Contemporary Artist Alexis Rockman to Speak at Holy Cross

Alexis Rockman

Contemporary artist Alexis Rockman will give a presentation titled “Picturing the Unimaginable” on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at 5 p.m. in Seelos Theater at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.  

For more than 25 years Rockman has been exploring the ways in which human activity has had an impact on the natural world through dynamic large-scale paintings which examine themes including global warming and the bioengineering revolution. “His paintings reflect an environmental activism that is politically and artistically charged,” says Cristi Rinkilin, associate professor and chair of the visual arts department.  

Rockman draws inspiration from frequent childhood visits to the Museum of Natural History in New York, where his mother worked, to the jungles of Guyana, where he travelled with artist Mark Dion, to create work in the field that was “based solely on empiricism – on what I could see with my own eyes,” he told Art in America in 2010.

“This is a very exciting opportunity for Holy Cross to present a lecture by Alexis Rockman, who is a major figure in the contemporary art world, and one of the most singular voices in reflecting to us the consequences of our impact on the natural world,” shares Rinklin. “Since his work speaks to a wide audience, both inside and outside of the art world, his visit to campus will provide a rich interdisciplinary platform that will engage the arts, humanities, and sciences in examining the ethical questions put forth in his work.”  

Rockman, who was raised in New York City, received his B.F.A. from the School for Visual Arts in New York, N.Y. He has steadily built an artistic career through his intense fascination with painting as a medium and influences that are diverse and wide-ranging. Rockman cites Harvard scientist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) as an important figure for him, someone who articulated his interest in the intersection of art, science and politics.

The first major survey of his work “Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow,” was recently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. 

Rockman’s paintings are displayed in national and international museum across the world, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, Penn.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, N.Y.; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, Mass.

The event is co-sponsored by the chemistry and visual arts departments, the Cantor Art Gallery, Environmental Studies, the Montserrat Natural World Cluster and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethic and Culture.

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Video: Students Say Studying Abroad Is Invaluable, Transformative Experience


Imagine building recreational facilities and promoting healthy life choices to children in Russia. Or translating poems into English and watching them turn into a book in Italy. Or quickstepping your way to a national ballroom dance title in England.

For Holy Cross students who participate in Study Abroad programs, these projects are not dreams — they’re a reality.

Holy Cross invests in and oversees its own study abroad programs, which integrate students into the intellectual and cultural fabric of their host countries, resulting in an exciting and academically stimulating experience. Students typically study abroad for the entire academic year. In fact, Holy Cross ranks second among baccalaureate institutions in the United States for long-term study abroad programs.

As this video shows, students who have participated in yearlong programs describe them as “transformative.”

Six accompanying videos on the Study Abroad site answer frequently asked questions that students have about studying in another country:

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‘Remembering 9-11 in Central Massachusetts’

In an article in the Telegram & Gazette, Edward T. O’Donnell, associate professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross, reflected on the act of memorializing the tragic events of Sept. 11.

“It’s rapidly becoming a classic memorial,” he said, reflecting on the nature of the day and the ways in which people remember it, such as taking moments of silence, lowering flags, and prayer.

“Eventually it will become like the laying of wreaths at Pearl Harbor,” O’Donnell continued. With the historical ambiguity of the future in mind, he also remarked that eventually, the meaning of Sept. 11 “might fit into a larger narrative that we can only guess what it might be.”

This “Holy Cross in the News” item by David Cotrone ’13.

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Holy Cross Ranks No. 5 in New List of the Nation’s Colleges and Universities

Holy Cross is second among liberal arts schools and fifth overall in a new national ranking that examines how well colleges develop and shape their students, and what becomes of them after they graduate.

“Holy Cross excels at developing graduates who are highly successful, happy and loyal,” says The Alumni Factor, the first college ranking platform to use objective alumni data in rating schools based on how successful their graduates are in their careers and lives.

Based on surveys and interviews with more than 42,000 alumni from over 450 schools, The Alumni Factor measured 15 different factors, including income, net worth, job opportunities, intellectual development and overall happiness.

Holy Cross is also one of only seven schools to rank in the top 30 of all of The Alumni Factor’s 26 attribute lists, including a first place ranking in Spiritual Development among liberal arts colleges.  Holy Cross also ranked highly in College Experience (8th), Financial Success (9th), Friendship Development (12th), Preparation for Career Success (13th), Happiness (16th) and Value for the Money (26th).

Holy Cross graduates “develop deep, lasting friendships with their classmates and have an extremely high regard for their college today,” the new guide says.  The College’s “powerful combination of graduate success, happiness, and broad development puts Holy Cross among the country’s elite schools.”

Other schools in The Alumni Factor top 10 are: Washington & Lee College (1st), Yale University (2nd), Princeton University (3rd), Rice University (4th), University of Notre Dame (6th), Middlebury College (7th), United States Naval Academy (8th), United States Military Academy (9th), and Stanford University (10th).

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Video: Why Is Holy Cross Important to the World?

In a video interview, Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., president, discusses the unique qualities that make Holy Cross one of the nation’s finest liberal arts colleges — and why they helped attract him to Mount St. James.

Fr. Boroughs, formerly vice president for mission at Georgetown University, has served as a Holy Cross trustee since 2008. He assumed office as the 32nd president of Holy Cross in January, succeeding Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., after his successful 12-year tenure.

Fr. Boroughs also talks about how the College’s Jesuit tradition — particularly the value of being a “contemplative in action” — promotes students’ intellectual, moral and spiritual growth, as well as Holy Cross’ long history of producing principled leaders who work in nearly every imaginable field.

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Holy Cross Lecture to Address Trafficking of Human Organs

Scheper Hughes

Esteemed medical anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, the Chancellor’s Professor at University of California at Berkeley, will give a lecture titled “A World Cut in Two: Global Justice and the Traffic in Humans for Organs” on Monday, Sept. 24 at 4:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library, Smith Hall, at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture, sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, is free and open to the public.

Scheper-Hughes, who launched the human rights project “Organs Watch” with three other professors in 1999, spent several years investigating an international ring of organ sellers based in New York, New Jersey and Israel. She interviewed hundreds of third-world organ donors who felt they were taken advantage of, threatened or tricked into donating. Many were left sick, injured, and unable to work or to get medical care. Her findings, which she reported to the FBI, led to a number of arrests in 2009.

Throughout her career, Scheper-Hughes’ research has focused on the anthropology of violence, madness and culture, inequality and marginality and childhood and the family. She is best known for her books “Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland” (University of California Press, 1979) and “Death without Weeping: the Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil” (University of California Press, 1992).

She is an advisor to the World Health Organization and is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Social Science in Princeton, N.J. At Berkeley, she directs the doctoral program in Critical Studies in Medicine, Science, and the Body.

Learn more and find lectures online at www.holycross.edu/mcfarlandcenter.

About the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:

Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College’s commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope.  The Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.

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Political Scholar to Deliver Talk on Federalism at Holy Cross

Marc Landy, professor of political science at Boston College, will give a talk titled “Taking Federalism Seriously” at 4 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 17 in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. His lecture, which is sponsored by the political science department, is part of the College’s observance of Constitution Day and the freedoms it allows.  It is free and open to the public.

Landy is a professor of political science and academic chair of the Irish Institute at Boston College.  He teaches courses on American political development, the American presidency and American federalism. The co-author of numerous books, including “The Environmental Protection Agency From Nixon to Clinton: Asking the Wrong Questions” (1994), “Presidential Greatness” (2000), and “American Politics: The Enduring Conflict” (2003), he has also published several articles and co-authored the Rockefeller Institute Report “Who’s in Charge? Who Should Be? — The Role of the Federal Government in Megadisasters: Based on Lessons from Hurricane Katrina” (2009). A regular contributor to Cognoscenti, WBUR’s online opinion page, he recent published a piece titled “The Ryan Choice: Now a Real Debate.”

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Award-Winning Author and Holy Cross Prof. to Give a Reading as Part of Working Writers Series

Lelia Philip

Leila Philip, associate professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross and award-winning author, will give a reading as part of the Working Writers Series on Thursday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Levis Browsing Room at the College. The event, sponsored by the College’s Creative Writing Program, is free and open to the public.

Philip is the author of four books: “The Road Through Miyama” (Random House,1989, Vintage, 1991), “Hidden Dialogue: A Discussion Between Women in Japan and the United States” (Japan Society Public Affairs Publishing Program, 1992), “A Family Place: A Hudson Valley Farm, Three Centuries, Five Wars, One Family” (Viking, 2001, Penguin, 2002), which was republished in 2009 as a SUNY Excelsior Edition, and a forthcoming collection of lyric essays, “Water Under the Bridge” (Argian Press, 2013).

“A Family Place,” which examines the complex history of her ancestral Hudson Valley farm, is Philip’s celebrated memoir that has been called “an unpretentious, subtly shaded story of the importance of understanding the ghosts and heroes that reside in every ancestral home” by the New York Times and “mesmerizing” by Publishers Weekly. 

Philip, who earned her M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University and a B.A. from Princeton,  is the recipient of the 1990 PEN/Martha Albrand Citation for Nonfiction, the Willa Cather Literary Award for Memoir and Essay, the Victorian Society Publication Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Association of University Women and Radcliffe Research and Study Center.

Philip lives in Woodstock, Conn. with her husband and son. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2003, she is also a distinguished visiting writer in the low residency M.F.A programs at Fairfield University and Ashland University. Fluent in Japanese, her work has been anthologized in numerous books including “Creating Nonfiction” (St. Martin’s Press, 2008), “Japan: True Stories of Life on the Road” (Traveler’s Tale Books, 1999), “Writing Down the River” (Northland Press, 1997).

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‘The problem with political prayer’

In his most recent opinion piece on the Washington Post’s On Faith blog, Mathew Schmalz, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, commented on Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s role addressing both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and how his remarks—which were tailored to the concerns and values of each audience—exemplify the problem with prayer in political contexts.

“Taken together, the blessings Dolan offered could be read as an overview of a contemporary Catholic political philosophy,” he wrote.  “But they do raise an overall question about what prayer in a political context should be about.”

Emphasizing issues such as immigration and poverty with the republicans, and personal values as they connect to policy decisions with the democrats, “Dolan was affirming that religion and religious motivations are not simply private matters but have broad ranging implications for how we think about the political life,” Schmalz wrote.

“But by being so specific, the cardinal did open up the question of whether he was privileging one side or the other,” which is why mixing prayer and politics might be ineffective. “There needs to be a space of silence in order for…discernment to happen,” he continued.

“In the clamor of both conventions, I wonder whether anyone had the space to listen to Dolan, let alone to God.”

This “Holy Cross in the News” item by David Cotrone ’13.

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Italian Organist to Kick Off Annual Holy Cross Chapel Artists Series

Francesco Cera

Italian Organist Francesco Cera, will perform the first concert of the 2012-13 Holy Cross Chapel Artists Series.  The concert will take place Sunday, Sept. 30 at 3 p.m. in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.  The performance is free, open to the public, and handicap accessible.

His program will include music of 16th – 18th – century Italian and German masters.

Cera, from Rome, Italy, is internationally known for his interpretation of 17th- century Italian harpsichord and organ music.  He has performed throughout the world and he has recorded extensively on historic instruments.  A former member of Italy’s highly acclaimed period instrument ensemble, Il Giardino Armonico, he currently directs Ensemble Arte Musica, a vocal ensemble devoted to Italian music.

Cera has served on numerous prestigious international organ competition juries.  He is very active in the preservation and restoration of older organs in Italy and serves as the honorary inspector of historic organs in Rome.

Future performances of the 2012-13 concert series include:

  • Sunday, Oct. 28 – Ann Pilot Hobson, harp; Carol Lieberman, violin; James David Christie, organ
  • Sunday, Nov. 4 – Sylvie Mallet and Marie-Louise Langlais, both organ professors at the Paris Conservatory

For more information about any of the performances in the Chapel Artists Series, please call the music department at (508) 793-2296, or visit the department’s website.

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‘Science Cafe finds winning formula’

Science Cafe

According to the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS), the College of the Holy Cross’ Science Café is one of the best college dining spots in the country. NACUFS recently honored the Science Café with a gold and grand prize in the Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards contest.

Linda Nardella, director of dining services at the College, tells the Telegram & Gazette that the Loyal E. Horton Dining Award is considered the ultimate professional tribute in college and university arts.

While 150 different college eateries were considered for this honor, the Science Café won because of its exceptional menu, design, and its commitment to nutrition and wellness. The Café opened in 2010 and continues to thrive, serving 550 customers per day, including students, staff, and the public.

According to the article, foodie favorites include fresh squeezed orange juice, the Bialy breakfast sandwich, signature soups and hot naan (Indian bread) Panini sandwiches. The barbecue chicken and cheddar cheese is a popular choice, said Nardella.

This “Holy Cross in the News” item by David Cotrone ’13.

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Video: Move-In Day Serves as Perfect Welcome for Class of 2016

Members of the Class of 2016 spent all summer waiting for the start of college — and they were not disappointed.

As students streamed through the gates of Holy Cross on Aug. 25 for move-in day, they were greeted by the welcoming hollers of more than 250 student leaders, athletic teams, alumni, parents and even Rev. Philip Boroughs, S.J., president.

It only got better from there: once they drove up to their residence halls, those same volunteers swarmed their vehicles and moved in the first-year students to their rooms.

Sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s continued into the afternoon for the traditional Mass of the Holy Spirit on the Hart Center Lawn to inaugurate the new academic year. Led by Fr. Boroughs, the Holy Cross community welcomed members of the Class of 2016, transfer students and their families.

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Holy Cross Hires 14 New Faculty Members for 2012-13 Academic Year

The Office of the Dean at the College of the Holy Cross announces the hiring of 14 new faculty members—one endowed chair, 11 tenure-track positions and two postdoctoral teaching fellows—for the 2012-13 academic year. They are:

Stephenie R. Chaudoir (assistant professor, psychology) earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Connecticut, and B.A. from Butler University. Prior to Holy Cross, she taught at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., and was an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the University of llinois School of Medicine at Peoria. She continues to hold an appointment as an associate research scientist at the Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention (CHIP) at the University of Connecticut.  Her research focuses on understanding the psychological, behavioral, and health consequences of having a concealable stigmatized identity including HIV/AIDS, mental illness and chronic illness.  She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Catepillar Inc. Faculty Award for Scholarship, the First Year Faculty Award at Bradley University, and the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Marc Goodwin (postdoctoral teaching fellow, sociology and anthropology) earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in social and cultural anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.A. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a cultural and medical anthropologist who studies Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children and adults. His dissertation “On the Other Side of Hyperactivity” gives close attention and conceptual reflection to the problem of hyperactivity. He recently completed a collaborative research project and article with two gerontologists that examines issues around ADHD, time, and indebtedness in adults over the age of 60.  Prior to Holy Cross, he was the James R. Gray Lecturer in the anthropology department at the University of California.

Ji Hao (assistant professor, modern languages and literatures) earned his Ph.D. in Chinese literature at the University of Minnesota, an M.A. in Chinese literature from both the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California, and his B.A. from Renmin University in Beijing, China.  Prior to Holy Cross, he instructed at the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California, where he taught classes in beginning and advanced modern Chinese, East Asian ethical thought and East Asian humanities. A member of the Association of Asian Studies and the Asian History and Studies, Hao has developed tests and course materials in language proficiency.

Daina Harvey (instructor, sociology and anthropology), a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Rutgers University, earned his M.A. in sociology from the University of Houston, his B.A. in philosophy and economics and his B.B.A. in finance from the University of Texas. His research interests include urban and environmental conditions that result in both acute and chronic suffering, social policy and justice, and marginality; his dissertation focuses on the trauma and suffering of Katrina victims, specifically the cultural and cognitive response to social disruption. He is the recipient of numerous awards and grants including a National Periship Award and awards from The Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy and the Rutgers University Initiative on Climate and Social Policy. From 2008-10 he served as a Presidential Fellow for the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Andre Isaacs ’05 (assistant professor, chemistry) received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. in chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross. Prior to returning to the College, Isaacs was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of California, Berkeley; a visiting research assistant at Genentech in San Francisco; and a graduate research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Holy Cross, he was the recipient of numerous awards and grants including the Presidential Medal of Service Award, the America Chemical Society Undergraduate Award for Achievement in Analytical Chemistry, and was a member of the Holy Cross Board of Trustees from 2005-07. Issacs is from Portmore, Jamaica.

Patricia Johnston (Rev. J. Gerard Mears, S.J., Chair in Fine Arts, visual arts) is a nationally recognized scholar of American art. Her first book, “Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen’s Advertising Photography” (University of California, 1997), won three book awards for its study of the relationship between fine art and commercial photography.  Her edited volume “Seeing High and Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture” (University of California, 2006) compares the depiction of social issues in different media from the 18th to the 20th centuries and has been widely adopted as a textbook in American art courses across the country. She has held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester. Prior to Holy Cross, she was a professor of art history at Salem State University, and holds a Ph.D. in art history from Boston University.  From 2004-10, Johnston directed five National Endowment for the Humanities summer institutes for school teachers, which focused on integrating American art into teaching the arts, humanities, and social studies.  She is currently writing a book titled “Art and Global Knowledge in the Early American Republic,” which will be published by the University Press of New England.

Souleymane Konate (Bishop James A. Healy Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship, mathematics and computer science) earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in mathematics from the University of Central Florida and his B.S. from the Université Dakar-Bourguiba in Dakar, Senegal.  He is one the recipients of the Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference Trainee Award and the American Mathematical Society Workshop on Inverse Problems Trainee Award. Since 2009, he has been a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of radiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.  A member of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, his research interests include medical imaging precisely computed tomography (CT) and single photon emission tomography (SPECT), in which he designs efficient methods capable of reducing the time it takes to image a patient, and/or the radiation dose administered to a patient without compromising image quality.

Elizabeth Landis (assistant professor, chemistry) earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her B.A. from Williams College. Since 2010, she has been the Henson Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment. She is a recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Leah Cohodas Berk Award for Excellence in Chemistry Research, The Charles and Martha Casey Excellence in Materials Research Award, and a Vilas Travel Fellowship. She has published articles in many scholarly journals including ChemSusChem, Chemistry of Materials, and the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Justin McAlister (assistant professor, biology) received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his M.S. from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and his B.S. from the University of Richmond. Since 2008, he served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences at Clemson University, where he and his co-investigator received a National Science Foundation Grant of nearly $450,000 to study the evolution of life histories in marine animals. He has also worked as a marine biologist at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources in Charleston, S.C., and as an environmental biologist at Syracuse Research Corporation in Arlington, Va. His research interests include marine larval and invertebrate biology, evolutionary ecology, and ecotoxicology, and he has been published in many scholarly journals including PLoS One, Evolution, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, and Biological Bulletin.

Olga Partan (assistant professor, modern languages and literatures) received her Ph.D. in Slavic languages and her CACT Teaching Certificate from Brown University, her M.A. in foreign literature from Harvard University Extension School and her B.A. in dramatic arts from the Moscow Shchukin Theater School.  Since 2005, she has worked at Holy Cross as a visiting assistant professor and a lecturer, teaching classes in Russian literature, Russian cinema and elementary and advanced Russian. She is fluent in Russian (her native language), English and French, and has working knowledge of Italian, German and Polish.  She is the author of “You are right, FILUMENA!” (Prozaik, 2012) which was the number one bestselling memoir during its debut in Moscow last month.

Julia Paxson (assistant professor, biology) received her D.V.M. from Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, her Ph.D. from Yale University and her B.A. from Swarthmore College.  She has served as a research assistant professor, a postdoctoral research fellow, and a clinical instructor at Tufts Cumings School of Veterinary Medicine. An expert in developmental and regenerative biology and veterinary internal medicine, she has been published in numerous scholarly journals, including PLoS One, Respiratory Research, and Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

K.J. Rawson (assistant professor, English) earned his Ph.D. in composition and cultural rhetoric and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in women’s and gender studies from Syracuse University; his M.A. in English literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder; and his B.A. from Cornell University. Since 2010, he has been a lecturer in the Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at the University of Kentucky. He is co-editor of “Rhetorica In Motion: Feminist Rhetorical Methods and Methodologies” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010) and he has published several articles.

Jack Schneider (assistant professor, education) received his Ph.D. in the history of education and his M.A. in history from Stanford University, and his B.A. in political science from Haverford College. Since 2010, he has taught at Carleton College as the Robert A. Oden, Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Liberal Arts. Schneider is a former high school teacher and is the founder of University Paideia—a pre-college program for under-served students in the San Francisco Bay Area. His research focuses on educational policymaking and school reform in the 20th century. He is the author of “Excellence for All: How a New Breed of Reformers Is Transforming America’s Public Schools” (Vanderbilt University Press, 2011) and is working on a new book about scholarship in education.  His op-eds have been published in numerous media outlets including USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor and the Los Angeles Times.

Alison Smith Mangiero (instructor, political science), a Ph.D. candidate at Boston College where she also earned her M.A., received her B.A. from the University of Richmond. She taught in the political science department at Holy Cross in the 2009-10 academic year, served as a predoctoral fellow in the Department of Leadership and American Studies at Christopher Newport University and was a visiting scholar at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Most recently she worked in New York City as the director of the Center for the American University at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including a Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy Fellowship, a Jack Miller Center Fellowship, and Boston College’s Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Fellowship.

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Holy Cross Lecture to Consider Implications of Supreme Court Ruling on Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Harvard Law professor and author Randall Kennedy will review the upcoming Supreme Court case on affirmative action, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, and its possible implications for college admissions programs in a lecture titled “The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action” on Monday, Sept. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library, Smith Hall, at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture, sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, is free and open to the public.

Fisher v. University of Texas, brought by undergraduate Abigail Fisher in 2008, asks that the court either declare the admissions policy of the University inconsistent with or entirely overrule Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that race could play a limited role in the admissions policies of universities. Many observers believe the Supreme Court’s ruling will spell the end for affirmative action in college admissions practices.

Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard, focuses his research on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in American life. His books include “Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency” (Pantheon 2011), “Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption” (Pantheon Books 2003), and “Race, Crime, and the Law” (Pantheon 1997). He is currently writing a book on affirmative action.

As a follow-up to Kennedy’s talk, the McFarland Center will hold a fishbowl-style discussion of affirmative action at Holy Cross, and how a Supreme Court ruling could change life on campus, on Monday, Oct. 1 at 4:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library. Margaret Freije, associate dean; Kendy Hess, the Brake-Smith Assistant Professor in Social Philosophy and Ethics; and Thomas M. Landy, director of the McFarland Center, will be among the fishbowl’s featured participants.

The College of the Holy Cross, recently celebrated for its history of recruiting a diverse student body, filed an amicus brief in the case with seven other Catholic colleges and universities. The brief argues that the Supreme Court has long upheld academic freedom, and the institutions’ admissions policies should be protected by the First Amendment.

“Considering an applicant’s race or ethnicity as a factor (but not a defining one) in a holistic review of a student is more than a means of promoting diversity, it enables amici to more fully realize their missions of recognizing the dignity and uniqueness of each person during the admission process,” the brief states.

Learn more about these events and find lectures online.

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‘Tampa Leaders Ecstatic About Results of RNC’

In an Associated Press article, Victor Matheson, associate professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross, commented on the impact of the Republican National Convention on the city of Tampa, and addressed whether the success of such a large-scale event might lead to future economic growth, as local government officials are predicting.

“I don’t know of a single corporation moving their headquarters to a city because of an RNC,” he said, in response to Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn’s claims that the convention would draw new businesses to the area. He also added that because of the city’s increase in traffic, “regular activity and regular tourism disappears,” resulting in fewer benefits to the local economy.

This “Holy Cross in the News” item by David Cotrone ’13.

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Research Team Travels to Wisconsin to Explore Recall Election in American Politics

TITLE “Recall Elections in American Politics.”

FACULTY-STUDENT RESEARCH TEAM Donald Brand, professor and chair of political science, with Conor Cummings ’13, Paul Hovey ’14, and Dodie O’Keefe ’13

WHAT THEY’RE RESEARCHING “Our project examines the rise of recall as an institutional practice in the Progressive Era and studies the implications recalls have for institutional stability and the capacity to govern. Specifically, we have focused on the recall of Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin in response to his controversial measures dealing with civil service unions. We have conducted extensive interviews with individuals heavily involved in the recall effort to determine the strategies that were used by each side and to gather their reflections on the recall practice in light of the unsuccessful effort to recall Walker,” says Brand.

WHAT THE STUDENTS GOT OUT OF IT “My summer research in political science has afforded me the extraordinary opportunity to travel to Madison, Wisconsin to interview politicians, union leaders, academics, and journalists to gain insight into the gubernatorial recall election between Governor Scott Walker and Tom Barrett. The remarkable experience allowed Dodie O’Keefe, Paul Hovey, and I to gain a better understanding of a rare political institution (recall elections). We are currently drafting a journal article we hope to have published with the guidance of our advisor Professor Brand, who we all have learned a great deal from this summer. I hope students will continue to receive the generous support of the Mellon Summer Research Program in the future, because I certainly appreciate the experience,” says Cummings.

HOW DOES HAVING THE STUDENT WORK WITH YOU ADVANCE OR ENHANCE YOUR RESEARCH “The students working with me are great. They have helped to design a set of interview questions, conducted on-site interviews in Madison, Wisconsin, worked on transcribing the interviews, and on writing up the results of their analysis in light of contemporary themes in the political science literature,” says Brand.

WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS WITH YOUR RESEARCH?
“To submit an article to the Pi Sigma Alpha journal of political science, a journal that publishes undergraduate research in political science,” says Brand. “Pi Sigma Alpha is the national honor society for political science undergraduates. We will also be submitting a proposal to attend the Midwest Political Science Association meetings in 2013 to present the students’ work. I will be drawing upon their work in pursuing a book project on the role of initiative, referendum and recall in American politics.”

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In Advertising, Perception is Reality — But at What Cost to Consumers?

TITLE “A Model of Persuasion in Advertising”

FACULTY-STUDENT RESEARCH TEAM Alice S. Hsiaw, assistant professor of economics, with Megan Quinn ’13

WHAT THEY’RE RESEARCHING
“The project on persuasion and advertising aims to explain how meaningless or uninformative advertising claims affect consumers’ perceptions of a good’s quality, and how this affects a firm’s pricing and advertising strategy,” says Hsiaw. “The question of interest is, how can this type of uninformative advertising ‘fool’ consumers into believing that the advertised good is better than it actually is? How does this affect firms’ advertising and pricing decisions, and consumer welfare?”

WHAT THE STUDENTS GOT OUT OF IT “Working as a summer research assistant in the economics department has been a wonderful learning experience allowing me to take part in intellectually stimulating conversations with fellow students and professors,” says Quinn. “I love taking theories and models beyond the classroom and applying them to new, interesting scenarios. My professors have taken the time to teach me the skills necessary for undertaking my own research projects in the future.”

HOW DOES HAVING THE STUDENT ADVANCE OR ENHANCE THE RESEARCH?
“Having student support has been helpful because it brings fresh perspective to a problem. Moreover, having to structure tasks for a student to perform has helped to focus and direct my thinking on how to approach questions,” says Hsiaw.

WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS WITH YOUR RESEARCH? “As this project advances, I would like to explore when consumers might choose to educate themselves in this environment. For example, when will they choose to pay for a third-party authority like Consumer Reports to educate themselves? If firms can choose to direct different advertising content to media sources with different audiences (like Reader’s Digest versus Popular Photography), how does this affect consumers’ beliefs about product quality?” says Hsiaw.

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Researching Laser-Cooled Atoms and How They Could Improve GPS Systems

TITLE “Laser-Cooled Atoms and Magnetic Scattering”

FACULTY-STUDENT RESEARCH TEAM Timothy Roach, associate professor and chair of physics, with Kevin Moran ’13, Craig Richardson ’13 and Katelyn Candee ’14

WHAT THEY’RE RESEARCHING “We use precisely tuned laser light to slow down atoms inside an evacuated chamber,” says Roach. “We have a high sensitivity camera system to view the atoms, and we are trying to get the atoms to scatter off a specially prepared magnetic surface. The surface is a piece of magnetic recording disk, a circle about 1 inch in diameter. By specially prepared I mean that we have magnetically imprinted this disk with a striped pattern. Each tiny stripe is either a magnetic North pole or a magnetic South pole, and the stripes are about half of a millionth of a meter wide. The atoms will come near to the surface but be repelled by the magnetic force due to the stripes. Studying this will give us information about the quantum behavior of the atom scattering, and may have applications to atomic clocks, like those used in the GPS satellite system.”

WHAT THE STUDENTS GOT OUT OF IT “By conducting research in a field which you are truly interested, you are delving deeper into that subject than simply participating in class. In the lab you not only get to witness the theory and mathematics taught in the classroom at work, but you develop invaluable problem solving, communication, and technical skills that can be carried on to any field of work or study after Holy Cross. The program has been an integral part of our undergraduate studies and time at Holy Cross,” Moran says.

HOW DOES HAVING THE STUDENT ADVANCE OR ENHANCE THE RESEARCH? “In addition to the students’ direct contribution to lab work, a great benefit is that we become a small research community, working together and learning. The shared enjoyment and appreciation of the progress we make is a real motivator,” Roach says, “just as it is for scientists throughout the world.”

WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS WITH YOUR RESEARCH? “We are interested in seeing how exactly these atoms will scatter once they come into contact with the magnetic surface. We’ve prepared everything to be ready for the atoms to be brought to the magnetic recording disk, but we haven’t actually scattered them from it. Once we’ve done that, the next step will be to try to manipulate the direction of the atoms using scattering,” says Roach.

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Does the Dodo Deserve Its Bad Rap?

TITLE “CSI Dodo: Dismantling and Digitizing the Dodo”

FACULTY-STUDENT RESEARCH TEAM Leon Claessens, associate professor of biology, with Andrew Biedlingmaier ’13, Gregory Monfette ’13, Jaclyn Vignati ’14 and lab technician Jennifer Leavitt ’12

WHAT THEY’RE RESEARCHING The students are working on the Aves 3D project, an online database of bones in the skeletons of living, recently extinct and fossil birds. This summer they focused on the evolution of the dodo, a large, flightless bird that went extinct in the 1600’s. “We have been dismantling 3D scans of two rare dodo skeletons we made last year so that we can finely edit each bone of the dodo individually,” says Biedlingmaier. “Then, we digitally reassemble the bones of the dodo in an anatomically correct fashion. We use 3D laser surface scanners and editing software to create digital models of bird bones that we borrow from the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Yale Peabody Museum. Using these 3D models on our database helps us to take precise measurements and compare bone morphology across bird families in ways that would be impossible or at least extremely time consuming if working with actual bones.”

WHAT THE STUDENTS GOT OUT OF IT Claessens has been working abroad at the Naturalis Centre for Biodiversity in the Netherlands this past school year. The students communicated with him via Skype. “Our professor has not been readily available this summer, so we’ve had to assume a greater degree of independence in learning to troubleshoot technical issues regarding our 3D models and our database. At the beginning of the summer we didn’t exactly know how to use our lab’s software to isolate single bones from an otherwise complete skeleton. Through much trial and error, we’ve been successful in segmenting these skeletons,” Biedlingmaier says.

HOW DO STUDENTS ADVANCE OR ENHANCE THE RESEARCH? “The students are an integral part of the research we undertake on bird anatomy. The 3D work is very labor intensive and without the extra manpower we would not be able to collect and edit so much data in such a short time frame,” Claessens says.

WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS WITH YOUR RESEARCH? The research team has placed an order to have important dodo bones printed in 3D. They will not only have digital models of this bird, but actual plastic models of selected bones as well that they can compare with other bones. “We’re interested to learn how the dodo might have walked or even ran. The dodo has a reputation as a rather clumsy flightless bird, but this reputation may be undeserved. By meticulously articulating the skeleton of the dodo, and — for the first time since 1872 and with much better evidence — reconstructing muscle mass and guts, we can determine where the center of gravity of the bird may have been positioned. This is a crucial first step in our computer-based investigation of dodo motion,” says Claessens.

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Holy Cross Students to Present Summer Research at Annual Symposium

Nearly 120 Holy Cross students who conducted research during the summer will present their work in poster form at the Undergraduate Summer Research Symposium on Sept. 7 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom.

The symposium will include about 88 poster presentations featuring research conducted by students and faculty in the departments of math and computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology and anthropology, and economics, and about 30 poster presentations from students who conducted research off campus.

Now in its nineteenth year, the symposium is a college-wide event that brings faculty and students together from all disciplines at Holy Cross, and provides an opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments as well as those of their friends and colleagues. It is also a way for students to witness the breadth of research possibilities on and off campus, and to open a dialogue with a faculty member about conducting research during the upcoming academic year and summer.

The summer research projects were made possible through a mix of funding sources, including contributions from alumni and parents.

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