Working in Green Hall this summer should be no sweat thanks to the state-of-the-art air conditioning system slated to be online by July 1, said Pam Gentile, project manager for the building's renovation work that includes Galen Stone Tower. In her 10 years with Wellesley's Physical Plant Adminstration, Gentile has overseen scores of renovations but said this project has - by far - been the toughest for her and her team. "It's quite a challenge to install a modern system in a building constructed in 1931."
Other colleges and institutions built around the same period opted years ago to install window box air conditioners. While the interior climate is more comfortable, the units significantly change the look of the exterior. "The consensus at Wellesley has always been to preserve the architectural integrity of the original design," Gentile said. And this has meant no air conditioning for Green Hall. Until now. A German company named Hansa Neumann has invented a new type of air conditioning system that uses internal piping that cannot be seen from the outside. Under the technical guidance of Adel Rida, assistant vice president and director of the physical plant, Wellesley will be the first institution in the United States to install this technology.
The new system has already been piloted in the Financial Aid Office and in parts of Simpson with great results, Gentile said. Each work space gets equipped with its own climate control that allows the employee, or employees, in that space to regulate the temperature, rather than having one temperature for the entire building. Another advantage is that fresh air from the outside is drawn into the system, not only keeping the internal air fresh, but also serving to dehumidify the air in the summer and to humidify during the winter.
"When the project is finished, Green Hall will be much more comfortable year-round," Gentile said. 'When finished,' however, may seem like a long time away for employees affected by the construction.
"This is the first time we've had to work on a building while it's still occupied," Gentile said. Unlike dorms that can be vacated during the summer, work goes on in Green Hall year-round. "There's never a convenient time to have construction crews in peoples' offices, and we apologize for the disruption," Gentile said.
Crews are
working nights installing the system from office to office as fast as
possible. While crews are in offices, however, employees need to
clear or cover up all work surfaces each evening to guard against
damage and dust.
Schedules of individual office work dates have been mailed to each department. In addition, there is a master schedule posted near the Bursar's Office. The chart is updated frequently and outlines each stage of the process, including work on Galen Stone Tower.
Since its construction in 1931, only routine maintenance has been done to the Tower, Gentile said, mostly because remortaring bricks and other restoration work creates a lot of dust and noise. "Without air conditioning, office windows in Green Hall had to be open during the summer. It simply would have been too unpleasant for those inside Green Hall to have had the work done on the Tower prior to air conditioning being in place."
Bioethicist
spoke March 8Patricia King, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Medicine, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center, and former Head of House at Wellesley, spoke on campus March 8. Her talk "The 'Good Mother': Race, Class, Reproduction and HIV/AIDS," was sponsored by the Henry R. Luce Professorship in Biology, Ethics and the Politics of Human Reproduction.
A former member of the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Board Member of the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Board Member of the Hospice Foundation, Professor King combines commitments to families and social justice in her work on bioethics.
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Marjorie Agosin, Spanish, was interviewed March 3 by National Public Radio's live broadcast program, "Which Way L.A.," about the recent controversy regarding Rigoberta Menchu's memoir. Lilian Armstrong, Art, has received a Fellowship for College Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her work, "Renaissance Images of Ancient Heroes: Illustrations for Petrarch's Lives of Famous Men." Adrienne Asch, Henry R. Luce Professor of Biology, Ethics, and the Politics of Human Reproduction, traveled to Australia this past summer to address an international conference focused on the status of women in higher education. Her topic was "Women, Disability, and Higher Education: How Disability Complicates Gender in and out of the Academy." The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation awarded Jerold Auerbach, History, a grant for his work titled "Between American Home and Jewish Homeland: Defining Modern Jewish Identity." David Gilbert, Music Librarian, has published Hector Berlioz's Prix de Rome Works. Volume 6 of the New Berlioz Edition, the book includes the first printed edition of Berlioz's La Mort d'Orphee which received its American premier last year by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Jonathan Imber, Sociology, has received a Fellowship for College Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his work, "Close Calls: Essays on Vocation." Kristin Kaulbach '94, a student at Harvard Divinity School, is working as an intern in the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. She will be leading a Wednesday evening program for women in the Wellesley community called "Exploring Spirituality in Community." |
Mary Lefkowitz, Classical Studies, recently appeared on WGBH public television's program, "Greater Boston," speaking about the classical rhetoric style used during the impeachment trial. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times asked her to write an editorial on the same topic. (For a copy of the editorial, call the Office for Public Information at x2373.) Marianne Moore, Biological Sciences, has received a grant from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Ecosystems Center, for her work on "Urban Aquatic Ecology: Research and Public Science Education." The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given a grant to Kaye Peterman, Biological Sciences, for her work on "Isolation of F-Actin Binding Proteins from Plants." The Rev. Karin Tanenholtz has joined the College as Unitarian Universalist Chaplain. Joy Renjilian Burgy, Spanish, was appointed vice president and future president for the Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, the largest organization in the country that represents the profession. Ann Velenchik, Economics, has been elected to a three-year term on the President's Advisory Council. Deborah Weaver, Physical Education, has received the Cambridge Police Department's "Girls' LEAP" (Lifetime Empowerment and Awareness Program) award. Paul Wink, Psychology, received a grant from the Henry A. Murray Research Center, Radcliffe College, for his work on "Successful Adaptation to Old Age: Findings from the Intergenerational Study." - Compiled by Sasha Pfau '99 Editors' Note: Please let the Office for Public
Information know about the accomplishments of your peers
(both faculty and staff) for inclusion in "Colleagues in the
News."
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Virginia Fiske, Ellen A. Kendall Professor of Biological Sciences Emerita, died last month at the age of 87. Professor Fiske, whose research interest was endocrinology, joined the Wellesley faculty in 1944. She served as Dean of the Class of 1953 and as Chair of the Biology Department. After her retirement in 1976, she remained active in Science Center and Biology Department functions here at the College.
Katherine Lever, professor of English at Wellesley for 39 years, also passed away in February, just before her 83rd birthday. A Milton scholar who was known for her sense of humor, she served as Chair of the English Department and Dean of the Class of 1950. She retired from Wellesley in 1981 and later moved to Brattleboro, Vt., where she continued to teach at a nearby community college.
The Wellesley community extends it condolences to Shirley Quinn, who works as a study skills consultant in the Learning and Teaching Center. Her husband Patrick died February 23 at the age of 80. Patrick Quinn was professor of English Emeritus. A man of few words and a dry wit, Professor Quinn taught at Wellesley College for nearly 40 years until his retirement in 1985. A scholar of American literature with a passion for the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Professor Quinn could often be found in the Clapp Library during his retirement years, still hard at work.
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at Wellesley College presented by Will Reed & Rene Stewart Poku |
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Friday, March 12Noon - 1 p.m.Faculty Common Room3rd Floor, Green Hall
No registration required. Bring a bag lunch. HR will provide beverages and dessert. |
Rene Stewart Poku |
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The fourth in a series of free financial education workshops for the 1998/99 academic year, designed by TIAA-CREF and sponsored by Human Resources, will be held Monday, March 15. This session will outline the benefit payment options under the Wellesley College Retirement Plan for Faculty and Administrative Staff and will illustrate options available to employees.
The presentation will intertwine the tax implications associated with different payment methods and offer examples of practical applications. Employees and their family members are welcome to attend. No registration required.
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We, the Wellesley College Reaccreditation Steering Committee, wish to thank all of those in the campus community who participated in the lengthy reaccreditation process that culminated in a truly successful three-day site visit Feb. 21-24.
Copies of the Wellesley College Self-Study for Reaccreditation report, submitted to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges' Commission on Institutions of Higher Education in December, are still available through the Office of the Dean of the College. When the visiting team's written report is received by the College, copies will be made available. Excerpts will also be published in the Illuminator.
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Joanne Berger-Sweeney Farrah Berse '99 David Blinder, Vice President Mijha Lanora Butcher '98 Patricia M. Byrne, Vice President for Planning Molly S. Campbell, Former Dean of Students Jennifer Chau '99 Gerdes Fleurant, Director Micheline E. Jedrey, Vice President William A. Joseph |
Nancy H. Kolodny*, Dean of the College Ruth Emanuel Maffa, Associate Director Timothy W. Peltason Rene Stewart Poku, Associate Vice President William S. Reed, Vice President Andrew Shennan* Diana Chapman Walsh, President Geneva M. Walker-Johnson Nancy F. Weinstein* *Co-chair |
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Congratulations to Human Resources Web Site Contest winners: Joan Melanson, Administration and Community Affairs; Carol LeBlanc, Student Aid Society; Dale Katzif, Information Services; and Dorothy Koulalis, Controllers Office. Each winner receives a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant.
The four entry questions and answers were:
Q: What four staff members are profiled on the website?
A: Anabel
Perez-Crescenzi, Alumnae Office
Anne Manning, Information Services
Thanh Quan, Custodial Services
Patrick Willoughby, Physical Plant Administration
Q: From whom do you request mortgage or employment verification forms?
A: Mary G. Hackett, Human Resources
Q: What is the email address used to apply for a position at Wellesley?
A: employment@wellesley.edu
Q: What is the building displayed on the What's New page?
A: Science Center and/or Green Hall
Many thanks to all who viewed the new web site and entered the contest. Please visit www.wellesley.edu/HR/ often and email your comments to Human Resources.
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Thomas
P. Hodge, Russian, has been promoted to associate professor
with tenure. He received his B.A. in English Literature from Pomona
College; his M.A. in Russian Language and Literature from Magdalen
College, Oxford University; and his A.M. and Ph.D. in Slavic
Languages and Literatures from Stanford University. His specialty is
Russian literature and culture of the nineteenth century.
Professor Hodge's dissertation combined his interests in poetry and music in its focus on the body of Russian poetry set to music by the major Russian composers from 1800 to 1850. A revised version of his dissertation, A Double Garland: Poetry and Art-Song in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia, will be published later this year by the Northwestern University Press.
Professor Hodge's first book, published by Northwestern in 1997, was an annoted, introduced translation of Sergei Aksakov's Notes on Fishing &emdash; Russia's classic fishing treatise. Aksakov's book first appeared in 1847, and since then has held the same status in Russian literature as Izaak Walton's The Compeat Angler has in English literature.
He is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University and has lectured extensively in the United States as well as in Moscow.
Professor Hodge's teaching at Wellesley includes courses on Russian language, literature and film. His language courses include work with multimedia software that he co-authored with Susan Hafer, Information Services Advanced Technology, that allows students to learn the language through listening to and studying Russian classical songs. He has taught literature courses including the English-language survey courses on nineteenth-century and twentieth-century Russian works. In addition he created and taught courses on Dostoevskii, Pushkin and Tolstoi, all in Russian. Two other thematically organized courses include both English- and Russian-language sections: "Russian's 'Golden Age'" and politically Correct: Ideology and the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel."
Kyle
D. Kauffman, Economics, has been promoted to the rank of
associate professor with tenure. Professor Kauffman earned his B.A.,
M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A
recipient of numerous awards for his teaching and research, including
the Apgar Award for Teaching Excellence at Wellesley in 1998, he is
an internationally recognized authority on agricultural tenancy
issues in North America, Europe and Africa. He is well known for his
analysis of the agricultural labor market in the southern United
States.
Most recently he has been researching the historical differences in wages for black and white agricultural laborers and its implications for modern labor markets. His areas of expertise also include nineteenth century poor relief efforts in New York City, indentured servitude, and the current decline in nationwide numbers of economics majors.
Professor Kauffman spent the 1997/98 academic year as a visiting lecturer in economic history at the London School of Economics. In addition, he was just named as a research fellow at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Studies at Harvard University. He has lectured in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, and Hong Kong.
At Wellesley, he has been involved in the new interdisciplinary statistics course that he taught with Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of the College Lee Cuba in 1996; Professor of Political Science Christina Fastnow in 1997; and Professor of Economics Corri Taylor in 1998. He also teaches many of the introductory courses at the 100-level as well as two courses in his field of research: United States Economic History (cross-listed in the American Studies and History departments) and a seminar in New Institutional Economic History.
Jay
Panetta, Music, has been promoted to associate professor with
tenure. He received his A.B. in English Literature from Harvard
University; M.A. in Musicology from Smith College; and an A.M. and
Ph.D. in Musicology from Harvard University. His areas of expertise
include sixteenth- and seventeenth-century instrumental music and
jazz studies. While these interests may seem incongruent, Panetta
studies how improvisation plays a crucial role in both repertoires.
Professor Panetta's instrumental work has focused on keyboard repertoires of France, Italy, Germany, and Holland, and he has been involved in research sources and repertory relating to the Fisk meantone organ housed in the Houghton Memorial Chapel on campus. His work on jazz has included locating evidence for improvisational music-making by African-American ensembles in New Orleans as early as 1890 and the reception of jazz in Europe in the early twentieth century.
While on leave 1997/98, Professor Panetta collected primary source readings for his work in progress titled The Norton Anthology of Readings in the History of Jazz. He has worked as a consultant for the WGBH television documentary "Subversive Sounds: Attacks on Jazz," part of the series "Challenging Art." He is currently examining the degree to which the dynamics of the Black church have served as an essential underpinning of African-American music.
Professor Panetta's teaching at Wellesley involves working closely with music majors. In his introductory courses, he attempts to broaden the reach of the department to non-majors so they, too, can learn to make substantial judgments about works of music. He hopes to develop additional courses that appeal to non-majors, including: a survey of American popular musics of the later nineteenth century, American popular song tradition, a consideration of three of Mozart's operas, and an exploration of the emergence of the symphony.
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by Pel-Hsin (Michelle) Tsai '00
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Moroccan women cross the entryway for the Hassan the Second Mosque in Casablanca. The Wintersession trip coincided with Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. |
Children play in a street in the medina of Rabat. The street includes a shallow canal in the middle in case of flooding, and walls are painted white to keep occupants cool.
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While many relaxed at home with friends and family during the winter break, a group of 14 Wellesley students and one faculty member traveled to Morocco, learning the country's culture and history and even riding camels in the dunes of the Sahara. As part of Wellesley's pilot Wintersession in Morocco program, students attended lectures at the Center for Cross-Cultural Learning in Rabat, Morocco, and spent a week traveling in the interior regions of the country, including rural Morocco and the Sahara Desert. In addition to classes on Islam, Morocco's history and politics, and gender and language, students also participated in experiential sessions that "give you a glimpse of a society from the perspective of a Moroccan," explained History Professor Lidwien Kapteijns, the accompanying faculty member. There were sessions on the veil, Arabic calligraphy, the msid (Koran school for Moroccan children), cooking, music, and even henna sessions during which professional hannaanas painted designs on students' hands. Rachel Mann '01, who is planning an individual major in Middle Eastern studies, says that the program has given her a practical, applicable view of what she studies in her Middle Eastern classes. "Now when I'm learning about how women are choosing to wear the veil or not, it hits me that we actually saw it in practice in Morocco, and that I'm getting more than what my textbooks or my professors are telling me," she says. Alicen Burns '99, first became interested in Islamic culture when she spent a semester at Cordoba, Spain. This trip further helped her rethink how the West perceives Moroccan culture. "I thought a lot of women would be veiled," Burns said. Instead, there were women dressed in full veils, partial veils, just head coverings, and even some in short mini skirts. "I realized that the views that I had were Western views." The idea for a Wintersession in Morocco program stemmed from a faculty development trip last spring as part of an effort to unite Middle Eastern, Jewish, African, and Spanish studies. Working with a receptive administration led by Associate Dean of the College Jens Kruse and his global education agenda, three professors worked together to launch the pilot program: Kapteijns, Frances Malino, Jewish Studies, and Wilfred Rollman, a visiting associate professor in the History department. The three hope to pilot the program for two to three years and then make it a regular offering in the new Middle East Studies program. |
Alicen Burns '99 at a monument in Salé, Morocco.
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The exterior of the Hassan the Second Mosque in Casablanca, shown here with entryway and minaret (tower). Housing the tallest minaret in the world, the mosque is used daily for calls to prayer.
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A street in the medina (old city) of Casablanca;medinas are the oldest parts of Moroccan cities, regions that had developed without foreign influence.
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While in Salé, Alicen Burns visits madrasa--a Koranic theological school. Now closed, the 14th century madrasa was once a school where students memorized the Koran. |
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Congratulations to the Wellesley College basketball team that advanced to the ECAC Women's Division Three Semi-Finals at Western Connecticut State University, March 6-7. Wellesley, the #6 seed, lost 57-42 to the #2 seed Western Connecticut Colonials who went on to win the title.
Wellesley finished its season with a 16-8 record. Head Coach Kathy Hagerstrom was named NEWMAC Coach of the Year and Amy Barao '01 was named to the 1999 NEWMAC All-Conference Team.
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Wellesley College Lecturer of Italian Flavia Laviosa has been awarded the 1998 Gold Medal from the Federation of Abruzzi Associations in the United States (FAA/USA). Laviosa is the first woman to receive the prestigious national award that is presented annually to an Italian who has excelled in the field of art, journalism, literature, or academic work within the Italian-American community.
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A member of Wellesley's faculty since 1992, Flavia Laviosa teaches and coordinates the Collge's Italian language courses including Wintersession and Summer School programs. |
Laviosa's research focuses on Second Language Listening with a psycholinguistic approach to the investigation of listening comprehension. Her training of foreign language teachers in Italy, Great Britain, Mexico, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of South Africa and elsewhere has earned her international recognition as a educator of teachers, supervisor, and curriculum consultant.
Starting this fall, Laviosa will be offering a new course, Introduction to Italian Cultural Studies, at Wellesley. Designed as an advanced conversation/composition course, students will have the opportunity to practice and develop their spoken and written skills while exploring key topics of Italian culture. A combination of readings, films, figurative art, fashion, design, and music will be used to introduce students to a variety of dialects and regional variations of standard Italian. In-class discussions will be central to the course.
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Helen Levitt, one of the most distinguished American photographers of the twentieth century, is best known for her unsentimental images of New York City. In 1941, she spent several months in Mexico City, photographing on the streets of the city's working class districts as well as in the popular Chapultepec Park.
The exhibition Mexico City 1941: Photographs by Helen Levitt has been organized by the Center for Creative Photography at The University of Arizona, and by guest curator James Oles, Assistant Professor of Art, Wellesley College. The exhibition will be on display at the Davis Museum from March 11 to June 6, 1999.
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Anne Knowles is the Wellesley College Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Geography. She is the author of Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigrants on Ohio's Industrial Frontier and many essays on immigration, ethnic identity, and the connections between labor and industrial development. This lecture addresses her particular interest in the power of visualization for understanding the patterns and processes of life in the past.
This lecture concludes the series sponsored by the College Committee on Lectures and Cultural Events. The series brought three distinguished scholars from some of the country's leading Geography departments to give public lectures and lead informal discussions with faculty and students.
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Meet Wallace. Meet his mother. Meet his grandmother. Meet his girlfriends. Meet his psychiatrist. Why does Wallace have so many women in his life? Women and Wallace by Jonathan Marc Sherman is showing March 11, 12, and 13 at 8 pm and March 13 and 14 at 2 pm in the Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre in Alumnae Hall. The play is directed by Lesley Halperin '99 and the cast includes (clockwise from left) Kate Connor '00, Erica Quigley '00, Kim Wilson '99, Holly Costar '00, Rachel Coker '02, Meghan Melville '01, Emily Coddington '02, Sasha Pfau '99, and Josh Pritchard. Tickets: $6 general admission; $3 senior citizens, students, and Wellesley personnel; free for Wellesley and MIT students with ID. Info/reservations: x2000.
Editor-in-Chief: Mary Ann Hill, mhill@wellesley.edu
Managing Editor: Elizabeth Lawson, elawson@wellesley.edu
Editorial Staff: Eileen Devine
Editorial Interns:
Sowon Jun '99
Vielcka Mansukhani '99
Sasha Pfau '99
Kerin Reardon '98
Pel-Hsin (Michelle) Tsai '00
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: elawson@wellesley.edu
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Elizabeth Lawson elawson@wellesley.edu
Sasha Pfau apfau@wellesley.edu
Office for Public Information
Date created: March 10, 1999
Last updated: March 11, 1999
Page expires: March 2000
