Undergraduate Trio Wins Big in Mathematics Competition
Child Drama's Second Act
Ronald Irving Named Divisional Dean
A Research Institute for Arts and Humanities Undergrads
Burke Collection Documents a Disappearing Tradition
Schools and Libraries Recieve Award-Winning Documentary
On the Web: Digital Journalism

Undergraduate Trio Wins Big in Mathematics Competition

Ever wondered whether the plume from Drumheller Fountain will leave you dripping on a gusty day? You might want to ask three experts on the subject—Ryan Card, Ernie Esser, and Jeffrey Giansiracusa. The three UW undergraduates solved a related problem as part of an international mathematics competition and won top honors for their solution.

	Ryan Card, Jeffrey Giansiracusa, and Ernie Esser (from left) earned top honors for devising an algorithm that regulates a fountain's water flow to ensure that passersby stay dry. But the three UW undergraduates decided to play it safe when posing for a photo near Drumheller Foundation. Photo by Mary Levin.

Card, Esser, and Giansiracusa won the highest commendation in the 18th Annual Mathematical Contest in Modeling, a competition sponsored by the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications. The UW students were one of four teams—among 279 competing in their category—to merit an outstanding ranking for their solution to a complex math problem. The team’s 21-page solution was then selected to receive the annual SIAM award from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

“That’s an even finer distinction,” explains James Morrow, professor in the UW Department of Mathematics, who acted as adviser for the team. “I think it’s safe to say that theirs was judged the best of the papers.”

The contest began when officials posted two problems to the Web. Teams from the U.S. and 10 other countries had four days to pick one and devise a solution. They were allowed to refer to Web and library sources, but could not consult with another person.

The problem that the threesome tackled involved devising an algorithm to regulate water flow to an ornamental fountain based on windspeed. The group sought a delicate balance between maintaining an impressive visual spectacle and preventing passersby from getting soaked on windy days.

The students did not get much sleep during the four days of the competition. Morrow made arrangements for them to have after-hours access to computer labs and brought in appropriate books from campus libraries so they could stay and burn the midnight oil. “It’s extremely intense,” says Morrow. “Physical fitness is as important as mental fitness, and probably a lot of coffee is involved, too.”

Esser said his group was surprised, but excited, about coming out on top, and credited a scheduling misunderstanding with possibly giving him and his teammates an edge. “This was the second year our team participated,” he said. “Last year we misread the contest starting time and ended up starting a day late. So maybe this year we had the advantage of being prepared for a three-day contest when in fact we had four full days to work on it.”

Be that as it may, Morrow says, the performance is indicative of the high quality of students at the UW. “I think they’re incredible,” he says. “It’s an international contest. We competed against the best students, no holds barred, open to the world, and won.”

Three other UW teams participated in this year’s contest. Two achieved a meritorious ranking, while the third received honorable mention.

Child Drama’s Second Act

Kathleen Collins has come full circle. More than two decades after studying child drama at the UW, she’s back on campus teaching a new course on the subject in the School of Drama.

The new child drama course covers the history of the children’s theater movement, explores the use of drama as a curriculum tool, and includes opportunities to read and perform award-winning plays for young audiences. It was made possible through a $5,000 gift from drama alumna Jean Osborne Wilhelm in honor of Professor Emeritus Agnes Haaga.

Child drama students participate in an exercise as Kathleen Collins, right, cheers them on. Photo by Karen Orders..

“When I had my fiftieth anniversary from the UW, I decided that I wanted to honor Agnes, who has been a mentor not only to me but to many child drama students,” says Wilhelm. “And I wanted Agnes to have a say in how the money would be used.”

Haaga and other drama faculty agreed that offering a new child drama course—the first since the Child Drama Program was cut during a 1980s budget crisis—would be most meaningful. Collins, presented with the opportunity to teach the class, jumped at the chance.

“Agnes Haaga is a national treasure,” explains Collins. “She inspired and cajoled and encouraged and loved us like no one I’ve ever met. So for me to come back and teach a course that is funded through a gift in her name—the experience has really touched me.”

Collins, former artistic director of the Honolulu Theatre for Youth and the Fulton Opera House, is currently a drama professor at Cornish College of the Arts. But she is perhaps most proud of her volunteer efforts to bring drama into her own children’s schools. In those classrooms, she frequently used “creative drama”—the use of drama to enhance education rather than to produce a staged production—which she learned from Agnes Haaga.

“Through creating a play, improvising, or acting out a story, students develop skills such as concentration, trust, problem solving, and collaboration,” says Collins. “These are skills we want all children to have.”

Since many students in her UW class intend to work with children in some way, Collins had them experience a variety of creative drama exercises first-hand. Their final “exam” involved developing and leading the class in a 15-minute creative drama exercise. “The entire class—all 20 students—were go-getters and passionate about what they did,” says Collins. “They were so curious and eager.”

Thanks to serendipity, the students also had the opportunity to rub elbows with a playwright and professional actors preparing for a Seattle Children’s Theatre (SCT) production. Collins, who will direct Our Only May Amelia by John Olive at SCT in Fall 2002, figured the students would benefit from an insider’s view. “I had the students read the book and the play and then attend the workshop where professional actors were reading through the second draft of the play,” says Collins. “It’s just lucky that the timing worked out so that they could have this opportunity.”

Jean Wilhelm, whose gift funded the child drama course, is thrilled with all the opportunities the course has provided—so thrilled, in fact, that she has already committed to fund the course again next year.

“It’s been a wonderful opportunity to honor a professor who has touched so many lives,” she says, “and to reach out to students who will work with children in many different ways. I’m tremendously pleased that the class is a reality.”

Ron Irving Named Divisional Dean for the Sciences

Ronald Irving, professor of mathematics, has been named divisional dean for the sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. He most recently served as chair of the Department of Mathematics.

	Ronald Irving. Photo by Kathy Sauber.

Irving, who joined the UW faculty in 1980, received the UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001. He earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Ron has been a wonderful teacher,” says Dean David Hodge, “and has shown equal skill in his recent role as department chair. I know that he will be an asset to the College in his new position as divisional dean.”

Irving is sure to bring his own brand of team spirit, too—for the Mariners. “I grew up in the suburbs of New York CIty and was a passionate Yankee fan,” says Irving. “While living in Boston, I became an even more passionate Red Sox fan. Then I moved to Seattle and married a Seattle native. Now I’m a Mariners fan.”

Irving replaces Craig Hogan as divisional dean. Hogan is now the UW’s Vice Provost for Research.

A Research Institute for Arts and Humanities Undergrads

Over the past decade, the number of undergraduate students working with faculty on research projects has more than tripled. Students work in labs, help with field research, and participate in a wide range of summer institutes. But the vast majority of these opportunities continue to be in the sciences, leaving arts and humanities students with few research options—until now.

This summer, students in the arts and humanities finally have a research institute of their own: the First Annual UW Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities.

“Research in the arts and humanities is often a solitary endeavor,” says Janice DeCosmo, acting assistant dean of undergraduate education, “so the idea of including undergraduates as potential collaborators and contributors is new to many faculty. With that in mind, we decided to design an intensive eight-week program for a group of students, led by a group of faculty.”

DeCosmo and Simpson Center for the Humanities directors Kathleen Woodward and Margit Dementi raised the idea with faculty in the arts and humanities and identified four who were willing to take on the challenge: Scott Noegel, associate professor of Near Eastern languages and civilization; Patricia Failing, professor of art history; Sarah Stroup, assistant professor of classics; and Richard Karpen, professor of music and director of the Center for Advanced Research Technology in the Arts and Humanities. “All of these faculty are really dynamic,” says Dementi. “We felt that their interests in ancient art, modern art, and technology created interesting possibilities.”

Guided by the faculty members’ interests, an interdisciplinary theme for the institute emerged: innovation in ancient worlds and contemporary cultures. “We wanted to capture the imagination of students by coming up with a topic that is intriguing but broad enough to interest them,” says DeCosmo.

Plenty of students were intrigued by the institute’s theme and the opportunity to collaborate with faculty. More than 60 students applied for the institute’s 20 slots. Those selected were named Mary Gates Scholars; each will receive a $2,500 award as well as academic credit for the institute.

Participants are expected to produce a scholarly work by the end of the session. That’s a lot to accomplish in eight short weeks, but DeCosmo believes the students are up to the challenge. “The focal point is really not the final product but the process of research—to define an approach and find your sources,” she says. “But for students to experience that, we had to establish a high bar.”

It helps that students are able to focus on their research without the distraction of other classes. “This is not coursework—students are expected to dedicate themselves to it full-time in a way that is different than how they approach other classes,” says Dementi. “It is attractive to those students who want something beyond what you can get in a classroom.”

DeCosmo, who has coordinated research opportunities in the sciences for years, anticipates that the institute will have a transformative effect on many participants. “Students say that once they’ve done research, they look at coursework in a different way,” she explains. “They develop a profound appreciation for how the knowledge presented in class came to be.”

The institute, which began on June 25, will run through August 22. It is co-sponsored by the UW Office of Undergraduate Education, the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Office of Research, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Office of Educational Outreach, and the Mary Gates Endowment for Students.

Burke Collection Documents a Disappearing Tradition

In the late 1960s, Adelaide De Menil spent several years traveling to Northwest Coast villages to photograph weathered totem poles, cemeteries, and village sites. Now De Menil has donated a major portion of that photography collection—which includes more than 20,000 images—to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.

	An Adelaide De Menil photo of a Haida ancestral figure from Prince of Wales Island, Alaska.

“The photographs, taken between 1966 and 1968, illustrate in haunting clarity a monumental sculptural tradition on the brink of extinction,” says George MacDonald, director of the Burke Museum. “They document the culture of the Pacific Northwest Coast like no other work since that of Edward S. Curtis.”

Many of De Menil’s images, together with poetic text written by Haida artist Bill Reid, were published in the 1971 book Out of the Silence and helped to document a pivotal moment in Northwest Coast history. At the time, Northwest Coast culture indeed appeared silent to outsiders. No new poles had been raised for decades, and few people still alive remembered or practiced the traditions that gave the poles their meaning.

“At nearly a hundred villages and cemeteries on the Northwest Coast, some of the greatest sculptures in the world were on the verge of disappearing,” says MacDonald. “The importance of the De Menil collection lies in its outstanding record of the last vestiges of a sculptural tradition that had, for the most part, died out.”

Today, the silence that De Menil and Reid encountered has clearly been shattered. Native arts are flourishing, poles are being raised up and down the coast, and new generations of artists have emerged. De Menil’s photographs have become valuable documents of lost poles, used as models by contemporary carvers. They are, in some cases, the last surviving examples of the unique carving style of their ancestors.

In October, the Burke will launch a full-scale retrospective exhibition, Out of the Silence: The Enduring Power of the Totem Pole, based on De Menil’s photographs. The exhibition also will feature rarely seen monumental Northwest Coast sculptures from the Burke collection. A specially developed exhibit website— which will be linked to the Burke’s site at www.burkemuseum.org--will make the De Menil collection accessible to students and aficionados worldwide.

Schools and Libraries Receive Award-Winning Bridgman Documentary

Thanks to generous gifts from the Boand Family Foundation and Tom and Margo Wyckoff, an award-winning documentary featuring UW professor emeritus Jon Bridgman is being distributed—along with a teacher’s instruction guide—to 325 public high schools, 160 private high schools, and all 65 public library systems in Washington.

The documentary, “Jon Bridgman’s Pearl Harbor: Parallels and Perspectives,” presents an historical perspective on Pearl Harbor and its parallels with the recent World Trade Center attacks. It was produced by Weller/Grossman Productions, with co-owner Robb Weller (‘71) donating time and resources.

The documentary recently won a Silver Telly award, a national award honoring outstanding commercials, video productions, and films.

“We’re thrilled that this wonderful documentary will reach more people through the Boand Family Foundation’s gift,” says David Hodge, Dean of Arts and Sciences. “Jon Bridgman is a master at bringing historical events to life. The documentary will be a powerful and engaging teaching tool.”

Copies of the documentary are available for individual purchase as well. For more information, please contact the UW Alumni Association at 206-543-0540.

On the Web: Digital Journalism

If you are concerned about violence in sports, check out a new website exploring sports violence at http://faculty.washington.edu/chanant/dia. The website was created by UW students as part of a new course on digital journalism, taught by Anthony Chan, associate professor of communication.

“Print journalism is really losing its luster, its audience,” says Chan. “I developed this course to bring journalism at the UW into the 21st century.”

The course included readings and assigned papers on digital journalism, with guest speakers from KIROTV.com, seattletimes.com, and other Internet outlets. But the major focus was the development and production of an informative website—in ten weeks. Students worked in small groups, each tackling one of four topics: dissent, sports violence, incarceration, or courage.

The sports violence site was developed by undergraduates Adam Michelman, Matt Mundt, Mia Nguyen, Jodi Davis, and Qwyn Schremser. It includes interviews with KOMO TV sports anchors, comments from a trauma psychologist, information about the Seattle Warbirds—Seattle’s first female football team, and links to related sites.

“I wanted the students to tell a good story on the Internet,” says Chan, “using sound, pictures, storytelling, graphics, links—anything they could use.” Chan adds that the biggest difference between print and digital journalism is the non-linear nature of digital media. “If you click on any part of the site, it has to work independently,” he says.

Chan plans to teach the digital journalism course annually.

[Summer 2002 - Table of Contents]