Featured: A breath of freedom; Drawn in by New York; Poetry for the people; Upcoming: The URSI Symposium; Now playing on a computer near you; Hat's Off
Articles,
A breath of freedom
Private First Class Eugene Davis (375th Engineer Battalion) paints over the swastika on a railroad car in Pallenberg, Germany
I talked to a black soldier’s son who was born in Germany. His German mother and American father fell in love and got married in Germany during the late 1940s. But as soon as they got back on the boat to take them back to America, they were immediately segregated into white and black sections. As a child, the son never understood why the family had to travel at night to avoid being attacked just because his parents were an interracial couple. They could never stay together in a hotel as a family or go out to eat. He felt abandoned because his mother was always leaving to stay in a ‘white hotel’ and he questioned if she really loved him.
Kwame Mfume, Maria Höhn, and Martin Klimke
“This story is heartbreaking,” continues Maria Höhn, associate professor of history, who spent the past fifteen years immersed in the stories of African American troops stationed in post-war Germany. Nearly three million African Americans have served in Germany since 1945, yet little is known about their experience abroad. When Höhn began researching in Germany, she found that ironically, “in general, African Americans mainly had a positive experience in Germany because there were no Jim Crow laws and they could enter any store or restaurant and even fall in love with white women. Colin Powell described his military experience there in 1958 as ‘a breath of freedom’.” In turn, the soldiers came home to fight for civil rights, but they also inspired Germans to engage in civil rights issues.
Höhn, who was raised in Germany, published her book GIs and Frauleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany in 2002, the first of its kind to examine the experiences of black soldiers. Soon after, she met fellow historian Martin Klimke, who shared an interest in this research. They decided to team up and build a free research database for students and teachers around the world. “The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany” contains digitized documents from the Archive for Soldiers’ Rights in Berlin and from private collections from former civil rights activists, as well as photographs, audio-visual sources and transcripts, newspapers, posters, flyers, governmental records, and the oral histories of African American servicemen.
Interracial German-American couples in the Noncommissioned Officers’ Club, Ramstein Airbase
Students at Vassar and Heidelberg University also became interested in the project, uncovering photos and other materials and conducting video interviews with African American veterans to add to the database. “They found absolutely amazing materials,” notes Höhn. “The project shows them that you can still discover sources and stories of the past that no one knows anything about.”
Last year, Höhn and Kilmke were asked by the Humanities Council in Washington, DC to contribute to a city-wide commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr’s death and to celebrate his global legacy. Höhn and Klimke compiled a selection of previously unseen images (and four cartoons uncovered by students in their research) that documented King’s visit to West and East Berlin in 1964, but also included images of black GIs. “We were immensely proud of the exhibit, but were completely unprepared for the public response,” says Höhn. The show and research project was reviewed in the US military’s magazine and in a major German newspaper, and led to an outpouring of requests for lectures, workshops, and a traveling photo exhibition in the US and Germany.
The project also captured the attention of the NAACP, which honored Höhn and Klimke with its 2009 Julius E. Williams Distinguished Community Service Award. “We were totally blown away,” declares Höhn. “We didn’t even know we had been nominated!”
Despite the project’s sudden mass appeal, Höhn’s objective has remained the same: to capture and preserve these stories before they are lost to history. “We can talk about segregation,” she says. “But these individual stories are so powerful.”
Articles,
Drawn in by New York
Four hundred years ago, Henry Hudson sailed north— and the rest is history. Now, for the Quadricentennial of that voyage, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center invites visitors to take a journey of their own and rediscover New York State through its newest exhibition, Drawn by New York: Six Centuries of Watercolors and Drawings.
Organized by the New-York Historical Society, which houses one of the earliest assembled public collections of drawings in the country, the exhibition features 81 works ranging from sixteenth century watercolors of birds and the first-known view of New York City to a 2002 depiction of the World Trade Center by Donna Levinstone. Other highlights include renderings of Native Americans and images from the Civil War and September 11, as well as an early view of Niagara Falls and New York’s Federal Hall, the nation’s first capitol. Drawn by New York reflects the country’s evolving self-image from a dependent colony to a young country with unlimited possibilities, finally emerging as a world economic power with larger urban centers.
The exhibition highlights the beginning of landscape art and plein air sketching, featuring the famous Hudson River Valley scenes of Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, and Jasper Cropsey. Also on display are works by John James Audubon, Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin, and Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, as are portraits of explorers, innovators, and inventors like Robert Fulton. A 1796 view of Poughkeepsie by Alexander Robertson is included as well.
“Drawn by New York offers a rare opportunity to rediscover America through the kaleidoscopic lens of this extraordinary collection,” says Dr. Roberta J.M. Olson, curator of drawings at the New-York Historical Society. “Since many of the outstanding watercolors and drawings were executed before the advent of photography, they not only document lost buildings, customs, and landscapes but also preserve images of significant events and individuals who played vital roles in the history of the nation and the city.”
The exhibition is on display through November 1. For more information, visit the exhibit information page on the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center website.
Articles,
Poetry for the people
He’s been dubbed the “class clown in the schoolhouse of American poetry” by Guernica magazine, known for criticizing the stuffiness and pretension often associated with poetry. But through his own writing and public programs, Billy Collins, this year’s William Starr Distinguished Lecturer, and former United States Poet Laureate (2001 to 2003), has worked to transform poetry’s image, making it more accessible to the masses.
Poetry 180, one of his most successful programs as Poet Laureate, was introduced into the nation’s high schools to help students appreciate poetry, without the expectation of analyzing it. After compiling a book of straightforward poetry, Collins encouraged schools to include a poem a day in the morning announcements. From teachers to janitors, different readers took to the mic, reciting poetry purely for the purpose of enjoyment.
Collins’s poetry fills nine published collections, including The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems, The Art of Drowning, and Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems, chosen as the common reading for the class of 2013. He has also published a collection of haiku and edited two anthologies. A former New York State Poet Laureate (2004-2006), Collins has won multiple fellowships and received several awards from Poetry magazine. He was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award for humorous poetry and is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.
“Poetry is clearly very serious for me, but without heaviness or a glib sense of spirituality,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more.” Whether he’s referencing the Beatles, enduring a neighbor’s barking dog, or remembering the victims of September 11, he’s best known for writing about seemingly ordinary things, but with a contemplative twist.
Clearly, this formula is working. “I have never before felt possessive about a poet, but I am fiercely glad that Billy Collins is ours,” said author Annie Proulx when Collins was appointed Poet Laureate. “Smart, his strings tuned and resonant, his wonderful eye looping over the things, events and ideas of the world, rueful, playful, warm-voiced, easy to love.”
Sponsored by the Freshman Writing Seminar, the program is only open to the Vassar community and will be held on September 23 at 5:30pm in the Villard Room.
Articles,
Now playing on a computer near you...
Will Derek’s long distance relationship survive? Will Alex land a spot in the Vassar Devils a cappella group? What spooks Connie? And what famous Vassar alumna is serving coffee at the Kiosk? Watch the drama unfold in Fourth Floor Main, a webisode about life at Vassar. Each episode follows the adventures of first-year students living in Main Building as they navigate life, love, and the kidnapping of a penguin named Opus.
Visit http://FourthFloor.Vassar.edu for a private screening and check out exclusive cast interviews and outtakes.
Articles,
Upcoming: The URSI Symposium
What effect does road salt have on local streams? How do salamanders and frogs respond to stress? And how does studying cancer in dogs help us better understand breast cancer in humans? For 10 weeks this summer, students spent 40 hours a week analyzing questions like these and performing extensive research with the help of a faculty member. On September 30, the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute (URSI) fellows will share the results of their research, present posters, and discuss their work at the URSI Symposium, beginning at 3:00pm in the Villard Room. At 4:15pm Lawrence Shapiro, Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute, Columbia University, will present the keynote address, “The Revolution in Structural Biology and What it Means to You.” Here’s a sneak peak at some of this year’s projects:
Hats Off, Articles,
Hats Off
Zachariah Mampilly, assistant professor of political science, will participate in a Scholarly Residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center to complete his manuscript Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Government and Civilian Life During War.
Kathleen Man, assistant professor of film, has received a grant from the Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to support a seminar/screening program featuring filmmakers and film industry professionals.
Professor of biology John Long and Marianne Porter, faculty research associate, have received an award from the National Science Foundation for their project, “Computational and Experimental Biomechanics: Modeling the Non-linear Viscoelastic Behavior of the Vertebral Column of Swimming Elasmobranchs.”
Edward Pittman '82, associate dean of the college for campus life, was elected to the Executive Steering Board of the Consortium on High Achievement and Success (CHAS). The consortium is comprised of 35 selective liberal arts colleges dedicated to enhancing success for all students.
Seungsook Moon, professor of sociology, was invited to be one of four faculty mentors for the 2009 Korean Studies Dissertation Workshop, organized by the Social Science Research Council. She was also invited to give two lectures at the Fifth Annual Teach Korea Conference held by the East Rock Institute, Yale University.
Mia Mask, associate professor of film, published Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film (University of Illinois Press).
Sports information director Robin Deutsch earned the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Grant Burger Media Award for Division III women’s volleyball coverage in the New York Region for the second year in a row.
Lynn Owen, office specialist for Disability and Support Services and president of the LaGrange Historical Society, published LaGrange (Arcadia Publishing), a pictorial history of the town.
Jeffrey Schneider, associate professor of German studies, has received a second year of funding from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations for Vassar’s implementation of “Language in Motion,” a foreign language outreach program for area high schools.
Jodi Schwarz, assistant professor of biology, and David Esteban, assistant professor of biology, have both received Cofactor Classroom Genomics Awards from Cofactor Genomics for their projects, “Sequencing the Genome of the Anemone Host Aiptasia pallida” and “Metagenomics of the Winogradsky Column.”
Joseph Tanski, associate professor of chemistry, has received a $219,500 grant from the National Science Foundation for “Enhancing Enantioselectivity in Lewis Acid Catalysis through Multiple Asymmetric Induction.”
Nancy Ide, professor of computer science, received a supplement from the National Science Foundation to support undergraduate researchers in her project, “Sustainable Interoperability for Language Technology.”
The college’s newest endowed chairs are: Himadeep Muppidi, Associate Professor of Political Science on the Betty Goff Cook Cartwright Chair in International Studies; Eve D'Ambra, Professor of Art on the Agnes Rindge Claflin Chair in Art History; Mitchell Miller, Professor of Philosophy on the Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. Chair; Sarah Kozloff, Professor of Film on the William R. Kenan, Jr. Chair; Erica Crespi, Assistant Professor of Biology on the Mary Clark Rockefeller Chair in Environmental Studies; David Kennett, Professor of Economics on the Elizabeth Stillman Williams Chair in Economics; and John McCleary, Professor of Mathematics on the Elizabeth Stillman Williams Chair in Mathematics.
It takes a college
The Hardship Fund, established last spring to support community members facing economic hardship due to work reductions last summer, disbursed over $60,000 to applicants. Working closely with the Dutchess County Community Action Partnership (CAP), the committee worked to distribute funds to meet basic needs, and provided applicants with the opportunity to seek further support from the CAP’s resources. Committee members are: Rebecca Edwards, professor of history, Sam Speers, director of Religious and Spiritual Life, Tanhena Pacheco Dunn, assistant director of Human Resources, and Royce Drake '10.