Why Social Networks Matter
RESEARCH
President Martin used her convocation address to counter attacks on liberal arts education.
Curious Professors The faculty continues to expand its ranks, adding 30 new members this academic year. The interests of these scholars include:
AUCTION DESIGN: Brian
MEGAN ROBERTSON ’15
Baisa, assistant professor of economics, studies game theory with a focus on auction design. He is especially interested in what economic theory can say about the ways in which goods and services are sold.
SPEECHES U In this year’s
convocation address, President Biddy Martin took on those who question the value of a liberal arts education by describing her own background and the role Amherst plays in reducing prejudice and ignorance. “I’m a little worked up about some of the attacks on liberal arts education and higher education in general,” she told the Class of 2017 in Johnson Chapel. “Calls to keep higher ed accessible, affordable ff and of high quality are legitimate and have to be heeded, but some of the gleeful proclamations of disruption and demise are pernicious.” Like 18 percent of the new class, Martin was a first-generation college student. She said she was raised “in an environment and a family that feared education because it has the power to change us.” Because of her experiences, she said, she’s thought a lot “about the benefi fits of education, but also about what can be diffi fficult in it.” What can be diffi fficult, she said,
is “combining the intellectual quality of this community with an eff ffort to take better advantage of the diff fferences among us.” One way to break out of the “prison house of ignorance and prejudice,” she said, is for students to build not only “bonding” relationships with people who are comfortably similar to themselves but also “bridging” relationships with those from other backgrounds. Citing research by Amherst psychology professor Elizabeth Aries and others, who have found that white U.S. students from more privileged backgrounds tend to do the least crossing of boundaries in their friendship networks, Martin urged all students to use their time at Amherst to resist the “comfort and safety” of insular networks. “The friendships you form here matter, and they matter not only to you as individuals or to the institution, but they matter on a much larger stage,” she said. “The relationships we build here are experiments in the kind of social world we could imagine and would like to have.” PETER ROONEY
SMALL RNA: Yan Qi, assistant professor of biology, studies the regulatory roles of small RNAs in cellular stress response, using the nematode worm C. elegans. This semester she’s teaching a course in molecular genetics. TURNING POLLUTION INTO PRODUCTS: Nicholas
Ball, assistant professor of chemistry, develops ways to convert air, water and ground pollutants into useful feedstocks for chemical synthesis. PUERTO RICAN HISTORY:
Solsiree del Moral, associate professor of American studies and black studies, wrote a book about the cultural politics of schools in Puerto Rico between 1898 and 1952. POINTING: Carolyn
Palmquist, assistant professor of psychology, studies nonverbal communication—specifically, pointing—in children. CHINESE POLITICS: Kerry
Ratigan, assistant professor of political science, is teaching a course this semester on power and politics in contemporary China, and another on collective action and the politics of resistance. Her current research is on health policy adoption and implementation. Amherst Fall 2013 7