Grad News Forum

Students across Graduate Studies have a lot of things to look forward to this spring. The newest edition of the MALS Journal is one of them.

During the last week of classes, Katie Moritz and Jamaal Downey, MALS students and the editors of the Journal, will release their second, and final, journal of the academic year.

From left – Mortiz, Downey, Tiernan and Paige.

“It’s lots of long nights – lot’s of coffee cups on the floor of my car,” Moritz said, “but it’s worth it.”

The Journal has taken on a new life of late. For years, it had been published under the title the MALS Quarterly, and was a newsletter-style printing. Last year’s editor, Erin O’Flaherty, shrunk the publication’s size and demanded new rigor for its submissions. O’Flaherty helped give the Journal (still called the Quarterly at the time) a new sense of prestige.

“We want to be sure Erin gets a ton of credit,” Downey said. “She revolutionized the publication. We started from such a great place, and just tried to realize the final pieces of that vision.”

So Moritz and Downey made some final changes to complete the revitalization of the publication. First, they decided that the Journal should be issued twice a year, instead of once a quarter, to improve competition for space in its pages. And, with the help of MALS Director Wole O., they secured an ISSN number from the Library of Congress, taking the publication to a whole new level.

The result?

“We had over one hundred submissions this time around,” Moritz said. “We turned away so many amazing pieces. But we’re left with a great publication.”

That publication will feature eight poems, two short stories, four nonfiction pieces, one oral history piece, and four photographs, drawn from current MALS students and alumni of the program. The work is drawn from all of the tracks the MALS program offers – the general track and the Cultural Studies, Globalization Studies, and Creative Writing tracks (Moritz and Downey are on the general track).

“The program sometimes feels so abstract at times, because students are all over the place, and everyone has different interests,” Moritz said. “But there is a strain of commonality in all these pieces. I realized that everyone here is concerned with making something better. There’s a strong flavor of social justice in our community. It’s idealistic, but it’s wonderful.”

Downey agreed. “From the submissions we read, one thing is clear. MALS is a group of strong, independent thinkers. My role as editor helped me to see these common threads.”

“And,” he added, “my writing and editing skills improved dramatically.”

These are all things that the next editors – Henry Paige (MALS – General Track) and Erin Tiernan (MALS – Cultural Studies) – have to look forward to.

“We are extremely excited for the opportunity to build upon the great work continued by Katie and Jamaal,” Tiernan said. “As next year’s editors, we hope to increase the visibility of both the MALS Program and the Journal.”

For MALS students, the Journal will find its way into their office mailboxes. For anyone else interested in a copy, Moritz and Downey encourage stopping by the MALS office on the first floor of Wentworth to pick one up.

Ryan McManus ’15 (second from left), Ed von Kuhn ’14 (third from left), Orion House residential coordinator Justin Fromer (center, blue shirt), Rob Lauzen ’15, fourth from right, and William Guinee ’15 (right) visit with Orion House residents.

Ron Bucca and Desmond Webster, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies students, cited in Dartmouth Now for work with Orion House.

When Rob Lauzen ’15 volunteered to visit the Orion House, a residential treatment facility serving males ages 11 to 19, he had no idea how he could connect with the residents. But that changed quickly.

“After our first visit, it wasn’t like we were doing community service,” he says. “It’s a lot of fun. We are just going, hanging out with some great kids, and trying to do a little bit of good.”

It seems to be working.

Nearly every week since October, a group of Dartmouth football players and graduate student military veterans have made the 40-minute drive south to Orion House in Newport, N.H. Orion House takes in underprivileged adolescent males who suffer from substance abuse, have family problems, and/or are dealing with emotional and behavioral issues.

It all began when Ron Bucca, a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) student, heard about the not-for-profit from a friend. Shortly thereafter, Bucca, a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant, and other members of the Dartmouth Graduate Veterans Association traveled to the residential facility.

But after a few trips, Bucca thought Orion House residents might connect better with Dartmouth student-athletes: There would be less of an age gap between the residents, and the boys might have more in common with athletes, since nearly all the Orion House residents play sports. So Bucca approached classmate and football player Edward von Kuhn ’14 about volunteering at Orion House. Once football season ended, Von Kuhn and a crew of teammates joined the veterans on a trip to Orion House.

“When the football guys started coming,” Bucca says, “that’s when this really took off.”

For the full article go to the Dartmouth Now.

Photo by Eli Burakian

Everywhere researchers go, be it a conference, a job interview, or simply meeting a colleague in the hallway, people ask the obvious question: “So tell me about your work?” It goes without saying that the ability of researchers to describe their research in lay language efficiently is one of the most important skills to be acquired, regardless of the field of research.

On Monday, April 29, assistant dean of Graduate Student Affairs, Kerry Landers, initiated a speed researching event aimed at developing students’ communication skills. In this event, students were expected to explain their research to their smart, but not expert, colleagues in only two minutes!

“We have received feedback from faculty who attended the recent Graduate Poster Session and were impressed with many of our graduate students’ ability to explain their research to non-experts,” notes Landers. “The goal of this speed researching event was to provide another opportunity for graduate students to continue to improve this essential skill.”

At the event, a total of 10 students explained their research to each other in pairs over lunch, followed by a two-minute constructive comments session. Students came from programs in biology, chemistry, engineering, genetics, MALS, and physics and astronomy. A wide range of research topics were discussed, including black holes, prion diseases, and the causes of the Arab Spring. Each student had the opportunity to present his or her research five times, providing plenty of practice.

“This event was great! I now know what other students in genetics, engineering, and chemistry do,” commented Daniel Durcan, a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies student, who also serves as the graduate student activities coordinator. Durcan continued, “The clarity for the presentations was very impressive. I thought it was a great opportunity to practice explaining my research to students from other disciplines.”

The event was somewhat similar to the Three-Minute Research Presentation sessions held by the Graduate Studies Office in the past. However, there is a subtle difference in emphasis between the two events. The Three-Minute Research Presentation sessions involve a single three-minute talk and aim to improve public speaking skills. On the other hand, “speed researching” aims to help students present their research swiftly to several people—a skill they will need at job fairs or conferences. Such a skill is crucial in a competitive academic environment.

Speed researching is, indeed, very helpful and from the looks of it, a very successful idea. Please keep your eyes open for the second speed researching event!

by Gilbert Rahme

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

Congratulations to Ron Bucca, one of the winners of the 2013 Graduate Community Award!

Graduate Community Award winners were announced by Dean F. Jon Kull on May 10 at the Graduate Poster Session as part of Graduate Appreciation Week (April 6-12). The Graduate Studies Office awards the Graduate Community Award each year to recognize graduate students’ commitment to serving the Dartmouth community. Recipients contribute through participation in student governance, serving on campus-wide committees, and in the development and promotion of academic and social programs. They receive $1,000 in honor of their dedication to the community.

Bucca is a second-year student in the Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies program with a concentration in Globalization Studies. Bucca, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, has focused on researching the new modes of global communication, and is currently writing a thesis on the benefits of social media in humanitarian relief.

Since arriving on campus last January, Bucca has dedicated himself to organizing graduate students from a variety of programs and advocating for the things our students need most. As the chair of the Dartmouth Graduate Veterans Association, Bucca has boosted graduate student recognition on campus by associating graduate students with high-profile events and prolific guest speakers. The DGVA has a now-famous record of public service, which includes their work with the Claremont Food Pantry, their mentoring of underprivileged youth of Orion’s House, and their continued efforts to advocate for veterans on campus and across the Upper Valley.  Back in February, the DGVA was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Social Justice Award—a first for an organization in its first year—in recognition of these efforts. It was clear at that event that the top administrators at Dartmouth have taken notice of the work this group of graduate students is doing on campus. Though he’d never admit it, Bucca has been, unquestionably, the leader of these efforts.

Bucca has made it a point to dedicate himself to the entire graduate community. As the Student Life Chair on the Graduate Student Council, he has completed surveys of graduate students to assess the hierarchy of needs in our community. Once he established that extended dental and vision care were the primary concern, he has worked tirelessly to procure these services. In the face of consistent deterrence, Bucca has refused to cede defeat on these issues, and is now working with providers in the region to establish reduced pricing options for graduate students. His leadership and decision-making skills have been instrumental to the GSC this year—his fellow exec board members would echo these sentiments.

What is perhaps even more exceptional is that, despite the incredible time commitment associated with the initiatives and responsibilities listed above, Bucca still uses much of his free time for his own personal service missions. He planned and funded a trip to Haiti this fall, where he did incredible, life-changing community work in two rural villages. And he’s been helping out with Hurricane Sandy relief ever since the deadly storm struck, volunteering down at Breezy Point any time he’s home for a break.

Bucca’s incredible commitment to service and his achievements in advancing the good face of Graduate Studies here at Dartmouth are equally remarkable. That he remains a modest and thoughtful member of our community is a testament to his extraordinary character. Every student who has had the chance to work with Bucca—and there are many—will speak to his good nature, approachability, and dependability.  These characteristics exemplify leadership. They represent the best our community has to offer.

The Graduate Studies Office applauds Bucca for his hard work and wishes him the best in his future community endeavors!

About forty students, faculty, alumni, and friends of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program gathered on Wednesday, March 27, to hear the Works in Progress presentations from four students working on their theses. The Works in Progress presentations occur once or twice each academic year. The program was proposed five years ago by MALS alumna Lyn Lord as an alternative to a thesis defense, and it has been gathering momentum with each event. The gathering took place in the Paganucci Lounge in the Class of 1953 Commons and included food and drinks for all in attendance.

First to present his work was Raul Rillo, representing the Liberal Studies track of MALS. His thesis, titled “The Genealogy of Indigenous Sovereignty,” examines the issue of domestic sovereignty in America by studying the history of the United States government’s policies towards “Indian nations.” By looking closely at the Marshall Trilogy cases and other landmark rulings, Rillo reveals the unclear stance and oppressive effects of the federal government on Native American tribes in terms of self-rule, land rights, and recognition. He hopes to continue his work after Dartmouth by comparing tribal sovereignty of native peoples in North and South America.

Niusha Shodja represented the Creative Writing track and spoke next. Shodja is writing “Persian Blue,” a collection of fictional short stories that portrays everyday life for young people in modern Tehran, Iran. She was born in America and moved to Iran’s capital when she was eleven years old, living there for several years. She stated that contrary to the perception of outsiders, most youths in Iran distance themselves from the government. Twenty-five-year-olds in Iran, Shodja told the audience, are like twenty-five-year-olds anywhere. The only difference is that they must deal with a theocratic government that forbids many “western” practices such as consuming alcohol or certain interactions between males and females. She read from her story “Detention” and showed how the authorities in Tehran are often harsh with their own citizens.

The third presenter was Cultural Studies student Chelsea Tremblay. Her as yet untitled thesis examines the relationship between nature and culture, known as the nature-culture dialectic, through Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory and Donna Haraway’s concepts of companion species and cyborgs. Using food systems as a lens, Tremblay explores the implications of their theories and how they may help us foster a new relationship to the environment.

Globalization student Keri Wolfe gave the evening’s final talk. Her thesis, “The Democratization of the Medical Profession,” reveals a national trend in recent decades, moving away from giving unquestioned authority to caregivers and toward a more constituency-based system. Wolfe studied a community health center in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and a feminist health center in Concord, New Hampshire.  By comparing them, she found that their increased emphasis on experiential knowledge and consumer participation improved the quality of care and represented a broader movement across the United States.

The event also included a brief ceremony honoring four veterans in the MALS program.  MALS Director Donald Pease presented Stoney Portis, Ron Bucca, Michael Rodriguez, and Robert Sedgley with gifts and thanked them for their service and their efforts to bring more recognition to veterans at the college.

by Chris Abell

photo by Zach Williams

In late October 2012, Hurricane Sandy ravaged the east coast, bringing severe damage to several states. New York was hit especially hard. The hurricane created billions of dollars in damage, destroyed thousands of homes, and caused 72 deaths, 48 of which were New York inhabitants.  The outpouring of support immediately following Sandy was impressive. The dedication some groups have shown, remaining in the effected area for months and dedicating themselves to those hit hardest, is moving.

Occupy Sandy is one of these groups. Occupy Sandy was organized as a relief effort by members of Occupy Wall Street to help the victims of the hurricane. The group has broken into teams, which cover different effected areas.

On March 14, four Dartmouth graduate students, Daniel Jantos, Ron Bucca, and Zach Williams, all students in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program, and Amanda Balboni, a student in the Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine, traveled down to Staten Island to volunteer with the Yellow Team of Occupy Sandy and provide relief to the hurricane victims.

Over St. Patrick’s Day weekend, the group helped rebuild a home that had been destroyed by the hurricane. The family that lived in the home consisted of a mother, father, two children, and a baby boy, born just a few months after the hurricane hit. The family had recently re-finished their basement to make room for their new addition. The water level had reached three feet on the first floor, completely submerging the basement and destroying almost all of the family’s appliances and possessions. The graduate students worked throughout the weekend to re-insulate the house and put up sheetrock, so that the family could soon move into their home and out of the apartment they are paying for in addition to their mortgage payments. The father worked with the team of graduate students, and remarked that he is thankful for the health and safety of his family, and for his brother’s family, who lives down the street from him and whose home was also destroyed by the storm. This man had neighbors who had lost their lives in the hurricane and was grateful to have only lost his possessions. Numerous volunteers have come from all over the country to team up with Occupy Sandy and provide much needed relief to these families.

Unfortunately, there is still much damage to be repaired from the hurricane. The recovery effort is just getting started. If you would like to volunteer in areas that were affected by Sandy, or would like to donate money, please visit the Occupy Sandy site.

by Amanda Balboni

photos by Zach Williams

For a “Talk of the Town” piece, The New Yorker spoke with Professor Donald E. Pease about Theodor Geisel, Class of 1925, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, and how Seuss’ story The Zax provides a parable about political stalemate that has relevance to the federal government’s current budgetary situation.

Check out the Dartmouth Now coverage. A subscription is needed to read the full story, published in the March 18, 2013, issue of The New Yorker.

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 almost a year now Rebecca Munsterer, a 2005 graduate of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program, has been publishing a novel, The Stonehouse Caper, online, one page at a time.

Publishing fiction serially is not a new idea. Charles Dickens released all his novels in installments, often in weekly or monthly magazines. Munsterer studied Dickens and other Victorian era writers as an English major at Colby College, where she focused on creative writing. After earning her certification to teach high school English at Colby, Munsterer wanted to continue her education as well as work on her writing. She sought a curriculum broader in scope than what is normally available in traditional Master of Fine Arts programs and chose MALS at Dartmouth.

About her experience in the MALS program, Munsterer says she especially enjoyed the small workshop-style classes and an opportunity to experiment with a variety of genres: journalism, creative non-fiction, and screenwriting. For her thesis, she wrote five thirty-minute screenplays, comprising On Campus: Creative Non-Fictitious Television for the College Bound Audience.

“Learning to write well also makes you a better reader,” she observes, “and the critical reading skills I developed in the program have been particularly useful in my work in the Admissions Office.” Hired part-time to read applications while still a MALS student, Munsterer is senior associate director of the Office of Admissions at Dartmouth, reading an average of one hundred and sixty undergraduate applications a week in the busy season. During other parts of the year she recruits prospective students in New Jersey, Florida, and abroad.

After completing the MALS program, Munsterer wanted to experiment with composing fiction online and searched the web to see who was working in this domain. “There were blogs to follow and some people who were posting via email, but I didn’t find anyone who was writing serially online.” She believed in the idea enough to put up her own money to create a logo and website, and subsequently launched Novel Nibble, with a goal “to promote literacy and entertainment—one page at a time.”

Initially, she thought an important element of her experiment would be interactivity that would allow readers to provide feedback and ideas—to “take a nibble.” She quickly found that readers just wanted an escape and were not necessarily interested in getting actively involved in helping to develop the story. She also discovered that readers were really interested in her and the writing process. “They want to know how I discipline myself to write every day, how I motivate myself, things like that. I quickly learned that there are a lot of people out there who want to write a book.”

After exactly one year, The Stonehouse Caper will end with the final installment coming on March 23. Noting some of the limitations of her publishing style, Munsterer says, “I don’t think the format is exactly what my readers want.” But what began as an experiment has been a huge success, with more than 15,000 visits to the website since it was launched and a host of loyal followers. The best thing that has happened is that it has led to a book deal.

In April 2012, Munsterer attended a media panel at the Greener Ventures Entrepreneurship Conference at the Tuck School of Business, at which she met Carey Albertine, co-founder of In This Together Media. Albertine began to follow Munsterer’s online novel and, subsequently, hired her to write a book. “They wanted a book about Christmas with strong female characters,” Munsterer says—so she wrote Mrs. Claus and The School of Christmas Spirit. Published in November 2012, the book sold well and for one week was the number one children’s holiday book.

About the future, Munsterer says the online experiment will continue as A Nibble a Day in which she will publish her stories, poems, and reflections in daily installments of less than five hundred words. But the big news is that the Christmas book was so successful that In This Together Media has asked Munsterer to write a second holiday book. Stay tuned!

by Michael Beahan