Reach Magazine, Spring 2011

CAN WE IMAGINE PEACE— And then, perhaps, create it? PRESIDENT-DESIGNATE ERIC KALER: Liberal arts are “the reason for a university.” AT 94 SHE’S FIERCE, HONEST, AND A PUBLISHED POET What happened when alumna Lucille Broderson returned to CLA... SPRING 2011 > FROM THE dEan > sUstaining ExcEllEncE with rEdUcEd PUblic rEsoUrcEs Our long, snowy winter has finally drawn to are expanding their internationalization efforts. FEATURES a close, and the burgeoning colors of spring The academic job market for Ph.D.s across signal a long-awaited renewal. Spring in the the humanities continues to contract, despite 8 Eric KalEr namEd nEw U of m PrEsidEnt Midwest also brings the threat of violent strong student interest in these fields, and we Chemical engineer believes the liberal arts are the reason for storms, but some of the greatest storms are in danger of losing a generation of scholars a university. around the country center on the funding of and teachers whose research otherwise would education, especially public higher education, have forged new paths in philosophy, history, 8 cla rEtools for thE 21st cEntUry and strategies state governments are pursuing literature and culture, and religion. Can CLA maintain academic excellence in the face of fiscal to balance their budgets. We read almost challenge? Our blue ribbon committee says yes. The University’s daily of looming deep reductions to higher During the past year, the CLA 2015 Planning education in several states and of proposals for Committee—a group of faculty, staff, and incoming president is impressed. The Magazine of the College of Liberal Arts University of Minnesota dramatic increases in tuition. Public research students I charged in December 2009 to provide By Mary Pattock Spring 2011 universities are, of necessity, re-examining their counsel about the long-term future of our DEAN The success of our University depends on James A. Parente, Jr. priorities and devising new ways to fulfill their college—has been meeting. Its report, issued 10 can wE imaginE PEacE? educational, research, and outreach missions late last fall, garnered much attention across maintaining a vibrant College of Liberal Arts Imagination—one of the liberal arts’ most valuable tools—allows human beings CHIEF OF STAFF Jennifer Cieslak with fewer resources from states whose citizens the college and University for its eloquent as its strong foundation. Without the liberal to transcend present realities and shape the future. Three scholars investigate arts, our deepest knowledge—of ourselves, DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT and economies they were founded to serve. exposition of the centrality of the liberal arts to fundamental components of peace and envision new ways to make it a reality. Mary K. Hicks every great university. our relationships to other cultures, the values By Kate Stanley; introduction by Mary Pattock EDITOR AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF MEDIA & by which we live, and the political, social, and PUBLIC RELATIONS religious institutions that shape our world— Mary Pattock The report outlines steps we must take to ensure that would be sorely wanting. DESIGN With signature programs We WILL Kelly MacWilliams the liberal arts at Minnesota EXcel and disTINGuish ourselVES You, our alumni and supporters, are the best DEPARTMENTS C0NTRIBUTING WRITERS will continue to thrive. It Mary K. Hicks ambassadors for the core value of a liberal arts Kelly O’Brien among our peer insTITUTIONS. emphasizes the need for James A. Parente signature undergraduate, education. Please join with us in promoting 1 sUstaining ExcEllEncE with rEdUcEd Mary Pattock PUblic rEsoUrcEs Kate Stanley graduate and research the liberal arts in Minnesota and beyond. The future of our society and our world depend on By Dean James A. Parente, Jr. PHOTOGRAPHY programs, in which we Everett Ayoubzadeh whether we can make visible the myriad ways Darin Back The changing landscape of American higher will excel and by which we will distinguish Trish Grafstrom education—indeed, of higher education ourselves among peer institutions. It calls for in which the liberal arts illuminate the most 2 fiEld of inQUIRY Kelly MacWilliams complex issues of our time and provide a sure Profs ask audacious questions Patrick O’Leary globally—affects all colleges and universities, building greater connections with external path for resolving them. Where PTSD lives in the brain COPY EDITING both public and private, albeit in different ways. communities and partners in accordance with Tessa Eagan Of the many fields represented at a university, our public mission. (You can read more about Raptors ate our ancestors! Kelly O’Brien Rosenstone to lead MnSCU the liberal arts, especially the humanities, the report in this issue of Reach.) PRINTING Old letters from half-mad lovers Bolger Printing arts, and humanistic social sciences, are being …and more REACH is published twice a year for alumni, donors, subjected to intense scrutiny. The changes we are considering aim to ensure and friends of the College of Liberal Arts. sustainable academic excellence at a time of James A. Parente, Jr. 18 BOUND TO PlEASE Send all correspondence to the editor: Some universities have reduced and even reduced public resources. That challenge CLA Office of Media and Public Relations Dean, College of Liberal Arts An impressive cache of books from “CLA people,” including Vice President University of Minnesota eliminated programs such as classics or actually provides us an exciting opportunity Walter Mondale, Gerald Vizenor, and Michele Norris. Michael Dennis Browne 205 Johnston Hall, 101 Pleasant St. S.E. philosophy that have for centuries been to rethink priorities and devise new ways to Minneapolis, MN 55455 interviews poetry phenom Lucille Broderson (she’s 94). fundamental to a liberal education. Foreign improve research and education as we reaffirm EMAIL: [email protected] CLA ONLINE: www.cla.umn.edu language instruction is being sharply curtailed, our enduring belief in the fundamental value 22 on a PERSONAL NOTE This publication is available in alternative even in commonly taught languages such as of the liberal arts. formats on request. Please call 612-624-0812. German and French, even as many institutions The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity 29 for thE lovE of lEarning educator and employer. By Mary Hicks REACH costs approximately $.61 to print and mail. © 2011 Regents of the University of Minnesota ON THE Cover >> Dance Professor Ananya Chatterjea in the Barbara Baker Dance Studio. Story on page 10. Photo by Darin Back SPRING 2011 reach 1 of inQUiry > nEws and rEsEarch from cla “BeWare the JABBERWock, my son! The AUDACITy of QueSTIONS NEW—QR cODES! Scan one of the quick response thE jaws that bitE, thE claws that catch! Questioning established patterns of thought: that is codes in this issue with your the audacious core of the liberal arts. The Winton bEwarE thE jUbjUb bird, and shUn Chair fosters such audacity, bringing world scholars camera phone and…voilà…! An Hyperactivity in the composite brain image on the to CLA whose work “challenges cultural paradigms left indicates PTSD. The composite on the right shows thE frUmioUs bandErsnatch!” electronic magic carpet whisks brain activity among people who are recovering from and represents important breaks from dominant you to a poetry reading, a the disorder. —Lewis CarroLL, alicE in wondErland patterns of thought.” classroom, a web page. Currently in residence under the program are rEsEarchErs discovEr two such bold thinkers: renowned Somali novelist We’re experimenting with them sitE of PTSD Lewis Carroll could well have been summon- and playwright Nuruddin Farah, and philosopher as a way to make this print ing primeval body-wisdom when he penned William C. Wimsatt. During their three-year BRain ACTIVITy his famous nonsense poem “Jabberwocky.” magazine become a portable residencies they will engage with CLA students and researchers, and deliver public lectures. stage where exciting ideas and First the Minnesota research team discovered It turns out that an early primate, the events from CLA come to life. they could use a special kind of brain scan to Proconsul ape—thought to be an ancestor Farah’s works were identify, with 95 percent accuracy, people with of both humans and chimps, actually was a barred in his native post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Now, as meal of choice for the “jabberwocks” of 16 Just download a QR code reader, Somalia under the they recently announced in the Journal of Neu- to 20 million years ago: the raptors. Siyad Barre regime, scan the code, and watch. ral Engineering, they can actually watch a brain which was known as it experiences PTSD: it becomes hyperactive An archaic mammal called the creodont in the right temporal lobe, which is responsible for its human rights Don’t have a smartphone? apparently enjoyed a good supper of abuses, and he was for memory. Proconsul, too. Visit the web address provided. forced into exile after writing a novel QRs are just faster and Psychology professor Brian Engdahl and his Kirsten Jenkins, a fifth-year Ph.D. anthro- about cross-cultural more convenient. medical school colleague Apostolos Georgo- pology student, uncovered this chapter of love. In Somali and poulos, M.D., used Magnetoencephalography pre-human family history while digging on English, he explores (MEG) to measure magnetic fields in the brains Rusinga Island, Kenya, which, during the themes ranging of 80 people with PTSD; 18 of them were in Miocene age, was a reforested area on the from the patriarchal remission, and 284 were healthy. Many of the side of a large volcano. clan system and sufferers had served in the military in Vietnam, exploitation of Afghanistan, or Iraq. Presenting at the 70th annual conference of women, to the parallels between colonial practices psychology, the social sciences, the history of Benefactors David Michael Winton and the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in and authoritarian regimes in post-colonial Somalia, biology, and the study of complex systems.

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