Dustin Albert

Psychology

My research investigates social and biological influences on the development of self-regulation, with a focus on adolescent risk taking and antisocial behavior. For instance, my dissertation research used experimental methods to identify immaturities in adolescent neuropsychological function associated with risky decision making in peer contexts. As a postdoctoral fellow, I broadened my focus to examine the interactive influence of genotype and environmental quality on brain and behavioral development. I plan to extend both lines of research at Bryn Mawr College. Laboratory-based research contrasting adolescent and adult neuropsychological function in variable social contexts will provide opportunities for undergraduates to gain experience with experimental methods. I will also involve students in my longitudinal research on genetic and environmental influences on brain development, using large observational datasets maintained by collaborators at Duke and elsewhere.

Macalester Bell

Philosophy

My research is focused on two broad topics. First, I’m interested in the emotions and attitudes that connect us to people, animals, and objects. Much of my recent work focuses on person-directed attitudes, such as resentment, contempt, guilt, and shame. I aim to give an account of the nature of these attitudes, what it means for them to be appropriate or justified, how they shape the way subjects see and respond to the world, what kind of knowledge they provide, on what grounds they may be criticized, and what role they should play in our moral lives. My second area of research concerns how we ought to respond to serious immorality and injustice. While contemporary moral theorists have given various accounts of right action, far less attention has been paid to the distinct moral trouble created by wrongdoing and what I call “badbeing.” Both wrongdoing and badbeing damage our relationships with other persons, and this is, I argue, a central component of what makes them objectionable. How should we respond to this relational damage? Should we affectively resist wrongdoing and badbeing with hostile emotions such as resentment and contempt, or should we strive to overcome these feelings though forgiveness? What sorts of considerations, if any, give persons reasons to forgive? Should institutions attempt to right historical wrongs by offering reparations or should we simply allow the memories of past injustice to slowly fade away? These and other pressing practical questions are just now beginning to receive philosophical attention.

President Cassidy and students Grace Pusey, Khadijah Seay, and Danielle Cadet at the Cook Center dedication.

Bryn Mawr College is pleased to announce the opening of The Enid Cook ’31 Center, a newly renovated residential space that will also serve as the Black Cultural Center. It is the first building on Bryn Mawr’s campus named in honor of an African-American alumna.

While at Bryn Mawr, Enid Cook was denied on-campus housing and lived off campus with a local family.

“Enid Cook was a truly remarkable woman,” said Bryn Mawr College President Kim Cassidy in making the announcement. “In addition to honoring Enid Cook, The Cook Center stands as a testament to the accomplishments of the many women of color who have attended Bryn Mawr and as a reminder of the work that remains to be done in creating a more just and equitable world.”

Enid Cook, Bryn Mawr College class of 1931, in her senior yearbook picture.

The Cook Center will house the Black Cultural Center and returning students who are members of select student groups. It’s also open to students who share the cultural background of members of those groups and all those who personally identify with the affinity groups.

With a total of 29 new beds, The Cook Center is able to house 22 more students than Perry House, the residence hall that previously housed the Black Cultural Center.

The Cook Center is part of a larger construction project of two connected residence halls on the site of the former Haffner Hall. The Cook Center is a complete renovation of a section of what had been Haffner Hall. The other residence hall, which has yet to be named, is made up of 101 single rooms. The new hall is the first to be built on Bryn Mawr’s campus since 1969.

In addition to rooms for students, The Cook Center features a community room, kitchen and dining area, faculty office space, and a library made with wood from the former cultural center.

Cook Center residents Danielle Cadet, Khadijah Seay, and Stephanie Avila in the library.

ABOUT ENID COOK: Prior to matriculating to Bryn Mawr, Cook graduated from Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. and spent one year at Howard University, where she was a straight-A student. She transferred to Bryn Mawr in 1927, where she majored in chemistry and biology.  She earned a Ph.D. in bacteriology in 1937 from the University of Chicago, where she went on to become a lecturer in the department of medicine from 1937-1944. In 1944 she married Arcadio Rodaniche, a doctor, and moved with him to Panama, where she served as the chief of the Public Health Laboratory for four years, then as a professor of microbiology at the University of Panama from 1954-1974. A highly gifted and pioneering woman in the sciences, Cook published more than 50 articles in the field of arthropod-borne viruses over the course of her career.

The first African-American undergraduate student to live on campus was Evelyn Jones, class of 1954. Today, students of color make up 31 percent of Bryn Mawr’s student population.

The hall, which has yet to be named, is made up of 101 single occupancy rooms. Combined with the new Cook Center, the new hall increases the College’s housing capacity by more than 50 students.

The new hall features beautiful views of Rockefeller and other parts of Bryn Mawr’s historic campus from two glass-walled lounges as it turns the corner at Yarrow St. and Merion Ave.  The entire dorm complex is 100 percent accessible thanks to an elevator that serves all three floors.  Each floor also features a separate TV lounge and a laundry room. A central courtyard is accessible to all students and will allow for outdoor dining hall seating.

Philadelphia-based Atkin Olshin Schade Architects worked with the College on the building design. Hunter Roberts Construction Group was the principal construction contractor.

For larger versions of the above photos, visit this online gallery.

Mild temperatures and sunny skies made for a perfect move-in day for Bryn Mawr College’s class of 2019.

The 389 member undergraduate class is the largest to ever enroll at Bryn Mawr. Thirty six states, Washington, D.C, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 36 foreign countries including Albania, Brazil, China, Cuba, France, Ghana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, The Russian Federation, Rwanda, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam are represented in the class.

In addition to setting up their rooms, the members of the class spent move-in day getting to know each other, their deans, and staff members from a number of offices including Academic Support and Learning Services, Campus Safety, the Health Center, Counseling Services, and Information Services.  Bryn Mawr President Kim Cassidy and other campus leaders addressed the class and families at a mid-day welcome assembly and they were joined again by Cassidy later in the afternoon at an informal get-together on the lawn in front of Denbigh Hall.

Customs Week continues through the weekend. The 2015-16 academic year begins on Aug. 31. Fall convocation will be held at 4:30 p.m. that day in Goodhart Hall, when President Cassidy will announce the name of the “New Perry.” Following Convocation there will be a picnic outside of the new residence halls. There will also be tours of the new residence halls. Tour organizers remind everyone to please be respectful of the residents’ space and privacy while touring the buildings.

Bonhoeffer — a choral-theater composition from Thomas Lloyd, Haverford professor of music and director of the Choral and Vocal Studies Program for Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges will be performed by the professional chamber choir The Crossing, under the direction of Donald Nally on Saturday, Sept. 12, at Union Theological Seminary in New York and Sunday, Sept. 13, at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral. A post-concert talk-back with the composer will follow each performance.

Bonhoeffer is based on a libretto compiled by Lloyd from the letters of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — the influential Lutheran theologian who was part of the “Stauffenberg Plot” to assassinate Adolf Hitler — and his fiancé Maria von Wedemeyer — a Bryn Mawr College alumnae who received her master’s in mathematics in 1950. Of the work’s March 2013 premiere performance, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns wrote, “Sometimes you just don’t see a significant piece coming….Thomas Lloyd’s choral theater piece Bonhoeffer…was a fully realized 70-minute work and a breakthrough for all concerned…Herein lies the piece’s hallmark: While it effectively airs many philosophical questions that keep your mind busy long after the performance, it is never weighed down by them, and is rich in musical substance.”

Videos of the premier production and further background on the music are available at Lloyd’s website. A recent interview with Lloyd by Bonhoeffer scholar Victoria Barnett can be found on the international Bonhoeffer website.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE AND TICKET INFORMATION

Bonhoeffer, Performed by The Crossing, Directed by Donald Nally

Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015 at 8 p.m.

Union Theological Seminary, New York

Sunday, Sept. 13, 2015, at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral

Advance tickets may be purchased online at www.crossingchoir.com/purchase.html for $30; $20 for seniors and students. Day-of-show tickets may be purchased at the venue for $35; $25 for seniors and students.

After nine months apart, Maya, a shepherd mix, sprints across the grass to greet her owners, who have just returned from an Army deployment. Maya’s tail wags frantically as her owners pet and hug her to say hello.

This joyful reunion was made possible by PACT for Animals, an organization that finds temporary foster homes for deploying service members and hospitalized individuals.

Tirsa Delate ’16 has been helping PACT fulfill its mission since early 2015. Tirsa first started at PACT through Bryn Mawr’s Community Based Work Study Program and has been able to continue working with the organization this summer through the Summer of Service Program.

“As someone who had a dog for a long time, I understand how important these relationships are to people so working for PACT has been a wonderful experience,” says Tirsa. “But it’s also been a very valuable experience in terms of allowing me to hone a number of skills.”

A fine arts major at Haverford with a concentration in photography and a minor in film studies, Tirsa has been producing and editing videos for PACT and has done some event photography. She’s also done administrative work involving outreach and as a volunteer coordinator.

“I’ve been able to use my existing talents with the video and some other media work but this has also been a great opportunity to build upon my organizational skills and many of the other things that are important in just about any job or career,” says Tirsa.

“Bryn Mawr is a place that encourages you to take the initiative as well as develop your leadership skills. These qualities have been further cultivated and challenged in the most positive way at PACT,” she adds.

As she enters her senior year, Tirsa concedes that there were times when she wondered if she made the right choice in attending Bryn Mawr.

“For my first two years I was still trying to figure out my own particular niche,” says Tirsa. “But I’ve loved being at a women’s college because there is that focus on pushing the boundaries placed on women. You can have conversations about feminism and the patriarchy and people don’t see it as anything out of the ordinary.”

Tirsa points to her London study abroad experience at the Slade School of Fine Arts during the fall of her junior year as the moment things started to click for her.

“Going abroad was the best decision I ever made,” says Tirsa. “And being away from Bryn Mawr for that time actually helped me take a step back and gain a better perspective for this last year and a half here.”

While she plans to continue to work with PACT in the fall, Tirsa will also be busy working on her senior show, which may be centered on self-portraiture.

“I want to use photography as a platform to explore gender on a universal and personal level that addresses the societal and patriarchal expectations that are pushed particularly on women,” says Tirsa. “For my senior show, I’ll be using my body in connection to natural, domestic, and institutional spaces to discuss different representations of gender and how that relates to my identity and sexuality. I also want to incorporate video into my show to create a more ubiquitous and three dimensional experience.”

Tirsa is excited to return to Bryn Mawr for her final year and see where her passion for photography and filmmaking, as well as her work at PACT, takes her.

Credit: Hollis Bennett

“I knew if I wanted to work in archaeology, I needed to attend a field school,” explains Bridget Murray ’17, an anthropology and linguistics double major. Her summer internship at the Sewanee Environmental Institute’s Summer Field School in Archaeology provided her with hands-on experience—and the chance to reinforce just how much she enjoys the field.

Housed at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, the program is an intensive summer course in archaeology methods and practice. The program began with work in prehistoric Southeastern archaeology at Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park, but most of Bridget’s summer was spent at an excavation unit on campus.

Working at Rebel’s Rest—a post-Civil War-era house in the heart of the university’s campus that burned down last summer—Bridget got a taste of real-world archaeology. “Working in the field was new and thrilling,” she says. “I worked on excavation units, learned how to record excavation information and draw maps, got some experience with geophysical field surveys, worked with artifacts in the lab, and collected and interpreted soil samples.”

The excavation, which followed the disassembly and salvage of what was left of the 148-year-old building, provided researchers with the opportunity to explore the remains of the structure and its grounds.

“Rebel’s Rest was the first building constructed after the university re-opened following the Civil War and was an important historical landmark for both the university and the town of Sewanee,” explains Bridget. “So, we had lots of visitors and volunteers coming in and out and asking about the site and the work we were doing.”

The internship more than met Bridget’s expectations: she had been considering a job in one of the state or national park systems, but is now eyeing graduate school and a career in research. Whatever path she chooses, her time at SEI’s Field School has equipped her with the skills she’ll need. “I absolutely loved my time in Tennessee,” she says, “and am so grateful to have had this opportunity—and for all the doors it has opened.”

To learn more about what Bryn Mawr students are up to this summer, visit the Summer Internship Blog.

In addition, he has co-written an article for United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute’s Freedom from Fear magazine titled Western Muslims Volunteering to Fight in Syria and Iraq: Why Do They Go, And What Should We Do?

McCauley has also recently written a section for a white paper titled The Science of Decision Making Across the Span of Human Activity for the Strategic Multi-layer Assessment (SMA) program. SMA is a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency portfolio of projects that assesses and studies challenging “hard problems” associated with planning and operations of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), military services, and Government agencies.

McCauley’s research interests include stereotypes, group dynamics, intergroup conflict, and the psychological foundations of genocide and terrorism. He is a consultant and reviewer for the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for research on dominance, aggression, and violence, and a principal investigator of the National Consortium for Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (NC-START). With Dan Chirot, he is author of Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic of Mass Political Murder and Finding Ways of Avoiding it. With Sophia Moskalenko, he is author of Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us. He is founding editor of the journal Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict. McCauley received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970.

From the article:

LILAC is an effort to greatly enhance the opportunities available to students for their personal and professional development.

The mission of LILAC is to prepare liberal art students to become effective, self-aware leaders in their chosen life pursuits. The preparation is rooted in experiential education. Students can explore opportunities through classes, personal and professional workshops and trainings, internships and externships, alumnae engagement, and civic engagement.

Learn more at the LILAC website.

Credit: Hollis Bennett

She dreams of teaching physics—a subject she loves for its power “to describe the world around us.”

But Carol Bowe ’17 has more on her mind than e = mc². As a high school student, she was deeply engaged with environmental education activities, and as a future high school teacher, she is adamant about continuing that work.

“I would like to provide more than just an education in physics,” she explains. “Most high school students have little to no knowledge about the environment because nobody is teaching them. I want to incorporate sustainability education into my physics lessons, and I think that the two subjects are so closely linked that I can do it.”

This summer, Bowe set out to gain a deeper understanding of environmental issues during a Nashville-based internship with two local nonprofits—Radnor to River and Tennessee Parks and Greenways (TennGreen). But, now, she explains, “I wasn’t just standing in a classroom talking about the issues like I was in high school but I feel like I was really doing something about them.”

Radnor to River is a grass-roots effort to protect a 200-acre piece of land that developers have been eyeing for some years now. Bowe spent much of her summer drumming up attendance for the planning commission meeting slated to review development plans and helping persuade candidates to pledge that they will hold developers to current environmental standards. At the same time, she collaborated with TennGreen colleagues to organize a coalition-building event that brought together disparate environmental groups working along the corridor west of Nashville.

Bowe’s work in Nashville brought her full circle back to one of her greatest interests: “When I came to Bryn Mawr,” she says, “I began focusing on my other passion, physics, and the work I did in high school got put off. This summer brought me back to the cause that I care so deeply about.”

Plus, the experience opened her eyes to the hard work of activism. “There is a lot more to conservation work than I ever knew…so many different people work on the same project, and it can still take a long time to actually complete that project. It takes a lot of patience and dedication to do this work.”

To learn more about what Bryn Mawr students are up to this summer, visit the Summer Internship Blog.