Connections 2012 Fall

AMERICAN.EDU/CAS/CONNECTIONS | FALL 2012

Making Russia Real

Why We Do the Things We Do

Empowering Teachers to Lead

Fall for the Arts

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Letter from the Dean

On the Cover

Magazine Production

Jules Olitski // With Love and Disregard: Rapture.

2002 //Acrylic on canvas // ©Estate of Jules Olitski, licensed by VAGA

Publisher: College of Arts and Sciences // Dean: Peter Starr // Managing Editor: Charles Spencer // Writers: Maggie Barrett, Abbey Becker, Josh Halpren, and Angela Modany // Editor: Ali Kahn, UCM // Designer: Nicky Lehming // Webmaster: Thomas Meal // Senior Advisor: Mary Schellinger // Send news items and comments to Charles Spencer at casnews@american.edu.

Join our conversation Facebook facebook.com/AUcollege

Twitter twitter.com/AUcollege

NEW IDEAS, NEW PERSPECTIVES, NEW CHANCES for students to expand their intellectual horizons. Nothing revitalizes a university more than adding new faculty, and this fall the College of Arts and Sciences has hired experts on everything from artificial sweeteners and the brain to HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. In this issue of Connections, we explore a common theme of intellectual growth.

Terry Davidson has joined the College from Purdue to lead our new Center for Behavioral Neuroscience. AU’s highly successful Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program prepares students with bachelor’s degrees to meet the prerequisites for admission to health professional schools in pursuit of careers such as medicine, dentistry, and veterinary medicine.

With the addition of Andrew Taylor to the faculty of the Department of Performing Arts, AU solidifies its status as a leader in the study of arts management. And the College’s Fall for the Arts fund-raiser gave those lucky enough to attend a chance to enjoy everything from conducting an orchestra to engaging in stage combat and constructing a collage.

Max Paul Friedman’s new book, Rethinking Anti-Americanism, examines that phenomenon in the context of the war on terror; Bryan McNeil’s Combating Mountaintop Removal helps readers understand the realities of coal mining’s impact on West Virginia; and Juliet Bellow’s Modernism on Stage explores the work of such artists as Picasso, Matisse, Delaunay, and de Chirico, who designed costumes, sets, and other materials for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Thanks to the generosity of businesswoman and philanthropist Susan E. Lehrman, Eric Lohr has been selected to fill a new endowed chair in Russian history and culture. Chip Gerfen, an expert in phonetics and phonology, is the new chair of the recently renamed Department of World Languages and Cultures. And AU alum Koko Tanimoto Kondo, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, continues to make important contributions to peace.

Addressing our need for top-quality schoolteachers who can help lead educational reform, AU’s School of Education, Teaching, and Health has partnered with Teach for America to offer degree programs with discounted tuition.

And speaking of students, nobody exemplifies the kind of scholars AU attracts better than Jonathan Wallen, mathematics and economics ’15, who uses both quantitative and qualitative research to look at international business cycles and what they mean for economic forecasts.

Happy reading,

Peter Starr Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

AMERICAN.EDU/CAS/CONNECTIONS | FALL 2012

Letter from the Dean Making Russia Real 2 History professor Eric Lohr named to endowed chair in Russian history and culture

Why We Do the Things We Do 4 Psychologist Terry Davidson heading up new Center for Behavioral Neuroscience

Arts Management Scores Superstar 5 New recruit Andrew Taylor taking the team to the top

A Manner of Speaking 6 Chip Gerfen appointed chair of Department of World Languages and Cultures

Empowering Teachers to Lead 6 AU and Teach for America partnering on graduate programs

Fall for the Arts 8 Fund-raiser enlivened by array of artful activities

Fruits of Our Labors 10 New books by faculty

In Sickness and in Health 12 Postbac premed program growing and people are talking

Hiroshima Mon Amour 12 Bomb survivor Koko Tanimoto Kondo ’69 paying forward a message of peace to students

A Future in Futures 14 Jonathan Wallen ’15 finding equilibrium in economic forecasting

New Faculty 15 Donors 19 Achievements 21

humanities

Making Russia

Real

“I firmly believe in the importance of building lasting connections between Russians and Americans.” ­— Susan E. Lehrman AU’S FLEDGLING Initia-

tive for Russian Culture (IRC), launched in 2011, had a big first year.

The IRC expanded its presence both on and off campus, introducing innovative programming and educational opportunities in Russian history, art, politics, and culture to students at AU and throughout the 2

Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.

More than 5,000 students and guests have attended IRC events.

On track with the IRC’s mission, Susan E. Lehrman—whose donations kick-started the initiative last year—has now generously endowed a chair in Russian

history and culture in AU’s history department, a major development that will advance the goals of the IRC. History professor Eric Lohr has been named to the inaugural position.

“I firmly believe in the importance of building lasting connections between Russians and Americans,” Lehrman

says. “A chair is a longterm and important step towards that goal.”

“The Lehrman chair will enhance American University’s academic strengths in Russian studies, history, and international affairs, while laying the foundation for the university to establish a world-class center for Russian history and culture,” says American University president Neil Kerwin.

Appropriately, the IRC was born of dialogue— between Lehrman; Peter Starr, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; and Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States. The three discussed the need for a program that would enable young Americans and Russians to come

by Josh Halpren

together to build the foundation of a relationship between the two nations for the future.

“The project really resonated with me since so many Americans, whether they realize it or not, have connections to Russian culture,” says Lehrman, citing the music of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. “Our mutual connections are historical and strong.”

Since its launch at the Library of Congress in September 2011, the IRC has created innovative programming and classes for students interested in Russian studies and sponsored film screenings and discussions on Russian culture, history, and politics. IRC

events have also explored cross-cultural influences, such as the rise of jazz in Russia in the 1920s.

Through the IRC, Russian studies students can sign up for such innovative courses as the Cold War and the Spy Novel or Dostoevsky’s Russia— which includes an optional trip to St. Petersburg and Moscow with professor and IRC executive director Anton Fedyashin.

“The Lehrman chair builds on the spectacular success of the IRC, which has stimulated great thirst among consortium students for all things Russian,” Fedyashin says. “[It] not only complements the IRC but also reinforces the academic commitment that AU has made to developing a robust

Russian cultural studies program that we hope will become a national landmark.”

Pamela Nadell, chair of the history department, says that she and her department could not be more thrilled about Lohr’s appointment. “This justly recognizes Eric Lohr as one of the leading scholars of Russian history of his generation,” she says. “I can think of no more fitting appointment to this endowed chair.”

Both the IRC and the chair, Lohr says, come at a time of crisis in Russian studies in this country, referring to the federal government’s 40 percent cut in Title VI funding in fiscal year 2011. (Title VI has been the mainstay of support for this academic field.)

“Across the country every university is being forced to cut back . . . on Russian studies,” he says. “Add in new funding conditions that research and educational programs be ‘policy relevant’ and the shifting of resources from Russian studies to those focusing on China and the Arab world, and the future looks bleak, even though student interest in Russian studies remains strong. Thanks to Susan Lehrman, we at AU have a unique opportunity to move in the opposite direction from these national trends, as we meet and stimulate interest in Russian culture on campus and beyond.”

Lohr made his mark with his book Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Harvard, 2003). With his latest book, Russian Citizenship: Empire to Soviet Union released this year, he is already at work on another, Russia’s Great War:1914–1918.

He has been actively engaged in the dialogue on U.S.-Russia relations, serving on the RussiaEurope advisory group for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Committed to the ideal of the scholar-teacher, he brings his experience and research back into his undergraduate and graduate classrooms.

“The future of U.S.Russia relations is in the hands of this generation of students,” says Starr,

Courtesy of ImageLink Photography

humanities

From left: IRC executive director Anton Fedyashin, CAS dean Peter Starr, Susan E. Lehrman, Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and Lehrman chair Eric Lohr at inaugural IRC event at the Library of Congress

honorary co-chair of the initiative. “The IRC has shown its dedication to making this future a reality and has proved its ability to do so through its unique programming and course offerings.

In giving AU and consortium students the tools they need to understand Russia beyond the stereotypes left over from the Cold War, the IRC has actively worked to make this vision of the future a reality.”

Lehrman hopes the endowment of this chair will be a catalyst for the creation of a center for Russian studies, based at AU. “We are in a unique position at the IRC,” she says. “We have the opportunity to work closely with the Embassy of the Russian Federation and Ambassador Kislyak to provide the consortium students with authentic connections and a rare insider’s look at Russian perspectives.” 

Donors Feted In recognition of the establishment of the Susan E. Lehrman Chair, AU hosted a reception in April 2012, following an IRC symposium, “Overcoming Cold War Stereotypes.”

The reception celebrated the new Richard Stites Library, the generous bequest of Andrei Stites, Russian and Soviet culture scholar and son of Richard Stites. The senior Stites collected books as cultural artifacts, as well as tools of learning. His collection includes works of Russian-language literature and history, from Kievan to post-Soviet Russia, and an extensive multilingual anthology of art catalogs, art histories, artists’ correspondence, and biographies of cultural figures. The library also contains slides and audio and video recordings, including a collection of rare, prerevolutionary silent films.

3

sciences

social sciences arts

the Things

­— Terry Davidson

Courtesy of Purdue University

by Josh Halpren

TERRY DAVIDSON wants

to understand the brain— that is, its processes and the disorders that plague people around the world.

The new director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience arrived at AU this fall from Purdue University to pursue this research. And he couldn’t be more thrilled.

“I’m very pleased that AU has given me the opportunity to help build 4

a center for research and training in the field that has been the lifelong focus of my professional career,” he says. “The administration and faculty are very forward looking and supportive of further developing the research and science education missions of the university.”

Davidson’s passion for understanding behavioral neuroscience comes

from years of practice and investigation. As an undergraduate, he volunteered at a school for emotionally disturbed children and later at a juvenile detention center. The young people he encountered were dealing with a range of behavioral problems beyond their control.

And these problems, he observed, were negatively affecting their lives.

“I decided back then that the best way I could help people with these and other harmful behavioral and psychological dysfunctions was to identify and study the complex brain substrates and processes that underlie those problems,” says Davidson. “In various ways, I have spent my research career trying to achieve this goal.”

Davidson specializes in the neural and associative bases of learning and memory, as well as the integration of learning, memory, and physiological processes in the control of food intake and body weight. His experience at Purdue, where he headed up large, externally funded research programs dedicated to addressing problems in the area of neuroscience, will serve him well in his new position.

“I hope to use these

experiences to promote the research and teaching interests of many of the outstanding faculty who are currently at AU,” says Davidson. “But I also hope that these faculty members and I can use the center to entice young neuroscientists with excellent potential to start their careers at AU and to attract established researchers, with strong records of scientific and teaching excellence, to come to AU to continue their careers.”

The center, he says, will boost AU’s national and international visibility as a “hub of excellence” in behavioral neuroscience.

As a faculty member at St. Olaf College and Virginia Military Institute, as well as Purdue, Davidson says that what he finds most rewarding about teaching is the opportunity to interact with students on an individual basis. “I have worked

Arts Management Scores

SUPERSTAR

Photo by Jeff Watts

“The administration and faculty are very forward looking and supportive of further developing the research and science education missions of the university.”

with and been trained by some of the most outstanding scientists in the world,” he says.

“Many of these have also been among the best people I have known.

These relationships have been the most positive aspects of my experience as a professor.”

He’s been paying forward that experience to his own students, with payoffs: Among his recent advisees, one, an undergraduate, won a prestigious National Science Foundation Predoctoral [now NSF Graduate Research] Fellowship and is pursuing a PhD in psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University; another, a doctoral student, just accepted a tenure-track assistant professorship in biology at the University of Southern California.

Davidson believes that the study of neuroscience will help students at AU fulfill their mission to create meaningful change. “Knowledge of the structure and function of the brain is key to understanding serious cognitive, motor, and behavioral disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and obesity,” says Davidson. “For students who are scientifically curious, undaunted by complexity, and exhilarated by intellectual challenges, the study of behavioral neuroscience offers the chance to have a genuinely positive impact on the world.” 

“With Andrew, the current faculty, and new adjuncts, AU is going to be the place to study arts management.”

­— Sherburne Laughlin THE DEPARTMENT of Performing

Arts welcomes Andrew Taylor as an arts management professor this fall. His schedule calls for him to teach a new arts enterprise course in the fall and a seminar in arts management in the spring. The seminar will cover intraorganizational learning, such as internal program evaluations and personal work and interorganizational learning, including mergers and collaborations.

“It’s a thrill to join the smart and passionate team in the Arts Management program and the

Department of Performing Arts,” says Taylor. “The rigor and reach of the department’s work, and the growing partnerships across campus and around the world, make AU an ideal place to explore what’s next in the business of arts and culture.”

Sherburne Laughlin, program director, is thrilled to have Taylor as a new colleague. “With Andrew, the current faculty, and new adjuncts, AU is going to be the place to study arts management,” she says. “It means a lot for our students, but it’s also beneficial for us as a cohort and

by Abbey Becker

for what we can contribute to the field of arts management.”

Russell Willis Taylor, president and CEO of National Arts Strategies, praises Andrew Taylor for his visionary leadership. “Andrew Taylor is one of the most extraordinary thought leaders in our field.

He will bring a great deal to the talented community of teachers and students in the Arts Management program at American University,” she says. “The university is to be congratulated on this outstanding appointment.”

These sentiments were echoed

by National Endowment for the Arts chair Rocco Landesman, who looks forward to Taylor’s future at AU. “I am delighted to welcome Andrew Taylor to Washington, D.C., and [to] his new position at American University,” he says. “Andrew is a consistently innovative thinker who is not afraid to question conventional wisdom and ask provocative questions. I have enjoyed our ongoing dialogue and look forward to having an even closer working relationship as he starts this exciting chapter in his career.”

Peter Starr, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, knows Taylor will be a great asset to the College and the university.

“Andrew Taylor is a superstar in the field of arts management,” he says. “Adding him to an already outstanding faculty lineup makes AU the university to beat in a field in which we have been pioneers for the past four decades.”  5 5

arts humanities

education

by Josh Halpren CHIP GERFEN loves language.

The new chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures (formerly Language and Foreign Studies), who comes to AU from Penn State University, brings his passion and decades of experience with him.

Gerfen’s special interests are phonetics and phonology— basically, how sounds pattern within and across languages.

His most recent research focuses on issues of language processing in monolinguals and bilinguals.

“One thing that has always characterized my work,” he says, “has been an insistence on [addressing] theoretical questions in linguistics via experimentation, rather than solely through abstract theorizing.”

To this end, Gerfen worked in the field in Mexico to study an endangered Mixtec language. In the lab, he conducted intensive research on Spanish and Spanish-English bilingual language processing.

Gerfen didn’t start out as a linguist. As a student at the University of Montana, while completing undergraduate and graduate work in English and an MFA in creative writing, he happened to take an introductory course in syntactic theory—the study of sentence structure—and he got hooked. “Linguistics woke something up in me,” he says.

“It allowed me to combine my love of language with an approach to studying and understanding language that was rigorously scientific. For me, this was the best of all possible worlds.”

He went on to do a doctorate at the University of Arizona, 6

where he discovered phonology through his mentor, Diana Archangeli. “I was inspired by the work she was doing and by the nature of the questions she was asking in the area of phonological theory,” says Gerfen.

“So I naturally drifted towards that area of specialization.”

Gerfen has taught a variety of courses, both undergraduate and graduate, from general phonetics and phonological theory to Spanish phonetics and phonology and usage-based approaches to linguistics.

“I bring to the department what I hope all AU faculty bring: commitment to and excellence in the areas of teaching, research, and service. I hope to inspire and mentor my students to think critically and independently,” he says.

Gerfen views linguistics as a way to help individuals understand the world around them and to see the connections between apparently divergent cultures.

“Language literally lies at the center of the human experience,” he says. “Linguistics provides multiple lenses through which we can better understand who we are in our social and cognitive dimensions. We often take for granted that we all have language, that we all speak a language, but as soon as we begin to study the questions that arise when we scrutinize language closely, we begin to realize how extraordinary our capacity for language is, how richly structured language is, and how our language sets us apart from the other species with whom we coexist.” 

study commissioned by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Wallace Foundation, many educational leaders feel ill prepared to implement educational reforms or curriculum and performance standards. Undertaking major reform strategies requires the ability to navigate complex policies and laws and put reforms in place to increase educational opportunity across communities.

American University and Teach for America (TFA) have partnered to offer new graduate degrees to fill this need.

The programs, offered at discounted tuition rates, are open to TFA corps members in their second year of teaching in D.C. Public Schools, as well as TFA alumni and staff.

The primary degree, offered through the School of Education, Teaching, and Health (SETH), is an MEd in curriculum and instruction: educational policy and leadership. TFA corps members, alumni, and staff will also have the option to earn an MA in public administration from AU’s School of Public Affairs or an MBA from Kogod School of Business. These programs will provide students with in-depth knowledge of educational policy and prepare them for leadership positions in schools, school systems, educational policy groups, government agencies, and universities.

SETH dean Sarah Irvine Belson says the AU-TFA partnership comes at a critical time.

“Modern education reform is different today because the perception of education’s purpose is different than it was 50 years ago,” says Irvine Belson, whose forthcoming book addresses this subject. “Schools need to function in very different ways. Rather than viewing education simply as a means to an end, schools and school systems must provide the supports to take care of families and communities in more comprehensive ways.”

The spotlight on standardized tests as the cornerstone of modern education reform—with the focus on underperforming schools, usually those serving socially and economically disadvantaged students— has prompted teachers and administrators to rethink how to teach and evaluate students and teachers alike. Initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top include standardized testing provisions, the former linking test scores to federal funding for schools and the latter to teacher salaries. These policies require administrators to use more nuanced and innovative approaches toward supporting teachers and learning communities.

While standardized tests offer a measurable way of gauging students’ academic proficiencies,

Empowering Teachers to Lead

Illustration by Branden Vondrak

ACCORDING TO A 2010

Irvine Belson says using them as the sole basis to judge schools’ or teachers’ effectiveness is a mistake. “In reducing school improvement to a one-dimensional emphasis on academic knowledge and skills amenable to testing and measurement, many administrators and policy makers ignore the important socializing, characterbuilding, moral, and ennobling functions of schools and teachers, as well as the impact of extracurricular influences on students’ academic performance.”

This is especially evident, she says, in the achievement gap. Generally, students with a stable socioeconomic status perform better academically than do those with an unstable or

by Maggie Barrett

disadvantaged status.

“This isn’t, of course, because disadvantaged students are incapable of learning,” Irvine Belson says. “It is because these students may lack the needed social support to better encourage them to learn. High-performing schools that serve disadvantaged students, the exceptions to the norm, overcome this by working consistently with social and human service agencies to improve the lives of students inside and outside the classroom.”

The focus on standardized tests also undermines the role and influence of the teacher, who knows the students best and how to create the best learning environment. It makes sense that teachers should be leading the

“We need leaders who understand the consequences of reforms on improving schools.”

—Sarah Irvine Belson reform movement. Historically, however, they have relied on unions to represent their interests.

But now may be an ideal time for teachers to take a more active role in helping shape education reform. According to a May 2012 article in Education Week, a new generation of education advocacy groups is switching up how education reform policy is debated and enacted. Some of these organizations are led

by former educators, such as StudentsFirst, founded by former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who is also a TFA alumna.

AU’s location in Washington and its nationally ranked schools of education, public affairs, and business make it the ideal home for the partnership. TFA’s commitment to closing the achievement gap dovetails with AU’s mission to address the most pressing issues of our time,

and its alumni affairs office reports that American University is among the top 10 schools from which TFA alumni hold graduate degrees.

Irvine Belson says too much is at stake by not encouraging and preparing more teachers with experience in urban schools to lead in education—especially when it comes to reform.

“We need leaders who understand the consequences of reforms on improving schools.”  7

arts

arts

for the

IF YOU’VE EVER FANTASIZED about conducting an orchestra or drawing

a rapier and shouting “En garde!” on stage, the College of Arts and Sciences’ Fall for the Arts 2012 fund-raiser was the place for you.

Participants enjoyed sessions and workshops on acting, dance, music, and visual art, as well as a gallery tour. A cocktail reception was topped off by a live art auction featuring works by such artists as Robert Gates and Sam Gilliam. All proceeds went to sponsoring arts at AU. “Unlike similar fund-raising events, ours was casual, highly interactive, and fun—in a way that we feel celebrates what’s truly distinctive about this great university,” said College of Arts and Sciences dean Peter Starr.

The day was packed with arts activities. Among them, theatre professor Caleen Jennings conducted a quick course on Shakespearean acting, music professor Daniel Abraham helped fantasy conductors lead an orchestra, artist Sharon Wolpoff guided students in collage making, and art professor Don Kimes displayed his paintings and discussed how interruption can serve as a catalyst for the creative process.

One thing everyone had in common: a good time for a great cause. 

8

9

faculty sciencesbooks

social faculty sciences books

New books by faculty

by Josh Halpren

Rethinking Anti-Americanism: The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations (Cambridge, 2012)

by Max Paul Friedman, associate professor and director of graduate studies, history we call American exceptionalism.”

He refers to the influence of these ideas preceding the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “The French president, Jacques Chirac, warned the United States not to go to war in Iraq based on his country’s experience fighting in Algeria. He thought it would end badly,” says Friedman. “Americans responded with anger, accusing him and the French generally of antiAmericanism. I thought his arguments had merit, and I wondered why we were quick to assume that they must be motivated

by malice or jealously.”

Friedman’s research for the book spanned nine countries and five languages. From that broad perspective, he stresses the importance of understanding that the use of the term “anti-Americanism” itself says a great deal about American culture. “It is important for Americans to realize that we use a term that is unusual,” says Friedman. “We will have more successful foreign policy if we stop reading the world as if it were a football game, where everyone has to cheer for our team.” 

Modernism on Stage: The Ballets Russes and the Parisian Avant-garde, 1917–1929 (Ashgate, 2012)

by Juliet Bellow, assistant professor, art JULIET BELLOW sees a

Combating Mountaintop Removal: New Directions in the Fight against Big Coal (Illinois, 2011)

by Bryan McNeil, assistant professor, anthropology BRYAN MCNEIL returned

to his roots in southern West Virginia to research material for his book, Combating Mountaintop Removal. The practice is commonly used by mining companies to blast rock formations on

10

mountains to expose coal for harvesting. Though profitable, the process is devastating to surrounding communities.

Although his grandfather had worked as a miner for more than 30 years, McNeil says he

only began to fully understand the ramifications of mountaintop removal while researching the subject for his senior college thesis. “I knew about the economic difficulties of the coalfields, and I knew that conventional

asserts, but it’s difficult to spread their message.

“Part of what I do in the book is try to portray the activists as individuals and as thoughtful citizens and explain some of the context that led them to take a position against the coal industry—a very difficult thing in southern West Virginia,” says McNeil. “I hope that the book makes people think about the democratic process and question many of the assumptions that drive controversies like this one.” 

‘environmentalism’ would not be popular there,” says McNeil. “When I first encountered activists, though, I learned that they were all local, and they were practicing a very different kind of environmentalism

that was rooted in the local experience and landscape.”

West Virginia’s hardwood forest, the most biodiverse in all of North America, “is simply destroyed.” And, he says, it’s not just the ecological

connection between art forms that others might not notice. The art history professor began researching the connections between visual and performing arts, specifically ballet, while she was still a graduate student.

“Nearly every wellknown artist living in Paris between the two world wars designed for the Ballets Russes,” Bellow says, referring to the Russian ballet company established

by Serge Diaghilev and often referred to as the greatest of the twentieth century. Bellow’s new book, Modernism on Stage, explores the ventures of such artists as Picasso, Matisse, Delaunay, and de Chirico, who

chose to design costumes, sets, and other materials for the ballet.

“My book aims to determine why so many visual artists—working in a variety of distinct styles, from cubism to simultanism, fauvism to surrealism—ventured outside the safe haven of painting and sculpture to work as decorators and designers,” says Bellow.

“It treats these productions as serious artistic endeavors, rather than as a form of ‘painter’s theatre’ in which the stage functioned as a makeshift gallery or salon. The troupe’s stage served as a dynamic forum where visual artists engaged directly with other media and intensively investigated their own craft.”

Bellow’s research has also informed her work as a consulting scholar for the National Gallery of Art’s 2013 exhibition on the Ballets Russes.

Bellow sees the exhibit as an outstanding opportunity to show people the relationships between art forms and to recognize the increasing prominence of various forms of performance art in museum contexts.

“The artists who worked with the Ballets Russes were eager to experiment with a range of different modes, media, and materials, including, in this case, the performing body,” says Bellow. “I think that art history itself tends to exclude anything that doesn’t conform

Photo by Vanessa Robertson

Rethinking Anti-Americanism, Max Paul Friedman reexamines the concept and significance of antiAmericanism, particularly in the context of a post-war-on-terrorism world. “This book looks at how a belief that antiAmericanism motivates foreign behavior has distorted the making of U.S. foreign policy,” says Friedman. “This belief goes back almost 200 years and is tied to many Americans’ assumption that the United States is morally superior to all other countries, an assumption

Courtesy of Max Paul Friedman

IN HIS NEW BOOK,

book will help people understand the realities of coal mining and its impact on the state.

As West Virginia has changed, he says, other industries have come in, disproving the justification that these communities would die without the mines. “For several years now, tourism has employed more West Virginians than mining,” he says, “and the mining counties are among the poorest in the state.”

What the local activists are saying is true, he

Photo by Emily Schmidt

Fruits of Our Labors

impact: mountaintop removal disrupts the local residents’ way of life.

“People who have lived in the region for generations and interacted with the landscape and forest resources lose access to those lands—and often lose their own land and homes to make way for mining. Very little financial benefit ever reaches the coal mining counties and towns, [and] residents suffer innumerable social, physical, and health consequences.”

McNeil hopes his

to our understanding of what art history is, what the discipline is equipped to investigate.

But I was interested in following these artists outside their usual comfort zones, because

these projects tell us a lot about these artists’ careers, about the Ballets Russes, about modernism, and ultimately, about art history and how the discipline understands itself.”  11 11

alumni

In Sickness

Health and in

“Some students come with no prerequisites for medical school, and some students have taken them all. . . . We’ll help you get the additional classes that you need in order to be a competitive applicant.” ­—Lynne Arneson AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

launched its Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program with four students. This fall, program coordinator Lynne Arneson welcomed a record 56 students (an almost 20-percent increase from last year). “Knowledge about the program has grown,” she says. “In addition to traditional recruitment, many students hear about the program by word of mouth.”

Arneson also attributed the increase to the growing healthcare industry and number of retiring baby boomers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that the health care and social assistance industries will grow by 33 percent—or 5.7 million new jobs—between 2010 and 2020. “We definitely need more geriatric physicians, podiatrists, and primary care physicians if we’re going to take care of these folks as they get older,” Arneson says.

AU’s postbac premed program is for students with a bachelor’s degree who want to enter a health field, such as medicine, dentistry, or veteri12

nary medicine, but have to fulfill admission requirements.

It’s also for those who want to make themselves more attractive candidates for admission. An advantage is that the program can be completed in one year.

Program staff are available to guide students through the application process. “We hold seminars and workshops on how to interview, how to write a personal statement, and how to fill out the application,” Arneson says. “I collect letters of recommendation [and] we prepare a committee letter for the students—a lot of advising on what classes to take. . . . I point them in the right direction.”

As for prerequisites, Arneson says that AU’s program offers more flexibility than others. “Some students come with no prerequisites for medical school, and some students have taken them all. . . . We’ll help you get the additional classes that you need in order to be a competitive applicant.”

Unlike many other postbaccalaureate programs around the

by Angela Modany

country, AU’s does not limit the number of students it accepts.

And they come from all walks of life and represent a range of age and experience. Many, says Arneson, have decided to change careers; some are in the military and based nearby, including a few Navy SEALs who have gone back into service as doctors. And then there was the fashion designer, just a few years out of college, who became a physician.

Charlotte Bourdillon, a current postbac student from Indianapolis, studied community health and international relations at Tufts University.

She came to AU to complete her requirements for medical school and loves the program’s flexibility, community, and small classes. “Every professor knew my name within a few weeks,” she said. “[The program] offers me what I’m going to need to go to medical school, and it fits my learning style.”

Lauren Rarick did an undergraduate degree in gender studies. But while working as a volunteer emergency medical technician, she decided she wanted to go medical school.

She hopes to take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) in the spring and then apply to medical schools.

As for Arneson, she anticipates a busy year, which is her dream. “I’m looking forward to helping students apply and get into medical school,” she says. “And I’m looking forward to more applications.” 

Hiroshima Mon Amour

KOKO TANIMOTO KONDO

is a petite Japanese woman. Her black and gray hair is neatly braided back from her face, and her hands are as animated as her eyes when she talks. When she speaks, her voice is full of emotion, befitting her mission to spread a message of peace.

Kondo, a 1969 AU alumna, is a hibakusha, a survivor of the first atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Although she was only eight months old at the time, the event shaped her childhood, which was inhabited by the disfigured (she remembers seeing girls whose fingers were melted together) and marked by silence (she recalls

being unable to ask her parents about the bombing, because the memory was too painful).

Speaking before an audience at AU in September, Kondo recalled, “Little Koko said, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to do something. I’m going to get revenge, because I’m a good person. If they never dropped the bomb, these girls wouldn’t have suffered.

I have to find the person of the Enola Gay.’” Kondo got her wish in 1955 when her father, Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, appeared on the television show This Is Your Life with Captain Robert Lewis, copilot of the Enola Gay. Lewis explained how he flew back to see the bomb’s

damage and wrote in his log, “My God, what have we done?” Kondo realized then that Lewis was not the “bad guy.”

“Meeting him changed my whole view,” Kondo said. “I touched his hand and he held mine tightly. It was a big, warm hand.”

Although Kondo forgave Lewis, the pain of Hiroshima remained.

She recalled how, as a teenager, she had to make an annual visit to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, a U.S.-run institution in Hiroshima, where scientists were studying the effects of radiation on the human body.

She would be asked to strip off her clothes so doctors could examine

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum. Photo by Christian R. Greco, CAS ’00

alumni profiles sciences

by Angela Modany

her. After enduring the embarrassment of those visits, Kondo decided not to tell anyone that she was from Hiroshima, and she refused to honor her father’s request that she work for peace.

Kondo later enrolled at American University.

She recalls the first time she told anyone at AU that she was from Hiroshima. It was in a history class, where students were arguing about the Vietnam War. Kondo raised her hand and announced, “I am from Japan—Hiroshima.

I am a survivor of the bomb.” The whole class went silent.

Slowly, she became more and more involved with peace movements and continuing the work

“They get to see with their own eyes and hear with their ears the survivors’ messages.

Reading a book is important, but feeling it . . . is even more important.” ­—Koko Tanimoto Kondo

her father had started.

Now, she accompanies the AU Nuclear Studies Institute’s annual trip to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Kyoto.

“She brings the survivor’s perspective and a personal perspective to the trip,” says Peter Kuznick, institute director and professor.

“She brings the emotion of what it means to be a survivor.”

Kuznick met Kondo in 1996, a year after the institute was founded and had begun sending students to Japan. Kondo approached Kuznick, he says, and told him that she was excited that AU was sending students to Japan to study Hiroshima. She has been on every trip since. “She has nonstop energy, in a good way,” Kuznick says.

“She’s the big sister to everyone on the trip.”

Alison Kootstra, a graduate student in public history, agrees.

“She’s such a bright light and adds a feeling of hope.” Kootstra says she went on the trip to see how Japanese museums dealt with topics related

to the atomic bomb, but she ended up learning much more about history and the growing peace culture in the country.

“The trip can be overwhelming academically, but Koko keeps you looking forward to peace instead of looking back at the past,” Koostra said.

Zach Kopin, BA history ’15, went on the trip this past summer and says that one of Kondo’s main messages is that war hurts everyone.

“She’s more pro-peace than anti-war,” he says.

“It’s a different way of looking at the problem.”

Kuznick says Kondo’s message has a sense of urgency. “A lot of the survivors have passed away,” he says. “We want students to come sooner rather than later to get that experience.”

Kondo’s goal for these trips is that students connect with survivors.

“They get to see with their own eyes and hear with their ears the survivors’ messages. Reading a book is important, but feeling it,” she says, touching her heart, “is even more important.”  13

interdisciplinary

new faculty

“I find in economics a nice middle ground between quantitative and qualitative research.” ­—Jonathan Wallen WHEN IT COMES TO

research, there is often a line between quantitative and qualitative data.

Jonathan Wallen, BS mathematics and economics ’15, has made it his business to cross that line every day, as a sort of intellectual exercise. In the process, he has come a long way toward understanding economic forecasting from both angles.

“I find in economics a nice middle ground between quantitative and qualitative research,” says Wallen. “On one end you have econometrics, which is heavily 14

quantitative and allows me to apply statistics to the study of economic data. However, on the other, you have economic history, which stresses the complicated development of various economic theories as a response to context.”

Over the past year, Wallen has worked with economics professor Xuguang Sheng to examine international business cycles by looking at their expansive quantitative measures and their qualitative implications. “Despite focusing our data collection on two key

indicators of business cycles, inflation and GDP forecasts for the G7 countries [United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan],” says Wallen, “the data set provides over 152,000 observations from 1990 to 2011.”

From these observations, Wallen was able to ascertain a variety of forecast horizons and individual forecasts, two key characteristics in understanding periods of economic uncertainty.

Wallen and Sheng have transformed numerous forecasting reports

“I’m very pleased that AU has given me the opportunity to help build a center for research and training in the field that has been the lifelong focus of my professional career.”

Areas of research: biochemical pharmacology of G protein-coupled receptors

Assistant professor, Dept. of Sociology »» PhD, MA sociology, Ohio State University »» BA interdisciplinary studies, Virginia Tech Areas of research: HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa, mixed methods, and diffusion of information “I have a project I’ve been working on for a couple of years on the structure of HIV/AIDS research.

We’d really like to think more explicitly about how what we’ve gained from that project can tell us more generally about how interdisciplinary, problem-based scientific efforts (e.g., sustainability, neuroscience, public health) are organized and what that organization contributes to the success [or] failure of those projects.”

“The balance between research and teaching that AU strives for is something I think can benefit both my research and my teaching, in part through engaging students at a variety of stages in the research process.”

—Jimi Adams STEFANO COSTANZI

“These receptors provide a means for cells to interact with their environment and can be exploited for pharmaceutical purposes to correct or prevent a wealth of pathological conditions, including psychiatric, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases, pain, allergies, cancer, and many other illnesses. . . . I have always been interested in life sciences and, in particular, in the area at the interface between chemistry and biology.”

—Terry Davidson

“I look forward to working with students in the classroom, as well as in the laboratory, to help them hone their interests in science. I also look forward to new collaborations with my colleagues.”

YANIV DINUR Courtesy of Yaniv Dinur

JIMI ADAMS

—Stefano Costanzi TERRY DAVIDSON Courtesy of Terry Davidson

Photo by Emily Schmidt

by Josh Halpren

New Faculty Photo by Vanessa Robertson

Futures

news from noise?

Wallen’s strategy is to have a firm grasp of the process so that he can help economic agents make more informed decisions.

Wallen is also interested in law as a complement to his economic research. Inspired by a freshman course on Western legal tradition taught by Douglas Klusmeyer, a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society, Wallen signed on as Klusmeyer’s assistant (through the General Education Faculty Assistance Program) for the same class the following semester.

He also enrolled in the professor’s seminar on legal history.

Under Klusmeyer’s mentorship, Wallen has researched the regulation of futures markets and the relationship between law and economics.

“Jonathan is an exceptionally bright, self-disciplined, and articulate student with an unquenchable appetite for learning,” says Klusmeyer. “He has a remarkable ability to adapt his approach to address new challenges, combined with a tenacity committed to achieving at the highest level.

Wallen sees a future for himself in studying the future of the economy. “I hope to use economic theory and mathematical principles to make accurate forecasts of the future economy,” he says. 

Photo by Vanessa Robertson

A Future in

created by Consensus Economics, an economic survey organization, into a working data set for analysis.

“This process posed significant challenges,” says Wallen. “Throughout the past two decades, multiple forecasters underwent name changes, mergers, and acquisitions. The countries included in the forecasts have also undergone significant changes, such as the reunification of Germany. Despite these challenges, we believe the data set has the potential to provide insight to the cross-country impacts of business cycle fluctuations.”

According to Wallen, forecasting the economic future is essential to making decisions in the present. “Agents within markets, especially large international corporations, need to understand future market conditions to make current decisions,” he says. “Many economic agents depend on the professional forecasts of institutions. However, there are challenges to interpreting forecasting data from various forecasters over extended periods of time.”

Forecasting literature, says Wallen, answers many of the questions raised through the economic forecasting process: How precise are forecasters? Do they systematically over- or under-predict GDP growth? How efficiently do forecasters process

Director, Center for Behavioral Neuroscience Professor, Dept. of Psychology »» PhD learning and memory, Purdue University »» MA experimental psychology, California State University–Fullerton »» BA psychology, Michigan State University Areas of research: neural and associative bases of learning and memory and the integration of learning, memory, and physiological processes in the control of food intake and body weight (see pp. 4–5) “Research has found that obese people and formerly obese people have weaker hippocampal activity when consuming food than do people who have never been obese. Just because you lose the weight doesn’t mean you regain the brain function.

This could help explain why it is so difficult for formerly obese people to keep the weight off.”

Assistant professor, Dept. of Performing Arts »» DMA orchestral conducting, University of Michigan »» Artist diploma, BM orchestral conducting, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Areas of specialty: conducting and music education “One of the things I am most passionate about is bringing AU students of all majors to the concerts of the American University Symphony Orchestra. Listening to a symphonic concert can be a life-changing experience. It is especially exciting when both the musicians on stage and the people in the audience are students.”

“I was looking for a place with open-minded, talented, and dedicated faculty and students and for a good program which I could contribute to, develop, and put my mark on—and I have found all of these at AU.” —Yaniv Dinur

Assistant professor, Dept. of Chemistry »» PhD medicinal chemistry, University of Camerino, Italy »» MS, BS chemistry and biochemistry, University of Camerino

15

new faculty

new faculty

—Boris Gershman

“I am thrilled to become a member of such a distinguished department.

The quality of its scholarship combined with the dedication of AU’s students will continue to inspire me as a teacher and researcher.”

—Anton Fedyashin

Courtesy of Boris Gershman

BORIS GERSHMAN

Assistant professor, Dept. of Economics »» PhD economics, Brown University »» MA economics, New Economic School »» BS economics, Moscow State University Areas of research: economic growth and development, macroeconomics, social economics, and inequality

16

Photo by Charles Spencer

CHIP GERFEN

Professor, Dept. of World Languages and Cultures »» PhD linguistics, University of Arizona »» MA English and linguistics, University of Montana »» MFA creative writing, University of Montana »» BA English, Dartmouth College

“My research interests have been inspired by my educational and cultural backgrounds. [They were] also shaped by the thought of influential francophone thinkers, such as Jacques Derrida, Édouard Glissant, and Abdelkebir Khatibi. . . .

I am hoping to engage in fruitful exchanges with my students and colleagues and use my experience and expertise to contribute to AU’s academic achievements and community projects.”

—Naïma Hachad NATHANIEL HERR

“We often take for granted that we all have language, that we all speak a language, but as soon as we begin to study the questions that arise when we scrutinize language closely, we begin to realize how extraordinary our capacity for language is, how richly structured language is, and how our language sets us apart from the other species with whom we coexist.”

—Chip Gerfen

—Nathaniel Herr

Assistant professor, Dept. of Psychology »» PhD, MA clinical psychology, University of California–Los Angeles »» BA psychology and sociology, University of Pennsylvania

Associate professor, Dept. of Biology »» PhD, BS biology, University of Illinois Areas of research: DNA and molecular biology “I took genetics in the late 1970s, when DNA sequencing was a new technology. I remember the professor showing the complete DNA sequence of the human beta-globin gene. I’ve been fascinated by DNA and molecular biology ever since. For the past 13 years, I’ve been teaching graduate and professional students who’d already decided on a career in research or clinical practice. At AU, I’ll be teaching at the undergraduate level. . . . I hope to learn, teach, create, discover, inspire, and enjoy.”

—Jeffrey Kaplan KAREN KNEE

Assistant professor, Dept. of Environmental Science »» PhD geological and environmental sciences, Stanford University »» BS environmental science, Brown University Areas of research: effects of human activities and land use on water quality

JEFFREY KAPLAN

“I was attracted by the tremendous opportunities AU offers in terms of community engagement, as well as teaching and research developments”

Areas of research: phonetics and phonology, language processing in monolinguals and bilinguals (see p. 6)

“I hope to inspire and mentor my students to think critically and independently.”

“AU is the perfect place for me to pursue each of my professional interests: teaching, research, and clinical training. . . . I hope to inspire and educate future generations of researchers and clinicians, who may themselves contribute to the betterment of society.”

PEDRAM PARTOVI Photo by Jeff Watts

Courtesy of Naïma Hachad

Areas of research: francophone and North African narratives and how representations of identity in Maghreb and the Caribbean have reconfigured racial, ethnic, national, and gender conceptions

“The psychology department at AU emphasizes a well-rounded approach to training undergraduate and graduate students so that they can thrive in any of the career paths available to psychology students. This is a philosophy I share. . . . As a researcher, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of how to promote healthy relationships, which can, in turn, lead to reductions in aggression, suicidality, self harm, and other severe symptoms of BPD. My long-term goal is to improve current treatments through interpersonal interventions rooted in behavioral principles and targeted to patients, therapists, and loved ones.”

“I like having the opportunity to inspire young students to enter the field of science. I also like the proximity of AU to other world-class universities and research institutions.”

“The balance of research and teaching at AU and the university’s enthusiasm for international work really appeals to me. . . . I hope that [my] students gain a better understanding of how the natural environment works and that they feel empowered as environmental stewards and decision makers in their lives and careers. In terms of research, I hope to continue working with researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the University of Maryland on understanding how nutrients are added and taken up within the Chesapeake Bay watershed.”

“Being an environmental scientist allows me to use my analytic and writing skills to better understand and protect the natural world.”

Assistant professor, Dept. of History »» PhD history, University of Chicago »» MA Islamic and Near Eastern studies, Washington University »» BA history, State University of New York–Binghamton Areas of research: modern social and political change in the Middle East and South Asia and the role of mass communication, audiovisual media as vehicles of popular civil religion, bonds and affinities of regional film cultures “Although I was born in Iran, I had spent much of my life outside the country. . . . Learning the histories of the places where we moved helped me to adjust to our life there. . . . I’m hoping to encourage students to broaden their understanding of the modern Middle East and wider Muslim world by looking beyond the encounter with the West and to the ways in which modern life has been shaped by older, indigenous ideas and practices.”

“What particularly impressed me about AU was how seriously students, faculty, and administrators take the humanities and social sciences.”

—Pedram Partovi GAUTHAM RAO Photo by Jeff Watts

He is executive director of the Initiative for Russian Culture. His book Liberals under Autocracy: Modernization and Civil Society in Russia, 1866–1904 was released this summer and he is at work on Shades of Gray: The Cold War and the Spy Novel.

Assistant professor, Dept. of World Languages and Cultures »» PhD French, Emory University »» DEA (diplôme d’études approfondies) anglophone literature and civilization, Université de Provence, France

Areas of research: borderline personality disorder (BPD)

Courtesy of Karen Knee

Areas of research: Russian and European history, with an emphasis on imperial Russian history

“My new colleagues at the Department of Economics are some of the most openminded researchers, often working on interdisciplinary projects, as well as outside the mainstream. I am happy to now be part of this highly stimulating and creative intellectual environment.”

NAÏMA HACHAD

Courtesy of Jeffrey Kaplan

Assistant professor, Dept. of History »» PhD history, Georgetown University »» MA Russian, East European, and Central Asian studies, Harvard University »» BA philosophy and history of math and science, St. John’s College

“The interplay between culture, institutions, and economic development is one of the most exciting and mysterious areas in all social sciences. . . .

The everyday experience of living in a society constantly provides thought-provoking material and feeds the desire to explain things. Economics offers the richest toolkit to rigorously think about a great variety of interesting questions.”

Courtesy of Nathaniel Herr

Photo by Vanessa Robertson

ANTON FEDYASHIN

—Karen Knee

Assistant professor, Dept. of History »» PhD, MA, BA history, University of Chicago Areas of research: legal and constitutional history of the Revolutionary era and early republic 17

new faculty

donors

“I’ve always been fascinated by how a single event can mean so many different things to so many different people.

I’ve also grown aware of the profound importance that the past plays in contemporary politics and society.”

LILY WONG Courtesy of Lily Wong

“[AU’s] proximity to centers of government and industry should make it much easier to connect with the people who will most benefit from these new theoretical developments.”

—Michael Robinson ANDREW TAYLOR Photo by Emily Schmidt

“I was looking to join a faculty where the liberal arts, and history in particular, played an important role in educating citizens, as well as scholars.

Even a superficial look at American reveals how seriously the university takes the study of the past. . . . I want to use both classical and digital humanism to underscore AU’s deep commitment to training a new generation of leaders. . . . I hope to contribute to the faculty’s tradition of producing innovative scholarship with clear relevance for contemporary society.”

—Gautham Rao

Courtesy of Michael Robinson

MICHAEL ROBINSON

Assistant professor, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics »» PhD applied mathematics, Cornell University »» MS mathematics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute »» BS electrical engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Areas of research: theoretical and practical tools for advanced signal processing techniques, topological methods for signal processing and systems analysis “American University already has a strong focus in traditional and statistical signal processing, but it is also small enough to permit me the flexibility to take risks to explore the connections between algebraic topology and signal processing. . . .

I see myself in the role of trying to bridge the gap between theory and practice by studying mathematics, communicating with those who use it, and teaching about its effectiveness for addressing pressing needs in our world.”

18

Assistant professor, Dept. of Performing Arts »» MBA arts administration, University of Wisconsin–Madison »» BA English, University of Colorado–Boulder Areas of research: business model development for cultural initiatives and the impact of communications technology on the arts (see p. 5) “I’ll admit that it was a deeply difficult decision to leave the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the MBA degree program in arts administration I’d been affiliated with for 17 years, for the past decade as its director. But American University offered a brilliant cluster of faculty colleagues in the arts management program, a wonderfully connected campus that seems to thrive at the intersection of theory and practice, and close proximity to one of the world’s greatest cultural cities. It was a combination that was impossible to ignore.”

“I’ve been privileged to work in two worlds of arts and cultural management. . . . That combination makes me deeply curious about the intersection of theory and practice and the need for each to inform the other at every level.”

—Andrew Taylor

Assistant professor, Dept. of Literature »» PhD, MA comparative literature, University of California–Santa Barbara »» BA English, National Central University Areas of research: transpacific literature and media, gender and sexuality, nationhood and globalization.

“I spent most of my youth traveling back and forth across the Pacific. . . . Worlds within books provided me a safe yet continuous space I could revisit with just the flip of a page, and writing allowed me the freedom to ponder the many languages and cultures I was navigating from an early age. . . . My parents’ efforts as teachers and labor-rights activists have informed my passion to strive for the rights and dignity of those who are historically disenfranchised.”

“American University is precisely the kind of socially engaged, politically active, and globally conscious community I was searching for. I was especially drawn to the pioneering research done

by AU faculty, the university’s emphasis on quality teaching, as well as the vitality of the student body.”

—Lily Wong

CAS 2011–12 Honor Roll Thank you to every donor to the College of Arts and Sciences. Your commitment and generosity sustain our mission of providing a challenging liberal arts education within a vibrant and diverse community. We are deeply moved by the number of alumni, faculty, staff, parents, and friends who have invested in the College.

This list includes gifts made to the College of Arts and Sciences by individuals, estates, foundations, corporations, and other organizations during the fiscal year ending April 30, 2012. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this list. Please report inadvertent errors or omissions to Dave Wiemer at 202-885-2986 or wiemer@american.edu.

$25,000 and above Anonymous Jack ChildÙ AU PhD ’78, P ’87, P ’91 and Leslie E. Morginson-Eitzen P ’87, P ’91 Estate of Jack Child AU PhD ’78, P ’87, P ’91 Barbara Griffith Susan E. Lehrman Estate of Ruth M. Melas ’35 Estate of Harvey C. Moore AU and Sarah M. Moore Carol M. Ravenal AU Ì and Earl C. Ravenal Susan Rothfeld and Donald Rothfeld Estate of Estelle Seldowitz Sharon A. Wolpoff ’74, MFA ’81

$10,000–$24,999 Lillian K. Abensohn Ì Gary M. Abramson ’68, P ’97 and Pennie M. Abramson P ’97 Daniel Amory Carol Berman and Gary C. Berman Joanna M. Driggs ’60 and John A. Driggs Debra Friedmann and Peter Friedmann Blair Jones MS ’78, MA ’95 Lynn R. Katzen ’71 and Jay E. Katzen C. Nicholas Keating ’63, MA ’64 and Carleen Butler Keating ’64

Micheline Klagsbrun and Ken Grossinger Samuel M. Lehrman Peter T. Starr AU and Alice C. Hill

$5,000–$9,999 Anonymous Edward C. Bou JD ’58, P ’91 Roger H. Brown AU and Nancy B. Brown Marc N. Duber ’81 and Nancy E. Duber ’82 Lois H. England P ’76 and Richard England Sr. P ’76 Valerie FrenchÙ AU Lynne M. Hensley ’74 Marie P. Kissick and Ralph L. Kissick Simki G. Kuznick ’01, MFA ’10, P ’13 and Peter J. Kuznick AU P ’13 Celeste D. Marin P ’15 and Robert S. Marin P ’15 John S. Patton PhD ’63 Ì and Mary Miller Patton AU Ì Heather M. Podesta and Anthony T. Podesta Howard Rosenbloom Estate of Elaine S. Salzman MA ’90 Byron and Elva Siliezar P ’12

$2,500–$4,999 Carolyn S. Alper ’68 Christine B. Anderson ’71, MSTM ’77

Marilyn Armel ’63 Darryl Atwell Estate of Dorothy Gondos Beers Rebecca Cooke Kimberly A. Cradock ’96 Jane W. D’Arista Arnold Danielson ’62 and Vivian C. Danielson Lynne Brenner Ganek AU and Jeffrey E. Ganek Robert P. Kogod ’62, H’00 and Arlene R. Kogod Marian Rocker Peter L. Scher ’83, JD ’87 and Kimberly H. Tilley AU MA ’08

$1,000–$2,499 Anonymous (2) Karin A. Akerson ’96 and Daniel F. Akerson Nana K. An AU MEd ’84, MPA ’06 and Joe T. An ’90 Doris Q. Babcock ’95 and John C. Babcock Joy H. Baxt and Leonard J. Baxt Stuart L. Bindeman ’70 and Martha K. Bindeman David Blumenthal MBA ’69 and Barbara Blumenthal Ivy E. Broder AU P ’06 and John Morrall III P ’06 Dean Carter ’47 and Rosina Carter Gerald Chasen Robert N. Cohen Sharon Doner-Feldman and Israel Feldman J. Gary Dontzig ’67

Gary R. Durfee Peter A. Durfee Brandon J. Estrin Susan Feinberg and Paul M. Feinberg Elisabeth French Alan L. Genicoff ’74 Sharri B. Ginsburg JD ’93 and Jeffrey A. Freedman JD ’93 Lynn C. Greenfield ’79, P ’05, P ’07 and Stephen E. Greenfield P ’05, P ’07 Ruby J. Halperin and Herbert Halperin Margot Heckman Ì Kenneth R. Heyman ’72 and Miriam M. Heyman Susan Hoecker-Drysdale AU and John P. Drysdale AU Joel D. Hoppenstein ’81 and Monica L. Hoppenstein Caleen Jennings AU and Carl Jennings AU Mitchell J. Kaplan Ron Kaplan P ’15 Kathleen M. Kennedy-Corey AU ’73, MBA ’80 and Chadwick E. Wyatt Cornelius M. Kerwin AU ’71, P ’05 and Ann L. Kerwin ’71, P ’05 Barbara Kerxton Bernard Kossar Wen C. Lee MA ’92 Margie Litman and Robert E. Litman Marcia S. Mankoff ’91 and Doug Mankoff Peter Manson

Alison Martyn and James T. Banks Gail Mendelson and Jeffrey Mendelson Marcia D. Moritz ’55 Kay J. Mussell AU P ’88 and Boris Weintraub P ’88 Melanie F. Nussdorf and Lawrence C. Nussdorf Linda Parrish and Denwood B. Parrish Toni H. Paul ’71 and Ronald A. Paul Juanita M. Ross MS ’83 Samuel Sandler Thyagaraja Sarada MS ’70, PhD ’72 Diana Schilit and Howard M. Schilit Margaret K. Shaw Smith ’85 and Stanley F. Smith Elizabeth A. Sinclair P ’15 and Matthew F. Sinclair P ’15 Ulysses J. Sofia AU and Heidi Sofia Rhoda Steiner and Charles Steiner Nuzhat Sultan-Khan and Anil Revri Linda K. Swartz Patricia T. van der Vorm MEd ’81, PhD ’95 and Jacob van der Vorm

$500–$999 Radoslav D. Antonov ’92 Robert L. Beisner AU Allan Berman Bryna Berman P ’12 and Fred Berman P ’12

19

donors Mary Ellen Condon ’66 Frauke De Looper MA ’85 Alice M. Denney Joyce H. Deroy AU MS ’94, P ’09 and Warren R. King JD ’67, P ’09 Robert T. Devlin MA ’71, PhD ’86 and Adrianne R. Devlin ’72 Ann S. Ferren Maria S. Floro AU and Thomas L. Hungerford AU Nancy H. Gewirz ’75 and Carl S. Gewirz MBA ’91 Jonah Gitlitz ’55 Ì and Sallie Gitlitz Ì Theresa S. Grady ’80 and James P. Grady ’80 Charles Gurian ’72 Sandra L. Handleman ’69, P ’02 and Aaron L. Handleman P ’02 Helen M. Harkins ’67 Perry F. Iannaconi MA ’74 and Teresa E. Iannaconi John H. Johns PhD ’79 and Barbara A. Johns Deborah R. Kennedy MA ’88 John S. Kruger PhD ’81 Hsing Chuan Kwok P ’13 and Jinn Pyng Kwok P ’13 Jacqueline Grapin Le Goc P ’00, P ’04, P ’06 and Michel Le Goc AU P ’00, P ’04, P ’06 Jack Levine JD ’33 and Martha Levine Dorothy Linowes Richard G. Linowes AU and Elisa G. Linowes Jo Ann Makous ’85 and David N. Makous Estate of Frances L. Marcus ’47 Wendy M. Mauch AU MA ’93, PhD ’99 and Christof U. Mauch Benny M. McKnight MSST ’78 Annette G. Moshman and Jack Moshman Karen Pierce P ’08 and Carey Weiss P ’08 Anita O. Reiner ’69, MA ’76 and Burton J. Reiner Wendy B. Rieger ’80 Christian A. Sandstedt ’92 and Mona Shahgholi Judith A. Schomer ’80 and Morton W. Schomer Michael H. Schwartz Rhea S. Schwartz AU and Paul Martin Wolff Howard J. Sedran ’73 Romeo A. Segnan AU

20

Gail Slomovitz and Albert Slomovitz Jean P. Soman H. Karl Springob ’50, MA ’52 and Helen P. Springob Stan Sroka Virginia Lyn Stallings AU Margaret W. Studt ’73 Sandra R. Swab MPA ’90, MS ’98 and Kenneth E. Swab Paul R. Tetreault Terri M. Thomas P ’11 and Fred W. Thomas P ’11 Sigrid M. Vonabele ’93 Dorothy E. Waugh PhD ’62 and Merle G. Waugh Adelia H. Williams AU MEd ’74, PhD ’93 and Thomas S. Williams

$250–$499 Alayne A. Adams PhD ’71 and William T. Adams Richard C. Barnett MA ’74 and Caroline W. Barnett Ruth D. Bartfeld MEd ’82 and Charles I. Bartfeld AU Gabriela Bebchick and Leonard Bebchick Andrew A. Bell ’69, MEd ’70 Lee F. Berger AU ’99 Edmond Biba AU MS ’96, PhD ’99 and Jeeranance Boonpok Brenda C. Birmelin ’64 Joan E. Birnbaum ’71, MSTR ’76, MA ’77 and Philip Birnbaum Donald K. Bischoff ’69 Scott L. Bookstein ’87 and Desiree Bookstein Marla Boren AU MA ’99 and Paul W. Boren Richard D. Breitman AU and Carol R. Breitman Mary S. Brown EdD ’75 Ann Burger ’59 and Herbert Burger Robert D. Burns ’71 and Virginia M. Burns Helen Chason and Craig Chason Kyra Cheremeteff Christine B. Chin AU PhD ’95 Herbert Cohen JD ’68, P ’89 and Brenda Cohen P ’89 Sara L. Day MA ’85 and Stephen M. Day AU Marta A. De la Torre MA ’83 Dallas P. Dean ’62 Kevin Di Lallo Mark N. Dorf ’79 Mary Ellen E. Duke MA ’85

Carol M. Edwards AU ’73, MS ’81 and Robert H. Edwards Martin P. Eisenhart ’75 Patricia G. England and Lenore A. England Stephen L. Finley PhD ’91 and Betty Finley Maureen L. Fittig AU and Alan W. Fittig Michael Galaviz AU Bowen Garrett Krassimir H. Genov ’96 Lisa Giddings AU PhD ’00 James E. Girard AU P ’07, P ’09 and Constance T. Diamant PhD ’91, P ’07, P ’09 Peter G. Glick ’86 Susan H. Godson MA ’72, PhD ’79 Eleanor D. Gomolinski Lally MA ’70 Ì and Thomas J. Lally Ì William L. Goris ’77 and Karen A. Goris Gail W. Gorlitzz and Cris Smith Nancy J. Gross ’72 and James T. Walb MSTM ’74 Bruce Guthrie Tina S. Fried Heller AU MPA ’80 Christopher Hest John R. Heuser PhD ’84 Janet E. Hutner ’73 Barbara A. Jabr MA ’56 Patrick E. Kehoe AU P ’96 Amy E. Krupsky and Kenneth Krupsky Liza Labadie and Andrew C. Labadie Martha Lazarakis P ’10 and Sam Lazarakis P ’10 Harold H. Leich ’55 Melissa B. Levine ’95 and Jason Levine Carol B. Lynn P ’11 and Kerry E. Lynn P ’11 Katherine L. MacDiarmid AU Gerald S. Malitz ’72 and Ruth L. Marcus Patrick W. Marks MSTM ’73 and Margit Marks Catherine Menninger Mary H. Mytryshyn MS ’72 and John Mytryshyn Amy A. Oliver AU and John A. Loughney Daniel J. Olson ’66 and Janet Olson Glenna D. Osnos and David M. Osnos Jerome S. Paige MA ’74, PhD ’82 and Cynthia A. Paige

Leslie L. Palmieri AU and Peter E. Palmieri Bruce Pascal Robert T. Pasquerella MA ’96 James T. PearceÙ MA ’71 Jarrett B. Perlow ’00, JD ’04 Leta M. Petroff P ’13 and George A. Petroff P ’13 Joan T. Phelan ’49 Oveta M. Popjoy MSTM ’74 and Drew S. Popjoy Mindy A. Portnoy Dewain H. Rahe MA ’69 and Joyce W. Rahe Lawrence S. Reichlin ’72 Thomas W. Richardson David A. Rosenberg ’70 and Deborah L. Rosenberg Mary H. Savage AU MS ’99 Carol D. Schultz P ’11 and John B. Schultz P ’11 Andrew G. Ship ’81, MEd ’83 Kevin G. Shollenberger MEd ’89 Courtenay Slater MA ’65, PhD ’68 and Whitney S. Slater Diane E. Smith Richard P. Solloway Estate of Frank M. Spindler PhD ’66 Daniel Steinway Martin N. Stone ’69 and Maritza L. Stone Kimberly Syman and J. B. Lyon Ann E. Taylor-Green PhD ’87 Delores E. Thurgood ’70 Peter F. Trapp ’70 and Pamela F. Trapp Carl R. Tuvin Lyuba Varticovski Michael E. Weber ’85, MA ’89 and Leslie F. Weber AU Philip C. Webre PhD ’83 David S. Weisman ’80 Debra A. Young ’74, MS ’78 Ruth L. Zetlin ’79 Margot Zimmerman and Paul Zimmerman

Corporations, Foundations, & Other Organizations Anonymous (1) Abramson Family Foundation Inc. Baxt Family Foundation Inc.

Berman Family Foundation Gary and Carol Berman Family Foundation Bou Family Foundation Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation Community Foundation for Montgomery County CrossCurrents Foundation Driggs Foundation ExxonMobil Foundation Freddie Mac Foundation Samuel and Grace Gorlitz Foundation Harris Family Foundation Cyrus Katzen Foundation Robert P. and Arlene R. Kogod Family Foundation Bernard and Carol Kossar Foundation Lion Brand Yarn Company Margie Litman LLC McGraw-Hill Companies Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies Nixon Peabody LLP Nikos G. and Anastasia Photias Educational Foundation Heather Podesta Partners Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation Schwartz-Wolff Foundation Curt C. and Else Silberman Foundation United Jewish Endowment Fund of Washington Wells Fargo Wolpoff Family Foundation

Ù Deceased

Ì Helen Palmer Kettler Society recognizes individuals who have named the university as beneficiary of their charitable estate plans and have made their intentions known to us AU Current or former faculty or staff H Honorary degree recipient P AU parent

achievements

Appointments & Honors

ALI ENAYAT (mathematics and statistics) received a $35,000 Collaboration Grant for Mathematicians from the Simons Foundation for his five-year project, “Model Theory of Foundational Systems.”

EVAN BERRY (philosophy and religion) was named a Global Ethics Fellow with the Global Ethics Network, an initiative of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

DANIEL KERR (history) was awarded $5,105 by the National Park Service for “Research for the 150th Anniversary Celebration of the Emancipation and the Emancipation Proclamation.”

DAN KALMAN (mathematics and statistics) won the Mathematical Association of America’s 2012 Beckenbach Book Prize for Uncommon Mathematical Excursions: Polynomia and Related Realm.

ROBERT LERMAN (economics) received a $96,607 award from Rutgers University for his project “Science and Engineering Educational and Employment Pathways.”

ALAN KRAUT (history) is president-elect of the Organization of American Historians for 2012.

He will assume office in April 2013.

STEPHEN MACAVOY (environmental science) was granted $25,902 from the University of the District of Columbia for his project “District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services.”

XIMENA VARELA (arts management) has been appointed to the editorial board of the new American Journal of Arts Management.

APRIL SHELFORD (history) has been awarded a fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library to work on her project “A Caribbean Enlightenment.”

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) awarded a 2012–13 American Fellowship to KATHARINA VESTER (history). The fellowship will allow her to finish her first monograph, A Taste of Power: Food and the Making of Americans.

ANASTASIA SNELLING (SETH) received a $20,000 award from Aetna Foundation for the project “Community Voices for Health: Kids Take Action.”

Grants & Research DANIEL ABRAHAM (performing arts) received a $7,000 award from the U.S. Department of State for the American University Chamber Singers concert tour of Russia in May 2013.

SARAH IRVINE BELSON (SETH) is the principal investigator in a partnership with City Year to provide graduate education to a cohort of program participants. City Year includes three graduate programs in the School of Education, Teaching, and Health.

The National Science Foundation awarded a $1,884,606 grant to fund “From the Laboratory to the Classroom: Building Capacity for Math and Science Teaching in D.C. (Lab2Class).” Project directors are SARAH IRVINE BELSON, KIHO KIM, BIANCA ABRAMS, JOHN P. NOLAN, and MICHAEL KEYNES. DAVID CULVER (environmental science) received a $12,224 award from the University of the District of Columbia for the project “Biological Inventory of Seepage Springs and Vernal Pools: Small Isolated Wetlands in Parks of National Capital East (NPS).”

NIH awarded TERRY DAVIDSON (psychology) $637,991 to fund his three-year project, “Signals to Feed: Biological and Associative Mechanisms.”

Another $143,583 NIH grant was transferred from Purdue University. The title of his project is “Energy Dysregulation: Behavioral and Biological Signals.”

Books & Productions The book Brave New World: Imperial and Democratic Nation-Building in Britain between the Wars, coedited by LAURA BEERS (history), was published by the Institute of Historical Research in 2012.

DEBRA BERGOFFEN (philosophy and religion) published Contesting the Politics of Genocidal Rape: Affirming the Dignity of the Vulnerable Body (Routledge, 2011).

DAVID CULVER (environmental science) and W. B. White published the second edition of Encyclopedia of Caves (Elsevier, 2012).

ANTON FEDYASHIN (history) published Liberals under Autocracy: Modernization and Civil Society in Russia, 1866–1904 (University of Wisconsin, 2012).

The book Optical Coatings and Thermal Noise in Precision Measurement, coedited by GREGG HARRY (physics), was published by Cambridge University in 2012.

ALINA ISRAELI (world languages and cultures) published What You Always Wanted to Know about Russian Grammar *But Were Afraid to Ask (Slavica, 2011).

DAVID KEPLINGER (literature) released an album of songs based on lyrics written by his great-great-grandfather during the 1800s.

JEFFREY REIMAN (philosophy) published As Free and as Just as Possible: The Theory of Marxian Liberalism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

NANCY SNIDER (performing arts) performed the modern world premiere of Monsigny’s Le Roi et le Fermier with Opera Lafayette at the Opéra Royale in Versailles, France. She also performed The Voice of Anne Frank at the Katzen Arts Center, with acclaimed Czech artist Miøenka Èechová. The two originally collaborated on this project when Cechová was a Fulbright scholar teaching at AU.

Promotions & Appointments Distinguished Professor RICHARD BREITMAN, history ALLAN LICHTMAN, history

Endowed Chair ERIC LOHR, Susan E. Lehrman Chair in Russian History and Culture

Professor MICHELE CARTER, psychology MADHAVI MENON, literature

Associate Professor and Tenure DOUGLAS FOX, chemistry ANDREW HOLTIN, art PHILIP JOHNSON, physics ADREA LAWRENCE, SETH ELIZABETH MALLOY, mathematics and statistics KATE RESNICK, art BRENDA WERTH, world languages and cultures

Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer (literature) CYNTHIA BAIR VAN DAM GLENN MOOMAU LACEY WOOTTON

Senior Professorial Lecturer (literature) CHARLES COX LEAH JOHNSON KELLY JOYNER ADAM TAMASHASKY KATE WILSON

Professorial Lecturer (literature) EDWARD COMSTOCK JOHN ELDERKIN LYDIA FETTIG CARON MARTINEZ JOCELYN MCCARTHY HEATHER MCDONALD KRISTINA OAKES ALISON THOMAS

21

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 966 Washington, D.C.

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20016-8012 american.edu/cas

An equal opportunity, affirmative action university. UP 13-283 For information regarding the accreditation and licensing of American University, please visit american.edu/academics.