Friday, April 17, 2009

Associate Professor Keith Dede receives two prestigious fellowships

Associate Professor of Chinese Keith Dede has received two research fellowships in support of his upcoming sabbatical leave. One is an award from the Fulbright Traditional Scholar program, which is supported by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). The other is an award from the Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad (FRA) program. This program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and provides fellowships for faculty members to conduct research overseas in the fields of modern language and area studies.

Dr. Dede's research project is "Contact and Change in the Chinese Dialects of Qinghai". Four months in China will allow Dr. Dede to gather naturalistic speech samples from native speakers of Qinghai Chinese dialects, train local researchers in language-gathering and documentation techniques, and work with local scholars on the social history of northeastern Qinghai. Generally, this research approach will allow for the testing of theories of language evolution.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Spotlight on ... student achievement

Tamma Carleton '09, economics major and varsity cross-country athlete from the Class of 2009, has won a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. Tamma competed for the award with student-athletes from Division I, II, and III institutions. Of the 29 scholarships awarded by the NCAA for fall sports, only three went to women cross-country athletes. Clearly Tamma is an exemplary student-athlete who embodies the spirit of Division III athletics. According to the NCAA, the “NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship was created in 1964 to promote and encourage postgraduate education by rewarding the Association's most accomplished student-athletes through their participation in NCAA championship and/or emerging sports. Athletics and academic achievements, as well as campus involvement, community service, volunteer activities and demonstrated leadership, are evaluated. An equitable approach is employed in reviewing each applicant's nomination form to provide opportunity to all student-athlete nominees to receive the postgraduate award, regardless of sport, division, gender or race. In maintaining the highest broad-based standards in the selection process, the program aims to reward those individuals whose dedication and effort are reflective of those characteristics necessary to succeed and thrive through postgraduate study in an accredited graduate degree program.”

Maelia Dubois ’11 has won a scholarship from the German American Society of Portland. She took third place in the 2009 Society Scholarship contest, which rewards achievement in German by high school seniors and college freshman. Twenty-six students from throughout Oregon and southwest Washington participated in the program. They each wrote a two-page essay and took part in a short interview. Essay topics encourage students to examine the expectations Americans and Germans have of each other, while interviews gave committee members a chance to ask students about themselves.

Marie Lafortune ’11 received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. Twenty-three Lewis & Clark students have received this honor since the program’s inception in 1993. The scholarships support “study in the fields of mathematics, engineering, and the natural sciences as preparation for careers in these areas.”

Spotlight on ... faculty achievement

Kellar Autumn, professor of biology, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in support of his research project, “Comparative micromechanics of gecko setae: Effects of rate, substrate, and environment.” This award includes support for NSF’s Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) program.

Two portraits of youth by Debra Beers, senior lecturer in art, were unveiled at an event at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Justice Center. According to the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), it has been collaborating with the staff of Multnomah County’s Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) to provide art programs that involve professional artists working with youth served by the JJC to effect change in their lives. Rather than making art, these youth became the subject of portraits by Ms. Beers.

Naiomi Cameron, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, received a Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The objective of the fellowship program is to aid the scholarly research and intellectual growth of junior faculty (men and women) and improve their chances for success as tenured university scholars by offering support for 12 months of research and writing. The award includes a stipend and funding to attend the Fall Research in October 2009.

David Campion, associate professor of history, received a grant from the Fulbright Scholar Program to work with Universities in Hong Kong on development of their general education curricula. Only five awards were made by Fulbright as part of the foundation’s Building General Education Curriculum in Hong Kong Universities program.

Todd Lochner, assistant professor of political science, along with Dorie Apollonio and Rhett Tatum, is the inaugural winner of the Regulation & Governance Prize for the best article published in the 2007-08 volumes of the journal. Their winning article is “Wheat from Chaff: Third Party Monitoring and FEC Enforcement Actions” (Regulation & Governance, Vol. 2, Issue 2, pp. 216-233).

Peter Kennedy, assistant professor of biology, and Stephen Tufte, associate professor of physics, each received Partners in Science program grants from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. Professor Kennedy will conduct research with Eileen Oppelt, a science teacher at West Linn High School, for the next two summers on their project, “Examining Biogeographic Patterns in the Frankia-Alnus rubra Symbiosis. Professor Kennedy will conduct research with Jo Ann Wadkins, a science teacher at Lincoln High School, for the next two summers on their project, “Observational Investigations of Short-Period Eclipsing Binary Stars.”

Mary Szybist, assistant professor of English, was selected by Poet Laureate Kay Ryan for one of two Witter Bynner Fellowships in Poetry from the Library of Congress. She will also receive $10,000 from the Library of Congress, made possible by a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation The fellowships are awarded to two poets whose distinctive talents and craftsmanship merit wider recognition. In February, Professor Szybist travelled to Washington, D.C. to read her work at the Library as part of the fellowship.

Helping graduates face a difficult economy

On March, 10, 2009, the Center for Career and Community Engagement (3CE) hosted Dr. Phil Gardner from the Collegiate Economic Research Institute at Michigan State University. Dr. Gardner has over a decade of experience researching economic trends and the transition into the workforce from college. He presented to Lewis & Clark students, administrators, students, trustees, and faculty on current economic trends and their impact on the job market for College graduates over the next few years.

With a liberal arts background, Dr. Gardner helped our students understand the competencies they have developed at Lewis & Clark and the importance of these competencies in the job market. His message is summarized in the following abstract of his presentation to students, Make A Successful Transition Even in Troubling Economic Times:

"Unsure how the current economy is going to impact you? While the news looks grim, there are some bright spots in the job market and strategies for success. Dr. Phil Gardner will put the economic trends into context and provide tangible strategies for your success after graduation. He will show you how your liberal arts skills translate into workplace qualifications. All students will benefit from this presentation full of information and resources."

Additionally, Dr. Gardner provided tangible strategies for faculty and administrators to support students with the transition to the workforce.

Latin American Studies at Lewis & Clark

We are in the second year of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellow Foundation to develop a postdoctoral program in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. The postdoctoral fellows teach a slate of courses and conduct research beyond their dissertation work. The main goals of the program are to infuse new ideas into our humanities curriculum and mentor members of the next generation of professors.

In 2008-09 the Latin American Studies Program at the College (with support from the Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies programs) conducted a search for a postdoctoral fellow. The top choice was Dr. Marie Sarita Gaytan, a recent Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Gaytan taught one course in the fall of 2008, “Gender and Sexuality in Latin America,” and is currently teaching two courses “Food, Culture, and Power in the Americas” and a course “Introduction to Chicano and Latino Popular Culture.” The latter two courses were of her own design, in response to her own teaching areas, and areas of interest to others in the Latin American Studies program.

Interdisciplinary science at Lewis & Clark

Midway through the first year of funding from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Undergraduate Science Education Program grant, Lewis & Clark has already made significant progress toward the objectives outlined in our grant proposal. The following early accomplishments demonstrate the additional momentum this grant has given to our science program:

Laddered-research teams: An integral part of our HHMI grant proposal is the development of laddered research teams, which include a high-school student, an experienced undergraduate researcher, and a less experienced undergraduate. Since receiving our HHMI grant, this hierarchical training-model has also been funded by a National Science Foundation Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement Program grant to psychology faculty members Drs. Brian and Jerusha Detweiler-Bedell.

Five Lewis & Clark students have been named to our Student Outreach Leadership Team (SOLT) and are already visiting local high schools to mentor and recruit students for spots on the laddered-research teams. Three of the ten laddered-research teams will conduct research on the Oregon Health & Science University—Oregon National Primate Resource Center near Beaverton High School. SOLT recruiting at Beaverton High has already realized initial success; a diverse group of Beaverton students have displayed interest in joining research teams.

Science Without Limits Symposium: The faculty planning group for the 2009 Lewis & Clark Science Without Limits Symposium has received a verbal commitment to present from Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, an internationally recognized Neuroscientist from the University of California San Diego. The mission of this series is to make innovative scientific research accessible and relevant to a wide audience, and increase participation in the physical and natural sciences among all groups, particularly those that have been historically underrepresented.
Science course for non-science majors: Four senior faculty members from the departments of biology, chemistry, and physics are working together to develop the curriculum for a team-taught science course for non-science majors entitled “Origin of Life and the Universe.” The College Curriculum Committee will review plans for the course this spring, and then further development of the course will occur over the summer. We expect the class to be offered beginning in the spring semester of 2010.

Neuroscience curriculum development: An interdisciplinary group of faculty members have assembled to develop our planned neuroscience program. This group has expanded the aims of the curriculum development to include an introductory class followed by a one-semester laboratory course. Additionally, a new neurochemistry class is being developed by Professor Janis Lochner. We have already advertised for the hire of a Neuroscience Scholar-in-residence to assist in further curriculum development during 2009-2010.

In the areas of neuroscience and outreach, Lewis & Clark’s HHMI grant builds on the relationships developed through a generous grant from the Fischer Family Foundation, which provides funding for the development of a neuroscience program at Lewis & Clark with the assistance of faculty members from the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). The Fischer Family Foundation grant also will encourage a number of students to pursue careers in science and medicine.

As a direct result of funding from the Fischer Family Foundation, Drs. De-Ann Pillers (OHSU) and Gary Reiness (Lewis & Clark) have completed a strong collaborative research project, and their student researcher, Andrew Thomas, is pursuing medical studies at the University of Washington. Drs. Todd Watson and Yueping Zhang from Lewis & Clark and Dr. Alexander Stevens (OHSU) are developing and starting a promising collaborative project.

New faculty members join Lewis & Clark

We are happy to welcome six new faculty members to Lewis & Clark’s College of Arts & Sciences:

  • Christopher Wendt as Assistant Professor of Political Science, with specialization in comparative politics and a focus on European Union countries.
  • Éric Tymoigne as Assistant Professor of Economics, with specialization in macroeconomics and international finance. Dr. Tymoigne will teach courses for the Management Concentration in the Economics Department.
  • Brian Sebok as Assistant Professor of Communication, with specialization in media studies. Dr. Sebok is also an accomplished filmmaker.
  • Bjørn Southard as Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of Forensics, with specialization in rhetoric and debate. Dr. Southard will replace Prof. Steven Hunt as Director of Forensics when he retires in 2010.
  • Paul Allen as Assistant Professor of Mathematics, with specialization in applied mathematics and mathematical physics.
  • Garrick Imatani as Assistant Professor of Art, with specialization in design and digital media.

Click here for a feature about our new professors on the College’s web site.