News

WORCESTER, Mass. – Visiting Fulbright Scholar Carmen Wickramagamage, who teaches English at the University of Peradeniya and was, until recently, the Joint Coordinator of the Program in Translation Studies at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, is teaching and conducting research at the College of the Holy Cross during the current academic year.

She is one of about 800 faculty members and professionals from around the world who have received Fulbright Scholar grants this year for advanced research and university lecturing in the United States.

Commenting on her Fulbright project — titled “Multicultural America: A Project in Translation” — she said: “I am a great believer in the role translation between languages can play both in highlighting the social and cultural diversities that characterize our world and in achieving a degree of mutual intelligibility and understanding across those differences. Translation also offers much needed relief from the global march of English that is threatening the diversity and difference across languages and cultures.”

In the spring semester, she will also teach a course at Holy Cross titled “Women Writers of South Asia” which will rely heavily on translations.

Wickramagamage has completed work as chief editor on two companion volumes of translations (from Sinhala to Tamil and Tamil to Sinhala) of contemporary short stories by Sri Lankan writers written in the two languages, titled (if they were to be translated into English) “Our Neighbors.”

Among her many published articles are “Unraveling the Story of the Sari” in Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities (2003-04), and “Sri Lankan Organizations for Women: A Critical Appraisal,” in Women and Politics in Sri Lanka: A Comparative Perspective (1999).

Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program is America’s flagship international educational exchange program and is sponsored by the U.S. Department State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Individual Fulbright grants are available for scholars from 130 countries to conduct research, lecture or pursue combined lecturing and research in the United States. Under the Visiting Fulbright Scholar Program, scholars apply in their home country for Fulbright awards.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Two members of the faculty at the College of the Holy Cross have been awarded Fulbright Scholar grants during the 2006-2007 academic year.

Mark E. Lincicome, associate professor of history, will pursue his new research project, “Peripheral Visions: Imagining Asia in Japan and Australia, 1853-1933” at Rikkyo University, Tokyo. Lincicome, who specializes in early modern and modern Japanese history and culture, also received a Japan Foundation Short Term Research Fellowship for this same project. Next month, he will travel to Deakin University, in Melbourne, Australia, to examine archives there as part of the same project, with funding coming from a 2005 Arthur J. O’Leary Faculty Recognition Award he received from Holy Cross. He lives in Holden.

Karen Turner, professor of history, will pursue her research and work on her documentary film, “The Things We Carry: Vietnamese Women Veterans in Voice and Memory,” at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi. Turner specializes in law and human rights in Asia as well as comparative law and women and war. Widely published, she has also produced and directed the documentary film, Hidden Warriors: Voices from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Turner was instrumental in the development of the Asian Studies program at Holy Cross, and is the recipient of several academic awards and honors, including being named the Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., Professor of Humanities (2002-2005). She lives in Worcester.

Lincicome and Turner are two of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.

Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program is America’s flagship international educational exchange program and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The program operates in more than 150 countries worldwide.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross senior Justinas Sileikis has been selected by the College’s Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies as one of two recipients of the 2006 fall semester’s Maurizio Vannicelli Washington Semester Away program award. He will present his thesis, “NATO Expansion and American Grand Strategy” on Nov. 6 at 4:15 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross.

While in Washington, D.C., Sileikis worked as an intern and acting desk officer on Lithuania and Latvia for the Bureau of Nordic and Baltic Affairs at the U.S. State Department. The Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs within the Bureau of European Affairs works to implement U.S. foreign policy in the region.

Sileikis’s talk will analyze post-Cold War American foreign policy through a case study of the NATO accession of the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).

Sileikis is a political science major from Jamaica, Queens, N.Y. He works in O’Callahan Science Library and volunteers for “Social Justice 101,” a program through SPUD (Student Programs for Urban Development) designed to educate eighth grade students about social injustices in the world.

The Vannicelli Prize is awarded each semester in honor of the late Holy Cross political science professor and Washington Semester director, Maurizio Vannicelli, for the best research paper produced in the Washington Semester Away program. Because judges deemed two papers as excellent this semester, two winners were chosen. The recipients of the prize are accorded the opportunity to give a public lecture at the College on their thesis. In addition, the winners receive a bound copy of the theses and are presented the book award during commencement exercises.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross is sponsoring a number of lectures by noted experts in the next month. Unless otherwise stated, the talks, which are free and open to the public, will take place in Rehm Library in Smith Hall on the campus.

Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. — Rev. John Staudenmaier, S.J., historian of technology and editor of Technology and Culture, will give a talk titled “Whatever Happened to ‘Holy Dark’? Electric Lights, Intimacy, and Modernity.” Fr. Staudenmaier will speak on the impact of technology on social life and spirituality.

Nov. 8 at 4 p.m. — Dr. James Collins ’87, professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, will give a talk titled “Building a Bionic Jesuit: Enhancing Human Function with Medical Technology.” Collins was named one of Scientific American’s 50 outstanding leaders in science and technology in 2005 and is the winner of a MacArthur “genius grant” fellowship in 2003.

Nov. 9 at 4 p.m. — Rev. William J. Clark, S.J., assistant professor of religious studies at Holy Cross, will give a talk as part of the “Celebration of Books” series with a discussion on his book, A Voice of Their Own: The Authority of the Local Parish (Cambridge University Press, 2005).  In light of three parish studies, Fr. Clark’s book examines community, intimacy, and authority, and claims that a fundamental aspect of ecclesial authority resides in the local community.

Nov. 16 at 4 p.m. in Smith Hall, Room 201 — Rev. Lawrence Daka, S.J., international visiting Jesuit fellow at Holy Cross, will speak on “Sen’s Capability Approach and His Discontent with Ethical and Economic Theories.” The talk is part of the Philosophy Colloquium series.

Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m. — Michael Berenbaum, director of the Ziering Institute and professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, will give a talk titled “Effects of the Passing of Shoah Survivors: What Happens to Memory When the Witnesses are Gone?” Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher who specializes in the study of the memorialization of the Holocaust. He is the author and editor of twelve books, scores of scholarly articles and hundreds of journalistic pieces.

Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. — Rev. James Bernauer, S.J., professor of philosophy at Boston College, will give a talk titled “Jesuits and Jews: The Holocaust and the Search for Forgiveness.”

Nov. 29 at 7:30 p.m. — Robert Paul Wolff, professor of philosophy and African-American studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, will give a talk titled “The Pimple on Adonis’ Nose: On the Allocation of Social Resources and Medicine in the United States.”

Nov. 30 at 4 p.m. — Dr. Phyllis Zagano, visiting associate professor of Catholic Studies at Hofstra University, will give a talk titled “Twenty-first Century Catholicism: What About Ordaining Women?” Zagano is an expert in the history of the diaconate in the Catholic Church.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Robert Corti, chairman of the board of directors at Avon Foundation, will give a talk titled “Lessons I Have Learned” at the Prebusiness Entrepreneurial Seminar Dinner on Nov. 1 in the Hogan Campus Center, Room 320. The talk begins at 6:30 p.m. and is preceded by a dinner at 5:30 p.m. Registration is necessary. To register for this dinner/talk, please contact Professor David Chu, prebusiness advisor at pre-businessadvisor@holycross.edu.

Established in 1955, the Avon Foundation funds programs for economic opportunity and the physical and emotional well-being of women. Prior to assuming the chairmanship of the foundation, Corti had been employed by Avon Products, Inc., an $8.5 billion global beauty company operating in 60 countries, from 1976 through 2006. He held a variety of positions during his tenure and in 1998 was appointed executive vice president and chief financial officer, a position he occupied until his retirement in 2006.

Corti is a member of the board of directors and chairman of the audit committee of Activision, Inc., a leading international publisher of interactive entertainment software with fiscal 2006 revenues of $1.5 billion. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors of Bacardi Limited, a $4.5 billion international spirits company, where he serves on both the audit and compensation committees. He also serves on the boards of Queens College, Appalachian Mountain Club and Valtarese Foundations and is a member of the Holy Cross New York Executive Council.

Corti received his B.A. in Accounting, cum laude, from Queens College in 1971 and earned an M.B.A. in Taxation from St. John’s University in 1984.

He and his wife JoAnn reside in New York. They are the parents of two adult sons who are graduates of Holy Cross, Robert in 1999 and Michael in 2003.

The Prebusiness Entrepreneurial Seminars provide students with the opportunity to learn about business leadership and the liberal arts by bringing executive-level Holy Cross alumni, parents, and friends from different businesses to campus.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Tune in to “Worcester: Academically Speaking” Oct. 29, at 7:30 a.m. on WTAG 580AM to hear host Jim Hannon and guests talk about The University House project of Greater Worcester Habitat for Humanity (GWHFH). Guests include Pam Faustine, vice-president of the board of directors of GWHFH; Michael Land, assistant professor of English at Assumption College; and two Anna Maria College undergraduates, Stephanie Chiulli and Kayla Lapine. All are volunteers and will join a hundred other volunteers from Worcester area colleges, including the College of the Holy Cross, and the community in building a duplex at 2 Stowell Ave. in Worcester. Construction will start in November. Guests will also talk about student volunteer activities in the Worcester area; community service learning at Assumption, Anna Maria and other colleges; and the remarkable history and successes of Habitat for Humanity, locally and around the world. The half-hour, weekly radio program is underwritten by the Community Relations Committee of the Colleges of Worcester Consortium, Inc.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Baba Brinkman will perform “The Rap Canterbury Tales” on Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Levis Browsing Room in Dinand Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

“The Rap Canterbury Tales” first appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004, selling out most of its run and garnering rave reviews. It is a re-creation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century poem, in which a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury enter into a tale-telling contest.

Every element of the plot closely parallels Chaucer’s original text, but in a contemporary setting. Brinkman plays Chaucer, who is both the narrator and a participant in the pilgrimage. In this case, he is a hip-hop fan who goes to a rap concert and manages to stow away on the tour bus after the show. The rappers, to his surprise, decide to stage a storytelling battle to help pass time on the road between gigs, and each of the tales is an exact retelling of one of the pilgrim stories.

As the narrator, Brinkman/Chaucer attempts to recount the exact experience of the journey word for word, transforming into the various characters to tell their tales.

The event is sponsored by the Visiting Writers Lecture Series, the English department, and the Office of the Dean.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Wangari M. Maathai, world-renowned environmentalist and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, will give a talk titled “The Greenbelt Movement in Africa: Mobilizing Ordinary People to Improve the Environment and Their Day-to-Day Lives” on Oct. 25 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Speaking extemporaneously, Maathai will draw from 30 years of grassroots empowerment work to share an inspirational message — that in order to solve issues facing the poor, people must be empowered with knowledge, skills and tools to take action. The talk will focus largely on what students and colleges can do to solve problems like the ones Maathai faces.

Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which, through networks of rural women, has planted more than 30 million trees across Kenya since 1977. The mission of the grassroots, nongovernmental organization is to create a society of people who consciously work for continued improvement of their environment and a greener, cleaner Kenya.

In her memoir, Unbowed (Knopf), released Oct. 3, Maathai describes her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights, and environmental conservation, efforts that have made her internationally recognized. She is also the author of The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (Lantern Books, 2003).

Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya, in 1940. She is the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree. She obtained a degree in biological sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan. (1964). She later earned a master of science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966). She pursued doctoral studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, where she also taught veterinary anatomy. She lives and works in Nairobi.

In 1986, the Green Belt Movement established a Pan African Green Belt Network, which has taught more than 40 people from other African countries the Green Belt Movement’s approach to environmental conservation and community building. In 2002, she was elected to Kenya’s Parliament in the first free elections in a generation, and in 2003, she was appointed assistant minister for the environment.

Maathai is the first woman in Africa to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel committee recognized Maathai for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. “Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment,” reads her citation. “Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. … Maathai stood up courageously against the former oppressive regime in Kenya. Her unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression — nationally and internationally.”

In 2005, Maathai was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

The event is funded by the Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative at Holy Cross under a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and the Environmental Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies programs.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Timothy Meagher, associate professor of history at Catholic University of America, will give a talk titled “Rethinking Assimilation: Irish Americans and Catholics in America” on Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Talk of assimilation — or more often its failure — is in the air everywhere these days, from discussions over illegal immigrants in America to heated debates over apparent Muslim immigrant separatism in Western Europe. But what does assimilation mean and how useful is it as a concept to understand how immigrant people adapt? Looking back on the history of the Irish and other Catholics in America, Meagher will explore the meaning and utility of the term assimilation, suggest a new understanding of the old notion of the “melting pot” and, in the process, try to explain such important phenomena as the making of Red Sox Nation and why the blue states are blue.

Meagher is the author of several works, including The New York Irish (with Ronald Bayor; The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) and Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880 to 1928 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000).

The event is sponsored the department of history.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Jessica Stern, lecturer in public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will give a talk titled “Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill” on Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center, Room 519 at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Stern’s Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (HarperCollins, 2003) investigates the “how” and “why” of religious terrorism. According to Booklist, “Harvard scholar Stern has probed the subterranean world of devout terror. Her up-close portraits allow readers to glimpse the fierce alienation and the festering grudges that drive desperate men (and a few women) to embrace violent theologies promising earthly paradise and heavenly salvation to all who join their merciless crusades.”

From 1994 to 1995, Stern served as director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, where she was responsible for national security policy toward Russia and the former Soviet states and for policies to reduce the threat of nuclear smuggling and terrorism. Stern earlier worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. From 1998 to 1999, she was the Superterrorism Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The event is sponsored by the Garrity Professorship in Human Nature, Ethics, and Society, the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and the Center for Ethics, Religion, and Culture.

WORCESTER, Mass. – In the wake of the altercation between members of the Holy Cross and Dartmouth football teams following the conclusion of the Oct. 14 game, we have investigated the incident and addressed our concerns to our coaches and players. We will continue to review all aspects of the clash as additional information becomes available.

While emotions naturally flare during close athletic contests, it is incumbent upon all players, coaches and spectators to conduct themselves, at all times, with restraint and decorum. We regret this unfortunate incident. We are dedicated to nurturing an appropriate code of conduct for all our students and staff, commensurate with the mission of our institution. We will continue to insist upon the highest standards of behavior from our student athletes. Poor sportsmanship is never acceptable at Holy Cross. Brawling will not be tolerated.

Holy Cross and Dartmouth have a rich history of intercollegiate competition. Both institutions have a long tradition of commitment to respect and to general decency on and off the athletic field. We regard Saturday’s incident as an aberration and a breach of the customary civility embraced by both colleges. We value our association with Dartmouth and look forward to many years of spirited games in Worcester and Hanover.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The College of the Holy Cross will present “Hogwarts at Holy Cross IX: The Joy of Chemistry” science series on Oct. 20 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom. The event will feature hands-on science activities for the whole family and a spectacular chemistry show by Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, a world-renowned chemist and chemical educator. It is intended for children (through 12th grade) and families in Worcester, particularly the College Hill and South Worcester communities. The event is free.

Shakhashiri, professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is described as “the master of chemical demonstrations.” The Encyclopedia Britannica cites him as the “dean of lecture demonstrators in America.” His scholarly publications, including the multi-volume series, Chemical Demonstrations: A Handbook for Teachers of Chemistry, are models of learning and instruction that have been translated into several languages.

The event is sponsored by the Central Massachusetts section of the American Chemical Society and Holy Cross.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The French section of the department of modern languages and literatures at the College of the Holy Cross is sponsoring La Dernière bande (Krapp’s Last Tape), a play by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). Novelist and playwright, Beckett left numerous works which contributed to define the philosophy of the Absurd. The performance is Oct. 30 at 7 p.m in the Hogan Campus Center, Room 519. Tickets are $3 for students and $5 for the general public.

When he wrote his play Krapp’s Last Tape in 1958, Beckett had already published his text on Marcel Proust and had studied at length the phenomenon of memory. Initially written in English, the play was translated into French by Beckett in 1959 as La Dernière bande. In the play, we meet Krapp on the day of his 69th birthday, who listens to tapes that he recorded 30 years back. Listening to the tapes helps him to reconnect the Krapp of yesterday with the Krapp of today. The character we meet, his silences, his body language, all speak of the man that Krapp has become, a shadow of his younger self.

Claude Beauclair, director of La Compagnie Inter-Europe Spectacles, a Paris-based theater group, will incarnate Krapp. Inter-Europe Spectacles comes to Holy Cross each fall for a performance given in French. Their repertory is comprised of French classics such as Molière, Sartre, Prévert, Flaubert, Sand, Ionesco, and Duras.

Stage direction: Claude Beauclair; costumes: Françoise Mojeret.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Stephanie E. Yuhl, associate professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross, has received another award for her acclaimed book, A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston (University of North Carolina Press, 2005).

Yuhl’s most recent award is the 2006 Willie Lee Rose Prize from the Southern Association of Women’s Historians (SAWH) for the best book published by a woman in any topic or period of southern history. She will accept her award at the Southern Historical Association Meeting in Birmingham, Ala., on Nov. 16.

SAWH is one of the nation’s esteemed academic associations, open to women and men who are interested in U.S. southern history and/or women’s history, as well as all women historians in any field who live and teach at universities in the southern states. In addition to the book award, SAWH sponsors the Southern Conference on Women’s history every three years.

In A Golden Haze of Memory Yuhl chronicles Charleston’s construction of a new civic identity between 1920 and 1940. She details the self-conscious manner in which civic groups, among them the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings, went about determining which parts of the city’s heritage would be remembered and how they would be interpreted for visitors — a process she terms “memory shaping.”

Earlier this year, Yuhl’s book was honored with the 2006 Historic Preservation Book Prize, sponsored by the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va. Judges cited her book as a groundbreaking account of how Charleston came to be saved for future generations, and agreed that her scholarship “will change how the history of historic preservation in the United States is written.”

A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2000, Yuhl has served as a member of the Campus Center Advisory Board; the Community Standards Board; the Cantor Art Gallery Acquisitions Board; and the Curricular Goals Committee as well as both president and vice president of the Holy Cross chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Five academics and one sports professional will reflect on the physics of sports in a regional conference on Oct. 13 and 14 at the College of the Holy Cross. Conference presenters will discuss the physics of sports and athletics, from the dynamics and kinematics of baseballs, baseball bats, and footballs to the variability of sport records to the effects of technology on sports. The conference is a joint meeting of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Reporters interested in attending any of the following events should contact Nikolas Markantonatos at 508-793-2419 or nmarkant@holycross.edu.

Oct. 13 – Talks in Hogan Campus Center

2:15 p.m., Plenary Talk I
“The Physics of Baseball” by Robert K. Adair, department of physics, Yale University

Science illuminates most aspects of baseball. Adair will emphasize the constraints on the game from limits on biological information transfer. He will discuss the incomplete knowledge of the flight of thrown and batted baseballs through the air.

3:30 p.m., Plenary Talk II
“Baseball Bat Research and Regulations” by Patrick Drane, Baseball Research Center, University of Massachusetts at Lowell

The talk will focus on the equipment regulations in baseball and discuss the physics and engineering relating to the bat-ball collision. Drane will describe how and why the equipment is regulated and include aspects of how we test properties of both the bats and baseballs. Topics will include aluminum versus wood bats, corked bats, bat durability, stiffness and mass distribution as it relates to baseball bats, and specifications of the major league baseball including the lack of the “juiced baseball.”

4:30 p.m., Plenary Talk III
“Angular Momentum of the Human Body” by John Di Bartolo, department of physics, Polytechnic University

Movement of the human body in the sagittal plane (the plane which slices the body between left and right) can be simulated with a simple model made up of four rods and a sphere. In a situation where the torque about the center of mass is zero (such as diving into water) the angular momentum of the body about the center of mass is conserved. In a situation where the torque about the center of mass is non-zero (such as jumping or swinging by one’s hands from a bar), the angular momentum of the body about the center of mass has a rate of change equal to the torque. Based on these principles, as the configuration of the model’s limbs changes, the orientation of the model changes accordingly. Using this model, a software authoring application called Director (by Adobe) was used to program simulations for Physics Curriculum and Instruction. The simulations demonstrate the three above-mentioned activities: diving, swinging, and jumping. A user of this software can determine how the “athlete” will move his joints over a period of time, and the resulting motion of the body is shown.

7:30 p.m., Post-banquet Talk
“The Physics of Football” by Timothy Gay, department of physics, University of Nebraska

Gay will discuss a series of one-minute physics lectures given to the 78,000 fans that attend the University of Nebraska home football games. The lecture topics range from gyroscopic motion to ionizing collisions between linebackers and I-backs. The problem of simultaneous edification and amusement of the fan in the stands is considered. Several physics tips for the Crusaders will be proffered.

Oct. 14 – Talks in Haberlin Hall & Swords Hall

10 a.m., Plenary Talk IV
“Sport Technology Policy: The Balancing Act” by J. Nadine Gelberg, Get Charged

Technological innovation can reduce costs and injuries, increase participation opportunities, but can also usurp the challenge of the sport, allow the wealthy to buy victories, and transform sport from a contest among athletes to a championship of engineers.

How can we protect our games from becoming futuristic robotic competitions? How can sports organizations encourage the technology that allows sports to grow while protecting the core challenge and tradition of our games? How can we set limits when we do not know from where the next revolutionary technology will emerge?

Gelberg’s talk will explore how sports organizations can write proactive performance standards to allow manufacturers maximum flexibility in design and materials while protecting those skills critical to the sport.

11 a.m., Plenary Talk V
“The Physics (and Mathematics) of Sports Records” by Beate Schmittmann, department of physics, Virginia Tech

How are records set and broken? Are there simple mathematical techniques which would help us approach this question? Schmittman will present a simple introduction to the statistics of extreme values. Motivated by an example from sports records, she will discuss the distribution, averages and lifetimes for a simplified model of such “records.” Input data are sequences of independent random numbers all of which are generated from the same probability distribution. A remarkable universality emerges: a number of results, including the lifetime histogram, are universal, that is, independent of the underlying distribution.