According
to George, It's 3 pm
A&S
Students Earn High Honors--as Danish Leaders
Faculty and Staff Fund Graduate
Support
National
Awards Multiply for Mathematics Students
Horsey's Second
Pulitzer
Celebrating Fellini
Anthropology Students Garden at Discovery
Park
According
to George, It's 3 pm
If you’re attending the UW Summer Arts Festival and need to know
the time, you’re in luck. Just head for one of the ten giant sundials
installed on campus this summer.The sundials were created by undergraduate
students as part of an unusual spring quarter course taught by Rebecca
Cummins, professor of art, and
Woodruff Sullivan, professor of astronomy.
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| This sundial uses a matrix of nails as gnomons, or shadow casters. Photo by Rebecca Cummins. |
Sullivan’s interest in sundials dates back to 1991 when the UW Physics/Astronomy Building was being designed. The architects were seeking ideas for the building’s exterior, and Sullivan suggested a wall-based sundial. “The architects liked the suggestion,” recalls Sullivan, “and I ended up spending a lot of time on the research and fabrication of that project (now visible above the Burke-Gilman trail). I’ve been a sundial nut ever since. ”
Cummins also has a fascination with sundials, which is why Hannah Wiley, director of the UW Summer Arts Festival, introduced her to Sullivan after inviting her to create something for the Festival. Cummins asked Sullivan to collaborate on a sundial installation using existing objects around campus. As they brainstormed, the idea for an undergraduate course on sundials evolved.
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| A student uses a brick wall as a sundial. Photo by Rebecca Cummins. |
The course began with the history of sundials and the fundamentals of sundial design and construction. “The oldest existing sundials are from Egypt, dating back to the 15th century B.C.,” says Sullivan. “Ancient people were much more in tune with the sky. It would be a very natural thing to understand shadows. Nowadays we have to teach that, because we’re staring at computer screens all day.”
After studying the history and scientific basis of sundials and touring Seattle’s public sundials, the 16 students in the course worked in groups to create eight sundials and assist with two others designed by Cummins and Sullivan. The completed projects range from a sundial that incorporates the George Washington statue near Meany Hall, to one that uses the Henry Gallery’s circular stairway. Still another uses long shipping crates with peepholes, allowing sunlight to hit objects inside the crates.
David Halsell, a senior involved with the crate sundial, hopes people will experience the piece “as both an artwork and a meditation on our relationship with these immense celestial movements.” He adds, “Considering something like the movements of planets puts our lives in perspective a little bit.”
Working with a mix of students—their majors ranging from art to physics, political science to mathematics—made the course particularly intriguing for Cummins and Sullivan.
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| This sundial is one of five that each indicate the time for an archaeologically significant site. Photo by Rebecca Cummins. |
“On the scientific side, some of the students had no trouble understanding the principles of how the sun works, while others needed more help,” says Sullivan. On the artistic side, “the challenge was to reduce some of their more Baroque impulses,” says Cummins, “and to communicate the extensive experimental process required to turn a great idea into physicality. Collaboratively, they came up with some wonderful solutions.”
The sundials were installed in early June, at the end of the course. A map of the sundials’ locations can be found at the Festival’s website, www.summerartsfest.org. An exhibit of portable dials, also designed by the students, is on display in 101 Suzzallo.
And for those who can’t make it to campus? Check out sundialcam, also linked to the Festival website, which will be a live video of one of the sundials.
A&S Students Earn High Honors--as Danish Leaders
It was a great week for Denmark. The country was named one of the top three countries in the European Union (EU) and its prime minister was honored as “best prime minister” by her peers. But you won’t read about these accolades in Danish newspapers.
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| Alison Johnston and Reinier Voorwinde |
The honors were presented at the Model European Union Conference in Pittsburgh, with college students representing EU countries. UW undergraduates Alison Johnston and Reinier Voorwinde represented Denmark—Johnston as prime minister, Voorwinde as foreign minister—and earned two of the conference’s top awards. Both were participating in a model EU for the first time.
“Every other team there had been at the conference at least once before,” says Dean Larue, outreach coordinator for the UW’s European Union Center (based in the Jackson School of International Studies), “and every other prime minister had played that role before. So for Alison to do as well as she did—being named ‘best prime minister’— was truly impressive. And the fact that the UW team was selected as one of the top three countries there really speaks to the quality of our students.”
Larue heard about the Model EU Conference from colleagues in Pittsburgh and saw a great opportunity for UW students. When he learned that Denmark was one of the “available” countries, he contacted the Department of Scandinavian Studies in search of appropriate students. Christine Ingebritsen, professor of Scandinavian Studies, thought of Johnston and Voorwinde right away.
The students took on the challenge with vigor. They had seven weeks to create a position paper and to understand the mindset of Danish leaders, with LaRue and Ingebritsen advising them along the way.
“I reminded them that the Danes tend to be ‘heel draggers’ in the European Union, reluctant to give sovereignty away,” recalls Ingebritsen. “We looked at actual position papers the Danes had written to give them a flavor of the language Danes use. After that, they went gangbusters.”
The preparation paid off. At the conference, the team had to negotiate with other teams and pass initiatives—as Denmark. “A lot of our arguments were modified literally at the negotiating table,” recalls Johnston. “The most challenging part was to make Denmark’s voice known, since it does get lost amongst the larger countries.”
Has the experience changed their views on the European Union? Definitely. “We learned that small states—especially Scandinavian countries—can be harmed in a bureaucratic train wreck caused by larger dominating countries,” says Johnston.
The pair also discovered that negotiations require infinite patience.
“It was very frustrating,” says Voorwinde, “because
each nation had its own national interests and every decision had to be
decided unanimously. The deliberating process was something that had to
be experienced to
be understood. You can’t learn it from a book.”
Faculty and Staff Fund Graduate Support
Last September, Dean David Hodge made an intriguing offer to A&S
faculty and staff. For every dollar faculty and staff contributed toward
graduate support in the College through December 2002, the Dean’s
Office would make a matching gift from the Dean’s Endowment Fund,
established by former dean John Simpson to be used at the dean’s
discretion for special projects.
More than 180 faculty and staff from 26 departments accepted the offer,
recognizing that, with the match, their gifts would have greater impact
for their department. They contributed $47,485 during the four-month period.
“The response was particularly gratifying given the current financial situation,” says Michael Podlin, the College’s assistant dean for development. “Faculty and staff continue to be some of our most dedicated supporters. They recognize the need for graduate student support and actively work to increase such support in their departments.”
Dean David Hodge plans to make a similar offer again this autumn. For more information on this matching gift program, contact Michael Podlin at (206) 616-2464 or mpodlin@u.washington.edu.
National Awards Multiply for Mathematics Students
Last year, it was big news when a team of Department of Mathematics undergraduates won top honors at the Mathematical Contest in Modeling, an annual competition administered by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications. Now the department has topped that performance, with two teams earning highest honors, edging out teams from such math powerhouses as M.I.T., Harvard, and Harvey Mudd College.
The winners of the previous competition were not planning to compete again. After all, what was to gain? They’d had their moment of glory. Let others take on the four-day marathon of problem solving, working day and night.
But Jim Morrow, professor of mathematics and adviser to the UW teams, would have none of that. He signed them up anyway. “We wanted to retire,” admits team member Jeff Giansiracusa, “but we got talked into doing it one last time.”
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| Jim Morrow (third from left) with UW undergraduates who received top honors in a national mathematical modeling contest. Photo by Kathy Sauber. |
Giansiracusa’s teammates were Ernie Esser and Simon Pai. The other team included Samuel Coskey, Mark Blunk, and Luke Winstrom. The teams had four days to solve one of two problems created for the contest. As luck would have it, each team chose a different problem.
Giansiracusa’s team chose a problem involving a stuntman on a motorcycle who was jumping an elephant using cardboard boxes to cushion his landing. The group had to determine the size, location, configuration, and number of boxes needed to do the job, taking into account different weights for the rider and motorcycle and various jump heights. Giansiracusa says the problem appealed to the team because it presented opportunities for humor, which they felt would make the grueling contest more fun.
The other team’s problem had a more serious tone. It involved designing a method of targeting a tumor in brain tissue for radiation treatment.
Both teams knew from past experience that creativity earned bigger marks than complex equations. “Most of the techniques we used in our paper are things you learn in an introductory physics class,” says Giansiracusa. “What’s challenging is finding a framework to put together your ideas.”
It helped, says Mark Blunk, that Morrow had prepped the teams on style issues. “He had us look at winning papers from previous years to learn what their style was,” says Blunk. “He told us not to be too intimidated by the math in them.”
Their preparation paid off. The two teams were awarded “outstanding winner” status, a designation given to just 11 of 638 teams from the U.S. and eight other countries. In addition, one UW team received special recognition from the Mathematical Association of America, while the other team got an award from the Institute for Operations Research and Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
“So they were the best of the best,” says Morrow, clearly thrilled with the results. He adds that this is the first time in the 19-year history of the competition that one university has had teams win for both problems that comprise the contest.
“It’s like getting to the top of a mountain after a tough climb,” UW alumnus David Horsey told A&S Perspectives after winning a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism in 1999 for his editorial cartoons. “Of course, once you win this, you’re very close to being a has-been.”
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| David Horsey |
How wrong he was. In April, Horsey won his second Pulitzer Prize, making him the first person to win multiple Pulitzers in the past 18 years. Horsey has been editorial cartoonist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer since 1979 and is a member of the UW College of Arts and Sciences Board.
While at the UW, Horsey honed his cartooning skills at The Daily—the UW’s student newspaper—and later became editor of the paper. By the time he graduated in 1976, he had an impressive portfolio of cartoons lambasting everything from Richard Nixon to corporate greed. U.S. presidents still figure prominently in Horsey’s work, with many recent cartoons skewering Bush administration policies.
“Some people win the Pulitzer Prize and lose their edge,”
Joann Byrd, fomer P-I editorial page editor, has said. “. . . David
didn’t lose his edge. He accepted the award in 1999 and went back
to work, reading, thinking, refining, polishing, and really engaging our
readers in the debates of
the day.”
Celebrating
Fellini
Ten years after his death—and forty years after the release of his
groundbreaking film “81/2”—Federico Fellini remains
one of the world’s most influential filmmakers. In October, the
UW will host a major conference that explores Fellini’s impact on
cinema and contemporary culture.
“The idea for the conference was born over a bottle of wine in Rome,” recalls Lance Rhoades, a UW graduate student in comparative literature. Sharing the wine were Rhoades, Gianfranco Angelucci, who wrote the screenplay for Fellini’s “Intervista,” and UW faculty members Raimonda Modiano, professor of English and comparative literature, and Giuseppe Leporace, senior lecturer of French and Italian studies. Angelucci suggested a conference to celebrate Fellini; Modiano agreed to serve as conference organizer.
There’s been much to organize, given the conference’s scope. Speakers will include writers, actors, and musicians who worked with Fellini; academics who study Fellini’s work; and renowned directors—including Jane Campion and John Landis—who were inspired by the filmmaker. Related events include a Fellini film series at the Seattle Art Museum and the Experience Music Project, a graduate conference organized by Rhoades, and a new Cinema Studies course. And the Henry Art Gallery will present the first-ever exhibit of original drawings and other artwork by Fellini.
“This conference was such a big undertaking that it almost died before it got started,” says Albert Sbragia, director of the Cinema Studies Program, who will co-teach the Fellini course with Professor Willis Konick. “We’re very fortunate that Professor Modiano was willing to take the lead.”
From the start, there was no shortage of people interested in celebrating Fellini’s life and work. Fellini was not only a classic director, explains Konick, but also a film pioneer, establishing new possibilities for film. “After Fellini, actors could emulate new verve, new realism,” says Konick, “and directors could feature their own persona more openly, more honestly. Filmmakers could present God and spirituality in their films more freely, more comically. They could explore and express human sexuality more blatantly. Nothing need be hidden any longer.”
The conference will be held October 28 to November 1 at the UW. The Fellini Film Festival—to include half of Fellini’s films—will begin in mid-October. For more information, check the website at felliniana.org or email the organizers at ffellini@u.washington.edu.
Anthropology Students Garden at Discovery Park
As garden enthusiasts spent hours in May planting and weeding their own gardens, students in Eugene Hunn’s ethnobiology class completed a garden of a different sort at Discovery Park’s Daybreak Star Center.
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| UW student Minna Freeman, left, and volunteer native plant specialist Heidi Bohan transplant a fern into the soil at Daybreak Star Center in Discovery Park. Photo by Aaron Gustafson for The Daily. |
After clearing the site of a tangle of invasive bushes, the class created an ethnobotanical garden, planting approximately 70 species of native plants of cultural significance to the Native peoples of the region. Merlee Markishtum of the Daybreak Star Center suggested the project to Hunn, professor of anthropology, who ran with the idea.
“I thought it would be an excellent opportunity for students to learn about the local flora and its cultural significance, past and present,” says Hunn, who had each of his 35 students write summaries of two or more native plants, including their physical characteristics and ecological and cultural significance. The descriptions will be included in an interpretive manual at Daybreak Star Center.
The garden will be named the Bernie Whitebear Memorial Ethnobotanical Garden. Whitebear was instrumental in acquiring the lease for Daybreak Star Center’s land and led the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation for many years before his death in 2000.
[Summer 2003 - Table of Contents]