Dean's Message
Undergraduate Initiatives
This new semester is promising to be invigorating and challenging in the best sense of these words. The College is delighted to welcome twenty-three outstanding new faculty, our best ever new class of graduate students, and a record number of first-year students (see the table below to appreciate how large our freshman class is). That huge freshman class makes this a good time to focus on our efforts to improve the quality of the undergraduate experience in the College.
| Freshmen Enrollment at University Park and in Liberal Arts | ||
|---|---|---|
| University | Liberal Arts | |
| 1994 | 4,706 | 472 |
| 1995 | 5,439 | 569 |
| 1996 | 4,781 | 487 |
| 1997 | 5,320 | 590 |
| 1998 | 5,246 | 530 |
| 1999 | 5,185 | 505 |
| 2000 | 5,774 | 505 |
| 2001 | 6,279 | 562 |
| 2002 | 6,080 | 587 |
| 2003 | 6,156 | 651 |
| 2004 | 6,032 | 577 |
| 2005 | 6,657 | 542 |
| 2006 | 8,292 | 714 |
Penn State is a large and complex institution, but what is important is not our size but rather the quality of our work and the quality of the education we provide our students, both graduate and undergraduate. Like most of you, I envision the Liberal Arts as the heart of the university, a vital College that incorporates into our curriculum understanding of our human history, culture, behavior, and diversity and a sophisticated appreciation for the global world of which we are a part. Many of our faculty are national and international leaders in their fields, and the research we do has made a mark within our various disciplines. But we also need to offer a truly outstanding undergraduate education to our students if we are to achieve our goal of being a top Liberal Arts college.
Challenging Courses. Such an education must include, at its core, courses in each of our disciplines that challenge students to think and to work to improve their communication skills as well as their knowledge of the subject matter. I sometimes wonder as I read about the binge drinking epidemic amongst our students (and about the grade distributions in our courses) whether our expectations for academic performance are high enough. I encourage each of you to develop class attendance, participation, and academic policies that will help achieve the quality classes we aspire to.
Part of a liberal arts curriculum should be helping students develop their ethical literacy. Nancy Tuana, director of the Rock Ethics Institute, is working with faculty to develop teaching modules on practical ethics that could be used in the classroom by instructors. You will hear more about that later in the year.
Beyond excellent courses which the faculty can offer, we are working with advisers and departments to extend and deepen the quality of out-of-the classroom educational experiences offered to our students.
Internships. Students find internships immensely valuable. As you may have heard, we are expanding the opportunities for students to take internships at the College and departmental levels. In the past couple of years, Liberal Arts interns have had opportunities to work with Madeline Albright and David Letterman and a whole range of non-celebrity business, entertainment, government, and non-profit employers. Our internship coordinator, Barbara Welshofer, is working with departments to encourage further participation and a high quality academic as well as real life experience. Of course, departments define their own criteria and most have their own internship coordinators. Our goal is to raise by at least 60% over the next couple of years the number of students who graduate having had internships (in 2005–06, the number was 350; we graduate about 2000 B.A. and B.S. students per year in Liberal Arts).
Study Abroad. Students want to study and work abroad because they find such experiences invaluable, whether they are majoring in a foreign language or philosophy or a social science. We are therefore trying hard both to increase the numbers of students studying and working abroad and to diversify and enrich their opportunities. Last year, 335 of our Liberal Arts students studied abroad during the fall, spring or summer semesters, and that does not count the many others who may have had international educational projects not counted in these statistics. Last summer, for example, women's studies sponsored a service learning project in Tanzania, offering their students a life transforming experience. Sylvia Neely is our study abroad coordinator, and this year we will also have an adviser assigned part time to helping students with study abroad issues (this person, who just accepted our offer, will be located in Burrowes). In addition to individual students studying or interning abroad, we also can provide some support for classes that provide an international experience, such as the women's studies class. A goal of our next campaign is to raise more resources to support study abroad.
Undergraduate Research. We have great faculty in our College, so it stands to reason that we would like to expand the number of students who have intensive research experiences under the direction of specific faculty (and graduate students). Our undergraduate studies committee, chaired this year by Brian Hesse and last year by Rich Carlson, has been developing some recommendations that could assist departments in this activity. You should be hearing about some of these as the year continues.
Advising. In an attempt to strengthen our advising network, the College has not only hired additional advisers, but also has relocated almost all previously housed in college offices in Sparks to various Liberal Arts departments and buildings. Our aim is to develop closer ties between our advisers and academic departments, to bring students into closer connection with their departments earlier in their careers, and to improve the information that students receive about outside the classroom educational opportunities like study abroad and internships.
As Penn State grows and changes, our responsibility to our students must be taken ever more seriously. I am optimistic that the changes described here will enhance the educational experience of our undergraduates in a way that will better prepare them to continue their learning after graduation and to be informed, ethical, and effective citizens in a global world.
Regards,
Susan Welch
swelch@psu.edu
Faculty News
Promotion and Tenure Workshop
The College will sponsor a panel discussion and information session on promotion and tenure for tenure-track faculty on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 from 3 to 5 p.m., in 124 Sparks Building. In addition to remarks from Dean Welch, the program will include a panel of department heads. The material covered will be similar to previous years (promotion and tenure procedures, dossier preparation, and the responsibilities of the tenure candidate) although we will, of course, touch on changes in promotion and tenure guidelines made during the past year. There will be an opportunity for questions and discussion. Though the panel is targeted for tenure-track faculty, all faculty are welcome to attend.
Promotion and Tenure
It is a pleasure to report that fifteen Liberal Arts faculty from eight departments at University Park, have been promoted or had tenure awarded.
Congratulations to all!
Tenured:
Jonathan E. Brockopp, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and History
Sinfree B. Makoni, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and African American Studies
Promoted to Professor:
Michael Berkman, Professor of Political Science
William A. Blair, Professor of American History
Veronique M. Foti, Professor of Philosophy
Lori D. Ginzberg, Professor of History and Women's Studies
Amy S. Greenberg, Professor of American History and Women's Studies
Clemente C. Hawes, Professor of English
Benjamin T. Hudson, Professor of History and Medieval Studies
Priscilla Melendez, Professor of Spanish
Glenn H. Palmer, Professor of Political Science
Carol A. Reardon, Professor of Military History
Garrett A. Sullivan, Professor of English
Jean-Claude Vuillemin, Professor of French
New Department Heads
Joan Kelly Hall is the new head of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. Joan joined Penn State in 2003, also as a professor. A productive and nationally visible scholar, Joan specializes in language learning, and her work has made an impact in both applied linguistics and educational theory. She is serving as the departmental graduate officer this year.
Paul Harvey, associate professor of history and classics and ancient Mediterranean studies (CAMS), is the new head of CAMS. A Penn State faculty member since 1972 and well known for his outstanding teaching, Paul is a specialist in Latin and in Roman civilization. His recent work focuses on classical tradition and early Christian literature. His edited collection on Religion in Republican Rom e is about to appear with Yale and Cambridge University Presses and he is completing a book on St. Jerome.
Nina Jablonski is the new Head of the Anthropology Department and a professor of anthropology. A biological anthropologist, she received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Washington. Her major research interests are in the areas of human and primate evolution, and she specializes in the study of adaptations to the environment. Her work involves investigation of fossil records and other aspects of human evolution not readily understood through the fossil record. In connection with her study of the primate fossil record, she conducts field research in eastern Africa and southwestern China. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is the recipient of an Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship in recognition of her research on the evolution of human skin color. Nina has held positions at the California Academy of Sciences (1994–2006), The University of Western Australia (1990–1994), and the University of Hong Kong (1981–1990).
Mel Mark, professor of psychology, is serving as interim head of psychology this year. Mel, a widely published social psychologist whose work on evaluation research has been recently funded by NSF and the Packard Foundation, has been a member of the department since 1979.
John McCarthy is the new head of the Department of Sociology. John joined Penn State in 1998 as a professor. He is one of the world's leading experts on social movements and group behavior, and has a special interest in protest movements, and very recently, campus public disorders nationally. He recently served as the departmental graduate officer and received the university's award for graduate program chair leadership in 2005.
New Faculty Colleagues
Reginald B. Adams, assistant professor of psychology, joined our faculty this past spring, 2006, and received his Ph.D. from Dartmouth College. He is interested in how we extract social and emotional meaning from nonverbal cues, particularly via the face. His work addresses how multiple social messages (e.g., emotion, gender, race, and age) combine and interact to form unified representations that guide our impressions of and responses to others. His current work examines the influences of eye gaze, social group memberships (e.g., gender and race), and facial appearance on the way we process and perceive others' mental and emotional states. Before coming to Penn State, he was awarded a National Research Service Award (NRSA) from the National Institute of Mental Health to train as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard and Tufts Universities. Recent publications have appeared in Emotion and Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin.
Irina Aristarkhova, assistant professor of women's studies and visual arts, comes from the National University of Singapore, where she developed courses in new media art, and did research in aesthetics and theory of interactive virtual reality and cyberfeminism. She serves on the International Academic advisory Board for Leonardo Electronic Almanac (MIT press), and is currently working on a monograph on new media conceptions of space, provisionally entitled Matrixial Technologies. She holds a Ph.D. from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Her fields of specialization include cyberculture and cyberfeminism, technology and difference, feminist theory and aesthetics, and new media art.
Christian Brady, Dean of the Schreyer Honors College and associate professor of classics and ancient Mediterranean studies and Jewish studies, comes to us from Tulane University, where he served as director of that university's honors program and as associate professor of classics and Jewish studies. He received his doctorate from the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. His publications include The Rabbinic Targum of Lamentations: Vindicating God (published at Leiden, by Brill, in 2003) and several refereed articles on Targumic literature. He was actively involved in interdisciplinary studies at Tulane and has extensive teaching experience in Biblical literature and Jewish Studies.
Kristin A. Buss, associate professor of psychology, received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2000 in developmental psychology. Before coming to Penn State, she was assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri–Columbia. Kristin is interested in emotional development and temperamental variation from birth through early childhood spanning areas within social development, psychobiology, and neuroscience. Her current work is focused on the development of risk for adjustment problems, such as anxiety symptoms in toddlers with fearful temperaments. She received the Distinguished Early Career Contribution Award from the International Society on Infant Studies in 2006 and has received numerous grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Her appointment in Psychology is co-sponsored by the Child, Youth and Family Consortium.
Grace Delgado, assistant professor of history, holds a Ph.D. from UCLA. She comes to us from California State University–Long Beach. Prof. Delgado's specialty is the US: Mexico borderlands; her dissertation research examined shifting constructions of the borderlands, especially as experienced by Chinese immigrants. Chino frontizeros established a presence on both sides of the border and continually crossed back and forth. Over time, their experience changed as US and Mexican policy towards them shifted in the early twentieth century. Grace will take part in the college's Latino/a studies initiatives.
Charlotte D. Eubanks has joined the Department of Comparative Literature as assistant professor of comparative literature and Japanese. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado and then taught at the University of Virginia. Her fields of specialization are classical and medieval Japanese literature; Buddhism and the literary arts; contemporary Japanese fiction; the fantastic; and theories of orality, body, memory and performance. Her current book project is a study of body and gender in Buddhist "explanatory tales."
Jeremy Engels joins the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences. He arrives after receiving his Ph.D. in speech communication from the University of Illinois, is a scholar groomed in the traditions of rhetorical criticism, American Studies, continental philosophy, and pragmatism. His research investigates democracy in America. He is currently preparing his first book, Enemyship, for publication; this is a study of the rhetorical practices that underlined the nation-building project in the United States. His research concludes that the development and maintenance of democracy in America is (and always has been) intertwined with producing, justifying, and waging war, and therefore attempts to theorize ways out of damaging rhetorical forms and closer toward a more "democratic style."
Manolis Galenianos, assistant professor of economics, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He has research interests in monetary economics, labor economics, and applied theory. Manolis's most recent manuscript is entitled "Directed Search with Multiple Job Applications."
Jennifer Hook joins the Department of Sociology, Crime Law and Justice as an assistant professor. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. Her work spans the areas of gender, family, social stratification, demography and comparative sociology. She has recently published several papers on the gender division of household labor.
Sung Jae Jun, who is originally from Korea, joined the economics department as an assistant professor this summer. Sung Jae completed his Ph.D. in economics at Brown University in May 2006. His main area of interest is econometrics. Sung Jae's Ph.D. thesis deals with the problem of weak instruments in quantile regression.
Alexay Kozhevnikov, assistant professor of physics and psychology, received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2001. His position is co-funded by the Huck Institute for Life Sciences. His research focuses on the neural mechanisms of singing and vocal learning in birds. Songbird has become a model system for studies of neural sequence generation and learning of vocalizations. His lab research examines chronic neural recordings in songbirds and includes studies of the activity of identified neurons in the bird's brain when the bird is singing. Such recordings provide a relatively direct probe of the activity of brain circuitry and its relation to behavior. Alex is also interested in computer modeling of neural circuits and in application of novel experimental techniques in neuroscience.
Derek Kreager also joins the Department of Sociology, Crime Law and Justice as an assistant professor. Derek received his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. He works across a number of research areas in criminology including deviance and social control, the life course, social networks and rational choice. He recently published a paper on the role of peer networks on delinquent behavior in schools.
Tijana Krstic joined our faculty this past spring from Northwestern University where she held a Mellon Postdoctoral fellowship. She holds a Ph D from the University of Michigan. Her work explores the dynamic of religious conversion in the early modern eastern Mediterranean, especially conversions from Christianity to Islam. Professor Krstic has made innovative use of source materials that suggest conversion in the Islamic world was less a rapid, immediate event than a lengthy process which sometimes extended even over generations.
Xiaofei Lu joins LALS as an assistant professor. After receiving his undergraduate education in China and his masters in Singapore, he received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from The Ohio State University in August, 2006. At Ohio State, he was a recipient of a Presidential Fellowship for outstanding dissertation research and was awarded a summer internship with the Natural Language Theory and Technology Group, Palo Alto Research Center in 2005. Xiaofei Lu has research interests in corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, and intelligent computer-assisted language learning. His current research focuses on the annotation, processing, and analysis of both native and learner corpora with the aim of benefiting language teaching and learning.
Jonathan Marks, who is joining us as associate professor of bioethics, humanities and law, received his M.A., B.C.L. (J.D., LL.M. equivalent) from Oxford University. He has a decade of legal experience as a British barrister, and is a veteran of the Pinochet case. Jonathan has taught at Oxford, Princeton and UNC Law School, and was Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities (2004–06). He has published widely in the fields of bioethics, human rights, counterterrorism, international law and environmental law. His research on the role of medical personnel in interrogation at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay has received considerable media attention and has been the subject of congressional debate.
Amy Marshall, assistant professor of psychology, received her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2004. She then completed an NIH postdoctoral research fellowship at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, VA Boston Health Care System in Boston, MA. She is interested in social information processing deficits and contextual variables that contribute to intimate partner violence. In particular, she uses cognitive science methodologies to identify information processing deficits that underlie associations between aggression and traditional forms of psychopathology. Her current work also aims to discriminate factors that contribute to intimate partner violence from those that contribute to aggression in non-intimate relationships.
Michael Massoglia, joined our faculty this past spring, 2006, as assistant professor of crime, law, and justice, and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. His research and teaching interests include crime and deviance, research methods, and life course studies.
Bettina Mathes joins the faculty as associate professor of German, science, technology and society, and women's studies. Before coming to Penn State she taught gender and cultural studies at Humboldt University, Berlin, where she earned a Ph.D. in 2000. Her areas of specialization are Early Modern culture, science, and arts, gender studies, the Faust figure, DEFA-films (East German studio films), the history of psychoanalysis, and Islam in Europe. In addition to editing a volume devoted to gender studies, she has authored or co-authored three books. Her most recent work, Das Kreuz mit dem Kopftuch, co-written with Christina von Braun, explores the historical and cross-cultural dimensions of the current debate about the 'Muslim'veil and headscarf in Europe.
Jennifer Mensch, assistant professor of science, technology, and society and philosophy, received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Emory University in 2003 after having spent two years at the universities of Munich and Marburg in Germany. Before coming to Penn State she was an assistant professor of philosophy at Villanova University. She is serving her second year as Assistant Director of the Rock Ethics Institute. Her research concentrates on the intersections of epistemology, metaphysics, and science in the 17th- and 18th-centuries.
Burt Monroe joins us as an associate professor. He earned his doctorate at the University of Oxford and has been on faculty at Indiana University and Michigan State University. He does research in comparative politics, examining the impact of electoral and legislative institutions on political behavior and outcomes, and political methodology, examining the development and application of Bayesian methods, statistical learning, and statistical graphics to political science problems. He is currently director of a multidisciplinary NSF-funded project on The Dynamics of Political Rhetoric and Political Representation, developing methods for the statistical analysis of political speech.
Sandra Morgen, professor of women's studies, is a cultural anthropologist whose main research, over the past twenty-five years, has focused on gender, race, and class in relation to social movements, the State, and public policy in the United States. She earned her Ph.D. in 1982 from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and taught at the University of Massachusetts from 1986–1991 and at the University of Oregon from 1991–2006. While at the University of Oregon she also served as director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society. In addition to her most recent books: Into Our Own Hands: the Women's Health Movement in the U.S., 1969–1990 (2002), Work, Welfare and Politics Confronting Poverty in the Wake of Welfare Reform, co-edited with Frances Fox Piven, Joan Acker, and Margaret Hallock (2002), and Taxes are a Woman's Issue: Reframing the Debate co-authored with Mimi Abramovitz (2006), she is currently completing a book examining neoliberal welfare restructuring from the multiple perspectives of welfare clients, welfare workers and welfare administrators and policymakers. She has been the recipient of grants from, among other sources, the Rockefeller Foundation and ACLS. This spring she will direct a faculty seminar series through the Rock Ethics Institute entitled "Social Justice and the Economy: National and International Perspectives."
Ginger Moore, assistant professor of psychology, joined our faculty this past spring, 2006, and received her Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology at the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. She is a child clinical psychologist with research interests in infant emotion development in high-risk social contexts, including parental psychopathology, marital conflict and domestic violence, and maternal incarceration. Her most recent research is focused on the development of normal and abnormal patterns of physiological and behavioral regulation in response to high-conflict and violent environments and the mechanisms that explain risk and resilience in response to these experiences. Clinical interests include mother-infant emotion regulation, treatment of children exposed to trauma, and family systems and emotion-focused therapy approaches. Recent publications have appeared in Developmental Psychology and Infant Behavior and Development .
John Ochoa joins the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese and the Department of Comparative Literature as an associate professor. He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University in 1999 and was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of California, Riverside. John held a Ford Foundation postdoc in 2001–02 and has written several articles on Mexican literature, his principal area of research. His book, The Uses of Failure in Mexican Literature and Identity, was published by the University of Texas Press. The book explores the thematic relationship between the awareness of failure and its impact on cultural identity. His next book-length study will pair readings of works from North and South America to consider questions of self-definition and how the "canon" helps forge national culture.
Marek Pycia joins the economics department this fall after receiving his Ph.D. from MIT. This is Marek's second Ph.D., the other being a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Polish Academy of Sciences. He also studied with some of the world's leading scholars in the theory of regulation and incentives at the University of Toulouse. Marek's dissertation research concerns the theory of many-to-one matching, examples of which include college admissions and the hiring of employees. His main results establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of stable equilibria in these settings.
Chloe Silverman, assistant professor of science, technology, and society, received a Ph.D. in history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, then moved to Cornell University for a two-year Mellon postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Science and Technology Studies. Her dissertation examined the role of parent advocacy groups in research on autism spectrum disorders, and the redefinition of the syndrome of autism in successive historical periods. She is currently finishing a manuscript, Autism, Love and Labor. She teaches classes in disability studies, the sociology of the life sciences, the history of psychiatry and neurological disorders, and health-based social movements.
Lisa Sternlieb is a new associate professor of English. Lisa holds a Ph.D. from Princeton, and comes to us from her previous associate professor position at Wake Forest University. Lisa's scholarship focuses on Victorian fiction. Her first book, The Female Narrator in the British Novel: Hidden Agendas, analyzes gendered battles for narrative authority in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century British novel. Lisa argues for a rethinking of the history of the marriage plot. In her next book, Old Maids: Redundant Women in Victorian Literature and Culture, Lisa explores Victorian attitudes towards the hundreds of thousands of "surplus" women in nineteenth-century England through readings of fiction, social criticism, journalism, and painting.
Faculty Achievements
Provost Emeritus Faculty Teaching Scholor Awards:
Francis Gentry, Professor Emeritus of German, S. Leonard Rubinstein, Professor Emeritus of English, John Moore, Associate Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, and Daniel Walden, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, English, and Comparative Literature, were named Provost's Emeritus Faculty Teaching Scholars for Fall 2006 and Spring 2007. As part of the program, each will be teaching an undergraduate course in his respective department. Congratulations to all, and thanks for your continuing contributions to the College.
Faculty Grants:
Frank R. Baumgartner, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, from Temple University, for " Pennsylvania Policy Database Project."
Roger K. Finke, professor of sociology and religious studies, from the Lilly Endowment, for "Extending the Outreach of the ARDA."
Michael L. Hecht, Liberal Arts Research Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and Crime, Law, and Justice, from Washington State University, for "Remaining Single as a Makeinu (Underdog): Exploration of Japanese Never-Married Women's Identities in Japan."
Kenneth G. Hirth, professor of anthropology, from the National Science Foundation, for "GIS Data Base and Spatial Analysis of the Basin of Mexico."
C.L Huang-Pollock, assistant professor of psychology, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for "Working Memory and Skill Acquistion in Childhood ADHD."
David M. McBride, professor of African and African American Studies and African American History, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for "Disasters, Recovery and Health Care for Disadvantaged Urban Population."
Sally A. McMurry, professor of American history, from COP: Historical and Museum Commission, for "Digitize the Microfilms of the 1880 Federal Agricultural Census."
Kevin. R. Murphy, professor of psychology, from the United States Marine Corps, for "Study to Quantify the Benefits and Costs of Simulated versus Live-Fire Training at USMC Ranges."
Robert M. Stern, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology, from the U.S. Department of the Army, for "Psychological Detection of Deception Research."
Nancy A. Tuana, Dupont/Class of 1949 Professor of Philosophy, Humanities, and Women's Studies and Director, Rock Ethics Institute, from the American Philosophical Association, for “Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute for Undergraduates”; from the Institute of International Education, for “North–South Consultation Meeting on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change.”
James R. Tybout, professor of economics and Nezih Guner, from the National Science Foundation, for "Openness, Industrial Evolution and Job Flows."
Alan C. Walker, Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Biology, from the National Science Foundation, for "Comparative Analysis of 3-D Trabecular Bone Architecture: Applications to Locomotor Reconstruction in Fossil Primates."
Obituary
Arthur L. Welsh, former senior lecturer in economics, died Friday, August 11, 2006, at the Mount Nittany Medical Center, after a lengthy battle with cancer.
A Korean War veteran, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. Throughout his long and successful career, he worked at the Joint Council for Economic Education in New York and taught economics at the University of Iowa, Indiana University, and Penn State before retiring in 1997. A memorial service in celebration of his life will be held in October. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations in his name be given to the American Cancer Society, 123 S. Sparks St., State College, PA, 16801.
Institute for the Arts and Humanities News
Upcoming Funding Competition Deadlines
Team Teaching Across the Disciplines
October 3, 2006: This program provides opportunities to bring interdisciplinarity into upper-level undergraduate and graduate classrooms through collaborative teaching. Funding will cover expenses directly related to faculty team teaching, including use of multi-media resources; guest speakers; faculty/student travel to museums, to performances, or for learning-related projects in other locations; and course buy-out for one faculty member to facilitate team teaching. Supported by a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Maximum grant award: $7,500.
Application deadline: October 3, 2006 (for courses offered in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008).
Individual Faculty Grants
October 16, 2006: This program helps to fund the research and creative projects of individual faculty members in and across the arts and humanities at Penn State. Awards support materials, travel for research/creative activity, costs related to publication, wages for research assistance, and release time.
Maximum grant award: $4,500.
Application deadlines: October 16, 2006 (for funding between January–June); March 1, 2007 (for funding between July–December).
Public Humanities Scholars
Late October 2006: This program, jointly sponsored by the Institute for the Arts and Humanities and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council (PHC), brings innovative arts and humanities programs to mid-central Pennsylvania. The IAH and PHC match interested nonprofit organizations with Penn State faculty who then work together to plan and present high-quality programs in their communities. Public Humanities Scholars consists of a one-day residency by a member of the Penn State faculty. One day is defined as eight hours of total collaboration, which may consist of a combination of contact time and preliminary light research. Participating scholars receive a $500 honorarium and the reimbursement of travel expenses. Public Humanities Scholars is generously funded by a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to the IAH.
Application deadline: late October 2006 (date to be announced); (for projects in Spring 2007).
For more information and to download the application form, please visit:
www.pahumanities.org/projects/scholars.php
Resident Scholars and Artists
November 1, 2006: This program, jointly sponsored with the College of Arts and Architecture and the College of the Liberal Arts, provides up to eight faculty members per year with one semester of release time from teaching, a $1,000 grant for research expenses and/or materials, and the use of an office in Ihlseng Cottage.
Application deadline: November 1, 2006 (for residencies in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008).
Interdisciplinary Groups
November 15, 2006: Funding for interdisciplinary groups covers expenses directly related to group programming such as travel, lodging, and honoraria for invited speakers, performers, or artists; costs of publicity; research assistance to help with programming; costs related to publication ensuing from symposia or lecture series; and costs of exhibition or performance. Group programs may be funded for one or two academic years.
Maximum grant per group per year: $7,500.
Application deadline: November 15, 2006 (for one-or two-year projects beginning in Fall 2007).
Bridging the Classroom
November 30, 2006: Supported by a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this program is designed to build bridges between courses as well as between the classroom and public events. The purpose of this initiative is to connect work in different classrooms to one another and to support the realization of an idea or a project that emerges from this collaboration. Projects should result in a performance, exhibition, or other outcome open to the public.
Maximum grant award: $4,500.
Application deadlines: November 30, 2006 (for projects beginning in Spring 2007);
March 15, 2007 (for projects beginning in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008).
February 12, 2007: This competitive program provides up to eight advanced graduate students with a $3,000 stipend and the use of an office in Ihlseng Cottage during the summer term, enabling them to spend focused time working on their theses, dissertations or final creative projects. Graduate officers may nominate up to two students per department or program.
Application deadline: February 12, 2007 (for Summer 2007).
Individual Faculty Grants
March 1, 2007: This program helps to fund the research and creative projects of individual faculty members in and across the arts and humanities at Penn State. Awards support materials, travel for research/creative activity, costs related to publication, wages for research assistance, and release time.
Maximum grant award: $4,500.
Application deadlines: March 1, 2007 (for funding between July–December).
Early March 2007: The arrival of Humanities Initiative funds has made it possible for the College of the Liberal Arts, in cooperation with its affiliated Centers and Institutes, to expand support for dissertation writers. The Institute for the Arts and Humanities invites applications from graduate students in the College of the Liberal Arts whose dissertations are directly related to the humanities and/or to the intersections between the humanities and the arts. While the semester release is administered by the College of the Liberal Arts, the IAH will augment these awards by providing its Dissertation Fellows with a $500 research fund. In addition, office space at Ihlseng Cottage might be available to some Fellows.
Application deadline: early March 2007 (date to be announced); (for release in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008).
Short-Term Distinguished Visiting Fellowships in the Arts and Humanities
Rolling Deadline: A "short-term" fellowship is defined as an intense residency period at the University Park campus, usually ranging between three and seven working days, during which the visiting scholar and/or artist is fully engaged in a series of educational, scholarly and creative activities. The residency must consist of a number of activities, including at least one public event (e.g. a lecture, performance, exhibition, etc.) and at least one activity aimed specifically at students (e.g. a workshop, presentation in a class, master class, etc.). Visiting fellows must be distinguished figures in the arts and/or humanities whose residency will generate interest across multiple disciplines. A financial contribution from at least two departments/programs/schools is required. Maximum grant award: $7,500.
Nomination deadline: There is no set deadline; nominations will be accepted on a rolling basis until funds are no longer available. Prospective nominators should contact the IAH Executive Director to inquire about the availability of funds.
For further information and complete guidelines on these programs, please call the Institute at 865-0495, e-mail arts-humanities@psu.edu, or visit www.research.psu.edu/iah
IAH Individual Faculty Grant Recipients
Institute for the Arts and Humanities Individual Faculty Grants for the period July–December 2006 have been awarded for the following faculty projects in the College of the Liberal Arts:
William Cobb (English)-a novel-in-progress, The Birdist
Vera Mark (French)-a project titled "Memories of Rural French World War Two Collaborationism"
Rachel Teukolsky (English)-a project titled "Mapping Late-Victorian Counterculture: Sexual Dissidence and the Geographic Imaginary"
IAH Resident Scholars
The following Liberal Arts faculty will be in residence at the Institute for the Fall 2006 semester:
Daniel Berman (CAMS)-a project titled "City of Kadmos: The Mythic Topography of Greek Thebes"
Patrick Cheney (English)-a project titled "Shakespeare's Counter-Laureate Authorship"
Daniel Purdy (German)-a project titled "The Architecture of Inwardness: Renaissance Cosmology in German Aesthetics"
Nan Woodruff (History)-a project titled "Violence and African American Memory in the Twentieth Century South"
The following three Liberal Arts faculty members will be in residence during the Spring 2007 semester:
David Atwill (History)-a project titled "Through the Eyes of Commissioner Lin: Reframing China's 19th Century Vision of Islam, Ethnicity, and the Chinese Borderlands"
Julia Kasdorf (English)-a book project titled "Sacrificial Figures"
Humanities Initiative Dissertation Fellowships
The following Liberal Arts graduate students have been awarded Humanities Initiative Dissertation Fellowships for the Fall 2006 semester:
Jan Ludwig Logemann (History)-a dissertation titled "Living Consumer Capitalism: Divergent Paths to a Mass Consumer Modernity in West Germany and the United States during the Postwar Boom Era"
Audra Merfeld (French)-a dissertation titled "The Villages du livre: Local Identity, Cultural Policy, and Print Culture in Contemporary France"
Robert Schwaller (History)-a dissertation titled "From Conquest to Casta: The Evolution of Mexico's Socio-Racial Hierarchies"
The following five students have been awarded Fellowships for the Spring 2007 semester:
Matthew Adams (History)-a dissertation titled "The Predynastic through Old Kingdom Stratification of the Delta Site, Mendes"
Jennifer Biedendorf (CAS)-a dissertation titled "The Rhetoric of Transnational Public Memory"
Annika Farber (Comp Lit)-a dissertation titled "The Medieval artes amatoria: The Rise of the Didactic in Andreas, Guillaume, Jean, and Gower"
Sarah Stone Watt (CAS)-a dissertation that will focus on women in race riots throughout United States history
Jill Weber (CAS)-a dissertation that will provide a more comprehensive discussion of the politics surrounding the American family and family values
Department News
The Department of Labor Studies and Industrial Relations recently changed its name to Labor Studies and Employment Relations. Employment and the employment relationship are at the heart of our program. The change was made to more clearly convey this focus to prospective students and employers and is consistent with recent name changes in peer programs and in the field's professional organization.
Lectures and Symposia
The Center for Language Acquisition, presents:
the Fall Genevieve and Alfred Gorski Lecture:
Professor Linda Waugh, department of linguistics, French and Italian,
University of Arizona
"Indices of Identity and Markers of
Ideological Stance by Proficient L2 Speakers in their L1: Evidence from
French Conversational Interaction"
Friday, September 22, 2006
4 p.m.
113 IST Building
Professor Waugh will discuss the case of a highly proficient ESL
speaker, who, in interaction in his L1 (French) with monolingual French
speakers, displays shifting linguistic and national identities and
associated ideologies as he carefully aligns himself with his
interlocutors or differentiates himself from them, depending on the
topics under
discussion and on the reactions of his interlocutors to his bilingual and
binational (France and the U.S.) status. In examining the issue of
identity and ideology, he focus will be on the use of non-specific
(indefinite, generic) pronouns, along with generic and indefinite
utterances, as the participants in the conversation to be examined
discuss the cultural differences between the U.S. and France. It will be
shown that work on identity should take into account shifts in identity and
ideology as the interlocutors in a conversation change topics and
that this can give valuable evidence for how speakers of an L2 are
dealing with
the issue of identity in their L1.
The Allegheny Mountain Reading Series presents:
Brian Evenson, director of the Literary Arts Program at Brown University
Thursday, October 12, 2006
8 p.m. Foster Auditorium, Pattee Library
The Rising Scholars Speakers Series presents:
Douglas Mao, associate professor of English at Cornell University
September 26, 2006
Location/Time TBA.
Diane Davis, associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin
October 16, 2006
Location/Time TBA.
The Craft Lecture presents:
Ellen Bryant Voigt, "Syntax in Poetry: The Song Within the Language,"
September 27, 2006
4 p.m. Foster Auditorium 101 Pattee Library
The Emily Dickinson Lecture in American Poetry presents:
Ellen Bryant Voigt
September 29, 2006
7:30 p.m. Palmer Lipcon Auditorium, Palmer Museum of Art, University Park
The Rock Ethics Institute presents the 2006–2007 Social Justice and the Economy: National and International Perspectives Lecture Series:
The Social Justice and the Economy: National and International Perspectives Lecture Series is being made possible, in part, by support from Richard and Ronnie Lippin; the Africana Research Center; Department of African and African American Studies; Department of Economics; Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations; Department of Psychology; Department of Sociology; Department of Women's Studies; and University Libraries. The Rock Ethics Institute events are also made possible with the support of a generous gift from Doug and Julie Rock.
Paul F. Clark, head, Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, professor of labor studies and industrial relations and health policy and administration, Penn State, "The Ethics of 'Brain Drain': Recruiting Healthcare Professionals From Abroad"
September 25, 2006
3–4:30 p.m. Foster Auditorium, 101 Pattee Library
Cassandra Veney, assistant professor of Women's Studies and African and African American Studies, Penn State, "The Racial and Gender Dynamics of Being 'Foreign' in America"
October 9, 2006
3–4:30 p.m. Foster Auditorium, 101 Pattee Library
Amina Mama, chair in gender studies, African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town "Transnational Challenges: Reflecting on Local Feminism and the Development of Africa"
October 30, 2006
3–4:30 p.m. Foster Auditorium, 101 Pattee Library
The Comparative Literature Luncheon Series presents:
The Comparative Literature Luncheon is a weekly informal lunchtime gathering of students, faculty, and other members of the University community. Each week there is a short (20 minute) presentation, by a visitor or a local speaker, on a topic related to any humanities discipline.
Jonathan Eburne (jpe11@psu.edu) and Daniel Walden (dxw8@psu.edu) are the coordinators for the series this semester. We meet Mondays in 102 Kern at about 12:15 p.m. You can bring your lunch or buy a lunch tray in Kern Cafeteria (next door) and bring it into 102. Coffee and tea are provided in 102 (no charge). The speaker will begin at about 12:40 p.m. Allowing a few minutes for discussion, we'll conclude in time for classes that meet at 1:25 p.m. All students, faculty, colleagues, and friends are welcome. To view the fall 2006 schedule: visit: http://complit.la.psu.edu/luncheoncurrent.htm
Bioethics Lecture Series presents:
Jonathan H. Marks, associate professor of bioethics, humanities and law, Penn State
"The Future of Bioethics: From the Microscope to the Macroscopic."
October 3, 2006
3 p.m. Foster Auditorium, 101 Pattee Library
The Child Study Center Annual Lois Bloom Endowed Lecture presents:
Dr. Richard Davidson, professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, University of Wisconsion–Madison "Order and Disorder in the Emotional Brain."
September 21, 2006
The
Nittany Lion Inn; Boardroom 1 and 2, 4:15 p.m.
WebEvents Calendar
The WebEvents Calendar features lectures, talks, and conferences sponsored by units within the College of the Liberal Arts and by the College. If you have something that you would like posted to the calendar for your department, please send entry submissions to Carol Sonenklar at cas499@psu.edu.
Liberal Arts Parking Hours
If you need to obtain or exchange parking permits, please come to Room 111 Sparks Building, Monday through Friday, from 9 to 11 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. only. Please remember to bring your license plate number(s) with you when you register for your permit. Once you have a permit, please be sure you report new or changed license plate numbers to Chris Hort at 863-8328. As a reminder, if you are leaving the College, you will need to return your parking permit to 106 Sparks Building.
College Information Technology Changes
As the demands for computer support continue to grow, albeit at a faster rate than the number of support specialists in the College, we have developed some new policies to better shape both the resources and the support that are available to you. These policies can be found on the tech support web site at http://techsupport.la.psu.edu/policies/policies.shtml.
From time to time there may be a need for exceptions to the policies so we have established a route for you to follow when requesting exceptions. Simply complete the form found at http://techsupport.la.psu.edu/forms/forms.shtml.
Sandy Wingard is the Manager of information and support services and would be happy to answer any questions regarding IT. Contact her at swingard@psu.edu.
New Classroom Rules
The University is kicking off a new initiative this fall called "The Classroom Campaign," to keep our classrooms free of trash and other debris. All food and drink, with the exception of water, will no longer be allowed in general purpose classrooms.
The expense of the debris left behind in classroom areas necessitates extra janitorial time, which is costly, and detracts from a positive classroom experience for students. While the College has recently increased the number of recycling/trash receptacles in high traffic areas throughout Sparks and some of our other buildings, the accumulation of debris left behind following classes/labs/meetings continues. This worthwhile initiative should reinforce the importance of discarding trash and recyclable items appropriately.
As part of the rollout of this initiative, faculty, staff and student volunteers throughout the University Park campus participated in activities on the first two days of classes to get the word out, distribute free bottled water and support efforts to keep our classrooms clean. College staff volunteered in Pond, Sparks and Willard buildings and received positive feedback from the many students starting their new semesters. I am sure we will hear more about this initiative in coming months so please support these efforts and lead by example.
Staff News
Amy Dietz, administrative assistant to African and African American studies, labor studies and employment relations, and women's studies, received her B.S. in Labor Studies and her M.S. in human resources and employment relations at the August 12 commencement ceremonies. Congratulations, Amy!
New Colleagues
Elizabeth Brown, lead counselor, Office of Undergraduate Studies
Stephanie Cramer, staff assistant VI, English
Sharissa Feasler, staff assistant VI, English
Angela Hill, staff assistant VI, political science
Mary Kay Hort, assistant to the dean for volunteer engagement, alumni relations and development
Christine Hughes, advising coordinator, office of undergraduate studies
Jasun Lego, information technology specialist, Liberal Arts Computer Support Services
Brandy Myers, staff assistant VI, political science
Connie Ripka, staff assistant VI, financial office, Office of the Dean
Lynn Sebulsky, staff assistant V, economics
Marcella Shire, research support associate, psychology
Erin Ulrich, research support associate, Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing
Alissa Yamasaki, senior research technologist, psychology, Psychological Clinic
Transfers
Karen Sones, lead counselor, Office of Undergraduate Studies
Promotions
Tammy Accordino, administrative assistant I, economics
Amy Barone, staff assistant VII, English
Brandy Bower, administrative assistant I, Office of the Associate Dean for Graduate and Undergraduate Education
Sherri Bumbarger, staff assistant IX, planning and operations assistant, alumni relations and development
Steven Dotts, systems design specialist
Sandra Wingard, manager information systems, Liberal Arts Computer Support Services
Departures
Esther Benitez, staff assistant VI, psychology
Barbara King, staff assistant VII, Center For Work and Family Research
Janette Moore, administrative assistant I, economics
Ann Morris, administrative assistant I, African and African American Studies, labor studies and employment relations, women's studies
Bryson Nobles, program coordinator, Race Relations Project, sociology
Tammy Russell, advising coordinator, Office of Undergraduate Studies
Kevin Wehnau, information technology specialist, Liberal Arts Computer Support Services
Retirements
Nancy Fogleman, administrative assistant IV, anthropology
Diane Roan, administrative assistant III, outreach
Virginia Struble, staff assistant VI, political science
Staff Information Meeting
An informational session is being offered for college staff on Friday, October 6 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. in room 121 Sparks Building. Dean Welch will discuss college initiatives and directions, and Jennifer Morris will speak about human resources programs and initiatives. All staff members are invited to attend this informational program and to bring any questions you may have.
United Way
The thirteenth annual United Way Day of Caring will be held on Thursday, October 5, 2006. Over the years the faculty and staff of the College of the Liberal Arts have donated many volunteers and hours to the United Way Day of Caring. In addition to improvement projects for local nonprofit organizations, this year's activities will include projects for families of deployed military personnel. Last year's event had nearly 6,000 volunteers, working on over 260 projects in 110 locations throughout Centre Country. If you or a team of employees from your area, are interested in donating a day of vacation to be of service for improvement projects throughout the county, please contact the Day of Caring Office at 238-2941 ext.28 for details.
For a volunteer application, please see the following Web site: http://www.ccunitedway.org/pdf/VolunteerProfile.pdf
A list of projects and locations will be available on the following Web site by early September:
http://www.ccunitedway.org/pncdoc.html
Our College campaign committee is busy planning upcoming events and requests your support. Don't forget the used book sale in the Sparks Building Lobby October 3 and 4 from 11a.m.to 3p.m. Please help us continue our long history of successful United Way events.
Staff Professional Development
To present opportunities for professional development for LA staff members, the LA Office of Human Resources will continue to offer monthly workshops on a variety of topics. The workshops will begin in September; most workshops will be held on the third Wednesday of each month from 8:30–10:30 a.m. in room 124 Sparks. The schedule of workshops will be posted on the Liberal Arts Human Resources website after September 1. Interested staff members may register by contacting Betsy Will (ejw5@psu.edu). Some of the planned topics include:
- Laughing at stress
- Conflict Resolution
- All about CAPS
- Balancing Work and Family
If you have specific suggestions for workshops, please let us know.
September 2006 Issue
Institute for the Arts and Humanities News
College Information Technology Changes
LA Times is compiled by Carol Sonenklar, Alumni Relations and Development Office, 13 Sparks, 865-8085.
Past LA Times issues are also available on the Web here.
This publication is available in alternative media on request.
Penn State encourages qualified persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please consult the Liberal Arts dean's office at 814-865-7691 in advance of your participation or visit.
The Pennsylvania State University is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to programs, facilities, admission, and employment without regard to personal characteristics not related to ability, performance, or qualifications as determined by University policy or by state or federal authorities. It is the policy of the University to maintain an academic and work environment free of discrimination, including harassment. The Pennsylvania State University prohibits discrimination and harassment against any person because of age, ancestry, color, disability or handicap, national origin, race, religious creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or veteran status. Discrimination or harassment against faculty, staff, or students will not be tolerated at The Pennsylvania State University. Direct all inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policy to the Affirmative Action Director, The Pennsylvania State University, 328 Boucke Building, University Park, PA 16802-5901; Tel 814-865-4700/V, 814-863-1150/TTY
U.Ed. LBA 07-51