The First Year of Studies // The First Year of Studies

College of Arts and Letters Introduces New Business Economics Minor

2011-11-04T12:00:00-04:00

The College of Arts and Letters is introducing a new business economics minor for students in the College who want to pursue a liberal arts education while also developing literacy in basic business economics principles.

“Our students already develop a number of skills that are critical to success in any career or profession — the ability to write well, speak confidently and intelligently, and analyze complex situations and information,” says John T. McGreevy, dean of the college. “What this new program offers students is a solid grounding in basic economics and business principles.

The minor consists of five courses: microeconomics and macroeconomics, taught by the faculty in the Department of Economics; one course each in accounting and finance, taught by faculty from the Mendoza College of Business; and a course in statistics taught by faculty from either Arts and Letters or the College of Science.

The program, McGreevy says, is designed to complement the marketplace adaptability of liberal arts alumni. “Even now,” McGreevy says, “our graduates are admitted to the best professional schools and service programs. And the 45% or so of our graduates who enter the paid labor force right away have extraordinary success on the job market.

“People who majored in English, history, psychology and music — they’re already getting jobs that people might think are only there for business majors. We’re simply introducing this new minor to allow interested liberal arts majors to add the ‘vocabulary of business’ to their repertoire of skills as well.”

According to the Notre Dame Career Center, graduates from the College of Arts and Letters have the same successful track record as Notre Dame graduates overall: Just one year after entering one of the toughest job markets in a decade, for example, a full 97% of the Arts and Letters Class of 2010 are either employed full time, enrolled in graduate or professional school, or working in a service program.

Looking at longer-term career trajectories, Dan Hesse — a 1975 graduate who majored in government and international studies and who now serves as CEO of Sprint Nextel Corporation — says the skills developed by liberal arts students prepares them to excel throughout their professional lives.

As he reports in the 2011 Liberal Arts at Notre Dame brochure, “The Bell System conducted a multi-decade longitudinal research study years ago that correlated management career success with undergraduate major. The study found that liberal arts undergraduates were the most successful … [and] my personal experiences are consistent with this study’s conclusions.

“Liberal arts majors tend to be good critical thinkers who can deal with ambiguity—the absence of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers—which is the more akin to how the real world works,” Hesse says.

The business economics minor for students in the College of Arts and Letters will launch in fall 2012. For more information, go to www.economics.nd.edu/minors.

Study Discovers Link Between Cell Phone Usage and Relationship Strength

2011-07-21T14:07:00-04:00

A project on the dynamics of social networks at the University of Notre Dame’s Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science and Applications (iCeNSA) has found a link between cell phone usage and relationship strength.

The study, conducted by Notre Dame faculty members Zoltán Toroczkai, Nitesh Chawla, David Hachen, Omar Lizardo and Mark Alber, is a collaborative effort between four departments at the University.

Toroczkai and his students worked on the modeling aspects while Chawla and his group focused mainly on data mining and prediction. Hachen and Lizardo both studied the number and frequency of calls and text messages to explore reciprocity, the way people respond to each other, and how it emerges over time.

“If I called you a lot and you didn’t call me a lot, that’s an imbalanced relationship,” Hachen said. “It turns out that’s extremely important. We now believe what’s really important in networks is not the formation of ties—which is important—but instead the persistence or the dissolution of ties.”

According to Hachen, social network research is unique because in addition to identifying ties between people, it also investigates how strong or weak those ties are.

The researchers used cell phone data—numerical information such as the number, frequency and timing of calls and texts—from 7 million people to form a picture of a social network. Neither the content of conversations nor any information such as phone numbers, which could have led to the identification of individuals, were used in the study.

That social network gave the group an idea of how many friends a caller has in addition to how many people the caller interacts with and the strength of those ties. Combined together, that information even enabled them to predict future behaviors.

To study relationship strength, researchers also looked at who initiated contact and how frequently it occurred, discovering that ties that are more reciprocal are more likely to remain intact. However, if there is an imbalance, ties will most likely dissolve.

“If you have 20 friends, and I have 20 friends, we can achieve a balance,” Hachen said. “If I have 20 friends and you have two, you’re more likely to try to call me a lot more.”

Meaning, in social networks a person tends to connect with others who connect as much as they do. In physical networks such as air transportation systems, the networks must connect major hubs with many regional airports because connecting major hubs only to each other breaks the system.

A decade ago, most data came from interviews that required people to remember friends and provide subjective information. With technological advancements, researchers are now able to gather information about people’s actual behavior instead of the memories about their behavior.

Interviews, the previous method of information gathering, only revealed strong ties, as weak ties were not important to the subject. With the behavioral data now available, both ties can be studied.

The next step for the sociology group is to add another layer of data–attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors from surveys.

The team has also begun working on another cell phone project that will provide 250 Notre Dame freshmen with smart phones. The study aims to address questions such as whether ties influence people’s behavior or whether people choose to form ties based on existing similarities.

Engineers are also planning on collaborating with the researchers to help increase the quality of wireless networks around campus.

Originally published by News and Information.

University Seminar Class Produces Video Reflection on Notre Dame Presidential Forum

2011-03-11T09:52:00-05:00

On August 23, 2010, 19 people from 13 states gathered in a classroom in Mowbray Hall to meet each other and their instructor, anthropology professor Carolyn Nordstrom, for the first time. They were beginning their very first semester at Notre Dame in a university seminar that would ask them to consider a fundamental question in anthropology — “What does it mean to be human?”. Their semester-long exploration of this question led the class to produce a video reflection on Notre Dame’s Presidential Forum “The Global Marketplace and the Common Good.”

Their purpose in making this video? To find a way to speak for their generation.

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The Notre Dame Presidential Forum

The 2010 – 2011 Presidential Forum is a year-long discussion of the role of ethics, values, and morals in the rebuilding and reshaping of the global economy. “When we looked at the Forum website, we saw discussions and essays written by professors, religious figures, ND alumni, and professionals,” says Mark Stechschulte, one of the video’s editors. “The only thing we did not see was a contribution by students. We decided that the students’ perspective was vital to the Forum.”

Nordstrom encouraged her class to examine the differences that make them unique and the commonalities that link them. “Anthropology illuminates or taps into things that rumble across cultures,” she explains. “Even though there’s always diversity in experience and opinion, anthropology finds those themes that, even if they aren’t universally held, can still be recognized as relevant in explaining groups or cultures. These students brought to light an important worldview while engaging with some tough questions.”

The video deals with many of the questions posed by the Forum’s organizers, like “Who’s rights are more important: the buyers’ or the workers’?” and “What does Wall Street owe Main Street?”, but the students also added their own questions, like “Is the idea of ‘the common good’ universal?”. Many students posted the Forum’s questions and web address in their hometowns over Fall Break to encourage members of other communities to interact with these issues.

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Bobby Rienzo, a pre-professional studies major and also one of the video’s editors, explains, “We looked at the Forum materials, the booklet and web materials, and we asked ourselves ‘How would our generation approach this issue?’ Professor Nordstrom told us to go with our gut instinct.”

“That was one of the great things about this class,” says Shelby Niemann, also a pre-professional student. “We were encouraged to apply our learning to ‘real life.’ We were asked to look at what’s going on around us and to make sense of it for ourselves.”

“The video project was really an ongoing, evolving discussion in class,” she adds. “We would talk about these ideas and issues from the perspective of ‘our generation’ and then film — some things worked and some things didn’t. The hard part was — how do you know when it’s finished?”

Making Their Voices Heard

One of the distinctive features of the video is the soundtrack, composed and performed by class member Morgan Underdue, which plays over the voices of the people being interviewed. “The way we used the soundtrack symbolizes the difficulty people have in making their voices heard today,” says Rienzo. “Especially people our age.”

In addition to working on the video, each student wrote a paper about a topic of their choice. “Professor Nordstrom was really open to letting us explore things that we cared about,” says Niemann. “For instance, I was concerned about the difference between the big economic structures that were being discussed in the Forum and the economic issues for small towns like Hillsboro, Illinois, where I’m from. That’s what I wrote about, because that’s what I care most about.”

Who Is Teaching Whom?

“At the end of the term, I was asked to give a presentation on ‘how to teach freshman’ for other university seminar faculty,” Nordstrom says. “I asked the four students who edited the video to talk about their experience — I think they really challenged us on ‘who is teaching whom’ and gave us a glimpse of how education can be carried into the 21st Century.”

“The experience of making this video as a group, of working together to create a product that reflects what our generation finds important — that was what mattered most to me,” says Rienzo. “We know our generation will have to make some hard choices. We wanted the video to help others our age to join the conversation, to feel that all of us can have a voice in working out the ‘big questions’ about our future.”

“I think Professor Nordstrom might have been doing an experiment on us,” he laughs.

Nordstrom laughs too. “I just wanted to give these students a chance to show who they are and where they are, to demonstrate how their worldview is different from those that have come before them,” she says. “I think that sometimes our larger society doesn’t give today’s young people enough credit for the complexity and creativity of their thinking.”

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2011-12 Notre Dame Forum to explore K-12 education by Julie Hail Flory at newsinfo.nd.edu

The First Year Challenge

Department of Anthropology

WVFI Offers Opportunities for First Year Musicians and Broadcasters

2011-03-02T16:30:00-05:00

DJ Arnav Dutt, a sophomore majoring in the Program for Liberal Studies and Spanish, really loves music. “I have played the violin for 13 years and I play for the Stanford Hall mass every Sunday, even though I am not a Catholic,” he says. “Whenever I have free time, I teach myself to play another instrument — I also play the guitar, mandolin, and ukulele … and I joined the Bagpipe Club as a freshman because it looked cool.”

Dutt’s love of music is what drove his weekly radio program, SUB Radio, which aired on Monday nights from midnight to 1:45 a.m. on the University of Notre Dame’s student-run radio station, WVFI, The Voice of the Fighting Irish, last fall. “There are a lot of great artists on campus and I wanted to do what I could to make their live music more accessible,” he explains. “I wanted the show to be a resource for Notre Dame’s musicians.”

“My show allowed artists to play and talk about their music on air,” he continues. “The show was really a unique experience for my guests — it was very ‘retro,’ with all the old broadcasting equipment that the WVFI club maintains. It was late and we were in the studio — it was almost like playing alone, without anyone there to judge you. But if they wanted to, the musicians brought in some friends and just had fun.”

First-year musicians are welcome on WVFI programs. Dutt says, “I had four freshman guests on my show this fall — Julia Steiner and Amanda Ly, two very talented singer-songwriters, and Taylor Nutter, an absolutely brilliant guitarist, who played with John Reith, a really great saxophonist.”

Hosting a radio program offers an opportunity to make connections with the Notre Dame music scene, something Dutt has experienced personally. “I now play violin for In Euphoric Company, an indie rock band on campus, a band that I met when they played on my show in December,” he says. “After their show, I sat and talked with them for almost an hour, and we hit it off. So if you are looking to join or start a band, one pretty easy way to do it is getting a WVFI show. It’s an easy way to get to talk about music — and a great excuse to jam.”

WVFI is an internet radio station that’s “always on.” From nine a.m. to midnight every day, Notre Dame students who are members of WVFI have weekly shows, ranging from 30 minutes to an hour and a half in length. Most of the music played on WVFI is independent label “college rock” music, but the station also features hip hop, punk rock, hardcore, classic rock, comedy, and sports talk.

Dutt encourages first-year students to join WVFI and host a show. “All you have to do is sign-up for WVFI at Activities Night, apply for a show when they email you about it, go to the Show Picks event in mid-September and sign up for a show,” he explains. “Then find friends who perform live, or just go to shows on campus and talk to the musicians.”

“I can’t emphasize enough how fun an experience it is both to play these shows as a performer, and to run one that’s going well,” Dutt says. “It was surreal having over a hundred people listen to Will Thwaites’ performance on my show and it was super relaxing to jam on the air with Taylor Nutter for an hour during midterm week. Balancing In Euphoric Company’s electric instruments and hearing how good the show sounded that week felt great.”

Laurie McFadden is the Student Activities’ Broadcast Media Coordinator and the faculty advisor for WVFI. She adds, “Music is certainly the main reason students get involved at WVFI. But working at the station also allows students to learn, more generally, about broadcasting and media. There are opportunities for DJs, producers, writers, and sportscasters. The radio station gives students a taste of the world of radio and it’s a great exercise in leadership.”

Photograph courtesy of Malcolm Phelan (’12)

Learn More >

The next Activities Night will be held on August 30, 2011.

Listen to WVFI.

Crowe to Give Talk on Ronald Knox and Sherlock Holmes

2011-02-25T16:05:00-05:00

On Tuesday, March 1, 2011, at 7:30 p.m. in the Kroc Institute’s Hesburgh Auditorium, Michael Crowe, Rev. John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C. Professor Emeritus in the Humanities in the Program of Liberal Studies and in the History and Philosophy of Science, will give a talk on Ronald Knox and Sherlock Holmes. This talk, presented in collaboration with Steven Doyle, co-director of Wessex Press and the author of a new book called Sherlock Holmes for Dummies, will be accessible to both scholars and undergraduates students.

In his day, Msgr. Ronald Arbuthnot Knox (1888–1957), a writer who converted to Catholicism from the Anglican church, was not only England’s most well-known Catholic priest, he was also known as the wittiest man in England, according to Crowe. “G.K. Chesterton, his peer and friend, is still pretty well known, but Knox has fallen from view. I hope that I can help to make him a more well-known name in this Catholic university.”

In his new book, Ronald Knox and Sherlock Holmes: The Origins of Sherlockian Studies (Wessex Press), Crowe explores a pivotal relationship in Knox’s life — his relationship with Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous fictional detective.

“My book explains how Knox gave new life to Holmes,” Crowe says. “He is the originator of a movement that turned this fictional character into someone who, in numerous Sherlockian societies around the world, is not only spoken of as real, but whose life is the subject of extensive research. Possibly ten thousand or more books and articles have been written treating Holmes and Watson as having been blessed not only with great talents, but also with existence.”

He continues, “Simultaneously the book shows how Holmes played a key role in turning Knox, fresh from his degree at Oxford University, into a new path that challenged both Knox’s Oxford education and those from whom he received it, causing a controversy that, although now largely forgotten, was once quite intense.”

Knox was well known in the early 20th century for his translation of the St. Jerome Vulgate Bible into English, and wrote many works of Catholic apologetics. Like G.K. Chesterton, he also wrote detective novels.

The Grand Game

In 1911, Knox wrote an essay entitled “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes,” a satirical reaction to the “higher criticism” of the Bible that was then in vogue. This essay began the popular pastime among followers of Sherlock Holmes called the “Grand Game,” an intellectual exercise played in order to discover a deeper knowledge of the tales by examining clues in the stories themselves, or by correlating the Sherlockian Canon with historical fact.

A specialist in the history of modern physical science, Crowe has authored nine books. These include his History of Vector Analysis (awarded a Jean Scott Prize from La Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris), The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750–1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell (now available in a three volume Japanese translation), Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution, Modern Theories of the Universe from Herschel to Hubble, Calendar of the Correspondence of Sir John Herschel, Mechanics from Aristotle to Einstein, and The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915: A Source Book. A graduate of PLS, he also served as its chair and was the founding chair of Notre Dame’s graduate program in HPS.

This event is sponsored by Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture.

Field Trip of Dreams

2011-02-23T12:53:00-05:00

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An old saying about engineers states: “I am an engineer. I serve mankind by making dreams come true.”

An innovative program for juniors enrolled in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences encourages them to both dream big and to dream of projects that have an enduring impact on people’s lives.

The program dates to 2003 when the department joined forces with engineering alum Dennis Murphy and his firm Kiewit to develop a field trip designed to introduce its majors to the challenges of large-scale projects.

“We want to expose our students to some of the biggest and most innovative infrastructure design and construction efforts going on in the United Sates,” said Joannes Westerink, a professor of civil engineering and geological sciences who leads the trips. “We want them to see first-hand the complexity of these structural, transportation, water resources and environmental projects that keep our nation productive, efficient and healthy and to interact one-on-one with design engineers.”

To date, Westerink has led trips focused on “Harvesting the Mississippi River and Delta,” “New York City Infrastructure Basics” and “Southern Louisiana and Mississippi Coastal Protection.”

The most recent Mississippi River and Delta trip was designed to help students understand the Mississippi and its deltaic system, the major transportation and water supply system it represents, the major hub of the system (New Orleans, where ocean going vessels transfer their goods to and from river barges), how to maintain the navigability of the system and the fresh water supply, the fisheries, the wetland and how to reduce the flooding risks involved from both the river and the ocean.

“Man’s influence on the system has evolved over the past 300 years, but the Katrina failures and devastation of five years ago spurred one of the largest and most intense infrastructure rebuilds in U.S. history,” Westerink said. “In particular, the $15 billion redesign and construction of the flood mitigation and risk reduction system around New Orleans was one of the focal points for the students.”
The New York trip acquainted students with infrastructure challenges inherent in creating and maintaining such landmarks as the Brooklyn Bridge, the World Trade Center Transportation Center, the Empire State Building, the United Nations Headquarters, the Croton Filtration Plant and the Brooklyn’s Brighton Subway Line.

Westerink points out that Notre Dame alumni who occupy leading roles in the construction play an integral role on the class trips, offering both information about infrastructure projects and advice on job opportunities and internships.

And the interactions don’t end once the trip ends. Alumni who are the key movers and shakers in the engineering profession regularly return to campus to take part in the department’s Challenges and Innovations in Civil Engineering Lecture Series, where they describe for students their involvement in designing and building some of the most important structures in the country and the world. Students also have the opportunity to meet with the speakers over dinner and to learn more about their involvement in billion dollar projects.

“These trips and the lecture series really help our students see the wide range of opportunities available for them to be innovative leaders and also help them connect the classroom to the real world,” Westerink said.

Originally published by News and Information

Notre Dame Researchers Discover Dual-Action Compound for Potential Treatment of Tuberculosis and Malaria

2011-02-23T11:49:00-05:00

Marvin Miller, the George and Winifred Clark Chair in Chemistry, and Michael Ferdig, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, are co-authors of a study recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on a potential breakthrough in the fight against tuberculosis and malaria—global diseases that each kill some 2 million people a year.

In an interdisciplinary project, the researchers synthesized an iron transport molecule attached to an antibiotic that the tuberculosis bacterium would gladly ingest as a “Trojan horse,” a method that has proven to be successful for the Miller lab in other studies. The peroxide drug, artemisinin, is a leading antimalarial agent but is not effective alone against TB, whose cell membrane is difficult to penetrate. Chemistry triggered by the cell’s efforts to use the iron in the transporter enables the drug to destroy the bacterium.

“It’s all about delivery,” Miller says, “and getting the lethal agent into the bacterium. Our study suggests that it works against TB by the same method that would work to kill malaria, which is pretty exciting.”

About one-third of the world’s population is infected with the bacterium that causes TB, and 40 percent of the world is affected by malaria. The standard regimen for TB treatment involves multiple drugs taken for six to eight months. Highly drug-resistant strains of the TB bacterium have evolved while no new effective antibiotics have been introduced for decades.

The research demonstrates the utility of “Trojan horse” drug design and how it could be used to target both malaria and TB. The molecule, while effective, may be too complex for commercial medicinal use, but researchers are already pursuing ways to make simplified versions. Garrett Moraski, a research assistant in Miller’s lab, has identified some elements of the molecule that by themselves are equally effective against TB.

The article, Design, Synthesis, and Study of a Mycobactin-Artemisinin Conjugate that has Selective and Potent Activity against Tuberculosis and Malaria, was published Feb. 17. Collaborators include researchers from Duke University, the National Institutes of Health and the Liebniz Institute for National Product Research and Infection Biology in Germany, as well as graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and laboratory assistants at Notre Dame.

Contact: Marvin Miller, 574-631-7571, mmiller1@nd.edu

Originally published by News and Information

LRC Director Erfan Presents Paper at AMS Conference

2011-02-21T14:14:00-05:00

On November 5 – 7, 2010, the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Mathematics hosted the Fall Central Section Meeting of the American Mathematical Society. Nearly 400 papers were presented at the three-day conference by scholars from colleges and universities across the Mid-West and the national and the international mathematical community. Nahid Erfan, the director of the First Year of Studies’ (FYS’) Learning Resource Center, was one of the conference organizers and a panel moderator. She also presented a paper titled “Supporting Deep Learning in Mathematics Outside the Classroom.”

“Nahid’s support for first-year students is unwavering,” says Hugh Page, Dean of the First Year of Studies. “Her expertise and research, together with her many years of ‘hands-on’ experience in program design and devotion to first-year students, have made her and the LRC invaluable resources within our college.”

Drawing on her nearly 20 years of experience in working with first-year students, Erfan’s paper discussed ways in which students’ ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate their mathematical learning can be supported and developed. The key for educators, says Erfan, is to use “deep learning strategies.”

Deep Learning Strategies

“Deep learning strategies are those that enable the student to engage with the subject and then expand their knowledge to interpret and solve problems that require a complete understanding of the concept,” explains Erfan. “For example, educators can create real world problems and emphasize group work, activities, and asking questions. Allowing students to get creative, work together, and really feel at home in the classroom and in mathematics more generally will easily foster deep learning.”

Collaborative learning groups are an integral part of the LRC’s “just in time” educational interventions that “fill the gaps” in students’ mathematics experiences. Erfan says, “Collaborative learning gives students a chance to relate to one another and learn from each other. It gives students confidence to see that other students struggle with the same things they do and that they are not alone.”

“Additionally, groups will often have several different perspectives and ways to approach a problem,” she continues. “This teaches students to evaluate ideas, communicate clearly, and reject things they determine to be false. When you arrive at a solution carefully and through collaboration, it’s more likely to stay with you and help you with future problem solving.”

Erfan’s efforts to help first-year students become mathematical thinkers prepares them not only to succeed in their first-year math requirements, but also to meet diverse challenges, both at Notre Dame and in their future careers.

Math in the Liberal Arts

“The first-year math requirement is a critical component of a sound liberal arts education,” says Ava Preacher, Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Letters Advising Office. “Not only is mathematics a cornerstone of our civilization, it is an aesthetic entity worthy of appreciation and a proving ground for critical thinking. No truly educated person can afford to neglect the development of their mathematical skills.”

Preacher continues, “Today, every career uses some sort of math. The ability to simplify and solve complex situations using mathematics is a sought-after skill — a solid understanding of math is a competitive edge.”

The First Year of Studies’ LRC is located in Room 228 Coleman-Morse Center. The LRC offers collaborative learning, group tutoring, private tutoring, and help sessions for most first-year classes. All sessions are free of charge and meet for two hours in the evenings once or twice a week. For more information, call 574-631-5294 or visit the FYS website.

The AMS was founded in 1888 to further the interests of mathematical research and scholarship. The organization serves the national and international mathematics community through publications, meetings, and other programs that promote mathematical research, encourage and promote the transmission of mathematical understanding and skills, and support mathematical education at all levels. AMS has over 30,000 individual and 570 institutional members in the U.S. and around the world.

Notre Dame to Host Contest in Undergraduate Nanotechnology Research

2011-02-08T17:09:00-05:00

For the first time, the University of Notre Dame is holding a competition to recognize outstanding undergraduates from any university or college who are engaged in research in nanoscience and engineering. This spring and summer, Notre Dame will provide research initiation awards of $500 for students who submit the most promising research proposals. Prizes for the best projects and presentations will be awarded at a conference held at Notre Dame this fall.

“We want to meet the best and brightest undergraduates interested in nanoscale science and engineering,” says Alan Seabaugh, professor of electrical engineering at Notre Dame and director of the Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery. “Our aim is to give these future leaders an opportunity to share their discoveries, to reflect on opportunities for graduate research, and to see how careers in science and engineering can be a service to others.”

The highlight of the competition will be the fall conference at Notre Dame, for which contest finalists will be provided travel support to the campus, where they will compete for first, second and third place prizes of $5,000, $3,000 and $1,000.

The deadline for spring research proposals is Feb. 15 (Tuesday). Summer proposals need to be submitted by May 1. Additional details and guidelines can be found at the NDConnect website.

The contest builds on the recent success of Notre Dame’s NDnano Undergraduate Research Fellowships, a summer program in which students spend 10 weeks working on cutting-edge projects with faculty mentors, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students.

It also complements the Nanotechnology New Ventures Competition, a collaborative effort between Notre Dame, Purdue University, and the State of Indiana to award a total of $57,000 to top researchers or entrepreneurs developing novel technologies or services based on nanotechnology. The winners of this contest, Indiana’s first business plan competition targeting startup ventures and emerging companies in the field, will be announced at Purdue on March 25.

Originally published by News and Information

Senior Studies Romantic Relationships in the Deaf Community

2011-02-08T09:22:00-05:00

Notre Dame senior Paige Gesicki recently traveled to Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., to research the culture and history of romantic relationships in the deaf community. Gallaudet is a liberal arts college for the deaf and hard of hearing, and it was a fitting place for her to begin an exploration into this topic.

An American studies major and gender studies minor, Gesicki became interested in the nuances of nonverbal communication after witnessing a deaf aunt and cousin rely on lip reading, miming, and gestures to converse with hearing family members not fluent in American Sign Language. She decided to research how these communication obstacles have influenced people who are deaf, starting with the development of romantic relationships.

Community Immersion

The experience—funded by a grant from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts’ Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program—was an enlightening role reversal for Gesicki.

“The primary language at Gallaudet is American Sign Language, and that made me a minority language-wise for the first time,” she says. “I learned how important facial expressions are and am now more aware of even hearing people’s body language and its significance in conversation.”

In addition to engaging with current students and faculty at Gallaudet, Gesicki spent time in the university’s archives, where she found oral histories, memoirs, and diaries that shed a historical light on her research topic. After returning to her hometown of Chester, N.J., Gesicki continued her research at library archives in the New York City area.

“I was able to find numerous memoirs that mentioned the difficulties of being a deaf person and dating. Many of them recounted being mistakenly perceived as rude, because conversation points would go unheard and then ignored,” she says, noting that these misunderstandings occurred mainly when a deaf individual dated a hearing person and was less than forthcoming about their deafness.

Many of the collections she examined also brought up another notable relationship influencer: technology.

“Technological advances have had a monumental effect on the deaf community. Dates can now be set up through a vast array of social networks such as email, instant messaging, Facebook, and Twitter—with more likely to develop in the future,” she says. “In addition, many dating sites have emerged exclusive to the deaf community, and the phenomenon of video chat has now allowed communication through sign language, as opposed to the TTY [teletypewriter] system previously used.”

Finding a Common Ground

In many ways, the dating norms of the hearing impaired are not much different from hearing couple. “The social scripts of meeting, going on a movie or dinner date, and other activities like the goodnight kiss are also adhered to by the deaf community.”

But Gesicki did identify some distinctive challenges deaf individuals face when dating. “In my research about dating in the deaf community, the most common issue I found was the need to alter modes of communication,” she says. “Difficulties arise if each partner does not find a personal and unique way to do so. No form of communicating, no matter how unconventional it may seem to the larger hearing majority, is out of question when trying to make a deaf romantic relationship work.”

After graduation, Gesicki wants to get an interpreter’s license for American Sign Language and go into marketing, with a particular focus on the deaf community.

“The only way to develop sensitivities to other cultures is through an increase of knowledge,” she says, “something I will contribute to by addressing an often-overlooked demographic.”

Learn More >

Originally published by the College of Arts and Letters

New Book Expounds on Value of the Liberal Arts

2011-01-06T09:12:00-05:00

In his latest book, Why Choose the Liberal Arts?, former Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters Dean Mark Roche explores the enduring value of a classic, liberal arts education.

“Such an education helps students to develop formal skills that will allow them to flourish, whatever career paths they might choose or life choices they might make over time; indeed, many of the skills they develop will reveal their significance only later in life,” says Roche, the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of German Language and Literature and concurrent professor of philosophy.

In his book, Roche develops three overlapping arguments for a strong liberal arts education: first, the intrinsic value of learning for its own sake, including exploration of the profound questions that give meaning to life; second, the cultivation of intellectual virtues necessary for success beyond the academy; and third, the formative influence of the liberal arts on character and on the development of a sense of higher purpose and vocation.

Together with his exploration of these three values—intrinsic, practical, and idealistic—Roche reflects on ways to integrate them, interweaving empirical data with personal experience.

“Even if my second chapter, on the practicality of a liberal arts education for future employment and leadership opportunities, may resonate the most with students and their parents, it is important to remember that it is not the only rationale for having such an education,” Roche says. “If we reduce the purpose of education to that of getting a job, we have failed to adorn it with higher meaning. Even more than awakening a deeper meaning in work, a liberal arts education gives graduates a direction for life.”

He points to Socrates, who “made it clear that learning is most important and most successful when students are engaged in meaningful discussions, asking questions that will determine who they are and what they think about life’s most significant issues.”

What is human excellence? What is friendship? Love? Courage? How do we learn? What constitutes the just state? It is through the study of such questions that students develop vital skills in reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking, Roche says.

“To know something is not simply to mimic the truth but to be able to give reasons and arguments for that truth,” Roche says. “This level of reflection ensures that the student will be able to defend a view against the arguments of future opponents instead of just succumbing to their persuasive rhetoric, will be ready to apply knowledge in changing circumstances, and will be equipped to build on existing knowledge and extend it—via the same principles of searching inquiry and rational reflection—into new areas.”

Roche is the author of seven books, including Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century and
The Intellectual Appeal of Catholicism and the Idea of a Catholic University. He also served as dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters from 1997 to 2008.

“Parents, students, and scholars will all benefit from Mark Roche’s savvy mix of hard-won practical advice and inspiration,” says John McGreevy, the current I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “His dedication to the ideals—and value—of a liberal arts education propelled the remarkable advances in the College of Arts and Letters during his tenure as dean.”

Learn More >

Originally published by The College of Arts and Letters

Research Projects Presented at Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium

2010-12-17T15:28:00-05:00

Eleven College of Science undergraduates gave oral presentations on their summer research projects and 34 gave poster presentations at the Fall Undergraduate Research Fair and Symposium on Thursday, Oct. 28 in the Jordan Hall of Science. The Research Fair also included opportunities to learn about research opportunities across the country, the Notre Dame Hub, the Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement, clubs and other activities on campus.

Kimberly Schlesinger, a physics and English major advised by associate professor Morten Eskildsen, gave an oral presentation on her stuffy of critical current and vortex lattice properties in superconducting magnesium diboride, a type-II superconductor that has a “mixed state” of some magnetic induction and superconducting between upper and lower critical fields. Using small angle neutron scattering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Schlesinger mapped out the phase diagram of the material’s vortex lattice and took measurements of the magnitude of the field drop needed for a metastable state to transition back to the ground state. The behavior has applications in technology and engineering.

Daniel Corey, a mathematics and physics major, in an oral presentation described his work at the University of California—Santa Barbara with two other students to investigate the existence of solutions to modified Sylvester equations. They modified the Sylvester equation, a matrix equation whose conditions for solvability have been known since 1952, by transposing one matrix in the equation. The researchers confirmed a necessary condition of congruence and showed that it is sufficient when restrictions are put on the matrices.

Kristyn Jeffries, a biological sciences major advised by Dr. Patrick Fueger of Indiana University School of Medicine, gave an oral presentation on the effects of abating trefoil factor 3 (TFF3) on pancreatic islets. If TFF3 is a factor in spurring growth of beta cells, vital to insulin production, the research could help lead to treatment of diabetes. Jeffries’ study showed that withholding TFF3 caused a modest reduction in beta cell area in mice, although the mice were able to maintain insulin production perhaps because remaining beta cells increased production.

Ethan Ferguson, a biochemistry major advised by assistant professor Jennifer DuBois, gave an oral presentation on separation of heme biosynthetic precursors in chemically-induced porphyric rat livers. Porphyrias are disorders that disrupt the biosynthesis among its eight-step pathway. The study used Notre Dame’s mass spectrometry facility to separate up to 15 porphyrin precursors and their structural isomers.

Originally published by The College of Science

Love of Appalachian Literature Inspires Student Research

2010-12-17T10:59:00-05:00

Pride in his cultural heritage and a love of literature prompted Matthew Coyne—a Notre Dame senior majoring in English—to delve into the origins of the Appalachian literary journal Cold Mountain Review.

“My professors encouraged me to study what I love,” says Coyne, who was raised in Parkersburg, W.Va., a small town located in the heart of Appalachia. “So I did—and I haven’t looked back since.”

Indeed, Coyne used his summer last year to do research at Appalachian State University (ASU) in Boone, N.C., where three students founded Cold Mountain Review in the early 1970s. The trip was funded by an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) grant from Notre Dame’s Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts.

“My research asks what I consider to be important questions about how residents of Appalachia relate to the region, how they shape their identities, and what that means for the future of the area,” Coyne says. “As someone who grew up in West Virginia, this is something incredibly important to me.”

Chronicling a Literary Community

Coyne set three goals for his UROP project: thoroughly study the works and histories of the journal and its early writers, interview as many of the founding authors as possible, and turn the research into a paper suitable for submission to an academic journal.

Although each of the journal’s founding authors has received some academic attention, the influence they had on each other and literary society has never been adequately investigated, says Coyne.

“It was an exciting experience to know my work was filling in a gap in the field of Appalachian literary studies, a subject that means so much to me,” he says.

Coyne spent the first few weeks of his trip in ASU’s archives, poring over all the information he could find about the journal. He then conducted an extensive interview with two of the founders.

“I learned a lot about the relationship between higher education and literary production in the Appalachian south,” he says. “I also was very interested to find that the literary community in Appalachian State’s graduate school in the 1970s more closely resembled the community of the Fugitive poets at Vanderbilt in the 1920s than it did the emerging culture of creative writing programs springing up across the country.”

After doing his initial research, Coyne donated his interview recordings and more than 40 pages of transcripts to the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection archives at ASU’s Carol G. Belk Library. He also created an edited version of his interview, with introduction, which he submitted to Appalachian Journal, a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal published at ASU.

More Research on Appalachian Authors

Coyne says his summer research experience provided a good foundation for his senior thesis on West Virginia short story writer Breece D’J Pancake, who “shares many similarities” with the founders of Cold Mountain Review.

“Much of the scholarship with which I became familiar this summer will be a vital part of my thesis,” he says. “And the contacts I made at Appalachian State will certainly be useful as I work toward completing the thesis.”

Coyne says ASU English Professor Thomas McGowan, a Notre Dame alumnus, was a valuable resource throughout his research project. At Notre Dame, his senior thesis and summer research adviser, Kate Marshall, an assistant professor in the Department of English, has also served as a resource and mentor.

“Beyond the conversations we’ve had about literature in and outside of the classroom,” he says, “she has just been a great help as I try to get an idea of my future plans, whether that be in graduate school or something else.” Next year, Coyne will be working as a technical writer for a software company and hopes to, one day, pursue work in the publishing industry.

“But regardless of what I end up doing and where I end up doing it, I am committed to encouraging conversation in and about Appalachia,” Coyne says. “I hope my work will contribute to this purpose.”

Learn More >

Department of English
Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts
Cold Mountain Review

Originally published by The College of Arts and Letters

Juniors Simpson and Parikh Named 2010 Truman Scholars

2010-11-18T15:49:00-05:00

Elizabeth Simpson (left), a theology and peace studies major, and Puja Parikh (right), a political science and psychology major, have been named 2010 Truman Scholars. The Notre Dame juniors were among 60 students chosen from 576 candidates nationwide who applied to the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation this year.

As Truman scholars, Parikh and Simpson will receive up to $30,000 for graduate study. The scholarship also entitles them to priority admission and supplemental financial aid at select institutions, leadership training, career and graduate school counseling, and special internship opportunities within the federal government. Truman scholars must also make a commitment to doing public service in government or nonprofit sector.

The Truman scholarship foundation was established in 1975 as a “living memorial” to President Harry S. Truman. Its rigorous selection process seeks students who have a strong record of public service and requires them to write a policy proposal that addresses an important societal issue as a part of the application process.

Simpson Concerned About Rural Poverty

Simpson is active in Campus Ministry, volunteers at Our Lady of the Road Catholic Worker in South Bend, and tutors for La Casa de Amistad and the Notre Dame GED program. She says preparing her scholarship application influenced her decision to devote her career to helping rural communities.

“I started to think about development solutions for impoverished communities when I took part in a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ social ministry conference,” Simpson says. “But writing my policy statement helped me realize that, while I am concerned about all people living in poverty, my passion takes me home to rural poverty.”

Parikh Interested in Health Care Law

Parikh is on the executive boards of the Notre Dame Model United Nations and the Notre Dame College Democrats. She serves as an intake specialist for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and co-captains her mock trial team, which recently placed in the Top 25 in the American Mock Trial Association’s 2010 national championship.

“My father is a physician, and he’s always talked to me about his work,” Parikh says. “I learned from him that doctors often want to change health policies they know don’t work for them or for their patients—but they don’t know how.”

Parikh plans to help doctors and their patients as a lawyer focusing on regulatory law for the health care industry. “The Truman process made me feel that my ideas were heard and recognized,” she says. “I am looking forward putting my ideas to work in government. I know that good legislation can make a real difference in people’s lives.”

The Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement

Parikh and Simpson both credit the assistance they received from the Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE) as an invaluable resource in their successful scholarship applications.

“I would encourage any student who is remotely curious about national scholarships and fellowships to visit our website for more information about specific opportunities, and to come in and talk to us,” says Roberta Jordan, CUSE’s assistant director of national fellowships. “Not everyone will receive them, but there is intrinsic value in the discernment that comes with the application process.”

Learn More >

Department of Political Science
Department of Theology
Peace Studies
Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement

Originally published by the College of Arts and Letters

Preprofessional Major Publishes Case Study Research

2010-11-16T13:00:00-05:00

Emily Kolbus, a senior preprofessional studies major, was published in the September 2010 edition of the journal Retinal Physician. Kolbus, who did summer research on the oncology service at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, wrote a case study of her work with Dr. Carol Shields and Dr. Carlos Bionciotto. The article, “Conservative Treatment of Ciliary Body Melanoma with Extraocular Extension,” explains how plaque radiotherapy allowed a patient to avoid enucleation, the ordinary treatment for the condition.

The two months included attending lectures on ophthalmology in the hospital and shadowing Shields, a 1979 Notre Dame graduate who has become a leader in ocular oncology specializing in retinoblastoma. Kolbus learned to use clinic equipment and, in the operating room, witnessed sophisticated enucleation and exoneration surgeries, as well as plaque radiotherapy, removal of conjunctival tumors and orbital tumors, and eyelid reconstruction.

She also worked on two research projects at the hospital involving large retrospective studies on ocular cancer. One surveyed iris lesions of nearly 4,000 patients, including data about the patient and the condition. The second focused on some 1,700 patients with iris nevi and compared two methods for tumor visualization.

Kolbus, who expects to go to medical school, said the experience was important both professionally and personally. “This internship allowed me to interact with the field from all angles: clinical, surgical, and the realm of medical research,” she said. “Dr. Carol Shields set a great example of what an individual can accomplish with the drive, determination, and heart that guides all Notre Dame students and alumni.”

Originally published by The College of Science

FYS Hosts Conference on Advising Highly Talented Undergraduates

2010-11-12T13:18:00-05:00

On October 17―19, the First Year of Studies (FYS) welcomed more than 100 guests to a three-day conference focusing on effective and innovative advising theory and best practices for working with undergraduates at highly selective colleges, as well as those in honors programs in both public and private institutions.

Featured speakers included FYS’s Dean Hugh Page, Richard Light from Harvard University, Kunal Ghosh from Carnegie Mellon University, and Helen Barrett, an international expert on e-portfolios.

“To my knowledge, this conference is the only gathering of academic advisors to focus on the unique needs of high-achieving undergraduates,” says Associate Dean Angie Chamblee. “I deeply appreciate the effort that Holly Martin [assistant dean in FYS], Jenny Fox [FYS academic advisor], and Alex Ambrose [FYS academic advisor] put into this event. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to share what we’ve learned in supporting and challenging Notre Dame’s talented students — and a truly meaningful learning experience to hear about best practices from other outstanding institutions.”

Topics discussed at the conference included: defining highly-talented students; engaged departmental faculty advising; support systems for highly-talented undergraduates; and retention in science and engineering programs.

In addition to featured speakers from Harvard and Carnegie Mellon, the conference program included representatives from Duke University, Vanderbilt University, Stanford University, Washington University at St. Louis, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, and Providence College.

Notre Dame speakers included: Dean of the Mendoza College of Business, Carolyn Woo; College of Arts and Letters Associate Dean JoAnn DellaNeva; Engineering’s Associate Dean of Academic Programs, Jay Brockman; the Kaneb Learning Center’s Assistant Director G. Christopher Clark; Engineering’s Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of the Women’s Engineering Program, Catherine Pieronek; Director of the Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement Daniel Lindley; Professor of Electrical Engineering Ken Sauer; the Office of Strategic Planning’s Tatiana Combs; and FYS academic advisors Alex Ambrose and Jenny Fox.

Nov. 11 Lectio Live! Worlds Collide Features Student Performance Groups

2010-11-08T11:15:00-05:00

On November 11 from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., the First Year of Studies’ (FYS’) Lectio Live! will present Worlds Collide: An Artistic Celebration of Culture and History at Notre Dame. This evening of music and dance at Recker’s will feature Voices of Faith Gospel Choir, El Coro Primavera de Nuestra Señora, the Filipino American Student Organization, and Mariachi ND, along with Dean Hugh Page and 14 first-year student performers.

“Everyone at FYS works very hard to create an environment in which all students feel welcomed, fully accepted, and celebrated for their individual differences,” says Ricky Ramon, the faculty organizer for this Lectio event. “This Lectio is about reaching out and connecting—I hope it will help build a sense of belonging for students who may not yet see how they fit in at Notre Dame.”

He continues, “As a new faculty member, I am finding my place here, too. I am really grateful for this opportunity to bring some of the Class of 2014’s tremendous talent to the stage.”

All of the featured musical groups are student-directed organizations at Notre Dame. They share the common goal of using music to build friendships and promote an appreciation of the diversity of people who are a part of the Notre Dame family.

Lectio Live! is a “late night cabaret for the soul,” where students and faculty come together for an evening of readings, music, and open-mike performances by first-year students. This monthly event introduces the contemplative and intellectual dimensions of coffeehouse culture to first-year students through public readings of classic and original works of literature and poetry, interspersed with musical performances, in a social atmosphere. Lectio Live! allows students to meet one another, to interact with faculty, and to enjoy a little “down time” at the end of their busy days.

Students Showcase Statistical Research in Bernoulli Competition

2010-11-05T14:17:00-04:00

Having skills in statistical analysis is critical to many kinds of academic research and problem solving. It’s also the focus of the annual Bernoulli Awards, a competition for Notre Dame undergraduates that is sponsored by the Department of Economics.

The anonymous donor who funds the awards works in his own financial management firm and has found that the ability to conduct statistical research is just as integral to the business world. With the awards program, he hopes to motivate students to hone such skills—and thereby enhance their potential for success after graduation, whether they apply to graduate school or enter the professional world.

As an undergraduate at Notre Dame, the donor wrote a paper that was accepted by and published in a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, says Richard Jensen, professor and chair of the Department of Economics, the program he’s created recognizes those poised to do the same.

The competition—which is named after the Bernoulli random variable, the most common random variable in statistics—judges papers on how well they:

use appropriate, state-of-the-art statistical techniques
address an original, timely, and important research question
qualify to be considered for publication in a leading academic journal.

Winning papers must be “ready” for publication; second prize awards are given to papers that could be brought to this level after some revision. Work that is not deemed ready for a top journal, yet offers analysis that goes well beyond a typical senior honors thesis, receives honorable mention.

“This makes the competition more difficult, it also makes the awards more meaningful,” Jensen says. “The idea was to set measures that base the awards on external standards of excellence rather than make it merely a competition among the best Notre Dame students in any given year. Because of this, the panel of judges can select more than one award in each category if it concludes that multiple submissions meet the exceptional guidelines.”

Conversely, says Jensen, the panel also reserves the right not to give out any prizes in a particular year when none of the submissions rise to the level of quality the Bernoulli Awards require.

When awards are handed out, they are significant: Students are given $5,000 for first place, $2,500 for second place, and $1,000 for an honorable mention.

“I doubt that the Bernoulli Awards are ‘unique,’ but they are certainly rare in that they combine three aspects of other types of awards,” says Jensen. “They are based on original research by undergraduate students, they are open to any student whose research uses statistical methods, and, lastly, the size of the prizes is large compared to others devoted to undergraduate research of which I am aware.”

In the 2010 competition, four students received awards:

First Place: Adam J. Joines, “Signals to the Market: Too Big to Fail Banks and the Recent Crisis”
Second Place: Dan Dirscherl, “The True Effect of MDLA Reform: An Analysis of the Mortality Displacement in Youth Traffic Accidents Caused by the Drinking Age Reform of the 1980s”
Honorable Mention: Adam P. Carlson, “Are Consumers Willing to Pay More for ‘Fair Trade Certified’ Coffee?”
Honorable Mention: Joseph M. Eno, “The Effect of Health Insurance Regulation on Wages: A Study in Maternity Benefits”

Other winning entries from recent years have addressed topics as diverse as the impact of daylight saving time on electricity consumption in Indiana to predicting bulimic tendencies in adolescents to an analysis of the potential for the existence of nanoparticles in aqueous environments.

Jensen says he encourages students from all disciplines to take on the challenge of writing and submitting a paper to the Bernoulli Awards. The experience helps push undergraduate students to a new level of achievement and shows them they are capable of success not just as undergraduates but in the wider academic and professional community as well.

Learn More >

Bernoulli Awards submission guidelines
Bernoulli Awards: Research Skills That Pay
Bernoulli Awards Making a Big Statement About Statistics
Department of Economics

Originally published by the College of Arts and Letters.

"Eisenhower and Adenauer" a New Look at U.S.—German Cold War Alliance

2010-11-05T13:38:00-04:00

In 1987, when President Ronald Reagan famously challenged the Soviet Union with “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” the eyes of the world were once again drawn to a formidable symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall. At the time of its construction, the Wall was the culmination of “the Berlin problem” that faced Western allies at the end of World War II.

Steven Brady, a faculty fellow of Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies and an academic advisor in the First Year of Studies, explores the West German—American relationship during the period leading up to the Berlin Wall in Eisenhower and Adenauer: Alliance Maintenance Under Pressure, 1953 – 1960, the eleventh work in the Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series. The book is a close analysis of a pivotal Cold War relationship that reflects Brady’s passion for understanding diplomatic history.

“I’ve always been fascinated by international relations — I grew up in the 1980s, which was a crucial decade in the Cold War,” Brady explains. “When I teach, I try to help students understand the contingency of international history, how it’s shaped by specific policy decisions.”

In Eisenhower and Adenauer, Brady probes the early years of the Atlantic Alliance relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the United States. He shows that the West German-American alliance was taxing for both sides during much of the first two decades of the Cold War. Ultimately, despite frequent, significant challenges to the alliance from without and within, the two allies managed to achieve a positive and productive relationship — Eisenhower and Adenauer explains how the two countries’ key policy makers “made history.”

Both President Dwight Eisenhower and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer were deeply involved in the conduct of what they viewed as a vital alliance, each taking the lead in his own government. For the Americans, a rearmed FRG tightly bound to the West was the bedrock of any European security policy that could contain the Soviet Union for the long-term. For the West German government, their relationship with the United States was the key to rehabilitation and, indeed, survival as an independent country. The way these leaders worked together demonstrated their belief that “the strongest weapon is unity.”

“Two decades ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, it was clear the Cold War was over, and that the American relationship with the Federal Republic of Germany was central to the outcome of the struggle,” says Thomas Schwartz, professor of history at Vanderbilt University. “However, historians have been negligent in understanding the creation and nurturing of that alliance between former enemies. Steven Brady’s Eisenhower and Adenauer is a welcome corrective, a sophisticated, well-written, and careful study of the crucial formative years of the U.S.—German partnership … [Brady’s work] provides an important lesson for today’s leaders in dealing with the challenges of multilateral diplomacy and alliance management.”

The Harvard Cold War Book Series, original monographs by scholars working in conjunction with the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies, emphasizes the use of new archival evidence to test and reexamine theoretical concepts.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has led to immense opportunities for primary research on all aspects of the Cold War as Eastern-bloc archives have begun to open. The vast amount of newly released documentation and first-hand accounts has enabled scholars to gain a much better understanding of events that once seemed impenetrable. The Harvard Project on Cold War Studies was established to take advantage of these opportunities by promoting archival research in former Eastern-bloc countries. The Project seeks to expand and enrich what is known about Cold War events and themes, and encourages scholars to use their research on Cold War topics to illuminate current theoretical debates about international and domestic politics.

Making Connections Beyond the History Classroom

2010-11-05T11:27:00-04:00

Students in the Department of History aren’t leaving their learning to chance. Through a program called History Beyond the Classroom (HBC), undergraduates like Carly Anderson are signing up to immerse themselves more fully in the rich intellectual life at Notre Dame.

“It’s a meeting of the minds that, for history students, offers a unique campus experience,” says Anderson. A junior majoring in history, Anderson enrolled in the one-credit class that uses events across campus to engage students in larger conversations with faculty about historical scholarship. Students and faculty both are surveyed to compile the event listing for each semester’s class.

“The goal is to encourage students to enrich their undergraduate experience by contributing to the stimulating discussions that occur amongst scholars across campus,” says Dan Graff, director of undergraduate studies for the department.

HBC students select and attend at least five approved events on campus, such as lectures, films, and seminars. They then gather after the event, usually over a meal, to talk with faculty about the experience, each bringing to the table a critical question for discussion and reflection. Students also complete a reading assignment and write a short summary and analysis of the event for the follow-up session.

“I find by engaging with more advanced historians, I discover more about how to be a student of history and the field of history in general,” Anderson says. “I’ve been challenged to expand my conception of what constitutes history and think in new ways about how interdisciplinary subjects can be approached from a historical perspective.”

One recent event, Anderson recalls, was a lecture by a visiting scholar on a compilation of oral histories from survivors of Soviet Gulags. “I was fortunate enough to share a breakfast with her after her lecture,” she says. “As I myself am interested in the power of oral tradition, her lecture was fascinating—but even more rewarding was the opportunity afterwards to ask questions and engage in casual conversation about her experience in historical research.”

Because events change every semester, students in each class delve into new ideas and issues, says Graff, who encourages students take the course more than once.

Anderson was one of 23 HBC students last year and is taking the course again this fall. “As a history major, I love exploring new ways to think about history,” she says. “The opportunity to meet and debrief lectures, films, and other campus events from a historical perspective with both professors and other history students offers a very appealing experience.”

Her passion for history has also inspired her to apply to the honors program and undertake a senior thesis on colonial America and to continue her education post graduation. After dedicating some time in the Peace Corps, Anderson says, she plans to get a Ph.D. in history.

Learn More >

Department of History

Originally published by The College of Arts and Letters