April 2008

John Contreni

Kudos all around

Congratulations to Professor Ximena Arriaga (Psychological Sciences) and Professor Becky Brown (Linguistics and Foreign Languages and Literatures) who were honored at the all-University Honors Convocation as two of the University's six winners of the coveted Murphy Award for outstanding undergraduate teaching. President France Córdova and Interim Provost Vic Lechtenberg also recognized Professor Nancy Gabin, History, as this year's recipient of the College's Excellence in Education Award.

Congratulations as well to all the CLA faculty whose promotions were ratified by the University's Board of Trustees on April 11. Board recognition of their accomplishments in the classroom, community, lab, library, and studio brought to a successful conclusion a process that began last summer and involved primary committees, external reviewers, department heads, deans, and the provost. We look forward to the continuing contributions the "class of '08" will surely make to the missions of the College and the University!

On the very day that that the Board of Trustees was doing its good work, the University witnessed the first ever inauguration of its president, Dr. France A. Córdova. Inauguration events were clustered around the theme of the "Global University" and included contributions by College alumna President Renu Khator of the University of Houston and alumnus Brian Lamb, president and founder of C-SPAN. Professor Valentine Moghadam, Sociology and Women's Studies, contributed to the April 11 panel on Building a New Planet and Lorraine Kisselburgh, a graduate student in Communication and soon to be an assistant professor in the department this fall, participated on the April 11 Serious Games for Serious Learning: Harnessing the Digital Generation panel. Also, Robin Clair (Communication), Dawn Marsh (History), and Melanie Shoffner (English) participated in the Diversity in the Classroom Project discussion. Dr. Beverly Davenport Sypher, Susan Bulkeley Butler Chair of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence, and professor of Communication and associate provost, served in the trenches as co-chair of the inauguration.

The inaugural festivities added special luster to this year's Distinguished Alumni and Outstanding Seniors Banquet, which concluded just as the band struck up for the inauguration ball. The seniors and alumni we honored that evening represent the alpha and omega of the College, a wide range not only of achievements but of life stories that span generations.

And, if April 11 were not significant enough in the life of the College, on that Friday, the Strategic Planning Committee presented its findings to the Board of Trustees. The College's participation in the months-long grass-roots process was active, vigorous, and broadly based. Susan Curtis, associate dean for interdisciplinary programs and engagement, and Bill Harper, head of Health and Kinesiology, showed their mettle as campus leaders. Susan chaired the working group on synergies between science/engineering and liberal arts/social sciences and Bill chaired the group focused on campus design.

The draft of the 2008-2013 strategic plan, titled "New Synergies," is available online. The draft offers exciting new opportunities for faculty, staff, and students in the arts, humanities, behavioral sciences, and social sciences. We will continue conversations in the College in the new academic year about what the new vision of the College and the University holds for all of us.

The global reach of the University implicit in "New Synergies" and in the overarching theme of the presidential inauguration was also demonstrated by the College's Indiana Center for Cultural Exchange. Directed by Professor Don Mitchell (Philosophy), the ICCE brought 12 academic, religious, and civil society Muslim leaders from conflict zones in Southeast Asia to Purdue from April 2-7. While at Purdue, the Muslim leaders gave a public forum on "Muslim Peacebuilding in Southeast Asia," met with CLA professors, and with professors involved in Study Abroad and International Programs throughout the University. The exchange program is called "Religion and Community: A Dialogue." Its goal is to support moderate Muslim leaders and academic institutions working for peace in Southeast Asian conflict regions where Muslims are a minority.

And on the local level, PLACE, the College's engagement initiative sponsored on April 26 a public square forum event on "Food, Communities and Sustainability." As Susan Curtis noted, "Purdue's engagement programs often highlight how the University supplies knowledge to the community, but this is a stellar example of how people in the community are sharing their knowledge through a forum that brings Purdue and the community together."

To conclude on yet another note of congratulation: Professor Brant Burleson, Communication, received the Provost's Award for Outstanding Graduate Mentor on April 25.

Burleson and Contreni

The award was established by the Graduate School and the Office of the Provost in 2006 to recognize graduate student mentors who have had a significant impact on graduate education on campus. Brant is the College's first honoree for this prestigious recognition. It was heartening to note many of Brant's current students in the audience at the banquet honoring him and Professor Andy Weiner, Electrical and Computer Engineering, this year's other recipient of the award.

Sincerely,

John J. Contreni
Justin S. Morrill Dean

NEWS AND RESEARCH

Students filmed Pope's Mass during U.S. visit

Film and video students worked as part of the crew that filmed Pope Benedict XVI's papal Mass during his New York City visit earlier this month.

Five students and instructor Bill Callison, manager for academic outreach at Purdue's Hall of Music Productions, left for New York City on April 15 to prepare to film the April 20 concert and papal Mass at Yankee Stadium. While the Pope spoke, the footage was projected on the stadium's video screens for the audience of 60,000, as well as sent on a satellite feed for television outlets.

The students, who returned April 23, will receive internship credit through the College of Liberal Arts' Film/Video Studies program. More

Service-learning projects gain momentum, funding

The Office of the Provost has awarded $5,000 to two Liberal Arts professors named as 2008 Purdue Community of Service-Learning Faculty Fellows.

Motorcycle safety

The honorees are Marifran Mattson, an associate professor of Communication whose students develop campaigns to promote motorcycle safety, and Dawn Marsh, an assistant professor of History whose students work with Historic Prophetstown to expand Native American educational programming.

"The students enjoy participating in community events, which next semester will include a local motor sports shop's grand opening and a safety information night," Mattson said. "They also get firsthand experience with conducting interviews, focus groups and surveys. Data gathered from these methods will help students learn how to revise current campaign messages to meet the unique safety needs of motorcyclists, drivers of other vehicles, and friends and family of motorcyclists."

Mattson and Marsh will join three other newly appointed fellows and 19 previously named fellows who serve as mentors to other faculty interested in service-learning. More

Politics and sports compete in every Olympic Games

While the Olympics are meant to stand above politics, politics has always been a part of these games, says a Purdue sports historian.

Randy Roberts

"Even the 1896 revival of the modern-day Olympics, thanks to Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, had a political agenda," says Randy Roberts, Distinguished Professor of History. "De Coubertin was trying to raise the profile for France after its loss in the Franco-Prussian War more than two decades earlier. His interest in sports and the Olympics was to encourage the development of French masculinity and international collaboration."

Since then, the Olympics have been the site for demonstrations and the occasional boycott. More

New research shows sleight of hand is not so slight

Typing on a keyboard or scribbling on paper may be similar activities, but there is a significant difference in how the body moves, according to new motor development research.

"In language we start with letters that lead to syllables that lead to words, and we use grammar to put everything together," said Howard N. Zelaznik, a Purdue professor of Health and Kinesiology. "One of the fundamental questions in motor control is whether there is an alphabet that guides movement.

"We wanted to know if discrete skills, which have a definite beginning and end, such as typing, are controlled identically to continuous skills, such as scribbling, which do not have such a clear beginning and end. Or, are continuous movements composed of a series of discrete movements that are knotted together? On both accounts, the answer is no."

Zelaznik was part of research team led by Viktor Jirsa, director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and a professor of movement sciences at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseilles, France, and Raoul Huys, a research associate at the CNRS as well as at the University of the Mediterranean. Purdue graduate students Breanna Studenka and Nicole Rheaume also were part of the team. Their research findings were published April 25 in the Public Library of Science's Computational Biology online journal. More

CLA celebrates Center on Religion and Chinese Society

Purdue's new Center on Religion and Chinese Society will be housed in the College of Liberal Arts.

The new center focuses on religions in Chinese societies, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Chinese communities, says Fenggang Yang, center director and an associate professor of Sociology.

"I am not aware of any other centers in North America that are devoted to studying religion in China," says Yang, who has published numerous books and articles on various religions in China and among Chinese Americans. "But more and more people are taking an interest in this field. There have been sweeping and rapid changes in China, such as industrialization, urbanization and overall democratization, and there is a religious dimension that affects all areas of growth.

"Religious changes in China could have profound impacts on Chinese culture, economy, politics and international relations. So it's important to know about religion in China in order to understand China and its future development. Besides, the Summer Olympics has brought great attention to China, including its religious communities and religious policy." More

Operation Purple Camp marches into Purdue

Purdue has been chosen as a host site for an Operation Purple Camp, a free national summer camp program aimed at offering support in a fun and exciting atmosphere to the children of military families.

The camp, created by the National Military Family Association, will take place June 1-7. Registration is available online through midnight on May 5.

Operation Purple Camps are designed to give military children the coping skills and support networks necessary to better handle the challenges in their lives. Purdue's Department of Health and Kinesiology is planning and organizing the program's activities.

Operation Purple Camp at Purdue is supported by a collaboration between the Military Family Research Institute in the College of Consumer and Family Sciences and the Department of Health and Kinesiology in the College of Liberal Arts. The Purdue ROTC also has collaborated in the camp's development. More

FACULTY & CLA HONORS

Awards given to faculty at Honors Convocation

Several Liberal Arts faculty received awards April 13 during the University's annual Honors Convocation in Elliott Hall of Music.

Murphy Awards

The Murphy is given annually in recognition of outstanding teaching in all phases of undergraduate instruction at the West Lafayette campus. The University's highest undergraduate teaching honor, the Murphy is accompanied by a $10,000 cash award and induction into Purdue's Teaching Academy, which provides leadership for the improvement of undergraduate, graduate, and outreach teaching.

♦ Ximena Arriaga, associate professor of Psychological Sciences.
♦ Becky Brown, associate professor of Linguistics.

Excellence in teaching awards

♦ College of Liberal Arts - Nancy F. Gabin, associate professor of History, Excellence in Education Award.

Provost award

♦ Provost's Award for Outstanding Faculty Mentor - Brant R. Burleson, professor of Communication. He received a $2,500 award. More

CLA names 2008 distinguished alumni

The College of Liberal Arts honored five people as its 2008 distinguished alumni.

Recipients are Joann Pasquale DiGennaro, David Geeslin, Charles L. Jones, Dorothy Leland, and Betsy Turner. They were honored at a banquet on April 11.

♦ DiGennaro is president of the Center for the Excellence in Education in Oakton, Va. She earned her bachelor's degree in communication in 1965.
♦ Geeslin is the superintendent and chief executive officer for the Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis. He earned his bachelor's degree in linguistics in 1989.
♦ Jones is vice president of global product consumer design at Whirlpool Corp. in Stevensville, Mich. He earned his bachelor's degree in industrial design and human factors engineering in 1981.
♦ Leland is president of Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Ga. She earned her bachelor's degree in English in 1971, her master's degree in American studies in 1973, and her doctorate in philosophy in 1978.
♦ Turner is counsel for Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in New York City. She earned her bachelor's degree in communication education in 1977 and her master's degree in communication in 1979. More

Other Honors

♦ Richard K. Thomas, professor of Theatre, Sound Design, and head of Design and Technology, was awarded the Founder's Award by the United States Institute for Theatre Technology. The award is given to organization members in recognition of outstanding and continued service to the institute. He also was inducted as a fellow of the institute, which is an honorary designation bestowed for life upon members who have made an outstanding contribution to the theater and the work of the institute.

♦ Professors Margie Berns (English), Susan Curtis (History), and Robert Marzec (English) were selected as fellows in the Center for Humanistic Studies for spring 2009.

♦ Professor Thomas Rickert (English) has won the Gary A. Olson Award for the best book published in rhetoric and cultural studies for 2007. The title of his work is Acts of Enjoyment.

♦ David Ertmer (Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences) and Rachel Einwohner (Sociology and Anthropology) were selected by the College's Educational Excellence Committee as the two recipients for the Departmental Educational Excellence Award.

Student Honors

Student filmmakers win Digital Cinema Contest

A CLA student received three of the top prizes at the Purdue University Digital Learning Collaboratory's sixth annual Digital Cinema Contest Premiere Night and Awards Ceremony on April 17 at Wabash Landing 9 theater.

The Shelter, submitted by Matthew Byori Mann, a senior in film and video studies from Champaign, Ill., won three awards - Best Narrative, Best Cinematography (by Dan Skubal), and Best Director.

Other CLA winners were:

♦ Bug Bowl by Aaron Black, a senior majoring in Psychology from Aurora, Ind., for Best Documentary.
♦ John Cessna, a 2007 alumnus of the Film and Video Studies Program at Purdue and a current MFA student in studio arts, was recognized for Best Actor in the film, We'll Miss You.
♦ Andrea Morales, a senior in the College of Liberal Arts, from West Lafayette, Ind. received Best Actress for her role in A Dreamer's Rendezvous (trailer).
♦ Paul Laux, a senior in Film and Video Studies from South Bend, Ind., won Best Sound Design.

Writing Awards ♦ English graduate student Chris Feliciano Arnold is a winner of the 2008 Playboy College Fiction Contest for his story "Light, Sweet Crude." The prize comes with a $3,000 award and publication in the October issue of Playboy. Chris also won an honorable mention in the 2007 Atlantic Student Writing Contest. More

EXPERTS IN THE NEWS

Atlanta Journal Constitution –
Democratic presidential contest to end in Republican-leaning states
(Bert Rockman, Department of Political Science)

Northwest Times of Indiana –
How long should criminals live -- even after they're dead?
(Randy Roberts, Department of History)

KCPW (Salt Lake City radio) –
U of U event commemorates MLK's legacy
(Louis Rene Beres, Department of Political Science)

Minneapolis Star Tribune –
Taboo topic addressed on Minnesota high school stage
(Julia Chester, Department of Psychological Sciences)

Tucson Weekly –
Despite its rarified tone, a Tucson poet's debut shows promise
(David Blakesley, Department of English)

Lafayette Journal & Courier –
Giving blood has new rewards
(Marifran Mattson, Department of Communication)

Lafayette Journal & Courier –
Shaping up for summer: Start slowly...
(Steve McKenzie, Department of Health and Kinesiology)

Lafayette Journal & Courier –
Prophetstown focus of summit
(Kristina Bross, Department of English, and Dawn Marsh, Department of History)

Lafayette Journal & Courier –
Endorsements can matter -- and not
(Bert Rockman, Department of Political Science)

Lafayette Journal & Courier –
Energized Democrats having voices heard
(Bert Rockman, Department of Political Science)

Lafayette Journal & Courier –
Students find the message in Ice Pie
(Linda Vanderkolk, Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts)

Other media hits

Two columns by George Avery (Department of Health and Kinesiology) "Pay for performance: Advances in the understanding how provider incentives produce quality health care" and "Emergency medical services: The Disparity Between Urban and Rural Agencies" appeared in Hoosier Times.

Lata Krishnan (Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences) was featured in the "Students play on with earplugs" story in the Advance for SLPs and Audiologists magazine.

Susan Morgan (Department of Communication) was interviewed by Canada's CBC for a story about organ donation.

Story ideas can be sent to Amy Patterson Neubert at the Purdue News Service, 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu