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A Guide to Arts and Sciences' News, Events and People | May 2012 |
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Contents Senior Reflections Faculty Numbers on the Rise Economic Outlook Changing Course Wheelchair Diaries Faculty Boast Top Honors Innovation Summit on Sustainability Alumnus Receives Public Service Award In Memoriam: Fleischman and Long New Books Awards and Recognition Selected Published Works
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A Senior Moment: Graduates Reflect on Their Time at GW
With the Columbian College Celebration and GW Commencement
around the corner, emotions are running high this time of year as seniors say goodbye to friends and faculty and look ahead with excitement-and a bit of trepidation. We asked members of the Columbian College Class of 2012 to reflect on their favorite moments, professors, and experiences during their four years in Foggy Bottom. Whether it was being lucky enough to land a favorite professor for multiple classes, connecting to international students through music, or having the opportunity to use the resources of the Library of Congress and other venerable institutions, these students have their memories to take with them . . . along with their degrees. Read more.
Number of Full-time Faculty on the Rise 
Increase Ensures a Robust Learning ExperienceColumbian College will have increased the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty from 317 in 2009 to 358 by fall 2012-figures that are pushing the total number of regular full-time regular faculty to 450, compared to 411 in 2009. Much of this growth is attributable to an ambitious five-year plan to hire a significant number of full-time faculty members to ensure a robust and diverse learning experience. Of those new and projected hires, nearly half are women, nine are African American, and 22 hail from countries outside of the United States, such as India, Iceland, Australia, England, Russia, and Belgium. Each is fully engaged in their profession and dedicated to scholarly collaboration with one another, their students, and the college's numerous external research partners. Read more. Chiswick on the Economy and Rise in Student Economics Majors The seminal research on labor markets and immigration by Barry Chiswick, chair of the Department of Economics, seems particularly relevant today as the nation struggles to rebound from a global recession that gripped every sector of the economy. And, with the department reporting a 10 percent increase in students majoring in economics this year, it's a relevance not lost to the younger generation. We sat down with Chiswick, a winner of the prestigious IZA Prize in Labor Economics and former senior staff economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors, to discuss the economy, global migration, and the rise in student majors. Read more. Changing Course: Unknown Opportunities Abound for Senior Tim Quinn 
First-year students often enter GW imagining the four years ahead of them will take a certain shape and follow a particular path. But sometimes a serendipitous encounter with a professor, friend, or experience can inspire students to leave behind their preconceptions in favor of paths they never imagined. Just ask senior Tim Quinn. For him, that journey started when he registered for Beginning Chinese, a course that would ignite a passion for language that eventually led him to study in China for six months, win two Chinese speech contests, perform with a famous Chinese actor, and earn a scholarship to graduate school at Nanjing University. Read more.
Wheelchair Diaries: A Student's Quest for Accessibility 
For Reid Davenport-who has cerebral palsy and often relies on a wheelchair to get around campus to avoid fatigue-the dream of studying in Italy during his junior year was "abruptly shattered" when he learned that the streets and sites of Florence, Rome, and much of Europe were not wheelchair accessible. Despite the discouraging news, Davenport resolved to confront the challenge head on with a video camera and a new purpose: He scrapped the study abroad program that he had been accepted to and focused instead on putting together an independent film project that had him documenting his way around Europe to explore its lack of wheelchair accessibility. Read more.
Faculty Boast Top Honors 
Gayle Wald, chair of the Department of English, has won a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship to
complete her book on "Soul!" a groundbreaking 1960s PBS show that was
at the cutting edge of black culture. She was among 181 scholars,
artists, and scientists selected from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants
to receive the fellowship, which will allow her to focus exclusively on
research and writing. This is the second time in two years in which a
faculty member from GW's English Department received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2011, Jeffrey
Cohen received the honor. Read more.  Thomas Mallon, acclaimed novelist and director of GW's Creative Writing Program, has been selected for induction into the nation's most exclusive honorary society and leading center for independent policy research: the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Mallon is the author of eight books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers, and the recently published Watergate: A Novel, which has received rave reviews from
The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and other media outlets. Read more. Joseph Pelzman, professor of
economics, received a Senior Fulbright Scholarship to lecture and conduct research in the People's
Republic of China (PRC). Pelzman is one of the 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in 2012-2013. His research project will focus on the domestic and international economic and legal spillover effects of the PRC going global in the 21st century, a major component of his forthcoming book The Economics of International Trade Law. Read more.
SMPA Hosts Innovation Summit on Sustainability 
Planet Forward, created by School of Media and Public Affairs Director Frank Sesno, hosted "GW Moving the Planet Forward," an innovation summit that sought to address issues surrounding sustainability by bringing together leaders from government, industry, and academia. Panelists-including former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, Vice President of General Electric Ecomagination Mark Vacho, and D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray-weighed in on topics ranging from the creation of green jobs to the use of renewable energy. Panelists also challenged the nine D.C. universities to reduce the "college footprint" and make D.C. the greenest college town in America.
Read more.
TSPPPA Alumnus Receives 2012 Public Service Award 
For more than three decades, Datuk Thomas George, MPA '86, has led a distinguished public service career-one that included serving as the secretary general of two major Malaysian Ministries, authoring books on public management, working in many leadership roles at Malaysia's National Institute of Public Administration, and helping the British Commonwealth Secretariat to improve public administration in myriad countries in Africa and the Caribbean. On April 27, he received the Pi Alpha Alpha Public Service Award from the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration (TSPPPA) for his remarkable career and effective public service. Read more.
In Memoriam: Julius Fleischman and William F. E. Long 
Julius Fleischman, a successful real estate developer and longtime benefactor of GW, passed away recently at the age of 89. Fleischman, who had been legally blind since 2003, established the Julius Fleischman Scholarship for Blind or Visually Impaired Students in 2005 and provided the funding to equip two rooms in the university's Gelman Library with technology to help the visually impaired. His generosity spanned many schools and programs at the university, including his support of the Frieda Kobernick Fleischman Lecture in Judaic Studies. A memorial service for Fleischman will be held on May 19th, from noon to 2:00 pm at the Demaine Funeral Home in Alexandria, VA. We also note with regret the passing of alumnus and Emeritus Professor of Economics William F. E. Long, BA '46, MA '47, PhD '67, who was remembered as a congenial and devoted teacher. A World War II veteran and a GW class president, Long enjoyed an expansive business career in the 1950s before returning to the university to complete a doctoral degree in economics. Teaching economics, finance, and business administration courses, he was a professor as well as an associate dean of graduate studies in Columbian College, dean of Summer Sessions, and dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions.
New Books David Holt, BA '01, published Big League City: Oklahoma City's Rise to the NBA, the story behind the arrival of major league sports in Oklahoma City. Jane Shore, professor of English, authored That Said: New and Selected Poems. Awards and Recognition Megan Buonaiuto, a senior chemistry and history major, and Heather Dingwall, a senior in biological anthropology and archeology, were honored by GW with an Outstanding Academic Achievement Award. Both will be speaking at the Columbian College Celebration ceremonies on May 19. Kerry Crawford, a doctoral candidate in political science, received one of six 2012 Woodrow Wilson Women's Studies Dissertation Fellowships to support her dissertation, "Punctuated Silence: Variation in the International Response to Wartime Sexual Predation," which examines how the international community dealt with elements of predation. Juniors Nathaniel Diskint, biological anthropology, and Caitlin Keating, psychology, won 4th place in the GW Business Plan Competition for their proposal Imagnus Biomedical, designed to make quality and cost-effective biomedical instruments that offer advanced solutions in the areas of research and medicine. Laura Hardwick, political communications student, and Dorothy Gilliam, research scientist in media and public affairs, are featured in a video about Prime Movers Media, GW's intensive journalism mentorship program that aired at the recent White House Correspondents' dinner. Dorothy E. Holmes, professor emeritus of clinical psychology and professional psychology, received the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Advancement of Women's and Racial Issues in Psychoanalysis from the American Psychological Association. Garett Howardson, doctoral candidate in industrial and organizational psychology, won the International Personnel Assessment Council James C. Johnson Student Paper Competition Award for his paper "Coming Full Circle with Reactions: Toward an Understanding of Affective Training Reactions through the Core Affect Circumplex". Michelle Jurkovich, a graduate student in political science, was awarded a grant from the Loughran Foundation to conduct dissertation research at Oxford University. Michael D. Larson, associate professor of biostatistics, was selected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Julian Panero, a student in Chinese and economics, won first place in the D.C. 11th Annual Chinese Bridge Speech Competition. Jozef Przytycki, professor of mathematics, is part of a collaborative international research project, "Algebraic Modeling of Topological and Computational Structures", that received a $700,000 grant from the Greek Government and European Union. Elizabeth Saunders, asst. professor of political science and international affairs, won the American Political Science Association International History and Politics section's Jervis-Schroeder Best Book Award for her book "Leaders at War." She also received a Wilson Center Fellowship for 2012-13. John Sides, associate professor of political science, was awarded a $76,160 grant by the National Science Foundation, to survey and assess attitudes toward two social groups-African Americans and Muslims-to determine how and why group-centrism affects political attitudes. Cheryl Vann, adjunct honors professor, was selected to participate in the Japan Studies Association Freeman Summer Institute for incorporating Japan Studies into the undergraduate curriculum. Ross White, a graduate student in philosophy and social policy, won a Walter Green Fellowship to support his graduate studies. Ellen Zane, BA '73, a GW trustee and Columbian College National Council member, was named the third most powerful woman in healthcare by HealthExecNews.com. Selected Published Works Catherine Snow Bailard, assistant professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs, authored "A Field Experiment on the Internet's Effect in an African Election: Savvier Citizens, Disaffected Voters, or Both?" in the Journal of Communication. Brandon Bartels, assistant professor of political science, authored "Political Justice? Perceptions of Politicization and Public Preferences toward the Supreme Court Appointment Process" in Public Opinion Quarterly. Douglas Boyce, associate professor of music, released a CD "Group Theory" with his ensemble counter)induction. Xiaoning (Julia) Chen, Hanban Teaching Fellow from China and Chinese language instructor, has been a regular contributor to a popular series entitled "Teaching Chinese in the USA" in an on-line magazine on the Chinese language 中国语言生活. Most recently she authored "Me and Chinese Bridge," and "Positive Attitude". Henry Hale, associate professor of political science, published "Two Decades of Post-Soviet Regime Dynamics" in the spring 2012 edition of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. Professor of Mathematics Valentina Harizanov co-authored "The Computable Embedding Problem," published in Algebra and Logic and "Isomorphism Relations on Computable Structures," published in the Journal of Symbolic Logic 77. Alexander Huang, associate professor of English, authored "Global Shakespeare 2.0 and the Task of the Performance Archive" in Shakespeare Survey and "The Theatricality of Religious Rhetoric: Gao Xingjian and the Meaning of Exile" in Theatre Journal. Young-Key Kim-Renaud, chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, authored "The Vowel System and Vowel Harmony in 15th-Century Korean: Alay-a (�) Revisited," in Japanese/Korean Linguistics, Vol. 20 and co-authored "Agreement in Korean Revisited," in Inquiries into Korean Linguistics IV: 209-222 with Miok D. Pak, teaching assistant professor in the Korean Language. Geralyn Schulz, associate dean of research and outreach and professor of speech and hearing sciences, co-authored "Selective Left, Right and Bilateral Stimulation of Subtalamic Nuclei in Parkinson's Disease: Differential Effects on Motor, Speech and Language Function" in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease. Guanyu Wang, assistant research professor of physics, authored "Optimal Homeostasis Necessitates Bistable Control" in the Journal of Royal Society Interface.
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