Presidential Penne|Roadmap for Academic Succe|School of Communication Formed |Calling All Writers and Poets|Sharks in Antarctica? |Multimedia Concerts|Hollywood Comes to Campus |
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The Presidential Recipe |
Presidential Penne
As president of the University, Robert L. Carothers wears many hats, but on Presidents’ Day this year he donned an entirely new one—a chef’s hat to cook up something special for the students.
“Chef Bob” prepared and served his favorite dish—penne with vegetables and shrimp in a seasoned butter sauce—in the Hope Commons dining hall for two hours during peak lunchtime to a seemingly endless line of students.
Dining Services Director Kathleen Gianquitti and some of her staff cooked up the idea. “We thought having our own president cook for the students on Presidents’ Day was unique,” she said.
The students appreciated the presidential treatment. “It was cool that he wanted to get involved with everyone,” said freshman Nicole Nolin of Pawtucket.
Anice Barbosa, a sophomore originally from Brazil and now of Providence, was impressed. “It was so nice for him to take time out of his busy day to cook for us,” Barbosa said. “He is so friendly.”
Fall River sophomore Sandra Davin agreed. “It was a fun surprise. The president is very personable, and it’s nice to see him in a real-life situation.”
When Justin Schumacher, a freshman from Long Island, tasted what the president had prepared, he smiled and said, “It was dynamite.”
“It helped me feel connected to the students, and giving them something they really enjoyed felt pretty great too,” said Chef Bob. “I think the hardest part is the continuing demand to keep the food coming.”
Gianquitti said: “Our staff was excited to have a chance to work with the president, to talk with him in their environment and to show him the pride they take in serving our students the best possible meals. You could see smiles everywhere.”
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Roadmap for Academic Succe
Leave it to URI to take the potholes out of the road to academic success.
Deborah Grossman-Garber, director of URI student learning, outcomes assessment, and accreditation; URI professors Catherine English, food science and nutrition; Marion Goldsmith, biology; Carolyn Hames, nursing; Thomas Husband, natural resource science; Daniel Murray and Anne Veeger, geology; and Katherine Petersson, veterinary science are eight of 11 principal investigators from URI and the Community College of Rhode Island collaborating on an Academic Roadmap project that will improve academic advising and better align the curricula between the two schools. The goal is to improve access to higher education and ensure that more students stay in college and graduate on time.
The project is supported by a $643,000 grant from the Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education and was one of just 16 projects awarded from a pool of more than 400.
The federal grant program funds innovative reform projects that hold promise for the resolution of important issues and problems in postsecondary education—projects that can serve as models across the nation.
Grossman-Garber et al are developing Web-based roadmaps that guide students along their educational routes. The roadmaps, prepared by experts in each field, guide students through their chosen academic discipline, tell them about co-curricular and experiential learning opportunities, give career placement advice, and much more.
High school students and their families curious about a major, current students mapping out a course of study, students gathering information on which course to choose, guidance counselors, college advisors, and others interested in learning more about a program can easily access the roadmap.
Building upon a “roadmap template” created in 2006 for the URI fields of wildlife conservation, nutrition and dietetics, animal sciences and geosciences, roadmaps are being developed for the fields of nursing and biology.
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School of Communication Formed
URI has formed a School of Communication, uniting a unique combination of programs within the College of Arts and Sciences: Department of Communication Studies, Department of Journalism, Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, the Program in Film Media, and the College Writing Program. The goal is to create national distinction, attract investment, enroll and retain gifted students, help recruit and retain talented faculty, and enhance the visibility and quality of the school’s programs.
“The whole will be greater than the sum of its parts,” said Winifred Brownell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “The school will allow us to offer students an expanding number of opportunities, preparing them for future workforce needs and enhancing the value of the degrees they earn,” says the dean. “The school will unite faculty and disciplinary strengths in the study of communication and new technologies that transform the rapidly changing ways we receive, process, mediate, archive, and transmit information.”
For now, the units will remain in their current locations until a new or newly renovated building can be provided. A national search will be conducted for a director.
“A School of Communication provides URI with a platform to become distinctive and recruit top educators and students to build a niche in the marketplace,” says Robert Beagle, vice president for University Advancement, citing the Annenberg Schools for Communication and Syracuse University as examples.
“URI is bringing together print and broadcast journalism, film, public relations, writing, and communications in new and exciting ways. The cross pollination of disciplines, coupled with the University’s entrepreneurial spirit, will bring innovation and recognition,” adds Beagle, whose division is responsible for marketing and communication.
The school will enhance areas where there is already strong student demand. URI anticipates that the school will generate the University’s largest number of students. Currently there are about 1,200 undergraduate and about 300 graduate students majoring in the programs.
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Calling All Writers and Poets
If at first you succeed, do it again and again! Last year the University’s inaugural Summer Ocean State Writing Conference was so successful it has become an annual event.
The 2007 conference attracted more than 240 beginner and veteran writers and poets from Rhode Island, New England, and beyond to our Kingston Campus.
This year’s conference, to be held Friday, June 20, and Saturday, June 21, promises to be even bigger and better. The conference committee, under the auspices of the English Department, has assembled two days of writing events, including larger panel discussions, craft talks, publishing information, and a session about earning a master of fine arts degree in creative writing. During the conference, instructors will maintain a “workout room” where participants can sign up for brief one-on-one meetings to receive feedback on current writing projects.
Ann Hood ’78, author of 11 books of fiction and nonfiction whose memoir, Comfort, was released this month will kickoff the conference. Denise Duhamel, author of 10 books of poetry, most recently Two and Two, Mille et un Sentiments, and Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems; and Nick Carbo, author of three books of poetry, Andulasian Dawn, Secret Asian Man, and El Grupo McDonald’s will be featured the second day.
Highlights include Annette Blair, Amy Caldwell, Alexander Chee, Betty Cotter, Melissa Hotchkiss, Robin Lippincott, David Rutschman, Aaron Tillman, and URI’s own Mary Cappello, Talvikii Ansel, Peter Covino, Robert Leuci, and Kate Schapira, who will be on hand to lead talks, offer advice, and/or read from their work.
Separate pre-conference workshops will be offered for an additional fee. The sessions will be led by such writers as URI’s Jody Lisberger, Amity Gaige and Jibade-Khalil Huffman; and poets Wayne Miller and Tina Chang. Poet-critic essayist, Scott Hightower will offer a special pre-conference workshop geared toward teaching creative writing. Those sessions, which meet Thursday afternoon, June 19th and Friday morning, June 20th, are scheduled on successive days so instructors will have time to read and comment on participants’ work.
The conference provides a great opportunity to visit your alma mater and spark your creative juices. Reserve your space early as the conference fills quickly. For a schedule, offerings, and registration check our Web site uri.edu/artsci/eng/SummerWriting/08/index.html. For more information, email oceanstatewriting2008@gmail.com.
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Sharks in Antarctica?
It has been 40 million years since the waters around Antarctica have been warm enough to sustain populations of sharks and other fish, but they may return this century due to the effects of global warming. If they do, the impact on Antarctic ecology could be serious, according to biology professors Cheryl Wilga and Brad Seibel.
The professors analyzed the physiological adaptations and metabolism of sharks and other warm-water predators and concluded that an increase of just a few degrees Celsius could make Antarctic waters hospitable to some species.
The waters around the Antarctic Peninsula remain within a few degrees of freezing year round, but in the last 50 years the temperature there has increased by 1 to 2° C, which is about double or triple the global average.
The water only needs to remain above freezing year round for it to become habitable to some sharks.
“There are few prey-crushing predators in Antarctic waters. As a result, the Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans.
While the researchers don’t believe that the arrival of sharks and bony fishes in Antarctica will lead to widespread species extinctions, Wilga and Seibel say that it will certainly lead to dramatic changes in the population numbers and proportions of species found there. Shrimp, ribbon worms, and brittle stars will likely be the most vulnerable.
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Multimedia Concerts
Sheri Wills, associate professor of art, combines film, sound, and digital media in her work, which has been exhibited in venues around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the London Film Festival, and the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. This winter she added opera to her expanding résumé.
Actually she’s been working with composers and musicians on multimedia concerts with live video for the past few years.
She met Ofer Ben-Amots, the composer of The Dybbuk Project, a chamber opera, at a festival last summer. They started talking about ways abstract video could enhance the opera’s themes of love, possession, and mysticism.
“The process for creating the video was a real pleasure—a perfect combination of creative freedom and collaboration,” says Wills. “I started working on individual sections before hearing the work as a whole.”
The 90-minute opera premiered in Montreal this January. “There is a 10-minute interlude in the performance that is solely projected video with recorded sound—my moment in the spotlight, so to speak,” the artist says.
Wills took an unpaid leave to work on this project. “Timing is everything. The project wouldn’t wait until I was eligible for another sabbatical,” she says. “I strongly encourage students to take risks with their work and to follow their passions. I’d like to think I set an example for that with my own projects.”
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Hollywood Comes to Campus
URI played a starring role last winter when two different film crews set up shop on the Kingston Campus for a few days. Both films—Hachiko, a feature film starring Richard Gere, and The Clique, a Warner Brothers film that will be released directly to DVD at the end of the year—made use of the University’s iconic Green Hall and other campus locations.
Hachiko, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, is centered on a 1920 Japanese legend of an Akita dog that walked his owner, a college professor, to and from the Shibuya Train Station and continued that trek as a sign of love and loyalty after his owner’s death. In this Americanized version of the film, Gere plays the dog’s owner and Academy Award-nominated actress Joan Allen plays his wife. About 100 URI students were “extras” during a scene with Gere shot in Edwards Auditorium. The actor took time out of his schedule to thank President Robert L. Carothers for the University’s warm hospitality.
The Clique, based on the popular series of books of the same title by Lisi Harrison, centers on the problems, triumphs, and struggles of a small group of middle-school girls attending an exclusive private school. For this, Green Hall became the Octavian County Day School.
It’s not a wrap yet. Producers have contacted the University about filming 11 other movies. So look for your alma mater at the movies!
