CLASS Research & Creative Works 2016

COLLEGE OF

LETTERS, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

RESEARCH & CREATIVE WORKS

A message from the Dean ...

When we think of CLASS, we immediately think of the amazing faculty and staff who create engaging educational experiences that transform student lives. As dean, I am constantly humbled by the myriad of stories that boast about our student successes. But as we all know, this is just a part of what goes on in our College. The faculty in CLASS are amazingly accomplished scholars who have produced and continue to produce a tremendous body of scholarship and creative works. This magazine, which will be a regular publication, highlights the collective research agendas of our departments and schools and focuses the spotlight on the recent scholarly endeavors of some of our faculty. Our college has so many wonderful faculty members that of course we are unable to showcase them all in one publication. We will continue to feature our outstanding faculty with each new edition.

our programs and our faculty and staff. As you do, you will undoubtedly begin to notice a hallmark of CLASS and in fact of the University of Idaho. The faculty in CLASS are not only top researchers, performers and scholars; they are innovative in the ways that they include students into their scholarly endeavors. Unlike many other researchintensive universities, in CLASS, there is no meaningful separation between teaching and research. We are leaders in undergraduate and graduate research. This publication is dedicated to the entire College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences and to all its friends who support the faculty, staff, and students whose scholarly and creative works propel us all forward.

As you read through the magazine, I encourage you to also go online www.uidaho.edu/class to learn more about

ANDREW E. KERSTEN | Dean College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences

CONTENTS

Department of English.............................................2

FACULTY FOCUS — Daniel Orozco “Figuring it Out by Doing”

Martin School of International Studies, Philosophy and Political Science....................... 12

Department of History.............................................4

FACULTY FOCUS — PHILOSOPHY Graham Hubbs “Failure to Communicate”

FACULTY FOCUS — POLITICAL SCIENCE Manoj Shrestha “Span Boundaries to Connect”

FACULTY FOCUS — Ellen Kittell “A Great Deal Like Us”

School of Journalism and Mass Media...............6

FACULTY FOCUS — Denise Bennett “Go Meet a Stranger”

Department of Modern Languages & Cultures..............................8

FACULTY FOCUS — Lori Celaya “Not Half of Anything”

Lionel Hampton School of Music......................10

FACULTY FOCUS — Carol Padgham Albrecht “Opera Was What Made the Headlines”

Department of Psychology & Communication Studies...........16

FACULTY FOCUS — Kenneth Locke – “An Enduring Romantic or Marital Bond”

Department of Sociology & Anthropology......18

FACULTY FOCUS — Leontina Hormel “The Meaning of Place”

Department of Theatre Arts................................ 20

FACULTY FOCUS — Rob Caisley “Frisson”

1

FACULTY FOCUS —

Daniel Orozco — Figuring it Out by Doing Daniel Orozco isn’t ready to reveal much about his debut novel.

“It has a plot. Stuff happens. A couple of people die.”

Orozco, an associate professor in the University of Idaho Department of English, has spent nearly 13 years writing, studying and teaching short stories at UI. He is a master of his craft — an artist who loves lingering over individual sentences and deliberate structures.

But when he released his first collection, “Orientation: And Other Stories,” in 2011, his publisher made him agree to write a novel, too.

Orozco admitted the daunting task of writing a novel over the past six years has been a struggle — but a struggle that’s valuable to his life and his students.

“The fact that I write and struggle to write and struggle to publish means that I’m working at what I’m doing. That’s who students 2

should be taught by,” Orozco said. “I’m engaged with the work that they do because I’m engaged with the work I do.”

The concept of struggle is central, too, to Orozco’s writing. Joking aside, he doesn’t share much publicly about his novel-in-progress, but he said it addresses some of the same issues as his short stories.

“A lot of my work deals with people who struggle with solitude, with being alone,” he said. “It’s always been a dramatic area I’m fascinated to write about, and the novel certainly deals with that.”

For the past 20-plus years, he’s often found himself (whether he means to or not) exploring the “emotional incongruities” in a quote from R.M. Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet”: “Therefore, dear sir, love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you.”

Writing about solitude challenges Orozco to find drama in the lives of people separated from typical human dramas.

CLASS English Department of

The English faculty is a vibrant community of diverse scholars and writers. Primarily known for their excellence in creative writing and environmentally focused literary scholarship, their poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared in the nation’s most prominent venues, including The New York Times, Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Short Stories, and Harper’s, and their books have been published by Viking, Penguin, Knopf, Faber and Faber, and others. Faculty members also conduct important research in applied linguistics and writing program assessment, as well as edit distinguished journals. The department’s literary scholars have published numerous books and are considered to be international leaders in the field of ecocriticism.

To learn more about the research and creative activity being done by the University of Idaho English faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/english

“There are stories about people who take relationships for granted, take companionship for granted, and I like to write about people who don’t,” he said.

The concepts of struggle and solitude are also sources of motivation — for Orozco and for his characters. He points to Samuel Beckett’s exhortation to “Try again. Fail Again. Fail better,” as a reminder that difficulties lead to progress.

Wrestling with and even complaining about his work is a sign to

“It could be a letter, microfilm, poison. For Hitchcock it didn’t matter,” Orozco explained.

Orozco chose a notebook as his MacGuffin, stolen 20 years past by one character, and desperately sought by another character in the present. This gave Orozco the opportunity to move the story in time and in space. He decided to set it in landscapes familiar to him, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Washington and “a town much like this one with a college — but not this one.”

always fun.”

Now that the novel is nearly done, Orozco is eager to get back to the focused and demanding practice of short-story writing, but he’s also pleased that his struggle has led him along an interesting path.

To help drive the novel forward even more, he turned to a classic

“It’s been rewarding,” he said. “I’m glad I’m figuring it out by doing.”

Orozco that he’s thinking about it and energized by it.

“Work is a funny thing,” he said. “You enjoy it even though it’s not

narrative device: the MacGuffin. Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term to refer to an object or goal that drives characters and their actions throughout a story.

3

CLASS History Department of

FACULTY FOCUS —

Ellen Kittell A Great Deal Like Us

C

onventional wisdom tells us that women throughout history have struggled to pull themselves up from second-class status. Whether it be the right to own property, vote or to earn equitable pay, it is a generally

expected idea that women have historically been shut out from equal participation in the cultural and economic fabric of society.

But is this true?

University of Idaho history professor Ellen Kittell has found that many of the freedoms Western women enjoy today were norms during an era that one would not normally think of as progressive: Medieval Europe.

Comprised of scholars actively engaged in original historical research, the history faculty inspires a greater understanding of the global past.

Their interests span four continents and a wide chronological swath, hearkening back to a millennium of human experience. Although the historians engage in cutting-edge international scholarly research, their primary focus remains in four major areas: the American West (with special emphasis upon the Pacific Northwest); women and gender studies; the history of science, health, and environment; and global systems of economic and cultural exchange, particularly related to human slavery and war.

To learn more about the research being done by the history faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/history

Documented in her articles “Whether man or woman: Gender inclusivity in the town ordinances of medieval Douai” and “Women, audience and public acts in medieval Flanders,” Kittell found that many urban women of the time identified themselves by their occupation or simply by their name without reference to whether

She cautions modern day society to take note and understand the

they were single, married or widowed. Medieval Flemish women,

ebb and flow of female independence throughout history.

unlike most European women in the 19th century, did not depend

“We flatter ourselves that we have entered into a period of historically

on status gained by marriage or guardianship. Kittell concludes that this, along with other factors, shows that women participated as persons in their own right in nearly all aspects of public life, as bakers, dyers of cloth, drapers, haberdashers and merchants.

unprecedented female emancipation, partially on account of our commercial, technological and industrial development,” she said.

“Medieval Flanders was almost equally urban and commercial, with full female participation, but the independence of women

She notes that medieval Flanders — half of modern-day Belgium

was eventually largely lost. … The story of Flanders (like that of

— has been one of most urban and commercial regions in

Ancient Sparta) refutes the assumption that the process of female

northern Europe since the 11th century and remains so to this

emancipation is linear, incremental and, once achieved, essentially

day. The economic opportunities available, combined with the fact

irreversible. It behooves us to understand that in order to safeguard,

that women were legal persons who shared equally in inherited

let alone improve upon our present achievements, we must not be

property, created a world where a woman’s identity was not

blind to our past.”

determined by her marital status.

Along with her articles, Kittell is working on a multi-chapter research

“Historians have long assumed that marriage was the be-all-

project that involves documenting all of the various public activities

and-end-all for pre-modern women. My research indicates that

of women in Medieval Flanders.

this simply is not true,” she said. “To be sure, medieval Flanders

“They bought and sold goods and managed businesses, small and

represents neither a golden age nor a female paradise, but it does offer us an opportunity to study women in their own right, without constant reference to the men with whom they may or may not have been associated.”

large. They got into fights, they took people to court and were taken to court; we even find them testifying on their own and under oath,” she said. “They cursed and swore; they prayed and donated land and goods to local churches and saints. They named their

Kittell also points out this independence eroded over time as French

children after their relatives and after the celebrities of their day

legal norms came to influence the region and women were again

— the saints, the countesses, the politicians. They were, in fact, a

relegated to a second-class status within the household structure.

great deal like us.”

5

FACULTY FOCUS —

Denise Bennett “Go Meet a Stranger” In 1936, Mark Calnon, a farm boy from Meridian, Idaho, left his hometown for his first big adventure to study agriculture at the University of Idaho. As his senior year approached, so did a world war.

Volunteering, he became a pilot flying a B-17 over Europe. After eight missions, Calnon was shot down and captured by the Germans and sent to a prison camp, where he witnessed one of the greatest escapes of the war.

—It’s a captivating and true story, and one Denise Bennett knew instinctively needed to be told.

S

“

omeone should interview you,” Bennett, a documentary filmmaker and professor in the University of Idaho’s School of Journalism and Mass Media, told Calnon after hearing

his story.

Calnon is Bennett’s step-grandfather, and she discovered the details of his life while she was attending a family funeral. Busy with several other projects, Bennett did not intend on embarking on a new film, but knew she had to tell his compelling story.

“He’s part of the Greatest Generation. It’s important to share their stories because we are losing these people — and it’s an Idaho story,” she said. “After World War II, he came back and worked as an extension officer for UI in Ada County. Also his wife died unexpectedly and he ended up being a single dad. … He had a really interesting life.”

6

CLASS

School of

Journalism and Mass Media The faculty in the School of Journalism and Mass Media conducts scholarly and applied research on a variety of topics related to the practice of news reporting and editing, journalism education, and media’s role in society.

Faculty also engages in creative scholarship, including producing documentaries, short films and digital visual archives associated with historical topics. In 2014, the school became the only nationally accredited journalism and mass communications program in Idaho.

To learn more about the research being done by the Journalism and Mass Media faculties go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/jamm

“This is historical. I know how it ends,” Bennett said. “So I need to make this visually interesting beyond a talking head, so I’m going to D.C. to look through the national archives to find things I can incorporate into the film.”

Due to his age and health, Bennett also decided to film Calnon’s interviews first — and is grateful she did. Her step-grandfather passed away in the spring of 2015. Now, in addition to public archives, she will be relying on family documents, letters, postcards and records to pull it all together.

Although she met Calnon toward the end of his life, Bennett credits her art form for getting to know him or any of her subjects.

Sharing the interesting and often extraordinary lives of real people is what attracts Bennett to documentary filmmaking.

“There’s more freedom in documentaries (than fiction), which is strange because it’s real, but you are more independent and it’s fun to search for the story,” Bennett said.

The search in Calnon’s case is a bit of a departure from her previous work.

“The camera is an excuse for me to get involved in worlds I would otherwise never be a part of,” she said.

Bennett encourages her UI students to use the camera in the same way — to be fearless and explore unfamiliar and uncomfortable worlds.

“I get a lot of students who want to make films about how hard it is being a student — but I tell them, ‘Go meet a stranger. Get them to

In her award-winning documentary “Pups,” a coming-of-age film

trust you. People you have never met will tell you the most amazing

about the lives of the Gonzaga Prep football team from 2005-08,

things,’” she said.

she shot action as it unfolded and it had an uncertain outcome: Were they going to win or lose? “The fun of making it is not knowing what’s going to happen,” she said.

The Calnon film is different.

Once the Calnon film is completed, a digitized version, a transcript of his oral history, his personal papers and memorabilia from WWII will be donated to the UI Library Special Collections for future generations of scholars to access and research.

7

FACULTY FOCUS —

Lori Celaya “Not Half of Anything”

W

hen it comes to relations between the United

States and all that this encompasses,” she said. “My work focuses

States and Mexico, the debate often focuses

on the diverse nature of this migrant nation reflected by the fact

on the divisions between the two countries —

that many of us started out as indentured servants, slaves or

immigration, drug and human trafficking, border

migrant farm workers. However, when we get beyond geography

security and national sovereignty. But for University of Idaho

and politics, when we get to people, it seems that both are just as

Modern Languages and Cultures assistant professor Lori Celaya,

curious about each other.”

it is more than a political or academic debate; it is something she has experienced and understands first-hand.

Born in the northern Mexican town of Mexicali, Celaya moved to the U.S. when she was 12. Her parents were migrant farmworkers and she often worked in the fields alongside them. For her, the border is not a line for political debate or a place where one culture stops and another begins. It is a place where cultures mix and histories are intertwined.

creative endeavors.

She has authored “México visto desde la literature de su frontera norte: Identidades propias de la transculturación y la migración” (“Mexico Viewed from its Northern Border Literature: Identities that Result from Migration and Transculturation”), which focuses on the history of the U.S./Mexico border and how literature and other mediums influence and form personal identity. She has also

“It is very interesting to note that there is so much more that unites

recently co-written an article with her UI colleague Marta Boris

us than that geographical line that divides us. Mexico’s border has

Tarre titled “Female Trafficking at Mexico’s Northern Border: A View

become the entry, not just into Mexico, but into Latin America.

of the Client’s Role.”

Likewise, from south to north it is the gateway into the United 8

Celaya’s own curiosity has fueled her academic research and

CLASS

Department of

Modern Languages & Cultures The Department of Modern Languages and Cultures faculty are a multinational group of scholars and linguists with expertise in Spanish, French, German, and Japanese languages and cultures. They conduct research in Renaissance/early modern, Enlightenment, and 19th – 21st century European and Latin American literature and history. In addition, there are concentrations on U.S. Latino and border studies, the European Union, gender studies, film studies, critical race theory, history of science and technology, intercultural communication, interpretation and translation, language acquisition, languages for professions, and global competency training. Their interdisciplinary research combines the strengths of the social sciences; the fields of education, cultural medicine, and law; and the humanities. Current research topics include human trafficking and immigration issues, history of the rhetoric of science, white privilege and the second-language classroom, and computer-assisted language learning and proficiency assessment.

To learn more about the research being done by the Modern Languages and Cultures faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/mlc

While conducting research for this article, Celaya traveled to the border and interviewed clients of the trade. The journal Slavery Today will be publishing the article in its fall publication.

Celaya also examines the U.S. and Latino cultures in a creative publication titled “Nos pasamos de la raya/We Crossed The Line.”

“My contribution resulted from a graduate seminar I took with UI English professor Scott Slovic during the fall of 2014,” she said. “I co-authored the introduction and I wrote a short story and a poem that is part of this bilingual/bicultural compilation that includes works by fifteen U.S. Latino authors.”

The distinct aspect of this work is that the stories and poems are not direct translations, but each work was spoken in both

makeup — we become stronger and can give full meaning to the word “united” in United States. I am always pleased when students from diverse backgrounds take my courses because it presents an opportunity to exchange ideas and dialogue. It also gives me hope for a future that may become less compartmentalized and less divisive.”

Celaya’s next collaborative project is a text called “Spanish for the Professions.” It involves many types of research, including personal interviews of Latin American and U.S. Latino professionals and is geared toward students who need special language skills needed to communicate in various professional fields.

Like her varied body of work, Celaya does not intend on being

languages and then written down so the unique ways of telling are

confined to a single type of academic pursuit or ethnic label.

captured. Celaya says it is critical to embrace these differences.

“I choose to take it all in. It is impossible for me to separate one

“It is very important to know who we are as an American nation.

from the other; I am not half of anything,” she said. “To quote my

We cannot grow and prosper as one people if we choose to ignore and deny the very weavings of our fabric,” she said. “We do not

daughter, I am not comfortable with fractions when it comes to my defining my identity.”

become watered down or weaker by acknowledging our diverse 9

CLASS

Lionel Hampton School of Music The Lionel Hampton School of Music (LHSOM) boasts an exceptional and close-knit faculty of prominent performers, composers, scholars, and pedagogues. The faculty showcases a diversity of musical genres and styles from jazz to Classical chamber music through live performances, recordings, and scholarly publications.

They also continue to propel the art form forward through composition of new works and the exploration of new musical ideas. In addition to its internationally known expertise in performance and composition, the LHSOM has a research focus in world music, music education, music history, and music theory.

To learn more about the research and creative activity being done by the Lionel School of Music faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/music

FACULTY FOCUS —

Carol Padgham Albrecht “Opera Was What Ma

A

sk music professor Carol Padgham Albrecht to imagine

“I discovered that opera was what made the headlines, what

Vienna in the 1790s and she might conjure an opulent

people were interested in reading about in the journals of the day.

performance hall where Mozart’s operas are illuminated

… One of the big surprises was to see the ‘second run’ of Mozart’s

by footlights, Hadyn’s quartets waft in the candlelit

Italian operas being performed in Vienna, but all translated into

chandeliers and Beethoven’s pounding symphonies remind

German,” she said. “Then there were the singers themselves, most

Viennese concert goers of the French army marching through

of whom did not appear in the standard musical reference books,

Europe.

so I felt compelled to flesh out more of the details there. And I just

She might also describe a creative community that gave birth to classical music while monarchs fought over ideas and borders. It

Delving into the Austrian Theater Museum’s archives, she has

was a unique time and place — and one that fascinates her.

spent years learning about the lives of the performers.

“I’ve always been a closet history buff,” Padgham Albrecht said.

“Just by looking at the daily theater playbills, you get a feeling for

“I’ve always found it interesting to know what a piece of music

the individuals as you see them alternate in productions, day after

might have meant within its culture, how it functioned and how it

day,” Padgham Albrecht said. “They would post the playbills each

was received during that particular time. And Vienna during this era

day, and if there was some change — say, one of the singers was

is particularly fascinating.”

sick — the management would write in by hand that due to so-

Padgham Albrecht, who is an expert in 18th century Viennese concert life, recently began to study the popular obsession with opera among the people of the era.

10

got hooked.”

and-so’s indisposition, or fever, or whatever, they could not perform and would instead substitute another production. So you can get an idea of everyone’s health!”

ade the Headlines” In addition, she was surprised to discover economic gender

It also helps her UI students better understand how they, as

equality.

performers, contribute to society.

“It was quite an eye-opener to see the top female singers making

“Not everyone inherently relates to opera, but they do relate to

salaries equal to those of their male colleagues, and in some cases

people. And for vocal students, it makes sense to know how earlier

outstripping them entirely,” she said. “One of the high earners, Irene

generations of singers sustained their careers.”

Tomeoni, did particularly well. She was able to buy two houses within the city, as well as a villa out in one of the suburbs. She was able to sustain herself as a widow through 25 years of retirement on rental income alone. And consider that she was able to buy real estate in her own name, without some male guarantor.”

However, Padgham Albrecht said it was not unexpected to realize the natural interdisciplinary nature of her research.

“The humanities relate to people, and my research delves into people’s everyday lives,” she said. “From a more sociological stance, these opera singers function as an occupational group, and examining their daily professional activities and genealogical trails is leading to a picture of how they lived and worked.”

It is also a better way to teach music history.

“Music is an aspect of overall human behavior, not something that just happens in a bubble,” Padgham Albrecht said. “I think it’s easier to understand the role of music, art, literature and theater if you view them in the context of the times in which they were created. And, I think it’s just more interesting that way.”

Padgham Albrecht, who has given conference presentations and has published several articles, plans on putting her research together in a book, tentatively titled, “Tales of the Distinctive and the Dysfunctional: Opera Singers in Vienna, 1792-1810.”

“That would kind of sum it up,” she said.

11

CLASS Martin School of

International Studies, Philosophy and Political Science The University of Idaho Martin School is an academic unit consisting of three distinct disciplines: philosophy, political science and international studies.

Each area is guided by a nationally recognized faculty with a wide range of research specialties. Scholars in philosophy publish and present on topics in ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, religious studies and epistemology.

A distinguished group of theorists, the political science faculty specialize in international and domestic processes, environmental politics, public administration and policy, human rights and community sustainability. The international studies wing of the school uses an interdisciplinary approach to focus on the causes of war, the conditions necessary for peace, and the international system.

To learn more about the research being done by the Martin School faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/martin-school

FACULTY FOCUS — PHILOSOPHY

Graham Hubbs “Failure to Communicate”

M

“

y philosophy.” It’s an expression often injected before

uses to analyze opinions and language can help cross-disciplinary

someone states their point of view, but for University

research teams overcome hurdles.

of Idaho assistant professor of philosophy Graham Hubbs, it is an overused phrase that he believes is

the main reason his field is so misunderstood.

researching everything from poverty and infectious diseases to the quest for and use of sustainable natural resources. The work is

“That makes it seem like philosophy is the business of irrationally

significant because many of these crucial multidisciplinary research

declaring one’s own opinion. It is precisely the opposite. Philosophy

endeavors have been stalled or weighed down by “a failure to

is the business of rationally scrutinizing opinions, including, most

communicate.”

importantly, one’s own. This scrutiny can take a number of forms, including the willingness to accept that a deeply held conviction might be wrong,” he said.

Hubbs is currently pursuing two areas of real-world research that

“The project runs workshops that seek to identify and to overcome these failures,” he said.

Hubbs currently serves as the Toolbox Project’s advisor to UI’s Center for Modeling Complex Interactions, which is funded by a

illustrate just that principle.

$10.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The first area is his work in the “Toolbox Project.” The project, which

Hubbs’s second area of research also deals with communication

includes collaborators from throughout the UI faculty as well as faculty from Michigan State University and Boise State University, is focused on how the discipline of philosophy and the tools it 12

Hubbs says the project is designed to help diverse teams

and is equally impactful. In fact, the questions and conflicts he examines are vividly on display every day in the news: the freedoms of speech, press and assembly in democracy.

“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution articulates all of these freedoms — but why? Are these freedoms strictly necessary for self-governance, or are they merely useful? If they are merely useful, can they be abridged, and if so, under what circumstances?” he said.

He explains that an understanding of the concepts of democracy

revealing activities of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden are acceptable in a well-functioning democracy. Some people think the answer is obviously yes, and others think the answer is obviously no,” he said. “I don’t think the answer is obvious: I think arriving at an answer requires thinking carefully about the place of freedom of expression in a democracy. That is what motivates this

and self-governance are crucial when looking at contemporary

branch of my research.”

issues including Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, Ferguson and

Continuing his national and international collaborations, Hubbs

Citizens United.

“They only scratch the surface,” Hubbs said. “I have written on this as it pertains to the freedom of a democratic press and am currently at work on the relation between freedom of expression

recently participated in “Toolbox” events at Arizona State University and at the National Science Foundation BEACON Center at Michigan State University. He is also currently co-writing a paper on civil disobedience with a colleague at the University of Edinburgh.

and civil disobedience.”

Hubbs revealed that his inspirations for pursuing these questions are simple and universal.

“I think most of us want to understand the pressing issues of our day. I want to understand, for example, whether the secret13

FACULTY FOCUS — POLITICAL SCIENCE

Manoj Shrestha “Span Boundaries to Connect”

B

y itself a single drop of rain cannot fill the water needs of an entire community. However, if that single drop falls into a stream that feeds a river and flows along, connecting and combining with millions of others, it can quench the thirst of many people. In this same way, associate professor of political science Manoj Shrestha studies how small communities can join together and create connections that ultimately benefit all.

Specifically, his research focuses on understanding the complexities of developing and sustaining collaborative and selforganized solutions to local problems. One of his current projects looks at water governance in remote villages in Nepal that are involved in implementing the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Program (RWSSP). Supported by the World Bank, RWSSP is one of the largest collaborative water supply programs in Nepal, aimed at helping rural communities to improve access to clean drinking water.

The program adopts a collaborative approach where communities initiate, plan and organize water projects, while the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Fund Development Board, a quasi-

14

governmental supervisory agency, provides the communities with technical assistance and funding.

Shrestha’s research focuses on how small communities’ ability to reach out to local or regional organizations and other villages can help them succeed in getting projects funded and completed.

“Let’s think of rural villagers in Nepal who have poor access to drinking water supply and are eager to implement a community water supply project. Since these communities lack information, resources, expertise and organizational skills to implement such a project, they need to develop collaborative networks with a variety of governmental and non-governmental organizations to access those resources to successfully implement the project,” he said.

In addition to achieving access to a clean water supply, Shrestha’s research shows that the community reaps long-term benefits by making connections and developing partnerships.

“During this process, communities also develop capacity and learn managerial and relational skills – creating relationships with external organizations. Improved capacity and skills can go a long way to

help these communities to implement new initiatives that improve their wellbeing – a sign of community sustainability,” he said.

Shrestha notes that developing collaborative connections can help resolve larger issues of governance and management of local public goods and water resources, with community sustainability as the ultimate goal.

Multiple communities who share an aquifer, watershed or river basin are another example of the importance of group water management in areas around the world.

“This is a classic collective action problem – no one entity is entirely responsible or has capacity to address the issue,” Shrestha said. “However, developing a collaborative network among concerned stakeholders could provide a path forward to improve the condition. Often many entities have authority over or have interests in the watershed, for example. Coordination could be a huge issue. Networks among these entities can resolve barriers to coordination.”

Born and raised in Nepal, Shrestha said his interest in this area of research came from personal experience.

“I have seen communities doing better when they act together, listen to others, resolve differences and are willing to span boundaries to connect to others for help and advice. During my graduate study

at Florida State University, the explanation of my life experience became my curiosity. Interdependency and embeddedness are fundamental to our existence,” he said. “This also applies to ecological systems and between social and ecological systems.

Interdependency demands interaction and interactions among elements of a system emerge into a network – a structural pattern of relationships.”

Shrestha has employed field surveys and online or mail surveys to gather data for his research. His findings have been published in peer-reviewed publications such as the Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Urban Affairs Review and the Political Research Quarterly, and may have far reaching implications.

“Scholars believe that there are underlying structural patterns of relationships or network structures that could very well explain the real-world phenomena that we observe. Understanding how these network structures emerge and how these networks are linked to outcomes could prove very valuable in our attempt to address many complex problems,” Shrestha said. “It is not only the characteristics of individual parts but also the characteristics of the interactions among these individual parts that are critical to our ability to understand and perhaps devise solutions.”

15

FACULTY FOCUS —

Kenneth Locke – “An Enduring Romantic or

“

I

would my father looked but with my eyes,” laments Hermia in

countries. In addition, he has enlisted the help of several University

William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” as she

of Idaho undergraduates to collect data in the United States, as

struggles with whom to marry – her father’s choice or her own?

well as UI students and faculty to aid in translating materials into a

While Hermia’s decision involves fleeing with her lover into a

forest inhabited by mischievous fairies and rude mechanicals,

“The opportunity to work with so many interesting individuals from

psychology professor Kenneth Locke is conducting a real-life

such diverse backgrounds has been an unexpected benefit of

examination of this timeless and cross-cultural dilemma: What

conducting this study,” Locke said.

characteristics are young adults seeking in a long-term romantic

Locke adds that regardless of culture, class or country, people

partner versus what characteristics do their parents want them to seek in a partner?

Admitting it is one of his most ambitious research projects to date, Locke is gathering data from approximately 2,500 parent-child pairs in eight different countries. He has assembled a diverse and dedicated international team of collaborators — including faculty members from Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines, who are overseeing the data collection in those 16

variety of languages.

everywhere can understand and appreciate this study.

“I suspect romantic relationships are intrinsically interesting to most people, and perhaps the question of whether parents and their adult children focus on different qualities in potential partners is especially interesting to me now that my own children are 18 and 21 years old,” he said.

CLASS

Department of

Psychology & Communication Studies

The Department of Psychology & Communication Studies faculty is an esteemed group of researchers with academic training in a wide variety of specialties including: spatial cognition and virtual environments, injury prevention, family communication, child development, aging, gender differences, sexuality and addiction.

Through ground-breaking work done in the Human-in-the-Loop Simulation Laboratory, faculty researchers seek to understand how human behaviors affect safety outcomes, how those behaviors can be influenced, and experiment with new formats to provide real world applications to achieve better outcomes.

Their expertise has been sought out by governmental organizations and private companies such as the Idaho National Laboratory and the Nissan Corporation.

To learn more about the research being done by the Psychology & Communication Studies faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/psychcomm

Marital Bond” Beyond his own personal interest, Locke says he hopes the unique data he is collecting will provide insights into many intriguing, controversial and unresolved questions.

Among the questions Locke is asking are: To what extent do the

cultures but are shared by members of a particular culture, which differ among members of a culture but are shared by parents and their children, and which preferences are not shared by others but are predicted by an individual’s distinctive personality.

partner preferences of young adults reflect universal preferences

Although this is work is more theoretical than some of his previous

(as some evolutionary theories predict), the preferences of their

studies on addictions, autism, binge eating and depression, Locke

parents or peers (as some sociological and cultural theories predict)

said this current project still has very practical and life-impacting

or their unique personal preferences (as some psychological

applications.

theories predict)? And are certain sources of influence (e.g., parental influences versus peer influences) stronger in some cultures than others?

Locke says he is eager to see what the results reveal. For example, are preferences for partners who are healthy — or wealthy or wise — show inclinations that have evolved over time, or are they desires that have been influenced by culture?

Employing complex statistical techniques, Locke can determine which preferences are universal across cultures, which vary across

“With whom individuals do or do not form an enduring romantic or marital bond has significant consequences for those individuals, their families, and society and a better understanding of the process may help us to make wiser choices,” he said.

Locke expects to finish collecting the data by the end of 2015, and hopes to be presenting and publishing the results of the research by the fall of 2016.

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CLASS Department of

Sociology & Anthropology An academic unit consisting of two distinct disciplines, the Department of Sociology & Anthropology is a respected team of scholars who take an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to studying the social and anthropological world. The sociology faculty focuses on two broad areas of scholarship: criminology and inequalities in its various manifestations. Examples of research currently being conducted are crime as social change and how female farmers access their farmland. In anthropology, the faculty has particular expertise in archaeology with emphasis on the prehistory and history of the inland northwest. These researchers have been sought out for their expertise and advice by numerous state and federal agencies, including the National Park Service, US Forest Service, US geological Survey, Army Corps of Engineers, Idaho Archaeological Society and many private cultural resource management companies.

To learn more about the research being done by the sociology and anthropology faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/ class/socanthro

FACULTY FOCUS —

Leontina Hormel “The Meaning of Place” “

A

s a sociologist, University of Idaho professor Leontina

Highway 12 and the lands of the Clearwater Basin – significant

Hormel has made a career out of observing rural

parts of the Nez Perce treaty lands and heritage.

cultures and communities. From Ukraine and the Russian Federation to interdisciplinary research in

Idaho, she has focused on how communities deal with social, technological and political change. However, through these studies Hormel understands that observing a culture is not the same as understanding it from within, so her current research takes a different approach.

Currently, she has organized a research team that includes Nez Perce tribal researchers Lucinda Simpson and Diane Mallickan and Nez Perce students Chantel Greene, Cato Vallandra and current UI student Lewonne Teasley. Hormel is helping tribal members collect input about the cultural consequences of changing uses of Idaho 18

“The Highway 12 route is becoming part of the state’s planning to grow the economy by enhancing commercial transportation of equipment/commodities between major energy extraction sites,” she said. “So, the research question is asking how technological modernization is affecting how rural populations — in this case, the Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu as they call themselves — perceive these shifts.”

These changes concerned many tribal members because the Nez Perce’s input regarding Highway 12 was considered inadequate or non-existent.

“The research is trying to help Nez Perce people communicate more clearly orally/visually how they are connected culturally and

environmentally to the Clearwater Watershed,” Hormel said. “So,

The project’s aim is a result of collaboration with a variety of Nez

it is less about modes of communication and more about the

Perce tribal activists, including Paulette Smith, Elliott Moffett,

meaning of place to Nez Perce people, most especially the role of

Renee Holt, and UI alumni Julian Matthews and James Holt. This

environmental health to community resilience.”

collaboration has also involved inter-institutional partnering with

The Nez Perce researchers work in pairs, with older tribal

Lewis-Clark State College professor Chris Norden.

researchers working with younger members. These pairings enable

“Technological changes affecting how we communicate and

generational knowledge sharing, one of the project’s primary

feel informed about science or environment affects people’s

goals. Each professionally grounded Nimiipuu senior works with

perceptions of fairness of the current system, it affects their trust.

student-researchers to refine interview questions and then conduct

In this way, these different people and places are similar,” Hormel

interviews using photovoice, a technique where participants

said.

supplement verbal interviews with photographs they feel capture their experiences with the region’s environment. In addition, those being interviewed are encouraged to share meaningful artifacts, craftwork, creative writings or traditional food items that are rooted in Nez Perce culture.

Funded by the Sociological Initiatives Foundations, the UI Office of Research and Economic development and the UI College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, the study’s contents including the photovoice interviews, artifacts, photos and other materials will be complied, archived and stored in the Nez Perce Tribe’s Cultural

“I think it is important to feature the collaborative spirit of this

Resources division so the Nez Perce Tribe will own and be able to

project, since several Nez Perce people have guided me and are

access them for years to come.

doing the work of the project with me – it is envisioned as a project for and by Nez Perce members,” Hormel said.

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CLASS Department of

Theatre Arts

The University of Idaho’s Theatre Arts Department offers one of the nation’s premier land-grant theatre training programs. Interdisciplinary at its core, theatre is a collaborative art that integrates the allied but distinctly disparate work of playwrights, directors, actors, designers and technicians. The work of these artists is inspired by rigorous research and culminates in live performance. The department boasts an award-winning faculty, a family of artists who have earned consistent recognition for their national and international contributions and the success of their students post-graduation.

To learn more about the research being done by the Theatre Arts faculty go to: www.uidaho.edu/class/theatre

FACULTY FOCUS —

Rob Caisley “Frisson”

“

“Fresh white paper and a steaming mug of coffee very early in the morning, before the kids are up with their demands. At that hallowed moment, before I screw everything up, before I have a draft with all its flaws and compromises; before there’s an audience not laughing enough or not being quiet enough, or not getting it; before the agent asks, ‘How many characters in this one?’ – you know, the perfect moment, the perfect play that exists as only a nascent idea wafting around the back channels of your imagination. The French actually have the perfect word for it: frisson.” – Rob Caisley

F

risson.” It’s a moment of excitement UI theater arts professor and professional playwright Rob Caisley looks forward to, since he usually does not fully understand what he is going to write about.

“I like to turn things upside down, but it usually takes me a while

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After a string of several successful plays, he may still be trying to understand how he feels about a certain topic, but one theme has begun to emerge — opposite worldviews.

“I am getting more interested in writing plays that focus on a particular kind of emotional experience. The last three plays I’ve written — ‘Happy,’ ‘Lucky Me’ and ‘The Open Hand’ — form, in some respects, a kind of trilogy, in that they examine a particular way of looking at the world,” Caisley said. “‘Happy’ asks questions about the way we construct our lives in the pursuit of happiness. ‘Lucky Me’ asks, ‘Is there such as thing as Good Fortune and Bad Fortune controlling our lives, and how does it seem to operate so disproportionately in some people’s

to understand what it is I’m writing. In other words, I write in order

lives and not in others?’ What’s common among these plays is that

to understand what I think and feel about a subject, rather than

I find myself far more interested in the thematic opposite of what I

beginning with a point of view,” he said.

initially begin researching,” he said.

“The Open Hand,” which was commissioned by and will premiere

“I get so excited workshopping my students’ scripts, and this

at the Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee, in March

excitement converts into energy I can then dedicate to my own

2016, examines the nature of generosity and selfishness, and how

work. I like to be struggling with the same second-act problems

they are two sides of the same coin.

Caisley developed “The Open Hand” through workshops at the Clarence Brown Theatre and at the 2015 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference in McCall, Idaho, where he was the featured playwright.

He adds that pursuing his craft as part of his university creative activity has enhanced his teaching and the learning experience of his students in ways he never imagined.

that my students are struggling with,” he said. “I think it’s helpful for them to see that I wrestle with the same story problems, structure problems and character problems that they’re also wrestling with.

So, for me, my teaching and my writing go hand-in-glove.”

In addition to playwriting, Caisley has served as artistic director for the Idaho Repertory Theatre, worked as a creative consultant The History Channel, Triage Entertainment and North by Northwest Productions, and been a guest speaker at numerous universities

“Before I started teaching, I was worried that I wouldn’t have

throughout the country.

enough time to dedicate to writing if I had classes and students

In 2015 he was awarded the UI Excellence in Research and

and committees to take up my attention, but I have found the exact opposite to be true. I have been more productive since I came to the University of Idaho,” Caisley said.

Creativity Award and also received as a 2015-16 Fellowship from the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

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Administration Building, Room 112 875 Perimeter Drive, MS 3154 Moscow, Idaho 83844-3154