Gibbons Receives Top Award for Documentary Film
Young's Public Artwork Honored by the U.S. Navy
Listing of Additional A&S Awards and Honors

Gibbons Recieves Top Award for Documentary Film

	Rosemary Gibbons holds her award, joined by Gerry Oleman (left) of the Provincial Residential School Project and Dax Thomas, the film's photographer and editor.

When UW graduate student Rosemary Gibbons learned her documentary had been accepted to the American
Indian Film Festival, she was thrilled. Imagine her elation when she learned the film had won first place for best documentary short.

Gibbons produced the film, “A Century of Genocide in the Americas: The Residential School Experience,” through the UW’s Native Voices Program, which is dedicated to Native American documentary production.

“It’s an amazing program,” says Gibbons. “It’s a safe environment with a lot of collaboration, so everyone in the program has become like family.” The program is offered by American Indian Studies and the Department of Communication.

Gibbons came to filmmaking as a result of her work with culturally specific domestic abuse organizations. Her interest was in documenting the stories of unsung heroes, Native women who made a difference. Her film explores the prevalence of sexual abuse in residential
schools and its devastating impact on families for generations. The film focuses on Canadian schools, but residential schools were also prevalent in the U.S.

Residential schools were active in Canada from the 1860s through the mid-1980s, with the idea of raising First Nations children to be more like the majority population. Families did not participate voluntarily; children were forcibly removed from their homes. At its peak, Canada had 120 schools, with 75 percent of Indian children attending.

Gibbons’ film describes the horror of the residential schools, where more than 94 percent of the children were sexually abused by those in authority. Gerry Oleman, Victim Services Coordinator of the Provincial Residential School Project, gives voice to the victims’ experiences.

“As I learned more about the residential schools, I began to see how they were at the heart of a lot of social ills in our community,” says Gibbons. “If children can understand where their parents’ behavior comes from, the healing can start from there.”

Now Gibbons is working on a short film about her grandfather’s porch, where many family occasions and memorable moments were shared. “It will be a little light instead of heavy,” says Gibbons. “It will focus on what family means.”

Gibbons, who graduates in June, says she has hundreds of other stories to tell. “Once you see the possibilities of what you can do, you see that everyone has a story,” she says. “Indigenous people are storytellers by nature. Filmmaking seems to be such a natural extension of that.”

Young’s Public Artwork Honored by the U.S. Navy

In Seattle’s Magnuson Park, 22 fins rise up from the ground, suggesting a pod of Orca whales. Similar fins appear in Pelican Harbor Park in Miami, Florida.

Strange earth forms? Not a chance. The fins are actually diving-plane fins from decommissioned U.S. Navy attack submarines built in the 1960s. They were turned into artworks by John Young, professor of sculpture in the UW School of Art, as symbols of peace and memorials to those who served our country during the Cold War. Young has been awarded a September 11th Remembrance Medal by Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), based at the Pentagon, for
the project.

A detail from "The Fin Project: From Swords to Plowshares" in Seattle's Magnuson Park. Photo by John Young.

“The base of the award was made using the teak decking from the renowned USS Missouri, used to sign the peace treaty with Japan in WWII,” says Young. “I was deeply honored and humbled by this.”

“The Fin Project: From Swords to Plowshares” was inspired by a photograph Young’s daughter showed him in 1996. Diving plane fins were visible in the
photo, which was taken by a family friend whose work involves decommissioning Navy materials. Young was intrigued by
the idea of using the materials.

“They’re just fabulous forms in and of themselves,” Young told Waterfront News, a South Florida publication. “When I saw the photo I saw the dorsal fins of an orca whale, and that’s where the art started. The wheels began to turn. The idea came to me that this could be a global piece about turning weapons into art.” The United States Navy donated the fins—weighing 10,000 lbs. and valued at about $25,000 each—for the projects, and Max Gurvich raised additional funds.

The first Fin Project was dedicated in Seattle on Memorial Day 1998. Its location seems particularly appropriate, since Magnuson Park was until recently a U.S. Navy Base. The Miami sculpture was installed in 2002.

“The work is about turning former nuclear weapons—which are completely devoid of toxic substances and radioactivity–into art, recycling, and marking an end to war,” says Young. “It is also a memorial that honors the contributions of servicemen and women during recent poignant times in American history.”

Young is now proposing versions of The Fin Project for other strategic locations around the globe, including St. Petersburg, Russia. He hopes the Russian installation can include an equal number of fins from U.S. and Soviet subs, “creating the ultimate statement of international peace, cooperation, and the end of the Cold War.”

Additional Awards, Honors, and Professorships

Eric C. Ames, assistant professor of Germanics, has won an National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Award.

Laada Bilaniuk, assistant professor of anthropology, was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship for four months of research in the Ukraine.

Erica Bohm-Vitense, professor emeritus of astronomy, has been awarded the Karl Schwarzschild Medal (2003) by the Astronomische Gesellschaft for her career contributions to research in astronomy. One award is made annually to the top astronomer from around the world.

J. Michael Brown, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences, was awarded the Louis Neel Medal of the European Geophysical Society for 2002 for his outstanding contributions to mineral physics and the physics of the Earth’s core. Brown also has been elected Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America for significant contributions to the fields of mineralogy, petrology and crystallography.

Larry Dalton, professor of chemistry, is the recipient of the 2003 American Chemical Society Award in Chemistry of Materials, sponsored by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company to recognize and encourage creative work in the chemistry of materials.

Galya Diment, professor and chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, was recently elected to the Executive Board of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, whose nine members represent U.S. departments of foreign languages and literatures and are elected nationally by corresponding departments.

Daniel Gamelin, assistant professor of chemistry, will receive the National Science Foundation Career 2003 Award.

Mark Ghiorso, professor of earth and space sciences, has received the 2003 Dana Medal from the Mineralogical Society of America in recognition of continued outstanding scientific contributions through original research in the mineralogical sciences.

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, is the president-elect of the Society for Iranian Studies, the most prestigious professional organization for Iranian Studies in the U.S.

Richard Karpen, professor of music, received an ASCAP Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers based on the “unique prestige value” of his catalog of original compositions, as well as recent performances.

Cathy Madden, assistant professor of drama, was elected chair of Alexander Technique International, a worldwide organization of teachers, students, and friends of the Alexander Technique.

Lillian C. McDermott, professor of physics, is recipient of the 2002 Medal of the International Commission of Physics Education, an organization of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, for her contributions to international physics education.

Christopher Ozubko, director of the School of Art and professor of visual communication design, was honored as an American Institute of Graphic Arts Fellow, one of ten presented nationally to recognize mature designers who have made a significant contribution to raising the standards of excellence in practice and conduct within their local or regional design community as well as in their local AIGA chapter.

Barbara Reskin, professor of Sociology, has been appointed as the first recipient of the S. Frank Miyamoto Endowed Professorship in Sociology.

Benjamin Schmidt, assistant professor of history, has won the Renaissance Society of America’s (RSA) Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Best Book Prize for his book, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670. The RSA is the leading organization in the Americas for the interdisciplinary study of the period 1300-1650 in Western history.

Geraldine Brain Siks, professor emeritus of drama, was given the Medallion of Honor by the Children’s Theater Foundation of America “for her lifetime work in creative dramatics for children.”

Paul Vronsky, honors student in the Department of Economics, has won a 2003 Marshall Scholarship. This scholarship provides full support to approximately 40 students for up to three years of study in any discipline at any university in the United Kingdom.

Stephen Warren, professor of earth and space sciences and atmospheric sciences, has received a “Special Creativity” award from the Division of Atmospheric Sciences of the National Science Foundation. The award consists of $350,000 to pursue “adventurous, high-risk opportunities,” based on past success in innovative research.

Robin K. Wright was among the winners of Washington State Book Awards. Wright was honored for Northern Haida Master Carvers, published by UW Press.

[Winter/Spring 2003 - Table of Contents]