is to make it a true gateway to Knox and to the community,” Kleine said. “It will greet visitors and new students when they arrive on campus. It will feature exhibits showcasing our rich college and community history. For students, it will have a key role in their academic success by supporting research and creative endeavors, and as they prepare to leave Knox, it will encourage and salute their further success as alumni.”

In addition to a public Visitors Center, the building will include the Gerald and Carol Klail Vovis Center for Research and Advanced Study. It also will house the Center for Career and Pre-Professional Development and the offices of admission and financial aid.

Alumni Hall was conceived in 1889 to provide meeting spaces for two “literary societies” — student organizations that had a major impact on both the College and the community by sponsoring regular debates and visiting speakers. The cornerstone was laid in 1890 by U.S. President Benjamin Harrison.

While the names of the debating societies, Adelphi and Gnothautii, were carved above the east and west entrances, fundraising for construction was spearheaded by Knox alumni, and “Alumni Building” was carved in stone above the main entry. Although the building has not seen regular use since the 1980s, about $2.5 million in interior and exterior repairs have been completed since then.

“I have always believed that Knox alumni will rise up to support the building that bears their name and its role in fulfilling Knox’s historic mission,” Amott said.

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“[Ford Institute Director] Dr. [Al] Pheley and [art history professor] Bille Wickre helped me come up with this project—I would do summer research on part of the art collection, then do a teaching assistantship for Dr. Wickre’s Native American art class in the fall,” Vezzosi related. “I wanted something that would involve my art major and my Ford internship, so this was perfect.”

Helping Wickre choose pieces to be used in the class, Vezzosi became interested in a collection of Southwestern pots donated in 1949 by Herbert Leonard Cope, an 1898 alumnus. She began the research needed to properly catalog the items—research that raised questions instead of providing answers.

In particular, “Zuni pottery often depicted a deer with a ‘heartline’—a mark that symbolizes the transfer of life from the deer to the hunter,” Vezzosi said. The College had identified its pots as Zuni artwork, but Vezzosi couldn’t find a heartline motif in any of her Zuni materials. She contacted experts at the Zuni pueblo and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, along with an Acoma professor at the University of New Mexico.

“Our pot was definitely Acoma, not Zuni,” Vezzosi said. “I began my summer research studying Zuni pottery. I had to start researching Acoma pottery right before my scheduled presentation! It was cool to make this discovery but stressful, too.”

In January 2012, Vezzosi received a winter travel grant from FURSCA, which she used to travel to New Mexico and meet with Christine Sims, an education professor and member of the Acoma Pueblo, along with Acoma potter Theresa Pasqual. “I was able to gain insight into the pottery process by interviewing Dr. Sims and Ms. Pasqual. I was allowed into part of the pueblo and was able to see the mesa where ceremonies are held. It was truly amazing.”

“One little bit of information turned out to be a stepping stone to another piece and another place,” Vezzosi said. “It was surreal to be a part of the discovery.”

Along with discovering the source of the pot, Vezzosi thinks she may have discovered a source for her future as well. “I hope to further research in this field as I work towards my master’s degree in arts management. I’d love to manage a gallery or museum and am interested in management and marketing,” she said. “When I started this project, I didn’t know what career I wanted to pursue after college, but now I do. This was right up my alley.”

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An intellectual feast, with food and drink and an occasional visiting star. That’s the concept guiding the creation of the Drew Faculty Seminar set to debut February 21.

Four deans and eight faculty members spent the fall designing the series, intended to draw in faculty and staff from the entire Drew community. “It will be a mix of scholarship offered by Drew faculty, outside speakers of some prominence and panel discussions,” says Robert Ready, interim dean of the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, one of the planners. “The idea is to create a more vibrant intellectual culture in this university.”

The first seminar, “Behavior, Ethics and Computations in the Brain,” is scheduled next Tuesday at 4 p.m. in Mead Hall’s Founders Room. The panel includes Graham Cousens, assistant professor of psychology; Minjoon Kouh, assistant professor of physics and Elias Ortega-Aponte, assistant professor of Afro-Latina/o religions and cultural studies.

The new seminar is actually a reinvigorated version of a very old Drew institution, the Aquinas Seminar, which launched in the fall of 1970 and held its final meeting Oct. 3, 2011. For 41 years interested faculty and staff gathered regularly to hear lecturers that included British philosopher Owen Barfield and University of Pennsylvania sociologist Philip Reiff, a specialist on Freud.

During its first three years, the seminar examined the relationship between psychology and history, a topic requested by its early funder, the Aquinas Fund of New York. Later it took on all kinds of annual themes, chosen by a steering committee. They ranged from “Self and Identity” and “Events That Transform Thinking” to “Dimensions of Global Awareness,” following 9/11.

“It was always very exciting. I always felt as if I was on the cutting edge of all these different intellectual currents,” says trustee emerita Shirley Sugerman, a psychoanalyst and former Drew adjunct in religion who coordinated the Aquinas Seminar from its inception. But in recent years attendance declined, especially among new faculty members. “It was losing its luster. We needed new people, new energy.”

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Fun Fact: Laura Wilson ’14 and her family, including sister Sarah ’09, appeared earlier this week on the Family Feud with Steve Harvey. And believe it or not, Wilson’s family has a history with the game show. Their father, Doug Wilson, appeared on the show in 1985 and lost—horribly. It was so bad, in fact, that the Wilson family whips out the video of the show every Christmas for a night of family teasing and entertainment.

So this summer, just for fun, the Wilsons went to L.A. (they live close by) to try out for the game show—and the folks at Family Feud loved them.

Next, they flew off to Atlanta to tape a series of three shows. During taping, the over-thinking Wilsons were told, “Don’t be so cerebral, it’s a simple game.” And Wilson’s dad redeemed himself by winning the game each time—in fact his nickname backstage became “Stone Cold Wilson.”

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We would be remiss not to celebrate 40 years of women of color and miss the opportunity for students to meet the women who’ve paved the way for you to be here and your ability to thrive here, Amaez said to the student audience before introducing Iris W. Davis 78, Karen Hinds 93 and Sue Kim-Ichel ’05.

Davis works with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection; Hinds runs her own company, Workplace Success Group, and is the author of five books; and Kim-Ichel is a Washington D.C-based consultant in the public sector.

Davis admitted that when she was a student in the 70s she encountered more sexism than racism. Youd walk down the middle of campus and hear, Get the co-eds off campus! she said, adding later, It was more about men trying to get used to women, than whites, blacks and Asians trying to get used to each other.

In contrast, Hinds said there was more conflict around race during her years at Bowdoin in the 90s. She recounted the time when she and other students protested the lack of diversity among faculty by forming a ring around an administration building to prevent people from getting inside. The administration wasnt listening to us, she said. We wanted more Latino, black and Asian professors.

Kim-Ichel said now that shes several years out of school, she and her alumni friends bemoan their lack of political or social activism while they were at Bowdoin. My friends regret not getting more passionate about things, and not focusing beyond getting good grades, going to a party or finding the next hook-up. She urged students to not lose the chance to do more while they’re here together.

Hinds’ stories about her struggles trying to find herself at Bowdoin seemed to resonate with the audience. As a black student from the Caribbean who found herself in Brunswick, Maine, she confessed, I had a hodgepodge of identity crises. She continued, My focus was trying to find out who I was. When you come into this environment, it challenges who you are: Do I change? Am I less than? But who you are is already intact and Bowdoin is here just to make you a better person.

The women also offered wise counsel for the students on using the Bowdoin alumni network including the three of them to help them after they graduate. Davis added that the friends that students make at Bowdoin are likely to be some of the best for their lives. Kim-Ichel said, too, that even now shes making friends with Bowdoin peers she didn’t know while a student.

Hinds also told the students that Bowdoin is like a training ground for the real world. By the time I finished this experience, going into a board room that was predominantly white didn’t faze me, she said. When I do speeches in front of people who are older than I am, who are mostly white, it doesn’t faze me.

While the three women described quite different experiences as students during different eras, at least one thing does not seem to have changed at Bowdoin in all 40 years. There was nowhere to get your hair done, not even in Portland, Hinds lamented. A student spoke up, Not even now! eliciting a big round of laughter from the audience and panelists.

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It took writer Peter Grandbois some 40 drafts to get his new novel, Nahoonkara, the way he wanted it before it was published in 2011. He’s happy with it now.

But that doesn’t mean he puts much stock in the fact that it was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. The genial assistant professor at Denison laughs and shrugs when asked about the recognition. “That sounds bigger than it is,” he says. “There must have been several hundred books considered for those prizes.” He acknowledges that the nominations are a high compliment. But more satisfying than such acclaim, he says, is having appreciative readers.

Grandbois’ protests aside, it’s clear that Nahoonkara has been exceptionally well received by critics. “Exquisitely crafted,” one reviewer says. “Haunting,” writes another. “Full of wonders.”

The novel isn’t your standard, straightforward narrative. Told by multiple voices in the first, second, and third persons, it comprises a series of dream-like vignettes about a nineteenth-century family and their life in two places: the homestead in Whitelake, Wis., and a tiny mining town in Colorado. The action moves back and forth among places and times, building the story in nonlinear fashion. Moreover, Nahoonkara seems to partake of several genres – it’s part play, part poetry, part narrative, part flight of fancy. Grandbois calls it experimental fiction.

The novel’s quasi-surreal aura also arises from the author’s use of a writing style called magical realism. Elements of the mysterious – some would say the spiritual – intermingle with realistic features. And aspects of nature, such as spiders, trees, and mountains, play almost conscious, intentional roles.

“Magical realism asks the reader to open up to wonder,” Grandbois says, adding that his characters’ storytelling – and their pursuit of self-identity – show how truth is ever-changing and even becomes increasingly mysterious throughout individuals’ lives.

All of this makes Nahoonkara a perfect tool for Grandbois’ teaching. In his creative writing classes, the author uses parts of the first and the 40th drafts to introduce his students to multiple aspects of the creative process – the challenge of facing a totally blank page, the courage required to take risks and even to fail in their writing, and the necessity of editing, reshaping, and – hardest of all – cutting.

He asks students to build their imaginations by practicing the same painstaking exercises he himself uses, such as creating a one-page “life story” for each character, and narrating an imagined step-by-step walk through a town.

“Half the job in a creative writing class is to help the students improve their craft,” Grandbois says, “and the other half is to open them up to the creative spirit in themselves.” He encourages his students, like the fictional characters he creates, to constantly reinvent themselves as writers.

Grandbois himself is well-practiced in the art of self-reinvention. In a previous incarnation, he competed on the U.S. Fencing Team and nurtured Olympic aspirations. (Nowadays he coaches Denison’s fencing club.) He has worked in his family’s business in Denver, taught high school English in Chicago, and lived for a time in Spain.

Next up for publication? That’ll be a novel told from the point of view of an Ojibwe/Canadian Christian priest who figures in Grandbois’ ancestry. And there’s much more in his writing pipeline.

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Gbowee, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Yemen’s Tawakkul Karman were honored in December as the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize recipients “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work,” in the words of the Nobel Prize committee.

As the founding member and former coordinator of the Liberian Mass Action for Peace, Gbowee brought together women to hold non-violent demonstrations — including sit-ins and even “sex strikes” — that are credited with bringing an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 and ending the rule of President Charles Taylor.

In her Ubben Lecture, Gbowee recalled that she initially became an activist because of anger, not unlike Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and others who came before her. But she quickly learned, as they had, that “you can’t do peace work with anger,” and began a “journey to empowerment” that took her “from village to village, town to town,” to meet with women from all walks of life to discuss Liberia’s civil war and what they could do to bring peace to their communities.

“There is no way you can dedicate your life to peace without having a sense of a higher power,” the 40-year-old Gbowee told the crowd tonight. “You need that. I’m not saying you need to be a Christian, I’m not saying you need to be a Muslim, but I’m saying you have to have a sense of a being that is more supreme than you are.”

Describing what she called “a spirit of generosity,” Gbowee said, “Even if you’ve gone through abuse, even if you’ve been misused, you’re still able to reach out your hand and pull those who offended you in ways the world cannot understand to say, ‘Come, let’s take this journey of peace together.’”

Compassion is also needed, Gbowee added. “You have to be able to look the godfathers and godmothers of violence in the eye and see some bit of good in them. Even if you don’t want to recognize it, you have to see it, because you don’t want to be like them.”

And, she warned, “Dedicating your life to peace is not a day’s job, it’s a calling. You can never do this work if you think it’s a 9-to-5 thing, trust me, I’d be in bed by now.” Having traveled from Africa early this morning to make the trip to Indiana, Gbowee spoke of how she has worked tirelessly for years in the name of improving the human condition, often at the expense of personal and family obligations. “It consumes your life. You have to reach a place where sometimes you say to yourself, ‘Slow down.’ Because you’re biting your nails as you’re following some of the conflicts you worked on, and you’re being called constantly by people in those conflict situations but you never, ever stop. It’s part of you; you can’t rest until you see good come out of something.”

Leymah Gbowee was featured in the award-winning documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell and authored the recently-published memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War. She was recently appointed by President Sirleaf as head of the new peace and reconciliation initiative in Liberia, and has launched a new foundation which will work to promote peace.

“No one leaves a legacy by being quiet, you have to risk being a troublemaker,” declared Gbowee, who received a standing ovation from the packed house at the conclusion of her speech.

“Every soul has a bit of darkness,” Gbowee stated. “What happens to all of us is that we make conscious decisions to either build on our bit of light and lighting those who interact with us, or build on the darkness that we have and destroy people.” She added, “Everyone, in the journey of promoting peace, you have to find that place. Because if you’re able to see that light, you can tap into it for the good of your community.”

In 2007, the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government recognized Gbowee with the Blue Ribbon Peace Award. In 2009, Gbowee and the women of Liberia were given the Profiles in Courage Award by the Kennedy Library Foundation.

She was the ninth Nobel laureate and seventh winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to be welcomed to DePauw as an Ubben Lecturer. The previous visitors included Oscar Arias, F.W. de Klerk, Mikhail Gorbachev, Shimon Peres, Willy Brandt, Elie Wiesel, Leon Lederman, and Ferid Murad, a 1958 DePauw graduate.

According to Gbowee, the value of being a Nobel laureate will be gauged in the future by “how many young people, young women, I’m able to carry along. Ten years from now I want to look back and see this stage full with women who will say to me, ‘Ms. Gbowee, because of you I am this thing.’ Then I can celebrate.”

Gbowee’s visit was made possible with the assistance of Stephanie Paine Crossin ’87 and Sagamore Institute. Prior to taking the stage, the Nobel Peace Prize winner met with a group of DePauw students for an informal discussion and posed for pictures with undergraduates before and after her address.

Established in 1986 through the generous support of 1958 DePauw graduates Timothy H. and Sharon Williams Ubben, the Ubben Lecture Series was designed to “bring the world to Greencastle” and presents events which are available for students, faculty, staff, alumni and the local community to enjoy.

Previous Ubben Lecturers have included President Bill Clinton, who delivered a November 18, 2011 address to a crowd of 5,000 people to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the series. Other guests have been Tony Blair, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto, General Colin Powell, John Major, Barbara Bush, Spike Lee, Naomi Wolf, Mike Krzyzewski, Oscar Arias, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, Ross Perot, Jason Reitman, Gwen Ifill, Mitch Albom, Peyton Manning, General Wesley Clark, Andrew Young, Bob Woodward, Paul Rusesabagina, Paul Volcker, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ralph Nader, Harry Belafonte, Jane Pauley and many others.

To view a complete roster of Ubben Lecturers — which includes links to video clips and news stories — click here.

Nanavati is going on the trip to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organization.

“Their work is extremely inspiring,” Nanavati said. “They willingly go in to horrible conditions to try and serve other people who don’t have a choice to be there. It is a true testament to the humanity of others.”

Nanavati will make the ski crossing with a team of about six people led by a member of Pirhuk Greenland Expedition Specialists. He will have to drag a sled carrying all the supplies he needs to survive for just under a month.

In early February, Nanavati went to Oslo, Norway, to train for the expedition. He described it as an “amazing trip and training” that will prepare him for the time he will spend crossing the second largest ice cap in the world. A typical day during the ski crossing will consist of waking up early, melting snow for water, and skiing for five to 12 hours with only five to 10 minutes for lunch. After the team is done skiing, they will make camp for the evening where once again they will have freeze-dried food for dinner with water that is made from melting snow.

Nanavati hopes to raise $10 for every mile he will be skiing − a total of $3,420. And he’ll document the expedition on his blog.

Nanavati said his passion to begin exploring and challenging himself began in high school in Austin. “I had no sense of direction and was getting into some bad things,” he said. “That is when I saw ‘Black Hawk Down,’ and it just hit something in me. I started reading lots of books on it and the Medal of Honor recipients Gary Gordon and Randy Schughart, and I knew that was something I wanted to do.”

Nanavati withdraw from Southwestern and joined the U.S. Marines in April 2007. As a participant in Operation Iraqi Freedom, he got to be a part of working in a dynamic setting where he served “a higher purpose than yourself.” “I had to work for the group,” he said. “We saw people go out and sacrifice it all for other people.”

It was out of this sense of serving a higher purpose and wanting to sacrifice for others that Nanavati is trying to raise money through his ski expedition to donate to Doctors Without Borders.

Nanavati returned to Southwestern after his deployment and completed a degree in history with a minor in philosophy. He also earned a master’s degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Nanavati currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and volunteers with the local fire departments. He hopes to get his EMT certification soon and would like to work with Doctors Without Borders in the future.

After his Greenland expedition, he plans to take  courses for a life coaching program and hopes to go on several different expeditions, including a trip to the South Pole. He also is starting a business called Amara Adventures that will take people on expeditions around the world.

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When Tim Fallon ’12 walked into the human cellular pulmonology research lab at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Regenerative Medicine to begin his 2010 summer internship, he felt a little intimidated. The research program, which partners with scientists from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, is charged with studying cells in the lungs with the hope of making advancements in the treatment of chronic lung disease.

But Fallon jumped in alongside other interns from Harvard and soon discovered he had nothing to fear. “Having had hands-on experience with my professors at Rollins and the opportunity to do research alongside them amply prepared me for this internship,” said the biochemistry and molecular biology major. “I was definitely academically on par with the other interns in the lab; Rollins is competing quite well with Harvard.”

The following summer, fellow Rollins student and pre-med major Tina Udhwani ’12 joined him in the lab where they continued in the same vein—studying the interactions the cells of the lung have with each other and their environment. No stranger to lab work, Udhwani had previously participated in the Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program with Assistant Professor of Biology Susan Walsh when they studied the identification of proteins interacting with zebrafish Miro in 2010.

During the summer, Fallon’s projects focused on better understanding the cellular interactions, which regulate the adult stem cells of the tracheal epithelium. Udhwani’s projects revolved around investigating the somewhat neglected mesenchymal cells, which underlie the epithelium, and she also worked on developing a new way of delivering drugs solely to the trachea and lungs.

While months of research didn’t produce any earth-shattering discoveries for Fallon and Udwani, the experience was something that immensely invigorated their love of scientific research. “I learned that science has a lot of strikeouts the majority of the time,” Fallon said. “But I loved the intellectual atmosphere and the time I spent doing hands-on experiments. That’s the true way to learn science.”

“It was a lot of work—sometimes 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.,” said Udhwani, who is now considering going to medical school in Boston. “But it was worth every second I spent there.” A native of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Boston was the furthest north Udhwani had ever been.

For Fallon, he’s weighing two choices at the moment: accept the full-time position that was offered to him at the lab or pursue a PhD. Whichever road he chooses, this internship will be an experience he’ll never forget.

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Poison Sonnets

After encouraging a student to write a series of sonnets, Heithaus turned the assignment on himself and began to write sonnets inspired by illustrations of poison plants in an old Webster’s Dictionary. He began publishing some of these sonnets in magazines such as Poetry and the American Poetry Journal and then Heithaus won the prestigious 2007 Discovery/The Nation Prize for a group of ten “Poison Sonnets.” Those sonnets are now the central thread of the book, a weave of fifty-four sonnets exploring the nature of poison and celebrating the complexities of language.

According to David Wojahn, a 2007 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, “There is something of Roethke in Joseph Heithaus’ edgy and muscular sonnets: as with the work of that great master, the poems approach the natural world through a conflation of awe and terror. And– again like Roethke — for Heithaus the natural world and the familial one are helplessly and invariably conjoined. I admire the effortless formal invention of these poems, but it is their steady and concentrated elegiac gaze which gives these poems their authority. Poison Sonnets is a exceptionally noteworthy debut.”

Adds Maurice Manning, finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer in Poetry and former DePauw professor, “Botany and poetic form make good companions — each is intricate, mysterious, and often in league with beauty. But there is a difference: a lowly weed arrives at random and raggedly, whereas a sonnet is alleged to be the result of refinement and design. Joseph Heithaus has placed human life in the middle of this spectrum, and found at the center of his fine book a dark and quiet question. Are we merely evolved, the result of a sum of instincts, or are we more carefully composed? It is an impossible question, the kind we expect poetry to ask.”

Learn more, and order the book, at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com.  You’re also invited to visit the professor’s website.

Heithaus will read from Poison Sonnets on February 23 at 7 p.m. at the Putnam Country Public Library.

The poems of Joe Heithaus have appeared in Poetry, North American Review, the Southern Review, Prairie Schooner and Indiana Review. The professor is one of five “Airpoets,” whose poems have been integrated into stained-glass window murals in the new Indianapolis International Airport and are featured in two books, Rivers, Rails and Runways and Airmail.

Heithaus is the subject of this previous article.

The annual Gates Cambridge Scholarship, similar to Oxford University’s Rhodes scholarship, is awarded for intellectual ability, leadership capacity, and a person’s desire to provide community service and apply his or her talents and knowledge to improve the lives of others. Starting this fall, Evans will pursue an M.Phil. in environment, society, and development. The interdisciplinary degree will help her continue her work in safeguarding the environment while also creating better jobs and working conditions for people in the developing world.

“My lifelong interest is in addressing extreme poverty while creating development policies that mitigate biodiversity loss,” Evans said.

The daughter of a U.S. national park service ranger, Evans grew up in Hawai’i Volcanoes, Yellowstone, and Rocky Mountain national parks, so good stewardship of the environment comes naturally to her.

“Growing up in these pristine areas, I saw the importance of conservation,” Evans said.

She took this interest to academia. As a Richter International Fellow at Occidental, she investigated the social and environmental controversies of boundary fences in African national parks. And as a Lilly Endowment Fellow, Evans examined community-centered conservation at Namibia’s Cheetah Conservation Fund. Her undergraduate mentors included biology professor Beth Braker, English professors Eric Newhall and Dan Fineman, and religious studies professor Dale Wright.

Since her graduation from Occidental with a bachelor’s degree in English and comparative literary studies, Evans has led international development and conservation initiatives at Sustainable Harvest, a Portland, Ore.-based importer of certified organic and fair-trade coffee founded by Oxy alumnus David Griswold ’84. As Sustainable Harvest’s director of farmer development programs, Evans and her team have raised more than $4.4 million for livelihood-improvement programs and have overseen development projects in 11 countries.

Before she aimed for a career in conservation and development, Evans pursued another passion. Between high school and college, she trained under an Olympic gold medalist in the equestrian sport of dressage. She has also faced a big personal challenge–successfully battling a bout of thyroid cancer as a senior in college.

All that behind her, Evans is looking forward to studying at the University of Cambridge. The venerable institution is a good fit: Cambridge is a leader in the emerging research between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction. The university also founded the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, a partnership between leading conservation organizations and six Cambridge University departments.

“This program is the next step to prepare me for a career creating effective policies that reinforce poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation–two of the most critical global challenges of our time,” Evans said.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship began in 2000 when the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation donated $210 million to the University of Cambridge to establish the Gates Cambridge Trust. The largest single donation to a U.K. university, the trust manages all aspects of the Gates Cambridge Scholarships program.

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Centuries before candy hearts and Valentine’s Day even existed, Ancient Greeks had an entirely different symbol for love—the young god Eros. Both Eros and Cupid have a relationship with romantic love, but Eros is described by Homer and other Greek philosophers as being a violent figure. In fact, far from Cupid’s playful bow and arrow, some of Eros’ first weapons were an ax or a whip. So how did we get from this figure to the Hallmark baby that exists today?

Dr. Francesca Tronchin, assistant professor of art at Rhodes, takes a look at symbols of love throughout ancient history:

Eros

“Eros is described in early mythology as this primordial entity,” says Tronchin. “And in most Greek art, he is depicted as a young boy or adolescent teenager. Eros in Greek mythology is hardly this cute, chubby baby who gets people together.” The Greek poet Euripides was the first to describe Eros with a bow and arrow. “It’s not until the Hellenistic period (3rd century BCE) that we start seeing the more “Hallmark” version of Cupid, even though he’s still Eros. Certainly the Greeks believed that Eros had the force to bring people together, but I think the sort of romantic sense comes much later.”

Cupid

According to Roman mythology, Cupid is the son of Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war. “To me, that’s an interesting pairing,” says Tronchin. “Love and War produce this personification of emotional love.” Tronchin says depictions of Venus and Mars in loving embraces are common starting in the Roman period and then continuing on into the Italian Renaissance and beyond. “The Roman Cupid is much more romantic than his Greek counterpart Eros.” As early as the 2nd century BCE, Cupid-like figures

were appearing in Roman art. Another closely related figure was Hymen, who represented the personification of fidelity in marriage. “On some ancient Roman sarcophagi, we can see images of Hymen in scenes of husband and wife being married. He is frequently seen with a torch, and is always associated with marriage.” In some pieces from the Italian Renaissance, Cupid and Hymen can be seen side by side.

More symbols

“There were a lot of funny little love tokens in the Greek world,” says Tronchin. “During the 6th century BCE, wild rabbits were symbols of love. An older man could give it to a young boy, or a man could give it to a woman. If you couldn’t get your loved one the real thing, you could give them a terracotta rabbit that held perfume.” Another common symbol in Greek and Roman art is the symbol of the handshake as

the gesture of marriage. “Couples are seen shaking hands like they are doing a business deal, which was kind of what marriage was about, at least for the upper classes. Handshakes can also be seen in a lot of Greek funerary art, as a symbol that marriage is eternal, and exists in a life after this one.”

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Susan Kennedy, associate professor of psychology, is teaching her advanced neuroscience students about what goes on in the brain of someone who is head over heels. She references a study, wherein people who described themselves as being “in love” were placed under a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, which measures blood flow to different regions of the brain.

The subjects were shown a series of pictures, including images of their partners. Two areas of the brain were consistently active when subjects saw their loves: the caudate nucleus and ventral tegmental area (VTA). The scientists who conducted the study, Helen Fisher and Lucy Brown, inferred that the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is involved in pleasure and reward, was responsible for lighting up these regions of the brain.

“These findings are not to say we’ve located love,” Kennedy says, “but we’re looking at areas of the brain that respond to stimuli. Clearly love is more complex, but the brain correlates to everything we do. Why should love be any different?”

It kind of makes you wonder how sonnets would sound if poets had an fMRI machine.

“How do I love thee? Let me see the ways,” jokes Kennedy.

The brain scans also revealed that the areas ablaze during love are the same regions that are active in cocaine users. “The feeling you get from love is the feeling you get from a powerful drug,” says Kennedy. “It can take over your life.”

The good (or bad) news is that nobody is safe from Cupid’s arrow. “We all have the hardware in our brains for addiction,” said Kennedy. “Whether it’s shopping, drugs, or love.”

Kennedy says there is way more to learn about love through neuroscience. For example, studies have shown that the longer a relationship lasts, the less these brain regions are active, sort of like developing a tolerance. And one new study suggests that break-ups activate neural pain pathways, (which lends some credibility to ’80s power ballads).

“Maybe someday,” Kennedy says, “the brain will be the symbol of love and Valentine’s Day, instead of the heart.”

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Members of the Scripps College Economics Society are determined to use their economics education to impact the community. Their interests in female entrepreneurship led them to develop a project to assist business owners in developing countries.

Last fall, the student organization raised $575 through donations from students, faculty, staff, and alumni of The Claremont Colleges to establish a loan portfolio through Kiva, a micro-financing organization.

As of February 7, 2012, the student group had made 23 micro-loans to mostly female entrepreneurs in a total of 14 countries, including Palestine, Peru, Pakistan, and Mongolia. Many of the loan recipients are farmers or retailers.

The group posts its portfolio online allowing donors to learn more about the entrepreneurs helped by the loans.

This is how it works: Kiva distributes a loan, and the economics society oversees its loan portfolio as it continues to solicit donations. These micro-loans allow entrepreneurs in developing countries to fund new business projects, which in turn, helps lessen the pressures of poverty in developing countries.

When the entrepreneur’s project reaches a state of financial stability, the borrower then repays the loan. After a loan is repaid, the economics society then looks for other entrepreneurs in need of a loan.

Scripps College Economics Society, clockwise from left: Sweta Garapati ’14, Leila Alhamooda ’12, Shailini Pandya ’12, Mehar Harika ’13, Misato Suzuki ’13, and Ina Herlihy ’14.

Members of the economics society will sponsor the weekly Scripps Tea at 3:30 p.m. on February 15 in Seal Court to answer questions about their work with Kiva.

“As economics majors, it’s important to think beyond charity when strategizing for economic development,” says Leila Alhamoodah ’12, the group’s president. “Research has shown women are more likely to repay loans and to subsequently experience an improvement in their economic well-being. Since we’re at a women’s college, we want to help women around the world.”

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Nicholas Kacher ’11 says developing a local currency can strengthen a regional economy and insulate it from the volatility of national and global forces. He tells the story of Berkshares, a local currency in use in Massachusetts’ Berkshires. The currency is a project of the New Economics Institute, for which Kacher has worked since graduating.

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