“Sadly, my four years at Gustavus were the four most stable years of my life,” DeSantis said. “If I hadn’t had amazing adult mentors growing up and in high school, I might not have made it to Gustavus. That is why I am doing what I’m doing today.”

After graduating from Gustavus with a double major in sociology/anthropology and gender, women, and sexuality studies, DeSantis took a job in October of 2011 as a visiting advocate for the Head Start program in Minneapolis, which is operated by the non-profit organization Parents in Community Action (PICA).

“I remember on my first day with PICA, I was getting my tour and we came to the Project Secure rooms and I said, ‘One day I would love to work in that program.’ I did not think that day would come so quickly,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis was asked to work with Project Secure the following summer, and was then asked to stay on as the program’s advocate in September 2012. The Project Secure program is an educational day program for children five and under who live in one of six homeless shelters in Minneapolis. Working for the program hits home for DeSantis.

“I was one of these kids. I have lived in three of the six shelters the program services. I was not one of the children in Project Secure because this program did not exist when I was young, but if it had, I most likely would have been part of it for a little bit,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis’ main motivation is to help those who are in the same situation she was, and to make sure that these children know they are safe and that they have people in their corner of life who are there for them.

“I truly believe that every child deserves a fair chance in life, no matter what they are born into. That is my main goal in this and in life,” DeSantis said. “I work with homeless families because anybody is really just one step away from being in poverty themselves. Whether that is a large medical bill they can’t pay, their car breaking down and they get fired because they can’t get to work, or god forbid, a death in the family. With the way that our economy is right now, anyone can end up in an impoverished situation.”

DeSantis’ job includes managing five classrooms, with the level of education increasing with age.

“We give lots of attention, love, and affection. We make sure that our kids get the medical and dental care that they need, and eye glasses if they need them,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis technically works as the health advocate and records clerk, servicing the north side of Minneapolis, but there is no such thing as a “typical day” for her, due to the large range of duties and the ever-changing environment of the Project Secure program.

“I ride the bus every morning and evening. I count how many kids we have in our program each day. I also make sure we keep track of who goes to what shelter. I register all of the children and families that are eligible at the shelters. I make sure that if the child has any asthma, allergies, or physical ailment, our teachers and kitchen staff are aware of it and can care for the child accordingly,” DeSantis said.

“I am the keeper of all the files for my program (and being that we work with the homeless population there are a lot because we have a high turn around). I do recruitment at the shelters. I work with the parents on housing, medical care, insurance, transportation, employment, and anything they are in need of. Pretty much, every day is different. I do anything and everything.”

DeSantis’ days can vary and include any number of different tasks; she credits Gustavus with preparing her for this kind of work-environment.

“Gustavus prepared me for this because it was a community where I could really learn about myself and who I am. In this job you have to be a very strong-willed and thick-skinned person, and I feel that Gustavus helped me do that because I was able to encounter many different people and situations,” DeSantis said. “I was academically prepared in that I know how to research different resources for parents, different programs, and such. I also had some amazing professors who encouraged me to be me and ask hard questions, and not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Using the skills and values she learned at Gustavus, DeSantis dedicates herself to ensuring that children in North Minneapolis get the attention and care they need.

“Honestly, what I enjoy most about my job is to see these kids get to be kids for the day. They can come here, be safe, and feel loved,” DeSantis said. “Many of our children are English language learners and when they get here, they are shy at first, but they are finally able to blossom and feel comfortable and you get to see their personalities come out. I love that.”

Click here for the source article.

Chartelain’s  teaching  experience  includes  promoting  math  literacy  with  inner-city middle  school  students through the Young People’s Project,   and  teaching  immigrants  and  refugees  from  all  over  the  world  as  a volunteer at the Hamilton College Project Shine program.

While studying in Spain, she volunteered with APROCOR and taught life skills to mentally challenged adults, and hosted an American culture segment on a Spanish radio station.

Chartelain is a Student Activities intern, resident advisor, and Bristol Center administrative assistant. She is the Voices of Color lecture series coordinator, the Young People’s Project volunteer coordinator, and diversity overnight host and coordinator for the Hamilton’s Admissions office.  Chartelain is a member and secretary of the Black and Latino Student Union, and involved with Hamilton Alumni Leadership Training (HALT).
She has received numerous academic awards and honors including a Hamilton College GOLD Merit Scholarship; Hamilton 1812 Leadership Circle Merit Scholarship; Hamilton Woman of Color Scholarship; she was selected for Hamilton’s Was Los Honor Society and Albert Shanker College Merit Scholarship Fund, 2009-2013.

Upon her return to the U.S, Chartelain plans to pursue a master’s degree in higher education/student Affairs at The University of Michigan, University of Connecticut, or University of Rochester. She is interested in working with international student populations..

She is the daughter of Marie Louis of Brooklyn and is a graduate of Health Professions Human Services High School.

The Fulbright ETA Program, an element of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, places U.S. students as English teaching assistants in schools or universities overseas, thus improving foreign students’ English language abilities and knowledge of the United States while increasing their own language skills and knowledge of the host country. ETAs may also pursue individual study/research plans in addition to their teaching responsibilities.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright program is the largest U.S. international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars, and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide.

Click here for the source article.

“We had envisioned that this donation would fund a research grant to support humanities students who are just beginning their Division III work. It is meant to enhance the ability of students to conduct research at an advanced level and also support the library collection and fill any holes in its humanities collection,” said Ellis.

The Humanities Research Book Grant will support humanities students’ work on their Division III (senior) projects through individual grants to purchase books central to their studies. Grant applications will be considered by a committee of faculty members in the humanities and cultural studies. Grant recipients will be chosen based on the intellectual merit of the proposed work and their preparation for such work, the quality of their previous work during Division II, and the necessity of the texts or related media for the proposed topic.

The fund, Ellis added, will support these students and cultivate them as emerging scholars and members of an intellectual community that values their research and writing. She found that support is already demonstrated through offerings such as the David Smith Grant in American Studies, the Translation Studies Grant, and the annual Division III Conference in Humanities and Cultural Studies (now in its tenth year) at Hampshire College, but felt the need to address this particular area of need for students.

By starting the new grant fund, Ellis and Munson hope that current students, alums, faculty, and other members of the Hampshire community will see that the institution celebrates the intellectual activities of its students and will be similarly moved to support this fund and other initiatives in the liberal arts. Munson, in particular, would like to see it serve as a stepping-stone to establishing a Friends of the Hampshire College Library endowment.

“We wanted to accomplish several things with this research grant, on the student achievement level but also on the donor level, to cultivate a culture of giving,” said Ellis.

Hampshire’s Harold F. Johnson Library director Jennifer Gunter King said: “The library is thrilled that Alicia Ellis and David Munson have established a Humanities Research Book Grant. The gift will enable Division III students to access publications that are central to their work, when they are needed. Additional support like this grant is central to our ability to be responsive to community needs as they evolve. The grant also draws attention to how very critical books, and other publications, are for a Hampshire education.”

Humanities librarian Bonnie Vigeland noted that a fund established by a humanities faculty member is a strong validation of the work that the library staff does with students, as providing support for student research is a core mission of the Hampshire library.

“We are very excited to see how this will expand the scope of students’ Division III humanities research,” she said.

Professor Ellis earned an M.A. in African-American Studies and a Ph.D. in German from Yale University. She is currently a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Chicago while on leave of absence from Hampshire.

Munson holds an MFA in Visual Studies with a concentration in printmaking from the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Munson started his advanced work at the Boston Museum School and then went on to teach Intaglio, bookmaking, printmaking, and letterpress.

For information on how to contribute to the Humanities Research Book Grant fund, please contact Hampshire College Director of Development Jeffrey Wolfman at jwolfman@hampshire.edu or 413.559.5638.

Click here for the source article.

Dr. Nayef H. Samhat will become Wofford College’s 11th president effective July 1, 2013.

The Wofford College Board of Trustees elected Dr. Nayef H. Samhat as president of the college at their meeting on Tuesday, May 14, held on campus.

Samhat has served as provost and professor of political science and international studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, since 2009.

He will succeed the retiring Dr. Benjamin B. Dunlap this summer. Dunlap has served as president since 2000, and will return after a yearlong sabbatical to continue as the Chapman Family Professor of Humanities.

“We have conducted a thorough, national search for the 11th president of Wofford College,” says J. Harold Chandler (Class of 1971), chair of the Wofford Board of Trustees. “Our search committee was led by an able and accomplished individual and its 12 members have done their job in a thoughtful and comprehensive manner. The board of trustees, led by its Human Resources Committee, has completed its review and have voted to accept the mutual recommendation of the Search Committee and the Human Resources Committee in the naming of Dr. Nayef H. Samhat as the next president of Wofford College. We are honored that Dr. Samhat has accepted our call and we are excited and ready to begin our important work together.”

Samhat held several positions at Centre College in Danville, Ky., from 1996 to 2009, including associate dean of the college, the Frank B. and Virginia Hower Associate Professor of Government and International Studies, chair of the Division of Social Studies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities Associate Professor of Government and International Studies. He also served as the coordinator of the Environmental Field Experience Program and an instructor in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., from 1995 to 1996.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in international economics from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in 1983, Samhat received his master of international affairs degree from Columbia University in New York City. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University, where he also received a minor in comparative political economy.

While at Kenyon, Samhat has overseen a number of major grants, including two from the Mellon Foundation: a Critical Languages and Innovative Pedagogy grant to support post-doctoral teaching fellowships for Russian and Arabic languages, and a grant for the Center for Innovative Pedagogy and The Essentials: Renewing General Education within the Curriculum to enhance the endowment for a previously Mellon-funded Teacher Teaching Teachers grant.

Samhat has made a number of presentations, participated in numerous panels and written papers centering on the challenges of the liberal arts college, the role of provost, developing faculty leaders and other topics. His also has written numerous papers, reviews and essays on foreign policy, international relations and global environmentalism.

A native of Detroit, Mich., Samhat is married to Prema Samhat, director of the Knox Community Hospital Foundation and director of marketing and communications for Knox Community Hospital. They have three daughters, Alia, 26; Jehan, 24; and Leila, 19.

Warnecke has spent years researching female entrepreneurship in Asia – specifically, women who work for survival, such as street vendors or artisan craftspeople, these women seldom receive the type of education needed for upward mobility. Warnecke hopes to bridge the gap between this informal type of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial programs geared towards wealthier and educated women.

“I’m always interested in the invisible side of things – the hidden factors that make economies work,” said Warnecke. “As a non-traditional economist, I often bring multiple disciplines together in my own research and teaching.”

Earlier this year, Rollins College was named one of the top producers of Fulbright Scholars among master’s institutions across the nation. Since Fulbright began awarding grants in 1951, Rollins has produced 42 scholars.

“We are proud to have a professor who will be among elite faculty who travel abroad each year through the Fulbright program,” said Lewis Duncan, president of Rollins College. “Dr. Warnecke’s participation strongly aligns with our mission to educate students for global citizenship and responsible leadership.”

Sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright program is the largest international exchange program in the country.

Josh Oshinsky ’00, TV and film producer with Oceansky Films LLC, knows the importance of having connections. 

“Having worked in the TV/film business for 13 years, I know just how important any ‘in’ can be,” he says.  “Who you know when you are starting out can make all the difference in the world.  This program is a wonderful opportunity to grow the Lafayette College network.”

Dorde George Rakic ’15 took this as a chance to network with math alumni.

“I loved hearing about the different paths our alumni have explored and the experiences they had along the way,” He says. “It gave me new ideas on where I could apply my math major.”

Hannah Stewart-Gambino, dean of the College, believes this interaction between alumni, faculty, and students accomplishes a number of important things. 

“It connects our current students with alumni in their chosen majors in order to hear about the kinds of choices they have made in their lives—both personal and career,” she says. “Alumni love to stay connected with their faculty, and everyone is thrilled to be invited by their own faculty. Also, the program connects new faculty to the wonderful college community that exists beyond our walls.”

The program was developed by Stewart-Gambino, David Reif ’68, present of the Alumni Association, and Rachel Moeller, executive director of alumni relations, who helped put together a pilot program.

“The beauty of a liberal arts degree (including engineering at Lafayette) is that the answer to the question ‘what can I do with an X major?’ is ‘honestly, almost anything.’” Stewart-Gambino says. “Bringing back several alumni allows departments and programs to show a wide range of trajectories in previous graduates. That is the power of the liberal arts.”

Each participating department or program selected three alumni to attend classes April 3-4 and meet with faculty at a reception and dinner.

“I was intrigued by the concept of working directly with students and faculty within an academic program, rather than the College as whole,” says Kevin O’Brien ’96, an environmental analyst at Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. “This opportunity provided a different perspective by focusing personal attention around a specific subset within the school and the students involved with it.”

He stressed to the students that while a degree in mathematics, the sciences, or engineering will position them for a variety of careers in environmental fields, it is important to be as well-rounded as possible. 

“The ability to effectively communicate through writing and public speaking, or having a familiarity with the law and public policy can be the type of skills that set you apart from other candidates,” he says. “What can’t be taught are enthusiasm and an eagerness to learn and apply knowledge.”

Oshinsky sat in on classes with Nandini Sikand, assistant professor of film and media studies.

“Being able to sit in with Professor Sikand and see the creative skill and blossoming talent of her students was a treat that I hope to have the pleasure of repeating at some point in the future,” he says. “Through the program I also enjoyed the welcome opportunity to reconnect with old friends and to rediscover faded memories, and make them vivid once again.”

Along with Oshinsky, Kristen MacCartney ’81, University Partnership Program manager at IEEE, and Amanda Finkelstein ’07, associate attorney in the corporate transactions practice group at Gibson Dunn Crutcher LLP, returned for the English Department. 

O’Brien; Gina Benaquista ’00, a fellow in spinal cord injury medicine at UMDNJ/Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation; and Steve DiMauro ’02, a mathematician for the U.S. Department of Defense, participated for the Mathematics Department.

Returning to campus for the International Affairs Program were Joe Cyrulik ’96, structured analytic techniques instructor with the Central Intelligence Agency; Nalishha Mehta ’98, labor union trainer at the Solidarity Center; and Raisa Sheynberg ’01, a policy adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes.

Rasheim Donaldson ’06 with the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office, Inku Subedi ’05, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Brown University, and Rebecca Heslin ’12, assistant director of development research at Lafayette, interacted with faculty and students in the Anthropology Sociology Department.

Click here for the source article.

Uka believes that through her courses and extracurricular activities at Swarthmore, she was able to strengthen her commitment to public service, particularly in the education of marginalized communities of color and low income.

“I feel truly blessed to be named a Truman Scholar,” says Uka, a political science and educational studies major from Mount Vernon, N.Y. “Receiving the Truman Scholarship is a testament to the accomplishments that an individual can achieve when stakeholders decide that the person has potential and is worth investing in. I look forward to a career in education that reflects my belief that all people, regardless of race, socio-economic background, or other diverse experiences, are worthy of great investment.”

Uka is also a Lang Opportunity Scholar. In the program’s 30-plus-year history, more than 200 students have completed projects to promote the common good in more than 70 cities throughout 30 countries. Through her Lang Scholarship, Uka is currently developing a computer literacy course for adult learners to prepare them for the GED. She would like to pursue a master’s in educational leadership and would ultimately like to work on education policy.

Welch, an Honors political science major and Latin American studies minor from Chadron, Neb., is interested in studying the effects of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, focusing on rural communities. She hopes to enter a joint-degree program to obtain a master’s in international affairs. She would like to ultimately join the U.S. Foreign Service to help shape foreign policy decisions in Latin America.

“I am honored to have been chosen as a Truman Scholar,” Welch says, “and incredibly grateful to the people who supported me on my path to Swarthmore.” Welch is also a Richard Rubin Scholar and works part time at the College Access Center of Delaware County, where she runs educational workshops for high school students. On campus, she is involved with Mock Trial, Swarthmore Quest Scholars Network, and Swarthmore Prisoners Advocacy Coalition.

Last fall, Welch worked as a legal intern at the Amazon Defense Coalition in Ecuador. She was a part of the team working on the asset seizure of $19 billion in an environmental lawsuit recently won for 30,000 clients from the Ecuadorian Amazon. This summer, she will be at the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC-Berkeley. She then plans to return to Ecuador and continue working for the Amazon Defense Coalition on asset seizure cases in Canada and Argentina.

Click here for the source article.

Alec Bernstein ’11, Nicole Dieterich ’13 (Hewitt, N.J.), and Chris Kelly ’13 (Boyertown, Pa.) are recipients of the prestigious Fulbright award.  As a Fulbright scholar, Bernstein will travel to the West Bengal region of India to assess the sustainability of water systems; Dieterich will travel to Salzburg, Austria, to study rehabilitation treatments for stroke victims; and Kelly will conduct sea-level research in Durban, South Africa, with Andy Green at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Bernstein, who majored in civil engineering, will partner with the Bengal Engineering and Science University, as well as with organizations such as Water for People and Engineers Without Borders, to complete his project.  He will work to determine the causes behind the failure of water supply and sanitation projects, often installed by non-governmental organizations.

“Too many of these projects fail within a few years of implementation due to inadequate maintenance or the inability to pay the costs associated with project upkeep,” he says.  “I am trying to work on designing a framework for developing and monitoring that will allow these organizations to partner with communities in a sustainable way, so projects have a higher chance of success.”

Bernstein found inspiration for his project from his experience with Lafayette’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders.  President of the chapter during his time at Lafayette, Bernstein traveled to a village in rural Honduras, where the group worked to establish a clean water system.  It was during this time that Bernstein first began imagining possibilities for improving the way these systems are installed.

While at Lafayette, Bernstein was also involved in the Steel Bridge Team, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the EXCEL Scholars undergraduate research program with David Brandes, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.  He was a head resident adviser, an academic tutor, and a supplemental instructor for the Nature of Materials course.  He is completing his masters degree in civil engineering at University of Massachusetts, and plans to continue developing sustainable water systems for the global community.

Dieterich, a neuroscience major and German minor, will work with the senior physician of the department of neurology at the Paracelsus Private Medical University of Salzburg.  Together, they will examine the effects of a stroke treatment involving electrical stimulation.  Despite recent advances in stroke rehabilitation, Dieterich says, only one-third of all stroke patients regain dexterity within six months.  The treatment she will be exploring has shown potential for creating lasting improvement in patients.  While in Salzburg, Dieterich will also teach English at a local school.

“I have always wanted to pursue research in the field of rehabilitative neuroscience, and I have now been granted this amazing opportunity, thanks to Fulbright,” she says.

Dieterich majored in neuroscience because she was fascinated with the brain and nervous system, and was adamant about exploring the rehabilitative aspects of this field after witnessing a close friend struggle with physical disabilities after a stroke.

At Lafayette, Dieterich is a leader in the German Club, vice president of the Order of Omega Greek Honor Society, and a member of the Alpha Phi sorority.  Her sophomore year, she studied abroad in Bonn, Germany, and this summer she traveled to Mauer-Amstetten, Austria, where she conducted Parkinson’s disease research.  She was also an EXCEL Scholar, working with Bernard Fried, Kreider Professor Emeritus of Biology, and Joseph Sherma, Larkin Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, to research a parasitic disease caused by polluted water sources.  She also credits Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger, professor of foreign languages and literatures (German), for encouraging her to apply for a Fulbright grant.

Kelly, a double major in geology and international affairs, has found his niche in the geoscience field of climate research. He recently presented his research on the climatic evolution of the South Atlantic Ocean throughout the past 10 million years at the 48th annual meeting of the Northeast Section of the Geological Society of America. He and his adviser, Kira Lawrence, assistant professor of geology and environmental geosciences, used a geochemical analysis technique involving the algae that live at the ocean surface to estimate past ocean surface temperatures.

Kelly, who worked as an EXCEL Scholar, was interested in investigating the climate of the earth at this time because the earth was considerably warmer than it is now. He is also completing an honors thesis on the climate of the Miocene Epoch with Lawrence.

“This time period could provide a possible analogue for the climate state towards which we are headed due primarily to modern human-induced climate change,” he says.

Kelly received the Goldwater Scholarship last year, which is the premier undergraduate award of its type in the fields of mathematics, science, and engineering. He also received a student fellowship to participate in the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass.

Kelly spent a semester studying environmental conservation and wildlife management in Namibia, and studied the evolution of life and land in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands during a three-week study abroad course taught over the January interim session by geology professors Lawrence Malinconico and David Sunderlin and Provost Wendy Hill. He also studied German language and culture in Bonn, Germany, for six weeks in a program hosted by Lamb-Fafflelberger.

Click here for the source article.

“The three days were great for my academic interest,” Park notes. “I was able to learn about many chemistry and engineering related research topics.” Park presented his work with Dr. Hugh Thurman, Associate Professor of Physics Astronomy, titled “Modeling White Dwarf Star Magnetization,” a project aimed at deriving  an equation of state for a white dwarf star from exterior to interior using the Chandrasekhar Equation along with observational data to predict the mass, internal temperature, and the central density of the star. “The conference also provided a new interest in some of other areas of study other than my major and minors. Overall, NCUR 2013 was a very valuable experience,” Park added.

“I had a really great time NCUR, and I gained some good experience,” Iqbal says.  The presentations I attended – both oral and poster – were quite interesting and sometimes in areas that I typically didn’t associate with research, so I learned a lot.” An applied-mathematics student, Iqbal gave an oral presentation of his project with Dr. Marcus Pendergrass, Associate Professor of Mathematics Computer Science,  comparing Oliver Messiaen’s compositions in the piece Oiseaux Exotiques to actual bird songs. Titled “The Music of Messiaen’s Birds,” the project used mathematical tools of analysis such Fourier transforms and time-frequency-energy spectrograms to identify similarities between the birdsong and corresponding musical snippets from the composer’s work.

Ararso, a senior biology student, gave a presentation of his work in cancer biology titled, “Disarming Cancer’s Signaling Corridor: How Deletion of Endothelial Cell Notch Ligand Jagged 1 Suppresses Tumorigenesis.” The project, conducted during the summer of 2012, highlighted the role of endothelial cell initiated Notch signaling in the context of tumor growth and metastasis in breast cancer.

Click here for the source article.

Luke Martin ’14 has played guitar since he was 10, but writing a musical score for a theater production was not part of his curriculum vitae until last fall. Now he can add “award-winning composer” to his résumé.

This spring the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region I gave him a “best original music” merit award for a score he wrote for the Theater and Dance Department production of The Long Christmas Ride Home, this fall’s full-length play. The award came as a surprise since the respondent for the theater festival nominated Martin after watching a performance on campus. “You don’t get one because you ask for it,” said Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance Todd Coulter.

Martin, an English and music double major recruited by Coulter, said the project took “all my time for, like, a month.” He was recommended by Associate Professor of Music Steven Nuss, who coached him through the composition process, and Martin enrolled in the two-credit course that produced the play.

Coming in addition to his other classes and playing on the varsity men’s tennis team, the composing assignment resulted in some late hours. “There was a long dance scene. I had no idea what to write for it,” Martin said. Inspiration struck at 3 a.m., he wrote music until 5 a.m., and handed it off to Coulter at noon. In the end he said of the project, “I loved it. … It was a great semester.”

He composed the music using Sibelius, the leading composition and notation software, on his PC and created ensemble-like arrangements of synthesized instrumental parts.

Coulter said he was impressed with Martin’s professionalism in adapting his initial drafts to fit the needs of the production. The eight-minute dance composition had to be compressed to about four minutes. Overall, they cut Martin’s original compositions, about 40 minutes, about in half. Martin made the cuts with “no moaning or groaning, but he stood his ground too,” Coulter said. “He was really, really good.”

Martin’s academic interests in music and literature made the assignment “absolutely perfect,” he said, and Coulter concurred. Martin integrated what he wanted as a musician with the demands of the script to produce what Coulter needed as a director. “He brought up things in the text that I hadn’t noticed,” Coulter said.

Nuss was helpful as Martin incorporated Japanese scales to reflect a Japanese aesthetic in the drama.

On his own Martin came up with a theme for each of the three children in the family, a subtle but sophisticated way of using leitmotifs to support the individual identities, sustain their threads through the narrative, and almost subconsciously engage the audience, Coulter said.

The musical coup de grace came at the end of the play, which is a literal cliff-hanger. The final chord was not a major (happy resolution) or a minor (ominous) chord. Instead Martin ended with an open fifth, which echoed the lack of resolution in the dramatic narrative, allowing theatergoers to mentally fill in a hopeful or somber ending.

Hear a selection from Martin’s score for The Long Christmas Ride Home.

Click here for the source article.

If a group of Claremont students runs past you, holding  onto broomsticks and throwing balls at one another, don’t worry! They’re just members of the Dirigible Plums, the official Quidditich team of The Claremont Colleges.

Started by juniors Amy Borsuk and Allyson Healey, the team is now in its second season of competition and is aptly named after a fruit in the popular Harry Potter universe, where they are rumored to “enhance the ability of one to accept the extraordinary.”

For anyone who’s managed to avoid all knowledge of the magical world of Harry Potter, Quidditch is the official sport of witches and wizards the world over. And since we “muggles” (non-magical people) lack the ability to enchant and fly on broomsticks, the game simulates these exhilarations with earthbound running and throwing the Quaffle – er, ball – through three hoops on opposite ends of the playing field.

The transformations don’t end there; the game’s Golden Snitch, originally a winged metal MacGuffin the size of a golf ball, becomes a person clad in bright yellow tights sprinting around the field to avoid capture. This ersatz Snitch can throw water balloons, don costumes, or do anything they like – as long as they’re within the field’s boundaries.

“I wanted to be active in a sport that wasn’t Division III, that was fun and physically intensive, but not time-consuming, and that had a warm, close-knit community,” Borsuk says. “Quidditch was the answer to this puzzle.”

Members of the Dirigible Plums (l-r): Carlen Long (PO), Ben Teng (HMC), Jordan Castillo (PO), and Emily Roizin (SC ’15)

The Dirigible Plums includes players from all five colleges, with four of the colleges represented in leadership. Perhaps because it was started at Scripps, the team is predominantly made up of female players, which makes them unique among the majority of Quidditch teams in the Los Angeles area and across the country.

Borsuk says her favorite part of being on the team is the community it provides. “Quidditch is a goofy yet intense sport, and because it is based on the Harry Potter books, it lends itself to an easy-going, inclusive community,” she says. “I love the feeling of getting onto the pitch at the start of a game, looking at the team in our uniforms, and realizing, ‘We did this. We made this happen.’

“Our team embodies what is so wonderful about the spirit of Scripps: this is the time and place for us to step up and try new things, to encourage others to get excited about what we’re doing, and to get involved.”

Many of the Dirigible Plums have gone abroad for the spring semester, so they’re looking for new players. For more information, check out their Facebook page.

Click here for the source article.

The article, “It’s a Flipping Revolution,” attracted 60 comments (including a poem!) and on its first day online was noted on the Chronicle home page as the second “most emailed” and “most commented” article in the paper.

Flipping a class, in Neshyba’s case, meant reversing the common classroom practice of giving lectures in class and then asking students to do related homework. Neshyba presented some of his chemistry lectures on video so students could watch them (and replay them, as needed) on YouTube. On Thursdays and Fridays, he devoted the class to interactive, problem-based work related to the video lectures that engaged students with each other and with their professor.

Neshyba argues in the article that the experience not only has helped some students excel in class, but, combined with other evolutions in learning, the practice of “flipping” is changing relationships in college classrooms.

Click here for the source article.

Once again the research presentations, held May 1-3 this year, and associated sessions that began in April, boasted record numbers of participating students and research topics.

“The wide range of activities at the symposium display discipline-specific content at very great depth,” Kletzer said, “with many if not all of the other skills that we talk about in a liberal arts education.” Among skills exhibited, Klezter listed analytical, technical, research, communications, and problem-solving skills, patience, organization, persistence. “It’s a long list, and I have not even gotten halfway through it.”

Some 800 students were authors or coauthors of research projects, papers, presentations, and posters this year in what organizers call a celebration of scholarship. Twenty-nine departments and programs had participants during the three-day spree, and this year there were 210 oral presentations alone, compared to 153 last May. “The point is we have something really great that goes on here,” Kletzer said. “Now it’s really time to learn from each other.”

With that she introduced three professors who shared keynote duties.

Adrianna Paliyenko, the Charles A. Dana Professor of French, talked about her research and the role students have played in it. Paliyenko has spent a decade studying French women poets of the 19th century and how they were marginalized and, more often, erased from the literary canon in a society where “female” and “genius” were antithetical. She announced she had just learned that her book project, Genius Envy: Women Shaping French Poetic History, 1801-1900, had a publisher.

Charles Conover, the William A. Rogers Professor of Physics, described “the coolest place in Maine”—the laboratories where physics students research quantum mechanics in extremely cold atoms. By using six lasers from six different directions to slow atoms down, he and his students have been able to study atoms at .001 degree Kelvin. “That is cool, literally and figuratively,” he said.

Like Paliyenko, Conover talked about a long line of research assistants who have made the work possible. He singled out Ai Phuong Tong ’15, who built much of the more-recent electronics they use in the lab. “With the work she’s done, we stabilized the color of the laser to a part in a hundred million,” he said. “Any time you do anything to a part in a hundred million, it’s really a lot of work.”

Last, John Turner, associate professor of history, applied his expertise in the history of Islam to current events and prejudices. “Glib assumptions about the meanings of words,” he said, “and projected yet phantasmagoric understandings of data points divorced from historical context yield bad results, bad interpretations, and sometimes war.” He concluded with a broader view of his discipline and his work. “My role as a historian is to help make sense of the data, to give it meaning,” he said. “Doing research, collaborating in our quest to find the answer—and the question first—gives you power.”

Click here for the source article.