William Jelani Cobb gives the Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote address at 乐播传媒 on Jan. 18. (Peter Morenus/University of Connecticut)

Why did 乐播传媒 choose “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship” as the organizing principle for its 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance?

“Incarceration materializes and polices the boundaries of black citizenship in formal and informal ways,” explains Chris Petrella ’06, a First-Year Seminar lecturer at 乐播传媒.

“The relationship of black citizenship to incarceration forces uncomfortable questions about the ways in which democracy produces forms of freedom and unfreedom simultaneously,” says Petrella. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies the relationship among race, incarceration, and modern capitalism.

“The prison is the pre-eminent site where the paradox of black citizenship takes on a material form.”

In three days of programming beginning Jan. 17, the college will scrutinize the MLK Day theme through workshops, panel discussions, films, and other activities.

A highlight of the 乐播传媒 observance is an appearance by William Jelani Cobb, a nationally known commentator on race, politics, culture, and history, who will give the livestreamed keynote address at 9 a.m. on the 18th in the Peter J. Gomes Chapel.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque and colleague Chris Petrella 鈥�06, a First-Year Seminar lecturer at 乐播传媒, comment on the 2016 乐播传媒 MLK Day theme, “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship.”

乐播传媒’ programming begins on Sunday, Jan. 17, with events including a 7 p.m. worship service at the Gomes Chapel, and concludes Tuesday, Jan. 19, with the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Read-In at Martel School.

On the Jan. 18 MLK Day holiday, in addition to Cobb’s address, events include:
鈥⒙犅� 聽two sessions of concurrent workshops exploring race, law, justice and reform;
鈥⒙犅� 聽a 3:45 p.m. debate between students from 乐播传媒 and Morehouse colleges;
鈥⒙犅� 聽and a 7:30 p.m. performance by the student group Sankofa, which uses dance, music, spoken word, and more to explore stories of the African diaspora.

Although admission is free, tickets are required for the debate and the Sankofa performance. Ticket information and the full schedule of programming appear on 乐播传媒’ MLK Day homepage.

For further information, please call 207-786-6400.

William Jelani Cobb

Cobb’s keynote address for the 乐播传媒 MLK Day observance is titled The Half Life of Freedom. A staff writer for The New Yorker, where he uses the byline Jelani Cobb, he is also the author of the books The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress (Bloomsbury, 2010) and To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic (New York University Press, 2007).

Cobb is an associate professor of history and the director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut. In his research and teaching, he specializes in post-Civil War African American history, 20th-century American politics, and the history of the Cold War.

Cobb’s writing has appeared in The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, Essence, Vibe, The Progressive, and TheRoot.com, and he has been featured on MSNBC, National Public Radio, CNN, Al Jazeera, CBS News, and other major broadcast outlets.

Born and raised in Queens, N.Y., Cobb was educated at Jamaica High School, Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Rutgers University, where he received a doctorate in American history in May 2003.

Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship

Members of the 乐播传媒 and Lewiston-Auburn communities share their views in the Muskie Archives during the 2015 MLK Day workshop “Perspectives on Ferguson.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

In the United States, race and confinement have been historically intertwined, beginning with slavery and leading to today’s marked racial disparities in incarceration rates. Incarceration, and contact with the criminal justice system more broadly, is a fact of life for many African American males in inner cities.

The U.S. currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with American prisons and jails accounting for 25 percent of prisoners globally.

Moreover, while African Americans represent about 13 percent of the U.S. population, they constitute 37 percent of the imprisoned population.

This year’s MLK Day programming “will help students and guests understand the historic roots of the structures of mass incarceration that are apparent today,” says Mara Tieken, assistant professor of education at 乐播传媒 and a co-chair of the MLK Day planning committee.

“In so doing, they’ll begin to realize that there’s nothing accidental or happenstance about our racialized prison system — these are inequities the U.S. has created,” she says.

“I hope they’ll also come to see the potential for creating a more racially equitable society as they hear from folks living, learning, and working in the prison system.”

More about MLK Day 2016 events

Workshops will explore the “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship” theme from a variety of angles. Providing context are a Jan. 17 screening of the 2012 documentary Broken on All Sides (2 p.m., Olin Arts Center, Room 104) and, the following day, the workshop “Prison 101,” an introduction to the topic (8 a.m., Gomes Chapel).

The intersections of youth, race and the criminal justice system are at issue in three workshops, including a performance of and discussion of a play, performed by residents of the Long Creek Youth Development Center, that examines race through the eyes of incarcerated individuals.

The Monday afternoon debate by students from 乐播传媒 and Morehouse colleges, and the evening performance by Sankofa, are among the best-attended MLK Day events at 乐播传媒.

Zoe Seaman-Grant ’17 of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council and Jonathan Carlisle, Morehouse College Class of 2017, are shown during the 2015 Rev. Benjamin Elijah Mays debate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Taking place at 3:45 p.m. Jan. 18 in the Olin Concert Hall, the Rev. Benjamin Elijah Mays ’20 Debate (named in honor of the 乐播传媒 alumnus who became a mentor to King and president of Morehouse) this year takes on the motion: “To ameliorate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, this聽house believes that police reform is more important than prison reform. ”

Sankofa explores the history and diverse array of experience of the African diaspora through forms of expression including dance, music, theater, and spoken word.

Sankofa’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day production has become a symbol of pride for members of the African diaspora at 乐播传媒, and an educational and diversifying experience for the entire 乐播传媒 community.

Co-directors Olivier Brillant ’17 and Annakay Wright ’17 accept the audience’s appreciation after the 2015 Sankofa production on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, “Black Voice: The Life of Evelyn Ola Johnson.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Titled All That We Are: The Afro-Woman’s Story, this year’s production brings to light the experiences and stories of women of the African diaspora, internationally linked by the theme of storytelling and friendship. An open dress rehearsal takes place at 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17, and the actual performance at 7:30 p.m. on the 18th, both in Schaeffer Theatre. Tickets are required for both.

Roland Fryer Jr. is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard.

At a time of close and passionate scrutiny directed at relations between police and African Americans, a Harvard economist known for pioneering research into racial inequality gives a talk titled Understanding Racial Differences in Police Use of Force on Nov. 8 in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall.

The speaker is Roland G. Fryer Jr., Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard and the 2015 recipient of the American Economic Association’s John 乐播传媒 Clark Medal.

• Tickets for this event are sold out, but some seats will likely be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Considered second only to the Nobel Prize in economic science, that honor is awarded annually to an American economist younger than 40 who is judged to have made a significant contribution to the field of economics.

The AEA praised Fryer for being “bold and fearless” in his use of economic theory and new data, lauded his “creative and entrepreneurial edge,” and credited him with producing “the most important work in recent years on combating the racial divide, one of America’s most profound and long-lasting social problems.”

The event is sponsored by the Office of the President, the Office of Intercultural Education, the Dean of the Faculty, and the departments of economics, psychology, and sociology at 乐播传媒.

“Valuable to Have More Data”

乐播传媒 Associate Professor of Psychology Michael Sargent speaks on value of research being conducted by Roland Fryer on the topic of racial differences in police use of force.

High-profile incidents of police use of force since August 2014 have intensified the national dialogue about race and police work. In his 乐播传媒 address, Fryer will explore, through data from several cities and counties, whether there are racial differences in police use of force. He’ll discuss the preliminary analysis of the research and factors that may account for any racial differences in varying levels of force.

In a 2011 interview with WBUR-FM, Fryer explained that he seeks to do “whatever it takes to understand root causes of disparity in America. I wake up every day . . . [wanting to] understand, how can we make it such that everyone in America has a shot at the American dream?”

Fryer’s best-known research to date seeks to address racial disparities in student success.

Fryer, whose work has been widely cited by the media outlets and in congressional testimony, combines economic theory, empirical evidence, and randomized experiments to help design more effective government policies. When he was 30, he was the youngest-ever African American to receive tenure at Harvard, and he received a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2011.

Fryer’s best-known research to date seeks to address racial disparities in student success. Fryer has shown that while black and white children start out with equal potential for succeeding in school, black children overall fall behind over time 鈥� and discrimination is less to blame for that disparity than it once was.

Instead, explanations for the racial gap include such social factors as the belief among some black students that studying hard is “acting white.” While this phenomenon was long considered an urban myth, Fryer found that, in fact, it’s true: While white students with good grades tend to have more friends than their lower-scoring peers, good grades mean fewer friends for black students.

Based on a study of 40 charter schools in New York, Fryer went on to propose five areas of emphasis that were accountable for 40 percent of those schools’ success with students 鈥� including such steps as increasing students’ time in school and focusing the culture on preparing students for their future.

“He realized the power of economics to study race.”

The teenage Fryer “hung out with a bad crowd,” The Economist wrote in a May 2 profile. “Surrounded by drug dealers and getting into fights, he used to sell counterfeit handbags to make a bit of extra cash. Asked by a friend where he would be at 30, he replied that he would probably be dead.” (In fact, at age 30, Fryer was tenured at Harvard.)

Attending the University of Texas at Arlington on an athletics scholarship, Fryer discovered a passion for scholarship and a voracious appetite for work. He earned an economics degree in two and a half years and moved on to Penn State for a graduate degree. “It was there, early on, that he realized the power of economics to study race,” Stephen J. Dubner wrote in a 2005 New York Times profile.

Fryer is the founding director of the Education Innovation Laboratory (EdLabs), dedicated to providing scientific evidence to support good decisions in education in the United States, particularly those pertaining to minority students and students living in poverty.

Fryer has also worked as the chief equality officer in New York City’s Department of Education. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the Calv贸-Armengol Prize and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

The milky white and gray at center of the image shows smog and fog event over China. The brighter whites at left and right are clouds. (NASA Earth Observatory)

Within two days of its online debut in China last February, the environmental documentary film had been viewed more than 100 million times in that country.

The film also lit up social media, racking up nearly 300 million mentions on , China鈥檚 version of Twitter.

Matthew Auer

The film exposed how the Chinese government and big state-backed companies are driving China’s air pollution to deadly levels. State-run newspapers praised the film, and China鈥檚 minister of environmental protection called it his country鈥檚 Silent Spring.

The robust national conversation was surprising, given China鈥檚 history of cracking down on dissent and its penchant for silencing critics. The free exchange of ideas, however, didn鈥檛 last long.

Stern warnings to media outlets to curtail coverage and commentary on Under the Dome came about a week after its debut. Not long after that, the TED-like video began to disappear online, and newspapers deleted their earlier coverage and commentaries.

But while , BBC and other influential news outlets reported on the censorship, nobody, it seemed, had noticed that censors had moved against Sina Weibo users even before they issued their first censorship directive.

“The government鈥檚 tolerance of dissent in this case was pretty limited, and there was an uptick in the energy and ambition of the censors versus what we normally find.”

A new report co-authored by 乐播传媒 Dean of Faculty Matthew Auer in this fall鈥檚 issue of the journal pulls back the veil for the first time on the social media censorship surrounding Under the Dome.

Auer is an environmental policy expert who has published widely in the areas of climate change politics, sustainable forest management, and foreign aid.

By tapping into “metadata” attached to Sina Weibo posts, Auer and , an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, were able to document that government censorship related to Under the Dome had begun much earlier than anyone had realized.

Co-authored by Dean of Faculty Matthew Auer, a report in Index on Censorship pulls back the veil for the first time on the social media censorship surrounding Under the Dome.

As Auer and Fu examined the Weibo data, two primary patterns emerged.

First, digital images that showed citizens protesting the state鈥檚 role in polluting were censored shortly after they were posted by users.

Second, narrative posts that were condemnatory and that also mentioned the state, were taken down.

“The fact that they took down images of people protesting is no surprise at all,” Auer says. “We鈥檇 expect them to be sensitive to that because demonstrations are thought to be direct threats to public order and the power of the state.”

So while the Chinese government has “an allergy to people trying to challenge authority,” Auer says, “nevertheless, this was a remarkable moment because there was this appearance of openness on the part of the government in allowing this video to go forward.”

The work done by Auer and Fu also found many examples of censors taking down posts that were merely sarcastic or mildly critical of the government. Those kinds of posts are often left alone, Auer said.

“The government鈥檚 tolerance of dissent in this case was pretty limited, and there was an uptick in the energy and ambition of the censors versus what we normally find,” Auer says.

And there鈥檚 evidence that the government also monitored the social media conversation to identify targets for arrest. Auer said he later saw European press reports that identified some of the arrestees, including people appearing in censored digital images.

Auer鈥檚 research partner, Fu, is one of the leading experts on social media in China and teaches at the . He oversees the “Weiboscope” project that used the platform鈥檚 backend computer code to track the activity of influential microbloggers in China.

There鈥檚 evidence that the government also monitored the social media conversation to identify targets for arrest.

Social media鈥檚 power to convene like-minded people virtually, as well as the digital breadcrumbs left behind by the postings, make for rich research material. This has been evident with the role social media played in the Arab Spring and in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Auer said he sees great potential in using social media as a window into the minds of Chinese citizens relating to environmentalism and climate change, two global issues that are greatly influenced by policy decisions inside China.

“In China in particular, you have a country that, based on people鈥檚 decisions and habits – so goes the planet” environmentally, Auer says. “The extent that you can detect people鈥檚 thoughts about climate change through social media, and see how messages are shaped and opinions are formed 鈥� there is increasing research interest in these questions.”

While Auer recognizes the opportunity social media presents for research purposes, it鈥檚 somewhat ironic that he personally avoids social media.

He鈥檚 not on Twitter, doesn鈥檛 have a Facebook account and has, thus far, also eschewed LinkedIn.

“I鈥檓 almost like the doctoral student in the theology program who’s an atheist,” Auer said with a smile, adding “I鈥檓 exploring user-behavior on social media, but not really using it myself.”

“Stand-up economist” and climate-change policy expert Yoram Bauman. (Jon Stahl)

乐播传媒 presents “standup economist” Yoram Bauman in a return appearance with a presentation called Comedy, Economics, and Climate Change at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, in Pettengill Hall, Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

The lecture is open to the public at no cost. It is presented by the economics department and co-sponsored by the departments of geology, politics and psychology; the environmental studies program; the division of social sciences; and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. For more information, please call 207-786-8296.

Bauman’s goals in life, he says, are to spread joy to the world through economics comedy, to reform economics education and to implement carbon pricing. He performs regularly at colleges and corporate events, sharing the stage with everyone from comedian Robin Williams to political and economics commentator Paul Krugman.

Bauman is an environmental economist focusing on climate-change economics and policy. He is the founder of , a campaign in Washington state that is on the verge of putting a revenue-neutral carbon tax on the November 2016 ballot 鈥� the first such ballot measure in the nation.

Bauman lives in Seattle, where he founded Non-Profit Comedy, a series of benefit shows that raised almost $100,000 for local non-profits.

He has appeared in Time Magazine and on PBS and NPR, and is the co-author of the two-volume Cartoon Introduction to Economics (Hill & Wang, 2010), which has been translated into several languages.

Co-authored with University of Washington climate scientist Gerard Roe, Bauman’s academic paper 鈥淐limate sensitivity: Should the climate tail wag the policy dog?鈥� appeared in the April 2013 issue of Climatic Change.

He received a bachelor’s degree from Reed College and a doctorate in economics from the University of Washington. His website is .

U.S. Sen. Angus King.

U.S. Sen. Angus King will deliver remarks titled How Washington Works (Or Doesn’t) in a Civic Forum Series event at聽 乐播传媒 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Sponsored by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at 乐播传媒, the talk is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6202.

The Civic Forum Series invites audiences to contemplate civic, political, and policy issues significant to Maine and beyond. The Harward Center for Community Partnerships supports 乐播传媒 students, faculty, and staff in realizing the college’s civic mission through partnerships that connect the college and the community in mutually beneficial and transformative ways.

King was sworn in as Maine’s first independent United States senator in 2013. He is a steadfast believer in the need for greater bipartisan dialogue and relationship building among legislators.

Beginning his career as a staff attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance, King worked with Maine Sen. William D. Hathaway in Washington, D.C., returned to Maine to practice law, and in the 1980s became involved in energy development and conservation.

In 1994, he was elected Maine’s 72nd governor, at the time the nation’s only independent governor. During his two terms in the Blaine House, he focused on economic development and job creation, and also achieved significant reforms in education, mental health services, land conservation, environmental protection, and the delivery of state services.

He was re-elected in 1998 by one of the largest margins in Maine’s history. A particularly well-known King achievement was the creation of a nationally recognized program to provide laptop computers to every seventh- and eighth-grade student in the state.

King has served as a principal in Independence Wind LLC, has been of counsel to the Portland law firm of Bernstein, Shur, and has taught at Bowdoin and 乐播传媒 colleges.

U.S. Sen. Angus King (shown teaching at 乐播传媒 in 2009) gives a Harward Center Civic Forum talk on Oct. 14. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

He was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1944. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1966 and from University of Virginia Law School in 1969.

Upon leaving the Blaine House in 2003, King and his family spent five and a half months driving around the U.S. in a 40-foot RV. Driving coast to coast and reaching the four corners of the Lower 48, the family covered some 15,000 miles. King wrote about their experiences in Governor’s Travels: How I Left Politics, Learned to Back Up a Bus, and Found America (Down East Books, 2011).

Stephen Engel, associate professor of politics. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Presenting a diverse group of scholars from Yale, Northwestern, the University of Maine and other institutions, 乐播传媒 College hosts the daylong conference Property: Claims to Ownership and Responsibilities of Stewardship in Multidisciplinary Perspective at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St.

Sponsored by 乐播传媒 and the American Bar Foundation, the conference is open to the public at no cost, but seating is first-come, first-served. For more information, please contact co-organizers Stephen Engel, associate professor and chair of politics at 乐播传媒, or Michael Sargent, associate professor of psychology, at sengel@bates.edu or msargent@bates.edu.

The conference comprises two morning panel discussions followed at midday by a plenary address exploring the potential of undergraduate legal studies in the liberal arts context. The plenary speaker is Laura Beth Nielsen, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Legal Studies at Northwestern University and research professor at the American Bar Foundation.

See a complete schedule, presentation abstracts and a compilation of conference presenters at .

Michael Sargent, associate professor of psychology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

The nine research presenters represent the American Bar Foundation, 乐播传媒, Bowdoin College, Chicago鈥揔ent College of Law, the University of Maine, the University of Miami School of Law, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Virginia, and Yale Law School. Faculty from 乐播传媒 and Bowdoin will serve as discussants, facilitating fruitful exchanges between presenters and audience.

“The conference brings to 乐播传媒 original research that assesses the many meanings of property as a material, cultural and intellectual object,” says co-organizer Engel.

“The presentations will evaluate how our ideas about ownership influence, and are influenced by, our racial, ethnic and sexual identities, notions of environmental stewardship, and our sense of responsibilities for historical preservation.

“With the aim of uncovering how a foundational idea in law 鈥� property 鈥� can be newly understood when studied from distinct disciplines, this conference showcases the work of historians, sociologists, political scientists, philosophers, legal scholars, economists, art historians, and literary scholars. In so doing, the conference illustrates how law and legal concepts can be fruitfully engaged within the robust interdisciplinary inquiry that is the hallmark of the liberal arts.”

The eight presentations will explore topics as disparate as:

• the impact on ocean stewardship of Marine Spatial Planning, a process for relating human activity to ocean waters (presented by 乐播传媒 professor Aslaug Asgeirsdottir);
• Black Americans鈥� struggle for landownership in the context of racial apartheid and capitalism in America (Andrew Kahrl, University of Virginia);
• exotic animal ownership laws (Douglas Kysar and Matt Ampleman, Yale Law School);
• and issues surrounding Penobscot Indian rights to islands in their namesake river (Micah Pawling, University of Maine).

In addition to the American Bar Foundation, sponsoring the event are these 乐播传媒 offices and academic programs:

• the Office of the President;
• the divisions of social sciences, humanities and interdisciplinary programs;
• the departments and programs of art and visual culture, economics, history, classical and medieval studies, environmental studies, African American studies, philosophy, politics, psychology, sociology, and women and gender studies;
• and the Office of Intercultural Education.

Assistant Professor of Economics Leshui He. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

Data must be collected and data must be analyzed. But economist Leshui He believes that his field traditionally gravitates more to the latter than the former. And he’d like to see that change.

“It鈥檚 surprising, actually, how much work has been done in developing techniques to dig out more information from the same set of data,” he says. “I was once very interested in these things.”

But nowadays He, who started at 乐播传媒 in August as an assistant professor of economics, is more interested in practicing economics the way natural scientists do their work.

“For instance, my friend in nutrition science will run an experiment for two years and analyze the data two months,” he says, “whereas an economist will get data in half a month 鈥� or even, for publicly available data, a week 鈥� and analyze it for a year or two.”

Meet other tenure-track faculty members new to 乐播传媒 in fall 2015:

• Henry Boateng, mathematics
• Carla Essenberg, biology
• Alison Melnick, religious studies

Professor He comes from Kunming, China, and has lived in the United States since 2006. He earned a bachelor’s in business administration from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, but his first love was for information technology and computer science.

His interest in working with data and mathematical models steered him toward economics, and He received his doctorate in the field from the University of Connecticut in 2013.

“So far I鈥檓 still pretty happy about the decision,” he says.

A microeconomist, He has researched the economics of law and organizations, particularly corporations. A 2014 paper that he has submitted to the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization transfers the traditional manufacturing model of “make or buy” 鈥� today Apple makes its own glass iPhone screens, but it used to buy them from Corning 鈥� to professional services.

In other words, the research explores the business advantages of contracting for, say, legal or marketing services rather than handling those services in house. (A major advantage, He explains, is that the senior members of outside firms more effectively facilitate interactions between their subordinates and their clients.)

He is increasingly studying economic issues peculiar to developing countries. And China is a strong focus. Currently He is exploring peer effects in education in China 鈥� that is, how the academic success of students is affected by the academic abilities of the students around them.

Part of economics’ appeal, He says, is the broad applicability of its methodological toolkit.

“This is very interesting, because in the U.S. there are a lot of discussions about peer effects in student achievement,” He says. “For instance, if a student is sent to a class that has better peers, will that improve his achievements?”

He is working with data from a Chinese middle school (for ages 12鈥�15) that educates more than 4,000 students divided among three grades, each of which is divided, in turn, into 24 academic classes 鈥� “class” in the sense of a ranking, not a course. A student is assigned to one of those classes on the basis of admission test scores.

“The students are always in the same class, always interacting with the same peers,” He explains. “They don’t swap classes and work with other people.

“My experiment is with two very similar students at the beginning of the seventh grade. I have their exam data and background data all the way to ninth grade. From there, I鈥檓 hoping to learn a lot about how the characteristics of their peers and classmates affect their achievements.”

At 乐播传媒, economics is typically one of the three most popular majors (vying with psychology and politics). How does He explain economics’ appeal?

Part of it, he says, is the broad applicability of economics’ methodological toolkit. “It鈥檚 pretty cool, because it gives you all sorts of freedom. From a career development perspective, it doesn鈥檛 matter which particular industry you get into, you’ll be able to make use of economics techniques.”

He adds, “I think economics has an advantage in that it鈥檚 very connected to what鈥檚 going on in society.” He explains that modern economics takes as its research subjects realms of human decision-making that go way beyond monetary decisions.

“You can pretty much write about anything. It鈥檚 fantastic.”

He met his wife, Mengxi Ying, who is also from China, at the University of Connecticut. “We met on the other side of the world” from home, he says. “It was actually quite nice to meet my spouse in grad school. We would never have met if we hadn鈥檛 come here.” They have a 3-year-old daughter.

Why 乐播传媒 for Leshui He? “My department colleagues are wonderful,” he says. “When I visited 乐播传媒, everyone I met was so friendly and smart. That made me really want to be a part of 乐播传媒.”

The question of harm to the health of people living near “fracking” sites is among the reasons that this fossil fuel-extraction process is so controversial. But could fracking have health benefits, too? Fan Dong ’17 is helping Assistant Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft, an expert in health economics, find out.

Fan Dong ’17, at right, is serving as a research assistant to economics professor Nathan Tefft this summer, helping to assess potential health benefits of fracking. With her is a second Tefft research assistant, Mike Varner ’17, who is studying economic determinants of household expenditures on dietary supplements. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

Name: Fan Dong

Hometown: Beijing

Major: Economics and politics

Research funding: Stangle Family Fund Grant for Research in Economics and Law

1. What is your project?

It’s called “Quantifying Health Benefits of Fracking: The Decline of Coal and Air Quality.” As fracking increases the amount of natural gas we use, it could help decrease the coal we use to generate electricity. In that aspect it should help the environment, because the less coal you burn, the better the air quality.

That’s what we’re trying to study 鈥� the amount of electricity generation fueled by fracking related to air quality and to the birth weights of children, because studies say there is a relationship between infant birth weight and air quality.

I thought it was pretty fascinating the first time Professor Tefft talked to me about it. His research is pretty close to our day-to-day lives.

2. What’s your role in the research?

I’m working with the birth-weight data. First I got raw childbirth data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The NCHS natality dataset is huge, containing all kinds of information, such as mother’s residence county, birth occurrence county, birth month and year, delivery method, etc.

Then I cleaned the data 鈥� picked the variables that are relevant to our study, recoded missing values, deleted birth data from outside the U.S., and so on. I created a new dataset that is neat, contains all the necessary information for our study and is ready for further analysis.

I used data analysis software called Stata to do all the data selection. I also spent some time to learn R, another statistical software 鈥� kind of a programming language 鈥� and used it to make a U.S. county map that contains information about children’s birth weights. Then I sent our dataset, along with other summary statistics and the maps I made, to our co-authors, who have the electricity data.

We are collaborating with researchers at the University of Washington, University of Tennessee, and University of California, Berkeley. They’re more expert in fracking and electricity generation, and Professor Tefft is the expert in health.

3. What have you enjoyed about this work?

After doing all this analysis, I can answer a question with great confidence, because I have all the data and I have controlled the process. So it’s not that I feel that X is correlated with Y, but that I can prove it. That’s the most satisfying part.

Also, if we can find something in this project, it could be a valuable topic for my thesis. Because I come from Beijing, and it is well-known for its air quality [she smiles ruefully]. So maybe for my thesis I can use techniques that I learned from this project to do something relevant for Beijing air quality.

4. What would you tell a younger student about the virtues of doing summer research at 乐播传媒?

I’d recommend it for your freshman or sophomore summer. When you devote yourself to a single project, you’ll learn how to do research in this field and all the methods and procedures. It’s a good way to prepare for an internship and for your 300-level courses, and also for thesis.

Lecturer in Education Anita Charles. (Sarah Crosby/乐播传媒 College)

Having both a longstanding interest in India and a winter 2016 sabbatical on the horizon, Anita Charles was thinking hard about a way to mesh the interest with the opportunity.

A lecturer on the education faculty and the director of secondary teacher education at 乐播传媒, Charles wanted to learn more about two aspects of childhood education in India. First, policies and practices pertaining to children with special needs; second, the role of digital technology, particularly how it aligns with literacy education.

鈥婼he’ll get that chance next year after receiving a
Fulbright鈥揘ehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award, 鈥媤hich will 鈥媋llow her to work in India from January to April 2016.鈥�

Here’s how the award came about. As Charles was pondering her sabbatical options, she met a professor of education from India who was working at Maine’s Thomas College as a Fulbright Scholar. Deepika Papneja, an assistant professor of education at Lady Shri Ram College for Women in New Delhi, was a scholar in residence at Thomas from 2013 to 2014.

“It was as if the stars aligned,” Charles says. “We talked about her experience, what she was doing, and where she was from.” Soon thereafter, when Charles learned of a Fulbright scholarship opportunity from 乐播传媒’ external grants office (aka the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance), Papneja agreed to arrange a letter of invitation from Lady Shri Ram in support of Charles’ Fulbright application.

“The process happened very quickly, from meeting Deepika, to learning about the Fulbright options, to applying,” Charles says. The application was approved and she received a Fulbright鈥揘ehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award. (Read more about Fulbright grants awarded to 乐播传媒 people in 2015).

Charles will teach courses in education, child development, and language acquisition at Lady Shri Ram, a unit of the University of Delhi. This first-hand experience with Indian approaches to elementary education, she hopes, will add a cross-cultural dimension to her understanding of literacy and special education.

“They’re interested in possible curriculum development that I might be able to lend my expertise toward,” Charles notes. “And they’ve mentioned my participating in interdisciplinary forums, seminars, and local outreach programs.”

When Charles came to 乐播传媒 in 2004, she brought classroom teaching experience ranging from first grade to adult education, and including 10 years of teaching high school English. In India, she says, “I’m eager to do observations and get some sense of how India approaches public education. And I’ll be working with students who are going into teaching field, so I’m looking at what they’re doing.

‘It’s going to be really exciting to just embed myself in India’s culture and learn about their educational structures.’

“I go in with no preconceived ideas, other than the fact that I believe that they commit, in many ways, to some things that we do in this country 鈥� in terms of wanting to incorporate technology and wanting to have policies that benefit special-needs kids.”

But Charles’ interest in India is personal as well as professional. She and her husband, Chris Gelder, adopted three of their five children from India, and two of the three 鈥攄aughters Devki Gelder, 16, and Malvika Gelder, 14 鈥� will accompany Charles on her sabbatical in the land of their birth.

“I hope that it brings them a new understanding of their own cultural heritage,” she says.

Charles is especially excited about working at a women’s college in India, a nation with attitudes about gender that are quite different from those in the U.S. “I would like to believe that Lady Shri Ram is an environment of empowerment for women 鈥� for their voices, for their presence, for their education, for their futures.”

Charles says, “I expect a lot of the experience to be a challenge, in a very good sense of the word. I think it will push me beyond my comfort zone, and give me a new lens through which to look at Indian education as well as to look at our own education systems in this country.

“It’s going to be really exciting to just embed myself in the culture and learn about their educational structures.”

Charles has a bachelor’s degree in French and education from Dartmouth College, and a master’s in education in human development and psychology, with a focus on language and culture, from Harvard. She earned a doctorate from the University of New Hampshire in the area of adolescent literacy.

Devin Tatro, a junior from Haverhill, Mass., who runs on the 乐播传媒 women鈥檚 cross-country team, intended to give herself a major break from running when she went to Uganda in the fall of 2012 to study sports development in the eastern village of Kapchowra.

Instead, in the course of doing research, she ended up running regularly and organizing a road race for hundreds of Kapchorwa elementary school students 鈥� children lacking a formal athletic program but inspired by Stephen Kiprotich, a runner from their community who won the gold medal in the men鈥檚 marathon at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

For Devin Tatro ’14, helping to organize the first Kapchorwa Kids Race “was really a group effort, a learning experience in delegating tasks and bringing things together.” (Sarah Crosby/乐播传媒 College)

The result, Tatro said in a 2013 Mount David Summit presentation on study abroad, was an experience that unexpectedly combined her interests in anthropology, world travel, and running. It may also help keep alive a dream for some of the children she worked with.

鈥淚 discovered that while physical education is required in the national curriculum of Uganda, these programs are underfunded, much to the frustration of school districts,鈥� Tatro explained.

Subsequently, the head of the school district鈥檚 sports office told her that 鈥渨e really wish that youth in Kapchorwa had more athletic competitions. We have a lot of talent, we have a lot of kids who are passionate about sports, and we have Stephen Kiprotich, who is really inspiring everyone in the area. Everyone wants to be a runner. But there is no track meet, no after-school football [soccer], no gym classes.鈥�

She also met with adult members of the Ugandan National Cross Country Team, who compete at very high levels despite underfunded facilities, programs and training. Tatro saw a way to contribute. 鈥淚 started concocting this dream: What if there was a road race for kids in Kapchorwa, Uganda?鈥�

Community leaders led by Peter Chelangat liked the idea and agreed to help. 乐播传媒 did likewise, providing Tatro a $500 Barlow Grant to help with expenses. And in four weeks Tatro and others organized the first Kapchorwa Kids Race, complete with prizes.

鈥淚t was really a group effort, a learning experience in delegating tasks and bringing things together,鈥� said Tatro.

The event actually became two road races, a 3K and 5K, that took place Dec. 1, 2012, drawing 400 grade-school competitors, divided into boys鈥� and girls鈥� competitions with multiple age groups. The top three finishers in each age group of each division won a stipend for school supplies.

鈥淢embers of the community were extremely excited about the event,鈥� Tatro said after her presentation. 鈥淟eaders and educators especially expressed that they were encouraged to build off the success and to implement further youth sporting events.鈥�

She keeps in touch with members of the Kapchorwa community through email and Facebook, and has heard from the district sports officer that they have started a regional athletics association and hope to make the race an annual event.

She is scheduled to return to Uganda in May, with more support from 乐播传媒 in the form of a Barlow Thesis Grant. She says she really is committed to less running this time around, with research that 鈥渨ill not be concerned with sports development.鈥�

But that doesn鈥檛 mean she鈥檚 totally out of the Kapchorwa dreams race. She explained, 鈥淚 plan to spend time there and look forward to observing the progress and initiatives the community has put forth.鈥�