H&SS eNews, May 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

--Sharon Freeman (B.A. Psychology, 1974; M.S. Urban and Public Affairs, 1977) has received the Small Business Journalist of the Year Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Freeman is the president of The All American Small Business Exporters Association.

--Mara W. Cohen Ioannides (M.A. Professional Writing, 1992) has written her first novel, "A Shout in the Sunshine", which is set against the expulsion in 1492 of the Jewish community from Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. These refugees traveled to Thessaloniki in Greece, home to a diverse Jewish community. Ioannides is a lecturer in English composition and Jewish studies at Missouri State University.

--John Reoli (B.A. Creative Writing, 1992) has published his first book of poetry, "Naked Prayers", which is available through Amazon.com. Reoli lives in the East Village of New York City.

Student News

-- Clara Reyes, a History and Policy major, has been awarded the Gretchen Lankford Award. Every year, H&SS gives the award to a senior or seniors who plan to go on to graduate school in order to pursue a career in either K–12 or higher education. Reyes will receive $2,500 and a book written by a faculty member or other distinguished author in her field of study. Reyes, who will graduate in May, will teach next year at a Phoenix high school with Teach For America, a national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools. The award is named for Gretchen Goldsmith Lankford, a 1943 graduate of Margaret Morrison Carnegie College. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/April/april23_lankford.shtml.

--Nine Carnegie Mellon students participated recently in the Western Pennsylvania Regional Conference of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honorary society, at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa. The students garnered awards for their research as follows: First place, Christine M. Gorman; James Dougherty; and Jennifer E. Johnson; Second place, Valerie Savage; Joanna Bresee; Russell Savage; Igor Avramovic; Farhan Mohamed Ali; and Lindsey Yao.

College/Faculty News

--German Professor Stephen Brockmann’s book “Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital” received a largely favorable review in the April 20 edition of the Times (of London) Literary Supplement. The book explores the history of Nuremberg as Germany’s cultural and spiritual capital, including the use of the Nuremberg mystique by the Nazis.

--Jim Daniels, the director of the Creative Writing Program, has written two new poetry collections, “Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies”, published by Eastern Washington University Press, and the chapbook “Now Showing”, published by Ahadada Press. Daniels, the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English, has authored 10 poetry collections.

-- Paul Eiss, an associate professor of anthropology and history, has been awarded a New Directions Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to study the role that popular regional theater in Yucatan, Mexico, plays in shaping the local cultural politics of memory. The grant will allow Eiss to receive training in theater and performance studies. New Directions fellowships are for faculty members in the humanities or humanistic social sciences who received their doctorates between five and 15 years ago and wish to acquire training in topics outside their own disciplines. Eiss is the third Carnegie Mellon faculty member in four years to receive the award. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/April/april10_eiss.shtml.

--English Professor Linda Flower has been selected to receive the first Steve Witte Award from The American Educational Research Association’s Special Interest Group on Writing and Literacies. The award honors Flowers’ body of work during the past 20 years. She received the award at the AERA meeting in Chicago on April 10.

--Psychology Professor David Klahr has been elected to the National Academy of Education (NAEd), an elite group of researchers who promote quality education research and policy. Klahr, a cognitive psychologist, is the first Carnegie Mellon faculty member to be elected to the NAEd. His research has centered on effective techniques for teaching science and on the ability of children to reason scientifically. He is the training director of Carnegie Mellon’s Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research (PIER), which trains doctoral students from several disciplines to conduct applied educational research. Klahr also is the education director of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, a joint venture between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh to sponsor rigorous research into how people learn and develop innovative learning technologies and strategies.

-- After 60 years of teaching at the university, English and Rhetoric Professor Erwin Steinberg, former dean of  Margaret Morrison Carnegie College, has announced he will retire at the end of the semester. A renowned and prolific scholar in James Joyce and the stream of consciousness, English education and rhetorical style, Steinberg held the Thomas S. Baker Professorship of English and Interdisciplinary Studies from 1981 to 1993. He was also a pioneering administrator, leading innovative programs and stepping into newly defined posts at each level of the university. Working with the Westinghouse Corporation in the mid 1950s, Steinberg brought to the Margaret Morrison College (and later the Department of English) the world's first degree-granting program in technical writing. In the 1960s, he was named the first dean of H&SS. In 1991, he was named Carnegie Mellon's first vice provost for education. In October 2006, at the 25th anniversary of the Master of Professional Writing Program that he helped found, Baker Hall A53 was named the Erwin R. Steinberg Auditorium in honor of his record of achievement and service to Carnegie Mellon. (You can read more about Erwin Steinberg in the spring issue of the H&SS News, which should hit mailboxes later this month.)

Events

--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 more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/April/april17_adamson.shtml.

-- Bill Cosby, an award-winning comedian, actor, author and recording artist well known for his commitment to education, will deliver the keynote address at Carnegie Mellon's 110th commencement Sunday, May 20. The main ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. in Gesling Stadium on the Carnegie Mellon campus.

For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/April/april17_commencement.shtml.

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

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