Summer 2006 |
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| Dean's
Medal Awarded to Four Top Students
By any of these measures, this year’s Arts and Sciences Dean’s Medalists shine. The medal is presented to four undergraduates each year, one from each of the College’s four divisions: arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. Eliana Hechter, mathematics major and Dean’s Medalist in the Natural Sciences, arrived at the UW at age 14. She has studied in Rome, participated in the competitive Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program, spent a quarter at Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL) through a research apprenticeship course, and served as a teaching assistant for an honors mathematics course. Last November, she was selected as a Rhodes Scholar. In the FHL course, populated by advanced graduate students and several professors, “Eliana asked the deepest questions, volunteered answers to the most difficult questions I asked in lectures, and her answers were almost always correct,” recalls Professor Garrett Odell. “...[She] will become a science research star.” Erin Corrales-Diaz, an art history major and Dean’s Medalist in the Arts, was already thinking about graduate school upon arrival at the UW. (She’s headed to Williams College for graduate study.) “She approached me her freshman year with probing questions about Victorian British art and how to study it,” recalls Professor Susan Casteras. “She asked which languages she should study in preparation for graduate school and then went about mastering these.” Corrales-Diaz has performed “superbly” in her other courses as well, some at the graduate level. And for several years she has served as a docent at the Frye Art Museum —the youngest person ever to do so. Patrick Ringland, Dean’s Medalist in the Humanities, majored in classics and economics. Raised on a Washington ranch, Ringland has strayed far from home to pursue language study in Italy, Germany, and Spain. (He speaks four languages and reads Latin.) He also served as president of SEUS, the Society of Economic Undergraduate Students, and as co-editor of In Actu, the student journal of economics and international affairs. “Patrick has a truly cross-disciplinary vision and talent,” says Classics Department chair James Clauss. “He consistently brought to class a perspective that invariably made all of us—students and faculty—look at what we were doing in a different way.” Jacob Brown, an international studies major and Dean’s Medalist in the Social Sciences, also spent time abroad, traveling to Israel to conduct research for his undergraduate honors thesis. A previous paper on Japan’s militarization has already been published in The Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs. Brown’s professors describe him as “remarkable” and “marvelous,” but perhaps the highest praise comes from classmates who worked with him on a senior project for which he served as coordinator. “If it had not been for him, I don’t think we could have pulled this off,” commented one classmate.” Added another, “Jacob displays more natural leadership abilities than I have ever seen in a student.” The College offers its congratulations to each of these exceptional students.
Course Design, with an FBI Twist When Eric Ames and Andrew Nestingen began planning a Spring Quarter film course, they found inspiration in an unlikely place: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On the FBI’s website was a crime scene investigation handbook that “provided an organization for the course syllabus,” says Nestingen, assistant professor of Scandinavian studies.
An FBI handbook as pedagogical tool? It makes sense, say the professors, especially when the course, “Crime Scenes,” is based on the analogy of investigation. The FBI handbook describes the various steps of criminal investigation — arriving at the scene, observing, collecting evidence, and so on — which can also be used to describe the process of film analysis or the research process more generally, says Ames, assistant professor of Germanics. “There are methods for analyzing a film, just as there are methods that investigators follow in reconstructing a crime,” he explains. “Film analysis requires skills in observing, identifying, analyzing, and interpreting evidence.” Both Ames and Nestingen have taught film courses prior to this collaboration. For “Crime Scenes” they chose ten films, ranging from the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to the recent Norwegian film Insomnia. Although the course was offered through Scandinavian Studies and Germanics, the selections also included American films like Double Indemnity, directed by the German refugee Billy Wilder, and Minority Report, which features eminent Swedish actor Max von Sydow. “It’s important to see how German and Scandinavian cinemas have developed alternative models of filmmaking, distribution, and reception,“ says Nestingen. “It’s also important for students to see how these films have influenced and been influenced by Hollywood.” Contrasts and comparisons are helpful. While Scandinavian films tend to show harmful circumstances rather than evil people, for example, American films tend to present crimes as stark personifications of good and evil. Many students in the class initially worried that they lacked the technical vocabulary to write about film. But the course provided a vocabulary that was small enough to be manageable yet large enough to be effective. “I’ve never seen better writing by undergraduates,” says Nestingen. “What they were writing about was on a scale—brief film clips—that allowed them to really focus on the details and write confidently. We gave them the tools needed to make sense of those details, while showing them over time how to ask larger and larger questions about the films that we screened in class.” “Crime Scenes,”
made possible through the Office of Undergraduate Education’s
University Course Initiative, will be offered again in Spring 2007.
For
Until recently, undergraduates wanting to use one of the Department of Astronomy’s two 12-inch telescopes had to pull the heavy telescopes from storage, mount and align them, and then attach additional equipment such as powerful cameras and research-grade filters. The process taxed both the students and the telescopes, the latter experiencing excessive wear and tear as a result of all the handling. Now the problem has been solved with the installation of an all-weather dome on the deck of the Physics Astronomy Building. The 12-foot-diameter dome houses the telescopes and their equipment, making them instantly accessible to astronomy students when weather allows.
Astronomy lecturer Ana Larson and a crew of student volunteers hoisted the dome’s parts up two floors and onto the observing platform—which overlooks Pacific Avenue Northeast and the Burke-Gilman Trail—and assembled it in just a few days. “The facility is the first really good opportunity for year-round, hands-on observations,” says Larson. “In addition to examining planets, monitoring variable stars, and searching for distant galaxies, students can view sunspots and solar prominences during daylight hours.”
The idea was proposed by Christine Ingebritsen, acting dean of undergraduate education, who learned of other universities’ success with the approach. “I thought it was an interesting way to build community,” says Ingebritsen, “and it also resonated with discussions I’ve had with our president, who has endorsed the idea of a common experience for incoming students.” Mountains Beyond Mountains, chosen by a UW committee led by Ingebritsen, tells the true story of Paul Farmer, a Harvard Medical School professor who has worked to bring the tools of modern medicine to people around the world. “Farmer becomes passionate and engaged and seeks to change the world around him,” Ingebritsen says, “so it relates to what we hope for in our students—a transformation from students into scholars and to participants in global society.” Both Farmer and Kidder will visit the UW campus during the year, and related courses and discussion groups are planned. Common Book activities will be listed at www.uwcommonbook.org as they are finalized. The article above is excerpted from a November 17, 2005 story in University Week.
David Hodge, dean of the College for the past eight years, has resigned his position to become president of Miami University. While the UW begins its search for a new dean, the College will be in the able hands of Ron Irving, who will serve as interim dean.
This administrative role is familiar to Irving, professor of mathematics, who has been divisional dean of natural sciences since 2002. (Werner Stuetzle, professor of statistics, will serve as acting divisional dean of natural sciences.) “This job involves so many things that interest me,” Irving says. “I’ve enjoyed working with the natural sciences, and I’m looking forward to learning more about the College’s other divisions.” Irving shares more thoughts in his Letter from the Dean. In April, Linguistics Professor Ellen Kaisse became divisional dean of arts and humanities, nine months after being appointed acting divisional dean in that position. Kaisse, who joined the UW faculty in 1976, has previously served as chair of the Department of Linguistics and been a member of the College Council. It was her experience with the College Council that led Kaisse to consider joining the Dean’s Office. “I found it so rewarding to learn what was going on in the College beyond my own department,” she says. Asked to describe her role as divisional dean, Kaisse says it involves “helping departments hire and retain the best people, and helping good things happen by providing small infusions of money.” She adds, “Nobody ever comes to you with a bad idea. The key is to give out money at the right speed so you don’t run out before the next good idea arrives.” A new face in the Dean’s Office is Richard Karpen, divisional dean of research and infrastructure since July 1. Karpen comes to the Dean’s Office from Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), an Arts and Sciences program he was instrumental in establishing. Although he has done his share of administrative work—as director of DXARTS and, previously, the Center for Advanced Research Technology in the Arts and Humanities (CARTAH)—Karpen is also committed to creating new art. He joined the UW faculty in 1989 as a composer in the School of Music. Karpen realizes that
his new position may leave less time for creating art, but “Looking at major research universities across the U.S. recently, I could not find one where someone from a generative arts discipline—someone who makes new art—held a leadership/administrative position beyond their own immediate area of the arts,” says Karpen. “So when I was offered this position, it was not only something I wanted to do, but something I felt I needed to do. And I already know that I enjoy working with people in a range of disciplines.”
Visiting Scholars Bring Japan to the UW
Drop by Ted Mack’s graduate seminar on Japanese literature and you’ll hear an animated discussion. But don’t expect to understand a word of it. The class is held in Japanese, with a visiting scholar from Japan playing a central role in the conversation. Such immersion seminars—with all texts and discussion in Japanese, with a Japanese scholar participating—are extremely rare, says Mack, assistant professor of Asian languages and literature, who believes the UW may be the only American university to offer them on a regular basis. “In other languages, graduate courses are often taught in the language of the literature,” says Mack, “but this is not the case for Japanese. After a few years of graduate course work, students typically head for Japan to research their dissertation topics. It is only then that they take classes and have academic conversations in Japanese.” Why the delay? Largely because reading comprehension in Japanese is so challenging and the prospect of discussing the texts in Japanese is quite daunting. “For these reasons, graduate studies in the United States focus solely on reading skills,” says Mack. “But I felt that we could start the process a bit earlier.” Mack also sought opportunities for students to study with scholars of modern Japanese literature beyond the two UW faculty specializing in this area. Talking with Kono Kensuke,
a friend and professor at Nihon University in Japan, Mack raised
the idea of bringing Japanese scholars to the UW for quarter-long
visits. Though the plan seemed financially prohibitive to Mack,
Kono convinced “He told me that many Japanese scholars could get partial funding from their home institution for such exchanges or would be willing to come during their sabbatical,” says Mack. “They see the chance to be abroad and meet other scholars as a huge advantage. I realized that this might actually work.” In 2004, the first visiting scholar arrived from Japan. Since then, two more have visited. The cost to the UW is minimal; the Department of Asian Languages and Literature provides housing and the Japan Studies Program in the Jackson School of International Studies covers the scholar’s airfare. The program includes a faculty exchange, enabling UW faculty to take their turn traveling to Japanese universities as visiting scholars. Visiting scholars from Japan do not teach their own courses, but their participation is pivotal. “These dynamic senior professors are able to participate because the discussions are in Japanese,” says Mack. “Students benefit from having a variety of theoretical perspectives in the classroom. They also develop personal relationships with the scholars, so when they go to Japan to study, they already have a network over there.” Kono Kensuke, who helped conceive the plan, had his turn as a visiting scholar this year. He found the experience surprising—in a good way. “In Japan, students want to hear the teacher’s opinion before they express their own,” says Kono. “Students [at the UW] take more initiative. They ask a lot of questions and express their opinions freely. What we were doing in the UW seminar was as exciting as the most vibrant programs in Japan, if not more so.” [Summer 2006 - Table of Contents]
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