Jason Castro – News

�ֲ��ý in the News: Sept. 10, 2020

Jay Burns — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:32:49 +0000

A selection of recent mentions of �ֲ��ý and �ֲ��ý people in the news media.

Therí Pickens and Stephanie Kelley-Romano

That racist Kamala Harris birther conspiracy is nothing new — Wired

Wired turned to two �ֲ��ý professors to explain what’s going on with the conspiracy theories about Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

“[Harris] could show us a home video of her being born and it wouldn’t matter now. Rhetoric doesn’t have to be accurate to be effective.”

Whether such theories, such as the birther one about Harris, are true or not is not the point, says Professor of English Therí Pickens, whose areas of expertise include African American cultural studies.

“[Harris] could show us a home video of her being born and it wouldn’t matter now. Rhetoric doesn’t have to be accurate to be effective,” she told reporter Emma Grey Ellis, who noted that the rhetorical strategies being used, conspiracy theorizing and appeals to racism, “have been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years while remaining largely unchanged.”

And why are there so many conspiracy theories? Because they work, and are particularly effective in the political arena.

“Conspiracy is always a way to cause doubt,” says Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Stephanie Kelley-Romano, who is teaching the course “Presidential Campaign Rhetoric” this fall. When people have doubt, they’re harder to mobilize. “People stay home.”

Read the story: “” Wired, Aug. 19, 2020

Ayesha Sharma ’18

Civil death: How millions of Americans lost the right to vote — The Guardian

In a powerful historical overview of how America has disenfranchised millions of citizens, Ayesha Sharma ’18 explores the concept of “civil death…a form of punishment that extinguishes someone’s civil rights.”

Black demonstrators outside the White House in 1965 protest voting restrictions and police brutality against civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Ala. (Warren K. Leffler/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Civil death has been “reshaped and reinterpreted over many generations, persisting in the form of felony disenfranchisement, through which a citizen loses their right to vote due to a felony conviction.”

Some six million Americans “cannot vote in the country’s elections because of some form of civil death,” Sharma writes. Restricting the number of people who can vote in elections “goes back to the colonies” in its racist underpinnings. “It’s a history that has disproportionately affected black people.”

Read the story: “” The Guardian, Aug. 7, 2020

J.J. Cummings ’89

Memories and a mission: USS Gerald R. Ford marks 9/11 while proving it can perform at sea — Daily Press

“Capt. J.J. Cummings, out at sea on USS Gerald R. Ford for this Sept. 11, can’t help thinking of another 9/11 — that awful morning 19 years ago,” writes reporter Dave Ress of the Daily Press of Newport News, Va.

Now commander of the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, Cummings was a young naval aviator in 2001, about to deploy to the Middle East. At home, he saw the second plane hit the South Tower. “I didn’t know it then, but I watched, live, as two of my friends died,” Cummings told Ress.

Gerald R. Ford from Capt. Richard C. McCormack during the ship’s change of command ceremony, a time-honored Naval transfer of responsibility, authority, and accountability from one individual to another. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Cat Campbell)" class="wp-image-117685" srcset="/news/files/2018/08/180810_Cummings_4636362-900x600.jpg 900w, /news/files/2018/08/180810_Cummings_4636362-400x267.jpg 400w, /news/files/2018/08/180810_Cummings_4636362-200x133.jpg 200w, /news/files/2018/08/180810_Cummings_4636362.jpg 1919w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" />

J.J. Cummings ’89 (right) assumes command of USS Gerald R. Ford during the ship’s change of command ceremony on Aug. 10, 2018. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Cat Campbell)

One was Peter Goodrich ’89, who lived next door to Cummings in Smith Hall their first year at �ֲ��ý. The second was a former squadron-mate, Brian Sweeney.

In 2001, Cummings and his squadron were training for close-support missions. “We thought we were just checking a box,” never to need the skills in battle. But 9/11 changed that mindset. Deployed to the Middle East, Cummings flew close-support missions for months over Afghanistan.

Read the story: “” — Daily Press, Sept. 10, 2020

�ֲ��ý College Museum of Art

�ֲ��ý compiling complete catalog of Marsden Hartley’s paintings and drawings — Portland Press Herald

Press Herald reporter Bob Keyes notes that “a comprehensive accounting of all the paintings and drawings of modernist painter and Maine native Marsden Hartley has never been completed.”

Marsden Hartley in Cannes, France, in 1925, in a gelatin silver print made by an unknown photographer. (Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art)

The �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art “aims to change that,” he says, “and has turned to noted Hartley expert and Portland art historian Gail R. Scott to lead the effort.” Still, he adds, “it’s a massive undertaking.”

Read the story: “” Portland Press Herald, Aug. 16, 2020

Grace Ingabire ’19

There’s more to dance than entertainment — The New Times

The New Times of Rwanda profiled Grace Ingabire ’19, who graduated with a dance major and is now “using her art as a means for change.”

Ingabire is a project manager at BeneDico, a Rwandan consulting firm that is supporting efforts to showcase and preserve traditional Rwandan dance.

“We believe that our traditional dances sometimes get modified because they are not being performed by the original culture,” she says. “So the objective of the project is to preserve these dances and promote local dancers in different parts of the country.”

Read the story: The New Times, July 2, 2020

Mara Tieken

The pandemic has magnified the winners and losers in Maine’s educational system — Maine Things Considered

Speaking to Maine Public’s radio program Maine Things Considered earlier in the summer, Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken noted how the pandemic is illuminating how powerfully class lines are shaping students’ learning experiences.

“Wealthier districts and wealthy private schools are typically able to offer more instruction with more rigorous and engaging learning experiences than poorer districts can offer right now,” she said.

“But it’s also about a student’s home situation, where wealthier families might be more likely to have a parent at home who’s not working, who can support the student’s online learning. Or maybe they’re more likely to have multiple laptops or devices so that siblings can actually work simultaneously on schoolwork, or they’re more likely to have strong and consistent internet access.”

Listen to the story: “,” Maine Things Considered, July 14, 2020

Shirl Penney ’99

Shirl Penney: The Power of Scale — ��ǲ�’s

In a Q&A profile with ��ǲ�’s, Shirl Penney ’99 explained how his groundbreaking firm, Dynasty Financial Partners, provides the soup-to-nuts services that independent investment firms require, while still emphasizing the brokers’ independence.

“We felt that any time you take an entrepreneur and turn them into an employee, bad things happen,” he said. “The key distinction is we work for the adviser, the adviser doesn’t work for us.”

Dynasty is a service platform for independent investment advisers — ones that aren’t tethered to a firm like Wells Fargo or Morgan Stanley — that’s now used by more than 200 advisers at 47 firms with $50 billion in client assets.

Among other topics, Penney predicts that the pandemic will fundamentally change the value of place in the investment experience. “If you think back 20 years ago, it was all about big mahogany offices. You had to show strength to bring clients in,” Penney says.

“That’s been turned completely upside down. We have some clients now who I think will go completely virtual once their leases are up. At a minimum, I think firms are going to decrease their footprint.”

Read the story: “” ��ǲ�’s, Aug. 28

Sam Mironko ’21

How the camera has advanced the BLM movement — Ebony

“It’s important that we take a moment to take a look at…some of the young creatives behind the scenes” of the Black Lives Matter movement who have a “special talent with the camera,” writes Paige Rabb ’20 for Ebony.

This photograph by Samuel Mironko ’21 shows participants in a Black Lives Matter protest gathering peacefully in Boston’s Franklin Park on June 2, 2020, following the May 24 death of George Floyd. (Photograph Samuel Mironko ’21)

Rabb’s select list includes Sam Mironko ’21 of Belmont, Mass., noting his stunning photography from his winter 2020 semester abroad in Ghana.

Mironko, says Rabb, is motivated “to keep pushing for Black visibility and the legitimization of Black photographers’ work,” she says. “Mironko believes that the best way to continue to support Black creatives is to get involved with them…and allow their voices to be heard.”

Read the story: “” Ebony, Aug. 25, 2020

Jason Castro

Cracking the neural code with phantom smells — Scientific American

Associate Professor of Neuroscience Jason Castro shows his chops for writing for a lay audience in Scientific American by explaining new research that “used precisely controlled pinpoints of light to , bypassing the nose altogether.”

The study, he writes, is “one of the most audacious and systematic efforts at ‘experience hacking’ yet.”

�ֲ��ý neuroscientist Jason Castro explains new research in which mice experienced “phantom” smells that bypassed the nose. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Why pinpoints of light? Because the researchers were using genetically modified mice with a light-sensitive protein “smuggled into their olfactory neurons,” explains Castro. “When light shines on one of these modified neurons, it evokes neural activity — the brief electrical “spikes” that are the basic language of the nervous system — with timing that can be exquisitely controlled.”

The paper, he adds, is an “unprecedentedly granular look at what, in the brain, makes a given experience that particular experience. The answer, at least in the context of olfaction, has a humanistic ring to it: an experience is a matter of timing and the sum of many small particulars.”

Read the story: “,” Scientific American, Aug. 11, 2020

Noelle Chaddock

Beyond the protests, what meaningful actions can people take for racial justice? — Maine Calling

Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Noelle Chaddock, speaking to Maine Public’s Maine Calling program, explained the power and value of the term “anti-racist.”

“I have a strong preference for the term ‘anti-racism’ over terms like ‘racial equity,” Chaddock said. “Anti-racism centers the thing, it centers the problem, it centers the behavior, and it names the people who are responsible for fixing that behavior…. Anti-racism calls us to look at the very specific action, 400 years’ worth, that white folks need to grapple with and deconstruct.”

Listen to the story: “” Maine Calling, Aug. 13, 2020

Richard Gelles ’68

Richard Gelles, scholar of family violence, dies at 73 — The New York Times

The New York Times published a featured obituary for Richard Gelles ’68, who taught at and was dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, noting that he “was one of the world’s leading scholars of family violence and child welfare.”

Richard Gelles ’68 makes a point during a Reunion 2018 presentation about the future of Social Security. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

In the 1990s, Gelles was initially an ardent defender of “family preservation, the practice of reuniting biological parents with their children even if they had abused them. But after studying the horrific deaths of many children at the hands of their parents…Dr. Gelles did an about-face,” says reporter Katharine Seelye.

“He took his outrage to Washington…and helped draft landmark legislation that affirmed that the safety of a child should supersede attempts to reunite a family.”

As one expert said, “Rich’s critique of the child welfare system not only indelibly shaped public policy…but his work protected and saved the lives of innumerable children.”

Read the Story: “” The New York Times, July 25, 2020

Josh Redd ’21

Uncommon schools summer program trains future Brooklyn teachers — Kings County Politics

“We need more Black male educators,” Josh Redd ’21 told Kings County Politics.

A graduate of an Uncommon charter high school in Brooklyn, N.Y., Redd originally wanted to be a doctor, but through summer experiences, including an Uncommon-sponsored teacher program where he was “surrounded by students eager to learn, he realized he wanted to ‘be part of something’ and to serve students in the community he grew up in.”

Read the story: “” Kings Point Politics, Aug. 13, 2020

Josh Redd ’21 takes part in a discussion about the book Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon during the college’s Martin Luther King Day observance in January 2020. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Nick Mazuroski ’09

$26 million solar farm to benefit Milo and Maine electricity consumers — Bangor Daily News

Construction of a large solar farm in Milo will feature 67,000 solar panels and produce enough energy for 5,430 homes, according to developers who include Nick Mazuroski ’09, director of BNRG Maine, a co-development partner with Dirigo Solar of Portland.

The power produced from the solar farm will be sold to Versant, northern Maine’s electricity provider. “It’s going to directly benefit Maine homeowners, ratepayers, anyone that uses the standard-offer program in the state,” Mazuroski said.

BNRG Renewables and Dirigo Solar have 10 projects under way or scheduled for construction in eight Maine communities.

Read the story: “,” Bangor Daily News, Aug. 30, 2020

Sam Nader ’43

“Thirst for professional baseball in Oneonta quenched in 1965” — The Daily Star

The Daily Star of Oneonta, N.Y., told the story of how then-Mayor Sam Nader ’43 brought professional baseball back to the city in 1965 after the city’s prior professional team had folded in 1951.

A 1965 Star story quoted then-editor Frank Perretta, who said of Nader, “Sam is an old-time pitcher. He pitched in high school, at �ֲ��ý College, and at Hartwick College. And since he took office four years ago he has been pitching for a minor league team in Oneonta.”

Nader landed a Class A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox for the 1966 season, which then became a Yankees affiliate in 1967 and then a Detroit Tigers affiliate. The team decamped for Norwich, Conn., in 2010.

Read the story: “” The Daily Star, Aug. 25, 2020

Elizabeth Leavitt Nemirovsky ’88

Raising awareness and hope, Rosie the COVIDitor said, ‘We Can Do It!’ — The Bedford Citizen

Last spring, Elizabeth Leavitt Nemirovsky ’88 reimagined the iconic World War II–era Rosie the Riveter poster as a pandemic-era call to defeat the virus, showing a masked “Rosie the COVIDitor” using her well-muscled arm and fist to smash the coronavirus.

The Bedford Citizen reported how Nemirovsky created her poster as “Bedford’s COVID-19 lockdown moved from March into April and her mother entered hospice care, forcing her to quit her job.”

Initially, Nemirovsky placed the poster in a window facing the sidewalk as encouragement to the neighborhood’s growing number of walkers in the early days of the pandemic. “Rosie was an easy choice as far as an image to start with,” Nemirovsky told the Citizen. “The fun really began when I started to imagine her ka-POWing COVID.”

Later, she mounted her creation on posterboard and hauled it on her own walks of some 500 miles to raise money for a number of nonprofits, including the Greater Boston Food Bank.

Read the story: “” — The Bedford Citizen,” Sept. 7, 2020

Sam Francis ’17

Bengals rely on one-man analytics department to make the team smarter and stronger — WCPO

“I tell people I’m the same as any analyst at any company, but my focus is football,” Francis told reporter Keenan Singleton of television station WCPO in Cincinnati.

“That can span from the roster to the draft, game management, game planning, studying opponents. We have the data available like any company does that pertain to what they do. Based on whatever question or problem we’re trying to solve, I’ll study that.”

Said Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, “He’s got a big book of information that he knows how to process a lot better than I do. I don’t hear his voice on game day. I hear it through one of the coaches, but I know there’s a lot of dialogue there.”

Read the story: “” WCPO, Aug. 17, 2020

Video: Alex Gogliettino ’17 learns to think like a scientist

Phyllis Graber Jensen — Thu, 18 May 2017 22:07:12 +0000

His �ֲ��ý mentors taught neuroscience major Alex Gogliettino ’17 of Branford, Conn., how to think like a scientist.

Headed to a Ph.D. program at Stanford University, Gogliettino describes his biggest �ֲ��ý discovery: You can make a career from being curious and asking questions.

�ֲ��ý announces seven faculty promotions, including tenure, for the 2017–18 academic year

�ֲ��ý News — Thu, 04 May 2017 17:37:33 +0000

�ֲ��ý has announced faculty promotions, including tenure awards and full professorships, effective for the 2017–18 academic year.

“Our newly tenured and promoted faculty are exemplars of the scholar-teacher-mentor ideal,” said Matthew Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. “They are��leaders in their disciplines, deeply engaged in our community, and focused on the success of their students with sincerity and purpose.”

Recommended by the faculty’s Committee on Personnel and approved by the �ֲ��ý College Board of Trustees, the promotions have been awarded to faculty members in the fields of education, French and francophone studies, history, neuroscience, politics, and psychology.

Meet the seven newly promoted professors, learn their research fields, and discover why they teach:

Promotions to associate professor with tenure

+Jason Castro

Department: Neuroscience

Appointment year: 2012

Doctoral institution: University of Pittsburgh

Fields of research: Sensory systems, olfaction, electrophysiology, neuro-informatics

Why I teach:

I really feel like I’m in the presence of a profound but knowable mystery when I think about the brain and behavior. Teaching is basically my way of connecting with kindred spirits over these things.

I love the hard work of trying to understand things clearly and the challenge of reducing ideas to their essentials so they can be shared honestly and critically. I can’t think of anything more rewarding than knowing that I’ve inspired someone to also find these pursuits valuable. I get to try my hand at this every day, in the company of students who are kind, generous, and brilliant.

Jason Castro has been promoted to associate professor of neuroscience at �ֲ��ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

+Caroline Shaw

Department: History

Year of appointment: 2010

Doctoral institution: University of California, Berkeley

Fields of research: Histories of Britain and Europe in the world, in particular histories of modern rights, liberalism, and humanitarianism through the lenses of slavery and abolition, refugee crises, and personal reputation

Why I teach:
One of my beloved mentors, now passed away, insisted that to engage with ideas and to really study the past, one has to do so in conversation and, preferably, over a meal. She had a way of making even the most stressful of moments in a graduate student’s life��— studying for comprehensive exams��— engaging and, dare I say it, fun.

As a researcher, writer, and student, I can get lost in the detail, often happily. But it is in sharing that work and in investigating the voices of the past with others that I gain better perspective. Teaching is for me an extension of that process and a way of enabling my students to do the same.

Caroline Shaw has been promoted to associate professor of history at �ֲ��ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

+Mara Tieken

Department: Education

Year of appointment: 2011

Doctoral institution: Harvard University

Fields of research: Rural education, college access and persistence, community organizing, race and class in rural communities

Why I teach:

I have always been a teacher. I have taught pre-schoolers, elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, graduate students, adults seeking their GED, and now, undergraduates. I don’t think I could not teach.

I love teaching. I love the challenge of figuring how to make a difficult, abstract concept — like school funding or critical race theory — accessible and relevant. I love the relationships that emerge from wandering together into new territory and unexplored topics. I love the anger students feel towards the world’s educational injustices and their passion for doing something about those injustices. Teaching keeps me engaged and hopeful.

The opportunity to teach is a privilege, and I feel very lucky to teach at �ֲ��ý.

Mara Tieken has been promoted to associate professor of education at �ֲ��ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Promotions to full professor

+Áslaug Ásgeirsdóttir

Department: Politics

Year of appointment: 2001

Doctoral institution: Washington University

Fields of research: Conflict and cooperation over fisheries, ocean governance, settlement of maritime boundaries, climate change and oceans, marine spatial planning, Law of the Sea

Why I teach:

At �ֲ��ý, I have the privilege to teach students who are curious about the world around them and who are willing to take classes covering topics they do not know much about. Ocean governance is one such class. Studying the ocean and its management allows students to explore the complexity of governance in all its messiness.

My favorite moment is always when they realize that no one policy works for everyone, and that grappling with how to fairly distribute common-pool resources is difficult and time-consuming. Given that most of the students know little about the challenges facing our oceans before they sign up, I find that they are freer to think creatively about the link between politics and economics, peoples and oceans, fairness and future challenges.

Áslaug Ásgeirsdóttir has been promoted to professor of politics at �ֲ��ý. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

+Helen Boucher

Department: Psychology

Year of appointment: 2005

Doctoral institution: University of California, Berkeley

Fields of research: Self-concept, self-esteem, self-regulation, social psychology, cultural psychology, positive psychology

Why I teach:

One of my great joys of teaching psychology is to get students thinking about how psychological concepts and findings operate in their daily lives. So much of what we do is governed by habit and a lack of reflection, but psychology offers students a wonderful opportunity to carefully and critically think about the causes and consequences of their own and others’ behavior.

I love it when we are discussing some psychological theory and I look around and see the knowing nods, smiles, and exchanged glances that signal that sense of “Ah yes, that has happened to me, too.”

One of my other great joys is guiding students as they use their own research to contribute to psychological knowledge. This can be a frustrating struggle at times as students gain expertise and offer, at first, tentative hypotheses. But it is truly exhilarating to see them gain confidence not only in what they have learned but also in acknowledging what they still don’t know about their topic.

Helen Boucher has been promoted to professor of psychology at �ֲ��ý. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

+Alex Dauge-Roth

Department: French and Francophone Studies

Year of appointment: 2005

Doctoral institution: University of Michigan

Fields of research: Literary and cinematic representation of violence, genocide studies, AIDS literature, autobiography and testimony as genre, identity politics and immigration

Why I teach:

If learning and speaking a foreign language already represents a first departure from one’s original identity and a step toward others, the intellectual journey I invite my students to take is not only linguistic.

My courses favor works from authors, filmmakers, and characters who come from cultural and existential backgrounds that differ from my own and those of my students. They introduce a diverse spectrum of values, norms, expectations, and trajectories that challenge how we think about identity and define forms of social belonging.

With my students, as we study the historical and cultural diversity of the francophone world, we engage with others’ worldviews to understand how others shape and transform the complex fabric of a given society.

This critical analysis fosters multiple viewpoints, challenges assumptions, and purposefully connects analytical thinking with life experiences and ethical choices for all of us — and it drives my teaching.

Alex Dauge-Roth has been promoted to professor of French and francophone studies at �ֲ��ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

+Karen Melvin

Department: History

Doctoral institution: University of California, Berkeley

Year of appointment: 2005

Fields of research: Colonial Mexico, early modern Catholic world, history of religion, urban history

Why I teach:

I see teaching as a collaborative effort to better understand the world. The study of history gives depth to our current set of affairs, helping us see how we got here, who we have been, and, with any luck, a sense of why this particular present might have emerged from that past.

At the same time, history also allows us glimpses, however fleeting, of worlds different from, and perhaps completely unconnected to, our own. Delving into these strange places and taking seriously the task of understanding how people who lived in other times and places saw their world helps us manage our own complicated and culturally plural world.

More specifically, I teach Latin American history because I want students to discover the region’s wide range of histories and cultures. Too often what we see and hear about these peoples and places is shaped by images and rhetoric that come out of political debate or sensationalist media accounts rather than informed study.

Karen Melvin has been promoted to professor of history at �ֲ��ý. (Ryan Donnell for �ֲ��ý College)

�ֲ��ý in the News: Dec. 9, 2016

Jay Burns — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 21:27:45 +0000

A ‘Scientist to Watch,’ Castro uses science to make connections with people — The Scientist

The featured “Scientist to Watch” in the magazine, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Jason Castro says he came to �ֲ��ý to “do the science equivalent of running a mom-and-pop — a small operation, working closely with students, and staying close to the data and the experiments myself.”

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Jason Castro is a “Scientist to Watch,” says The Scientist magazine.

Writer Ben Andrew Henry points out that “in setting up shop at a small college, Castro did not sacrifice scientific ambition,” highlighting Castro’s recent National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Grant, “a recognition usually awarded to researchers at larger universities.”

“I’m certainly able to do the science I want to do,” Castro says.

Time alone is hard, but perhaps necessary, for a writer — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Speaking with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the eve of a Dec. 5 speaking appearance, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout ’77 talks about her childhood and having “an awful lot of time alone as a child,” which, she believes, is “very important for a writer. I lived in my head and wrote things down.”

Reporter Anya Sostek also describes Strout’s creative process, which involves scraps of a paper and a table. “She writes scenes on scraps of paper,” Sostek reports, most of which end up on the floor. But “when she writes enough scenes ‘that have some life, where there’s a heartbeat to them,’ she starts to arrange them on the table like puzzle pieces.”

Eventually, says Strout, at “a period of time when I feel overwhelmed,” those scraps become a book.

He’s a “commanding, virile” hip-hop Othello, a “noble heart corrupted” — The New York Times

Othello: The Remix, with Postell Pringle ’98 in the title roll and Greg Qaiyum ’98 its co-creator, “conforms broadly to the original” but is “continually infused with impish humor,” notes a glowing review by The New York Times’ Charles Isherwood.

The production got rave reviews during its Chicago run in 2013, when it also played at the Cook County jail, .

In Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s production of Othello: The Remix, Postell Pringle ’98 (left, as Othello) and GQ (Iago) face off as Iago’s plot unfolds. (Photograph by Michael Brosilow)

The adaptation “conforms broadly to the original,” notes the Times review, but is “continually infused with impish humor; it’s as much a spoof of Othello as it is a serious attempt to translate the play into a contemporary musical idiom.”

Othello here “is a musical eminence at the top of his fame and his game (think Jay Z),” writes reviewer Charles Isherwood. “Mr. Pringle is a commanding, virile presence. His transformation, under Iago’s manipulation, into a monster of sexual insecurity doesn’t carry the dramatic force it does in the original, but we do see clearly noble heart corrupted.”

The production is by the Q Brothers, whose creative directors are GQ (Greg Qaiyum ’98) and JQ (his brother, Jeffrey). Pringle is the director of choreography.

In a recent interview with , Pringle says that the most challenging part of the role is “probably getting raw and honest with the depths of this character’s feelings,” not to mention “the roller coaster ride which he has portraying love and betrayal and hate and confusion.”

That’s a “huge range of emotions in an 80-minute span of time.”

�ֲ��ý joins national bid to defend undocumented students — Lewiston Sun Journal

A Lewiston Sun Journal story on Nov. 23 reported President Spencer’s joining with other college presidents to sign a letter to President-elect Donald Trump urging the continuation and expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“We stand ready to defend the rights of any and all of our students.”

that �ֲ��ý “has maintained an unwavering commitment to recruiting students regardless of gender, race, religion, economic background or family circumstance” since the college’s 1855 founding.

“By adding our voice to this important issue,” she says, “we continue to honor this mission and we stand ready to defend the rights of any and all of our students to pursue their educational goals.”

In a Nov. 30 statement to the �ֲ��ý community, Spencer discusses the college’s DACA policy in the context of “a set of actions we have taken to speak out against any present or potential encroachment on the rights of individuals in our community or values central to the �ֲ��ý mission.”

A World’s Fair that hoped to show the superiority of a Caucasian way of life — The Wall Street Journal (paywall)

Buffalo’s hosting of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition “seemed like a good idea at the time,” writes Wall Street Journal reviewer Howard Schneider. “Alas, it didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to: The fair was afflicted by complications, including the worst complication of all — the murder of a president,” William McKinley.

That and more is the substance of Professor of History Margaret Creighton’s new book, The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World’s Fair.

Schneider calls the book a “deft, thorough account of how the exposition and its home city became the victims of wretched luck” and how the fair “was a microcosm of some momentous facets of the United States, good and bad” of the time, including how the country hoped to “demonstrate the superiority of Caucasian, specifically American Caucasian, attributes and culture.”

An exhibit that transcends differences and offers new perspectives — Vogue Arabia

Vogue Arabia talks to Dan Mills, director of the �ֲ��ý Museum of Art, and Loring Danforth, Dana Professor of Anthropology, co-curators of Phantom Punch, the museum exhibition featuring contemporary Saudi Arabian artists.

“The exhibition aims to promote cross-cultural communication, understanding, and appreciation,” said Danforth. “It is through projects like this that we are able to transcend the real differences that separate us; draw on the equally real shared values that unite us and allow us to move toward a world with less hatred, conflict, and violence.”

In America, “very little is known about contemporary Saudi art and artists,” Mills said. “With this exhibition, we have a rare opportunity to gain critical new perspectives on Saudi society and culture from a group of perceptive young artists.”

“Tagged and Documented” (2013) by Huda Bedoun appears in Phantom Punch.

Neuroscientist Jason Castro receives ‘most prestigious’ NSF early career award of $720K

Doug Hubley — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 13:43:35 +0000

�ֲ��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 unique proposition of �ֲ��ý’ new Digital and Computational Studies Program

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 15:00:49 +0000

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.

Video: �ֲ��ý professors say what they’re excited to teach (2015)

Jay Burns — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 13:42:33 +0000

As we’ve done in recent years, we asked a few �ֲ��ý professors, as they gathered for the academic procession for Convocation on Sept. 8, to share what they’re excited to teach this fall.

Featured are Kirk Read (French and francophone studies), Jason Castro (neuroscience), Carol Dilley (dance), Ke Ren (history), Jamil Drake (religious studies), Margaret Imber (classical and medieval studies), Jim Parakilas (music), and Joe Hall (history).

�ֲ��ý in the News: Aug. 7, 2015

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 14:53:00 +0000

Jason Castro

Can’t you smell that smell? Maybe not, says a �ֲ��ý neuroscientist.

In 2014, a widely-reported study in Science suggested that the human nose is capable of distinguishing at least 1 trillion odors.

But something smells a bit funny about those findings, according to scientists Jason Castro of �ֲ��ý and Rick Gerkin of Arizona State.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Jason Castro is a neuroscientist who studies the sense of smell, focusing on the neural circuitry involved in odor processing among other areas. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Castro and Gerkin have , and the story has been picked up by a number of media outlets,

“The conclusion in the 2014 paper relies heavily on untested assumptions about smell perception,” says Castro, an assistant professor of psychology.

“And the equation used actually shows that the number of distinguishable smells is fewer than 1 trillion, not more, making the original claim inaccurate, and in fact the exact opposite of what the calculation actually shows.”

Gerkin notes that “the assertion that humans can discriminate between at least 1 trillion odors is based on a fragile mathematical framework…. So the result in question could be tens of orders of magnitude — a factor of one with dozens of zeros after it — larger or smaller than first reported.”

Owen Dodson ’36

Owen Dodson ’36, photographed by Nancy Carrick Holbert, 1969, courtesy of the University of Arizona Poetry Center, copyright Arizona Board of Regents.

, journalist and activist Cliff Boyd looks at the life of mid-20th century author, poet, and playwright Owen Dodson ’36.

Boyd quotes Dodson explaining one chapter of his life, his brief work in Hollywood, where he met with writers and others in an attempt to create movies that wouldn’t have black stereotypes.

“But they didn’t pick up our cause because there were so many things going on in the government — Joseph McCarthy — and they were afraid,” Dodson said.

He continued: “In my time I was a very eloquent and good-looking young man. I should have had rays to pull them into our cause.

“But the commercial world had sucked them in, and they would not let their careers go away with a Black cause, even though they believed in the whole damn thing.”

�ֲ��ý Museum of Art

The �ֲ��ý Museum of Art offers a photography exhibition that is welcome for being unusual, says The Boston Globe.

“We’re so familiar with artists’ self-portraits that it comes as something like revelation to see a major American painter shown over a span of years photographically,” writes the in his review of The Painter of Maine: Photographs of Marsden Hartley at the �ֲ��ý Museum of Art.

Marsden Hartley in Cannes, France, in 1925, in a gelatin silver print made by an unknown photographer. (Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection, �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art)

“The �ֲ��ý show is unusual, with its emphasis on the painter-subject rather than the quality of the images or identity of the photographers (all but two are anonymous),” Feeney continues.

“That unusualness makes the show all the more welcome. The fact that Hartley had such an unprepossessing appearance somehow makes the images all the more revealing — and poignant.”

Feeney reviewed both the Hartley exhibition and the exhibition Points of View, both of which continue through Oct. 24

John Jenkins ’74

John Jenkins ’74, who will be inducted into the International Black Belt Hall of Fame in the fall, spoke to about his path from Newark, N.J., to �ֲ��ý, and on to becoming one of Lewiston-Auburn’s leading citizens.

Mills notes that “what matters most to Jenkins is the impact karate has had on his life and how he has used it to make a difference in the world around him.”

Jenkins has been mayor of both Auburn and Lewiston and served as a Maine state senator.

Jenkins said, “I’ve got tons of trophies. They’re all sitting in storage. To have a change of life for folks in a positive way, there’s no better legacy than that.”

Tyler Mosher ’11, Matt Brockman ’08, Ross Brockman ’11

“there was a day not so long ago when this country had squat to offer as far as hard ciders. And for those of us who came of age on this deliciously dryly-sweet boozy beverage, it kind of sucked.”

Enter Boston-based Downeast Cider, produced by Tyler Mosher ’11 and brothers Matt ’08 and Ross Brockman ’11.

“The company produces a deliciously murky cider,” writes AP food editor J.M Hirsch. “Murky isn’t often a term associated with delicious. But roll with this one…. I balked when my first pint was poured. But then I tasted. Clean and crisp, a little sweet, a little dry. Which is to say, a balanced cider. The sort of drink Americans have shown themselves not particularly adept at producing.

Downeast cider, he concludes “is worth hunting for.”

Paul Heroux

In advance of the dedication of newly renovated Theodora Park, highlighted a contribution by Paul Heroux, a ceramicist and a senior lecturer emeritus of art and visual culture at �ֲ��ý.

Adding to his national reputation, Heroux contributed a set of decorative tiles for a park fountain, telling Spence that he’d been working on the commission, designing, glazing, and hand-painting 370 ceramic tiles, for more than a year.

Theodora Park in the Ansonborough neighborhood of Charleston, S.C. (Julia Lynn)

Paul Heroux's tiles in the fountain at Theodora Park in Charleston, S.C. (Julia Lynn)

Paul Heroux's tiles in the fountain at Theodora Park in Charleston, S.C. (Sam Spence/Charleston City Paper)

“My two inspirations for the piece are the formal boxwood hedges I see around town and the wonderful green glazes used on old Italian tiles, jars, and garden ornaments,” Heroux told the

Biomedical research at �ֲ��ý gets $459K boost from INBRE

Doug Hubley — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 19:38:54 +0000

Larissa Williams, assistant professor of biology. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ��ý College)

Thanks to funding from a network of research and educational institutions in Maine, �ֲ��ý will receive more than $459,000 this year to support biomedical research. The grant will pay for two faculty projects involving advanced genomic research, as well as other programs and equipment. �ֲ��ý is one of 13 partner institutions across Maine that share money from the IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence program, aka INBRE. With similar programs across the U.S., INBRE is funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Jason Castro teaches a Short Term course in which he and his students designed a new neuroscience course with a computer-programming emphasis. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

In Maine, INBRE supports projects in biology, biochemistry and neuroscience that focus on functional genomics, a branch of molecular biology that seeks to use the massive amounts of data produced by genomic projects to understand how genes function. Assistant professors Larissa Williams, a biologist, and Jason Castro, a neuroscientist, are the �ֲ��ý research grant recipients. In a competitive process, their projects were awarded $92,000 apiece annually for five years. All told, INBRE funding for �ֲ��ý over the next five years could total nearly $2.3 million. Using zebrafish as her test subjects, Williams is investigating a protein known as Nfe2 and its role in protecting embryonic fish against the harmful effects of chemicals that create reactive oxygen species, better known as oxidants. Essential to life in small amounts, oxidants wreak biological havoc in larger quantities. Williams’ lab is one of only three that have published research on the gene responsible for the production of Nfe2 in zebrafish. The gene is found in humans and other animals as well as fish. “We’re really going to be breaking scientific ground by looking into the effect of the gene,” she says.

�ֲ��ý biology professor Larissa Williams discusses the image of a zebrafish embryo at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory on July 23. Mostly from �ֲ��ý, the students with her are, from left, Nabil Saleem ’15, Roshni Mangar (College of the Atlantic ’16), Katie Paulson ’15 and Sophie Salas ’15. (Bill Church/MDIBL)

Using fish that have been rendered unable to produce the protein, she’ll test the effects of oxidative stress-causing compounds like TBHQ, a common food preservative; the herbicide diquat; and ethanol, better known as beverage alcohol. In addition to expenses like student stipends and material goods like zebrafish and chemicals, INBRE funds will defray the considerable costs of sequencing the genomes of Williams’ zebrafish subjects to understand the effects of disabling the Nfe2 gene. Her student assistants, says Williams, will be “getting cutting-edge training in molecular biology and bioinformatics — essentially big biological data sets. It’s the way biology is going, so students will get great training in working with and interpreting these data sets. “That’s a very, very good skill set to have nowadays.” Castro studies the olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that directly receives information about odors from the nose. In this project, he seeks to understand the organization of that structure, specifically whether the bulb is divided into circuit modules that can be identified through genomic data mining. Those data-mining studies will be supplemented with physiological and anatomical research to determine whether, or how, the olfactory bulb modules are distinguished from one another physiologically and in their neurological connectivity. In other words, can genomic analysis be used to anticipate physiological structure and function? “The research will try to ‘close the loop’ — that is, experimentally test predictions based on data mining,” Castro says. “That’s something that has been historically tough to do.” Castro predicts that the tools and techniques used in the project will be valuable for studying circuit structures throughout the brain, including pathologies underlying psychiatric disorders. INBRE programs operate in 23 states or U.S. territories. �ֲ��ý joined Maine’s INBRE program in 2001, the year it was created. INBRE is important to the growth and stability of the scientific establishment in states that receive comparatively low amounts of NIH funding. The program pays for resources that might otherwise be out of reach — for instance, the data sets that both Castro and Williams will draw on for their research. “The INBRE grants really allow us to train up-and-coming scientists and create new knowledge in an era where other sources of federal science funding are at a low level,” says Williams. In addition to supporting individual faculty research at �ֲ��ý, INBRE provides institutional support, with an emphasis on student research and travel: INBRE funds six or seven faculty-student research grants and two summer fellowships for undergraduates each year. INBRE helped build the Imaging and Computing Center at �ֲ��ý, and pays for �ֲ��ý students who take two-week laboratory courses each spring during Short Term at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, the lead institution for INBRE in Maine. It also supports collaborations between partner institutions, such as a molecular biology and bio-imaging course �ֲ��ý is undertaking later this summer with Southern Maine Community College. Since INBRE’s inception, it has brought $50 million in federal funds into Maine, improved research infrastructure and trained more than 2,000 Maine students in biomedical research techniques, according to the MDIBL. INBRE grants have led to the creation of more than 100 new high-paying Maine jobs in research and education. In addition to �ֲ��ý and MDIBL, the member institutions are a second major research facility, The Jackson Laboratory; the University of Maine, its University of Maine Honors College, University of Maine System campuses at Farmington, Fort Kent, Machias and Presque Isle; Southern Maine Community College; Colby and Bowdoin colleges and the College of the Atlantic.

What I mean when I say: ‘Space,’ with Jason Castro

Doug Hubley — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 14:17:37 +0000

When Jason Castro, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, says “space,” he often means:

“Something quite abstract and conceptual that needn’t refer to the familiar three dimensions of the physical world. A space could contain all possible faces, categories of scent or musical pitches. Your brain creates organized spaces for such things — mapping impossibly abstract quantities onto a very physical network of cells.”

Academic disciplines often assign particular and surprising meanings to common words. The series “What I Mean When I Say” explores those meanings.

Jason Castro – News

�ֲ���ý in the News: Sept. 10, 2020

Therí Pickens and Stephanie Kelley-Romano

That racist Kamala Harris birther conspiracy is nothing new — Wired

Ayesha Sharma ’18

Civil death: How millions of Americans lost the right to vote — The Guardian

J.J. Cummings ’89

Memories and a mission: USS Gerald R. Ford marks 9/11 while proving it can perform at sea — Daily Press

�ֲ���ý College Museum of Art

�ֲ���ý compiling complete catalog of Marsden Hartley’s paintings and drawings — Portland Press Herald

Grace Ingabire ’19

There’s more to dance than entertainment — The New Times

Mara Tieken

The pandemic has magnified the winners and losers in Maine’s educational system — Maine Things Considered

Shirl Penney ’99

Shirl Penney: The Power of Scale — ���������ǲ�’s

Sam Mironko ’21

How the camera has advanced the BLM movement — Ebony

Jason Castro

Cracking the neural code with phantom smells — Scientific American

Noelle Chaddock

Beyond the protests, what meaningful actions can people take for racial justice? — Maine Calling

Richard Gelles ’68

Richard Gelles, scholar of family violence, dies at 73 — The New York Times

Josh Redd ’21

Uncommon schools summer program trains future Brooklyn teachers — Kings County Politics

Nick Mazuroski ’09

$26 million solar farm to benefit Milo and Maine electricity consumers — Bangor Daily News

Sam Nader ’43

“Thirst for professional baseball in Oneonta quenched in 1965” — The Daily Star

Elizabeth Leavitt Nemirovsky ’88

Raising awareness and hope, Rosie the COVIDitor said, ‘We Can Do It!’ — The Bedford Citizen

Sam Francis ’17

Bengals rely on one-man analytics department to make the team smarter and stronger — WCPO

Video: Alex Gogliettino ’17 learns to think like a scientist

�ֲ���ý announces seven faculty promotions, including tenure, for the 2017–18 academic year

Promotions to associate professor with tenure

Promotions to full professor

�ֲ���ý in the News: Dec. 9, 2016

A ‘Scientist to Watch,’ Castro uses science to make connections with people — The Scientist

Time alone is hard, but perhaps necessary, for a writer — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

He’s a “commanding, virile” hip-hop Othello, a “noble heart corrupted” — The New York Times

�ֲ���ý joins national bid to defend undocumented students — Lewiston Sun Journal

A World’s Fair that hoped to show the superiority of a Caucasian way of life — The Wall Street Journal (paywall)

An exhibit that transcends differences and offers new perspectives — Vogue Arabia

Neuroscientist Jason Castro receives ‘most prestigious’ NSF early career award of $720K

The unique proposition of �ֲ���ý’ new Digital and Computational Studies Program

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

Expert: Jason Castro, assistant professor of psychology

Expert: Nathan Tefft, assistant professor of economics

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

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

The Expert: Nathan Lundblad, associate professor of physics

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

The Expert: Adriana Salerno, associate professor of mathematics

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

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

The Expert: Eden Osucha, assistant professor of English

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

Video: �ֲ���ý professors say what they’re excited to teach (2015)

�ֲ���ý in the News: Aug. 7, 2015

Jason Castro

Owen Dodson ’36

�ֲ���ý Museum of Art

John Jenkins ’74

Tyler Mosher ’11, Matt Brockman ’08, Ross Brockman ’11

Paul Heroux

Biomedical research at �ֲ���ý gets $459K boost from INBRE

What I mean when I say: ‘Space,’ with Jason Castro

�ֲ��ý in the News: Sept. 10, 2020

�ֲ��ý College Museum of Art

�ֲ��ý compiling complete catalog of Marsden Hartley’s paintings and drawings — Portland Press Herald

Shirl Penney: The Power of Scale — ��ǲ�’s

�ֲ��ý announces seven faculty promotions, including tenure, for the 2017–18 academic year

�ֲ��ý in the News: Dec. 9, 2016

�ֲ��ý joins national bid to defend undocumented students — Lewiston Sun Journal

The unique proposition of �ֲ��ý’ new Digital and Computational Studies Program

Video: �ֲ��ý professors say what they’re excited to teach (2015)

�ֲ��ý in the News: Aug. 7, 2015

�ֲ��ý Museum of Art

Biomedical research at �ֲ��ý gets $459K boost from INBRE