Katharine Ott – News

10 pieces of advice, for all of us, from a wisdom-filled �ֲ��ý College Convocation

Jay Burns — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 15:53:08 +0000

In May and in August, Commencement and Convocation bookend the �ֲ��ý experience.

Held in the fading warmth of a Maine summer day, Convocation marks a beginning, the newest class’s “formal induction into the �ֲ��ý community of scholars,” said President Clayton Spencer at this year’s edition on Aug. 31, the day before the start of classes for the 2021–22 year.

As bookends, they share a look: pomp and circumstance, rows of chairs in front of Coram Library, and an academic procession from Alumni Walk to the Historic Quad. Both typically come packed with good advice for the next monumental step toward building a future, first on the Lewiston campus and then beyond.

This year, Convocation included one valedictory element that might have been stolen from Commencement, the celebration of a job well done as Dean of the Faculty Malcolm Hill introduced a new group of students to the newly opened Bonney Science Center. With the dramatic brick building at stage right, Hill called it “a building that will serve all disciplines to generate innovative teaching for years to come.”

The Class of 2025 passes by the Class of 1927 Mouthpiece featuring a photograph and quote from late John R. Lewis, the 2016 Commencement speaker, who urged the graduates to be bold and fearless in pursuing social justice. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

But the main focus of Convocation 2021 were tips and insights into navigating the �ֲ��ý experience, offered by Spencer; Kush Sharma ’23 and Marcos Pacheco Soto ’24, co-presidents of �ֲ��ý College Student Government; and Katharine Ott, associate professor of mathematics, who delivered the Convocation Address.

Along with advice, they received a blessing from the college’s multifaith chaplain, the Rev. Brittany Longsdorf. “May you be blessed by this place,” she said in her Benediction. “May you be blessed this new year, with authenticity, deep caring, wisdom and kindness, inspiration and affirmation, and the beauty of belonging.”

Ott’s perspective was a gift from last spring’s Class of 2021, who selected her to speak to the Class of 2025 at Convocation, and she began by thanking the recent grads and saluting them for their perseverance in the face of the pandemic. Recalling their accomplishments and their “incredible resilience during such a tumultuous year fills me with hope.”

The same goes for the Class of 2025, said Ott.

“You pivoted, you followed through with your plans and dreams, adjusting a lot when necessary. You made a major life decision — where to attend college — entirely over zoom and so much more. So I congratulate you and your support networks for arriving here. Your arrival and journey have been challenging. There was pain and suffering, and for some, trauma.”

Katharine Ott, associate professor of mathematics, delivers the Convocation Address. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

With all that has preceded the class’s arrival, she said, “it’s hard to think about where to begin the next chapter” — there’s that book metaphor again — “after all that has happened, all that is still happening. Where do we even begin?” And that’s how she titled her address, “Where Do We Even Begin.”

Referencing the title, she said she made it “big and vague on purpose,” precisely because she wanted to show �ֲ��ý’ newest students that you begin to answer a big question by tackling smaller ones first.

“Like the mathematician that I am, I will try to offer something useful on just one small part of the big question: Where do we begin…in our college classrooms?” Ott urged her audience of students to remember they are “building more than a transcript. They’ll be creating their own narrative, a journey where they are the main character, set within a community they hold the power to build.”

Her suggestions, and those from others, offer insight into classrooms, yes, but also how we live our lives.

Build judgment-free relationships where it is always OK to ask questions

Ott has a Ph.D. in mathematics and regularly publishes scholarly papers with other math Ph.D.s. “We work on theoretical mathematics, partial differential equations, and harmonic analysis, and the papers appear in international journals.”

That all sounds dauntingly high level. But, she said, when she’s at work with fellow scholars, the relationships are defined by humility.

“Do you know what kind of questions occur regularly?” Ott asked the audience. “Me, during a research meeting with collaborators: ‘Hold up. Where did that zero come from?’ My collaborator, slight frown, maybe a pause: ‘We added a two up here and then subtracted two down here. So that makes zero.’”

“There is no judgement, and we move on. No one is keeping track.”

Don’t wait to ask questions

“It’s a heck of a lot easier to start asking questions like that from the get-go, when you’re in the midst of a problem, than waiting 20 minutes before asking, then you’re buried under more and more lines of calculations.

“I’m not advocating that you interrupt your professors and classmates with questions unless invited to do so. I’m encouraging you to be honest and forthcoming about where you are with your understanding and meet your peers where they are with their understanding. Don’t let questions or confusions get buried.”

Make play out of your work

Ott’s 4-year-old son just started pre-K. Each day, she asks him what he did in school. “And so far six days running, he gives the same exact answer: ‘Play.’”

“Four-year-olds need play,” said Ott. So do the rest of us. In math, “play” might mean tinkering with the numbers in a graph and “seeing what happens to your solution.”

In a broader academic context, “play” means “changing your perspective, looking at a problem from a different viewpoint, creating a new scenario, putting things in a different order.”

So it’s highly likely, said Ott, that math students will hear phrases from their professors, like “play with the numbers in this example,” or “play with the graph and see what happens to your solution.”

Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read performs his duties as faculty marshal as the academic procession departs Alumni Walk for the Historic Quad. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Mainers, and perhaps folks in other states, have a phrase for this kind of play, “dubbing around,” where you’re working around the house and trying a new way to solve a problem, like stopping that gopher that gets into the garden.

That kind of play “is meant to be low stakes. Play allows us to explore and learn separate from the validation of a grade or a checkbox,” Ott said. “Between pre-K and college — and most definitely in the last year — I think many of us lost this connection between play and learning. So let’s try and rekindle it.

Talk to people about your work

Developmental psychologists tell us that we create our personal narratives, discovering who we are and where we want to go, by talking with others.

Mathematicians like Ott know that too. She encouraged �ֲ��ý’ new students to “talk about your work. Share what you were doing in class when you check in with your family and friends from home. Work in study groups — and yeah, talk out loud with your classmates about what you’re doing. Make what you are doing in class a part of your everyday conversations with friends, teammates, roommates, coworkers, and so on.

“Inevitably these conversations will spin outward from the academics and that’s not only okay, that’s awesome. Talking about what we’re doing in class is a great launching point to conversations that we need to be having, conversations about identity, community, society.

In the next four years, you aren’t just building a transcript: You will be building a story, a journey narrative that has you as the main character.”

In seeking truth, seek what’s true about you

In her welcome, Spencer talked about the liberal arts and truth-seeking.

At �ֲ��ý, students learn how to discover what’s true in the world through the “knowledge you will gain and the connections you will make across multiple kinds of problems and ways of knowing,” she said.

But truth-seeking is not always outward-focused, she said. “It also means figuring out what is, and isn’t true for you — who you are, what you’re interested in, what you value and how you plan to move through the world.

“Only you, following your interests, thinking things through on your own terms, and discussing your theories and ideas in the classroom and in conversation, can develop an authentic and coherent view of how you want to live your life.”

Mace bearer Michael Murray, Charles Franklin Phillips Professor of Economics, leads the academic procession, followed by President Clayton Spencer and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Malcolm Hill. For certain large outside events, �ֲ��ý implements a face-covering policy. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Put big questions on hold

Big questions, like “What should I do with my life?” or even “What should I major in?” can wait, said Spencer, because at this stage “they are downright paralyzing.”

Keep it simple. The Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But the right question to ask yourself is not, “Is this the right step for me?” Instead, ask yourself, “Does this feel like the right next step for me?”

Don’t measure your success against the lives and careers of people you admire

Impressive, compelling life stories, those of Michelle Obama, Lin-Manuel Miranda, or Dr. Fauci, “only emerge when you look backward over a life,” Spencer said.

The enterprise of college, however, is about helping students ”look forward, not backward.” As a student, you’re on the bow of a ship, looking ahead toward uncharted waters. You’re not in the stern looking at the wake.

Your path forward is not clear — nor should it be. “As a famous scholar of religion and myth, Joseph Campbell, once said, ‘If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.’”

Use your curiosity, thirst for connection, and courage to take risks

A student admitted to �ֲ��ý has already displayed at least some of those abilities, said Spencer. Use those talents to “explore courses in fields you’ve never been exposed to before,” said Spencer. “Sit at a table in Commons with people you don’t know and introduce yourself, or try out for a play even if you’ve never been on a stage in your life.”

With understandably pensive expressions, members of the Class of 2025 move toward their seats at the start of Convocation on Aug. 31, 2021. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

In turn, Spencer promised the students that their courage will be met with a promise from �ֲ��ý, that all students will be “seen and valued” so that, in turn they feel they “belong at �ֲ��ý and �ֲ��ý belongs to them.”

The work of “creating an educational community that is equitable and inclusive, and producing graduates who have experienced college this way, is, I believe, our best hope for making progress toward a more just society.”

Disrupt your own narrative

Spencer encourages the first-year students to “try to stop holding fast to the things that got you here — the narrative that you are pre-med, or will major in history, when you haven’t even taken your first college course; the identities that have defined you throughout high school; the assumption that if you don’t hurry up and find a small group of like-minded peeps you are doomed to a life of social isolation.”

Instead, “think of these next four years as a time to try new things, to step back and broaden the frame. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke put it, ‘The point is to…live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.’”

Create community while you search for what excites you

Sharma and Pacheco Soto, the �ֲ��ý Student Government co-presidents, offered student-to-student advice.

First-years might have questions like, How do �ֲ��ý students pursue what interests them individually, whether a major field or a club activity, while at the same time engaging in collective efforts to achieve social justice?

How do the 555 individuals in the Class of 2025 with 555 different ideas become a community? How does one pursue your own wishes while also navigating a sea of difference?

Co-presidents of �ֲ��ý College Student Government Kush Sharma ’23 (right) and Marcos Pacheco Soto ’24 greet the Class of 2025.(Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Definitely, “pursue what you are excited about — and then also think of a way we can come together and support each other in living that,” said Sharma.

“Offer compassion. Be each other’s voice in the work to fight for a society where every idea, thought, and individual has an equal opportunity. And as you try to find something that you’re excited about, each day for the next four years at �ֲ��ý, try to embrace and create a culture where collaborative excitement matters.”

What I Mean When I Say: Katharine Ott and ‘Harmonic’

Emily McConville — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 16:59:06 +0000

For most of us, harmonic describes a set of musical notes that produce a pleasing sound, or it describes a state of contentment.

For Associate Professor of Mathematics Katharine Ott, harmonic describes a type of function, a mathematical way of representing the relationship between two values. Harmonic functions satisfy Laplace’s equation, which itself “plays a key role in describing many physical phenomena such as heat conduction, electrostatics, and fluid flow,” she says.

Ott’s specialty is harmonic analysis and partial differential equations. “Harmonic analysis,” she adds, “is a branch of mathematics that has to do with breaking a function into simpler parts that have certain properties.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Katharine Ott’s specialty is harmonic analysis and partial differential equations. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ��ý College)

“Analyzing these smaller pieces individually, then organizing them back together again, can yield important insights into the behavior of functions.”

Which brings us back to harmonics in music. If you know the rates of vibration for notes that sound related to one another — and are appealing for that reason — you’ll generally find that there are predictable mathematical relationships among them.

Ott also works to increase the participation of women in mathematics, organizing programs for high school students and writing about math for the general public. She’s currently the director of GirlsGetMath, a weeklong math and computer science camp for high school girls.

�ֲ��ý in the News: Sept. 14, 2018

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 13:39:27 +0000

How colleges help students find purpose in their work — The Chronicle of Higher Education

In a major feature story, explores the value of the college’s signature Purposeful Work initiative.

Now beginning its fifth year of implementation, Purposeful Work helps students “clarify the connections between classroom and career, and to prepare students for lives of meaningful work,” writes Kelly Field of the Chronicle, the leading source of academic news in the U.S.

Purposeful Work stands apart, says Field, for how it “blends the philosophical and the pragmatic.”

Purposeful Work is particularly valuable because it helps to “increase graduates’ confidence that they can succeed in an increasingly technical work force, and to dispel parents’ and policy makers’ doubts about the returns on an expensive liberal-arts degree.”

While many colleges are launching similar programs, Purposeful Work stands apart, says Field, for how it “blends the philosophical and the pragmatic, offering students both concrete skills and an overarching theory of work: namely, that it ought to have both personal meaning and societal relevance.”

Purposeful Work interns in summer 2018, Isabella Del Priore ’19 and Emily Lufburrow ’19 pose outside the Sidney Kimmel Center for Prostate and Urologic Cancers at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Portland, Maine, is the 2018 Restaurant City of the Year — Bon Appetit

Andrew Knowlton ’97, Bon Appetit’s longtime restaurant editor and now editor at large, , citing the city’s many new openings and the variety of offerings, from “an Instagram-worthy lobster roll and a dozen local oysters” to “the killer pho spot or the guy selling hand rolls out of a Yeti cooler.”

Knowlton brings some subjectivity to the selection. “I’ve got a thing for Maine,” he wrote. “I went to college there, I got married there, I regularly vacation there.” But Portland was not picked just out of “blind favoritism,” he explains, offering a long list of restaurants as evidence.

Among the spots mentioned are ��ܲ��’s, one of three eateries co-owned by award-winning chef Andrew Taylor ’03, and Allagash Brewing Company, whose brewmaster is Knowlton’s classmate Jason Perkins.

‘Strangers’ creator Mia Lidofsky breaks the mold with queer female narrative — Huffington Post

As the second season of Strangers wrapped, director and producer Mia Lidofsky ’09 talked to about how her own life has inspired the Facebook Watch show and the importance of narratives created by and featuring queer people.

Strangers follows a bisexual woman and her lesbian best friend, a “self-discovery tale against the backdrop of Airbnb,” Wong wrote.

Lidofsky, who worked on the shows Girls and Nurse Jackie as an assistant to director Jesse Peretz, told Wong she wanted to make women feel “feel more seen, more heard and less alone.”

“I wanted to show queer women in a positive light, and show their hilarity, their beauty and their charisma,” she said. “The more depictions of queer people onscreen by queer people, the better.”

How Matt Golden started a lunchtime mentorship program in Maine that is reaching New Bedford — SouthCoastToday

Brendan Kurie of the New Bedford Standard-Times profiled Matt Golden ’20, who at Lewiston Middle School.

A sociology major and football player, Golden and fellow �ֲ��ý students make regular visits to LMS, where they hang out with students and, importantly, give them a chance to see what it’s like to be a college student.

Matt Golden ’20 of New Bedford, Mass., carries the ball during a 2016 game against Hamilton College. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

“Students talking to other students is a big thing,” Lewiston Middle School administrator Billie Jo Brito told Kurie.

“It’s so hard for middle school students, many times, to get out of their own way. To be encouraged by a college student and hear about their middle school days and have that fresh face is such a positive thing for them.”

Golden got support from the college’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships, but “this was his initiative,” said Martha Deschaines ’75 of the Harward Center. “He’s so enthusiastic and dedicated to this program and helping youth to move forward.”

Women to Watch: Clayton Spencer, �ֲ��ý College — Mainebiz

Mainebiz named �ֲ��ý President ” in 2018. In a profile, editor Peter Van Allen outlined Spencer’s path from law to higher education, her leadership of the $300 million �ֲ��ý Campaign, and her drive to prepare students for meaningful careers through the Purposeful Work initiative.

�ֲ��ý President Clayton Spencer speaks during Convocation on Sept. 4. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“Most students realize they’re not da Vinci or Yo-Yo Ma,” Spencer said. “They worry they don’t have a passion. But finding your passion is a trap. You have to try things.”

“Work can be for pay or not,” she added. “But it has to be purposeful work.”

Here’s why we need to democratize artificial intelligence — Forbes

In an , Sameer Maskey ’02 says the world needs a lot more artificial intelligence professionals than it currently has.

The founder and CEO of Fusemachines, a Manhattan-based AI services and education firm, Maskey argues that students from developing countries should fill the gap — they’re as curious and qualified as Ivy League grads, and “someone who experiences complex problems in his/her own country could be more suited to try and solve those problems with AI.”

Kristyma Alexova ’19 and Sameer Maskey ’02 speaks with Kristyna Alexova ’19 during Alexova’s Purposeful Work internship at Fusemachines, Maskey’s AI company. (Nick Romanenko for �ֲ��ý College)

Maskey, a member of the Forbes Technology Council, which comprises world-class CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives, recently started a fellowship program to teach machine learning to students in the Dominican Republic, New York City, Rwanda, and Maskey’s native Nepal.

“If we want everyone to benefit from the development of AI, and not just a few select countries, we need to make AI equally accessible around the world,” Maskey says.

David Bowie welcomes Lewiston High students back for the 51st time — Sun Journal

Bonnie Washuk of the , who has been teaching Lewiston High School students and coaching fellow teachers for 51 years.

David Bowie poses in the hall by the door of his office at Lewiston High School, where he has taught for 51 years. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Bowie has witnessed dramatic changes over his five decades in the classroom. Standardized testing became more important, technology progressed — Bowie was one of the first to learn to use computers — and the student population became far more diverse.

Now some of his former students are teachers at the high school, and he sees people he taught at LHS in town. “I usually run into somebody I had in a class, which makes it kind of fun,” Bowie told Washuk.

McCain’s straight talk impressed those on the North Shore — The Salem News

Ethan Forman of The Salem News on the Aug. 25 death of U.S. Senator John McCain.

Pangallo, now chief of staff for the mayor of Salem, was a �ֲ��ý student in 2000 when he worked in New Hampshire for McCain’s first presidential campaign. He wrote that though McCain was the only Republican he ever voted for, he admired the senator’s stance on campaign finance reform, as well as his relationship with the press and, later, his position on climate change and his vote against the repeal of Obamacare.

“Tonight, I’m remembering those cold and snowy nights across countless small Granite State towns, running lawn signs, holding the rope line, setting up stages, handing out palm cards,” Pangallo wrote of working on the campaign. “The thrill of being in the vanguard of the Straight Talk Express.”

The comeback kids: how a struggling public school made the grade — The Guardian

Amanda Holpuch of The Guardian Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken for a story about the school district in Pike County, Ala., which has many students from poor rural backgrounds.

The district closely watches and tries to support its students, and offers programs that allow students to earn college credits and even associate’s degrees in a variety of fields.

Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken teaches “Community Organizing for Social Justice” in May 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Tieken praised that dual enrollment program, but offered this caution:

“What I worry about is rural kids, particularly rural students of color, being disproportionately tracked into associate’s degrees, so then they are not able to continue on with education, which we know corresponds with higher earnings and all kinds of other benefits.”

GirlsGetMath engages local high school students — The Brown Daily Herald

Brown University’s student newspaper at the university, directed by Associate Professor of Mathematics Katharine Ott, that teaches high school girls about math and computer science.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Katharine Ott. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ��ý College)

Ott told reporter Cate Ryan that the program seeks to encourage girls to stay engaged with math and science in high school and college and, ultimately, pursue careers in STEM fields.

“There is clear evidence that even though jobs in STEM are growing very rapidly and they pay better than a lot of other jobs, women are very underrepresented in these careers,” Ott said.

The program, GirlsGetMath@ICERM, was hosted by Brown’s Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics.

French schools say ‘au revoir’ to smartphones — what if the U.S. dialed up a similar ban? — KPCC-FM

Schools in France instituted a ban this year on cellphones on school grounds. Larry Mantle of Pasadena-based public radio station KPCC how such a policy might translate in the United States, talking with �ֲ��ý’ Anita Charles and the University of Michigan’s Liz Kolb about the effectiveness of cellphone bans.

Anita Charles teaches “Basic Concepts in Special Education” in March 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Charles, lecturer in education and director of secondary teacher education, told Mantle and several callers that outright bans on cellphones are “seldom effective, it’s unenforceable, and it begs for subversion.”

Whether schools and teachers allow cellphones in the classroom or require students to put their phones in a cubby, they have to develop relationships of trust, Charles said.

“We tend to miss the boat if we’re only about the policy,” she said. “We have to also have the conversations. We have to talk to students about why and how and what are we trying to help them do when they put them in that cubby, and what we hope they’ll learn to understand about appropriate contexts.”

�ֲ��ý announces eight faculty promotions, including tenure, for 2018–19

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 12:00:42 +0000

�ֲ��ý has announced eight faculty promotions, including tenure awards and full professorships, effective Aug. 1 for the 2018–19 academic year.

The promotions were recommended by the faculty’s Committee on Personnel and approved by the �ֲ��ý College Board of Trustees.

Malcolm Hill is vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ��ý College.

“One of the joys of working at �ֲ��ý is to be surrounded by exceptionally talented and creative people. This year’s tenured and promoted faculty provide outstanding examples of the consequential scholarship and creative work going on at �ֲ��ý,” said Malcolm Hill, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

“As leaders in their respective fields and through their continuing hard work, these faculty offer our students unparalleled opportunities in the classroom, and give us all an opportunity to engage with the important ideas of our time.”

Meet the eight newly promoted professors, learn their research fields, and discover why they teach.

Promotions to associate professor with tenure

+Associate Professor of Religious Studies Ali Humayun Akhtar

�ֲ��ý academic programs: Religious Studies; Asian Studies; Classical and Medieval Studies

Appointment year: 2012

Doctoral institution: New York University

Fields of research: World history, international affairs, intersections of law and society, comparative religion, gender studies, international development, Middle Eastern and North African studies, Asian studies

Why I teach: �ֲ��ý students are among the most creative and talented students I’ve taught in my career as a professor, and it’s been rewarding to empower them with the analytical, research, and leadership skills that have helped them excel after graduation.

The students and I both learn in the classroom, because I make sure they build the confidence necessary to think independently while working collaboratively. With the help of multimedia technology, field trips, and interdisciplinary assignments, I’ve ensured that my classroom offers students a global cultural experience where they can study the sights, sounds, and ideas that shape the modern world.

The combination of American and international students at �ֲ��ý, including scholar-athletes from all corners of the Earth, has enriched these conversations and has even propelled my own research on international development and global affairs.

Ali Humayun Akhtar has been promoted to associate professor of religious studies. (Michael Bradley/�ֲ��ý College)

+Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Jonathan Cavallero

�ֲ��ý academic program: Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies

Appointment year: 2013

Doctoral institution: Indiana University Bloomington

Fields of research: Race, ethnicity, and media (especially Italian Americans); film and television history; film festivals; Bollywood; U.S. cultural history; multiculturalism and pedagogy

Why I teach: Teaching is the most fulfilling profession I can imagine. On a daily basis, I get to witness some pretty amazing things: the excitement of coming up with new ideas and courses, the joy of sharing them with students, and the ways in-class discussions form new communities.

I love interacting with students, especially when the conversations we have challenge me to think differently about film, television, teaching, politics, or life. I learn so much from my students, and I love playing a small role in helping them to achieve their goals and realize their dreams.

Jonathan Cavallero has been promoted to associate professor of rhetoric, film, and screen studies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

+Associate Professor of German Raluca Cernahoschi

�ֲ��ý academic programs: German; European Studies

Appointment year: 2009

Doctoral institution: University of British Columbia

Fields of research: German and East-Central European literature and film, literatures and cultures of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, poetry, film adaptation, literary geography

Why I teach: The principles that are the foundation of a liberal arts education guide me as a teacher every day: the application of rigor in the pursuit of our passions, the willingness to invest of ourselves that creates a community, the curiosity to expand our experiences beyond the tried and safe, the openness to different points of view and different approaches.

I aim to challenge students to reach a new level of understanding of the material, the world, and themselves. The first part of this aim connects directly to the introduction of new subject matter, be it linguistic, cultural, theoretical, or historical. The second part has as its goal student self-evaluation within historical or cultural contexts, as receivers and producers of knowledge, or in relation to other perspectives on a given subject.

Raluca Cernahoschi has been promoted to associate professor of German. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

+Associate Professor of German Jakub Kazecki

�ֲ��ý academic programs: German; European Studies

Appointment year: 2012

Doctoral institution: University of British Columbia

Fields of research: 20th-century German literature; literature about the First World War; images of German-Polish relationships in literature, film and visual arts; laughter and comedy

Why I teach: I want to help my students make connections between literature and their own experience. Even if the connections are not visible to my students at first reading, the discovery of such links in class discussions leads to the pleasure of the text. For me, the moments of reading together an older text, and helping them to realize its relevance, is a rush of adrenaline — it’s addictive.

This joy of discovery creates a fundament on which I can build the understanding of the work’s idiosyncrasies in a given historical context. I can then better develop the students’ awareness of the language: When they understand what the ideas are, they show a keen interest in how these ideas are expressed.

For this reason, teaching literature and culture of the German-speaking world is for me a vital step in challenging the conventional concept of “foreign” and an invitation to a further study of the language.

Jakub Kazecki has been promoted to associate professor of German. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

+Associate Professor of Mathematics Katharine Ott

�ֲ��ý academic programs: Mathematics

Appointment year: 2014

Doctoral institution: University of Virginia

Fields of research: Real analysis, harmonic analysis, partial differential equations

Why I teach: I love teaching mathematics in a liberal arts setting because I can engage with students to explore both theoretical and applied aspects of math.

Students at �ֲ��ý study math for a wide array of reasons, and getting to know individuals along with their varied interests makes every class unique.

My favorite moments happen when students move beyond the memorization of formulas and definitions to create ideas and to prove theorems. In classes ranging from calculus to electives and seminars, I enjoy incorporating mathematical software to aide with computations. It is rewarding to watch students gain confidence in programming and to explore technology alongside mathematical theory.

Katharine Ott has been promoted to associate professor of mathematics. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ��ý College)

+Associate Professor of Biology Larissa Williams

�ֲ��ý academic programs: Biology

Appointment year: 2012

Doctoral institution: North Carolina State University

Fields of research: Biological importance of genetic variation, cellular and molecular responses to toxicants

Why I teach: I have been curious about the world all my life, and biology as an academic field lends itself to an unlimited number of questions to be asked and explored.

It is a privilege every day to cultivate curiosity in my students. I especially enjoy the variety of settings in which I am able to teach: the classroom, in my research lab, or in places as remote as the Galápagos Islands. Each setting brings with it new opportunities and challenges to explore the underpinnings of the natural world.

I also delight in the personal relationships that are forged between professors and students at small colleges. As an alumna of a small college that benefited from such connections, I feel as though I am able to pay it forward in my job. It is a wonderfully fulfilling feeling to make a difference in a student’s life.

Larissa Williams has been promoted to associate professor of biology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Promotions to full professor

+Professor of Politics Stephen Engel

�ֲ��ý academic programs: Politics; Gender and Sexuality Studies

Appointment year: 2011

Doctoral institution: Yale University

Fields of research: American political development; U.S. constitutional law; and social movements, particularly LGBTQ sociopolitical and legal mobilization

Why I teach: It has always been important that we, as a faculty, foster learning environments that are nurturing and challenging.

For me, the classroom has to be a place where ideas are challenged and where students must be empowered to rise to the occasion of testing new ideas and taking risks. I am always considering how we can best achieve this, particularly when we work with students who have not yet participated in that kind of educational setting.

The classroom is where I can test ideas, challenge students, and have students challenge me and one another about those ideas. It’s where together we can really think through, in the context of politics, how contemporary policy disputes, constitutional controversies, and unconventional ideas can be understood both in the moment and in the historical context.

Stephen Engel has been promoted to professor of politics. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

+Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies Lisa Maurizio

�ֲ��ý academic program: Classical and Medieval Studies

Appointment year: 1999

Doctoral institution: Princeton University

Fields of research: Greek and Roman mythology; Greek poetry and religious practices in archaic and classical Greece; Delphic divination.

Why I teach:

If you were religious folk,
how would your dramas justify
unmerited suffering?
By what myths would your priests account
for the hurricanes that come
twice every twenty-four hours,
each time I dress or undress…?

So wrote the poet and classicist W.H. Auden, who turned to the ancient Greeks to ask big questions, such as how we understand and justify unmerited suffering. I study the myths and religious practices of the Greeks not because they provide the best answers to these big questions, but because the Greeks in their poetry and on their temple walls offer answers that are beautiful and mysterious and harsh.

When my students and I engage with the Greeks over shared questions, time slips away. On these journeys to the past amid the chaos and sorrows of the present, we are teaching each other the language of our souls and fortifying ourselves for the future.

Lisa Maurizio has been promoted to professor of classical and medieval studies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

�ֲ��ý welcomes new faculty: Katharine Ott, mathematics

Doug Hubley — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 19:00:02 +0000

Katharine Ott, assistant professor of mathematics. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ��ý College)

In July, Katharine Ott taught at a weeklong math retreat for high school girls.

The Brown University retreat was intended to bolster girls’ enthusiasm for math at the age when, research indicates, they often start losing it. The curriculum combined mathematics and computational studies.

“A lot of the girls had not done computer programming,” says Ott, who joined the �ֲ��ý math faculty this fall as an assistant professor. “It was a great environment for them to get a taste of that and to see how mathematics and computation go together.”

Read more profiles of tenure-track faculty new or returning to �ֲ��ý in 2014:

Ott and her retreat students devoted a day to computer imaging. “That was really exciting,” she says, “because they see it all around them.

“We talked about image filters. You know, here they are, using Instagram on their smartphones all day long. But none of them thought that math had anything to do with it.”

Ott is eager to contribute to �ֲ��ý’ strong track record in bringing more women into math, as well as students from other groups underrepresented in the field. She considers that work as much a part of her job as research and teaching. “Women are making slow gains” in the profession of mathematics, “but any way you look at it, women are not equally represented,” she says.

“Obviously there is no clear answer why — otherwise we would have fixed it,” she says. “I certainly want to do what I can to encourage girls, especially middle school and high school girls. That’s an age, perhaps, where we can make a difference.”

Active in the Association for Women in Mathematics, in 2011 and 2013 Ott organized a Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day, the AWM’s longstanding workshop program for teenage girls, at her previous institution, the University of Kentucky.

“You don’t expect them all to pursue math,” she allows, “but if they have a positive experience, then you hope that they’ll go to college and take that first or second math class. Then from there we can keep pushing things forward — and start evening things out.”

A theoretical mathematician, Ott researches partial differential equations using tools from a branch of mathematics known as harmonic analysis. Partial differential equations can be used to understand dynamic phenomena in which multiple factors change at the same time — manifestations of sound, elasticity or heat, for instance.

Supported by a three-year individual investigator award from the National Science Foundation, Ott studies “boundary value” problems. “I know certain information on the boundary of a domain,” she explains, “and I want to see if I can use that information to learn about what is happening inside the domain.”

For instance, if one knows the temperature of the walls, ceiling and floor of a room, and knows the physical laws that govern the transfer of heat, can an equation be devised to determine the temperature at any point inside the room?

Ott relishes the potential for new discoveries in this branch of mathematics — as well as the creative and intellectual challenge of making those discoveries.

As a teacher, she hopes to share the rewards of this process with her students. “You build a foundation of tools and knowledge,” she explains, “and you practice and train yourself to look to that toolbox to enable those leaps of understanding. That’s a hard place for students to get to,” she says.

“So when students can do that, they get very excited, and as their teacher, I get pretty excited too. It’s fun to watch. I mean, it’s very rewarding to make those breakthroughs in mathematics.”

A native of Cumberland, Maine, Ott earned a bachelor’s degree at Middlebury and a doctorate at the University of Virginia. She was at the University of Kentucky as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and an assistant professor of mathematics from 2008 until this year.

Katharine Ott – News

10 pieces of advice, for all of us, from a wisdom-filled �ֲ���ý College Convocation

Build judgment-free relationships where it is always OK to ask questions

Don’t wait to ask questions

Make play out of your work

Talk to people about your work

In seeking truth, seek what’s true about you

Put big questions on hold

Don’t measure your success against the lives and careers of people you admire

Use your curiosity, thirst for connection, and courage to take risks

Disrupt your own narrative

Create community while you search for what excites you

What I Mean When I Say: Katharine Ott and ‘Harmonic’

�ֲ���ý in the News: Sept. 14, 2018

How colleges help students find purpose in their work — The Chronicle of Higher Education

Portland, Maine, is the 2018 Restaurant City of the Year — Bon Appetit

‘Strangers’ creator Mia Lidofsky breaks the mold with queer female narrative — Huffington Post

How Matt Golden started a lunchtime mentorship program in Maine that is reaching New Bedford — SouthCoastToday

Women to Watch: Clayton Spencer, �ֲ���ý College — Mainebiz

Here’s why we need to democratize artificial intelligence — Forbes

David Bowie welcomes Lewiston High students back for the 51st time — Sun Journal

McCain’s straight talk impressed those on the North Shore — The Salem News

The comeback kids: how a struggling public school made the grade — The Guardian

GirlsGetMath engages local high school students — The Brown Daily Herald

French schools say ‘au revoir’ to smartphones — what if the U.S. dialed up a similar ban? — KPCC-FM

�ֲ���ý announces eight faculty promotions, including tenure, for 2018–19

Promotions to associate professor with tenure

Promotions to full professor

�ֲ���ý welcomes new faculty: Katharine Ott, mathematics

10 pieces of advice, for all of us, from a wisdom-filled �ֲ��ý College Convocation

�ֲ��ý in the News: Sept. 14, 2018

Women to Watch: Clayton Spencer, �ֲ��ý College — Mainebiz

�ֲ��ý announces eight faculty promotions, including tenure, for 2018–19

�ֲ��ý welcomes new faculty: Katharine Ott, mathematics