Old and new – Exec Board ’12-’13 and ’13-’14

On Tuesday May 8^th, the GSC held it’s annual elections for the Executive Board. Eight positions were open for election. They were: President, Vice President, Finance Chair, Student Life Chair, Academic Chair, Secretary and two Social Chairs. The Executive Board is responsible for the leadership of the GSC. Each member has their own portfolio and collectively they run action teams and organize social events. They also represent the GSC and Dartmouth, meeting the president of the College, the trustees, and grad leaders at other Ivy Schools.

While all graduate students are welcome to run in Executive Board elections, votes are cast by Departmental Representatives who have fulfilled both the attendance and volunteer requirements outlined in the GSC constitution: to vote, Departmental Representatives must attend all council meetings (two absences allowed) and volunteer at two GSC events.

The GSC’s role is to nurture and enhance a sense of graduate student community across Dartmouth’s graduate departments, schools, and programs. The GSC consists of elected Departmental Representatives from all Graduate Arts and Sciences programs, including TDI and Thayer, and non-voting representatives from the Tuck School of Business and the Geisel School of Medicine.

The winners of this year’s elections are:

President: Lisa Jackson

Vice President: Anne Xu
Finance Chair: Adrienne Perkins
Student Life Chair: Meg Menon
Academic Chair: Laurie Laker
Secretary: Drew Wong
Social Chairs: Haofeng Li and Erin O’Malley

For more information about the GSC, please visit the home page and don’t be afraid to reach out to your new Exec Board.

Elections for Departmental Representatives are held in the fall term.

The Exec Board in their own words:

Lisa Jackson, TDI, President: I feel so honored to have been elected President of the GSC for the upcoming school year! Building off the work initiated by this year’s GSC executive board and council as a whole, I hope that next year’s GSC will continue to foster communication and collaboration between the other grad student governments, between grad students and undergraduate students, and between grads and the college administration and broader Upper Valley community. By working together, we can continue to enhance the Dartmouth experience for everyone! Congratulations to my fellow executive board members elected on Tuesday as well; I can’t wait to work with you all.

Ani Xu, MALS, Vice President: For a long while, I’ve struggled with the concept of community at Dartmouth, or the lack thereof. Lately and thankfully, I’ve been proven dead wrong. I am absolutely overwhelmed by the strength of character of the students here. This community has given me so much and I sincerely hope that by serving as Vice President of the Graduate Student Council, I will have the opportunity to contribute back to the absolute best of my abilities. I am beyond excited to work with this excellent group of people in the coming year.

Adrienne Perkins, Biology, Finance Chair: I’m happy to have the opportunity to continue serving and working with the GSC as Finance Chair.

Drew Wong, Thayer, Secretary: I am excited to build on the framework established by the former GSC committees and to pave the way for the future councils.

Meg Menon, MALS: I look forward to working with the Graduate Student Council, as we support your interests and strive toward fostering our deep sense of community through tangible and sincere efforts. I promise to do my best in this position and  I encourage you to think of me as an advocate for your well-being and an agent for change that you would like to affect. Thank you.

Laurie Laker, MALS, Academic Chair: I’m honored and excited to have been elected to the GSC Executive Board. We’re all here at Dartmouth to better ourselves academically, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to serve our graduate student community towards that betterment. As a current MALS rep on the GSC, I’m excited to take the reigns of Academic Chair from Rich Lopez – who has done a tremendous job this past year. I can’t wait to get started.

Haofeng Li, Social Chair: Excited about this great opportunity! Hopefully our efforts will make this coming year awesome:)

Erin O’Malley, Social Chair: I am very excited to have been elected as the GSC Social Chair for 2013.  I look forward to being able to bring many diverse groups together and provide the very important social interactions that can all too often get missed in our hectic lives as graduate students.  Also, I look at this as an opportunity to use leadership skills to plan events that everyone can enjoy and to make this another successful year.

Like the rest of the world, Matthew Sturdevant, MALS ’08, was shocked and horrified when he first learned of the mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., on December 14, 2012. But then he had to go to work and cover the unfolding tragedy for the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest daily newspaper.

A Courant staff writer since 2009 and a reporter for nearly 15 years, Sturdevant says, “Nothing could have prepared me for the mass murder of children. Many people feel the pain is still very raw. It’s harrowing and haunting, and yet it’s also uplifting to have seen a global outpouring of kindness in response to the tragedy.”

On April 15, Sturdevant was one of a team of Courant staffers recognized by the Pulitzer Prize committee. Runners-up to the Denver Post in the category of breaking news reporting, the Hartford Courant staff was cited “for its complete and sensitive coverage of the shooting massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and 6 adults, using digital tools as well as traditional reporting to tell the story quickly while portraying the stunned community’s grief.”

Sturdevant credits the Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) faculty with helping him “expand my writing abilities,” and thus enabling him to convey such difficult news in an insightful way. He cites Professors Thomas Powers (a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist), Barbara S. Kreiger, and Sydney Lea as “hugely influential,” and says he chose a MALS nonfiction creative writing concentration over a journalism master’s program because he “wanted to broaden my learning and steep in the two years of a liberal arts education that Dartmouth provides.”

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Sturdevant

The mountains outside of Petit Drouin.

Back in October of 2012, Ron Bucca, a Dartmouth Graduate student and Army veteran, traveled to Haiti with a desire to listen and learn. A month later, Bucca came back with a simple conclusion about international aid efforts in the tiny country.

“We just need to listen. So many good resources go to waste because plans are made too far from the communities they’re intended to help.”

It might seem simplistic, but for a country facing so many challenges, simplicity can be a boon. Haiti has received an incredible amount of international aid money – over three billion dollars have poured in since the earthquake in 2010  – and yet it remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  For opponents of international relief, these statistics act as validation for pessimistic ideas like “over-dependence.” For Bucca, they suggest something else.

“It seems like the mainstream model for aid is really top-down. Theories are hatched in major institutions, researched in far-away med schools and labs, and polished in high-level meetings. Then they’re packaged for export to a place that doesn’t remotely resemble the places they were born in. Without input or feedback from the population that will use the items, things such as maintenance, practicality, or cultural nuances are ignored and make the aid ineffective.”

So, Bucca used $1,000 in personal and research funding to travel to the island nation this fall with a simple question.

“I just wanted to ask – ‘What do you need help with?’ and ‘How can we help?’”

Bucca worked with the Children’s Nutrition Program (CNP), a small non-profit based in Léogâne. Much of CNP’s staff is Haitian, and the group is committed to finding solutions with a “from Haitians, for Haitians” model.  CNP helped Bucca find a translator and locate two rural villages – areas that have been particularly passed over by relief efforts – where he might be able to find answers for his questions.

A villager in Petit Drouin poses with the cell phone amplifier.

Bucca and his translator hiked into the mountains to Petit Drouin and Guiran. For most of the population in theses villages, Bucca was the first foreigner, or “blan,” they’d ever met. He gathered demographic information and tried to assess local feelings on relief efforts. He wanted to create a picture of the Haitian perception of international relief, so as to alert would-be change agents to some cultural obstacles they might face. He also wanted to see how rural Haitians were interacting with the modern world.

“I was amazed. This far out, almost 85% percent of families owned or had direct access to a cellphone. But they had to walk hours to get any service.”

So, Bucca purchased and installed a portable cell phone amplifier in the village, at the home of the monitrice – a community health worker. As a result, the villagers will have increased access to medical information, and can get immediate answers to their medical questions. In addition, the reduction in travel time for the monitrice, will allow her to administer preventive medicine and monitor additional patients.  For a remote village hours away from the nearest hospital, this kind of instantaneous access may make a major difference in overall health and wellbeing.

After completing work in the first two villages, Bucca left the mountains and headed to Petit Harpon, a slightly less remote village closer to the center of Léogâne. Again, Bucca sat with villagers to see what they thought would help them break out of cyclical poverty and limited opportunity. He realized they had access to the Internet, but lacked the hardware or computer skills to utilize it.

“They recognized that they didn’t have the chance to learn any modern skills. They felt left out – the children would be stuck subsistence farming, because they lacked these skills and the resources required to obtain them.”

So, Bucca found a computer teacher who could commute to the village school to teach the young people in Petit Harpon the computer skills that could get them a higher-paying job in the city. Computer fluency, Bucca notes, also carries with it a compounding potentiality. Social media sites may well allow a previously voiceless population to speak up and be heard – and to interact with relief agents and communicate their needs without an intermediary.

“A lot of people have reservations about relief. They don’t trust their government and they are wary of outsiders. Letting them in on the conversation might be a good way to change that.”

Bucca presents a poster at “Haiti and Dartmouth at the Crossroads” symposium.

Now Bucca is back in Hanover, advocating for an aid model that pays close attention to the needs and wants of the effected populations. He presented his work at a poster session organized for the “Haiti and Dartmouth at the Crossroads” symposium last week.

The computer teacher is still traveling to Petit Harpon twice a week, instructing students in how to use Microsoft Office, how to conduct research on the Internet, and how to make use of various social media tools. Bucca is soliciting donations of computing equipment – computers, printers, batteries, software (especially copies of Microsoft Office), and webcams – from any person or department who might have equipment that’s no longer in use. Bucca can be reached through his Dartmouth email address – Ronald.L.Bucca.GR@dartmouth.edu.

“Every little bit helps,” he reminds us. “And it’s nice that we’re rendering a service that was asked for. This is what the people in Petit Harpon think will help them. I think that’s a good place to start.”

by Zach Williams 

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

Maggie Baber-M.S., Earth Sciences

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting is the world’s largest earth sciences meeting and provides many opportunities for academic and professional engagement. This year AGU had 22,167 attendees from 94 countries, 12,000 posters, 6000 oral presentations. While at AGU, I presented, for the first time, the results of my Masters thesis research at Dartmouth at the conference’s cryosphere poster session. I had the opportunity to ask questions and receive feedback from experienced scientists in my field, a unique opportunity as I begin editing my thesis, which is due in February. Additionally, I was able to attend several networking meetings to meet with potential employers of industry, government agencies, and national labs.

Matthew Bigl-M.S., Earth Sciences

I started my AGU experience early Monday morning as I was scheduled to present my research at 8:00.Once I got my poster up and was able to peruse the other offerings within the gigantic poster hall before returning to my poster to field questions and discussion from those who stopped by. Following my presentation I spent the next three and a half days listening to talks ranging from citizen science to climate literacy as well as many great geomorphic and climate change related topics that intertwined with my own research. My project is based around a sedimentary feature known as varves which in my case are located in the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire and formed in a glacial environment recording summer and winter in one couplet. I had the opportunity to listen to another researcher’s varve project that was based out of Ghana and recorded precipitation and therefore could be used to track drought in the local region.

“The AGLSP Prize is intended to recognize extraordinary commitment to mentoring and advising,” says MALS Chair Donald E. Pease, Jr. “From the time I recruited him to teach in the MALS Program in 1999, Klaus Milich has proven himself an exemplary scholar and teacher.” Dr. Milich teaches multiple courses for the MALS program— “Research Methods”, a course designed to help students understand and execute theoretical social science; “Diasporas and Migrations,” which focused on concept and theories related to mass-migration and diasporas across the globe; “Religion and Politics,” and “Theories of Postmodernism.” Dr. Milich also teaches courses in the Jewish Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies programs.

During his acceptance address at the AGLSP Conference, Dr. Milich spoke to the place of theory in graduate liberal studies. “It is of great importance to focus on the theorization of our topics,” said Dr. Milich, who’s own research is focused on analyzing and approaching the classic divide between the humanities and the sciences. “Our students come back from jobs to spend time reflecting. They’ve decided to take time to merge theory and their experiences. This is what graduate liberal studies can offer them.”

The AGLSP’s Faculty Award, however, recognizes more than in-class teaching ability. Indeed, it is Dr. Milich’s approach to advising his graduate students that has set him apart.

“In their annual evaluations, Klaus’s MALS students have praised Klaus for the patience he displays in guiding them through every stage of their thesis projects—from initial formulation to culminating revision,” Pease says. “His students have attested in particular to Professor Milich’s willingness to work late into the evening and over long week-ends to help them to meet deadlines and get over writing blocs. No one is more deserving of this national recognition for exemplary dedication to teaching and advising than Klaus Milich.”

“In graduate studies especially,” Dr. Milich tells us, “the student-instructor relationship ceases to be a hierarchical one. Instead, there must be a mutual interdependence between teacher and researcher. I consider my students to be young research scholars, who embark with me on new projects. They chart their course – I help them as I can.”

“Last year, Klaus was the first reader of my masters thesis,” says MALS grad and former Graduate Student Council President Wes Whitaker. “During the fall and winter terms, I met with Klaus and the other two students in colloquium—Ellen Anderson and Thomas Frohlich—on a weekly basis. At these meetings, portions of Ellen, Thomas and my theses were workshopped by Professor Milich. The feedback provided by Klaus and the other members of my colloquium not only strengthened the final draft of my thesis, but also greatly improved my academic writing.”

During his early years as a student, Dr. Milich studied economics, American Literary and Cultural Studies, German and English Literature. In the first stages of his career, Dr. Milich worked as a management consultant, and then went on to work for German public radio, and various international newspapers, for which he wrote and broadcasted essays, documentaries, interviews, and book reviews on literary, cultural, and social issues. Before coming to Dartmouth, Dr. Milich taught at the University of Frankfurt and Humboldt University Berlin. He has held visiting professorships and visiting scholar positions at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Keele University in Great Britain, and at the David Bruce Center for American Studies at University of California Irvine.

Up in Portland, MALS Director Wole Ojurongbe, himself a MALS graduate, read letter after letter from MALS students, who echoed these sentiments. “Before I met and worked with Dr. Milich, I would have described my life as largely content, settled, and unperturbed,” said 2011 graduate Mary Fratini, “but in my good fortune to meet someone who is equally passionate about his own consistently evolving research and committed to mentoring a new generation of thinkers and scholars, my life has become largely unsettled, consistently perturbed and, ultimately, infinitely more satisfying.”

Indeed, it was Dr. Milich’s commitment to his students, and his very real appreciation for academic research that showed through in Ojurongbe’s remarks and in our interview with him. “Our research,” he told us, “always means an exploration of what we have yet to know. It’s a work in progress. An instructor works with a student, so that both can learn the dual process of learning facts on the one hand, and learning how to continue learning on the other.”

Article and photo by Zach Williams 

From left to right: TDI’s Greg Kotzbauer, Project Manager, Health Policy & ACO; Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP; TDI’s Jessica Johnson, M.Ed; and Holly Russo, TDI MS’96

For the past few months, faculty and staff from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice (TDI) have been kindling a relationship with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine. The collaboration reflects an effort to pursue mutual learning experiences. Capitalizing on a special TDI alumni connection, Alumni Relations Manager Jessica Johnson facilitated a learning exchange that may benefit both organizations, and should have positive ramifications on the larger communities of associated with each program.

In early October, and again in early November, TDI faculty and staff traveled to El Paso, Texas, the site of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the Paul S. Foster School of Medicine. Participating in conferences, panel discussions, and small meetings with faculty and staff from the medical school there, the group brought the collective knowledge of TDI to bear on the particular difficulties confronting the border region.

“We used a unique alumni connection to get involved down there,” Johnson said. “That connection created a new channel to a place that could use TDI’s help. The area around El Paso is confronting some major issues, but a lot of these are population health and access problems – that’s something TDI excels at.”   Noting that the region shows high rates of diabetes and obesity, Johnson pointed to a large population of uninsured Americans and the growth of Fort Bliss, a major U.S. Army base, as key hurdles that both sets of faculty have been focusing on.

Back in October, TDI participated in the first annual Mano y Corazón (Hand & Heart) Binational Conference of Multicultural Health Care Solutions.  The highlight of the conference was a Special Roundtable Session held by State Senator José R. Rodriguez, that focused on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on border health. The keynote speaker at the conference was Dr. Donald Berwick, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. TDI has a special relationship with the Affordable Care Act – the Institute introduced the idea of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) – which placed TDI faculty in a unique position to offer insight to their colleagues in Texas.

ACOs have become a major issue in modern medical practice. Forbes Magazine recently published an article, detailing the results of an Oliver Wyman report, which claims that the ACO model is now a reality for up to ten percent of the U.S. population. This means that between 25 and 31 million patients each year are receiving care from health care providers who have been rewarded for their efforts to improve care quality and reign in costs.

“TDI’s contribution of ACOs to the Affordable Care Act legislation yet another way TDI has put itself on the map as a leader.” Johnson said. “By way of sharing knowledge with more educational and medical organizations in various regions, we can market TDI and Dartmouth, while simultaneously creating an exchange with these regions that will help them prepare for policies that will be affecting them. This allows them to be leaders themselves.”

A month later, during the first week of November, TDI faculty returned to El Paso for the Border Healthcare Dialogue, a conference that allowed for multiple collaborative learning sessions with faculty from the Foster School of Medicine.

“The two schools deal with equally diverse, if very different populations,” Johnson noted. “This collaboration afforded us an opportunity to expand our thinking here at Dartmouth, and allowed us to pass on some of the conclusions we’ve drawn from the work we’re doing with ACO implementation.

TDI staff and faculty were afforded an opportunity to meet with faculty and students from the Foster School, to discuss the benefits of a new curriculum model that pairs classroom learning with clinical work. “The Foster School is a new medical school,” Johnson continued, “but they’re experimenting with a truly integrated curriculum that’s showing some really positive results.” The Foster School is also teaching all of its students medical Spanish, in an effort to provide better care for the border region’s bilingual population, in addition to a summer regional public health immersion class prior to beginning the program.

The Dartmouth Institute’s systemic approaches to public health, and its close relationship with the Affordable Care Act, continue to be valuable assets as the school’s influence and prestige grows. For alumni affairs professionals like Johnson, these are valuable tools in the pursuit of diverse opportunities for TDI’s faculty, students, and alumni, and for marketing the TDI value chain.

Six Dartmouth faculty members have been selected as 2012 fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal Science. Professors Christopher Amos, Michael Dietrich, Carolyn Gordon, Todd Heatherton, Mark Israel, and Ronald Taylor are among the 702 new fellows recognized by AAAS this year for their distinguished efforts to advance science.

“Dartmouth professors conduct outstanding research in the sciences, and it is wonderful to see their accomplishments honored by their selection as AAAS fellows,” says President Carol L. Folt, who was named an AAAS fellow in 2010.  “Our faculty’s discoveries are helping to define their fields and Dartmouth’s growing impact is evidenced by the increase in AAAS fellows for the fourth consecutive year.”

“Dartmouth is honored to have six professors chosen as fellows by the AAAS, one of the most renowned and influential science organizations,” says Interim Provost Martin Wybourne.

Dartmouth now has a total of 33 professors who are current AAAS fellows (see a complete list below). This year, three of the new fellows are from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

“The AAAS recognition of these outstanding faculty members and their important scientific achievements is indicative of the significant research activity taking place at the medical school,” says Wiley “Chip” Souba, dean of the Geisel School of Medicine. “They embody the Dartmouth ideals of improving lives through leadership, intellectual curiosity, and collaboration.”

Continue reading here…

Professor Pease, who chairs the Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth, has been awarded his field’s highest honor. The following is an exerpt from an article posted by the Dartmouth Now – please follow the link below to read the rest of the article. 

The legendary Donald E. Pease, one of Dartmouth’s best-known professors, has been awarded the 2012 Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies.

Pease is the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities and chair of the Dartmouth Liberal Studies Program. The English professor is also the biographer of one of Dartmouth’s most famous alumni, Theodore Seuss Geisel, known to millions as Dr. Seuss.

The Bode-Pearson Prize, awarded annually by the American Studies Association, is one of the oldest and most prestigious awards in the field. Pease will receive the prize at the ASA’s annual meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on November 16.

“In the important field of American Studies, many honors for scholarship and teaching are bestowed every year—but none compares with the Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize,” says Dean of the Faculty Michael Mastanduno.

“This distinction is reserved for singular individuals whose careers truly reflect a lifetime of achievement and service to the American Studies field,” says Mastanduno. “Don Pease is just such a scholar-teacher. I cannot imagine a more worthy recipient than Don, and on behalf of the entire Arts & Sciences faculty, we take great pride in his recognition.”

To read the rest of the article, please visit the Dartmouth Now. 

As the term winds to a close, and winter begins to set in, I wanted to take a minute to address the graduate community. I’ve been settling in to my new position here at Graduate Studies, and I’m enjoying all of the opportunities to interact with and on behalf of our students and programs. To see the work that our students are doing, across the wide spectrum that is Graduate Arts and Sciences, is nothing but inspiring.

Here in the Graduate Office, we are working hard to develop new ways to support and strengthen our community. As the Dartmouth faculty expands, and the Geisel School follows suit, we know that there will be more opportunities for graduate students on campus. More faculty will create opportunities for new graduate research, and we will find ways to leverage those opportunities to improve our support networks for research and funding. We are also working to create a graduate student space on campus, to help attach the wonderful sense of community we have built to a physical location we can call our own. I am excited about the future of Graduate Studies, and our students should be as well.

On a personal note, I encourage everyone to get outside and enjoy the winter here in Hanover. As an undergraduate, I was a member of the Dartmouth Outing Club. We used to snowshoe up Gile Mountain, downhill and cross-country ski at the college facilities, and ice skate out on Occom Pond. Dartmouth provides lots of opportunities to take advantage of the endless recreational activities in the Hanover area. And though it might be cold, Hanover tends to be pretty sunny all winter long. So grab a good jacket and enjoy the sun and the snow!

We hope you can join us next week for Cupcake Wars – I’m looking forward to judging the event. For more information, and to stay up to date on all the goings-on at Graduate Studies, please visit the Graduate Studies website and connect with us through our Facebook page.

I hope you all enjoy the remainder of fall term, and have a wonderful holiday season!

Sincerely,

F. Jon Kull, Dean of Graduate Studies