Barry Lawson is a �ֲ���ý computer science professor who chairs the Program in Digital and Computational Studies. He is also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist who plays mandolin, guitar, and upright bass.

The two endeavors harmonize, he says.

“Playing with other people is rewarding because we’re performing but also listening and responding. It’s part of the communication,” says Lawson, who is the Colony Family Professor of Digital and Computational Studies. “I think that influences a lot of what I do in digital and computational studies as well.”

This culture of collaboration and interdisciplinary thinking is foundational to the �ֲ���ý DCS program — now the college’s 37th academic major, thanks to a faculty vote on March 3. 

�ֲ���ý created the DCS program in response to a rapidly-changing world. As access to technological knowledge becomes more easily available, humans are solving epic problems but often blazing trails of unintended consequences. Facial recognition technologies used to solve crimes, for example, have sent innocent people to jail after mistakenly identifying them as perpetrators, while social media apps meant to create connections and foster community have led to loneliness and mental health problems. 

“One of the challenges for computer science as a field historically is that there has too often been a rush to produce products with too little consideration of the holistic impact on individuals, on society, and on the planet,” Lawson says. “We are seeing many of the effects of those choices now.”

With courses linking digital studies to subjects like theater and neuroscience, DCS aims to prepare students to respond to rapid technological developments by teaching them both essential skills of computer science and how to critique technology through a lens of furthering social good.

“One of the goals of DCS is for students to gain sufficient technical background across computational fields of study, while also thinking critically about, and evaluating the impacts of, the tools that we’re building, of the choices that we’re making, and of who is involved in making those choices,” Lawson says.

The DCS program is highly interdisciplinary, with a focus on five core elements: computer science; data science, analysis, and visualization; critical digital studies; human-centered design; and community-engaged learning. 

The major will comprise 10 courses, including those that fulfill the core elements of the major and electives that span the interdisciplinary expertise in DCS, such as “The Past, Present, and Possible Dystopian Future of Computing,” “Public History in the Digital Age,” and “Human-Robot Interaction Design Workshop.”

Funded by gifts totaling $19 million from several �ֲ���ý families, the college announced the formation of a DCS program in 2016; the minor was first offered in 2021. From then to now, the number of seniors with DCS minors has exploded from 15 to 42, making DCS �ֲ���ý’ most popular minor among current students. 

The DCS program is like a flowering tree. It grew slowly, establishing a solid base, before it bloomed, each of its branching disciplines and their respective faculty experts playing a key role in the major’s raison d’être.

“The overall mission as well as the specifics of the major have the fingerprints of those DCS faculty,” Lawson says, giving thanks to faculty members Anelise Hanson Shrout, Carrie Diaz Eaton, Andy Ricci, and Jason Castro.

Faculty also sought input from �ֲ���ý alumni working in DCS-adjacent jobs, who Lawson says expressed excitement for the new major and the hope that students will both gain technological skills and learn to think carefully about what technology is accomplishing and who is in charge of it. 

The new major meets the growing interests of both current and prospective students. Abdul Rafay ’25 of Lahore, Pakistan, for example, added a DCS minor to learn computer science skills that he could apply to his natural science interests as a biochemistry major.

“It was only possible because of the flexibility that is very intentionally part of the DCS curriculum.” 

By his sophomore year, Rafay had discovered DCS’ wide-ranging applications. Using data skills gleaned from his “Computing for Insight” course, plus skills learned from a “Lab-Based Biological Inquiry” course — one that offers hands-on research experiences early in a student’s career — he was able to map genetically similar microalgae.

“It was only possible because of the flexibility that is very intentionally part of the DCS curriculum,” Rafay says. 

Outside of his coursework, Rafay also uses his DCS skills in his campus work to support sustainability efforts. As part of the team of student EcoReps, he and fellow DCS minor Paige Bilich ’26 of Massapequa, N.Y., wrote computer programs to automate the regular calculations of �ֲ���ý’ carbon footprint, freeing up time for the EcoReps to pursue additional sustainability projects.

“We have more time, which we’ve been using to work on visualizing the data to make it more user friendly, to better understand and interpret �ֲ���ý’ sustainability,” Rafay says.

Rafay plans to pursue a career in bioinformatics and says that his DCS coursework has affirmed his interest in working with data and research. 

Like Rafay, many incoming students enter �ֲ���ý with a desire to study technology broadly, says Leigh Weisenburger, the college’s vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid. 

“A DCS major will help us better attract those students who wish to have digital literacy as a part of their learning, yet still want to uphold the liberal arts foundation and principles when it comes to learning,” Weisenburger says. 

DCS courses are often cross-listed with other areas of study — “Introduction to Digital Media” is cross-listed as a theater offering, as one example. For students just starting out in college, such courses can help draw them into parts of the �ֲ���ý curriculum they hadn’t yet considered.

“When we start talking about digital and computational studies, whether it be within art, whether it be within environmental studies, it just is so malleable, and it clicks for all students regardless of what they think their academic pursuits are going to be,” Weisenburger says. 

To fulfill the college’s general-education writing requirement, DCS seniors will take a one-semester capstone course during which they will complete a community-engaged learning group project in collaboration with a community partner. The project will give students real-world experience in using their technical knowledge and community engagement skills to solve a problem.

In addition to teaching a curriculum designed to encourage critical and ethical interaction with technologies, DCS faculty also aim to improve the way that subjects like computer science are taught, with the consideration that the field has historically been dominated by white men.

“Teaching computer science or data science the same way they have historically been taught leaves out some very important voices, and omits considerations that a variety of perspectives bring,” Lawson says. “As fields of study, there is still a lot of room to learn and grow in those regards, and we want DCS to be actively engaged.”

At the end of their four years at �ֲ���ý, DCS majors will know how to code, know how to critique technology, and understand the impacts of those interlocking practices — skills applicable to many potential career paths.

“It’s not at all an overstatement to say that practically every part of our society is touched or affected by computing in a meaningful way,” Lawson says.

Never underestimate the power of chance encounters.

Case in point: This summer, �ֲ���ý is taking a big step forward in its ability to track the use of electricity on campus. And most of the credit goes to a �ֲ���ý IT staffer and a handful of students who just happened to be in the right places at the right times.

Until now, �ֲ���ý energy manager John Rasmussen has analyzed the electricity usage in each of 28 �ֲ���ý buildings by downloading raw data into spreadsheets. It’s a cumbersome process that takes lots of time and repetition, to say nothing of all the 11-by-17-inch printouts needed for annotating the data.

Now, thanks to the efforts of that student-staff team, Rasmussen can simply call up a dynamic online graph, capable of instantly depicting electrical draws for a given building in increments as fine as 15 minutes or as large as several months.

Straightforward and reliable, the setup is “very helpful in understanding where all this energy’s going,” Rasmussen says, “and where the opportunities might be to make it more efficient.” And it’s key to his larger goal of being able to comprehensively monitor, manage — and ideally, through consciousness-raising as well as technical upgrades, reduce — campus consumption of both electricity and fuel for heating buildings.

“This is a great project because it lets us see things that were invisible previously,” says �ֲ���ý sustainability manager Tom Twist. “We can see in real time what the buildings are doing — for instance, if we’re heating a building to its full capacity at 2 a.m.”

“If you’re not in the business of energy management, it’s hard to understand the value of being able to quickly visualize energy-use data,” says Rasmussen. His analytical work incorporates not only electrical usage data, but data reflecting the effectiveness of �ֲ���ý’ campus heating plant in each building that it serves.

Rasmussen adds that it would have cost �ֲ���ý tens of thousands of dollars to purchase the commercial equivalent of the product put together by Maureen Haining, a �ֲ���ý programmer analyst, and five students. He says, “They are pretty sharp kids.”

So what about those chance encounters? A few years ago, Twist made a presentation to Information and Library Services staff. Haining was there, and it came out that she and Twist live near each other up the Maine coast. So they started carpooling to �ֲ���ý.

One of their commuting conversations involved Rasmussen’s travails with the electrical-usage data and the efforts of �ֲ���ý EcoReps — students overseen by Twist who undertake sustainability initiatives — to help with that. Long story short, Haining started working with the EcoReps, including some tutoring in the use of Python, a popular and powerful programming language.

They got as far as creating a way to depict static snapshots of electrical draw, an improvement over the printed spreadsheets, but not ideal.

Fast-forward to winter 2020, when Haining began teaching “Programming for Data Analysis and Visualization,” a one-time Digital and Computational Studies course based largely on Python. (Perhaps reflecting how DCS has elevated awareness of the power of data at �ֲ���ý, digital resources like Python and R no longer seem as occult to casual observers as they once might have.)

And therein lies the other random encounter. It soon became clear that three seniors in the course — Leo Crossman, Fahim Khan, and Avi Brach-Neufeld — already had considerable know-how in the snake-named programming language. (Also involved in the project are two EcoReps, Biruk Chafamo ’22 of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Kyung Phil Ko ’22 of Ontario.)

“They were doing very well, and were very helpful in the classroom with the other students,” says Haining. In fact, the three let on that they’d taken the course mostly because they needed the credits. “So I said, ‘Well, then, I have a project for you.’”

Crossman, Khan, and Brach-Neufeld teamed up with the EcoReps, specifically that organization’s Data Group, to help with the electrical usage project. Haining’s three “learned a whole new set of skills for visualization,” she says. “Fahim had a strong interest in that. Avi leveraged his Python skills to package up and deploy a production level Python application. Leo was very good with JavaScript and knew about web development.”

She adds, “In all, they worked extremely well as a cross-functional team.”

“It was a good opportunity to work on a real-life coding project as part of DCS course work, and I was excited to do it,” says Khan. A physics major from Dhaka, Bangladesh, Khan starts work this summer as a software developer at Tyler Technologies in Falmouth, Maine.

A knotty problem Haining’s team confronted is that the raw data from the electrical submeters is not “clean” — that is, there may be gaps, spikes, or other anomalies in the data, which emanates from the submeters as data pulses that are stored on a server. (Steam-heat data is even quirkier.)

“The students automated the process of cleaning the data,” says Twist, “as well as creating that easy visualization tool so that anyone can go in and look at the data, and know pretty quickly if the buildings are behaving the way we wanted them to.”

“They are really bright, motivated kids,” Haining says, “and they’re really good” with the technology.

But Haining deserves a share of the kudos, too, Twist says. “Maureen did a really nice job of shepherding them through all the potential pitfalls and problems that could have just stopped everything cold.”

One of the two EcoReps engaged in the project most recently, Kyung Phil Ko is a member of the EcoReps’ Data Group. For him and the EcoReps overall, he says, applying data analysis practices to electrical consumption “provides valuable insights into larger systemic issues, such as how buildings use an unexpected amount of energy, and cultural issues, like peak energy usage driven by our insatiable demand.”

Those insights can inform how another EcoRep working group, its Media Group, shapes its campus messaging about conserving electricity, as well as “what capital investments we ought to recommend” for a third group, Energy Solutions. That’s a particular interest for Ko, whose sights are set on a career in financial initiatives that support sustainability.

The project overall “was definitely a valuable learning experience,” says Brach-Neufeld, a physics major from Silver Spring, Md. Brach-Neufeld, who will start a position as a developer at healthcare software manufacturer Epic Systems in August, did the Python coding that cleans the electrical-use data.

“In addition to the pure programming knowledge I gained, it was the first time I had delivered a final product,” he says. “Previously, all of my programming experience had been primarily for my physics research or my own enjoyment. Although it was a challenge, I learned a lot about how to make my programming user-friendly and professional.”

For Ko, the exposure to programming was fun and beneficial. But more important, he says, “the soft skills I learned — to become more comfortable with uncertainty, particularly in the beginning, and relationship management — are what I’m going to take away the most. Perhaps I would have been more stressed in the past few months if I didn’t have this project to learn such skills.”

Kirk Read’s oral French course has long had a theatrical flair.

To teach lessons in vocabulary, grammar, and francophone culture, the professor of French and francophone studies conjured the fictitious Marie Malika d’Alger and created an episodic play, in French, about her life and adventures as a young Franco-Algerian woman.

For more than 20 years, Read gave the scripts to his students in hard copy. The students would learn the lines, create their own additions to the protagonist’s life and times, and take quizzes and tests that Read administered.

This year saw a change in the presentation of Read’s course. With support from the college’s Information and Library Services department, Read and a group of students spent last Short Term turning Marie Malika d’Alger into what’s known as an open educational resource (OER) — specifically, a website that anyone at �ֲ���ý and beyond can use freely.

In April, students in Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read’s oral French course perform a scene from Read’s Marie Malika d’Alger plays. From left, Kaylah Johnson ’21, Kate Carrier ’22, Jamie Kelleher ’19, Jake Michael ’21, and Emma Vlahakis ’20. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Read and his students are perhaps the most, ahem, dramatic example of efforts at �ֲ���ý to use advances in information technology to make course materials cheaper, more accessible, and more versatile.

Key to the college’s growing success in adopting OERs — or, more broadly, less-expensive course materials — is creating new partnerships across campus. To that end, �ֲ���ý librarians reach out to individual faculty members, and professors know that they can come to the library with their own ideas. Meanwhile, staff at the College Store review course materials and reach out to professors if there are cheaper options available.

The �ֲ���ý library monitors the cost of course materials and helps faculty secure less-expensive alternatives, says Pat Schoknecht, vice president for information and library services and college librarian.

“We’re actively looking for the courses where the textbooks are really expensive, or those courses that have a very high enrollment even if the textbook isn’t that expensive,” says Pat Schoknecht, vice president of Information and Library Services and college librarian. “When we find them, we will go in and actively talk to the faculty member” about alternatives.

That could mean using an open educational resource, or OER, strictly defined as a material whose components are in the public domain and are free and open for anyone to use. It could also mean using an ebook or journal that the library licenses, or simply a less expensive textbook.

Recently, the library received a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation to join the and provide mini-grants to �ֲ���ý faculty who review, use, or implement open access materials.

Long an economic challenge for students, required course materials — whether a copy of the Norton Anthology of American Literature ($50.65, used) for an English course or much more expensive textbooks in STEM disciplines or foreign languages complete with a code for online assignments — can run into the hundreds of dollars, potentially shutting students out of certain courses and majors.

Students pack the Ladd Library during the week before finals in April 2018. Students have sometimes pushed the library and their professors to explore alternatives to traditional textbooks.�� (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In response, �ֲ���ý has tried to make those costly materials available through Ladd Library: Since 2013, the library has kept a copy of every required course material on reserve, one of the few such programs of its kind. In addition, other campus offices, including the Office of Intercultural Education, maintain collections of frequently needed course materials.

What’s different now is that technology and the availability of OERs have caught up to the need.

“The resources and platforms have been upgraded to a point where they’re actually really good,” says Krystie Wilfong, an associate college librarian who works to gather and share open access materials. “The content the faculty needs is there, because a faculty from a different institution has written something they can then adopt.”

In 2011, the price of a book that Associate Professor of Mathematics Meredith Greer uses for her differential equations course rose “precipitously,” she said.

“It really helped to make the point clear in a way that I couldn’t ignore, and students let me know that that was a problem.”

Associate Professor of Mathematics Meredith Greer works with students on Pi Day in 2018. Greer has used a variety of free or low-cost online textbooks for her math courses. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Greer found a cheaper textbook for that course, but the episode prompted her to try to minimize costs across all her classes. She took materials she had already created for graduate-level courses and adapted them for �ֲ���ý juniors, and she pored over listservs and online repositories for math assignments.

For her multivariable calculus courses, she used free online materials by MIT mathematician Gilbert Strang, and Calculus I and II courses across the department transitioned to an this year.

Along with Kirk Read and Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton, Greer shared her story at an April symposium on open educational resources, organized by ILS, supported by the Dean of the Faculty’s office and the Davis Educational Foundation, and attracting librarians, booksellers, and informational technologists from 22 institutions in New England.

After assigning Strang’s material for several semesters, Greer surveyed the students who had used the online textbook and presented her findings to the attendees. Using the website had its drawbacks — students had to get used to navigating sections online as opposed to turning the pages of a book and writing notes in the margins — but they enjoyed the low cost, versatility, and accessibility.

Indeed, finding and using OERs benefits students in at least two ways: reduced cost and, in some cases, improved teaching.

In 2013, then a professor at Maine’s Unity College, Diaz Eaton was seeking resources to teach quantitative biology, an emerging and growing field that incorporates math and computer science. Colleges and universities were trying to develop new educational materials on the fly — but the experts from school to school weren’t necessarily talking to each other.

“People were reinventing the wheel at multiple institutions,” Diaz Eaton says.

Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton teaches a course on detecting misinformation in March. Diaz Eaton created QUBES, a hub for free biology course materials. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Now, at �ֲ���ý, Diaz Eaton is continuing her work with QUBES; this month she on making open access to biology education sustainable. She and her DCS colleagues are also working to incorporate open access into the structure of the nascent program. She makes sure to use free software to teach programming and involves students in designing her courses.

“We’re thinking about open access as being more than just digital access, but also access into DCS itself,” she says.

Kirk Read’s spring 2019 oral French course was the last to use traditional printouts or PDFs of the play Marie Malika d’Alger. The class now uses a dedicated website, which will be opened beyond the �ֲ���ý community by next year. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The �ֲ���ý students who helped Kirk Read redesign his oral French course last May felt similarly empowered. They were quick to grasp the benefits of OER, as well as some of its challenges, like how to compensate or reward scholars who invest time and talent to create the materials.

Now well into the first semester of the redesigned oral French course, Read and his students are liking the online version of Marie Malika d’Alger. Lessons and scripts are clearly organized, each image is licensed or copyright-free, and Read and his students thought through issues like how best to give assessments through the site and how to make the site accessible to users with disabilities.

And if a problem crops up during the course, Read can change the site on the fly. The course website is designed to be usable by anyone and everyone with some knowledge of French, and he plans to open it to outside users within the next year.

“The students get to own this text more than anything else,” Read says. “It’s online. I can upload a different PDF or talk about things they like better than what I propose. They’re not spending a dime for this, and it’s attractive and interactive. I’m totally happy with it.”

Did a certain well-known news organization “gerrymander” a map of the U.S. to bolster its claim of being the most-watched?

Are online translation services gender-biased?

Did a prominent Midwestern university make misleading claims about its status as a producer of Fortune 500 CEOs?

These are just a few of the topics awaiting answers from students taking “Calling Bull in a Digital World,” a new course offered by the Program in Digital and Computational Studies. The intention of “Calling Bull” is simple: to make students savvier consumers of information.

In particular, the course explores motivations and techniques that drive the daily barrage — coming from both ends of the political spectrum — of BS in mass media.

Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton teaches her course “Calling Bull in a Digital World” in Carnegie Science Hall.

Taught by Carrie Diaz Eaton, associate professor of digital and computational studies, the course has equipped its 24 students with a variety of critical lenses for determining what’s slanted, downright fake, or innocent but wrong. The course is helping students “examine assumptions, think about how information is being presented, who’s presenting it, etc.,” Diaz Eaton says.

And along the way, “Calling Bull” has given students hands-on experience with the statistical programming language called R, which, among other purposes, is a powerful tool for analyzing data and rendering it visually.

“Nobody’s going to be a data scientist” after completing the 100-level course, Diaz Eaton says, “but we can give them some tools to better interpret the things they’re dealing with in the world.”

She adapted the �ֲ���ý offering from “,” a course launched to considerable acclaim in 2017 at the University of Washington by biologist Carl T. Bergstrom and information scientist Jevin West.

A stated goal of “Calling Bull” is to heighten students’ fluency with different modes of information — verbal, mathematical, visual.

In a look at how programmers’ blind spots can affect data quality, Diaz Eaton’s students have heard about facial identification algorithms, designed for fighting crime, that can reliably determine the gender of pale faces — but not dark ones. They’ve been introduced to Beall’s List of Predatory Journals and Publishers, an online effort, now discontinued, to call out scholarly journals whose failure to perform��peer review can open the door to specious scholarship.

And they’ve confronted the discouraging reality of the so-called bullshit asymmetry principle, which holds that debunking fake news requires 10 times more effort than creating it.

A stated goal of “Calling Bull” is to heighten students’ fluency with different modes of information — verbal, mathematical, visual. And the mechanics and messaging power of data visualization have figured prominently in the course.

Early on, the class developed what Diaz Eaton calls a data visualization rubric — a list of desirable characteristics in visualizations. “Basically, the class created the thing by which they will be graded,” she explains.

While Diaz Eaton’s 100-level course isn’t geared toward creating new data scientists, it can equip students with “tools to better interpret the things they’re dealing with in the world.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“I think that makes them pay more attention to what they’re doing right. They know that they’re going to be held to it. And by creating it, hopefully they remember what’s in it a little bit better.”

Throughout the semester, for a fifth of their grade, students have practiced ways of rendering their own day-to-day circumstances as visualized data using the book Observe, Collect, Draw! A Visual Journal. (In exercise No. 21, covering a surprising range of parameters, students expressed a week’s worth of complaints as musical notation.)

The course has “been great because we’ve been able to focus on things that are applicable to what’s happening in our everyday lives,” says Carly Ransford ’22 of Carbondale, Colo. (For Ransford, politics and “problematic statements” were two high-pitched plaints in exercise No. 21.) “I was attracted to it based on how it ties in humanities content with mathematical tools and skills.”

In creating “Calling Bull,” Diaz Eaton included elements to help students gain confidence with the statistical programming language called R. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Ransford is typical of students that �ֲ���ý’ new DCS program seeks to welcome, not frighten away. “As someone who’s not typically super excited by math and statistics, I liked that this was kind of a new approach,” she says. “Coding is something I’d never done before, but this class made me feel like I could have an interest in it, and actually gain some skills in it.”

Diaz Eaton explains that in her consultations with other faculty as she created the course, colleagues in other disciplines wished for a course that would deepen student thinking about graphs and ease them into using R. “If students haven’t seen that in the past, it becomes a bit of a hurdle.”

R is a command-line environment, common among programming languages, rather than a point-and-click interface. “You have to think about where your data is stored and how to store it,” Diaz Eaton says. “You have to make a lot of choices along the way.

“That kind of computational thinking is often new to students.”

As important as it is to be able to spot BS, a good digital citizen should also be equipped to explain why it’s BS — hence the “Calling” in the course title. So the students’ final projects involve, in effect, busting the BS artists.

While the course “Calling Bull” is fun and empowering, its fundamental mission, of course, is profoundly serious. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Having found three appropriately aromatic examples of fake or misleading info, each student needs to use R to analyze the data in one of those three cases. For example, Ransford is examining just how randomly Google Translate assigns gendered pronouns to neuter terms that it translates from other languages.

For the second case, the task is to publicly refute an outstanding specimen of BS. And for the third, the assignment is to improve an existing public visualization of data.

“Calling Bull” is fun and empowering, providing a frisson of the particular satisfaction that comes with revealing a lie. But its fundamental mission, of course, is profoundly serious.

In a recent class session, says Diaz Eaton, “we talked about how having a successful democratic republic requires access to real and authentic information.” Once you lose the access, you may lose the democracy.

“That’s the real threat,” she says. “We want people to be able to think that they have a role as a digital citizen to play in the world of fake news and not feel like, ‘Oh, it’s just this thing that happens elsewhere.'”

What makes eggs organic depends on whom you ask — PBS NewsHour

After the Trump administration rolled back a new definition of what an organic egg is, , CEO of Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs.

Jesse Laflamme ’00, CEO of Pete & Gerry’s Eggs, photographed in 2004. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The new rule, created late in the Obama administration, would have required organic egg producers to give their hens access to soil. Now, producers can continue to label eggs as “organic” if hens merely have access to sunlight, such as in a porch-like enclosure.

The much-looser definition “is just so misaligned with what consumers expect of organic,” Laflamme said. “It’s going to damage the organic seal and not just in the egg category. I’m talking about all types of organic products. This is a fundamental issue of consumer expectation of organic and trust.”

Hartford Jewish Film Festival is a homecoming — Hartford Courant

Actress and alumna , a native of West Hartford, Conn., returned home for a screening of , featured in the Mandell JCC Hartford Jewish Film Festival.

In the film,��in which she stars alongside Paul Sorvino and the late Martin Landau, Dubin plays a nursing-home volunteer who grows close to Landau’s character, Abe, who is a resident of the home, as is Sorvino’s character, Phil.

The official trailer of Abe and Phil’s Last Poker Game, co-starring alumna Pamela Dubin:

“It’s about aging at every level. She deals with age. He deals with age. It’s about how our society does not deal with age,” Dubin .

Pamela Dubin and Martin Landau pose for a selfie on the set of Abe and Phil’s Last Poker Game.

“It was just the most beautiful role. I love this character,” Dubin told the .

In an , Dubin talked about how inhabiting a role is like creating a new “part of yourself. Even though it’s a different person, it comes from you.”

The film will be screened April 22 in Nyack, N.Y., as part of the .

There is clear link between mass shootings and mental illness — Los Angeles Times

Michael Rocque, assistant professor of sociology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Efforts to “downplay the role of mental illness in mass shootings are simply misleading,” in the Los Angeles Times, pointing to media coverage that .

In fact, says Rocque, “there is a clear relationship between mental illness and mass public shootings.”

Research has shown that “individuals with major mental disorders…are more likely to commit violent acts,” says Rocque, an assistant professor of sociology. “When we focus more narrowly on mass public shootings — an extreme and, fortunately, rare form of violence — we see a relatively high rate of mental illness.”

A new kind of computer science major delves into how technology is reshaping society — Los Angeles Times

The nation’s leading liberal arts colleges, with �ֲ���ý at the fore, are introducing digital and computational courses that “push students to examine how modern technology both changes and challenges society,” says reporter Rosanna Xia of the Los Angeles Times.

“In Maine,” she writes, “�ֲ���ý College started a multidisciplinary Digital and Computational Studies program, with aims including ‘to interrogate the values and assumptions of a digitized world’ and ‘increase understanding of the power and limitations of computers in solving problems.’”

Matt Jadud, the inaugural holder of the Colony Family Professorship in Digital and Computational Studies, gives his talk, “It Begins With a Step,” in which he shared his vision and opportunities for the new DCS program. (Rene Roy for �ֲ���ý College)

Work by world-class couple evokes a physical response — Maine Sunday Telegram

A recently concluded exhibition at the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art featuring painter Robert Feintuch, a senior lecturer in arts and visual culture, and sculptor Rona Pondick was “profound, engaging, disturbing and exciting,” It was also likely “the best show in Maine this year.”

A married couple, Pondick and Feintuch are both internationally known, says Kany. Noting that Feintuch’s “touch with acrylic emulsions rivals that of the best watercolorists,” he calls one painting a “masterwork of feigned simplicity.” Pondick is a “worldwide art star,” Kany says, and her sculpture, “which combines human and animal elements, is striking, uncomfortably odd, and powerful.”

The artists’ work “digs deep in art history…but since the work elicits a physical response in the viewer, it’s accessible to anyone. The work is dazzling from a technical perspective (a little star power doesn’t hurt), and it is gorgeously displayed in the museum’s handsome main gallery.”

Sculptor Rona Pondick and painter Robert Feintuch pose in the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art before the opening of their exhibition, Heads, Hands, Feet; Sleeping, Holding, Dreaming, Dying. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Students Finding Connection & Opportunities in Research with Social Justice Bent — WCAI

Heather Goldstone, science editor at Cape Cod public radio station WCAI, , an assistant professor at Northeastern Illinois University, about her journey into biological research and why she uses a lowly worm known as C. elegans in her research.

Voisine studies aging and the diagnostics of certain diseases. Though worms are, well, worms, “we’re very similar to worms on a cellular level,” she said — a large number of neurons means a large number of behavioral responses. And worms only live for three weeks, meaning a valuable study on aging doesn’t take long.

A native of��Fort Kent, Maine, and a first-generation college-goer, Voisine originally wanted to be a medical doctor, but it was at �ֲ���ý that she decided to pursue a career in research, she told Goldstone.

At NEIU, many students have similar backgrounds — low-income, first-gen, bilingual — to her own. “I had gone through this journey of higher education and completing a Ph.D.,” she said. “I could provide some guidance to them at Northeastern that they couldn’t find at home.”

How this high school soccer coach brought a divided town together — The Today Show

Amy Bass ’92 returned to Lewiston to write One Goal, a book about how the Lewiston High School soccer team and its many Somali members won the 2015 state championship and provided a mode of unity for a town grappling with racism and xenophobia.

The story was widely publicized in February and March, appearing on , , , WNYC’s The , and , among other local and regional outlets.

“They were so open and so generous, and I’m so grateful to them,” Bass told the of the players and coaches, whom she spent months getting to know. “I’m really thrilled that I’ve gotten to know Lewiston again in this new phase of its being, because it’s an incredible place.”

At a meet-and-greet at the Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services office, Amy Bass ’92 talks with Shobow Saban, one of the key figures in her new book. (Daryn Slover/Sun Journal)

Yelp brings a touch of Silicon Valley to its new D.C. digs — Washington Business Journal

Washington Business Journal’s��Katie Arcieri took a tour of Yelp’s new D.C. office and its senior director and head of sales, Ali Howard ’10.

What Howard’s helped build is pretty swanky: “open-air floor plans, modern furniture, a large kitchen stocked with free snacks, a beer keg for on-tap drinks, and two game areas with a pool table, ping-pong and air hockey,” Arcieri writes.

The new space is much like Yelp’s other offices, and the expansion is part of Yelp’s effort to recruit talent in D.C. and the Southeast.

“D.C. is obviously a really vibrant, amazing city that we are thrilled to be in that’s not hard to get people to stay in,” Howard tells Arcieri. “Also, there are really smart, vibrant people in this city. We think there is an incredible talent pool that we can tap into.”

What does Yelp look for in that talent pool? Hunger, drive, and enthusiasm, Howard says.�� “If you are someone who views the world glass half-full, you’re going to be more successful here.”

North Korea Asks for Direct Nuclear Talks, and Trump Agrees — The New York Times

Evan Medeiros ’93, a top Asia-Pacific advisor to Barack Obama, told ��that a proposed meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un would be risky.

“Kim will never give up his nukes,” Mr. Medeiros said. “Kim played [South Korean president] Moon [Jae-in] and is now playing Trump.”

It’s a busy time for Asia-Pacific experts: The Trump administration imposed tariffs on China, Chinese president Xi Jinping was granted additional , and North Korea threatened a nuclear strike, then asked for talks.

Medeiros��has been quoted widely in recent weeks, in publications ranging from to to

Roller Derby: Kate Burakowski back on track in Providence league — SouthCoastToday.com

“My whole life is one big track analogy,” Kate Burakowski ’00 ’s Bill Abramson, who profiled the �ֲ���ý track star turned ESL teacher turned roller derby maven. “It teaches determination, perseverance and not giving up.”

Burakowski had a “versatile” track career at �ֲ���ý before moving to China to teach English. She earned a graduate degree in the U.K. and worked in the art world, then returned to Massachusetts as an art teacher. She spends her spare time competing as “Hellderly Spinster” with the Sakonnet River Roller Rats and the Killah Bees.

Squash, with a side of homework and dinner — Providence Journal

The Providence Journal’s Christine Dunn , a Boston-based squash program for middle and high school students that also feeds players and supports them academically, started a team in Providence, R.I.

Rodney Galvao ’14, who joined SquashBusters at age 12, was brought on to run the team, which recruited 28 sixth-graders based on “their kindness and respect for others and for their effort in the classroom and for the sport.”

“The backs of SquashBusters T-shirts are printed with the words: College, Character, Health,” Dunn writes. “Since 2003, 98 percent of program graduates have enrolled in college, and 80 percent have completed their bachelor’s degrees within six years.”

Why Do The Country’s Top Racers Want This Man As Their Coach? — FloBikes

Cycling news and livestreaming platform FloBikes called Al Donahue ’99 for cyclocross.

Donahue, who lives in Easthampton, Mass., got into cyclocross, a form of cycling that involves racing on a variety of terrains and often carrying the bike over certain obstacles, in his 20s. His first client was Jeremy Powers, one of the top cross racers in the country.

Donahue uses his �ֲ���ý biology education to understand the physiology of training for cyclocross racing, but he also “incorporates elements of yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and stretching in addition to their structured workouts on the bike.”

“That meditative state teaches people to get in more of a zone, in a flow state,” Donahue told FloBikes. “There’s a huge mental component to the higher-level competitions, and your brain — most people’s brains — will try to sabotage them. Riders who have a meditative practice can handle the stress of bigger races better.”

Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Matt Auer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

At �ֲ���ý, we often try to imagine the college 25 or 50 years out. What �ֲ���ý looks like in the future is at least partially revealed each time we hire a new faculty member. Today’s new recruit may teach at �ֲ���ý through 2050 or beyond.

Our ability to peer into the future is especially sharp this year because we recently hired nine tenure-track faculty members who will make an impact on the curriculum and on scholarship across all of our intellectual divisions — that is, in the humanities, natural sciences and mathematics, social sciences, and interdisciplinary programs.

Carolina González Valencia is a great example of a new faculty colleague whose impact will likely be felt early and consequentially. She’s an expert in digital media and drawing. Her interest in areas like representations of migration, identity, and “nationlessness,” and her ability to teach students to inscribe their own understanding of these issues on paper, canvas, and film, will add major new intellectual thrusts to the work of the Department of Art and Visual Culture.

She is also the first Mellon Diversity and Faculty Renewal Postdoctoral Fellow at �ֲ���ý. In her first year, she enjoys the advantages of a postdoctoral fellowship before converting, automatically, into a tenure-track assistant professorship in 2017–18.

Patrick Otim is the second of our two new postdoc fellows. A historian, his expertise is in 19th- and 20th-century East Africa, focusing on intellectual history in the pre-colonial era.

We talk about “a college for coming times” in our mission statement, but Carolina’s and Patrick’s backgrounds, experiences, and expertise illustrate that the coming times are already here.

Patrick is joined in the history department by Wes Chaney, who adds breadth and depth to our increasingly strong social, historical, and humanistic perspectives on China. Wes’ work is at the intersection of the environment, society, and the law in China during the Qing Empire (1644–1911) with a special interest in historical China’s border areas.

Network Infrastructure Project Manager Kevin Poland, left, and Desktop Operations Analyst Matthew Thomas install components of �ֲ���ý’ new High Performance Computing Cluster at 65 Campus Ave. New members of the physics faculty have taken the lead in bringing the system to �ֲ���ý. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

Wes has an instant community of fellow intellectual travelers since he comes on board at �ֲ���ý at the same time that Mia Liu and Nathan Faries begin their shared assistant professorship in Asian studies. Mia is a history, art, and visual culture expert, focusing on China. Nathan’s research considers religion, particularly Christianity, in Chinese literature in the contemporary context. Both Mia and Nathan teach Chinese language and culture courses.

The trend of faculty renewal is boldly evident in the natural sciences, too. Andrew Kennedy, an organic chemist whose work has neurobiological and medicinal applications, is fortifying connections between our department of chemistry and our program in neuroscience. Kennedy is already a major force nationally in understanding cognitive dimensions of a rare, genetic disorder called Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome.

Andrew Mountcastle, a new assistant professor in biology, is exploring the boundaries between physics and anatomy in living creatures, particularly insects. His students can expect to learn everything about the secrets of insect flight, from biomechanical, locomotive, and physiological perspectives.

The trend of faculty renewal is boldly evident in the natural sciences, too.

Two new assistant professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy are helping to boost �ֲ���ý to a new level of computing capability. Jeff Oishi is a computational astrophysicist whose specialty is fluid dynamics and whose laboratory is the cosmos, as he studies solar magnetism. His new colleague, Aleksandar Diamond-Stanic, uses supercomputers to understand the structure and behavior of supermassive black holes.

With Oishi taking the lead, �ֲ���ý is now installing its first High Performance Computing system — a scalable computer cluster that, for example, will allow the astrophysicists to crunch data-rich imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. This increase in the size and sophistication of the college’s supercomputing resources will continue in dramatic fashion as the college makes hires in the new Digital and Computational Studies program this year, and next.

With the college’s academic year coming to its official close on June 30, here’s a selection of top stories from the 2015-16 college year, told in text, photographs, and video.

Table of Contents

1. Largest gift ever
2. Civil rights icon John Lewis speaks at Commencement
3. 14 �ֲ���ý Fulbrights
4. Neuroscientist wins $720K “most prestigious” award
5. “Let’s debate the data” on police use of force
6. Women’s rowing builds on national success
7. Lewiston’s Basilica hosts �ֲ���ý-produced musical spectacular
8. Judith Isaacson ’65, Holocaust survivor and author, passes away
9. MLK Day address: Racial progress can “sow seeds of regression”
10. Women’s lacrosse delivers a spring surprise
11. Robert Indiana’s “Like a Rolling Stone” prints debut at �ֲ���ý
12. A second straight squash title
13. �ֲ���ý and the Declaration of Independence share the same magic
14. Chick Leahey ’52, baseball coach and mentor, passes away
15. �ֲ���ý convenes national summit on race in higher education
16. Biochemist wins $345K Lyme bacteria grant and �ֲ���ý teaching prize

Largest gift ever leads $19 million in donations for professorships and Digital and Computational Studies program

In February, �ֲ���ý announced gifts of $19 million from seven families to create six new endowed professorships and launch the college’s new Digital and Computational Studies program.

The new gifts are led by the largest single gift in �ֲ���ý history, $10 million from Chair of the Board of Trustees Michael Bonney ’80 and his wife, Alison Grott Bonney ’80.

An example of “what is possible when we pull together to advance this special institution.”

“I have never been more optimistic about the future of the college,” said Michael, praising “the acts of these seven families,” which “demonstrate, in this real and tangible way, what is possible when we pull together to advance this special institution.”

At right, Michael Bonney ’80 and Alison Grott Bonney ’80 sit with Mike’s parents, Wes ’50 and Elaine Bonney, at the February announcement of $19 million in new gifts to �ֲ���ý, including $10 million from the younger Bonneys. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Civil rights icon John R. Lewis speaks at Commencement: “I want to thank �ֲ���ý College”

Reflecting and leading the national discussion, �ֲ���ý convened a number of signature events in 2015-16 with strong themes around race, citizenship, and linked issues such as mass incarceration.

Tops among them was the��compelling Commencement address by U.S. Rep. John R. Lewis, who began by recognizing a founding father of the modern civil rights movement: Benjamin E. Mays, �ֲ���ý Class of 1920.

Lewis cited Mays’ statement that �ֲ���ý did not emancipate him, but instead enabled him to emancipate himself, then said that “I want to thank �ֲ���ý College for what you did, and continue to do, to free and liberate humankind.”

14 seniors and young alumni receive Fulbright student fellowships for 2016–17

Fourteen �ֲ���ý seniors and young alumni have won Fulbright student fellowships for 2016-17, the college announced in May.

�ֲ���ý has earned Fulbright “Top Producer” honors, a distinction earned by a handful of colleges annually, for five straight years, 2012 to 2016, and in seven out of the last eight years.

That’s 63 Fulbright student fellowships won by �ֲ���ý seniors and young alumni over the last five years.

Neuroscientist Jason Castro wins $720K “most prestigious” NSF early-career award

�ֲ���ý faculty members secured more than $3 million in competitive research grants in 2015-16, led by a $720,000 grant to Assistant Professor of Psychology Jason Castro from the National Science Foundation.

The Faculty Early Career award is considered the “most prestigious grant” that a junior faculty scientist can win, said Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ���ý.

“A pretty powerful case that �ֲ���ý is a destination for students serious about STEM.”

The award will support Castro’s neuroscience research into brain structure and — in alignment with the college’s new Digital and Computational Studies program — help Castro infuse computational emphases into an introductory neuroscience course.

Auer praised Castro and his fellow STEM faculty for being “remarkable instructors who embed their own research directly into student coursework and lab work,” which, in turn, “makes a pretty powerful case that �ֲ���ý is a destination for students serious about STEM.”

�ֲ���ý neuroscientist Jason Castro’s early-career award is considered the “NSF’s most prestigious grant for junior faculty scientists,” said Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Economist Roland Fryer speaks at �ֲ���ý on police use of force: “Let’s debate the data”

Economist Roland Fryer, winner of the 2015 spoke at �ֲ���ý on Nov. 8 on “Understanding Racial Differences in Police Use of Force.”

Fryer, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard, has gathered several million data points from police departments nationwide. His quest: to have a data- and research-driven discussion about race and police use of force in the U.S.

“The debate should start with the data.”

While police-shooting videos are horrific, they should not drive the policy debate, Fryer told the full house in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall. Instead, he said, “the debate should start with the data.”

To that end, Fryer’s data does not show a racial bias in police use of deadly force. However, the data do show that blacks, far more than whites, experience less-forceful police tactics, like being thrown to the ground.

“It makes you feel less than a whole human being.”

It’s a tactic used thousands of times a day in this country, and while not deadly, its power to strip away human dignity might as well be, said Fryer, who experienced that type of police force as a boy in Lewisville, Texas. “It makes you feel less than a whole human being.”

Economist Roland Fryer speaks at �ֲ���ý on Nov. 8, 2015. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Rowing builds on national success as 2016 NCAA runner-up

A month after celebrating the groundbreaking of a new men’s and women’s rowing boathouse along the Androscoggin River, the at the NCAA Division III Rowing Championships.

For the Bobcats, the defending NCAA champions, it’s the the sixth national runner-up finish in program history; the previous five came consecutively from 2009 through 2013.

�ֲ���ý celebrates its second-place finish at the 2016 NCAA Division III Rowing Championships in Gold River, Calif. (Aaron Morse/�ֲ���ý College)

Lewiston’s magnificent Basilica hosts a �ֲ���ý-produced musical extravaganza

In April, John Corrie, a lecturer in music at �ֲ���ý, realized his dream of — of Beethoven’s choral masterwork, the Missa Solemnis — in Lewiston’s magnificent Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.

Welcoming the capacity crowd, President Clayton Spencer recalled how Corrie “came to me, telling me of his vision…. So it is truly a thrill and an honor to stand here and anticipate what you’re about to hear.”

John Corrie conducts the Missa Solemnis, a landmark in Maine music-making in the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on April 3, 2016. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

Judith Magyar Isaacson ’65, Holocaust survivor with unbounded spirit, dies at age 90

Educator, author, champion of equal opportunity for women, and a human-rights advocate whose passion was forged by her experiences in the Holocaust, Judith Magyar Isaacson ’65, LL.D. ’94, died on Nov. 10.

In 1994, �ֲ���ý honored her with an honorary degree, and the degree citation read, in part:

To remember vividly, so that none can forget — to say the unspeakable, so that all can hear — takes a voice of courage, power, and eloquence. Your strengths, Judith Isaacson, touch the lives of not only your family and your colleagues but those countless others who read in your personal and professional life the inextinguishable force of human worth.

In 2006, Judith Magyar Isaacson ’65 signs her memoir “Seed of Sarah” after a class about the Holocaust taught by former �ֲ���ý professor Steve Hochstadt. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Author and educator Jelani Cobb speaks at MLK Day: Racial progress can “sow seeds of regression”

William Jelani Cobb, the college’s keynote speaker on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, said that even acts of progress on racial issues can “sow seeds of regression,” like the U.S. tragedy of mass incarceration, a theme of the Jan. 21 observance.

“The legacy is very clear.”

For example, the 13th Amendment eradicated slavery — “except for individuals duly convicted of a crime,” explained Cobb, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a history professor and director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut.

“So it is no coincidence that in the wake of Emancipation, Southern economies began to rely increasingly on the labors of people who were incarcerated,” he said. “The legacy is very clear.”

William Jelani Cobb gives the 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote address in the Gomes Chapel at �ֲ���ý on Jan. 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Women’s lacrosse delivers a spring surprise

Before this spring, the women’s lacrosse team hadn’t posted a 10-win season since Bill Clinton was elected president.

But that all changed in 2016 as the Bobcats went 12-6 and earned the program’s second-ever bid to the NCAA Division III tournament.

The team’s 12 wins were the second-most in the program’s 42-year history (the 1992 team went 14-2), and ’16 of Greenwich, Conn., earned her second straight Division III Goalkeeper of the Year award and was named the college’s Female Athlete of the Year.

The defensive-minded Bobcats faced another tough defense in Springfield on May 15, and the two immovable objects produced the lowest-scoring game in the tournament’s history, a 3-2 win for the Pride.

Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College

�ֲ���ý Museum of Art debuts Robert Indiana prints based on “Like a Rolling Stone”

Now at the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art is the exhibition Robert Indiana: Now and Then, the centerpiece for which is a 12-print series merging the sensibilities of two of the 1960s’ definitive pop-culture figures, Bob Dylan and Robert Indiana.

“It’s an incredibly dynamic group.”

While Indiana’s work is often about variations on a themes, each “Like a Rolling Stone” print is “very distinct from the next. It’s an incredibly dynamic group as a result, and I’m really excited that we will be the institution that introduces these to the world.”

“Once Upon a Time” (2016), silkscreen in colors on triple-primed canvas from the “Like a Rolling Stone” series by Robert Indiana.

Amhed Abdel Khalek ’16 wins second collegiate squash title

In March, Amhed Abdel Khalek ’16 won his second straight College Squash Association national title.

His family back home in Cairo, Abdel Khalek got support at the tournament from another kind of family, the close-knit group of squash parents, alumni, and students who made the trip to Stamford, Conn.

“Words can’t express how I feel about those people,” Abdel Khalek says. “If I keep thanking them for a decade, I won’t be able to finish.”

In May, Abdel Khalek was named the college’s Male Athlete of the Year.

Ahmed Abdel Khalek ’16 of Cairo, �ֲ���ý’ two-time national collegiate squash champion, poses for a portrait at the �ֲ���ý Squash Center. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

Political theorist Danielle Allen speaks at Convocation: �ֲ���ý students are “direct heirs” of the Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence and a liberal arts classroom are both magical things, said 2015 Convocation speaker Danielle Allen.

And their magic derives from the same powerful source, Allen said. Both the Declaration and the liberal arts are about “human agency,” the capacity both to direct and justify one’s path in life.

Allen is author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, the assigned Common Reading for the incoming Class of 2019.

�ֲ���ý and �ֲ���ý students “are in some sense the direct heirs” of the Declaration, she said. The motivating effect of the Declaration led to abolitionism in the 19th century, a movement that engendered, among many other things, �ֲ���ý College.

William “Chick” Leahey ’52, baseball coach and mentor, dies at age 90

William J. “Chick” Leahey Jr. ’52, head coach of �ֲ���ý baseball for 36 years and a revered mentor who paid forward his own life lessons to his players, died on March 26, 2016, at age 90.

“He taught us to compete fiercely but fairly.”

“On the field, he taught me the importance of hard work and commitment. He disciplined me when I got out of line and praised me when I succeeded,” said Jim Sylvia ’84 of Newton, Mass., in 2014.

“He taught us to compete fiercely but fairly,” said Thom Freeman ’63 of Wrentham, Mass., an All-America pitcher for Leahey. “At no other time did I learn more about baseball and how to conduct myself on the field and as a person in general than when I played under his guidance.”

In 2014, William “Chick” Leahey ’52 donned his No. 11 �ֲ���ý jersey at his home on East Avenue, a day before �ֲ���ý retired his jersey. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

�ֲ���ý convenes national summit on race in higher education

In November, the college convened a national summit — the Creating Connection Consortium — that asked how higher education can help aspiring young scholars from underrepresented groups become college professors.

“We can and should learn from everyone.”

The goal reflects fundamental notions about higher education and excellence, said Crystal Williams, chair of the C3 Summit Planning Committee, associate vice president and chief diversity officer, and professor of English at �ֲ���ý.

First, she said, “the intellectual endeavor is enriched when many different kinds of people are engaged in the production and investigation of knowledge.”

Second, “the true power of difference is that we learn we can and should learn from everyone.”

Biochemist Paula Schlax wins $345K Lyme bacteria research grant and Kroepsch Teaching Award

Professor of Chemistry Paula Schlax had a big year in the classroom and the lab.

In the fall, she won a $345,00 National Institutes of Health grant to continue her studies of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. In the spring, the college announced that she’d won the 2016 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“The most important teaching that we do.”

From Schlax’s perspective, each endeavor feeds the other, to the benefit of students.

“Students can collaborate with us on our research, and honestly everyone in our chemistry department feels that is some of the most important teaching that we do.”

In her second floor Dana Chemistry office, biochemistry professor Paula Schlax helps AsiaLuna Patois ’19 of Baltimore, Md. prepare for a chemistry exam.

�ֲ���ý neuroscientist Jason Castro’s early-career award is considered the “NSF’s most prestigious grant for junior faculty scientists,” says Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In 2013, �ֲ���ý neuroscientist Jason Castro was one of a group of researchers whose approach to categorizing odors made international headlines.

Castro’s latest red-letter achievement may not stop presses around the globe, but its impact on �ֲ���ý students will likely last much longer than the typical newshound’s attention span.

A recent $720,000 award from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program will not only support Castro’s research into brain structure but also, in alignment with the college’s new Digital and Computational Studies Program, the creation of new computationally oriented class modules for �ֲ���ý’ introductory neuroscience course.

“The Faculy Early Career award is the NSF’s most prestigious grant for junior faculty scientists,” says Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ���ý.

The award, designed to help establish young faculty as leaders in their fields, “increases the probability that the awardees make lasting impacts through their scholarship,” says Auer.

“This makes a pretty powerful case that �ֲ���ý is a destination for students serious about STEM.”

Typically awarded to faculty at larger research universities, Castro’s early career NSF grant is the first for a �ֲ���ý faculty member. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Castro’s is the first Faculty Early Career (aka CAREER) grant awarded to a �ֲ���ý faculty member. Typically the NSF directs the grants to faculty at large research universities, as opposed to small liberal arts schools like �ֲ���ý.

“In the comparatively uncommon instances when scientists at liberal arts colleges receive CAREER awards, the funding enables them to pursue ambitious projects that couldn’t be contemplated without substantial external support,” Auer says.

In addition, he adds, considering that �ֲ���ý STEM faculty are “remarkable instructors who embed their own research directly into student coursework and lab work, this makes a pretty powerful case that �ֲ���ý is a destination for students serious about STEM.”

Because applications for CAREER grants are evaluated by peers in an applicant’s particular field of study, says Castro, the award is “a vote of confidence from colleagues in your research area, and I’m very honored that my work was recognized in this way.”

Castro’s current research still involves the sense of smell, but more tangentially. He and his students are developing computational techniques for researching the organization of the olfactory bulb of the brain, a region dedicated to processing smells.

Advancing Castro’s efforts toward several goals, the CAREER grant will help support:

• student thesis research related to Castro’s project;
• the hiring of research personnel;
• a redesign of �ֲ���ý’ introductory neuroscience curriculum to be more practice-based and centered on the use of digital resources — an endeavor that could result in a textbook or lab workbook by Castro;
• and possibly the establishment of a summer brain-research program for high school students in the Lewiston-Auburn region.

“This award testifies to Jason’s particular, remarkable strengths as a neuroscientist who is pursuing vital research questions,” says Dean of the Faculty Auer. “But it also speaks, more broadly, to �ֲ���ý as an institution that attracts and supports the careers of scientists at Jason’s high level.”

The new Digital and Computational Studies Program will teach students to have a broad, critical, and thoughtful approach to problem solving in a digital age. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Technology is instantaneous, global, and ever-changing.

And it’s placing unprecedented pressures on colleges like �ֲ���ý to expand how they define and deliver a liberal arts education.

�ֲ���ý, for one, has a robust curricular response: With recent gifts of $19 million from seven �ֲ���ý families, the college will build and launch a new Program in Digital and Computational Studies (DCS).

“The capacity to claim the world.”

The program will comprise three new professorships, a range of new academic courses, and eager involvement from �ֲ���ý faculty in many disciplines.

Ultimately, the program’s goal is squarely in the liberal arts wheelhouse: To give �ֲ���ý graduates “the capacity to claim the world,” in the words of classics professor Margaret Imber.

In this Q&A, 11 members of the �ֲ���ý faculty talk about the work of building an innovative and distinctive DCS Program.

+As chair, what do you hope to bring to the development of the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Lauren Ashwell

Expert: Lauren Ashwell, associate professor of philosophy and chair of the Program in Digital and Computational Studies

Much of my teaching in logic, metaphysics, and epistemology touches on the limits of computation. I also teach feminist philosophy, which includes the kind of social critique that I think will be important to the DCS Program.

While it is easy to hear that �ֲ���ý is creating an interdisciplinary program and then think that the focus will be on computers merely as tools and instruments for work in other disciplines, it is important to note that the program will go beyond this. The DCS Program won’t just equip students with the ability to use computational methods, but will also include awareness of the limits and the social impact of technology.

Associate Professor of Philosophy Lauren Ashwell is chair of the Program in Digital and Computational Studies. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

That’s the great thing about the group of faculty working on the program – I don’t think anyone sees DCS as merely a set of tools for other disciplines, but as something that will complement the existing �ֲ���ý curriculum in a robust kind of way. Computation can extend possibilities within other disciplines, but other disciplines can also bring their own tools to bear on questions about the digital world.

As builders of the DCS Program, we can instill the idea that learning about the tools of technology is not only about all the wonderful things that you can do with them, but also about what you can’t do. Students need not just awareness of the theoretical limits of computation but also the skill and ability to think critically about the limits of technology’s ability to solve problems.

In my classroom, when we talk about critical thinking, I use the word “careful” to describe an important skill that I want my students to take away from their coursework. You are careful in the sense that you do not just accept what people tell you: You reflect on it with time and care. You are not just being fed information — instead, you’re engaging with information in a reflective way. These are the characteristics of a future �ֲ���ý DCS student.

+How will the �ֲ���ý DCS Program be distinctive and make �ֲ���ý a leader in this realm? Expert: Jason Castro

Expert: Jason Castro, assistant professor of psychology

The way DCS is conceived at �ֲ���ý is unique because, for one, it will be more than just a computer science program with add-ons and peripherals.

It was conceived as a communal enterprise; the decisions about how DCS will be formed and deployed, and conversations about its intellectual makeup, involved the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.

Jason Castro teaches computational neuroscience during Short Term 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Having that cross-disciplinary conversation, that set of ideas built into the launch of the program, is exciting. It will make for flexible curricular programming and vivid awareness of the roles that digital media have in our lives.

+What would you tell a colleague at another institution about why you are keen to teach in the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Nathan Tefft

Expert: Nathan Tefft, assistant professor of economics

Because the �ֲ���ý program will be inter- and cross-disciplinary, I would tell a colleague that I am in the right place and time, in terms of my research.

Nathan Tefft is an assistant professor of economics. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

In my work, I seek to answer important questions using data in novel ways.

The �ֲ���ý DCS Program will support my research in part by bringing me into closer contact with new methods and tools from computer science and statistics, tools that are associated with the Big Data phenomenon and are fast being adopted by economists.

The DCS Program is also a crucial development in our historical liberal arts mission.

If a liberal arts education means giving graduates a deep understanding of the various ways that people interact with the world, and if people interact with the world through technology, then I believe a �ֲ���ý education that includes DCS will be much more effective.

+What are the implications for the college's information and library services operation when we add DCS to the curriculum? Expert: Katie Vale

The Expert: Katie Vale, vice president for information and library services and librarian

One of the things that’s particularly novel is that this is not just a straight computer science program. While students can certainly learn to code, the �ֲ���ý DCS Program will give students experience with a variety of technological tools and the curricular work will have ties to many different subjects and topics.

What ILS excels at is helping people make connections.

Technology plays a central role in myriad forms of inquiry and expression, and students will learn and apply skills that will help them at �ֲ���ý and well beyond. That excites us a lot.

What ILS excels at, especially on the library side, is helping people make connections, find information, and learn to use technologies to ask questions and solve problems. Our librarians and academic technologists assist faculty in thinking about new types of assignments that will increase students’ understanding of the world.

Katie Vale is the college’s librarian and vice president for information and library services. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, they can locate actual government data sets that can be analyzed to understand a range of political, social, and economic issues in a particular country or group of nations. Or they might help with GIS mapping technologies to identify population changes or environmental resource constraints. Students can report their findings via research papers, multimedia assignments, or even 3D-printed items.

Digital and information literacy skills are necessary for life in the 21st century, and we in ILS look forward to supporting the DCS Program.

+What is the value of bringing interdisciplinary thought to the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Rebecca Herzig

The Expert: Rebecca Herzig, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and chair of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies

In my view, an interdisciplinary perspective is really about perceiving and understanding relationships, and that’s a long-standing theme at �ֲ���ý, something �ֲ���ý students do unusually well. And what does a networked world demand but the ability to see and frame and transform relationships in new ways?

I like to imagine that our graduates will help build a different kind of digital infrastructure and, in so doing, build a different kind of world: more inclusive, more sustainable, more democratic.

And they’ll be able to do that not only because they have the requisite technical skills in coding and analysis and so on, but also, more importantly, because those skills emerge within the context of a broader liberal arts education.

An interdisciplinary education can encourage students to explore the social underpinnings of technical skills, and the limitations of those skills, as well as their most potent applications.

Rebecca Herzig is the college’s Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and chair of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Why might a DCS-minded student — or young scholar, for that matter — go to a liberal arts college like �ֲ���ý instead of a school known for computer science? Expert: Nathan Lundblad

The Expert: Nathan Lundblad, associate professor of physics

Launching the DCS Program underscores the college’s strong support of faculty who have a commitment to both teaching and research.

At top liberal arts colleges, cutting-edge research in the natural sciences is attracting federal dollars, being published in top journals, and sending students to top graduate programs.

Associate Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, I have a federal grant from NASA to study the physics of ultracold atomic systems aboard the International Space Station, and as part of this I’ll be one of a few remote users of a facility orbiting the Earth performing precision tests in quantum mechanics.

I’m excited to bring DCS students aboard as interns for computational aspects of my project.

This project involves extensive computer modeling and programming to guide and design various experimental processes, and, as happens at a liberal arts college, �ֲ���ý students have been working directly with me on crucial aspects of the project.

I’m excited to bring DCS students aboard as interns for computational aspects of my project, and I’m looking forward to having my physics students take DCS classes to better prepare them for research where computational skills are increasingly indispensable.

Coming to �ֲ���ý to work in digital and computational studies gives students the opportunity to work on projects like this while benefiting from the close teacher-student interactions that are the central pillar of the liberal arts experience.

+How will the �ֲ���ý DCS Program support what the mission statement calls the 'emancipating potential' of the liberal arts? Expert: Margaret Imber

The Expert: Margaret Imber, associate professor of classical and medieval studies

DCS is going to allow students to ask the critical question of the liberal arts: Why do I know what I know? Why do I believe this? How do I know it?

You have the capacity to claim the world.

In pursuing those questions, you have the capacity to liberate yourself. You have the capacity to claim the world.

I have a senior doing an honors thesis on the political topography of violence in ancient Rome. He made for himself a data set of every reference to political violence in Rome in the last century of the republic. He used software to recreate images in 3D to better understand, for example, Livy’s and other written descriptions of riots down the streets of the Via Sacra.

Associate Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies Margaret Imber is co-director of the Faculty Commons for Teaching and Learning. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

By using these tools — more often associated with the natural sciences or graphic design rather than classics — he got a much better sense, almost tactile, of what the words were describing. More important, he gained the ability to ask questions about the accuracy or distortions of the historical texts.

That’s why DCS is perfect for �ֲ���ý and the liberal arts. It will help emancipate students from presumptions, sloppy thinking, and living in a world that other people give to you.

+How might DCS contribute to citizenry that is more numerate, and why does that matter? Expert: Adriana Salerno

The Expert: Adriana Salerno, associate professor of mathematics

For me, numeracy and computer literacy are human rights, like reading. We believe people have a right to learn how to read because it gives you opportunities. I believe the same should be true for being numerate.

Nobody every says you have to compete in the Tour de France in order to be considered a bicycle rider. It should be the same for learning math and computer science. You don’t have to be the best person at this. But you can still do it.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Adriana Salerno. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Yet in computer science and STEM fields there is often that attitude that says, “This is only for a certain elite.” But we have a problem if only certain groups of people have the skills to have those jobs, and we especially have a problem if those elite just happen to all look very similar in terms of their race and gender.

We have a clean slate. We can decide what this major is going to be.

At �ֲ���ý, we have the power to create a program that doesn’t have the baggage and vices of some of the established programs, where people say, “Computer science is taught this way.” We have a clean slate. We can decide what this major is going to be and who it is going to attract, whether it’s a student who likes math, or is a dancer, or takes a lot of philosophy courses.

We will create all sorts of routes for students to get a technology- and computer-science-based education.

+What value might an art and visual culture major find in the DCS curriculum? Expert: Rebecca Corrie

The Expert: Rebecca Corrie, Phillips Professor of Art and Visual Culture

DCS gives us a chance to equip our already great students with the skills they increasingly need.

When technology arrived in our fields, you could say, “Let’s bring someone in who knows how to do that.” Today, you cannot outsource technology tasks. You have to embody them. You need to have the skills.

Rebecca Corrie is the college’s Phillips Professor of Art and Visual Culture. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, if you are an architectural historian who needs to create a digital reconstruction, you should not only know the art history and the architectural history but also be capable of working with or even developing the programs yourself.

Fields that hire art history majors, such as museums and auction houses, for example, want hires who know how to code and who are skilled at different technologies.

+What do you see as the unifying themes of the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Pallavi Jayawant

The Expert: Pallavi Jayawant, associate professor and chair of mathematics

What the �ֲ���ý DCS Program will support and recognize — whether the ultimate goal is theorizing and applying principles of computation, exploring philosophical boundaries of artificial intelligence, modeling queries using complex data sets, or designing three-dimensional digital maps using layers of coded data — is creativity and rigor in defining and answering questions.

Importantly, DCS at �ֲ���ý will support collaboration across the entire faculty, inside and outside of the program, to develop new elective courses and/or enhance their existing courses with digital and computational abilities.

Pallavi Jayawant is an associate professor of mathematics and department chair. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

DCS will teach students how to get inside of and learn their way around computers rather than simply be proficient at using them. This will be especially liberating because it will help them develop and apply new knowledge and improve their understanding of the world around us.

Ultimately, an education that involves the �ֲ���ý DCS curriculum can serve as a bulwark against unreflective, biased, or limited understandings of computer technologies in our lives.

+How might the �ֲ���ý DCS Program help faculty and students find new connections across disciplines? Expert: Eden Osucha

The Expert: Eden Osucha, assistant professor of English

Technology is transforming, in a real sense, the very objects of study that are at the heart of the humanities and the humanistic social sciences.

As we develop the program, we will recognize that in teaching students about technology, we need to be teaching students to have a critical understanding of technology’s many impacts on language, community, identity, culture, and our notions of the human. Technology is transforming all of these things, which are, in turn, also shaping technological change and practices.

Assistant Professor of English Eden Osucha teaches a class in Pettigrew Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

When students do technologically driven assignments in an English classroom alongside more traditional writing assignments, an interesting thing happens: They begin to recognize something new about their academic disciplines, whether they are humanities majors or not.

A senior physics major or a math major who takes their first English class and does a digital textual mapping project, for example, might realize that, while they are adept at thinking about knowledge in terms of data, or thinking in terms of structures and relations, they now can deploy those abilities to achieve a critical engagement with a literary or other cultural text.

In so doing, they expand their own understanding of the value and purpose of those skills.

Gifts of $19 million to create six new endowed professorships, including three for the DCS Program

Last May, at the last faculty meeting of the 2015 academic year, the �ֲ���ý faculty approved a new Program in Digital and Computational Studies,��with one major condition: that �ֲ���ý would secure millions in funding to establish up to three endowed new professorships within the new program.

Meeting that condition took just half a year. On Feb. 5, �ֲ���ý announced gifts of $19 million to create six new endowed professorships, including three for the DCS Program, plus endowed program support.

Funding in place, the program has a fall 2018 slated start date as a major.

Demand for the program is high. Survey results suggest that 94 percent of students believe that �ֲ���ý should have a DCS major. Fourteen percent of students say they would “definitely major” in DCS. And 69 percent indicate they would take courses in the program.

Interest among professors is great, too, as are the preceding ideas and insights about why the �ֲ���ý program can be among the best in the country.

Professors are also eager to explain why the program will be quintessentially �ֲ���ý — how it will support key parts of the �ֲ���ý mission statement, such as:

• dedication to the emancipating potential of the liberal arts;
• educating the whole person; engaging in the transformative power of our differences;
• cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action;
• and preparing leaders sustained by a love of learning and a commitment to responsible stewardship of the wider world.

Digital and Computational Studies

Inside Higher Ed feature writer Carl Straumsheim notes that �ֲ���ý is “one example of how a college whose main focus isn’t technology is adjusting to the times.”

Writing about the college’s launch of a new Program in Digital and Computational Studies, Straumshein says that �ֲ���ý’ approach is distinctive in choosing an interdisciplinary approach, “framing computer science as a way to help faculty members in other departments introduce computing in their own courses.”

It is “incredibly important” for �ֲ���ý to embed digital and computational thinking into the “context of the liberal arts.”

He quotes President Spencer, who notes that for �ֲ���ý it is “incredibly important” to embed learning about “digital platforms, computational thinking, and the reality of digital connectivity” into the “context of the liberal arts.”

The story notes that �ֲ���ý’ approach has a great advantage: It’s “paid for,” as the college is using $19 million in gift commitments “to hire six new faculty members, three of whom will shape the digital and computational studies program.”

Digital and Computational Studies, Part 2

As �ֲ���ý integrate computational skills into a liberal arts framework, says a Maine Public Broadcasting Network radio story about the college’s new digital and computational studies program, its students will benefit in the job market.

Matt Auer is vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

Reporter Patty Wight says that while “it’s no secret that when it comes to the current job market, employers are looking for applicants with strong computer skills,” they also want to see skills that go beyond computers.

Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, tells Wight about an entrepreneur who told him that many job seekers come up short.

The entrepreneur told Auer that “we don’t need people who can just write clean code.” Rather, the need is for “people who can solve problems. We need people who can develop apps that will be helpful to society or make people’s lives better.”

“Enter a liberal arts education,” says Wight.

Matt Bogyo ’93

The battle against malaria and mosquitoes has been going on for hundreds of years. This undated photo from the early 1900s shows a man in Panama spraying oil to control mosquitoes. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

There’s an urgent need for new drugs to fight malaria, and Matt Bogyo ’93 is providing the weapons.

Bogyo, a , is part of a team that has found “a small molecule” that can kill the malaria-causing parasite in mice.

The findings were first reported in the journal Nature on Feb. 20 and outlined in a recent story in .

CEN reporter Stu Borman says that the molecule does its thing by “inhibiting the proteasome, the cell’s protein-degrading machine in the parasite while doing less damage to the host.”

These “selective proteasome inhibitors,” Borman continues, “could complement current antimalarial drugs and lead to medications for other infectious diseases.”

Bogyo, a professor in the Department of Pathology at Stanford, “is doing absolutely amazing work,” says his honors thesis adviser at �ֲ���ý, Dana Professor of Chemistry Thomas Wenzel.

Josh Macht ’91

Harvard Business Review’s group publisher Josh Macht ’91 and editor-in-chief Al Ignatius have done more than drag the HBR into the 21st century, reports The Boston Globe.

Joshua Macht ’91 meets with Shaina Lam ’17 of Portland, Maine, during a visit to �ֲ���ý as part of the college’s Purposeful Work initiative.
(Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

They’ve done what other magazines have not: achieved a “trend-defying 21 percent surge in paid circulation from 2010.” The magazine’s 286,000 subscribers are at “the highest level in its history.”

Ad revenue has plummeted, as it has at most publications, but unlike others, digital sales have more than made up for the loss.

Jackie Ordemann ’15

Using the water/lead crisis in Flint, Mich., as a backdrop, Science News points to new research by Jackie Ordmann ’15 and her thesis adviser, former �ֲ���ý chemistry professor Rachel Austin, that suggests how lead could play a part in schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.

Lead has the potential to “disrupt optimal neurological functioning” in both children and older people, according to new research by Rachel Austin and Jackie Ordemann ’15. (Photo courtesy of images-of-elements.com)

In the case of brain diseases, lead might “do its dirty work” by “masquerading as zinc,” says reporter

Zinc, a trace element in human physiology, serves to “anchor floppy sections of protein together, forming a shape that plugs into DNA. This lets proteins flip genes on and off like a light switch.”

In the Jan. 8 issue of the journal Metallomics, Austin and Ordemann suggest that when lead takes the place of zinc, the protein switch might not work the same way.

Known as “lead substitution,” it has “the potential to disrupt optimal neurological functioning during development and much later in life,” say the authors.

In Flint, the city introduced a new, more acidic water supply from the Flint River that stripped away the protective scale that had built up in old lead pipes, allowing lead to leach into the water supply.