Steady Helps Draft 'Kobe Declaration' on Tobacco Epidemic among Women and Children

Professor Filomena Steady

Filomina Steady, professor of Africana Studies, was among leading health professionals, gender experts, and anti-tobacco activists who urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to fully integrate the "special needs" of women and girls into a proposed international treaty on tobacco control. The newly concluded "Kobe Declaration" was adopted by consensus by some 500 delegates who attended the four-day international conference on women and tobacco hosted by the WHO in Kobe, Japan from Nov. 14-18. The Declaration demands that the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) "include gender-specific concerns and perspectives in each and every aspect" and states that "gender equality in society must be an integral part of tobacco control strategies and women's leadership is essential to success." Steady, who chaired the declaration drafting group, stressed the importance of drawing attention to the potential epidemic of tobacco use by women and girls. "This is the new target population in the developing world that is particularly being recruited in this phenomenon of nicotine addiction," she said. Steady explained that the declaration will help ensure the FCTC has a strong gender-sensitive component and that it serves as a mobilizing tool to bring women, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), leaders, politicians, activists and academics into this movement. The Convention, targeted for adoption by May 2003, will be the first legally binding international instrument aimed at curbing the global spread of tobacco and tobacco products.

Some of the measures being considered include a ban on advertising, promotion and packaging of tobacco products, raising tobacco taxes, tightening rules to stop smuggling, and special anti-smoking education programs targeted toward young people.

The Conference officially called the WHO International Conference on Tobacco and Health, Kobe - Making a Difference to Tobacco and Health: Avoiding the Tobacco Epidemic in Women and Youth examined ways to counter the tobacco epidemic among women and youth and focused particularly on the alarming rise in smoking among young women and girls in Asia.

The WHO has estimated that women account for 500,000 of the 4 million tobacco-related deaths that occur every year. If present smoking trends continue, the WHO has warned that by the year 2025, 10 million people per year will die unnecessarily, 70 percent of them in developing countries.

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President Diana Chapman Walsh traveled to Taiwan Dec. 4 to begin a 10-day visit to east Asia that included stops in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Beijing. This was her second trip to the region. In 1996, she visited Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo. David Blinder, Vice President for Resources and Public Affairs, joined President Walsh on the trip.

In Taipei, President Walsh held a series of meetings with Wellesley alumnae and parents of current Wellesley students. Walsh then traveled to Hong Kong and Beijing where she met with alumnae, government officials, and educators. There are approximately 180 alumnae living in east Asia today. In addition to a newly-established club in Shanghai, there are alumnae clubs in Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Tokyo, and Bangkok.

In Beijing, both the American Studies Center at Beijing University and the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange in the Ministry of Education served as hosts for the Wellesley delegation. While there, Walsh celebrated the historical ties between the College and China and explored possibilities for new educational and cultural relationships there.

In Beijing, President Walsh met with officials at the Ministry of Education and with the vice chairwoman of the All China Women's Federation. She also met with the vice president of Beijing University (known as Peking University in Beijing) and professors from the Center for American Studies there.

She met with the vice president of Nanjing Normal University who also is the immediate past president of Ginling College, a private women's college in Nanjing at which Wellesley alumnae hold teaching fellowships. During her visit, Walsh was interviewed for "Half the Sky," a very popular public affairs program on China Central Television focusing on women's issues. The interview is scheduled to air in January.

Wellesley has a long and proud connection with Asia and with China, in particular. The first Chinese women to attend college in the United States came to Wellesley in 1907 under a scholarship established by the Board of Trustees to commemorate the visit to the College by the Chinese High Commissioners of Education.

Among its notable alumnae, Wellesley counts the renowned Chinese author and poet Xie Bingxin, who earned her Masters degree in English Literature in 1926, and Mayling Soong (Madame Chiang Kai-shek), who graduated in 1917 with a degree in English. The first Wellesley president to travel to east Asia was Ellen Pendleton who visited Japan, Korea, and China during a four-month journey in 1919 and 1920.

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Wellesley is currently in the process of recruiting post-doctoral fellows for the upcoming academic year as part of an on-going series of grants given by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Dean of the College Lee Cuba has invited academic departments to indicate their interest in the Fellows Program by demonstrating the intellectual and substantive rationales for placement of fellows in particular departments. While most department proposals are still being developed, Cuba said the level of interest is extremely high.

"Wellesley College and the Mellon Foundation have enjoyed a close connection over the years, and the Post-doctoral Fellows Program has been a particularly fruitful collaboration," he said. "Each of our current fellows has brought added breadth to Wellesley's academic offerings in the humanities and social sciences" (see sidebar: Mellon Fellows at Wellesley Today, page 3).

The Mellon Foundation started the series of grants in 1996 to support the appointment of post-doctoral fellows in the humanities and social sciences at selective liberal arts colleges and research universities, according to Nancy Weinstein, Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations. Weinstein explained that the program at liberal arts colleges is intended to amplify each institution's intellectual resources and to provide fellows with teaching experience at first-class undergraduate institutions staffed by faculty who are recognized as leading teacher-scholars in their fields.

Fellows spend half their time teaching and half their time working on their own research. In their first year, post-doctoral fellows participate in a year-long Seminar for New Faculty and are encouraged to take advantage of opportunities for training sponsored by the Learning and Teaching Center, the Quantitative Reasoning Program, the Writing Program, and the Knapp Media and Technology Center. All have designated mentors within their academic departments, an extension of Wellesley's mentoring program that is already in place for junior faculty.

"Wellesley provides a welcoming intellectual community for post-doctoral fellows as well as the opportunity for interaction with a wide array of other academic and cultural institutions in the greater Boston area," Cuba said.

He pointed out that the recent report from the Reaccreditation Visiting Team noted, "Wellesley has a wonderfully talented faculty who are committed to their dual roles as teachers and scholars … Professional development support for faculty is as good or better than at any comparable institution."

Three Mellon Fellows At Wellesley College Today

Since joining the English Department in September, Maria Davidis has been teaching in the writing program and developing literature courses in her areas of specialization. Her areas of interest include: writing and composition, colonial and postcolonial literature, world literature in English, feminist and queer theory and criticism, women's literature, and nineteenth and twentieth century British literature. She earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton in 1996, and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at St. Lawrence University and Haverford College.

Anne Knowles, a historical geographer with prior teaching experience at the University of Wales, was a Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow at Wellesley from July 1997 through July 1999, hosted jointly by the departments of Political Science and Sociology. In her first semester, she organized two college-wide seminars to introduce faculty, staff and students to geographic information systems. She taught an extradepartmental course, "Introduction to Geographic Concepts," as well as a research seminar in historical geography, and coordinated closely with the College's Quantitative Reasoning program throughout her tenure here. She was awarded an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship for the current academic year and is a resident scholar in Wellesley's department of Political Science and International Relations program.

Brian Schiff is in the second year of his post-doctoral fellowship with the Psychology Department. A specialist in adult development, he received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1997 with a dissertation on how Holocaust survivors interpret their survival. Prior to coming to Wellesley, Schiff spent several months at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem leading interviews with Arab students of Israeli citizenship on how they understand and talk about their identity. Schiff's fellowship has a substantial research component; last year he collaborated on three papers for publication with Professor Paul Wink and other members of the department. This past semester he taught Introduction to Psychology and will continue teaching adult development this spring.

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Political Science Department Lauds Recent Scholarship

Political Science Department faculty and students share a laugh at a recent celebration of new scholarship and publications. (Left to right): Joel Krieger, Roxanne Euben, Bill Joseph, Rachel Stern '00, Linda Miller (partially hidden), and Treva Saunders '00.

Students and faculty from the Political Science Department and International Relations Program gathered at a November reception to celebrate recent publications by five faculty members. "It's important that our students have the chance to witness and celebrate an essential and meaningful part of faculty members' lives," explained Assistant Professor of Political Science Kathy Moon, who hosted the event. "They get to know us in our roles as teachers but don't often have the opportunity to see is in our roles as scholars. Public celebrations such as this event help to bridge that gap."

Faculty members honored and their recent publications included:

Roxanne Euben, "Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism" (Princeton, 1999)

Bill Joseph and Joel Krieger, editors of the second edition of Introduction to Comparative Politics (Houghton Mifflin, 1999)

Joel Krieger, "British Politics in the Global Age: Can Social Democracy Survive?" (Oxford University Press, 1999)

Robert Paarlberg, co-author of "Policy Reform in American Agriculture: Analysis and Prognosis" (University of Chicago Press, 1999)

Linda Miller, new editor of the International Studies Review, a joint production of Wellesley and Brown University.

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How do new forms of electronic communication mesh with the liberal arts tradition? How can Wellesley expand its experiential learning opportunities in a manner that enhances the goals and values of liberal education? Over the fall semester, small groups of Wellesley faculty have joined President Walsh, Dean Cuba, and Associate Deans Andrea Levitt and Andy Shennan to discuss questions such as these, about the relationship between various College initiatives and liberal arts education.

"With the demands of classroom teaching, research pursuits, and other obligations, we don't often have the opportunity to step back and reflect on the larger questions of educational purpose. What kind of liberal arts education are we providing? What are the relationships among our newer initiatives, such as global education, and Wellesley's liberal arts mission?" explained Lee Cuba, Dean of the College. "We initiated these discussions to provide the forum for just such an intellectual exchange among faculty members. These discussions allow people to talk about the value of liberal arts outside of any specific proposal or program."

Since October, President Walsh has hosted nine such discussions in her home, with about 15 faculty members participating in each dinner-conversation. The discussions have focused on the relationship of the liberal arts to four current initiatives: global education, multiculturalism and diversity, experiential education, and electronic communication and instructional technology. In advance of each discussion, participants have been sent brief readings to provide a context for the conversation.

"Our discussions have been lively, thoughtful, and provocative," noted Cuba. "It's clear that faculty are deeply committed to and passionate about the future of liberal education at Wellesley." Plans are underway to offer more discussions next semester.

For a personal perspective of one of the faculty discussions, see Assistant Professor Ann Huss' "Citizens of the World" piece below.

by Ann Huss
Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Language

One October evening, a group of Wellesley faculty members gathered for dinner at President Walsh's home to discuss the liberal arts and a global education. In preparatory readings we were introduced to Martha Nussbaum's "Cultivating Humanity" in which Anna, a political science major, goes into business after graduation and is eventually assigned to her firm's newly opened Beijing office. Although, as Nussbaum tells us, Anna "[has] a rough time getting settled in China," she eventually becomes a "good interpreter of cultural difference," decides to stay in China, and eventually adopts a Chinese child. Her university education gave her no preparation for any of the above "challenges." How then do we at Wellesley College educate women like Anna to operate as world citizens with sensitivity and understanding?

One could answer that we already do this at Wellesley and quite successfully actually. But perhaps it's more important to contemplate how we do this, and, in particular, the importance of language and literature departments in this process. Many around the table that October evening worried that we would become purveyors of an ideology. I wondered what we might be saying if we assume that there is some set of "skills" we can introduce our students to -- "skills" that might be more important than a knowledge of, for example, Chinese, in Anna's case.

As an alumna of Wellesley College, I found that Anna's story hit a chord with me, and that chord reminded me that the College not only does its job but also cares about doing its job. The importance of language and literature departments and the complexities associated with the dissemination of "culture" that they (we) do must continue to be a focus. How we do what we do in this Chinese Department and in other language and literature departments around campus must be revisited often, for many reasons, but especially in the name of a "global education."

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In keeping with the spirit of its award-winning commitment to multi-culturalism, The Davis Museum and Cultural Center hosted a special tour last month for staff and faculty of its current exhibit "Village Works: Photographs by Women in China's Yunnan Province." Co-sponsored by the College's Committee for Diversity, the mid-day tour was attended by more than 50 people and led by community docent Pat Jones '51, student docent Kim Hoang '00, and Christina Yu '02, who worked with the study group that brought the exhibit to Wellesley. With Christina Yu there, the tour group pried deep into the social implications of each photograph on display. The group wandered through the four clusters of photographs catching a shockingly real glimpse of China through the eyes of Chinese women who lived these pictures everyday. As the tour progressed, the asymmetry between the viewers' lives and the scenes played out on the pictures became more and more apparent.

Christina Yu '02 from China served as guide for the special staff and faculty tour. Yu was a member of the study group that brought the exhibit to Wellesley.

Of particular interest was the color photograph "Remarried Old Couple" taken by Feng Mingfang. The image depicts an identically dressed man and woman eating in a synchronized fashion. The photograph was a clear representation of the existing culture gap between China and the United States. On the caption, the woman was described as cast off from society, a reject, so to speak. Yu explained that the woman's husband had died, and her re-marriage had provoked the disapproval of society. A curious member of the group inquired whether, if the situation had been reversed, would the widower have received similar treatment? To the surprise of many, Yu's answer was a firm, "No."

Toward the end of the tour, Jones directed a final question at the audience, "Are these women victims or heroines of their own culture?" The group glanced back at the photos of the woman entrepreneur selling sliced watermelon on the side of the road and at the group of women building a home together. The crowd's general sentiment was that the women were, in fact, heroines thriving in a challenging environment that is their home.

The Committee for Diversity is charged with considering, evaluating and recommending policies and programs regarding the promotion of inclusiveness in order to create a more multicultural and diversified community. For more information about upcoming events, including a remembrance of

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , please contact either Soraya Andrade-Winters x2223 or Rita Purcell x3147.

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Triple Helix Members Shine as Artists-in-Residence

by Sarah Fishleder '00

Collaboration and communication are the essence of the musical partnership that is a piano trio. Triple Helix is not only one of Boston's leading piano trios, but its members also are active in educational commitments at Wellesley College. Lois Shapiro, piano; Bayla Keyes, violin; and Rhonda Rider, cello; are artists-in-residence whose discussion and demonstration lectures have enriched the intellectual life of the College.

As Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe observed, "not every group of three first-class musicians can create a first class trio. It's a question of intelligence, instinct, chops, ears, experience, and willingness; these three women, each a very strong and distinctive personality, have them all and keep them dancing."

This past semester, Triple Helix got the Wellesley community on its toes by giving two lecture performances that paired an explanation of social and cultural occurrences of a time period with the music of a particular composer. The first lecture, "The Emerging Self in the Nineteenth Century Piano Trio: The Diverging Musical Personae of Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorak," detailed the social and political upheaval in the institutions of Western Europe that ended the Enlightenment and placed new intellectual emphasis on 'the self' and one's inner life, while explaining the musical developments that occurred in tandem.

The trio's second lecture performance highlighted the parallels between the chamber music of Charles Ives and the Spirit of Transcendentalist New England. The trio used readings from the works of Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau to illustrate the synthesis of spiritual and philosophical ideas in Ives' music.

Shapiro said the trio envisions more collaborations in the future with Wellesley colleagues across disciplines. Two such ideas include a lecture performance using patterns and modulations to show the relationships between music and mathematics, and a presentation with someone from the 'hard sciences' on the nature of creativity. Shapiro said the latter idea was stimulated by an experience several years ago in which she asked a student to create a text for a little Bartok piano piece she was playing in order to help her experience the vocality of the melodic line.

"The student's response was both shocking and quite telling of a possible misconceptions shared by other students," Shapiro said. "She told me that she could not do this assignment because, 'I am not creative; I am a science major.'"

For the trio, Wellesley represents an ideal and highly fertile environment--both in size and diversity--for the kind of interdisciplinary contextual study the members love to undertake and share with audiences of all backgrounds. They hope to make the most of this potential in order to combat the specialization and resultant isolation of individuals.

"We want to promote the realization that ideas and artistic achievements do not arise in a vacuum or spring fully formed but, as products of their time and place, they reflect common points of view," Shapiro said.

TRIPLE HELIX MEMBERS (left to right): Bayla Keyes, violin; Lois Shapiro, piano; and Rhonda Rider, cello.

Bayla Keyes, Violin -- In addition to her on-going collaboration with Triple Helix, Keyes is a founding member of the Evian and Naumberg award-winning Muir String Quartet and is the co-chair of the String Department at Boston University. She plays in the Boston Musica Viva, Sonos, and Marblehead Chamber Players and teaches and performs with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and the Interlochen Chamber Music Conference. Keyes' musical depth is revealed through her recent premieres of concerti by Bernard Hoffer and Richard Festinger and performances of the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas.

Rhonda Rider, Cello -- Rider has toured extensively in the U.S. and abroad as a member of the Lydian String Quartet, a quartet based as artists-in-residence at Brandeis University. At Brandeis, Rider teaches music, directs the Artist Diploma program, and the Summer Music Festival. She also teaches cello and chamber music at Wellesley and The Boston Conservatory. An accomplished soloist, Rider won New York's Concert Artists' Guild Award and an Aaron Copland Fund Grant.

Lois Shapiro, Piano -- Shapiro's commitment to teaching reaches beyond her piano and chamber music teaching positions at Wellesley College. This academic year, Shapiro is also a Visiting Artist-in-Residence at the University of California at Davis, a position which involves solo/chamber music performances, lecture/recitals, and masterclasses. In the Boston area, Shapiro teaches and performs at Brandeis University and at Longy School of Music. In addition to debuting new music, Shapiro also plays period instruments and has recorded a number of 18th century works. She is the recipient of New York's Concert Artists' Guild Award. She has recorded for Channel Classics, CRI, Centaur, MLAR, AFKA, and Pierrot.

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-compiled by Sue Chan '02

Patricia Adams, Physical Education and Recreation, performed with the dance troupe "Dances by Isadora" at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Oct. 7, as part of its midday performance series. Adams, who helped found "Dances by Isadora" in 1986, has performed throughout the United States, Russia and Finland.

Frank Bidart, English, was one of six renowned poets invited to read the poetry and prose of Elizabeth Bishop at the Blacksmith House in Cambridge, Nov. 4.

The Greenwich (Conn.) Antiques Society opened its 1999-2000 season Oct. 16 with a lecture by Eleanor DeLorme, Art, on the significance of Empress Josephine of France during the Directoire and Empire periods.

Translator, poet, and professor emeritus David Ferry, English, is one of five nominees selected for the poetry category of "The New Yorker Book Award" for his collection, "Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations." Winners will be announced Feb. 14. Ferry also recently gave a reading of his works at Griffin Hall in Williamstown, Mass.

Anne Kelly Knowles, Political Science, was invited to sign copies of her book, "Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigrants on Ohio's Industrial Frontier," at the 1999 Welsh Heritage Weekend celebrations held in October at Green Mountain College in Vermont. Knowles, who is fluent in Welsh, is working on a book about 19th-century iron workers in which she spotlights the role of Welsh workers in the transfer of new technology.

As part of President Clinton's "Initiative on Race," Peggy McIntosh, Wellesley Centers for Women, was invited to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in October during a two-day series of lectures and discussions aimed at increasing awareness about issues of diversity on the UW campus. McIntosh co-presented with Victor Lewis and Hugh Vasquez of the prizewinning documentary, "The Color of Fear."

Wellesley Words on Wheels, started by Jessica Minervino, Alumnae Association, was one of the local literacy programs honored at the Annual Autumn Teacher Appreciation Night at Borders Book Shop in Framingham on Nov. 29. Together with the Framingham Partners in Education, Words on Wheels trains volunteers for The Reading Buddy Program to work one-on-one with kindergartners who need additional help in learning to read. Nearly 80 Wellesley students are Reading Buddy volunteers.

The artwork of Adrian Piper, Philosophy, is currently on exhibit at the Fine Arts Gallery at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her work tackles a number of racial issues including those made evident in her two pieces: "Self-Portrait as a Nice White Lady," and "Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features." The exhibit runs through Jan. 15.

Wilbur Rich, Political Science, was selected President of the Northeastern Political Science Association for the 1999-2000 academic year at the association's annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Ross Wood, IS/Library, will play organ recitals at the National Cathedral in Washington on Jan. 9 and at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on Feb. 20. "Radiant Light," his fourth compact disc accompanying the choir of Trinity Church, Copley Square (where he serves as associate organist) was just released by Dorian Records. 

Faculty and staff: Please email your Colleagues in the News items to elawson@wellesley.edu or mail to: Public Information, 230 Green Hall. Questions, call x3321.Thank you. The Editors

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There are few a things members of the Wellesley community should do between now and December 31 to "patch" their office or lab computers to make them Y2K compliant, and to protect data, computer, and peripherals from any Y2K unpleasantries. The two most essential steps to take prior to the holiday break are:

1. Back up files

2. Power off computer, printer, and any other computing equipment.

Both Macintosh and Windows users will need to apply some "patches" to make the software on their computers Y2K compliant. The IS Department strongly recommends that faculty and staff do this before Dec. 31 to avoid the expected rush of people trying to download patches from Microsoft's web site.

Instructions for the Macintosh can be found on the CWIS at:
www.wellesley.edu/Computing/Y2Kfacstaff.html#Macintosh

Instructions for Windows 95/98:
www.wellesley.edu/Computing/Y2Kfacstaff.html#Windows

Information on how to check personally owned computers for Y2K problems can be found at:
www.wellesley.edu/Computing/DormNet/Y2K.html

Questions? Please post them on the Y2K Discussion conference on FirstClass.

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Bricks and Mortar By Pam Gentile Project Manager Green Hall   The Copy Center moved to its new home on the first floor just before Thanksgiving. Renovations in the basement began immediately thereafter for the new Resources Office space. Work will be complete in early January, with a tentative move-in date of Jan. 14. The remodeled space will include new air conditioning and state-of-the-art systems furniture and workstations.   Stone-Davis Hall The new dining room opened its doors for breakfast on Nov. 29. The facility boasts a whole new look and improved variety of food offerings, including a deli station, pizza station and a grille. An open house Dec. 3 gave faculty and staff an opportunity to view the renovations of the dormitory and the dining facility.

Editor-in-Chief: Mary Ann Hill, mhill@wellesley.edu
Managing Editor: Betsy Lawson, elawson@wellesley.edu
Editorial Staff: Eileen Devine

The Illuminator is the published monthly during the academic year by Wellesley College's Office for Public Information, a division of Resources and Public Affairs, 230 Green Hall, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481. Issues are published the first week of every month during the academic year, except for combined issues in September/October and January/February. Special Family Editions are also published.

Please submit editorial content to the above listed mailing address or e-mail: publicinfo@wellesley.edu

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