The Mormon Moment, in Context
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Volume 13 Number 1 Fall 2012 the FlameThe Magazine of Claremont Graduate University The Mormon Moment, in Context: an interview with Patrick Mason, chair of the Mormon Studies program theFlame The Magazine of Claremont Graduate University Fall 2012 Volume 13 Number 1 The Flame is published by Claremont Graduate University 150 East Tenth Street Claremont, California 91711 ©2012 by Claremont Graduate University Director of University Communications GIVING Esther Wiley Managing Editor Brendan Babish Art Director TO CGU HAS Shari Fournier-O’Leary News Editor Rod Leveque Online Editor NEVER BEEN Sheila Lefor Editorial Contributors Mandy Bennett Dean Gerstein Kelsey Kimmel Kevin Riel Emily Schuck EASIER Rachel Tie Director of Alumni Services Monika Moore Distribution Manager Mandy Bennett Photographers Marc Campos Jonathan Gibby Or more important Carlos Puma William Vasta Tom Zasadzinski On August 29, CGU welcomed its largest class of incoming students Claremont Graduate University, in the institution’s history by holding the first university-wide founded in 1925, focuses exclusively on graduate-level study. It is a orientation ceremony. member of the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of seven independent institutions. This was a great day for Claremont Graduate University, and we hope President to build on it by continually increasing the opportunities and support Deborah A. Freund we offer our current and future students. That is why the university’s Executive Vice President and Provost Jacob Adams number one funding priority is fellowship support. Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration By donating to CGU’s Annual Fund, you will not just be assisting the Steven Garcia university, but helping provide an education to students eager to Vice President of Advancement Bedford McIntosh understand how the world works and use that knowledge to make it a better place. Send address changes to: Office of Alumni and Donor Relations Claremont Graduate University Visit www.cgu.edu/giving. Select “Give to CGU” and fill out the 165 East Tenth Street Claremont, California 91711 giving form and payment information. Giving is easy. [email protected] Claremont Graduate University does At this page you can also find information on different ways to give Don’t believe us? not discriminate in its educational programs on the basis of race, color, creed, —including planned giving—and the benefits of donating to CGU. Try it yourself. place of national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability. FPO table of contents 4 President’s Notebook 5 University News 11 Research, Teaching, Outreach paramedic 28 Faculty Achievements 33 Alumni Section Features 14 Someone to Watch Over You 20 The Mormon Moment, in Context (and tell you to get some exercise) An interview with Patrick Mason, the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies In nearly every country in the world, life at Claremont Graduate University. Mason oversees the first graduate program expectancy is rising. Embedded within this devoted to Mormon studies in the world, which not only puts him at the vanguard good news is the distressing increase of chronic of a burgeoning academic field, but has made him one of the most prominent diseases that occur later in life, perhaps most public educators of a burgeoning religion. notably diabetes. While many researchers seek medical solutions to this problem, School of 24 Football, Flow, and Finding Your Way Information Systems and Technology Professor After Tearing an Achilles Tendon Samir Chatterjee has been developing a Athletics and academia often seem like strange bedfellows, but School of technological one. Behavioral and Organizational Sciences’ Positive Psychology student Damian Vaughn is fusing his love for both into a successful post-playing career after 16 A Hunger For Change five seasons as a professional football player. In the early 1990s, CGU alum Badiul Alam Majumdar left his tenured faculty position to 38 Carrying the Flame: After Escape, An Artist Emerges return to his home country of Bangladesh. His Aragna Ker, local artist and Claremont Graduate University alum, was just an work as country director for the Hunger Project infant when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, killing an estimated two has been instrumental in empowering millions— million of their country’s own citizens during their four-year rule. Though he most notably women—and changing the mind- escaped the country while still a child, his Cambodian roots still inspire his set of dependency and resignation. artwork today. t h e F l a m e Fall 2012 3 President’s Notebook Deborah A. Freund – President A Spirit of Togetherness other campus groups for their tireless work in putting on two events worthy of the wonderful students that we welcomed and welcomed back. Cultivating this spirit of togetherness is important for numerous reasons, though maybe none more than that, because we are we are such a small and diverse university, the opportunities for truly integrated, cutting-edge, and impactful research are uniquely potent here. It means sharing ideas across the disciplinary boundaries, learning from other disciplines and creating Sure, it wasn’t a Waterford crystal glass filled with new ideas and new solutions that know no limits. This is expensive champagne, but when I suddenly toasted a a point the realignment is addressing and I think will can of Diet Coke to a group of students last month at greatly enhance our legacy of outstanding research and our annual Graduate Student Council (GSC) Welcome graduate education. Back BBQ—the most well-attended one we’ve ever had—I did it with as much conviction as if I were I was reminded of part of this amazing legacy the other making a toast at a wedding. “A toast to what?” you night as I visited the Art Department’s exhibition In ask. To the amazing spirit of togetherness I saw that Their Own Words: Oral Histories of CGU Art, which night everywhere I looked, and I that have seen celebrated the tremendous creative contributions of developing across CGU. seven CGU alumni and faculty—Roland Reiss, Michael Brewster, Connie Zehr, Mowry Baden, Ted Kerzie, John Because of our size and commitment to working across Frame, and the late and much-beloved Karl Benjamin. disciplines, we were always a tight-knit community: Likewise, reading this issue’s interview with Religion working together, taking classes together, doing Professor Patrick Mason (which I urge you to read research together, and having deeper conversations on page 20), who is doing trail-blazing research on together. But there is a new sense of unity in the air, Mormonism, I see someone who is truly carrying and the recent all-university orientation and student forward this tradition of excellence today, along with BBQ announced this loudly. every one of our amazing faculty members and students Both were tremendous successes. And the turnout was in dozens of different disciplines. amazing, with both venues—Garrison Theatre and Yes, we are a diverse university, but if we can continue Mudd Quad—packed with students, staff, and faculty. I to cultivate this spirit of togetherness, we can be a was really struck by the buzz of enthusiasm and pride model of hope and common understanding for not that I felt from the crowd and heard from students as I only other universities, but the world. talked with them and watched them interact with each other. Psychology students introducing themselves to Here’s to all of us at Claremont Graduate University. religion students, an education professor chatting up an Cheers! aspiring economist, MBAs having drinks with MFAs—it was all so incredibly gratifying to be a part of and I know it means there are great things to come this year and beyond. So much credit for the success goes to the Deborah A. Freund planning committees, Student Services, the GSC, and President Attendees of the Welcome Back BBQ 4 C LAREMONT G RADUATE U NIVERSITY news the university Roy and Carol Christensen create Mormon Studies endowment with $500,000 gift Kay Family Foundation establishes a fund for disability-research scholarship CGU Trustee Roy Christensen and his wife, Carol Christensen, have given $500,000 to in honor of Susan M. Daniels establish an endowed fellowship in support of the university’s Mormon Studies program. The Robert L. Millet Fellowship will fund scholarships and research for CGU Mormon The Kay Family Foundation has established a Studies students intending to pursue careers teaching religion and engaging in related scholarship fund at CGU in honor of nationally research at either the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ institutes and seminaries recognized disability-rights activist and educator or the campuses of Brigham Young University. Susan M. Daniels. The Mormon religion has grown to more than 13 million members worldwide, The Susan M. Daniels Scholarship will be prompting a demand for serious academic scholarship alongside the world’s other major awarded annually to a CGU doctoral student religions. CGU’s Religion programs offer graduate and doctoral students both the widest who has demonstrated particular excellence in Mormon Studies track in the United States and the first endowed chair in Mormon and passion for disability research. Students from Studies outside of Utah. all CGU schools are eligible to apply within The Christensens have supported the university’s Mormon Studies program from its three months of a successful dissertation infancy. In addition to the establishment of the Robert L. Millet Fellowship, they were proposal defense. instrumental in the creation of a $3 million endowment in support of the Howard W. Daniels, who served as a visiting scholar Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies. at CGU’s Kay Center for E-Health Research, Christensen, chairman of the Ensign Group, has served on CGU's Board of Trustees worked tirelessly to achieve social justice and since 2009.