H&SS eNews, April 2007

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

--Linda Dickerson (B.A. Small Business Marketing and Management, 1981) has been named the executive director of The National Aviary in Pittsburgh. Dickerson, a member of the Carnegie Mellon Board of Trustees, is currently principal of 501(c)(3)2, a nonprofit management consulting practice. She has chaired the boards of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and Visitpittsburgh. She was publisher of Executive Report from 1981 to 1997, and has provided consulting services to a spectrum of nonprofit clients, including the Community College of Allegheny County, the Phipps Conservatory, Point Park University, and Sustainable Pittsburgh among others. She has served on the board of the National Aviary since 2003.

Student News

--Brian Mathias, a senior in the Bachelor of Humanities and Arts (BHA) Program, has received a prestigious German Chancellor Scholarship, which will allow him to study for a year at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, Germany. Mathias, who studies piano and psychology in the BHA program, is interested in how the brain perceives and interprets musical sounds.

-- Sarah Rubin, who is set to earn her M.A. in rhetoric in May, has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study in Hong Kong. Rubin’s research will focus on the role of Hong Kong's public radio network in establishing a deliberative democracy that encourages citizen participation in civic affairs. She hopes that this work will form the basis of a doctoral dissertation, most likely at Carnegie Mellon.

--English Ph.D. candidate Necia Werner has been selected the 2007 winner of the H&SS Graduate Student Teaching Award. Werner graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997 with a B.S. in English and psychology. She came to Carnegie Mellon in 2002 and is working toward a doctorate in the English Department’s Rhetoric program.

College/Faculty News

--H&SS has given its 2007 Outstanding Service Awards to Sue Connelly, the undergraduate coordinator for the Modern Languages Department; and Emily McCall, an undergraduate academic advisor in the Academic Advisory Center.

--English Professor Jim Daniels recently was interviewed for a taping of “Humanities Live”, a collaborative production of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and public television station WHYY in Philadelphia. Daniels, head of the Creative Writing Program and the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English, appeared on the “Pennsylvania Poets” episode. It will air at a future date on the recently launched Y Arts digital channel (Comcast channel 241) in Philadelphia. WHYY also plans to distribute the program to other Pennsylvania public television stations, and portions of the show may be available online. For more information go to http://www.pahumanities.org/projects/live.php

--David Klahr, professor of psychology and director of the Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research, was invited to be a member of the American Psychological Association's Presidential Task Force on the Psychology of Math and Science Education. He attended their initial meeting in Washington, D.C., March 9 - 10. On March 12 he participated in the National Academy of Science's launch of a new report, published by the National Research Council, to which he was a contributing author. The volume, "Taking Science to School," argues that improving science education in kindergarten through eighth grade will require major changes in how science is taught in America's classrooms, as well as shifts in commonly held views of what young children know and how they learn.

-- Susan Polansky, teaching professor of Hispanic studies, has been named head of the Department of Modern Languages, effective July 1. Polansky has been on the Carnegie Mellon faculty since 1986, and is currently associate head of the Modern Languages Department. In 2004, H&SS feted her with its Elliott Dunlap Smith Award, which is given annually by the college to honor excellent undergraduate teaching. Polansky succeeds G. Richard Tucker, the Paul Mellon Professor of Applied Linguistics, who has been department head since 1995. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/March/march29_polansky.shtml.

--Tucker has been selected to receive Carnegie Mellon’s Robert E. Doherty Award for Sustained Contributions to Excellence in Education. His nomination praised him for creative teaching, leadership of the department, international standing in his discipline, and for exceptional ability to collaborate with others.

Events

--The fourth annual Carnegie Mellon University International Film Festival is now underway, and the next screening will take place at 7 p.m. April 4 with the French film "The Beat that My Heart Skipped." The film, with English subtitles, will be shown in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center. For a complete schedule go to http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/org/filmfestival/.

-- Public art on campus will be the topic at the next Campus Conversation at 5 p.m. April 11 in The Erwin R. Steinberg Auditorium (Baker Hall A53). Each Campus Conversation takes the form of a Deliberative Poll, in which a representative sample of the community studies an issue, discusses it among themselves and with an expert panel, and then registers its opinion. The expert panel will include John Carson, head of the School of Art; Student Body Vice President Andrea Hamilton; Ralph Horgan, associate vice provost of Campus Design and Facility Development; and Robbee Kosak, vice president for University Advancement. The conversation will also include several alumni from the Pittsburgh area as well as 10 to 15 alumni from across the country, who will participate live online. For more information go to http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/cc/polls/nov06/index.html.

--The Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) 2006-07 speaker series wraps up April 13 with a talk by Luther Adams titled "Upon This Rock: African American Migration, Urban Renewal and the Struggle for Equality in Louisville, Kentucky." Adams is the 2006-07 CAUSE postdoctoral fellow. He is an assistant professor of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma. Adams will speak at 5 p.m. in the Erwin R. Steinberg Auditorium (Baker Hall A53).

--The International Relations Program is hosting a teleconference with former Peru President Alejandro Toledo from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Monday, April 16, in the Posner Center Boardroom. Toledo's talk is titled "Poverty, Growth and the Future of Democracy in Latin America."

--Nancy Postero will speak at 4:30 p.m. April 26 on "Challenges to Neoliberal Multiculturalism: Unexpected Consequences in Bolivia" in Margaret Morrison 103. The talk is part of the Humanities Center's 2006-07 Liberalisms speaker series. Postero is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego.

--The Center for the Arts in Society is hosting roundtable discussions during the Symposium on Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive Photographic Processes, which runs April 26-29 in Pittsburgh. This event assembles several of the world's foremost artists, photographers, writers and researchers to engage in discussion and debate regarding the rising use of alternative photographic methods in an age of increasingly sophisticated technological means. The symposium offers public lectures, round-table discussions and question-answer sessions, and hands-on workshops held in conjunction with local Pittsburgh area arts organizations. For more information go to http://www.f295.org/.

--Award-winning poet Elizabeth Alexander will speak at 8 p.m. May 4 when the English Department holds it annual Adamson Awards to honor student writers. Alexander has authored four poetry collections, including "American Sublime", which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has received two Pushcart Prizes, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the University of Chicago, the George Kent Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Adamson Awards, which will take place in the Adamson Wing of Baker Hall (BH 136), honor student writers for their work in fiction, poetry, screen writing and nonfiction.

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

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