Ytori - Fall 2017

FALL 2017 • VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2

THE MAGAZINE FOR THE UNIVERSITY of FLORIDA COLLEGE of LIBERAL ARTS and SCIENCES

Research is formalized curiosity.

It is poking and prying with a purpose. — ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Zora Neale Hurston, 1901–60, was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. Her papers are housed at UF and compose one of the most significant and extensive collections at the Smathers Library.

Cover: The Honorable Bob Graham ’59 has been serving Florida for more than half a century.

Lyon Duong

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Four faculty researchers from biology and sociology examine the nexus of forest conservation, economics, and governance around the world. — By Rachel Wayne

In April 2017, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences held its first awards ceremony dedicated to showcasing the college’s exceptional people. — By Gigi Marino

THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

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A MOST EXCELLENT EVENING

Above: The ancient city of Mahdia lies on the East Coast of Tunisia, where Professor Ed Kellerman spent part of his 2017 Fulbright award.

Ed Kellerman

QUESTION

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The Legend in the Loam

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The Square Root of Poverty

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Vodou and Valency

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Skygazers

DISCOVER

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Civic Champion

CONNECT

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Transforming Tunisia

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From The Dean In April, Liberal Arts and Sciences celebrated alumni, students, faculty, and staff with our first awards ceremony, Evening of Excellence. The ceremony concluded with the presentation of the Civic Champion award given to The Honorable BOB GRAHAM ’59, who has fought for better schools, a healthy environment, economic opportunity, racial and ethnic diversity, and Florida’s natural resources.

After eight years as governor, he served 18 years as U.S. senator. He chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee that investigated the events of 9/11, rallied for 9/11 families, and encouraged bipartisanship in Washington. He has represented the nation and UF with distinction, honor, and integrity. At 81, Sen. Graham continues to be a tireless advocate and civil servant. Learn more about him and his UF legacy, the Bob Graham Center for Public Service — which encourages and promotes political involvement and service for all Floridians — in this issue’s cover story on p. 18.

In October, UF launched a $3 billion campaign, Go Greater, with a campus-wide extravaganza. We will be working diligently over the next five years to raise funds that will benefit our students, faculty, and staff, our college, and the university. One of the major campaign initiatives for Liberal Arts and Sciences is a new program we call Beyond120, which focuses on career readiness for our undergraduates. We want 6 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

all of our students to be prepared to navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world economy in the 21st century. You can read about this exciting new project on p. 45.

We featured the first observation of gravitational waves in the Fall 2016 issue, and the article described the “multi-messenger” potential for combining gravitational-wave detection with telescopic imagery. In this issue, we commend the UF physicists and astronomers who contributed to the first simultaneous detection of a collision of two neutron stars using all these methods, which The Washington Post said is “sparking a new era of astronomy” (p. 44).

Each issue of Ytori opens with a quote about liberal arts and sciences education. We are particularly pleased to feature Zora Neale Hurston in this issue as her papers are here at the University of Florida. Her quote reminds us that progress comes from curiosity and that we humans are driven by purpose.

Go Gators and Go Greater,

David E. Richardson Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

SARKIS ANAC ’08 has been giving back to UF since he graduated. He’s been consistent with his gifts but initially was conservative. “The market had just crashed when I graduated,” he says. “None of us had jobs or money. My giving did not exceed what I could afford.”

Today, Sarkis is a real estate executive in Miami. He is one of the owners of Anac Solutions, which focuses on property management and investment portfolios, and he is the founder of Anac Global Realty, which deals with residential and commercial real estate. “As I’ve become more successful, I’m able to give more,” he says. “It’s important you give what you feel comfortable with.”

His philanthropy is inspired by his undergraduate experience — he credits UF Liberal Arts and Sciences with ushering him into adulthood, teaching him life skills, introducing him to lifelong friends, and educating him about different people and places. “The university taught me a lot about myself and the world, and I wanted to give back to the school that gave me so much.”

To learn more how you also can give back, contact the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Office of Advancement at 352-294-1971 or alumni@ufl.edu.

U N I V E R S I T Y of F L O R I D A

U.S. Library of Congress – Archives

Thesis

Georgetown, a historic neighborhood in Washington, D.C., lies adjacent to the Potomac River. 3324 Dent Place NW, marked in red, was the residence of Yarrow Mamout.

The Legend in the Loam Two UF alumni archaeologists unearth the home and legend of a freed African Muslim slave who became a financier in Georgetown at the turn of the 19th century.

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by Rachel Wayne

mong the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection of 19th-century oil portraits of esteemed men, one stands out. Painted

by Charles Willson Peale, who also captured luminaries such as George Washington, it is an 1819 portrait of an older gentleman with a traditional Muslim kufi and a worn but triumphant gaze hinting at an unusual piece of Washington, D.C., history. The painting is of Yarrow Mamout, a financier who sat for two such portraits and owned a sizable property in the Georgetown neighborhood. His remarkable success might be unexpected, as he spent 44 years a slave.

Despite his accomplishments as a freed African Muslim, Mamout faded from history, relegated to the two portraits 8 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

and local lore. In 2004, his biographer, James H. Johnston, spotted Mamout’s second portrait, a James Alexander Simpson work at the Georgetown Public Library, and he wanted to know more about the man in the picture. Two blocks away, at 3324 Dent Place NW, a small lot is a mystery of rubble, its Reconstruction-era house crushed by a tree as Johnston was finishing his research. Although the legend of Mamout permeated the area, the link between the smiling man in the Peale portrait and the decrepit lot was unconfirmed until Johnston completed his work. The D.C. Historic Preservation Office began excavating the former site of Mamout’s home in June 2015, following several years of research by the office’s interns.

For one graduate student at UF, the excavation was an extraordinary opportunity, and in the face of persistent

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racial and religious tensions in America, a chance to flex archaeology’s muscles to tackle a pressing social problem.

MIA CAREY PHD’17 initially came to UF on a McKnight Fellowship to pursue zooarchaeology under the mentorship of Professor Susan deFrance. As she moved forward in her studies, she began volunteering with the D.C. Historic Preservation Office in 2011, with internships in 2014 and 2015. The district archaeologist, RUTH TROCOLLI PHD’06, invited Carey to join the dig on Dent Place. “We didn’t really know what to expect. Nobody had ever excavated a known African Muslim site in the U.S.,” says Carey, who served as a field director on the dig. Trocolli told The Washington Post that in lieu of time travel or written records, archaeology illuminates the stories of slaves’ lives.

Charles Willson Peale – Philadelphia Museum of Art

Archaeology has a way of fleshing out what written records have not. The excavations brought a physical reality to the legend of Mamout.

These stories are not well documented in history, and those of African Muslims taken as slaves even less so.

Mamout was well educated, which afforded him some reprieve from harsh conditions, although he was kept in servitude for most of his adult life as a brick-maker and butler. In 1800, a few years after gaining his freedom at age 60, he purchased 3324 Dent Place NW. After his death, the house was eventually replaced by another, which sat empty until an oak crushed it in 2011, trapping artifacts of a fascinating life in the ground below. The Historic Preservation Office prevented the permanent obscuring in the face of potential development; a common role for contemporary archaeologists is to uncover secrets in the soil before new construction covers them up. This case was indeed a chance to give voice to the voiceless, as Trocolli put it.

According to Johnston’s research, it was likely that Mamout had been buried on the property; his remarks on this possibility at a development board hearing helped secure the stay on renovations. The dig commenced with mixed feelings about the potential discovery of human remains on the property, reported The Post, but none were found, likely due to the acidity of the clay-based soil. Moreover, the archaeologists found no evidence of burial.

Archaeology has a way of fleshing out what written records have not. The excavations brought a physical reality to the legend of Mamout. However, “the some-

times overemphasis on artifacts, data, and reports is what limits our ability to connect the past to the present in real and meaningful ways,” says Carey. Importantly, the excavation allowed the team to conduct public outreach that challenged the often reductive and sanitized narrative about both slaves and Muslims in American history. The researchers hosted “fence talks” with passersby during the dig and launched a Facebook page, the Yarrow Mamout Archaeology Project, to share their findings and tell Mamout’s story in an innovative way.

According to the dissertation Carey wrote from her Georgetown fieldwork, the excavation was much more than digging holes. There now was an opening to “puncture the silences” created by “white privilege” in society — the “common thread through literacy tests, immigration, South Asian religious movements, the Nation of Islam, and the racialization of Islam,” she says. Excavating Mamout’s residence brought material culture into conversation with oral history and ethnography, filling in the many blanks that speckle America’s convoluted and brutal history of slavery.

Although Mamout’s story was unusual, it illustrates that freed slaves did not vanish from society, and their threads of history are crucial to understanding the artifacts, both material and ideological, of race relations in the United States. q

Portrait of Yarrow Mamout (Muhammad Yaro), Charles Willson Peale

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UF Photography — Hannah Pietrick

Ask the Expert

RACHEL DORMAN ’10, MS’12 ON DEFERRED GIVING WHAT IS A BEQUEST?

WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF ESTABLISHING A BEQUEST?

A bequest is a deferred revocable gift typically given through a will or living trust.

A bequest is a wonderful way to create a lasting legacy at the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Through estate planning, individuals often make the largest and most impactful philanthropic contribution of their lifetime. These types of gifts can truly be transformative. There can also be tax advantages for the donor and their heirs.

HOW DOES A BEQUEST DIFFER FROM OTHER GIFTS TO THE COLLEGE? Like immediate cash gifts, bequests can be made today.

However, the college will not receive the funding until the donor passes.

HOW CAN MY GIFT BEST BENEFIT UF? HOW ARE BEQUESTS MADE? If you know you would like to include the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in your estate plans, there are three main ways to accomplish this within a will or living trust. You can state a set dollar amount, name a percentage or residue of your estate, or name a specific item of property (such as jewelry or real estate) in your estate plans. You can also name UF as a beneficiary on your retirement plan, bank account, brokerage account, or life insurance policy. This can easily be accomplished through a change of beneficiary form with your account administrator, without changing your will or trust.

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A bequest might not be received by UF for many years — so there’s a delay in funding the gifted purpose. As a result, restrictions placed on the usage of your gift should be as minimal as possible, providing UF with maximum flexibility, as priorities and programs change over time. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Development and Alumni Affairs team can work with you to find gift proposals that meet your philanthropic goals.

Rachel Dorman ’10, MS’12 is associate director of development and can be reached at rdorman@uff.ufl.edu. For suggested bequest language, go to giftplanning.uff.ufl.edu or call UF’s Office of Gift Planning at 866-317-4143.

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Ask the Archivist

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE F BOOK? University Archivist Peggy McBride explains the origins of a UF tradition.

Kristen Bartlett Grace

“G

reetings: The University of Florida swings wide its doors and welcomes into the college circle you young men who enter here as students for the first time. A hardy welcome is extended you to the ideals, traditions, and opportunities of the college world.”

These are a few of the words of UF President and mathematician A.A. Murphree in the 1925–26 Volume I of the F Book, a handbook presented to students as they registered for classes.

The volume contained the constitution and laws for the student body and various university organizations, the university calendar, and a list of student officers. Also included was information about social fraternities, a list of honorary fraternities, and the words to spirit songs and yells. The editors added a letter to freshmen giving suggestions about handling money matters, finding a place to live, and registering for classes — “Registration under present conditions, dear Freshman, is an endurance test at best.”

The 1925–26 F Book was a two-volume set with Volume II being the official directory of faculty and students. It also contained ads for cafés, laundry services, boarding houses, car dealerships, flower shops, drug stores, hardware stores, newsstands, and churches. One enterprising clothier, advertising sport apparel for college men, recommended purchasing “A tie that will blaze in a hectic haze, down where the vest begins.”

Inspired by Dean of Students Robert C. Beaty, the handbook usually was published as a paperback that would fit neatly in a student’s pocket for easy access. While the 1925–26 F Book established the basic facts needed by UF students, over the years information was added about a list of traditions, which included freshmen wearing “rat caps,” Homecoming, Gator Growl, and the requirement that the entire freshman class had to attend all football games and athletic events held in Gainesville.

In the 1930s, the editors divided Volume I into four books: General Information, Student Government, Organizations, and Athletics. The “President’s Welcome” was reduced to a short paragraph stating the university was hospitable and democratic with a congenial atmosphere. Generous amounts

of sports information and a fold-out campus map were included during these years.

Publication was suspended in 1960, but in 2006, the Cicerones and the Student Alumni Association resurrected the F Book to strengthen the undergraduate experience. Today, the University of Florida Alumni Association publishes the F Book as a photographic scrapbook chronicling university traditions that will never change.

“Where palm and pine are blowing, where Southern seas are flowing, shine forth thy noble Gothic walls, thy lovely vine-clad halls. ’Neath the Orange and Blue victorious, our love shall never fail. There’s no other name so glorious — all hail, Florida, hail!”

Volume II of the 1925–26 F Book (on the lower right) is the only copy left in existence.

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Centuries ago, trees were used by those who lived among or near them.

Forests were both the home and the store. Decisions about new buildings and infrastructure were made by the communities who would be using them.

By Rachel Wayne Illustrations by Jing Jing Tsong

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IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD FULL OF NATION-STATES, the use of natural resources is drastically varied. Forests provide lumber for buildings hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Many cease to exist. Power structures ostensibly representing millions of people govern the use of the planet’s resources.

Who, then, is responsible for saving the trees? It takes a village — but a bigger one this time, with people from all walks of life. Among these people are academics of multiple disciplines, NGO workers, and community organizers.

At the University of Florida, a village meeting center has emerged as faculty from a half dozen disciplines cross the garden walls to meet in the forest — both metaphorically and literally.

Twenty-seven professors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences serve as affiliate faculty of UF’s Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) program. TCD emerged in the 1970s and gained momentum over the next couple of decades, with significant leadership by UF professor Marianne Schmink, who served as its co-director from 1993 to 1995 and director from 1996 to 2010. The program offers an interdisciplinary hub that extends its roots beyond the UF sphere; this broad network becomes increasingly crucial to solving the challenging problems of deforestation, damming, and loss of culture and biodiversity — much of which occurs between 23 degrees north and 23 degrees south.

“My perception is that the wicked problems of the world, the ones that have no easy solution, ultimately lead us to do this kind of thing,” says Stephen Perz, professor of sociology and author of Crossing Boundaries for Collaboration: Conservation and Development Projects in the Amazon. “The challenges of working with the ‘other’ — people in other disciplines, other countries, other kinds of organizations — I ended up learning by doing.” Trained as a demographer, Perz’ research into frontier migration ultimately led him from sociological inquiry into land use, road-building and conservation in the Amazon.

These topics revolve around the worsening problem of drastic deforestation, and the human element cannot be ignored, nor confined to state-level interventions. Indeed, a familiarity with the people within the forest is crucial to this kind of work, especially as conservation scientists work towards community-oriented natural resource management.

Local institutions and power dynamics of land ownership and use must be considered. Schmink, professor of Latin American Studies and affiliate professor of anthropology, studies gender politics in conservation. “Development and conservation tend to be viewed as political and ideological issues. Often people in technical fields don’t understand how gender division of labor and different forms of knowledge

and other key gender differences might affect what to them don’t seem to be related,” she says. “After 40 years in this field, I usually have to start from zero in explaining to people how gender impacts the field.” For example, many land-use decisions are made by women in forest communities around the world, so imposing state hegemony of male-oriented nations is harmful.

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Even entering these vulnerable areas as a researcher has its challenges, agrees Perz. “When you’re crossing boundaries, usually those boundaries are there for [societal] reasons and then they map on inequalities. When the white male PhD from a big North American university comes down into a small country where they don’t have as many PhDs and the people speak a different language and the skin colors are different, that has to be navigated because it can come up in various different ways and can cause all kinds of misunderstandings and confusion,” he says.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD IN INDONESIA, biology professor Jack Putz studies logging and natural resource management by examining the trees themselves. His education in applied plant ecology kicks into gear when working in an area with forests that will inevitably be logged. Who better than such an expert to protect the forest despite the loss of its trees? “Outside of protected areas in landscapes from which people need to earn livings, I often find myself doing conservation with chainsaws, bulldozers, herbicides, and drip torches,”

he says. Saving the trees is a family thing, he says, starting with a threatened patch of trees behind his house. “To my great embarrassment, [my mother] chained herself to a tree and dared the dozer drivers to plow her under. They didn’t and the trees stand, testimony to her determination.”

The family tradition continues as Putz and Claudia Romero, his research partner and wife, each tackle deforestation and forest degradation. Assistant Professor of Biology Romero focuses on mitigating the effects of climate change, bringing her dual perspectives in ecology and economics to the table. The pair’s most recent paper for the Center for International Forestry Research reviews the efficacy of methods such as Reduced-Impact Logging (RIL) and silvicultural (tree care) treatment and addresses the climate change effects of such methods. Written with their former student RUSLANDI PHD’15, the paper explores the timber, carbon, and financial tradeoffs that result from RIL and other tree-growth enhancing treatments in Indonesia. Moreover, there is the question of economic effects, exemplified by the misunderstanding of RIL to mean “reduced-income logging.”

Conservation science often walks a web of fine lines among saving the trees, reducing the greenhouse effect, supporting local economies, and protecting biodiversity, any of which can come at the expense of another.

While Putz works outside government-sanctioned “Protected Areas,” historically, such zones have had the unfortunate side effect of asserting state control with little parity with the locals. In light of this, many conservation efforts seek to integrate silvicultural and culturally competent measures. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature thus identifies and encourages the creation of Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs). Many ICCAs are so because of a web of customs, traditions, and principles that encourage conservation. In Brazil, indigenous reserves comprise a significant portion of the country’s 145 million hectares of Amazonia.

Understanding humans, no matter their type of society or culture, as geomorphic agents better allows for tree-saving.

The new approach to conservation remembers the forest’s people, yet sheds the myth of the “noble savage” living in perfect harmony with nature. Understanding humans, no matter their type of society or culture, as geomorphic agents better allows for tree-saving. “Beginning in 1988 or ’89, we had two training courses in Brazil that were focused on an approach developed by Peter Hildebrand, UF professor emeritus, that offered solutions for small farmers and forest 14 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

I grew up on the edge of an extensive wilderness area, at least extensive from the perspective of a little kid growing up in suburban New Jersey, Plenty of trees to climb, underground forts to dig, squirrels to harass …

managers,” says Schmink. The program, PESACRE, brought professionals into collaboration with small agricultural producers in Brazil. Supported by a major USAID grant for 13 years, PESACRE addressed economic vitality and natural-resource conservation as two sides of the same coin.

Perz seeks to connect all these dots with intricacy to match that of the forest ecosystem. It starts with a decision, such as to build a road. “What happens when you pave a road in the Amazon? Socially, economically and ecologically? As it turns out, there is a large literature on all those topics, and they draw very different conclusions as to whether the roads are a good or a bad thing.” In the end, conservation does not necessarily equate to preservation.

For these researchers, the seeds of conservation science started with the trees. “In graduate school in the 1970s — the beginnings of the women’s movement — I was able to do some traveling as an undergraduate in Nicaragua and Mexico,” recalls Schmink. “It got me interested in Latin America, in human–nature interactions and how people adapt to their environment.”

“I grew up on the edge of an extensive wilderness area, at least extensive from the perspective of a little kid growing up in suburban New Jersey,” says Putz. “Plenty of trees to climb, underground forts to dig, squirrels to harass, and a lot of the same things I continue to do as an adult, but now I get paid for it.” q YTORI — FALL 2017 | 15

Global Studies

Countries with intense poverty, such as Cameroon, can benefit from Professor Calistus Ngonghala’s mathematical models that draw relationships between disease and economics.

UF researcher Calistus Ngonghala uses math to understand the spread — and prevention — of disease in subSaharan Africa.

By Terri Peterson For UF mathematical biology professor Calistus Ngonghala, researching the relationship between poverty and disease is more than an academic endeavor. Ngonghala grew up in rural Cameroon in central Africa in the 1980s, with friends and family living a subsistence lifestyle. He witnessed the devastating social impact infectious diseases such as HIV and malaria can inflict, recognizing that disease and poverty can reinforce one another and force a community into a poverty trap.

“If you were sick, you walked many miles or squeezed into a compact car to ride ill-kept roads to see a doctor, or suffered with the illness,” says Ngonghala. All of these options degrade an individual’s ability to support oneself, whether due to the incursion of medical expenses, or by lost work time and attendant lost wages. In turn, this degradation exacerbates the problems of poverty, creating a deeper trap from which to climb. “I knew this was the problem I wanted to solve when I left for college. It’s grown up inside me.”

Ngonghala points out that not all poverty is the same, and not all relief efforts achieve desired goals. “We can apply a patch to a poverty-stricken area. For example, we can send in food. And that might be what one community needs to survive, but another area may be in need of something else, like medical supplies. There’s no one Band-aid that works 16 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

everywhere.” Also, one-time relief efforts might work for some cases, but can be problematic in other situations.

For example, sending food to an area enduring persistent extreme poverty may temporarily elevate an individual’s well-being within that state of poverty, but it won’t eliminate it. Eventually, the food is eaten or the supplies are depleted, and the relief recipient is back to square one.

In order for relief efforts to be considered a “sustainable good,” they require coordination of resources and oversight.

While this may sound like an enormous task, Ngonghala points to the east African country Rwanda as an example of poverty, disease, and recovery. After the brutal Rwandan genocide in 1994, the country descended into extreme poverty. Minimal resources were available, human capital was unskilled, and most of the population was undernourished and demoralized. The Rwandan government used its relief funds to strategically implement systemic overall changes, initially providing broad access to health care. Healthier people made for more efficient workers more readily able to contribute to the economy. Today, Rwanda is growing in health, education and income, with disease rates that have dropped by as much as 80 percent and a life span that has doubled.

To allow other communities or countries to experience this sort of recovery, Ngonghala has built and is testing a mathematical framework that can be modified to accommodate a wide range of environments and positively impact future policy measures. “Initially we think of the extreme examples of poverty, where many people are unhealthy and have limited access to food, water and other basic resources. But poverty is also a problem in wealthy countries, even if much of the population is generally healthy. Once the framework is ready, we plan to take this to every government that will listen.”

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Extracurricular

SEEDS OF SUCCESS RUSSELL ANDERSON M’17 has set a record for graduate certificates earned by one student, including four in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that he added to his master’s in sustainable development and practice. Yet, he has still found time to launch his own enterprises in sustainable gardening, including a new vertical gardening product, Annual Explosion.

WHAT’S YOUR INTERDISCIPLINARY EDUCATION EXPERIENCE BEEN LIKE? I started in the master’s program in summer 2015 and quickly was pulled into the Tropical Conservation and Development grad certificate. Getting into the climate science side of it, I realized what I wanted to do long-term: multinational consultancy. That gave me an opportunity to look at other schools at UF. Although, it’s been 18 hours a semester. I don’t recommend people doing that and also working full time. But that time is going to pass regardless, so you should capitalize on the resources and space you have when you have it. You never know what tomorrow brings.

WHAT DO GRADUATE CERTIFICATES PROVIDE BEYOND A STANDARD DEGREE?

HOW DID YOU CONCEIVE YOUR LATEST PROJECT? I am working with Natalia Pegg, a local teacher. We were discussing horticulture and vertical gardening and lots of things about current products we didn’t like — material, expense, inefficiency. We developed a design that is lightweight, ergonomic, and easily transportable. It’s really cool to be working with a school teacher and refining those connections and capitalizing on our respective skill sets to make this thing work. Teamwork makes the dream work.

WHY THE NAME ANNUAL EXPLOSION? This is a modular gardening system, so it is best used with annuals, replaced on a seasonal basis. So, you’ll have your fall splash and your spring splash — an explosion of color on your fence line or handrail. We can turn any grey thumb green. I think the market’s right for it.

To learn more, go to www.annualexplosion.com.

Robert Landry

It wasn’t until I got those certificates that I realized how much more I needed to know to get a holistic understanding

of sustainability. For some of my graduating peers, they’re having trouble finding offers because they don’t have as much of a well-rounded experience. I’m feeling confident that I can go out there and if I don’t have the skills, I can network and coordinate to make things happen. There are a lot of opportunities coming down the pipe that are now in the realm of possibility.

Russell Anderson M’17 has worked with local businesses, including Boca Fiesta restaurant in downtown Gainesville, Fla., to implement vertical gardening.

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Gov. Bob Graham made a case for the Everglades — and the cover of Newsweek, ca. 1980.

Former Governor and Senator Bob Graham may no longer be in office, but he remains committed to public service. The legacy he leaves at UF is a testament to his civic leadership.

By Shelby Taylor

D. Robert “Bob” Graham Political Papers, University of Florida

O

DI S COVER

n a crisp November day in 2003, BOB GRAHAM ’59 stood on what remained of Lincoln High School’s track in Tallahassee, Fla., telling supporters and TV cameras that after almost 40 years in elected office — first as a state legislator, then as a two-term Florida governor, and finally as a three-term U.S. senator — he would not be seeking re-election to a fourth term in Congress. In his speech, Graham spoke of his intention to remain active in public life and his desire to create a nonpartisan policy institute that would focus on preparing the next generation of citizen leaders.

“My decision should in no way be viewed as a statement that I have completed all that I want to accomplish,” he said on the dismantled track, which he had been refurbishing during one of his iconic workdays. “I intend to continue to make a difference, albeit in a different way after January 2005.”

David Hedge, a political science professor at the University of Florida, listened intently as Graham announced his retirement on C-SPAN. Hedge was intrigued. He knew that Graham’s UF roots ran deep. Graham graduated with high honors from the university with a degree in political science.

He was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society and, even more importantly, met his wife of nearly 60 years, Adele, on the steps of Tigert Hall.

“I immediately contacted the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, then-Dean Neil Sullivan, about the possibility of creating a center at UF,” Hedge recalls. “This was something a number of us thought universities should be doing, particularly in terms of public leadership.”

Sullivan and then-UF Provost David Colburn subsequently met with Graham and pledged to commit the necessary administrative support and funds needed to bring Graham’s vision to fruition at UF. In summer 2005, Graham announced the creation of his namesake, the Bob Graham Center. UF made it official in 2006.

A Vision and Mission Graham hoped to create a center that would encourage the active participation of citizens and increase understanding of democratic institutions. A Harvard University law graduate, Graham’s vision for the Bob Graham Center was shaped by the work of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

“After retiring from the Senate, I spent a year as a senior fellow at the Kennedy School,” Graham says. “Because of my experience there, and because there were quite a few centers that were already doing public policy well, I wanted to focus

on what I thought was missing — centers dedicated to developing human potential for public and civic leadership.”

From the outset, the Graham Center’s mission was to provide students with the broad training necessary for careers in public leadership and to provide a forum for the public discussion of state, national, and global issues — a calling that remains central to the center’s programming today.

In its earliest days, the center established a public lecture series, for which it remains well known on campus, in the Gainesville community, and beyond. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough served as the center’s inaugural keynote speaker. Former President Jimmy Carter, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, and journalist Nicholas Kristof are just a few of the other renowned guests that the center has hosted.

“ PERSUADING DECISION MAKERS, BUILDING COALITIONS, AND RESEARCHING FACTS IN ORDER TO SUPPORT YOUR POSITION FROM A LEVEL OF GREATER UNDERSTANDING ARE THE SKILLS THAT WE ARE EQUIPPING STUDENTS WITH.” The undergraduate certificate program (now a minor in public leadership), the Tallahassee Internship Program, and the Policy Scholars Program (now the Askew Scholars) became the first few of many opportunities offered by the Graham Center to enhance the undergraduate academic experience by providing hands-on civic engagement.

Ann Henderson joined the center as director in July 2009.

Henderson brought with her an extensive background in state, national, and international issue management and had overseen a number of nonprofit organizations before arriving on campus. Under her leadership, the center received a $3 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in fall 2010. The grant proved critical to the center’s development, funding numerous programs including the development of an online civics course and the Fellowsin-Residence program.

The fellows program brings state leaders to the university to share their expertise and experience with UF faculty and students. Fellows are individuals who have a record of professional distinction but have also been recognized for their civic leadership. Past fellows have included MARTHA BARNETT JD’73, former president of the American Bar Association; Nancy Hardt, M.D., professor emerita, UF College of Medicine; Preston Haskell, founder of the Haskell YTORI — FALL 2017 | 19

and having a broad base of knowledge across many disciplines is the key to success.”

Today, the fellow in-residence program continues thanks to the Knight Foundation’s generous support. Gainesville real estate developers and philanthropists KEN ’72, MBA’73, PHD’81 and LINDA MCGURN ’73, JD’78 will serve as joint fellows this spring.

Civic Engagement Colburn, provost and senior vice president emeritus, took the helm of the center in 2012. With funding support from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Provost, Colburn added several programs to the already impressive catalogue of opportunities for students.

The Graham Civic Scholars program, which commissions students to conduct county-level research on statewide issues; the Healthy Civic Campus and Community initiative, a social entrepreneurship grant program; and the Future of Florida Summit, a gathering of students from Florida’s colleges and universities to propose solutions to problems facing Florida, all have been established in the last five years.

“Active involvement is the only way to effectively master the skills needed to create change,” Graham says.

“Persuading decision makers, building coalitions, and researching facts in order to support your position from a level of greater understanding are the skills that we are equipping students with.”

Of recent note is the center’s success in providing civic engagement opportunities through student internships. The center has placed more than 200 interns throughout Florida.

Past internships have included positions with local and state government offices and agencies, the media, professional associations, and nonprofit organizations.

Last fall’s introduction of an innovative virtual internship program opened the door for UF students who previously were unable to take advantage of the traditional internship experience because of financial constraints. This program will serve as a vehicle for expanding internships significantly over the next few years.

The center’s newest internship venture is a partnership with the City of Gainesville that provides four fellowships each fall as part of the university wide town-and-gown effort.

Fellows will work with the city manager’s office to provide a more citizen-centered approach to local government.

Centered on Students

U.S. Rep. John Lewis spoke at the Graham Center on Oct. 16, 2015.

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Few roles the Graham Center and the university serve are as important as shaping and inspiring tomorrow’s leaders.

“Every time I am at the center, I am impressed with the quality of students who have been drawn to the idea of active civic engagement,” Graham says. “They are smart, person-

Bob Graham Center

Company; and HYATT BROWN ’59, former CEO of Brown & Brown Insurance and former Speaker of the Florida House.

Reflecting on his experience as a fellow-in-residence, Brown says he was most impressed by students’ eagerness and the diversity reflected in those he interacted with at the center.

“I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Young people bring great energy and new ideas. They are enthusiastic because their outlook is toward a positive future,” he said. “We are bringing people together from different courses of life — places, cultures, backgrounds, ideological beliefs — everyone coming together to learn from one another. That in itself is a super contribution to their overall educational experience.”

Haskell too was impressed with his interactions with students, but what stood out to him was the great social benefit that the center provides in teaching students how to work cooperatively with others and encouraging interdisciplinary research.

“It’s important to have the skills necessary to build consensus — to see the value in compromise, the ability to lead when necessary and to understand when it’s appropriate to let others lead,” he said. “Working collaboratively

Bob Graham Center

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The Bob Graham Center encourages civic participation and discussion regarding current issues.

able, and enthusiastic — exactly what our democracy needs for the next generation.”

Graham’s commitment to students is apparent to those who interact with him while he is on campus and is reflected in the center’s work.

“The center is a place you can tell he really cares about,” says Graham Center alumna LIANA GUERRA ’15. “He is always there — interacting with students, listening to them.

He believed in me. He believes in students.”

Before graduating from UF, Guerra, now the deputy chief of staff to U.S. Congressman Darren Soto, completed a Tallahassee internship through the center and was an Askew Scholar. The Askew Scholars program — named for former Gov. Reubin Askew who passed away in 2014— provides distinguished undergraduates the opportunity to develop their civic understanding and skills under the direction of a faculty mentor.

Guerra credits her public service trajectory to her involvement with the center. “Without the Bob Graham Center, I firmly believe I would not be where I am today,” she says.

“The funding I was provided as an Askew Scholar allowed me to take an unpaid internship in Washington D.C., which led to my first job after graduation.”

As a Tallahassee intern in 2013, Guerra was placed in the office of then-state Sen. Darren Soto. Guerra kept in touch with Soto and his team throughout his 2016 congressional campaign, and when Soto won the Central Florida seat, he hired Guerra to serve on his team permanently.

“The center opened that door for me and will continue to do the same for other students,” Guerra adds.

A Home in Pugh Hall Located in the heart of the UF campus in Pugh Hall, the Bob Graham Center stands at the cornerstone of the university’s academic, intellectual, and civic life. A $5 million gift from JIM PUGH ’63 and his wife, Alexis, made possible the construction of Pugh Hall in 2008. The couple later pledged an additional $1 million to name the building’s teaching auditorium in honor of another former Florida governor, BUDDY MACKAY JD’61 and his wife, Anne.

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Pugh always wanted to find a way to give back to his alma mater, and he and his wife were exploring philanthropic opportunities at UF when they learned that Graham was planning to establish a public service center at UF. “Bob was convinced that the center would enrich the lives of students and provide valuable civic engagement opportunities,” says Pugh. “My wife and I were looking for an appropriate financial contribution to our beloved university, so the connection of donor support to the university and a place to house the Graham Center was a natural fit.”

A Legacy of Leadership 2016 was a milestone year for both Graham and his eponymous center. The center celebrated 10 years on the UF campus, and Graham celebrated his 80th birthday. While the center will surely be part of Graham’s lasting legacy of leadership and service to the state of Florida, Graham himself dismisses the idea of legacy building.

“I don’t believe in shaping your own legacy. That is the work of historians. You do what you think is right and important and hope that the benefits of your actions stand up

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“Adele and I are grateful for Jim and Alexis’ gift, which made possible the building that the Graham Center calls home,” Graham says. “Their generosity has its signature in many places across our great state. They have done many fabulous philanthropic things together.”

Graham and Pugh met as Sigma Nu fraternity brothers at UF in the late 1950s and have remained friends since. The two maintained a shared love for UF and a commitment to education and public service.

While Graham went on to an illustrious career in politics, Pugh, a building construction major, became a nationally recognized developer. Pugh is considered one of the nation’s most prominent homebuilders, and his real estate development firm, Epoch Properties, is annually ranked as one of the top multifamily housing developers in the U.S. Fittingly, the building that bears his name is an architectural focal point in the historic district of the UF campus.

“Bob Graham and I have been friends for 60 years,” Pugh says. “Alexis and I have carefully followed his career and witnessed his extraordinary leadership and character. He’s the real deal.”

Sen. Graham, shown here in September 2017, makes a point to visit with faculty, staff, and students at his eponymous center as often as he can.

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to scrutiny over time,” Graham says. “I believe it is important for college-aged young people to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a citizen in our democracy.”

In Graham’s view, providing students with an understanding of their rights and responsibilities and arming them with the skills needed to operate effectively as citizens is the best antidote for the decline in civic engagement.

“If the beginning of the 21st century has shown us anything, it is that our democracy is under assault,” he says.

“This assault is evidenced by the decline in citizen involvement in public affairs, lack of participation in community problem solving, and a waning in voter turnout among our country’s youngest voters.”

Graham believes the center has a role to play — not only in changing this disturbing trend but also in fostering civil discourse and encouraging other universities to follow suit.

“The increasingly partisan and polarized political climate has frustrated the ability of our democracy to create policies that benefit all citizens,” Graham says. “The center hopes to stand as a source of enlightenment and as a beacon for other institutions to do the same.”

What’s next for the Graham Center? Colburn says an expansion of internships and undergraduate research opportunities.

Greater faculty engagement and an elevation of the center’s statewide and national presence also are on the horizon.

“Establishing an endowment to underwrite the center’s programs will be essential,” says Colburn. “The center fosters the intellectual enrichment and public engagement of our students. We want them to prosper professionally, but we also want them to give back to their communities. They will be the better for it, and so will we.”

As for Graham, he will continue to tout his message of engaged and informed citizenship and champion issues of importance to Florida and the nation.

In October, Graham was recognized by the UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for his continued contribution to the state and the university. During the college’s Evening of Excellence (see p. 32), Dean David Richardson presented Graham with the inaugural Civic Champion Award. “Of our many alumni who commit their lives to public service, the first person who comes to mind is Sen. Bob Graham,” Richardson said at the ceremony. “Bob Graham is the epitome of what it means to be a Civic Champion.”

Graham remains a civic champion. Throughout his public service career, he has advocated for better schools, economic opportunity for all citizens, government transparency, the preservation of natural resources, and a strong, participatory democracy. He has represented the nation and UF with distinction, honor, and integrity. The Graham Center will ensure that legacy by nurturing the next generation of state and national leaders. q

Politically Active, Intercollegiate, and Nonpartisan Each spring, politically engaged students from Florida’s colleges and universities gather at the Future of Florida Summit to solve pressing issues facing the state. Sponsored by the Bob Graham Center for Public Service, the summit aims to establish a tradition of statewide intercollegiate political activism, inspire students to champion solutions to difficult challenges, and promote the free and open exchange of ideas.

In its fourth year, the summit brought together more than 125 students, representing 25 of Florida’s higher education institutions, to discuss the approaching Florida Constitution Revision Commission and learn more about the role, scope, and direction of state government.

Twelve groups of students worked with state policy experts and leaders including former Florida Gov. and U.S. Sen. Graham, former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, former Florida Supreme Court Justice James Perry, and UF Law Dean Emeritus Jon Mills to discuss possible changes to the constitution. Participants were then tasked with drafting proposed amendments and presenting their recommendations to a panel of six judges. At the conclusion of the summit, the following three proposals were sent to the commission for consideration: Ȫ I ncrease the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75; Ȫ Eliminate the write-in loophole in elections; and Ȫ C hange elected constitutional officer positions in non-charter counties to nonpartisan.

The commission held a series of public hearings across the state, and student representatives from the summit publicly presented the proposals to members of the commission in Orlando, Tallahassee, and Gainesville.

While it remains unclear if the proposals submitted by the students will be placed on the ballot in 2018, participants left with a more thorough understanding of the revision process, the state’s biggest challenges and the opportunity to have a deliberative voice in democracy.

Though a relatively young program, Future of Florida Summit has become a hallmark program for the Bob Graham Center and a premier nonpartisan gathering for students from around the state.

— Shelby Taylor YTORI — FALL 2017 | 23

With support from NEH Collaborative Grants, Benjamin Hebblethwaite, associate professor of Haitian Creole, Haitian, and Francophone Studies, and Richard Freeman, UF’s anthropology librarian, captured ritual cycles of the Société Linto Roi Trois Mystères ceremony on New Year’s Day 2013 in Miami.

UF Haitian Creole specialist Ben Hebblethwaite unearths African and Haitian history from the mythology of Vodou songs and rituals.

THE TINY ISLAND NATION OF HAITI holds centuries of history from another continent. Sung in Creole, the sacred songs of Haitian Vodou impart the rich spirituality and diverse languages of West African cultures in a long-running oral tradition. Benjamin Hebblethwaite, associate professor of Haitian Creole, Haitian, and Francophone Studies, has devoted his career to capturing Haitian Creole text and documenting Vodou rites — especially the lyrically and socially rich songs that permeate the rites.

Hebblethwaite’s research shows that this body of work entails one of the best-preserved oral traditions, with thou24 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

sands of years of songs, words, and figures embedded in Haitian culture through Vodou. “For linguists, it’s a vast resource that reveals the layers of history that formed Haiti, through the African-Haitian community brought across in the slave trade,” says Hebblethwaite.

Not to be confused with New Orleans Voodoo, Haitian Vodou is a complex religion with several million adherents, derived from Dahomian Vodun and incorporating several additional West African traditions. It emerged among slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti).

As is often the case in conquest and slavery, the active

Richard Freeman

By Rachel Wayne

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suppression of African culture and religion led to newly coded forms of expression. Hebblethwaite explains that despite the French’s strict slave regime in Haiti that also forced conversion to Catholicism, their laissez-faire attitude toward slaves’ evening activities allowed the Africans to share and codify their homeland songs and myths into Vodou with a new common language: Haitian Creole. “I’m fascinated by the way the Vodou community uses Haitian Creole and by the memory that lives in that community,” Hebblethwaite says. “Vodou preserves African history better than any other institution in Haitian life, including professional Haitian historians.”

Robust religious traditions such as Vodou entail a multifaceted package of cultural expression, the hinge point of Hebblethwaite’s ethnographic inquiry. He explains that the highly personal and intimate nature of religious oral tradition has enormous potential to capture history that’s often forgotten in post-colonial societies. In the case of Haiti, Vodou allowed for a “pristine preservation of pre-colonial history,” he says. Moreover, Haiti’s relatively short time as a colony before its independence in 1804 helped stay the cultural execution, allowing Vodou to flourish before the resurgence in the 20th century.

“ VODOU PRESERVES AFRICAN HISTORY BETTER THAN ANY OTHER INSTITUTION IN HAITIAN LIFE, INCLUDING PROFESSIONAL HAITIAN HISTORIANS.” Yet, both Haitian Creole and Vodou retain an unfortunate mystery, vibrantly pulsing under centuries of suppression and stereotyping, with little official representation. Until the late 1980s, the practice of Vodou was still prohibited. Still, Haitian Creole is slowly enjoying broader official usage in both Haiti and the U.S., through more political functions and services in the language. In what Hebblethwaite calls a promising development, the state officially recognized the Akademi Kreyòl, organized to promote and standardize Haitian Creole, which “adds weight to the momentum of the Creole movement,” he says.

To that end, Hebblethwaite has also published — with some resistance by journal editors — a paper in Haitian Creole, which has 9.6 million speakers, to show that the language is “a worthy vehicle for science.” Haitian classrooms are predominantly taught in French, although the first language of almost all students, and indeed Haitians in general, is Haitian Creole.

In that sense, the French influence is still palpable, and this incongruity can be harmful. Hebblethwaite seeks to increase the body of Creole work by doing it himself as much as possible. “It’s practicing what I preach,” he says.

Hebblethwaite’s passion for his area of expertise stems from a year of study in his birth nation of South Africa, where Dutch creolized into Afrikaans. Afrikaans spread widely through its use in schools, broadcasts, and Bible translations. Hebblethwaite was intrigued by how this creolization and the expansion of the functions of Afrikaans had occurred. His studies focused on French, in which he is fluent. “I wondered what a Creole would look like evolving in a French colony.” To wit, he picked up a Haitian Creole Bible, and his fascination took hold, he said. “Some things are serendipitous,” he says. Now, he is “one of a long line of preservationists” working to form a “synchronic snapshot of Vodou as it exists today.”

Further in support of the vanguard for Haitian Creole, Hebblethwaite has video recorded dozens of Vodou ceremonies (available at www.dloc.com/vodou). Although no one part can stand alone, the videos provide opportunity for researchers in anthropology, linguistics, and religion. In his new book, Hebblethwaite is working toward an in-depth history of Vodou’s Dahomian aspects.

Vodou is a highly systematic and codified tradition. For a full understanding, a Creolist must move beyond linguistics and embrace anthropological and historical investigation.

The book focuses on three rites — the Rada, the Gede, and the Nago — and all three originate in the Yoruba and Aja– Fon cultures tied to the kingdoms of Dahomey, Allada, Whydah, Oyo, and others. No stranger to intensive study, Hebblethwaite picked up on West African history. “To finish the last chapter, I had to become conversant in the history of the Yoruba-Aja Commonwealth,” he says matter-of-factly.

UF students need not feel left out. A comprehensive Haitian Creole Studies program offers language instruction from beginner to advanced levels, as well as four interdisciplinary courses on Haiti culture, society, and history.

Now, another creole is coming to class schedules as well: Hebblethwaite has proposed an undergraduate course covering Jamaican language and culture to be called “Jamaican Creole, Reggae, and Rastafari.” UF will become only the second university in the U.S. to offer instruction in Jamaican Patois, improving academic representation for Florida’s significant Patois-speaking population and further expanding the curriculum on Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs). “I love to teach about languages and cultures that I find inspiring,” Hebblethwaite says. q For the past two decades, Title VI funding from the U.S. Department of Education has supported instruction in LCTLs, including the Haitian Creole Studies program at UF, but that funding source has ceased. To find out how you can support the program, email alumni@clas.ufl.edu or call 352-2941971. Richard Freeman, whose photo appears on the opposite page, passed away unexpectedly on Oct. 24, 2017, before this issue went to print. We mourn his passing and appreciate his incredible work for UF. YTORI — FALL 2017 | 25

Chenxing Dong PhD’21

GATOR NATION ECLIPSE Chenxing Dong, a doctoral student in astronomy, photographed the full solar eclipse on Aug. 21 every five minutes to create this progression over Century Tower.

Imagine the once-lush Planet Earth scorched across its surface, while the sublime beauty of the coastline has been subsumed by rocky shorelines comprising jagged remnants of once-valuable properties. Crops domesticated to be weather-hardy pale, while ubiquitous mosquitos find more refuge for their spawn and microscopic hitchhikers that ultimately make millions of humans sick.

By Rachel Wayne THIS FORECAST OF A BLEAK FUTURE is not so far off, says Terry Harpold, UF professor of English and expert in science fiction. In fact, he says, it has already begun. Yet in these changing times, as before, humans find solace in storytelling. Trained as a narratologist, Harpold applies his study of storytelling — particularly the ultimately prophetic genre of climate fiction — to environmental issues. He cautions against over-optimism that simple policy changes could undo the damage wrought in the post-Industrial Revolution era.

At the University of Florida, Harpold founded an interdisciplinary initiative, Imagining Climate Change, that offers a cultural means to work the problem, so to speak. Himself a storyteller, Harpold teaches his students that their lives and imagination are part of a humanistic endeavor beyond their immediate existence on the cusp of fundamental climate change. The imaginary began millennia ago with the 28 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

Epic of Gilgamesh, in which a great flood swept the Earth, causing global devastation. Neither the Noah-like character Utnapishtim from Gilgamesh — nor the Bible’s Noah — could do anything but seek an absolution for their own journey through an environmental apocalypse.

We are already past the tipping point of 400 parts per million for carbon dioxide for climate change. On this point, scientists and storytellers agree, and also they share an appreciation for the imagination to creatively engage with reality. “Climate change is not just a physical phenomenon, it’s a cultural imaginary,” Harpold says. “It’s also a field of cultural endeavor, the way we understand our lives in the physical world incorporates the brute facts of physics and chemistry … but it also incorporates how we imagine what it means to be human in those environments, what it means to have families, what it means to have societies, to aspire

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to various futures, to perhaps mourn what’s passed — nay, the pasts.”

Harpold recalls Jean-Marc Ligny, a prolific author of science fiction who participated in the first year of Imagining Climate Change in 2015, explaining that he no longer had the breadth of possible future settings for his stories: climate change was too palpable a reality to escape.

Harpold has seen mild concern transform into dread, then into recognition, among his generations of college students.

They are somewhat prepared by the trope of climate apocalypse in their so-called Young Adult fiction, with its sense of hopelessness as alarming as its predictions. And yet he has to break the news to them in every semester for any given climate fiction that “some version of this world is going to be your world.”

“ Science fiction is never about the future. It’s an alternative version of the present.”

He understands their anxiety. A member of the Jules Verne Society, Harpold focuses on 19th-century climate fiction, which only ever imagined as far as the year 2100.

For those storytellers, 200 to 300 years seemed an eternity; to his students, climate fiction-turned-fact is within their lifetime. Generation Y and Z’s parents and grandparents imagined a world of eternally unfurling possibilities, without constraint or consequence. They had “a kind of go-go enthusiasm for a future without any kind of careful reflection on what they actually meant,” he says.

Science fiction, however, has always examined the sociocultural tensions in the face of bewildering changes. “The idea that Jules Verne and his contemporaries were mostly utopians looking forward to a golden age of technology, without constraint or consequence, just doesn’t jibe with what they actually wrote.”

Harpold’s students struggle with the plausibility of the bleak scenarios depicted in many of the books that he teaches. “Not everything we read depicts a dire and chaotic future,” he says. “There are climate fictions of positive transformation and hope. But we also read the relevant scientific literature, including research by some very fine climate scientists working at UF, and the students have no trouble connecting the dots.”

Harpold says that reflection — the “what if” — is increasingly embedded in and crucial to the “thought experiments” encapsulated in climate fiction. Climate crisis cannot be just “the purview of scientists and politicians,” he says. “It has to be addressed within a broad-ranging conversation that involves every aspect of human responses to the phys-

Illustration by Alphonse de Neuville for Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Hetzel et Cie, 1869–70.

ical world.” Now more than ever, the “big questions” define the thirst of humanity and cannot be quenched by rising waters or rain-swept coasts. The brute facts lead to a brutal truth: There is no magic bullet, but to Harpold, imagination is itself a transformative tool. While we cannot wish the problem away, we can come to terms with our shared humanity. “I tell my students that despair and resignation are the refuge of cowards,” he says. “Literature can show us better ways forward.”

Societal fears and anxieties are well explored by science fiction. The sense of losing their footing in the grand vista of land, water, and sky is so disruptive that people seek answers in more than the headlines. As Cold War paranoia crept into zombie stories and genetic insecurity crept into mutant stories, so does the fear of being burned by the sky or swallowed by the ocean bleed into stories of catastrophic climate change.

“Science fiction is never about the future,” Harpold concludes. “It’s an alternative version of the present.” q YTORI — FALL 2017 | 29

He is on a quest to live long and prosper.

T

By Gigi Marino

he humble nematode C. elegans is at first glance a simple animal. A millimeter long and barely visible to the human eye, C. elegans is hermaphroditic and has a lifespan of two to three weeks. However, this simple creature has approximately the same number of genes as a human and shares a third of them with us, making it an expeditious and inexpensive research model. Keith

Professor Keith Choe seeks to understand why cells age and how to extend their life.

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Choe, associate professor of biology, studies mutations in C. elegans with the goal of understanding how cells respond to environmental stress and how this information could one day stave off aging and disease.

“In the same way that you need to be able to detect when something is wrong with your home or your car, you need to diagnose what’s wrong and then how to go about calling the right repair person to deal with the job. In the case of the cell, there are quite a number of networks of genes and proteins that are responsible for this,” says Choe. “These pathways are very complex. There are at least 20,000 genes in most animals. In order to gain fundamental insights, we use the simplest organism we can as a model.”

Aging determines general cell health, organ health, and systems health. “One of the biggest risk factors for most diseases in modernized civilization — cancer, cardiovascular disease, degeneration — is just your age,” he says. “If you can understand how to unlock and prevent this decline in environmental response, you should be able to slow aging and reduce or delay the incidence of many different diseases.”

Choe and his lab specifically look at the antioxidation response in C. elegans as oxidation causes damage. They mutate the proteins that normally slow down this pathway and have discovered that doing so increases the levels of antioxidants and detoxification, thereby extending lifespan by 15 to 20 percent.

Certain supplements such as vitamin C are touted for their antioxidant properties. Choe warns against relying on such supplements in an unregulated fashion. “You can cause more harm than good because you can shut off your own cells’ natural ability to deal with oxidants because they no longer have a signal to respond to,” he says. “By flooding your system with antioxidants from the outside, you’re basically shutting off your own protection system.” He points out that oxidant levels are not necessarily deleterious to the body and that researchers now understand that oxidant levels are a way for cells to communicate. “Your internal protection systems are much better at fine-tuning responses in each cell than you can achieve by taking a bunch of pills.”

The Choe Lab is staffed by four undergraduates, three graduate students, and one postdoc. Eighteen UF students have been trained in the Choe Lab with six earning authorship on scientific publications. For the past five years, Choe has partnered with UF’s Center for Precollegiate Education and Training to introduce 90 middle and high school teachers and 101 high school students to C. elegans genetics and biology and to host a high school student each summer.

“They have all been top-notch students interested in going into science,” he says, “and it’s been a wonderful opportunity for our graduate students to teach and mentor them. They accomplish a lot while they’re here.”

Lyon Duong

KEITH CHOE, BIOLOGY

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CHRIS BELL ’17 Steeped in grassroots advocacy, this triple major is Beltway bound.

By Gigi Marino

Gigi Marino

CHRIS BELL ’17 majors in political science. And history.

And Spanish. And has a certificate in public affairs. If he could figure out how to warp time and add a fourth major, he would. “I was going to study political science as a default,” he says. “But I studied abroad in Spain and loved Spanish just as much as history. In fact, I loved them so much I didn’t want to relegate any of my majors to minors. I’d take a lot more classes if I had the money and resources. There’s just so much to learn, and UF offers so much.”

“ M UCH OF WHAT I’VE BEEN INVOLVED IN ON CAMPUS HAS BEEN COMMUNITY BUILDING. I FIND IT VERY REWARDING TO MAKE PEOPLE FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE, MORE THEMSELVES AT UF.” Having taken such a diversity of courses, Bell is reluctant to admit that any one towers about the rest, but he says the History of the Holocaust taught by Professor Norman Goda was a favorite. “The class was very in-depth. We learned what it was like to live in the Nazi state as a German and as a Jew. Learning about an event of such horror, from the mechanics of the war to how Germans live with the legacy of their history, was both humanizing and personalizing.”

During his time at UF, Bell was secretary for the Student Honors Organization, a member of the Honors Program’s Student Advisory Board, assistant director of Chomp the Vote, campus ambassador for the Peace Corps, team leader for the Greater Gator Conference, member of UF Model UN, secretary for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Student Council, and director of programs for the Campus Diplomats, which is his main involvement.

Campus Diplomats, Bell explains, is a student volunteer organization whose main purpose is to make new students find their place on a campus of 53,000. “We represent the Dean of Students Office and their outreach programs. I organize programs for different populations on campus, out-of-state students, Innovation Academy students, international students,” he says. “Much of what I’ve been involved in on campus has been community building. I find it very rewarding to make people feel more comfortable at UF.”

Chris Bell ’17 has already decided to live a life of service.

A native Floridian from Tallahassee, Bell plans to relocate to Washington, D.C., after he graduates in May. He’s interned in the nation’s capital for three summers. This past year, he worked for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The previous summer, he worked for a law/lobbying firm. He says he prefers being more grounded in a grassroots advocacy organization. He first served as a legislative intern in the office of U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor. “I want to work in the legislative policy arena, basically congressional affairs,” he says. “It’s really fulfilling to work in the nonprofit area. I want to make a difference in D.C.” Aside from the abundance of governmental and non-governmental organizations in D.C., Bell is drawn to the restaurants (“a Michelin-star city”), festivals, museums, music, and international culture. “It’s very much a young professional city, an epicenter for all different walks of life, and there are a lot of Gators there.” (There are, in fact, 10,800 Liberal Arts and Sciences Gators in the D.C. area.)

Though only 22, Bell already knows his passion is for human rights and civil rights and that he wants to live a life of service. “It’s what keeps me going,” he says.

YTORI — FALL 2017 | 31

A Most

EXCELLENT EVENING On April 21, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences launched an awards program to recognize the achievements and dedication of alumni, faculty, students, and staff in Emerson Alumni Hall.

By Gigi Marino Photography by Hannah Pietrick

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CON N ECT

COMPANY OR NONPROFIT PARTNER AWARD: FLORIDA HUMANITIES COUNCIL The council has been promoting Florida culture since 1973 and has hosted a number of UF humanities faculty members for lectures and workshops across the state. Additionally, Steve Seibert, the council’s director, co-directs UF’s program Humanities and the Sunshine State for educators and high school students.

SUPERIOR STAFF AWARD: IKEADE AKINYEMI As the administrative and financial coordinator for the Center for African Studies, Ikeade Akinyemi assists faculty members daily. The center’s director, Brenda Chalfin, says, “It is always a pleasure to work with Ike because I can trust her 110 percent to give me good advice, insight, and a sense of all the options and constraints of a problem.”

VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR AWARD: GENE INMAN PHD’82 As the chair of the Chemistry Leadership Board, Gene Inman was the first board member to contribute to the new chemistry building, Joseph Hernandez Hall. He worked for Eli Lilly for 30 years, during which time he advocated for UF Liberal Arts and Sciences and hired a number of newlyminted PhDs to work at Lilly.

STUDENT EXCELLENCE AWARD: MAR ANGEL DOMINGUEZ ’18, SARAH PATTISON ’17, CAROLINE NICKERSON ’17 A biology major, Mar Dominguez volunteers at Shands, the Mobile Outreach Clinic, the Center for Independent Living, and Gator Advance. Sarah Pattison doubled-majored in political science and Latin American Studies, studied in Brazil, and is working at Capital Partners for Education.

Caroline Nickerson double majored in Chinese and history, volunteered at the Bob Graham Center, and is an editorial assistant for the UF Department of Psychiatry.

FACULTY/ADVISOR ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: PROFESSOR JOANN MOSSA AND PROFESSOR WILLIAM LOGAN Professor Joann Mossa recently finished a long tenure as undergraduate coordinator in the Department of Geography.

According to Dean Joe Spillane, “With her help, the department has been a model of curricular innovation, adding a new track in medical geography, adapting the program to be part of the Innovation Academy, and creating an online version of the major within the UF Online program.”

Professor of English William Logan was introduced at the ceremony by his advisee ZACH MONTAGUE ’17, who said, “He recommended I take classes for professors who would inspire me rather than for subjects that interested me, advice I now pass on to my friends.”

Left to right: Associate Director of the Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere Sophia Acord, Executive Director of the Florida Humanities Council Steve Seibert (holding Hugh Manatee), Associate Director of the Florida Humanities Council Patricia Putnam, Program Coordinator of the Florida Humanities Council Keith Simmons, Master Lecturer of History Steve Noll, Professor of History Sean Adams, and Associate Professor of History Paul Ortiz.

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HORIZON AWARD: MIKE DALEWITZ ’00 A 2015 Outstanding Young Alumni Award winner, Mike Dalewitz is an attorney, entrepreneur, and founder of Inspired Review, a consistently top-rated legal document service. He supports UF’s Mock Trial Team and recently has started offering seminars on leadership and excellence.

LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES CHAMPION AWARD: THE HONORABLE NAN ’61 AND DAVID RICH ’60 Nan Rich, a Broward County Commissioner and also a former Florida state senator, was the first woman to serve as the Florida Senate Democratic leader. She and her husband, David, who was the president of his fraternity Tau Espilon Phi and graduated with a business degree from Florida, were influential in establishing Holocaust Studies at UF and have given generously to the Center for Jewish Studies.

Dean Dave Richardson, Joan Forrest ’77, and AVP of Development and Alumni Affairs Ryan Marsh.

OUTSTANDING ALUMNI AWARD: JOAN FORREST ’77 The president and CEO of the Dawson Academy, a highly regarded post-graduate institute for dentists, Joan Forrest is a long-time donor to Liberal Arts and Sciences, member of the Dean’s Circle, and chair of the Dean’s Leadership Council and Bob Graham Center Council of Advisors.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: CARTER ’78 AND SHERRY BOYDSTUN ’78, MA’80 Carter Boydstun recently retired from the UF Foundation as a fundraiser and continually advocated for Liberal Arts and Sciences. Both he and his wife, Sherry, who dedicated her career to helping special-needs students, have engaged in a lifetime of philanthropy, giving generously to UF for 33 years.

34 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

David ’60 and The Honorable Nan Rich ’61.

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Evening of Excellence was held at Emerson Alumni Hall.

THE LASTING LEGACY AWARD: DR. HOWARD ’65 AND BRENDA SHERIDAN ’65 Dr. Howard Sheridan graduated with a degree in chemistry, and his wife, Brenda, in journalism. Dr. Sheridan had a long career in interventional and diagnostic radiology. The Sheridans donated $1 million to the auditorium in Joseph Hernandez Hall, which includes a stunning gallery of Dr. Sheridan’s award-winning photography.

CIVIC CHAMPION AWARD: THE HONORABLE BOB GRAHAM ’59 Bob Graham served as governor of and senator for Florida.

He is a tireless advocate for the state of Florida and all of its people. Sen. Graham leaves a lasting legacy at the University of Florida in the Bob Graham Center for Public Service, which advances advocacy and civic duty. He also is the subject of the cover story for this issue of Ytori (see p. 18). q YTORI — FALL 2017 | 35

Personal Essay

Transforming Tunisia A UF Fulbright Scholar shares his participation in an international interdisciplinary workshop with a group of leaders, including Nobel Prize winners, who transformed Tunisia from an authoritarian nation into a vibrant democracy with a freely elected president.

Written and Photographed by Ed Kellerman

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H

istorical writer David McCullough wrote about one of John Adams’ to-do lists: “Let’s see, buy a pound of nails, whitewash the back fence, and write a letter of independence to King George.”

In May, I met a man similar to Adams, Mustafa Ben Jaffar, who among other things on a particular day, probably had to get his car washed, check his laundry, and write a new federal constitution for the Republic of Tunisia. After centuries of invasions, royal family domination, and a 35-year dictatorship, Tunisians were now going to create their own secular, democratic, inclusive society. Of their own volition, by their own hands, and for all their people.

Earlier in May, I attended the School for International Training in Vermont, then traveled with six other U.S. university professors to learn firsthand about Tunisia’s transition to democracy. The UF Provost’s Internationalization Grant funded an eight-day exploration that featured conferences with members of Parliament, historians, archaeologists, two of the four groups that won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, leaders of several human rights NGOs, and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebse.

Listening to Mustafa, widely recognized as the father of the Tunisian Constitution, was enlightening. We academics tend to discuss things to death, parse the language, and argue over every detail. Mustafa, on the other hand, was straight-

Nourcan Atalan-Helicke of Skidmore College greets President Beji Caid Essebse.

Ed Kellerman is in the back on the right.

forward in his explanation of how he sat down with dozens of groups, political parties, religious elders, administrators, military leaders, and ordinary citizens to get them to buy in to a new federal authority. “I just listened, and listened, and listened some more in what I estimate were 600 meetings.”

After the fall of the dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisians set up a “Troika” — the Congres Pour la République with a provisional president; Takatol, the National Constituent Assembly led by Rached Ghnaoucchi; and the Islamic party of Ennahdha. The Troika’s main responsibility during this transition was to codify what the institutions now meant. It had to answer many questions: What is a federal judiciary? How do we run a national financial department in a multiparty legislative body? What inherited laws can we repeal? They started by repealing a 1913 ruling from the French Penal Code outlawing homosexuality. (Tunisia was a French protectorate for several decades.)

They codified four freedoms: dignity through jobs, social justice through equality, liberty through freedom of conscience (the right to believe or not to believe), and democracy through universal suffrage. The goal was to transform the one-party state into a responsive administration with human rights and gender equality. The Election Commission now requires each party to field equal numbers of women on their candidate lists.

The main communication techniques utilized during their transition and as of 2017 included consensus-building and decision-making with input from hundreds of state and non-state actors and human rights activists. The decision-making process featured compromise and collaboration not just among the four groups writing the new constitution, but also among hundreds of players from former and current administrations.

Though Tunisia’s population is 98 percent Muslim, the grand compromise was voting in a secular society with religious rights, not the other way around. We professors on this trip felt an underlying tension between some who wanted a more religious and conservative society, and the majority that preferred a more secular approach.

How successful were they? The new constitution was ratified by 200 out of 217 electoral representatives. Tunisia now has more than 200 political parties, 85 newspapers, 40 TV and radio stations, one of which, Mosaique, is a well respected regional news service. Citizens from large towns to small villages now have multiple internet platforms and engage in spirited conversations at cafés over espressos, mint tea, beer, or Turkish ice cream.

Of course, factionalization exists, but the best analogy is a rugby “scrum,” in which players push and pull as the YTORI — FALL 2017 | 37

Mahdia, Tunisia, was founded by Phoenicians in 841 B.C.E. and occupied by many others over the centuries, including Romans, Normans, Ottomans, and Spaniards.

scrum moves around the field. They know their fate is truly intertwined with each other. We found that every Tunisian carries a serious torch for democracy, and our local coordinators spun stories from ancient cultures to current political intrigue.

However, there are pitfalls on the way to pluralist democracy. Unemployment among youth, especially college graduates is high (estimated 240,000 out of work).

Corruption is estimated to consume upwards of 40 percent of the GDP. Frustration with the slow pace of implementing even simple infrastructure improvements is high. The director of the business and artisans union pointed out to us that there are only 88 large companies in Tunisia, and negotiating with multinational organizations has been tough.

Also, everyone is worried about Saudi Arabian and Qatari funding of business and educational institutions that may sabotage the secular underpinnings of the new society.

A recent article in The New York Times on the increase in suicides by immolation illustrates a disturbing trend among youth. However, Tunisians have weathered terrorist attacks as well as resisted desperation and violence.

Shortly before Ben Ali left, he and the army refused to fire upon the demonstrators. After two dozen tourists were killed in a terror attack in the resort town of Sousse, the government did not pursue a heavy-handed response. We did notice a high police presence in Tunis and on our trips to Madhia on the East Coast and Dougga, a world heritage site in the interior. Their presence was benign, and we didn’t see any “baksheesh” changing hands.

38 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

On the way back from our meeting with Nobel Prize winning, trade-union director Nouredine Teboubi, we passed by a thousand people fervently demonstrating at the Theatre Municipal over the killings of two protestors in the oil and gas town of Tattouine, but none of this produced any violence. Unlike the fatal riots of Egypt and the lawlessness of Libya, only 300 Tunisians were killed in their transition period. I know that may sound extreme, but Tunisians and almost any country will take those numbers.

However, and this is a big however, the path to democracy is always paved with pitfalls where, just as in post-revolutionary America, foreign adversaries, rampant unemployment of veterans, and an unsettled future threaten a viable economy. The day before we left Tunisia, six major players in the national economy were arrested on corruption charges. The bad news is that there are still more than 130 “suspected corrupters” to go. Plus, the establishment of the final check and balance — a federal judiciary — is past its one-year due date.

In August, President Essebse and the Grand Mufti of Tunisia, despite the protests of Islamist scholars, both unequivocally approved of laws permitting women to inherit property and family assets.

Three-thousand years ago, Carthage was at the tip of the Tunis jutting into the Mediterranean Sea. It was a major regional power with the world’s great trade routes passing through it. When the Romans burned Carthage to the

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ground, the only thing that survived was a slim book on agronomy. From that one book, the Romans, Normans, Fatimars, Bey monarchs, and even Ben Ali learned to grow millions of olive trees, date palms, wheat, barley, viticulture, and an abundance of vegetables and fruit. Tunisians can feed themselves as well as provide healthy exports to neighboring countries. We also ate well, traveled modern roads, and enjoyed excellent facilities, from the city center of Tunis to the ancient city of Kaurouan, to the Roman ruins at El Jem Coliseum.

It’s usually difficult to quantify feelings, but as we connected with everyone from President Essebse to local families, it was not hard to quantify Tunisians’ feelings and commitment. Maybe it’s just the look in their eyes when they talk about their new democratic republic. Maybe it’s just a simple “we will get it done” from Ouded Bouchamie, the director of one of the Nobel Prize winning groups.

As a communication specialist, I sense it’s something in what they say and how they say it that symbolizes their deep commitment. I can just imagine Mustafa Ben Jaffar reminding himself, “Yep, things to do today. Wash the car, fold some laundry, and write up a new constitution that will guarantee we’ll be the only North African country to achieve a stable sustainable democracy in the region. Well, maybe the carwash can wait.” q Ed Kellerman is a Master Lecturer and Fulbright Scholar in the Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication. A full video of his program is available at https://youtu.be/HtTKjjuJkKQ.

Outside the Grand Mosque compound in the city of Kairouan, Tunisia.

Roman ruins, originally built between the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E., in the world heritage site of Dougga, Tunisia.

YTORI — FALL 2017 | 39

Entrepreneurs and Innovators

MIKE NEAL ’83 ECONOMICS CEO and co-founder of DecisionNext, a San Francisco–based company that builds prescriptive analytics solutions for commodities-driven industries, discusses building a business.

YOU HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF CLIENTS FROM AGRIBUSINESS TO MINING. HOW DOES YOUR ANALYTICS PLATFORM SERVE ALL OF THEM? Our software tools are being used in some of the largest food processors, mining companies, and chemical companies in the world right now to help them simulate what commodity markets are going to do in the future, specifically around supply and price. We then use these simulations to help them optimize important decisions they make, such as the price they charge or how much of future capacity they sell today.

We have consistently found that when decisions involve a rigorous market-price forecast, significant margin dollars can be found.

YOU MAJORED IN ECONOMICS WITH A CONCENTRATION IN STATISTICS AT UF. HOW DID YOUR EDUCATION HELP YOU?

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS? The one piece of advice I think is most important for firsttime entrepreneurs is to make sure that they’re starting a business for the right reasons. They need to be passionate 40 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

Mike Neal ’83 overlooks San Francisco Bay.

and driven to develop their idea, or the likelihood of success approaches zero. Building a new company is hard — really hard — and it takes obsessive dedication to get you through the really bad days, or really bad months, to make the company a success.

Provided by Mike Neal

I learned a lot in my statistics classes about approaching quantitative questions from first principles and about being fundamentally skeptical about conclusions drawn from quantitative analyses. Professor Jim McClave had a big impact on me, both in the introductory statistics class he taught and in working for his company, InfoTech, during my summers. He taught me the real-world practical value of rigorous analysis, which has been a thread running through my whole career. It’s very cool that back in the early 1980s, InfoTech was breaking new ground by driving huge bid-rigging court decisions with their analytics, and then over the last 35 years, industry after industry has gotten this religion. It was airlines in the mid-80s, then hotels, rental cars, and then in the ’90s, financial services, consumer goods, and supply chains. In the early 2000s, it was retail — we played a role in that. Now it’s commodities, and we’re working hard to raise the game there.

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Alumni Profile

BEKA STEORTS PHD’12 A statistician takes stock of the Syrian civil war.

Provided by Beka Steorts

By Terri Peterson BEKA STEORTS PHD’12 is a statistician and machine learner in Duke University’s Department of Statistical Science. Her collaboration with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) has led to an award-winning breakthrough in information analysis. Working with HRDAG directors Megan Price and Patrick Ball in their pursuit of an honest accounting of the casualties in the Syrian civil war, Steorts and her collaborators have developed a method that assembles information from myriad sources and removes duplicated information in near-real time, which may provide insights into the Syrian conflict.

“At the heart of this work,” says Steorts, “I want it to be useful to those doing public good.”

Data sets, particularly those retrieved from multiple sources, can be difficult. Recorded data can be filled with misspellings, duplicate or incomplete entries, or transposed information, creating “noise.” Steorts’ and her collaborators’ methods allow an analyst to sort through noise, reduce data into usable information, link files, and eliminate duplications. Earlier methods of data reduction took days or weeks to sort and resulted in 50 to 70 percent accuracy. Steorts’ collaborative algorithm for culling data processes 300,000 records in ten minutes, with 99 percent accuracy. It provides reliable, replicable information that allows greater insight into problems on the ground. Regarding the Syrian conflict, Steorts says, “Resources may be more quickly directed to where they are needed. It could help with reparative questions, it might impact policy written after the war has ended, or might support the prosecution of responsible parties in wartime tribunals.”

This collaborative humanitarian work earned Steorts a 2015 MIT 35 Innovators Under 35 award. Steorts’ work took shape after a serendipitous meeting with Rice University computer science professor Anshumali Shrivastava, in which they combined their own strengths of hashing and record linkage. Hashing, says Steorts, is “a fast way to sort similar information into one bin, making this data easier to link.” Since the MIT award, Steorts has been collaborating with Shrivastava’s lab to refine hashing and record linkage, further clarifying data and creating greater transparency in analysis. In May 2017, Steorts’ work in

Beka Steorts PhD’12 uses statistics for humanitarian purposes.

data linkage earned her the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, which provides five years of funding for research and outreach to junior faculty who exhibit excellence in education and research.

“ AT THE HEART OF THIS WORK, I WANT IT TO BE USEFUL TO THOSE DOING PUBLIC GOOD.” In her spare time, Steorts rewrites song lyrics so they have a statistical bent to be performed by the statistician-only band The Imposteriors at the biennial International Society for Bayesian Analysis World Meeting. Her next conference is in 2018; her song choice as of yet is undecided.

Along with her PhD in statistics, Steorts holds an MS in mathematical sciences and a BS in mathematics, and she credits her interdisciplinary training and collaborative work with her ability to solve problems. “I have a big toolbox full of different perspectives to pull from and an amazing group of mentors and student researchers with whom I’ve had the good fortune to work.” They help Steorts maintain her objectivity when facing current issues. “I’ve seen academics who can’t see the forest for the trees. We fail when we view something as just one problem with just one solution. But, we can do really great things when we collaborate together.

And, it’s fun.”

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Creative License

BOOKS Sewing the Fabric of Statehood: Garment Unions, American Labor, and the Establishment of the State of Israel, Adam M. Howard PhD’03 2017, University of Illinois Press This digestible history of the State of Israel illuminates the role of American labor organization, especially Jewish-led garment unions, in the Zionist movement. Adam M. Howard thoroughly examines the sociohistorical aspects of immigrant groups, ethnic identities, and shifting class consciousness to trace parallel lines among the Zionist and labor activities between the economic pressures of the garment industry and the political pressures of World War I. His linear, detail-rich approach provides a compelling narrative of the complex and often subversive alliances and rivalries among American and British governments and NGOs, with all ends tied up in the story’s conclusion: the AFL and CIO-backed formation of the State of Israel.

Women as Wartime Rapists: Beyond Sensation and Stereotyping, Laura Sjoberg 2016, NYU Press UF political science professor Laura Sjoberg tackles the unseen hells of war through the lens of strategic sexual violence committed by women, a reality often ignored by mainstream histories of war or shunted due to myths about gender and female temperament. Drawing upon historical documents from the Nazi regime, the 42 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

Yugoslavian wars, and the Rwandan genocide, Sjoberg offers a feminist perspective on wartime violence committed by women to challenge the media’s portrayal of female rapists and sadists as secondary perpetrators or wives/accomplices of war criminals. In this scathing treatise, she also condemns news sensationalism and state complicity with genocidal rape and sex trafficking. Moreover, her hard-hitting analysis shows how the common war tactic of mass rape and sexual torture reflects patriarchal structures that demand the feminization of the enemy, and thus how war is inherently linked to gender-based violence.

Deltas and Humans: A Long Relationship now Threatened by Global Change, Thomas S. Bianchi 2016, Oxford University Press Thomas S. Bianchi, UF professor of geological sciences, wants to improve communication between scientists and the general public, and Deltas and Humans represents this desire. In this timely book, Bianchi describes how deltas, the bases of ancient civilization, have been damaged by human activity. This “good relationship gone bad” is further spoiled by the politicization of climate change and lack of natural resource management. Bianchi offers personal anecdotes of his devastating losses due to Hurricane Katrina to enhance his scientific explanation of climate change’s effects upon deltas and coastal regions, while giving a critical overview of government responses to these disasters.

To develop a complete history of deltas and humans, Bianchi also draws upon anthropology and evolutionary biology to explain how humans became “geomorphic agents” who live within both natural and anthropogenic cycles above and below the surface of the Earth. With his conversational style, he also gives his audience a college-lecture introduction to concepts such as the carbon cycle (giving an example of your garden’s weed problem) and the hydroclimate (and how good omega-3s are for you). While the delta may have been the cradle of civilization, it is certainly not static, writes Bianchi, and now is the time to learn what comes next.

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Cecilia Aldarondo

FILM

birds, one sprightly and the other, grotesquely beautiful but dead. “Life is for the living, and we are the ones who suffer,” says Robert about reconciliation and healing. The quiet suffering of unseen secrets is palpable in Cecilia’s faceless voice, which permeates the film. “How do I forgive everyone?” she asks, her voice breaking. Left with more questions than answers, Cecilia defers to a final letter from Miguel: “I only wish I could share this with others. I know that it is impossible to transfer the whole of my experience.” Memories seems to have made this a little less impossible.

MUSIC Dragonfly, Chuck Martin

Memories of a Penitent Heart (2016) Directed, Written, Produced by Cecilia Aldarondo ’02 “If we only remember the good things about the people we love, what do we lose?” asks Cecilia Aldarondo at the beginning of her biographical documentary, which focuses on her late uncle, Miguel Dieppa, a closeted gay man who succumbed to AIDS. Highly immersive, the film combines hauntingly friendly family photographs, disembodied voices, and excerpts from letters, email threads, and newspapers to reveal Miguel’s hidden life — one of actor/playwright “Michael” who left his homeland, Puerto Rico, and fell in love with New Yorker Robert, to the great dismay of Miguel’s mother, Carmen, and sister, Nylda. Cecilia’s initial passion project to learn more about Miguel moves beyond its admittedly staged ending in which Robert and Nylda (Cecilia’s mother) reconcile toward a self-reflexive narrative of lives lived and love lost. Reflecting on her own filmmaking process, she encloses a partly-made film within a film. Cecilia’s meeting of Robert provides the through-line amidst a set of striking visual collages: Illuminated portraits of “Michael’s” ID cards and religious artwork interspersed with home videos. The final, most compelling collage shows the artifacts of Miguel’s suffering of AIDS, his death, and his funeral. Deep-focus shots of empty rooms and lush yet vacant landscapes symbolize Miguel’s loneliness. Carmen and Miguel’s contentious relationship is seen in their bitter letters, the words’ typographical characters scrolling the screen in a dreamscape of speckled footage and Puerto Rican vistas. Cecilia forgoes explicit audiovisual linkages for unnerving juxtaposition and dissonant composition. To heartbreaking use she puts perfect visual metaphors: an old film of pole acrobats simulating battle, and a pair of

2017 Dragonfly, UF chemistry professor Chuck Martin’s sixth studio album, is the result of his being bitten by a dragonfly last summer, says the album description. “They are in me now and told me to call my new album Dragonfly,” he says. The dragonfly appears throughout the album’s clever lyrics. As before, Martin explores a range of historically connected genres — bluegrass, rock, and folk — as well as of his own range, from the lovely “Likes Me,” a folksy duet co-written with his wife, Amy Lynn, to the deep-throated “I’m the One,” an experimental blues gem. True to his usual comedic form, Martin packs the humor of personal life into the album with “Rain Come,” which pokes fun at Amy Lynn and the woes of Florida weather and hair care, and “Little Red Wagon,” a rockabilly tribute to his home state. The first track, klezmeresque “Charlie Tomatoes,” is one of his signature musical curiosities. The other half of the album, however, is devoted to introspective, sometimes sorrowful, musings, including the melodic folk delight “Ghost Town” and “Never Had You,” a bittersweet ode to a dream child. “Dead End Road” carries on the tradition of road symbolism in philosophical progressive rock, and indeed, the road is an apt metaphor for Martin’s own musical journey in Dragonfly.

— Rachel Wayne Each issue of Ytori will cover creative works by faculty and alumni. Please submit suggestions to gigimarino@ufl.edu.

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NASA / SkyWorks Digital

Newsworthy

Computer rendering of two neutron stars colliding and producing a burst of gamma radiation.

SKYGAZERS UF physicists and astrophysicists are making waves.

By Rachel Wayne UF’s Departments of Physics and Astronomy are indeed working on a cosmic scale. The past two years have been remarkable times of international collaboration and interdisciplinary innovation. On Sept. 14, 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) heard its first “chirp” of gravitational waves from colliding black holes. The discovery, confirmed and announced six months later, was enabled by the UF LIGO team’s detection algorithm and the “input optics” for the interferometer.

LIGO, currently in its “Advanced LIGO” stage, has had heavy involvement from UF since its inception two decades ago.

Now, its demonstration of the viability of gravitational-wave astronomy to learn about the universe has launched a new era of “multi-messenger” astrophysics. Recently, on Aug. 14 and 17, LIGO and its European counterpart, Virgo, detected 44 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

another chirp from a black hole merger and one from a kilonova — a neutron-star merger. The latter created a cosmic smorgasbord of signals that were picked up by telescopes and interferometers around the world, as well as satellites.

UF Astronomy helped confirm the discovery through its FLAMINGOS2 infrared spectrograph.

Although these incredible observations were of events that occurred millions of years ago, UF Astronomy also went out in force to watch a contemporary cosmic event: 2017’s total solar eclipse, which occurred Aug. 21, and was the first eclipse visible across most of the contiguous U.S. in almost 100 years. Francisco Reyes, director of the UF Teaching Observatory, was part of a team stationed at 28 points along the path of totality to measure how atmospheric deionization due to the eclipse’s obscuration affects the galactic radio background. On the UF campus, which unfortunately was not in the path of totality, about 3,000 people gathered at the Teaching Observatory to witness the eclipse. Professors in religion, zoology, and psychology discussed the eclipse as a point of inquiry in their respective fields. People paused their daily business to share eclipse glasses on Turlington Plaza.

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Enhancing the Undergraduate Experience New program aims to take undergraduate career preparedness to the next level.

By Gigi Marino The term “experiential education” is bandied around higher education quite a bit these days and begs the question, “Isn’t all education experiential?” Yes, of course … and no. A new program launched this fall, Beyond120, seeks to expand what experiential education means in the UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. As the name implies, the idea behind Beyond120 is to exceed the requirement of 120 credits for a baccalaureate degree — not literally, but in a larger sense, making learning experiences outside of the classroom an integral part of the overall undergraduate experience.

Originally conceived by Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Dave Richardson and Academic Advising Dean Joe Spillane, the program focuses on four major areas: internships, international exchange programs, career readiness and professional development, and alumni mentoring.

“Alumni participation will be critical to the program’s success,” says Richardson, “not just for the obvious networking, mentoring, and internship opportunities, but also for helping to build a robust program for years to come.

Building and funding Beyond120 is one of our main campaign goals over the next five years.”

Although the program just launched at the beginning of the Fall semester, nine alumni businesses already have partnered to provide undergraduate internships, such as Infinite Energy in Gainesville started by DARIN COOK ’87.

Through structured classes and seminars, Beyond120 will offer opportunities for students to fill in gaps including speaking, writing, numerical literacy, and technical literacy.

“It’s very important to us that our students leave UF knowing how to adapt quickly and nimbly to changing technologies,” says Richardson. Encouraging students to be involved with campus organizations and volunteer for off-campus nonprofits also is an aspect of the program. “We want to provide as much preparation as we can for our students to enter meaningful careers,” says Spillane.

Liberal Arts and Sciences has international exchange programs with five universities in the United Kingdom and Australia. Through the exchange program, students pay only what their UF tuition would normally be with all financial aid, fellowships and scholarships being applicable. Associate Dean Brian Harfe, who coordinates the exchange program, says, “We specifically chose world-class universities in English-

speaking countries because we wanted to provide exchange opportunities for all our majors, including science majors who have traditionally had limited options to go abroad. During their time abroad, students are exposed to divergent viewpoints, experience a different culture, and make lifelong friends. The experience is life-changing for the students that go on these exchanges.”

Though the program just launched this fall, Spillane says that students are enthusiastic. “The curricular pieces of the program are under development, and will be handled by an expanded advising office. Some early pieces, like a yearlong Sophomore Leadership Seminar, have already brought Liberal Arts and Sciences alumni together with undergraduates eager to learn from their experiences. Watching students and alumni interact in the seminar setting has been an eye-opener,” says Spillane, “and has encouraged as to keep mentoring close to the heart of the journey Beyond120.”

“Ultimately, we want Beyond120 to encompass more than the idea of experiential education,” says Richardson, “but instead help students combine self-discovery, broadening of career option knowledge, and true professional development in a time that demands more knowledge of the world after graduation than ever.”

To learn more about Beyond120, go to advising.ufl.edu/beyond120.

While the large stone outside of Turlington Plaza is often and fondly referred to as “the potato,” it is actually a 30-million-year-old piece of chert that was discovered in a Florida quarry. A plaque that explains Turlington Rock’s history was installed this summer to set the record straight.

YTORI — FALL 2017 | 45

Laurels Ȫ T IFFANY PAUL, undergraduate student in the Department of Physics, was named a 2016 Goldwater Scholar to support her research in condensed matter physics and quantum transitions. Ȫ T HOMAS BIANCHI, UF professor of geological sciences, was named a fellow of the American Geochemical Society. Ȫ G RANT SIMPSON, graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, was named a 2017 Gates Scholar to attend the University of Cambridge. He will work on the chemical synthesis of more effective cancer therapeutics. Ȫ J ACK PUTZ, professor of biology and forestry, received a Jefferson Science Fellowship to support his work in sustainable forest management and conservationoriented policy frameworks.

Ȫ T wo Liberal Arts and Sciences alumni were listed on Forbes’ “30 Under 30”: GLORIA TAVERA ’09, president of the board of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, and RYAN ROSS ’10, program director of Halcyon Incubator. Ȫ J USTIN CREPP MS’05, PHD’08, professor at Notre Dame, received an NSF CAREER Award for the development of a telescope that corrects for atmospheric turbulence, creating clearer images that allow for improved detection of exoplanets. Ȫ L ESLIE ELIN ANDERSON, UF professor of political science, received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for her book project, Democratic Enclaves in Times of Trouble: The Politics of Resistance in Nicaragua.

Donor Profile

Kenan Professor of Chemistry Alan Katritzky began his tenure at UF in 1980 and continued working in the Department of Chemistry until his death in 2014. A professor who supervised more than 300 graduates, he also worked with more than 700 postdoctorals over 60 years.

He founded the first online journal of organic chemistry, Arkivoc, and initiated an annual conference (now run by UF) in his field of heterocyclic chemistry, a branch of organic chemistry that deals with molecules that have at least two different elements in a ring. “He was completely devoted to his study,” says his wife of 61 years, Linde.

Oxford-educated, Alan became the dean of chemistry at England’s University of East Anglia in 1963. The move to the United States brought a higher income — and savings for a foundation. “We were both frugal and didn’t go in for fancy things,” says Linde. The Katritzky Foundation made it possible for a pledge of $1.5 million to establish the Alan R. Katritzky Chair of Heterocyclic Chemistry. It also provided Alan with the means to start Arkivoc, which aids scholars abroad who can’t afford access to such research. “His academic work and journal were very important to Alan. We both wanted to see 46 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

Provided by Linde Katritzky

LINDE AND ALAN KATRITZKY

Professor Alan Katritzky at University of East Anglia, ca. 1963.

them continue on to help others,” says Linde, who continues to contribute to UF Chemistry. — Gigi Marino

Climate Change LEADERSHIP | ENVIRONMENT | GLOBALIZATION

WHAT SHE DOES IS SHOW US WHAT WE CAN DO

Andrea Dutton studies the past to provide us with benchmarks for the future. An assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, Dutton leads an international group, which investigates geological records to better predict sea level rise. By surveying ancient shorelines, she helps us predict what will happen as climate change continues to affect society, so we can be prepared to take action.

ANDREA DUTTON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Kudos Ȫ A LFRED CAVE M’59, PHD’61 was named a UF Distinguished Alumnus for his contributions to the history of the Pequot tribe of Connecticut. Ȫ African Languages celebrates 50 years of teaching at UF. Ȫ P sychology professor Dorothy Espelage received a $1 million, three-year grant for a pilot program to improve violence prevention and intervention in Miami-Dade Public Schools. Ȫ C arolyn Tucker, director of the Obesity Disparities Center, received a $2.3 million, three-year grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to support her health disparities research.

Ȫ T he Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere received a $400,000, three-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the center’s endeavors to address pressing social and environmental issues in society. Ȫ A rchaeology professor William H. Marquardt received a SEAC Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southeastern Archaeological Conference for his seminal research on the Calusa tribe of South Florida. Ȫ N ancy Rose Hunt, professor of history and African studies, won the 2016 Martin A. Klein Book Award, which honors the year’s most distinguished African history work published in English, for her book about health and community in the post-war Congo.

Kiss-Met Courtesy of the Paynes

FROM FRESHMAN FRIENDSHIP TO TRIPLE TREASURES Monet Payne ’03, Communication Sciences and Disorders David Payne ’03, Sociology “We met at the University of Florida during the Summer B semester in 1999 in the AIM program for minority students.

Unfortunately, we lost touch after we each delved into our respective undergraduate programs, but we both went on to graduate from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences four years later.

“About seven years after graduating — more than a decade after we first met — serendipity fell upon us. We reconnected through social media and embarked on a romance, marrying in August 2011. Five years later, we welcomed triplets — one boy and two girls. Blessed with these three wonders, we launched our blog at 3PaynesInaPod.com where we offer a his-her perspective about our journey into parenting triplets. We live in Brevard County, Florida, where Monet works in schools as a speech and language pathologist, and David as a finance manager at the Space Coast Credit Union headquarters.

48 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

The Paynes with their triplets. (L to R: Ariel, Monet, Jaslyn, David, and David Jr.)

“We credit our success in love and life to our education at the University of Florida. We share our love of Florida with our triplets, as we look forward to their first day of classes at UF. We are truly a family who bleeds orange and blue, and we’re proud to share our story with the Gator Nation.”

CON N ECT

Gator Good

IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME Alumna establishes a public charter school for sustainability in Hawaii.

Provided by Buffy Cushman-Patz ’98

By Terri Peterson BUFFY CUSHMAN-PATZ ’98 had a powerful learning experience that set her on her current career path in her sophomore year at UF. During honors physical geology with Professor Michael Perfit, Cushman-Patz watched a video Perfit had filmed a mile under the sea in the deep-ocean submersible the Alvin. In that class, says Cushman-Patz, she finally understood the value of scientific inquiry. “Science is alive and creative — it’s not just something out of a textbook.

And I realized I didn’t want other children to have to wait until college to understand what science is about.”

After college, Cushman-Patz began teaching high school geology. When it became clear that educational administration was her calling, Cushman-Patz pursued a master’s degree, enrolling in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education School Leadership program. Many of the papers she wrote at Harvard became the founding documents for SEEQS: the School for Examining Essential Questions of Sustainability, the STEM-oriented charter school Cushman-Patz founded in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2013. A watershed moment occurred when Cushman-Patz was tasked with designing her ideal learning environment.

“Five principles emerged as I worked on this: Realworld situations and real-world contexts enable real-world learning; learning occurs when learners take ownership of their learning; everyone is a teacher, and everyone is a learner, all of the time; a learning environment is composed of its community members, cultural values, and physical surroundings; and improvement of the organization requires consciously collaborative participation by community members.” After a step back and a considerable amount of contemplation, Cushman-Patz decided to bring these principles to life. “I’ve always believed that if you see a problem, have an idea for how to fix it, and can bring that idea to fruition, then you should go for it.” With that, Cushman-Patz wrote the first grant proposal for SEEQS funding.

SEEQS is a fully operational public middle school whose campus now shares space with a local high school. Their recent move has expanded students’ access to programs and resources and allows administrators to keep their educational

Buffy Cushman-Patz ’98 was inspired by Professor Michael Perfit to inspire others about science.

mission in the forefront. “An overarching concern at SEEQS is what will happen to the planet, so we ask the students to dig deeply into world problems. The planet is changing faster than we can currently fix. We need to train students who not only understand how large and complex some of these problems are, but have the tools to work on them.”

Cushman-Patz says SEEQS ideals resonate with the Honolulu community, who don’t have the luxury of distance regarding questions of environmental impact. “Global warming, sea level rise, food sustainability — these are not global issues in Honolulu. We are on an island; for us, these are all local problems.” By providing her students with their own powerful learning experiences when they are young, Cushman-Patz hopes to better prepare students for the demands of the future. She admits, “We are asking a lot from a bunch of 11- to 13-year-olds. But these kids are showing an amazing capacity to respond thoughtfully and positively. And they’re happy doing it. That’s a plus.”

YTORI — FALL 2017 | 49

FALL 2017 | VOL. 2, ISSUE 2 Ytori is published twice a year in the Fall and Spring by the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The name Ytori means alligator in the language of the Timucua, the native inhabitants of north central and northeastern Florida.

STAFF Dean: David E. Richardson Assistant VP of Development and Alumni Affairs: Ryan Marsh

Science-focused students in Liberal Arts and Sciences get a jump-start on their research careers in the X-Lab Project.

THE X-LABS A new science paradigm for an interdisciplinary world

By Gigi Marino While the name X-Labs might evoke Mystique or Magneto, the X in question actually stands for cross-disciplinary. The framework behind the project is to provide undergraduates in the sciences — those studying chemistry, biology, and physics — with real-world lab experiences where different disciplines interact on a regular basis. Students must take classes in all three areas, and the undergraduates are supervised by graduate students. X-Labs director and biology professor David Julian says, “This is a unique approach to teaching the general biology, chemistry, and physics laboratory knowledge and skills in an integrated curriculum.”

One of the program’s main goals is to enrich the undergraduate research experience for students in Liberal Arts and Sciences. Getting them into the lab as early as their freshman year in a mentored situation helps build both skill and confidence. Students enroll in the X-Labs for two semesters. In addition to honing their lab skills, they also are tasked with using critical thinking to envision projects, develop hypotheses, and use scientific methods to prove those hypotheses.

“We are trying to help all students — especially those who identify as pre-health but have a fear of physical science courses — acquire hands-on experience with chemistry and physics concepts in the context of biomedical applications.”

Editor-in-Chief: Gigi Marino Associate Editor: Rachel Wayne Proofreaders: Bruce Mastron, Kaitlin Sammon ’18 Interns: Yankel Amarante ’19, Isabella Niño ’19 Director of Graphic Design: Scott Harper © 2017 by the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or duplicated without prior permission of the editor.

Ytori University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office, 2014 Turlington Hall PO Box 117300 | Gainesville FL 32611 Printed by Progress Printing, an FSC-certified printer in Willow Springs, N.C.

Website: publications.clas.ufl.edu Facebook: facebook.com/UF.clas Twitter: UF_CLAS Instagram: UF_CLAS AN EQUAL ACCESS/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY UNIVERSITY We love letters! Love or hate something you read?

Have a story idea? Let us know. Email editor@clas.ufl.edu, or write us at the address noted above.

ERRATA Credit for photo on p. 9 of spring issue (“Crab Love in the Garbage Patch”) is Ralph Pace, not Joseph Pfaller.

50 | LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

Back cover: Lake Alice

Matthew Lester

Ytori Magazine

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