College of the Liberal Arts Electronic Magazine, Issue 1

Issue 1, 9/7/01

Contents:

On Campus

WHAT IS THIS?

     You are reading the first issue of LAzine, the new electronic alumni magazine of Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts. Several weeks ago, we surveyed 1000 of your fellow Liberal Arts alumni to find out what you wanted to read about, what opportunities you wanted to learn about, and what news you thought was important. We hope that this publication meets your expectations.
    This is not meant to replace our print publication, Liberal Arts magazine, which until now went out twice per year. Rather, LAzine will complement it, occurring more regularly and providing better possibilities for reply, reconnection, and contact with the college, your home department, and Penn State.
    LAzine will arrive in your in-box every six weeks. In it, we will let you know about ongoing research that will have an effect on your life or our society. We will tell you about other successful alumni and the many interesting careers that Liberal Arts folks have gone on to pursue. Alumni, student, and faculty voices will appear regularly, and each issue will have a trivia question, for which respondents will have the possibility of winning prizes.

WILL YOU BE ON CAMPUS THIS MONTH?

September 29 is Parents and Families Day at Penn State. Campus will be less hectic, as the Nittany Lions will be away, playing Hawkeyes in Iowa City, and there will be a number of public events on campus. The College of the Liberal Arts will host a few. For starters, the Matson Museum of Anthropology will host a tour of its exhibits on Saturday, September 29, from 2 to 3 p.m. on the second floor of Carpenter Building. Dr. Claire Milner, Curator and Director of Exhibits, will take the guests on a guided tour of the Matson Museum that will include displays related to the peoples and cultures of Afghanistan, genetic research on the development of humans, and artifacts from the Day of the Dead, among many other topics in archaeology, biological anthropology, and cultural anthropology.
Also on Saturday afternoon, the Department of Speech Communication will sponsor several events open to the public. The afternoon will kick off with a public debate on gun control from 1 to 2 p.m. in 309 Sparks. Then, from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m., poster presentations of student research and community-based projects will be on display, also in 309 Sparks Building. The student-researchers will be on hand to answer questions. Immediately afterward, in the same place, students and faculty members will present performances of contemporary literature from 3:45 to 4:30 p.m. All events are open to the public.

DO YOU KNOW?

The exterior walls of Sparks Building are adorned with carvings of the names of great thinkers and artists: Beethoven, Aristotle, Goethe, and the like. Regrettably, there is only one woman whose name is included with them. If you know who it is, and what her accomplishments were, send the answer here. We will draw a name from among the correct answers we receive, and award that person a prize.

ROCK ETHICS INSTITUTE BEGINS FIRST YEAR

    Stem cell research, sustainable agriculture, drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, research integrity, globalism and American foreign policy—the newly founded Rock Ethics Institute inspires discussion and action on these and other complicated moral dilemmas.
    Nancy Tuana, the DuPont–Class of ’49 Professor of Ethics, who has researched and written extensively on gender and science, believes the Rock Ethics Institute will be key to creating ethical and moral awareness on the Penn State community. Tuana, director of the Institute, plans to develop programs that will create “active, informed citizens” who can anticipate and solve difficult problems. As a key leader in research throughout the nation, Penn State should be an instrumental force in assisting students, staff, and community members to hone “the ability to recognize and investigate the ethical sources and values that define our human endeavors.” Including members from all University Colleges, the Institute will focus on issues of moral literacy across the disciplines.
    On a campus that worries more about student rioting than victory at the Penn State v. Miami football game, the work of the Rock Ethics Institute is crucial. It may not solve every moral or ethical issue, but it will encourage those touched by its programs to develop greater awareness of the diversity of ethical issues and moral values.

MEET DAVID BUTZ

    A guest speaker in a pre-med seminar changed David Butz’s life. His mother had pictured David—the first in the family to graduate college—wearing a white lab coat and studiously peering into a microscope. “She has always wanted what was best for me,” Butz explains. But listening to the speaker’s warnings about HMOs, insurance, and pharmaceutical companies, Butz decided medical research was more like “running a business rather than helping people.”
    Instead, he switched to the hands-on experience of investigating the human psyche. Now a Picture of David Butz psychology major, he investigates ways to help children resist racial and gender biases through classroom development. “Children associate certain colors (like black) with badness,” he explains. “As a social-cognitive psychologist, my job will be to reverse this learned attachment and to prevent it from forming in the first place.”
    The recipient of numerous awards such as the merit based Lois-Jean Ruth Endowed Scholarship in the College of the Liberal Arts, Butz still has doubts about pursuing a career absent of quantifiable results. Nonetheless, he remains confident his research will someday impact children as well as future generations. He hopes that by “allowing children to experience interracial friendships [they] will learn that skin color is a meaningless category.”

DR. RICK GILMORE RECEIVES NSF EARLY CAREER AWARD FOR BRAIN RESEARCH

    For the last several months, newborn babies in Centre County have been invited to one of the University Service Buildings at the northern edge of campus to have their vision tested. On leaving, however, they receive a certificate thanking them for their contributions to the understanding of human cognitive development. They are labeled “Infant Scientists” long before they have any idea of what the designation means. What does it mean?
    Psychology professor Rick Gilmore is behind the program. “The human brain undergoes its most rapid and dramatic period of development in the first two years of life,” says Gilmore. “And yet we understand astonishingly little about the impact of early brain development on the emergence of perception, thought, or action.”
    Currently supported by a National Science Foundation grant, Gilmore’s research incorporates behavioral studies and computational modeling in order to examine how the mind and brain develop in infancy. He focuses on two specific domains, spatial vision and memory—thus the reason for eye tests in infants. Particularly, he is interested in how infants perceive where things are in the world, and how their ability to perceive such things changes.
    But without babies undergoing vision testing, the project would be at a standstill. Parents in Centre County benefit from free vision tests, and science moves forward thanks to the efforts of these committed “infant scientists.”

FORTY-FIVE AT FORTY-FIVE

This past June, Bill and Doris Frey, of Sanibel, Florida, celebrated their wedding anniversary by donating $4500to various causes to observe their forty-five years together. They sent $500 checks to nine different organizations. Liberal Arts’ Religious Studies Program was one of the beneficiaries.
The Freys are passionate about supporting religious nurturance, perhaps because they equate their good fortunes with the power of faith. Over thirty years ago, Bill (M. William: ’56 PSY, ’63 PhD BUS) left his post as assistant dean of the business school at UMass in Amherst to pursue a business opportunity with a former student. That business soon dissolved, and Bill then started what became a successful construction company which built homes and condominiums in Sanibel Island, Naples, and other areas of Florida, as well as a shopping center in Ocala.
At the same time, he and Doris (’56 HHD, ’60 MS HHD) grew active in local cultural, church, and community organizations, including leadership positions with LOGOS, a national Christian youth organization, and the Southwest Florida Community Foundation. “We both feel very fortunate and fulfilled by our involvements in our community," says Doris. "We are glad to celebrate our anniversary in a way that benefits others.”