 |
 Elizabeth
Crews AC’09, who attended the , a joint program between the University
of Massachusetts-Amherst and Oxford University, was recently
awarded the seminar’s Ernest H. Hofer Book Prize
in the non-literary essay category. Crews’ prize
essay, “Irresistible Force Meets Unmovable Object:
Policy, Principle, and the Anglo-American Crisis,” was
written in response to a quote by 18th-century statesman
and philosopher Edmund Burke, who said, “Kings
will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels
from principle,” said Crews. “I linked the
Kent State University shootings of May 1970 to the Boston
Massacre of March 1770 to illustrate that both England
and the colonists in America shared three essential problems
that led to the American revolution: the principle of
authority, the principle of liberty, and the principle
of identity,” she explained. The Hofer Book Prize
is given annually for the two best essays written during
the summer seminar, and is judged by Oxford faculty.
Ernest Hofer, who died on July 15, founded the Oxford
Summer Seminar more than 40 years ago to give students
an opportunity to study with Oxford faculty. Hofer had
been a longtime English department faculty member at
the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and retired
in 1986. "The value of a Smith education is incomparable,"
said Crews. "I was able to apply everything I have
learned at Smith thus far to my studies this summer."
Byron Zamboanga (left)
and Janine Olthuis ’08. |
Janine Olthuis ’08 was
recently named a recipient of an Honorary Undergraduate
Scholars Award from the New England Psychological Association
(NEPA). Olthuis, who last spring received a postgraduate
scholarship from the National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA), is one of only five students from New England colleges
to receive the NEPA award this year. Nominated by Byron
Zamboanga, assistant professor of psychology, Olthuis was
selected based on her achievements in and contributions
to psychology as an undergraduate, including co-authoring
several articles and conference presentations with Zamboanga.
Olthuis will begin a doctoral program in clinical psychology
this fall at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
Canada. The NEPA Scholars will be honored during the association's
annual meeting at Western New England College in Springfield,
Mass., on October 25.
 , a documentary film produced
this year by Victoria Gamburg ’93 for
the PBS program FRONTLINE/World, was nominated
for a News and Documentary Emmy Award in a new category
for work presented on the Internet. The story, which
borrows its title from the popular HBO television series
and Hollywood hit, depicts the experiences of young,
single women in today’s Russia. ,
who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, but grew up
in the United States, compares fictional characters
in Russia’s popular TV series Balzac Age with
the lives of real women in Moscow. Gamburg has produced
several documentaries from her cross-cultural perspective.
Emmy Award winners will be announced during a ceremony
at the Lincoln Center in New York city on September
22.
 Lynn
Oberbillig, director of athletics, was recently
named chair of the National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA) Division III Management Council, a prestigious
post that guides the group responsible for decisions
on college sports nationwide. Oberbillig, who is currently
serving as the council’s vice chair, will take
over the chair next year from Del Malloy, commissioner
of the New England Collegiate Conference. Oberbillig,
who has served as Smith’s director of athletics
since 1993, currently chairs the NCAA’s Softball
Rules Committee. She also has served on the association’s
Women’s Rowing Committee and was the first chair
of the Division III Women’s Rowing Committee. “I’m
honored to be appointed to this position,” Oberbillig
said. “It’s humbling to think that I will
be at the top of the NCAA food chain trying to represent
Smith in a fashion that we can all be proud of.” Earlier
this year, Oberbillig , which honors individuals who have
made significant contributiosn to the development and
advancement of women’s sports.
Jennifer Barnes ’82 was
recently appointed the new president of Murray Edwards
College, an institution in Cambridge, England. Formerly
named New Hall, the women’s college was founded in
1954. Barnes, who will assume the college presidency on
October 1, will be the fourth president of the school,
which was founded in 1954. Barnes, a longtime music educator
in the United Kingdom, is the author of several publications,
including The Fall of Opera Commissioned for Television. After
completing her undergraduate studies in English literature
at Smith, Barnes studied at the Royal College of Music,
in London, and received her doctorate from the University
of London. Barnes served on the faculty of the Royal Academy
of Music and Trinity College of Music.
Joel Westerdale,
assistant professor of German, was recently awarded the
Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. The prestigious
award is given annually by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
to postdoctoral researchers from abroad, to further pursue
their scholarship in Germany. Westerdale will conduct
research for his project titled “Evil in Modern German
Literature and Film,” which will explore the pivotal
role of evil in modern literary and film culture with emphases
on issues of identity and emerging media technology. He
will carry out his research at the Center for Literary
and Cultural Research in Berlin, from July 2009 to 2010.
Kelly Forbush ’09 recently
received an undergraduate fellowship from the , which recognizes students
who have demonstrate leadership and who are considering
ministry as a vocation. Forbush will receive $2,000 toward
tuition, as well as other educational support. As a FTE
fellow, Forbush attended the fund’s Conference on
Excellence in Ministry last month at Emory University in
Atlanta, Ga. The FTE Undergraduate Fellowship is a highly
competitive award for students from schools throughout
the United States and Canada. The Fund for Theological
Education is a leading ecumenical advocate for excellence
and diversity in Christian ministry and theological scholarship.
Since 1954, FTE has awarded nearly 6,000 fellowships.
Sherry Wang ’06 was
recently awarded a from the American Psychological Association
(APA). The fellowship supports the training of practitioners
and researdhers in mental health and substance abuse services
and prevention. Wang is currently pursuing a doctorate
in counseling psychology at the University of Nebraska,
Lincoln. The APA fellowship is supported by the federal
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
to increase the knowledge of and research related to ethnic
minority mental health, and to improve the quality of mental
health and substance abuse services to ethnic minority
populations. As a fellow, Wang will receive financial support,
including assistance with tuition, some dissertation expenses
and travel to the APA convention, and training opportunities.
 Award-winning
filmmaker Julie Casper Roth AC’07,
whose work has steadily gained national exposure since
her graduation from Smith, was recently named an Artist
Fellow in Video with the . The foundation’s
fellowships program, which began in 1984, annually awards
grants to artists in the state. Roth, whose films have
been shown at the MadCat International Women’s Film
Festival, the Athens International Film and Video Festival
and several other venues, is currently working on her first
feature-length documentary film, titled The Main, an
exploration of changing social and consumer dynamics in
queer communities. Roth is one among 144 NYFA Fellows named
this year in 16 disciplines.
 Katherine
T. Halvorsen, professor of mathematics and statistics,
was recently appointed as a Fellow of the American Statistical
Association (ASA), the nation’s preeminent professional
statistical society. Halvorsen is among 53 fellows recently
elected in recognition of their outstanding professional
contributions to and leadership in the field of statistical
science, according to a press release from the ASA. Fellows
are nominated by other ASA members and must have an established
reputation for outstanding contributions in statistics.
The ASA, which was founded in Boston in 1839, is the
second oldest continuously operating professional society
in the United States. Halvorsen joins new fellows from
23 states, Canada and Israel. The fellows will be presented
at a ceremony at the ASA’s 168th annual Joint Statistical
Meetings in Denver on August 5.
Alexandra Gorin ’08 is
the recent recipient of a Sustainable Energy Fellowship
from the Global Institute of Sustainability. As one of
40 fellows from 20 schools, Gorin is visiting Duke University
this month to begin her fellowship with a weeklong workshop
on new technologies, policies and economics of sustainable
energy. The highly competitive fellowship gives students
and recent graduates opportunities to study and conduct
research into energy production, conversion, storage and
environmentally responsible sources, such as wind, solar,
biomass and geothermal. Fellows’ expenses are underwritten
by Shell and Ford Motor companies.
 Cornelia
Hahn Oberlander ’44 is the recipient of
two honorary degrees during this commencement season.
On May 21, she received the Doctor of Laws from Dalhousie
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And on May 28, she
received the Doctor of Science from McGill University
in Montréal. The degrees are given for pioneering
work in shaping understanding of landscape architecture,
as well as in recognition of Oberlander’s work
over six decades, including at Smith, according to a
press release from McGill University.
 Award-winning
journalist and documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy ’02 will
receive the Woman of Distinction Award for Communications
from the YWCA Toronto during a presentation dinner on June
3. Obaid-Chinoy visited Smith last month for a screening
of her most recent film The Lost Generation, a
documentary about middle-class Iraqis who have been driven
from their homes by war and sectarian bloodshed. The Woman
of Distinction Award honors contributions women make to
the life of the city of Toronto, in particular their commitment
to women and girls. Obaid-Chinoy, a native of Pakistan,
began her career in documentary filmmaking after reporting
on Afghani refugee children in Pakistan, which resulted
in the film Terror’s Children, winner of
the Overseas Press Club Award and other honors. Obaid-Chinoy,
who lives in Toronto, Paris and London, is one of eight
women to receive the award this year.
 Margaret
Mongare ’10 is one of 16 second-year undergraduates
from top American schools to be selected as a 2008 Goldman
Sachs Global Leader. Mongare joined students from Harvard,
Stanford, Brown, Yale, New York, Duke, Cornell and Northwestern
universities, and the universities of Pennsylvania, Miami,
California-Berkeley, Texas-Austin, and Michigan, in receiving
the highly competitive award. They were selected on the
basis of their outstanding academic abilities and leadership
achievements. The Goldman Sachs Foundation, along with
its partner organization, the Institute of International
Education, created the Global Leaders Program to identify
and reward the academic excellence and leadership potential
of accomplished second-year students. Each Global
Leader receives a $3,000 award. Mongare and the other
Global Leaders were honored during a luncheon at Goldman
Sachs in New York City in early April.
Kate Queeney, associate professor of chemistry, is a recent
recipient of a $38,000 Special Grant in the Chemical Sciences from the Camille
and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in New York City
dedicated to advancing the science of chemistry. The foundation’s chemical
sciences grant program supports proposed projects that aim to advance the chemical
sciences in a variety of ways. Queeney’s award will support her
project AEMES: Focus on Chemistry. Queeney is one of 26 Special Grant
recipients in 2008.
 Ginetta
Candelario, associate professor of sociology
and Latin American and Latina/o studies, was recently
honored as the Community-based Learning Faculty member
of the Year by Five Colleges, Inc. Candelario is teaching
a Practicum in Community Based Research this semester
in which her students have examined the effects on Holyoke
neighborhoods of a proposed new waste transfer station.
Candelario was heralded during a reception on April 23
at Mount Holyoke College, alongside Isolde Bustamante-Ortega
and Engaging Latino Communities for Education, the Five
Colleges Community Partner of the Year.
 Eric
Reeves, professor of English language and literature,
will be presented on May 9 with the 16th annual Salem
Award for Human rights and Social Justice for his work
on behalf of victims of violence and genocide in Sudan.
The award is given each year to keep alive the lessons
of the Salem witch trials of 1692 and to recognize people
whose commitment to social justice has alleviated discrimination
and promoted tolerance. Reeves is a recent recipient
of an honorary degree from Smith for his advocacy on
behalf of people in Sudan. Reeves will join Susannah
Sirkin, deputy director, International Policy and Advocacy,
for Physicians for Human Rights, and the Rev. Gloria
White-Hammond, co-pastor of Bethel AME Church in Boston,
on a panel at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.
Natalie Sullivan ’07 is
among 59 scholars chosen as 2008 Humanity in Action (HIA)
Fellows. Sullivan will join fellows from 35 other American
schools, including Amherst and Vassar colleges, in summer
programs in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands,
Poland and the United States. The fellows will work together
in five-week sessions studying the conditions of minorities
in these countries, and seeking solutions to meet their
needs. Fellows are selected on the basis of leadership
ability, demonstrated commitment to human rights and minority
issues, and high academic achievement. “This year,
our applicant pool was more talented than ever, and so
Natalie's selection is a testament to her keen intellect
and strong commitment to human rights issues,” said
Nick Farrell, HIA American Program director. Founded in
1997, HIA guides student leaders in the study and work
of human rights.
Paula J. Giddings,
E.A. Woodson 1922 Professor of Afro-American Studies, will
begin a national book tour on March 10, at the Jane Addams
Hull House in Chicago, to promote her new book Ida:
A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against
Lynching. As part of her tour, Giddings will read
from her book at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley on
Thursday, March 13,  at
7 p.m. Ida is a “sweeping narrative about
a country and a crusader,” according to an Odyssey
Bookshop press release, “embroiled in the struggle
against lynching: a practice that not only imperiled the
lives of black men and women, but also a nation based on
law and driven by race.”
Christine Shelton,
professor of exercise and sport studies, is among the presenters
at this year’s Commission on the Status of Women,
which is taking place from February 25 through March 7
at the United Nations in New York City. As part of the
commission, Shelton helped present the new United Nations
publication Women, Gender Equality and Sport, which
she helped produce. “Leading advocates of women’s
sport are celebrating new recognition by the United Nations
that participation in sport is not just about better health—it
is a catalyst for women’s empowerment and development
around the world,” says a United Nations press release
about the new publication. Shelton was part of a panel
on February 28 that introduced the publication, along with
representatives from the International Working Group on
Women and Sport. The Women, Gender Equality and Sport will
be published in multiple languages and distributed widely.
Attendees at the international commission included representatives
from several governments and sporting organizations, as
well as athletes, managers and trainers, and sports media
professionals. for more information on Women, Gender Equality
and Sport.
Christine Davis,
senior coach of tennis, was cited recently in TennisPro magazine
for her longtime involvement in the Babe Zaharias Golf
and Tennis Tournament, in which she has participated every
year since it began in 1982. The tournament is the largest
sports fundraiser in the nation for the American Cancer
Society, and has raised more than $6 million. Each August,
Davis travels to Ohio to volunteer in the organization
of the event. Last August 8, the Babe Zaharias Tennis and
Golf Classic, which is chaired by Barbara Nicklaus, wife
of golfing great Jack Nicklaus, took place at the New Albany
Country Club in New Albany, Ohio, whose golf course was
designed by Jack Nicklaus. The event raised more than $300,000.
Ann Shanahan ’59,
who retired from Smith in 2004 as Chief Public Affairs
officer, was recently presented with the Keen Hahn Award
for Community Service in the Arts. The award is given annually
by the Northampton Arts Council to individuals who have
made notable efforts on behalf of the arts locally. Shanahan
was a member of the founding board of the Center for the
Arts and returned to the board in 2003, serving as chair
from 2004 to 2007. During her tenure, the center increased
it programming and established an online arts calendar
()
as part of a campaign to encourage collaboration among
local arts organizations. The late Keen Hahn, for whom
the award is named, spent many years working at the Center
for the Arts.
Photo by Andrea Artz |
It's finally official: after
spending months in contention for the highest honor bestowed
on movie makers, Cynthia Wade ’89 took
the walk up the stairs on Sunday, Feb. 24, as millions
watched, to accept an Academy Award for her film .
The film, which won the Oscar in the category Best Short
Documentary Subject, chronicles the story of the late Laurel
Hester, a detective lieutenant in Ocean County, New Jersey.
During the final year of Hester’s life, after she
had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she engaged in
a struggle with elected county officials to transfer her
pension—earned after 25 years of fighting crime—to
her domestic partner, Stacie Andree, an option for heterosexual
couples living together.
Andree and Wade attended the
Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood together. The category
nominees and winner were introduced by United States soldiers. Freeheld took
the award over other documentaries La Corona, Salim
Baba and Sari's Mother.
The Oscar is chief among several
awards taken by Freeheld, including the Special
Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the Audience
Award at the Boston Independent Film Festival.
 A
new book, Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains
the Courage to Lead, edited by Sam Intrator,
associate professor of education and child study, is a
semifinalist for the first annual 2007 Best Business Book
awards chosen by ,
an online publication that reviews business books. Intrator’s
book was selected from nearly 300 titles submitted to the
publication’s editorial staff and represents top
titles of the year. Winners in 15 categories will be announced
on Jan. 15, 2008. The book is a collection of 93 poems
and commentaries from leaders about the impact the poems
have had on their lives and careers.
A new book, Making Mathematics
with Needlework: Ten Papers and Ten Projects, by sarah-marie
belcastro, visiting assistant professor of mathematics
and statistics and associate director of the Center for
Women in Mathematics, and Carolyn Yackel, assistant professor
of mathematics at Mercer University, was recently reviewed
in , a journal of the Society for Industrial and
Applied Mathematics. The book is a collection of needlework
patterns and essays regarding the commonalities of math
and the popular pastime. “For the myriad math-and-needlework
enthusiasts out there, this book will no doubt earn a
place of honor on the shelf,” writes reviewer Michelle
Sipics. “Readers with a broad interest in mathematics
will appreciate the range of topics discussed as well
as the effort on the part of the authors to illustrate
those topics and concepts in creative ways, incorporating
so many different crafts.”
Photos by Spike Mafford |
A permanent installation by Lynne
Yamamoto, associate professor of art, commissioned
by the City of Seattle, Washington, for the city’s
new Central Library, was recently completed and occupies
a large wall near the Seattle Collection of city papers.
The installation is a 6-inch deep relief of the face
of index card files, cast in semi-opaque white resin,
Yamamoto explains. The casts are of a set of card files
saved from the Temporary Central Library.
“The card files are
an article of furniture that has been rendered obsolete
by computerized cataloging,” says Yamamoto. “However,
some of the information recorded on these cards has never
entered the online catalog. Thus, much of this information
would be lost without the original cards. As a result,
squirreled away in several parts of the new Central Library
are the beloved card files. They continue to be useful
to librarians and users. The handwritten notes on these
cards are personal traces of librarians past and present.”
Yamamoto’s card catalog
relief suggests the spectral trace of the card files in
the library, she describes.
Yamamoto was commissioned
to create the work by the city’s Office of Arts and
Cultural Affairs. The Central Library, which was designed
by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koohaas/Office of Metropolitan
Architecture, opened in May 2004.
Photo by Andrea Artz |
Erin Park Cohn ’00 was
recently named as a winner of the Gene Wise Warren Susman
Prize for best graduate student paper delivered at the
annual meeting of the American Studies Association. Cohn,
who is working toward her doctorate in American history
at the University of Pennsylvania, presented her paper “Imprinting
Race: The Philadelphia Fine Print Workshop of the WPA Federal
Art Project and the Visual Politics of Race.” The
paper is part of a larger dissertation project that explores
intersections of race politics and visual culture in the
United States from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Seymour W. Itzkoff,
professor emeritus of education and child study, is the
new book series editor for the Edwin Mellen Press of Lewiston,
N.Y. and Wales, U.K. ().
The book series is entitled World Energy Crisis,
and will consist of contributions from various points of
view, all being of scholarly, technical, and scientific
character.
 Rosetta
Marantz Cohen, professor of education and child study, is one of several
prominent authors featured in risk, courage, and women: contemporary voices
in prose and poetry, a book recently published by the University of North
Texas Press. Cohen, who is the author of four books on topics in education, as
well as a poetry collection, is currently working on a book-length poem on high
school life. Other authors featured in the book include Maya Angelou, Rosemary
Catacalos, Pat Mora, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Joan E. Shalikashvili.
Gabrielle Thal-Pruzan ’08 spent
the past summer as a Goldman Fellow at the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob
Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights in New York. The fellowship
is designed to develop future leaders in the areas of international and domestic
politics, diplomacy, public relations and management. Last month, during her fellowship,
Thal-Pruzan wrote an op-ed piece titled “Israel must take steps to improve
its treatment of Sudanese refugees” on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Web site.
Thal-Pruzan argued that the Israeli government can take steps that “will help
ensure the dignity and rights of those seeking asylum in Israel.
Peter I. Rose, professor emeritus of
sociology and anthropology, was recently appointed a Fulbright Senior Specialist
at the Roosevelt Academy of Utrecht University for spring 2008. This will be Rose’s
sixth Fulbright professorship. The Roosevelt Academy is a new English-language international
honors college, and is the second Netherlands institution to be modeled after Smith
College. Like its predecessor, the University College Utrecht (UCU), the Roosevelt
Academy bases its academic structure and curriculum on those at Smith, Rose notes.
The decision to emulate of Smith were spearheaded by Hans Adriaansens, a Dutch sociologist
who had spent a year at Smith in 1980, and subsequently became Dean of Social Sciences
at UCU, as well as a member of the National Science Council. Rose has also served
in Fulbright professorships at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom,
Kyoto and Doshisha universities in Japan, and Flinders University in Australia.
Maria Honeycutt ’95 has
been named the GSA-U.S. Geological Survey Congressional Science Fellow for 2007-08.
In her new position, Honeycutt will work on policy initiatives for a broad range
of earth and ocean science-related issues. Most recently, Honeycutt has worked as
a principal geologist with URS Corporation in Maryland. There, she led efforts to
develop advisory coastal flood recovery maps for the Gulf Coast in the wake of hurricanes
Ivan, Katrina and Rita. She is currently leading an analysis of storm-induced erosion,
modeling of waves and mapping floodplains for the Mississippi coast as part of a
follow-up study. Honeycutt also serves as co-chair of the Coast Issues Policy Committee
for the Association of State Floodplain Managers and is professionally registered
as a certified floodplain manager.
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People News is a column for publicizing
the achievements, distinctions and notable activities of people in the
Smith community, PeopleNews welcomes your submissions. If you -- or someone
you know in the Smith community -- have recently received an award, participated
in an interesting event, or are involved in an important endeavor, please
let us know. |
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