H&SS eNews, August 2005

Greetings from H&SS. The H&SS eNews is a monthly electronic publication of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. The eNews is compiled and edited by Kelli McElhinny, director of media relations for H&SS. She can be reached at 412-268-6094 or kellim@andrew.cmu.edu. Contact Kelli to submit news about yourself and your fellow alumni, and to sign up for our newsletters.

For past eNews publications, please visit the H&SS eNews archive.

For news about the entire university, be sure to check out the university’s home page or the Carnegie Mellon Today website.

Announcement

We interrupt your regularly scheduled newsletter to bring you this important announcement: On Friday, Oct. 28, H&SS will host a Homecoming reception for alumni, students, faculty and staff, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the H&SS Auditorium and the Coffee Lounge in Baker Hall. We will be honoring our student and alumni award winners, including filmmaker Greg Marcks (B.A. Creative Writing, 1998), who will be receiving Carnegie Mellon's Young Alumni Award. H&SS Dean John Lehoczky will talk about some of the great things going on in the college, and faculty authors including History Professor Scott Sandage ("Born Losers: A History of Failure in America") are tentatively scheduled to be on hand. Refreshments will be served.

H&SS is opening two classes to alumni that day as well: Cognitive Psychology, from 1:30 to 2:20 p.m., and the Nature of Reason, from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m.

We hope that you are able to attend the reception and other Homecoming events, several of which feature H&SS faculty. For more information, go to http://alumni.cmu.edu/homecoming/index.html (Please note the schedule is still being updated and may not reflect all events. Check back for more details.)

Also, you can purchase a commemorative engraved brick in time for Homecoming. The bricks will be installed in the sidewalk next to the new wing of Baker Hall. For only $100, you can have a brick engraved with your name or a short message. The bricks will be laser engraved so that your message will endure a lifetime of wear. Each brick has space for up to three lines of text. In order to install your brick in time for Homecoming, we must receive your order by September 28. To download an order form, go to http://www.hss.cmu.edu/pressreleases/brickform.pdf.

Alumni News

---David Brotherton (B.S. SDS, 1997; M.B.A. 2004) has been promoted to associate brand manager for Kleenex brand at Kimberly-Clark in Neenah, Wisc. His new role includes overall responsibility for new and ongoing packaging design project management and managing one of Kleenex's North American professional sports sponsorship programs.

CORRECTION: The name of Christina Koshzow (B.A. Professional Writing, 2002; M.S. Public Policy and Management, 2003) was misspelled in a July eNews item about the company she co-founded, College Prowler. Another co-founder, Christopher Mason (B.S. Economics and Business Administration, 2001) was wrongly identified as an Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate.

College / Faculty News

--Novelist Kate Christensen will kick off the 2005-06 Adamson Visiting Writers Series at 8 p.m. Oct. 27 in the Adamson Wing of Baker Hall. Christensen, a resident of Brooklyn, is the author of "In the Drink," "Jeremy Thrane" and most recently "The Epicure's Lament." The event is free and open to the public. (For more information and a complete schedule, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases05/050808_adamson.html)

--Barbara Freed's film, "A Model for Matisse: The Story of the Vence Chapel", will be screened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as part of their current exhibit, "Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams His Art and His Textile" which runs through Sept. 25. The film will be shown at the Danish Louisiana Museum of Modern Art on Oct. 26 as part of their show "Matisse: A Second Life" and on Nov. 5 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. WHYY in Philadelphia will broadcast the television version of the film on Sept. 1 and Sept. 25. Wisconsin Public Television will broadcast it in January. Freed is a professor of French Studies and Applied Linguistics. (For more information about Freed's film, go to http://www.cmu.edu/magazine/03fall/newsbriefs.html#henri)

-- The American Statistical Association has bestowed its 2005 Outstanding Statistical Application Award on a paper written by statistics professors Christopher Genovese and Larry Wasserman which provides a new analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the radiation left over from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The paper, "Nonparametric Inference for the Cosmic Microwave Background," was published in the journal Statistical Science. The paper describes statistical techniques that Genovese, Wasserman and colleagues developed to analyze recent detailed measurements of the CMB by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. The techniques in the paper allow scientists to assess the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from the data about cosmological questions and can help in fine-tuning the design of future data collection. (For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases05/050728_cosmic.html)

--George Loewenstein, professor of economics and psychology, co-authored an intriguing and unusual study in which researchers found that people who have brain damage which impairs their emotional responses can, in certain situations, make better investment decisions than normal people. The paper was published in the June issue of Psychological Science. This study is part of the emerging field of neuroeconomics, which investigates the mental and neural processes that drive economic decision-making. Based on previous studies, the researchers concluded that the emotionally-impaired participants were less averse to risk, and thus were more willing to take gambles that had a high payoff. (For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases05/050721_emotions.html)

-- Women who receive an educational or nutritional intervention following the completion of their treatment for breast cancer are less likely to be depressed and have a better quality of life than other breast cancer survivors, according to a study led by Psychology Professor Michael Scheier, the head of the Department of Psychology. The study was published in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology and followed the experiences of 252 women beginning two months after the completion of their treatment. The women were divided into three groups. One group received no interventions. The second attended four educational sessions that covered topics including talking to children about cancer; maintaining a healthy relationship with their partners; and the impact their treatment has on their reproductive health. The third group received information about maintaining a healthy diet, including shopping and cooking tips. The women who received either the educational or nutritional intervention were less likely to be depressed and were more optimistic about their overall health and their ability to cope with their illness than the women who had received no intervention. (For more information, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases05/050810_cancer.html)

In Memory

--We are sad to pass along news that former English professor and dean of students Earle Swank died July 15 in Danville, Pa., where he had lived since he retired in 1987. He was 83. Mr. Swank earned a bachelor's degree from Muhlenberg College and a master's from Harvard University before coming to what was then the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1947. He taught literature and composition, and continued to teach after he was invited to join the office of student affairs, eventually becoming its dean. Mr. Swank was very popular with students and devoted himself to teaching undergraduates exclusively. A memorial service is scheduled at Carnegie Mellon for Mr. Swank in the fall. We will let you know when more information is available.

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