H&SS eNews, November 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.

Alumni News

--Mary Jane Lenard (B.S. Economics, 1977) is an associate professor of accounting at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. She earned an MBA from the University of Akron and a Ph.D. in business administration from Kent State University. She formerly worked as an accountant/auditor at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. She has two children: Kevin, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Kelsey, a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh.

 --Scott Palermo (B.A. Professional Writing, 2000) is a mortgage broker at Kash Mortgage Group Inc. in Pittsburgh. On Sept. 22, his wife Melanie gave birth to the couple’s third son, Joseph Michael. Melanie is an RN at West Penn Hospital.

College/Faculty News

--Using a new form of brain imaging known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), researchers in the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging in the Department of Psychology have discovered that the so-called white matter in the brains of people with autism has lower structural integrity than in the brains of normal individuals. The study was published in the journal NeuroReport. The scientists used DTI — which tracks the movement of water through brain tissue — to measure the structural integrity of the white matter that acts as cables to wire the parts of the brain together. Normally, water molecules move, or diffuse, in a direction parallel to the orientation of the nerve fibers of the white matter. The movement of water is more dispersed if the structural integrity of the tissue is low, as it was with the participants with autism in this study. For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/061018_dti.html.

--George Loewenstein has been named the first Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology. Loewenstein, who teaches in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, is among the founding fathers of decision science, a field that was pioneered at Carnegie Mellon by the late Herbert A. Simon. Loewenstein’s groundbreaking research examines the influence that emotions and other psychological factors have on economic decision-making. Most recently, Loewenstein has worked in the nascent field of neuroeconomics, which he helped to create and which investigates the mental and neural processes that drive economic decision-making. The Herbert A. Simon Professorship has been established thanks to the generosity of Carnegie Mellon alumni Tod and Cindy Johnson. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/061020_loewenstein.html.

--A study co-authored by David Rakison, associate professor of psychology found that young children with autism appear to be delayed in their ability to categorize objects and, in particular, to distinguish between living and nonliving things. This paper was co-authored by Cynthia Johnson, director of the Autism Center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and it was published in the Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities. The results could provide a cognitive explanation for one of the characteristics of autism: the inability to recognize the goals and motivations of others. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/061013_cmchp.html.

Events

--The Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) in the Department of History will launch its 2006-07 Speaker Series at 5 p.m., Oct. 6 with a talk by Matthew C. Whitaker, associate professor of history at Arizona State University. His talk is titled "Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West" and will take place in the H&SS Auditorium, Baker Hall A53. All events in the CAUSE Speaker Series are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060919_cause.html.

--Less than two weeks to go until Homecoming 2006! A complete schedule of Homecoming events is available at http://alumni.cmu.edu/homecoming/schedule.html. Some highlights: H&SS Homecoming Reception, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Friday, October 13, in the H&SS Coffee Lounge in Baker Hall. The Center for the Arts in Society's Campus Art Crawl, a tour of the university's public art, from to 1 to 3 p.m. Faculty lectures from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday. 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.

--The Master of Arts in Professional Writing program (MAPW) will celebrate its 25th anniversary Oct. 27-29 with a series of events. The weekend kicks off with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at the newly renovated Schenley Park Visitors' Center next to campus. 1991 MAPW graduate Bill Pollak, better known in music circles as Billy Price, will provide entertainment. Other highlights include a keynote address at 10:30 a.m. Saturday by Joseph Williams, author of Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, and the dedication of The Erwin R. Steinberg Auditorium. For more information, go to http://english.cmu.edu/degrees/ma_pw/anniversary.html.

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

In Memory

--We are saddened to report the death of Irving H. Bartlett, a former long-time history professor from Carnegie Mellon, who died July 1. He was 83.

Bartlett was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon from 1964 to 1980, and in 1977 he won Carnegie Mellon’s William H. and Frances S. Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching. Prior to coming to Carnegie Mellon, he served as the first president of Cape Code Community College in Massachusetts. In 1980, he was named the John F. Kennedy Professor and chair of the American Civilization Department at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he taught until his retirement in 1993. Bartlett was the author of six books, including biographies of Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Bartlett Scholarship and Teaching Fund of Cape Code Community College, 2240 Iyanough Road, West Barnstable, MA, 02668.

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