Accomplishments: • Creating in the Wild Zone, a collaborative art show featuring the talents of faculty and staff women. • Savannah Sawle represented Carthage College at the Practicum in Advocacy at the United Nations in New York City. She was one of twenty students chosen by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom to attend the Committee on the Status of Women. • WFLC leadership speaker series featuring Carthage alumna, faculty, and students, including Ms. Sawle. • WGS sponsorship of a student attending the summer Mount Mary College Leadership Institute. • WFLC partners with a student book club at Reuther High School in Kenosha to develop female leaders and hosted author Danielle Evans for a public book reading and discussion at Carthage College. Goals: • The WFLC is introducing a Carthage Symposium Leadership class with a new model for all Carthage symposia. • The WGS will hold a leadership conference in 2013 to accompany the new Carthage Symposium.
Language: A Double Edged Sword Madeline Price, 2014 Major: Music Education Hometown: Novi, Mich. Faculty Sponsor: Mimi Yang
My research aims to show an understanding of Spanish culture and language through a historical fiction story. This story weaves together historical information about the cause and effects of globalization and conquest on a society into a fictional narrative. It will explain motives for immigration to different countries as well as historical social standings. This work will also show the power of language in terms of an individual’s societal status and the impact language can have on a person’s life. By writing a narrative, I hope to help the reader connect at a personal level to some of the trials and obstacles one would encounter in certain social contexts. Shortly after Spain conquered Latin America, Spanish was revered as a powerful language and all were required to learn it. This caused a division among the social classes, but at the same time brought about a unity among the people with a common tongue. Though this narrative I will bring light to some of the reasons why language is so important to a society, and how not knowing how to speak the dominant language of a country can have implications on one’s social status.
A Votive Altar from Omrit Emily Prosch, 2013
Major: Classical Archaeology Hometown: Boulder, Colo. Faculty Sponsor: Chris Renaud, Dan Schowalter
The goal of this project is to study the historical and epigraphical context of a small inscribed basalt altar from Horvat Omrit in northern Israel. This research is unique because the altar is an unpublished find from the site. The methods I am using to achieve this research include working closely with Professors Schowalter, DeSmidt and Renaud on the style, context and inscription, and comparing the altar to similar altars found in the region from the same time period as Omrit’s temple complex. Since my research is still in progress, I will also develop a list of questions to explore further when I return to Omrit at the end of May and can study the altar in person. Based on my research so far, I expect to report that the altar is a small votive altar from the first century CE. It is made of basalt, with a round depression and lip on top to receive non-animal sacrifices such as libations or grain offerings. The altar has an inscription on it which I am also studying, and I expect it will explain to whom the altar is dedicated and for what purpose. By the time of the event I will have a working translation that will help date the altar and reveal the religious context in which it was used.
The Freedom Paradox in Waiting for Godot Rachelle Ramos, 2012
Major: English Hometown: Franklin Square, N.Y. Faculty Sponsor: Maria Carrig
“The Freedom Paradox in Waiting for Godot” explores Beckett’s dramatization of the problems surrounding human freedom from the perspective of cognitive science. The brain is what both enables and restricts freedom. Because this organ is the medium through which infinite choices may be made and also the prison in which consciousness resides, the brain lies at the heart of the freedom paradox. The main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, represent the two extremes of this paradox. Vladimir inextricably shackles himself by one choice that has become habit. Estragon, as the other extreme, is eternally free in his forgetfulness and constant need to choose. The freedom paradox of the main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, is the focus of the paper. Vladimir and Estragon not only dramatize the paradoxes of the brain’s decision-making processes, they also raise the question of whether or not our need to choose, despite the mind’s systematic limitations, constitutes an affirmation or a condemnation of the value of human life. This thesis uses cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience to analyze the human paradox Beckett dramatizes. Cognitive psychology explores the brain’s internal processes. Cognitive neuroscience is concerned with the physiology of the brain and how it pertains to internal processes. The work of Ruby Cohn, Jon Rockelein, and Beckett’s own cognitive theories outlined in his Proust will ground the discussion. Considering that cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience are being widely discussed across a number of contemporary disciplines, this paper joins in that conversation as a bridge between the humanities and sciences. 37