College of the Liberal Arts Electronic Magazine, Issue 18, March, 2004

With this issue of LAzine, the electronic alumni magazine of Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts,
we welcome our Liberal Arts undergraduate students as new readers. Those wishing to unsubscribe
may do so with the link provided.

— The Editors

Issue 18, 3/4/04

Contents:

Aimee Betz, Fulbright Scholar

The Power of BEADS

Ancestry Informative Markers

Brose Distinguished Lecture Series

College of the Liberal Arts

Alumni Relations and Development

Q&A WITH JUDGE CYNTHIA BALDWIN

Judge Cynthia Baldwin Judge Cynthia Baldwin '66 English, '74 M.A. English is the first African-American woman to chair Penn State’s Board of Trustees. She was also the first African-American female judge to be elected to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. After Penn State, she attended Duquesne University School of Law to pursue a Juris Doctorate degree. For over thirteen years Judge Baldwin has been an active member of the Penn State Alumni Association. She also is a former President of the Association. In 1995, she was awarded the Penn State Distinguished Alumni Award.

What is a typical day for you as a judge?

The most exciting factor about my judicial career is that there is no typical day. That is not to say that there are no repetitions. After all, I've been on the bench for fourteen years, during the course of which l have served in the Adult Family Division, the Juvenile Division, and the Civil Division. I am also the Decertification Judge. My duty in that position is to decide whether a person under the age of 18 years will be tried as an adult or a juvenile. Recently, I have also been asked to do some statutory appeals involving HUD Section 8 housing. This month I'm serving as Motions Judge. l hear motions on cases as varied as mortgage foreclosure and preliminary injunctions in commercial matters, among others.

What’s the most challenging and/or interesting aspect of your career?

The most challenging aspect of my career is to care about the people and cases before me, listen carefully to the cases, and make decisions in the cases, but not to carry any case home with me. If a Judge is still mulling over yesterday's cases, he/she will not be giving the next litigants his/her full attention.

What do you see as the role of the Board of Trustees as an entity? Your role?

The Board of Trustees has many weighty matters that come before it. It is imperative that we balance the cost of education for the students against keeping Pent State a premier land grant university with top-notch faculty and teaching, outstanding curricula, important and relevant research, and facilities with cutting edge technology. Truly no student is attracted to a university that has only reasonable prices without the rest. One of my roles is to keep the Board focused on the issues that come before us and to ensure that we use the diversity of ideas articulated by the Board members to the University's best advantage.

How do you envision Penn State evolving over the next ten years?

It is truly difficult to envision Penn State's evolution over the next ten years, but I know it will be exciting. Who would have thought ten years ago that our education delivery systems would be so different and that it would be possible for a student to attain a Penn State education without ever seeing any of our campuses? How does the University keep those alumni tied into its mission and spirit? Who would have envisioned an IST building straddling Atherton Street with classrooms resembling Star Wars rocket ships? Our library system allows our students to access books and materials from anywhere in the world within a few days.

How has your education at Penn State affected your professional (and personal) development?

The value placed on my Penn State education has made me a committed volunteer for Penn State. Not only did I get a great undergraduate education, but also I learned life skills from my interactions with faculty counselors and alumni.

What advice can you give to undergraduate students about how to face the challenges of life in the “real” world?

My advice to undergraduates is to take full advantage of all of the opportunities Penn State affords you, both in the classroom and in activities outside of the classroom. Be involved in student government, clubs, and study abroad, among others so that your horizons are broadened.

AIMEE BETZ, FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR, REFLECTS ON HER EXPERIENCE

   When I decided to come to Korea, I don’t think I really understood what to expect. I’m in a country that every day I see how it is developing, not only physically as I reside in Mokpo (a city far behind Seoul standards), but also from talking to the people. My teachers are wonderful and provide me with a great deal of insight. I’ve caught myself becoming very Korean; no longer do I think twice about taking my shoes off when I enter a house, restaurant or school; I’ve become accustomed to using two hands to politely conduct exchanges; I bow even to other foreigners; it seems normal to use scissors to cut meat; I am no longer confused when a Korean motions for me to come to them
using a signal that all my life I’ve known to mean “get away;” no longer do I cringe at the unsanitary cleaning methods that occur when students are in charge of cleaning their school—and I’ve even adjusted to having to teach in a classroom with drastic variations in English/learning levels; some of my classes even have special students (this is how my students refer to mentally challenged students in my classroom).
   These are just some of the things that, in the beginning, caused me to constantly notice the differences I needed to adjust myself to. Things still shock me: being told to wear a seatbelt on a bus but getting a look of being insulting for putting it on in a car (luckily not from my host mom); being stopped on a Monday afternoon on a desolate road for a breathalyzer test; finally getting into a routine only to discover that stores like the post office change their hours whenever they feel like it. My family seems to sense when I’m homesick or experiencing culture shock; they always plan family fun time on just the right days.
   For as much as I've written, I feel like I’m unable to adequately explain my experience here.

THE POWER OF BEADS

   This month, Debby Rooney ’70 German will once again travel to Kenya to work with young women on behalf of BEADS for Education, the charitable organization she founded to enhance the status of women in their communities and to promote environmental awareness with a goal of preserving natural resources.
   She might talk to a 14-year-old Maasai girl whose beaded key chains are keeping her in school. She might talk with teachers at the Dupotu Women’s Group about progress at the school BEADS helped establish in 1993. She might interact with supportive government officials about ways to increase BEADS's effects. Her itinerary will be filled with appointments, and the visit will continue her decade of work, helping her make BEADS self-perpetuating.
   “This is an amazing, life changing program,” she says. “BEADS basically helps support women’s businesses while sponsoring the education of girls in Kenya so they don’t get married at 13.”
   According to Rooney, girls without an education in Kenya can expect to be forced into an arranged marriage to an older man, possibly as a second or third wife, and to bear seven or more children in her lifetime. However, if a girl receives an education, she will likely marry a man of her choice, have fewer children, improve the standard of living for her family, educate her children, have greater self-esteem, and make a positive impact on the environment by choosing to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
   To achieve such a difference costs roughly US$30 per month per girl. The reason more Kenyan girls are not educated is that the average monthly income for a family in Kenya is US$25.
   For the first several years, Rooney orchestrated the program to support fifteen girls. Two years ago, with a change in government in Kenya and greater support from advisors and other contacts in the United States, the group grew to its current size, supporting the education of ninety-seven girls. Currently, the mothers of girls supported by BEADS craft beaded products which are then sold. All of the proceeds, 100 percent, come back to support the girls. Beyond the craftwork itself, a core of women who have been supported by the program take part in community service and a variety of workshops: career counseling, AIDS training counseling, human rights awareness, and more.
   Now, with a Web presence and national press coverage in places like Ms., Elle Magazine, African Wildlife News, and dozens of newspapers, BEADS is attracting donors who make outright sponsorship commitments, pledging the US$30 monthly it takes to support the girls.
   “This year, we have seen a very widespread influence,” Rooney says. “Three girls started college who had been in the program for several years. They hope to work for the organization afterward. With their commitment and their success, I expect BEADS will become self-perpetuating.”
   BEADS has come a long way, as has Rooney herself. Before she knew she wanted to help people, she worked to save animals. A twenty-year veteran environmental educator, Rooney had traveled to Kenya in hopes of saving endangered and mistreated animals. She soon realized she wanted to help the people she met and talked about in her classes.
   Before BEADS, she had worked at an aquarium and in other environmental activist capacities. But, she says, “My education at Penn State really set me up to do what I am doing. I was a German major, and I took my teacher credits, expecting to work in a school. I didn’t realize how important languages would be. I’ve learned some Swahili, and some bits of other east African languages, but you can get around the world on German.”

WHAT IS AN ANCESTRY INFORMATIVE MARKER?

   Geneticist Mark Shriver, assistant professor of biological anthropology, performs what might be thought of as DNA macro-analysis. Shriver’s technique considers DNA samples from large numbers of people, looking at the broadest trends and “markers” (specific positions where there are sequence differences) which have taken thousands of years to develop.
   “Much of the human genome is very similar,” Shriver says. “So if you analyze several samples at once, and most of it looks very similar, those places that have differences show up dramatically.”
   Such markers can often correlate with disease, but can just as often signify a difference in an expressed trait, or be of no consequence whatsoever. An expressed trait, or “phenotype,” might be an aspect of physical appearance, the likelihood of contracting a disease, or any result of a genetic code as it manifests itself in an individual and is effected by environment.
   Scientists agree that the human genome looks the way it does today due to its evolution over thousands of years of natural selection, mutation, migration, and random drift (for a definition of random drift, click here). People interact and reproduce, and certain traits endure in the species while others disappear.
   But because large groups of individuals were isolated by various factors—mainly geological barriers—off and on over the history of human evolution, there are some rare markers that have persevered in their gene pools. The “allele frequencies” (click here for a definition) within the markers reveal the populations’ geographic origins. Generally, allele frequencies are quite similar across all human populations, reflecting our very recent common origin.
   Shriver’s work, termed admixture mapping, looks at the changes in genetic profiles that have resulted as large populations came in contact with one another. For instance, when people of West Africa—which includes several different groups—came in contact with groups comprised of what we think of today as Europeans and American Indians, resulting offspring carried markers from each group.
   What does such work tell us? Shriver's lab works on applications of population genetics to questions of human origins and human evolution. Which groups moved where and when? How did they interact, genetically? Shriver focuses particularly on normal and disease phenotypes that may have been subject to recent (last several thousand years) active natural selection. These phenotypes include chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, and normal variation in common traits, namely skin and hair pigmentation, tooth features, and stature.
   One interesting point Shriver makes resulting from his work is that there is no typological basis for race. That is, no common characteristics allow for biological classification of race. He explains, “Human populations are too closely related to be considered subspecies. The surface appearance differences are too superficial to constitute such categorization. There are no ‘pure’ human stocks and never were.”
   Rather, Shriver points out that race as generally understood and as used in biomedical research refers to cultural, social, and biological features of population groups. The designation suggests greater human variation than actually exists biologically. Although much genetic variation is shared among all human populations, only about 5 percent of such markers can be considered “Ancestry Informative Markers.”The results suggest what is supported by the movement of people over time: ancestry is a tricky matter.
   “It is simplistic to equate skin color and race,” Shriver says. “There are both dark and light skinned populations in most parts of the world and extensive variation in pigmentation within most regions.”
   Even so, because Shriver’s work has pinpointed ancestry informative markers, or AIMs, the science can be used for things other than population genetics. For instance, Shriver’s research attracted national press coverage in June 2003, when the New York Times reported that his techniques had been used to alter a police investigation, revealing a murder suspect to be a black man, rather than a white man, as profilers had deduced.
   The technique is also being used to allow individuals to learn their ancestry mix. A consulting business employs the technique to provide the test. People who are thought of culturally as “white,” through such a test might find, for instance, that their AIMs reveal them to be 80 percent European ancestry, 12 percent West African, and 8 percent American Indian.
   Shriver points out that many Americans will find their ancestry to be comprised of many different peoples, with roots around the world, and that ancestry suggests much more complexity than do cultural labels such as white or black or Native American.

BROSE DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES WELCOMES BACK GARY GALLAGHER

   Five years ago, Professor Gary Gallagher left Penn State for the University of Virginia, but not before setting in motion events that would lead to the establishment of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center.
   This April, Gallagher, now the John L. Nau III Professor of the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia, will deliver three lectures for the 2004 Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture and Book Series in the Civil War Era Center. Held every spring semester, the Brose Lectures feature leading writers, historians, and intellectuals whose work focuses on the era of the American Civil War.
   This year’s series occurs on April 1, 2, and 3, in Pattee Library’s Foster Auditorium on Penn State’s University Park campus. All the lectures are free and open to the public.
   Professor Gallagher’s Brose Lectures will explore what recent popular culture tells us about how Americans see the Civil War. He will discuss the respective causes of the United States and the Confederacy as reflected in film and art, identifying long-term winners and losers and speculating about why more violence has been done to some parts of the historical record than to others.
   The three lectures will deal with distinct aspects of Gallagher’s overriding theme. The schedule is as follows:

—Thursday, April 1, 7 p.m.: “The True Lost Cause: Hollywood and the Elusive War for Union.”

—Friday, April 2, 7 p.m.: “God, Generals, Guerillas, and Civilians: The Confederate War on Film.”

—Saturday, April 3, 3 p.m.: “Brushes, Canvases, and the Image of War: The Ascendancy of Confederate Themes in Recent Civil War Art.”

   Gary Gallagher is the author or editor of two-dozen books on the Civil War, of which half have been History Book Club selections. Recent titles include Lee and His Army in Confederate History, The American Civil War: The War in the East 1861–May 1863, Lee and His Generals in War and Memory, and The Confederate War. His numerous awards and fellowships include a Times-Mirror Foundation Distinguished Fellowship at The Huntington Library in 2001–2002, and the Fletcher Pratt Award, for best non-fiction book on the Civil War, in 1998, for Lee and His Generals in War and Memory.
   Gallagher frequently lectures on the Civil War at universities as well as for general audiences and is currently the editor of the University of North Carolina Press’s “Civil War America” series (forty titles to date) and “Military Campaigns of the Civil War” series (eight titles).
   The Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture and Book Series in the Civil War Era Center is supported by an endowment established by the Broses in 1998, originally to support a single lecture by a distinguished visitor. The Broses added to the endowment in 2001, allowing a distinguished lecturer to deliver three related lectures over three days. The Brose’s generosity has enabled Penn State and the Richards Center to enter an agreement with the University of Virginia Press, which will publish the lectures as part of a series of scholarly monographs.

DO YOU KNOW?

In our last issue, we mentioned that the dean’s suite of offices, in Sparks Building, underwent a renovation, and the upgrade included placing a quotation on prominent display. We asked readers which of the following quotations was chosen to adorn the wall outside the dean’s office?

a) “They know enough who know how to learn.”—Henry Adams.
b) “A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.”—Plutarch.
c) “Instruction enlarges the natural powers of the mind.”—Horace.
d) “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
— Mark Twain.

The correct answer is b. Robert Yuskavage answered correctly, bringing his total number of correct trivia answers to 3.
For this issue, our question is inspired by Professor Grosholz (see article below). The College of the Liberal Arts has lately earned notable support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Our question this time is perhaps one of our tougher ones, so we might foil the diabolical trivia ability of Mr. Yuskavage: how many other faculty in Liberal Arts have earned NEH support this year?

We look forward to your responses. Good luck.

EMILY GROSHOLZ

   Her office in Sparks is filled with bookshelves containing philosophy by Descartes, Kant, The Aeneid, A History of Western Philosophy, novels written in French, stacks of spiral notebooks, and literary journals such as The Hudson Review. The range of books illuminates Penn State philosophy professor Emily Grosholz’s vast academic and personal interests. She writes poetry, studies theories of both philosophy and mathematics, and is a scholar of African American Studies.
   Recently, her work has been recognized through a Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Humanities. The NEH grant will allow Grosholz to finish the draft of her latest book project, Analysis, History, and Intelligibility: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mathematics. The book examines a shift in the philosophy of mathematics that began in the early 20th century with French scientist-philosophers Henri Poincaré and Pierre Duhem, who were critical of the logicism of Bertrand Russell. It will continue arguments she makes in Reduction and Representation, the book she is currently completing, which examines the role of different modes of representation in mathematics and chemistry; it was begun while she was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She will finish her newest book in Paris where she has colleagues who “have been some of my best interlocutors over the past two decades.”
   During her career, Grosholz has co-authored and co-edited several books, including The Grown of Mathematical Knowledge, Leibniz’s Science of the Rational, and W. E. B. DuBois on Race and Culture: Philosophy, Politics and Poetics. In addition, she has published four collections of poetry. One of her poems, “Theories of Vision,” was just reprinted in The Mathematical Intelligencer, which is like Scientific American for mathematicians. Her edited volume, The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir, was released this January by Oxford University Press.
   A poet and a philosopher, Grosholz describes her attraction to the philosophy of mathematics with an analogy. “I have always loved mathematics. It’s very beautiful, and part of the genius of the human spirit, like poetry.”