H&SS eNews, September 2006

Greetings from H&SS.

The H&SS eNews is a monthly electronic publication of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. The eNews is compiled and edited by Kelli McElhinny, director of media relations for H&SS. She can be reached at 412-268-6094 or kellim@andrew.cmu.edu. Contact Kelli to submit news about yourself and your fellow alumni, and to sign up for our newsletters.

For past eNews publications, please visit the H&SS eNews archive.

For news about the entire university, be sure to check out the university’s home page or the Carnegie Mellon Today website.

Announcement

Once again, we are inviting you to become part of Baker Hall history by purchasing a commemorative engraved brick, which will be installed in the sidewalk next to the main entrance of Baker. For only $100, you can have a brick engraved with your name or a short message. The bricks will be laser engraved so that your message will endure a lifetime of wear. Each brick has space for up to three lines of text. The bricks will be installed in time for Homecoming weekend, October 12 - 15. In order to install your brick in the fall, we will need to have your order by September 12, 2006. You can order a brick by going to http://www.hss.cmu.edu/pressreleases/brickform.pdf.

Alumni News

--Carlos Carter (B.A. European Studies, 2002) will spend a year working as a volunteer with Partners In Health, a non-profit organization committed to fighting disease in impoverished settings.  His service will take place in Peru where he will teach math, reading, health and swimming to children from communities in Carabayllo, a district on the outskirts of Lima. If you are interested in supporting his work, please feel free to contact him at carlos@alumni.cmu.edu or (718) 312-8563. Also, please stay tuned to his progress via his blog at
http://www.bienvenidosacarabayllo.blogspot.com/

--Brian Gill (B.A. History and Philosophy, 1990), a social scientist in the Pittsburgh office of the Rand Corp., has been named to Pittsburgh Magazine’s annual list of “40 Under 40”, which honors young professionals who are making a significant impact on the Pittsburgh region. The 40 Under 40 will be featured in the magazine’s November issue. The magazine will host a party for the honorees at 6 p.m. November 10 at Piatt Place in Downtown Pittsburgh. The event is open to the public: Tickets cost $40 in advance or $50 at the door. A limited number of tickets are available for a VIP reception at 5 p.m. Those tickets cost $100. For more information, go to http://www.pump.org/.

--Conal Guan-Yow Ho (B.A. Social History, Professional Writing, Anthropology, 1997) is currently a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is raising funds for a project in Zambia to feed, shelter and educate children of Kantolomba, which is one of the poorest slum areas in Ndola, Zambia's second largest city. His goal is to raise $10,000 by the end of 2006. This project comes out of Living Compassion, a Buddhist organization. To learn more, go to http://web.mac.com/conalgyho/iWeb/Fundraising/Africa%20Project.html.

--Josh Ruben (B.A., Professional Writing, 1990) earned his master’s degree in education from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in December.  He and his wife, Catherine, extend an open invitation to Carnegie Mellon students and alumni to visit their home and award-winning rose garden in Chattanooga. You may contact Ruben at jdruben@hotmail.com.

College/Faculty News

--Stephen Brockmann, a professor of German, has been named acting director of the Center for the Arts in Society, effective August 15, for one year while Director Judith Schachter is on leave. The center is a multidisciplinary research and education center that brings together scholars who are interested in studies of culture and society, as well as the history and production of the arts. It is a collaboration of H&SS and the College of Fine Arts.

--“Dumpster”, a feature-length film written by Jim Daniels, director of Carnegie Mellon’s Creative Writing Program, keeps racking up accolades. The film was named an Official Selection by the Calgary Fringe Film Festival and was screened at the festival in August. It received the festival’s award for Best Comedy International Mid Length Film. “Dumpster” was shot on and around the Carnegie Mellon campus over Easter weekend 2005 for $10,000. It tells the story of a university custodian who befriends a troubled college student who is living in a dumpster outside a campus building. The film stars David Conrad, who appeared in “Return to Paradise” and “Wedding Crashers” and is now on the CBS series “Ghost Whisperer.” For more information about the film festival, go to http://www.theindiegathering.com/index.htm.

--Jim Daniels and Terrance Hayes, an associate professor of creative writing, will give readings at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, September 28 through October 1 in Waterloo Village, N.J. It is the largest poetry festival in the nation. For more information, go to http://www.grdodge.org/poetry/festivalprogram.htm.

--Robyn Dawes, the Charles J. Queenan University Professor of Psychology, has been named a fellow of the American Statistical Association. The association recognized Dawes for his creative research on statistics and rational decision-making; for contributions to the application of cognitive psychology to survey research; and for promotion of careful statistical thinking in psychology and behavioral research. Dawes, a member of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, is one of the most storied and prolific researchers in his field. He has made a significant impact on several areas of psychological science, including human cooperation, judgment and decision-making, and intuition and irrationality.

--Statistics Professor Chris Genovese has been named a fellow of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics. He received the award for important contributions to statistical theory and methodology; for bringing modern statistical methods to bear on scientific problems; and for using scientific problems to inspire new statistical theory.

--Statistics Professor Joel Greenhouse, along with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon and The Ohio State University, has received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to investigate the link between antidepressants and suicidality — including suicidal thoughts, attempts and suicide deaths. The researchers have previously challenged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) findings that antidepressants are causally linked to an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors in young people. Working with Greenhouse will be Howard Seltman, a research scientist in Carnegie Mellon’s Statistics Department; Eloise Kaizar, who recently earned her Ph.D. in statistics from Carnegie Mellon and soon will join the statistics faculty at Ohio State; and Kelly Kelleher, director of the Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practice and vice president for Health Services Research in the Columbus Children's Research Institute at Columbus Children's Hospital. For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060811_antidepressants.html.

--Carnegie Mellon has named John H. Miller, professor of economics and decision sciences, head of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences (SDS). Miller has been acting head of SDS since 2002, a duty he has shared with Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decision sciences and engineering and public policy. Miller’s research focuses on understanding complex adaptive social systems, which capture pervasive and important phenomena in biological, chemical, environmental, economic, organizational and political systems.    Miller also is among the university’s most creative educators. Over the past 10 years, he has pioneered the use of interactive, real-world experiments to teach basic economics, a practice that breaks with the long tradition of lecture-based economics courses. He has developed an online version of his introductory economics course that is part of Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, a series of Web-based college courses that are informed by research into how people think and learn. For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060821_sds.html.

--Carnegie Mellon has named Franco Sciannameo interim director of its Bachelor of Humanities and Arts (BHA) and Bachelor of Science and Arts (BSA) programs. He succeeds Patricia Maurides, who has decided to step down after seven years as director. Sciannameo has a notable history with Carnegie Mellon as a College of Fine Arts Distinguished Scholar in Multidisciplinary Studies. For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060821_bha.html.

Events

-- The Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) in the Department of History will hold its annual fall reception starting at 4:30 p.m. Friday, September 8, in Hamburg Hall 1000. Refreshments will be served from 4:30 to 6 p.m., followed by a presentation and discussion. The event will feature "Stacks of Obits", a one-woman show by Stephanie L. Batiste, an assistant professor of literary and cultural studies in the Department of English. "Stacks of Obits" is a rhythmic contemplation of the street murder of young people of color in Los Angeles, based on obituaries contained in a young woman's scrapbook. The performance features the music of rap artists DRS, NWA and Tupac Shakur. The event is free and open to the public.

--Barbara Freed's film "A Model for Matisse: The Story of the Vence Chapel" will be screened at 7 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Freed is a professor of French studies and applied linguistics. Her acclaimed film tells the story of Henri Matisse's friendship with the nun who inspired him to design the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France. The event is free and open to the public.

--A complete schedule of Homecoming events is available at http://alumni.cmu.edu/homecoming/schedule.html. We'd love to see you at the H&SS Homecoming Reception, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Friday, October 13, in the H&SS Coffee Lounge in Baker Hall. Faculty lectures will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday, and the Center for the Arts in Society is holding the Campus Art Crawl, a tour of the university's public art, from to 1 to 3 p.m. Maggie Murph alums might be interested in the Maggie Murph Café Dedication and Margaret Morrison Tea from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Friday in Hunt Library, and the Margaret Morrison Centennial Celebration Dinner from 5 to 7 p.m. Homecoming weekend also will include memorial services for two faculty members: Otto "Toby" Davis, the William W. Cooper University Professor of Economics and Public Policy, who died May 9; and Earle Swank, former English professor and dean of students, who died July 15, 2005. The service for Swank will take place starting at 9:30 a.m. October 14 (Saturday) in the Swank Room of Baker Hall (room 255b). Alumni who wish to speak or share their remembrances of Swank should contact David Kaufer at kaufer@andrew.cmu.edu. The service for Davis will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. October 14 in Hamburg Hall 1000.

--For a complete list of upcoming alumni events, go to http://alumni2.tepper.cmu.edu/cmuEvents/.

--The 2006-07 Adamson Visiting Writers Series will feature readings from alumni of the Department of English and will culminate in the spring with a talk by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, former writer and supervising producer on ABC's hit television series "Lost." All readings are free and open to the public, and will take place at 8 p.m. in the Adamson Wing of Baker Hall. The series gets under way Oct. 18 with a triple feature: 1997 graduate Shannon Gibney, a 2005 Bush Artist Fellow and former managing editor of the Minnesota Spokesman-Record, the nation's oldest African-American newspaper; 2003 graduate Kevin Gonzales, a graduate fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop whose poetry and fiction has appeared in McSweeney's and Playboy, among others; and 2001 graduate Karen Rigby, author of "Festival Bone," whose poetry has appeared in several journals. For a complete schedule, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060823_adamson.html.

About the Quick Links