H&SS eNews, March 2007

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.

Student News

-- Zach Harris, a senior Creative Writing major, is one of 10 students nationwide selected to attend this summer's Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. Zach is the third Carnegie Mellon student to attend the seminar in the past five years. Kevin Gonzalez attended the seminar in 2003 and Sarah Smith attended in 2005. Harris also recently won an honorable mention in the poetry category of the Atlantic Monthly's writing contest. --Naum Kats, an adjunct professor in the Department of Modern Languages, will lead a group of 13 students on a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, from March 7 through March 18. The group also will spend a day on their way back to the United States in Amsterdam. While in St. Petersburg, the students will visit the city's major historic and cultural attractions, including the Hermitage, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Russian Museum and the presidential palace. The trip is part of Kats' freshman seminar course, Introduction to Russian Culture and Civilization. This is the second year in which Kats has led students on a trip to Russia. The trip is sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, the H&SS Dean's Office, and the Modern Languages and History departments. To read about last year's trip, go to http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/060328_stpetersburg.html.

--Economics major Will Lutz, a junior, and three other Carnegie Mellon students have founded a free web service called Mave, which allows users to create online businesses where would-be clients can bid on their services. The idea was the brainchild of Mark junior business major Mark Tressler, and the other founders are Breck Fresen, a sophomore computer science major, and Geoff Misek, a senior electrical and computer engineering major. For more information go to http://mymave.com/.

College/Faculty News

-- Statistics Professor William Eddy was elected chair-elect of the Section on Statistics for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He will be chair-elect from Feb. 20, 2007 through Feb. 18, 2008; he will be chair from Feb. 19, 2007, through Feb. 16, 2009; and retiring chair from Feb. 17, 2008, through Feb. 22, 2009.

--Larry Heimann, associate teaching professor of information systems (IS), won this year's Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Teaching and Educational Service from H&SS. "Larry exhibits phenomenal dedication to the IS program and its students. He brings extraordinary talent, enthusiasm and professionalism to his teaching, and he excels in both large lecture halls and small project meeting venues," said H&SS Dean John Lehoczky. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/February/feb20_smithaward.shtml.
                    
--A novel experiment conducted by George Loewenstein, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology, may explain why people try a drug, such as heroin, for the first time despite ample evidence that it is addictive. The results of the study, which were published in the Journal of Health Economics, reveal that even longtime addicts underestimate the influence that drug cravings have over their behavior. The study involved 13 heroin addicts being treated with the maintenance drug buprenorphine (BUP). During the eight weeks of the study, participants were repeatedly asked to choose between varying amounts of money or an extra dose of BUP, both when they were craving the drug and when they were not. The major finding was that addicts valued an extra dose of BUP about twice as much when they were craving it (right before receiving their normal dose of the drug) than when they were currently satiated (minutes after receiving the BUP) — even when they knew they would not receive the extra dose until five days later. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/February/feb5_addiction.shtml.

--Kiron Skinner’s book “Reagan: A Life in Letters” was reviewed March 1 in the New York Review of Books as part of an essay about President Reagan’s legacy. To read the essay, go to http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19910. Skinner is the director of the International Relations Program and an associate professor of history and social and decision sciences. For more information about the book, go to http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases03/030821_bookofregan.html.

-- The Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Carnegie Mellon will share in a $100,000 grant given to the national academic honorary society by the Teagle Foundation to fund Phi Beta Kappa’s “Deliberations About Things That Matter” project. Part of Carnegie Mellon’s share of the grant will go toward the Campus Conversation on April 11, which will discuss public art on campus. Twenty-six Phi Beta Kappa students will help to plan the forum. Campus Conversations are a series of events at which students, faculty and staff spend an evening discussing issues of importance to the campus community. For more information go to http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/February/feb6_pbk.shtml.

Events

--The Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) in the Department of History is hosting two lectures this month. On March 2, Matthew Countryman, an associate professor of history at the University of Michigan, will give a talk titled “Up South: A Social Movement Perspective on the Rise of Black Power in the Urban North.” The talk will take place at 5 p.m. in the Singleton Room in the Roberts Hall of Engineering. On March 23, Dianne Glave, the Aron Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Environmental Research at Tulane University, will give a talk titled “Fields, Gardens and Woods: An Environmental History of Rural African Americans in the Progressive Era South.” The talk will take place at 5 p.m. in the Erwin R. Steinberg Auditorium (Baker Hall A53).

--Carnegie Mellon is once again holding a series of Network Nights, regional events for job-seekers to get together with alumni and employers at after-work receptions. Network Nights are scheduled for March 8 in Washington, D.C.; March 12 in New York City; March 14 in Boston; and March 15 in Chicago. For more information go to http://alumni.cmu.edu/networknights/.

--Scientist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond will speak at 4:30 p.m. March 26 in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center. Diamond, the winner of the 2006 Dickson Prize in Science from Carnegie Mellon, will give a talk titled “Collapse,” based on his book of the same name. In the book, Diamond probes the decline and fall of once-prosperous civilizations such as the Maya and the prehistoric Polynesian society of Easter Island. Diamond pinpoints environmental factors that are common to these catastrophes and which provide lessons for today. Diamond, the author of “Guns, Germs and Steel,” will hold a book signing at 3:30 p.m. in the McKenna Room in the University Center.

--The Humanities Center will host a lecture on March 29 titled “Capitalism, Compassion and the Children: Post-Fordist Affect in ‘Rosetta’ and ‘La Promesse’” by Lauren Berlant, the George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago. The talk will focus on the affective experience of contemporary regimes of global capital and the effect of economic precarity on the reproduction of fantasies about “the good life,” using some films written and directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardienne. The talk will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Margaret Morrison 103. Berlant is also the director of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project at the University of Chicago. For more information go to http://www.hss.cmu.edu/humanitiescenter/abstracts/berlant.htm.

--Carnegie Mellon will offer a weekend-long symposium March 30-April 1 titled “The Problem of Environmental Justice” that will explore how corporate and governmental environmental policies disproportionately impact minority and disadvantaged communities. The symposium is available for course credit to Carnegie Mellon students, and members of the public may attend the events scheduled for March 30-31. The symposium will feature speakers from government, academia and the nonprofit community who will address topics including global warming, brownfield redevelopment and emerging technologies--all tied to the theme of the environmental justice. Peter Madsen, Distinguished Service Professor of Ethics and Social Responsibility, is leading the symposium. For more information go to http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/99-521/index.html.

--For a complete list of upcoming alumni events, go to http://alumni2.tepper.cmu.edu/cmuEvents/.

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