CLARITY ARTS. HUMANITIES. LANGUAGES. SOCIAL SCIENCES. HUMANITIES. LANGUAGES. ARTS. CLARITY 2016 SELF-EVIDENT? CLA DEAN - TODD SHERMAN I recently reviewed a dissertation and, as part of my job as dean, made comments and asked questions of the author, a Ph.D. candidate. The response I received to one of my questions was “the answer is self-evident.” However, what may seem obvious to some still needs explanation to others outside these experiences. College of Liberal Arts students and faculty alike are tasked to search, explore, question and, I hope, explain topics in the many subjects and disciplines in the college. While for many of us the importance of a liberal arts education appears self-evident, I know from experience that we must continue to demonstrate the importance of a liberal arts degree. Teaching the languages, arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences is the foundation of our future. CLA brings human perspective to every field and is core WHILE WE MAY SAY to a university education. We teach and practice collaboration, intellectual agility THAT IT IS SELF - and problem solving. We use many forms of communication through our study of art, music, film, language, anthropology and more. What we teach and study in the “EVIDENT, IT IS VERY liberal arts is so deeply interwoven into our lives that we often don’t realize how FAR FROM THAT. much we participate in it on a daily basis. Take the act of reading the characters that make up the words of this message. WE MUST REMIND Most of us spent much of our young lives learning to recognize and create the OTHERS OF THE letterforms, numerals and punctuation marks that make up our written language. We arrange them to tell stories, define equations and label objects in our everyday IMPORTANCE OF world. These abstract linear symbols are versatile, flexible in many combinations THE LIBERAL ARTS. and give rise to infinite concepts. They are used to record history, to persuade people to action and to educate, to list a few of the countless uses of these immaterial and wondrous creations of humanity. It is imperative we show others the importance of the liberal arts. This magazine highlights but a few of those stories. Evolution of Game Changer Philanthropy in Empathy Gaming company CLA History, technology invites CLA Your gifts make a 02and academia – 08 instructor to 12 difference the slow road to be a cultural empathy ambassador Model Arctic CLA’s Asian Permafrost Council Studies Farthest north An unprecedented The revitalization literary journal for 06 international 10 of CLA’s Asian 14 writing and the arts learning experience studies program University of Alaska Fairbanks UAF Editorial Board Writer Hannah Hill, an interdisciplinary CLA student, Professor of Linguistics Anna Berge; Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexander Hirsch; Clarity writer is delighted to write for Clarity. She also hosts Hannah Hill; CLA Advancement Officer Naomi Horne; QuantaRadio! on KSUA 91.5FM and is a Adjunct Professor of Music Paul Krejci; Associate founding member of Angry, Young & Poor—a Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature Trina Mamoon; Professor of Art and CLA Dean Todd Sherman; free music festival in Ester, Alaska. Assistant Professor of Political Science, Jeremy Speight. Special Thanks Graphic Designer Our gratitude to everyone in CLA and our colleagues: Heather Foltz, Melody Hughes, Kathy Nava and LaNora Jaden Nethercott is a former CLA student who Tolman; Tia Tidwell for volunteering her photographic now attends Cornish College of the Arts. He talents; Carey Seward for being a genius; and finally, the enjoys doing freelance work and making a UAF Marketing and Communications office, especially Sam Bishop. difference in communities through design. Cover: Kendalyn McKisick, a CLA English graduate student, seen personifying her original poetry. Photo by Tia Tidwell. Inside cover: UAF photo by Todd Paris Editorial & Art Director Naomi Horne is a two-time UA alum who has uaf.edu/cla/ worked in the CLA Dean’s Office for 9 years. Clarity magazine is fortunate enough to publish She spends her days and nights pondering life’s photography by the talented Tia Tidwell, Todd Paris greatest mysteries including how to promote and JR Ancheta. Images are noted accordingly. and find funding for the College of Liberal Arts. The University of Alaska Fairbanks is accredited by the Northwest Commission of Colleges and Universities. UAF is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educational institution. FEATURED CONTENT Fairbanks Four Green Dot Student How CLA’s Brian Creating a Spotlight O’Donoghue dug culture of safety Two outstanding 16deep 21 at UAF 24 CLA students The Way We Dark Winter Hot Sheet Talk Nights Events and CLA’s Anna True tales from happenings 19 Berge’s Unangam 22 Alaska 25 Tunuu textbook ESSAY BY HANNAH HILL # Evolution of Empathy WHAT A CHIMAERA THEN IS MAN! WHAT A NOVELTY, WHAT “ post and blog our daily doldrums for was abolished in America, Ota Benga, A MONSTER, WHAT the whole world to see. What we share a Congolese man, was billed as the A CHAOS, WHAT A is necessarily intimate and ordinary, “missing link” and put on display with messy and undeniably awkward. the monkeys at the Bronx Zoo. CONTRADICTION, Empathy is the ability to understand That level of overtly naked racism is and share the feelings of others. More no longer socially acceptable. However, WHAT A PRODIGY! and more, people are looking at each at the time, most people of relative JUDGE OF ALL THINGS, other and learning to recognize one privilege saw nothing wrong with it another as having valid experiences — the dominate social consciousness FEEBLE EARTHWORM, in life that deserve understanding and did not have the desire to understand REPOSITORY OF TRUTH, respect. It’s an exciting and weird time and share the feelings of humans who to be alive. were put on display. Since the time SEWER OF UNCERTAINTY Human history is a long, bloody of “human zoos”, America has seen AND ERROR, THE GLORY narrative of just how comfortable massive citizens rights movements people have been with not extending in women’s suffrage, labor, civil and AND THE SCUM OF THE empathy to others. Wars, slavery and gay rights. As these enormous social genocide aside, it was not long enough campaigns spread, the idea of shared UNIVERSE. ago that “human zoos” — sometimes empathy seems to have spread with it — BLAISE PASCAL called ethnological exhibitions — were — haltingly and painfully slowly, regularly paraded through Europe and but steadily. North America. These traveling shows The world used to be clearly marked exhibited “exotic” peoples: Hindu snake out by strict social boundaries and We’re living through the early days charmers, the “Hottentot Venus,” Souix, communication limits. Today, it is a of a technological revolution and, in the Apache and Inuit people, and others. much more multicultural place. Earth is middle of it all, it’s easy to forget that it As late as 1906, 40 years after slavery home to seven billion people and, while is a revolution. Dynamic and dramatic, we’re better at it than we ever have been, modern media technology has quickly we still struggle to understand each and fundamentally reorganized the other. In the modern world, empathy way the world interacts with itself. The is recognized as a skill set people must internet, social media and a 24/7 global develop to professionally advance in a news cycle have permanently altered globalized world. Universities make an how people communicate — we tweet, effort to ease the younger generations 02 is actually overreacting. Like much other modern paranoia, the true root seems to be the constant stream of Evolution of Empathy media available to us. Well, that and the very human compulsion to prove that our personal beliefs are absolutely correct. As the early-twentieth century French novelist, André Maurois, said, “everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us in a rage.” Over-hyped accusations from media critics claim that university professors are being forced into curbing course into the idea of cultural sensitivity and content (they’re not) and compulsory racially offensive costumes on campus. identity politics by requiring humanities trigger warnings are being mandated Milo Yiannopoulos, the decidedly non- courses such as sociology and women’s (also not actually happening). Native American Tech Editor for the and gender studies. Other blustering assumptions politically conservative Breitbart News During my most recent run at college, condescendingly mewl about the Network, tweeted a promise to respond I’ve noticed an uptick in the national institutionalized “coddling of to the situation by wearing full “Native media’s misguided concern about an American youth.” American” garb when he speaks at overblown conspiracy on the nation’s There have been instances of Yale next fall. What kind of screaming campuses. College students are portrayed controversial speakers having their demonstration do the students have as unprovoked and hysterical, “shouting campus invitations revoked and, of planned to protest this perceived insult? down” conservative lecturers and not course, there have been incidents According to Breitbart.com, student laughing at old-guard comedians. What wherein campus policies were organizers report that Yale’s Native is the cause of this strife? subsequently reviewed — but those American Cultural Center is planning Political correctness. sorts of large actions are taken by to host an alternative event scheduled at Political Correctness, for the purpose university administrations. Not the same time. It’s shocking, really. of this essay, is the avoidance of words students. Students float change. I am a staunch opponent of and actions that exclude, insult or org petitions, are annoyingly and censorship but do not believe that a marginalize people who are socially ineffectively unruly during events.