Campus Currents The ebb and flow of the UNH community sco tt ya T es ’07 sTaGe DIRECTION: Wildacts performers, front left to right, are emily briand, eric barron, ananda deMaio, Kristianna smith and lisa McGurn. in back, from left, are Katharine Mooney, Michele Act Like Me Whalen, chris Hoerner and robin Fowler. a social change troupe shows how choices matter n a clear night at the end of August, the UNH campus Most important to the troupe, says Holt-Shannon, “is con- is calm and serene. A few early-bird students are veying the importance of things like taking care of each other, Ohauling beds into off-campus apartments. But near claiming their education, making the most of their time at UNH, the Paul Creative Arts Center, a loud bang suddenly pierces being a part of the learning community, and that the choices the silence. they make matter.” “Come on, baby, loosen up!” hollers Robin Fowler ’09, as Senior Mallory Triest saw the show as a freshman and later he lifts and slams down a stool in center stage. A dozen students joined the troupe. “We’re using theater as a means of education,” circle around him. “She invited me into her room,” yells Bartley Triest says, “which I think is one of its most powerful aspects Mullin ’09. “She made a point to ask her roommate to leave. as an art form.” Come on, this is college!” Mullin stares angrily at Emily Briand —Priti Prabhakar ’04 ’09, sitting a safe distance away. Katharine Mooney ’09 deliv- ers the punchline: “You think your dorm is a safe place, but something like 60 percent of all sexual assaults happen where oNliNe daTabases For alUMNi the victim lives.” Briand and Mullin play the victim and perpetrator, respec- it’s not just recent graduates of UNH who suffer the pangs tively, in this sketch about sexual assault performed by WildActs, of withdrawal from online databases when they leave UNH’s social change theater troupe. They’ll reprise the sketch campus: other alumni know what they’re missing, too. for the incoming freshmen the following week, along with ad- susan Janssen ’84, ’87G, a math education curriculum ditional scenarios covering alcohol, safety, eating disorders, developer in Newton, Mass., would love to access online homophobia, dating violence and making friends—issues that journals and “help teachers apply research directly to many students in the audience may find themselves facing in the their instruction.” Now, an agreement between the UNH coming months. library and the UNH alumni association will give alumni Founded in 2000, WildActs members initially worked with free online access to more than 4,200 online full-text bought scripts, but since their second year, the students have been journals and magazines, and index and abstract versions writing, producing and directing the show themselves, says adviser of 12,000 more. The databases are provided by EBSCO, Michele Holt-Shannon, assistant director of the UNH Discovery where Tim collins ’85 is vice president. To access the data- Program. The troupe also works with theater professor David bases, visit www.alumni.unh.edu/library/. Kaye, who provides feedback on their method and training. 6 • University of New Hampshire Magazine • Fall 2007 The ebb and flow of the UNH community odisc T o H P WHiTT, We HARDLY KNoW YA: as the fall semester began, Fox lower level became a spin room and press filing center with News arrived on campus to transform the Whittemore center banks of phones and internet connections for 150 members of for a sept. 5 republican presidential debate. The arena floor the media. Fox News later reported that more than 3.14 million was turned into the debate hall, and basketball courts on the viewers watched the debate. You There, the Professor in the Back Row ome professors write or do research learned from each other, and when they and Thomas’s course in the spring of his during their sabbatical year. Com- couldn’t figure something out, they came own sabbatical year. He and Bergeron, Sputer science professors Dan to Dan and me. They were always drag- together with computer science graduate Bergeron and Philip Hatcher sat in the ging new material out of us.” student Morel Henley ’05, then collabo- back of a UNH classroom, taking courses Class projects focused on newly avail- rated with microbiologist Vaughn Cooper ic ic services along with other students. able genome data for the freshwater crus- on his study of the pathogens Burkhold- PH ra W hat they wanted to learn was how to tacean Daphnia. The result was “a major eria. Some Burkholderia are bioremedial G o T o speak a new language—genetics. genome-wide analysis of genetic varia- agents that displace known toxic chemi- PH Three years ago, Bergeron enrolled in tion,” says Thomas, the results of which cals, but others are potential pathogens /UNH several biology courses, including Envi- will be published. for patients with cystic fibrosis and others TH i ronmental Genomics, taught by W. Kelley Hatcher, looking for ways that his ex- with immune system deficiencies. The goal M Thomas, associate professor of biochem- pertise in parallel computing might be use- was to separate the helpful Burkholderia erry s istry. Three computer science graduate ful to biologists, took biology and genetics organisms from the threatening ones. P students joined Bergeron in his goal of courses and was a student in Bergeron Is computer science useful in such bove: bove: learning enough about DNA and the hu- a study? “The efforts of my computer a man genome to figure out how computer science colleagues have accelerated my al science could help UNH geneticists and research significantly,” says Cooper. “I NTH biology students in their research. have access to far more information in an Armed with an understanding of what accessible form than I could have imag- arc rose M genetic research entails, Bergeron joined ined a year ago.” by Thomas to co-teach an interdisciplin- As for the professors-turned-students, N io ary version of Thomas’s applied both say their time in the classroom T ra T bioinformatics course. The re- was rewarding beyond all expec- s U sult, they say, was a collabora- tations. “In terms of a sabbatical ill tion that energized everyone. year, it was the biggest change “Once the students found they in direction I’ve ever taken could talk with each other, they and the most satisfying,” says really became self-motivated,” Bergeron. “And, it was fun!” says Thomas. “They constantly —Karen Tongue Hammond ’64 Fall 2007 • University of New Hampshire Magazine • 7 Campus Currents Tall in the Saddle learning to ride, children with disabilities feel they can fly is eyebrows even with the saddle, a 7-year-old boy in “This is so good for him,” says his mother, Peggy Mace of jeans and a black helmet cuts a diminutive figure before Dover, N.H. She explains that her son has speech and muscle Hthe horse. Caleb Mace stands expectantly on a wooden impediments related to Down Syndrome and that this program, mounting block, waiting to be helped onto Flash, a gentle Welsh with its focus on becoming “able riders,” makes a big difference in gelding described as having a “puppy dog personality.” his life. “It’s good for his speech, his muscle tone, not to mention Outside, the temperature is pushing 90. But in the half-light the independence he feels. And he loves horses. It’s helped him of the ring at the UNH Therapeutic Riding Program, neither in ways you can’t really measure. In self-esteem, it’s huge.” Caleb nor the other young riders seem to mind. At a command The program defines therapeutic riding as dynamic therapy from the boy, Flash starts a slow amble around the that uses riding and a horse’s “rhythmic, low-ampli- ring, flanked by a team of four volunteers. tude movement” to reach specific physical, Responding to a prompt, Caleb correctly cognitive, social and emotional goals. points to a picture of a basketball on the Launched in 1989, the UNH pro- wall, then grins in triumph. gram is offered under the auspices of the animal and nutritional sciences department and gives weekly riding lessons to children and adults with a range of disabilities. Aided by a team of interns, instructors and volun- teers, the riders perform tasks geared to their abilities, from hooking plastic rings on posts to identifying objects in the ring. Those who can, groom the horses afterwards. Although the program’s stated focus is abilities, not dis- abilities, many of the children clearly face big challenges. For example, one participant with hypertonic muscles is helped from lisa wheelchair to horse but tenses up so much he can’t sit in the saddle. NUG e “He just couldn’t relax enough to hold on,” program director NT / Cindy Wentzell Burke ’90, ’02G explains to a relative. “We’ll UNH try again next week.” PH o Looking on from the bleachers is Nicole Lavoie, a chatty T o G 10-year-old with a winsome smile and a nose sprinkled with freck- ra les. She is waiting for a chestnut gelding named Quill. Several PH ic ic services years into the program, Nicole says she has learned to walk, trot and jump. What’s her toughest challenge? “The hardest thing for me is getting my fingers on the reins. I was born with CP,” she W explains matter-of-factly. [2] At a signal from Burke, Nicole slides into her walker, scoots forward to be lifted onto the horse and takes off around the ring.