At Brown

Gift to JCB endows visiting professorship

A million-dollar gift in memory of Charles H. Watts ’47 will endow a new visiting professorship at Brown.

The Charles H. Watts II Visiting Professorship in Historical Biography and the History of the Book was made possible by Finn M.W. Caspersen, Robert A. Tucker and William B. Warren, all longtime business associates of Watts. The gift, to be administered by the John Carter Brown Library, is intended to provide for an annual undergraduate course in the field of the history of the book. Different academic departments will hire and provide office space for the visiting scholar, depending on his or her area of expertise, according to a press release issued by the library.

Watts, who died Sept. 27, had been a member of the John Carter Brown Library’s governing board since 1978 and sat on the library’s executive committee.

The library, which is situated on the Brown campus, is an independently funded and administered center for advanced research in history and humanities.

Training and Development moves to BOB

The Office of Training and Development, which includes the Education Employee Program, has moved to the fourth floor of the Brown Office Building, 164 Angell St., from its offices at 131 Waterman St.

The office will retain its phone numbers; its campus mail address will remain Box 1926.

Awards and Honors

On May 22, President Simmons received an honorary degree from Columbia University, the most recent of several honorary degrees she has received this month.

She received an honorary degree and was the keynote speaker for Commencement ceremonies conducted by George Washington University on May 19. On May 18, she received an honorary doctorate of engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic University. And on May 10, Simmons was the Commencement speaker at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also received an honorary doctorate of humanities. Simmons’ address was titled "Design for Living: Digital Truth and Technicolor Dreams."

David Kertzer ’s “The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism” was a finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize. The award is part of the Lukas Prize Project, sponsored by the Columbia University School of Journalism and Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation, to recognize “superb examples of nonfiction writing that exemplify the literary grace, the commitment to serious research, and the social concern that characterized the distinguished work of the award’s Pulitzer-Prize winning namesake.” Kertzer is the Dupee University Professor of Social Science and professor of anthropology and Italian studies

Todd Winkler, associate professor of music, is the recipient of a First Night 2002 Creative Programming Award from First Night International for his art installation titled “Magic Mirrors,” which premiered at First Night Providence 2002. Winkler described the installation as “a digital funhouse, a sophisticated hall of mirrors” involving computer technology that incorporated a real-time digital video processing system.

Four students received writing awards during the second annual Casey Shearer Memorial Lecture, which this year featured ABC News’ congressional analyst Cokie Roberts. Tucker Lieberman ’02 took first-place honors for “Fifteen Meditations on Masculinist Physico-Spiritual Experience,” an essay that English Department lecturer and competition coordinator Elizabeth S. Taylor called “a masterful fusion of the philosophical and personal.”

Also honored were: Kerala A. Goodkin ’02, second place for “Immigrants in Action”; Anna Henderson ’03, honorable mention for “Betrayal”; and Michael H. Alexander ’02, honorable mention for “The Anniversary Party.” The lecture series and writing awards honor the memory of Casey Shearer ’00, who died two years ago, just days before he was to graduate from Brown

On the Road

Shepard Krech III, professor of anthropology, spent the week of April 21 as the George A. Rentschler Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the University of Wyoming. A two-day symposium there, titled “The Ecological Indian,” took its name and focus from Krech’s latest book, which examines ecological practices of several American Indian societies.

The Northeast Superintendents' Leadership Council of the Education Alliance held its 14th annual Leadership Summit at the Newport Harbor Hotel and Marina May 1-3. The conference brought together school superintendents to discuss professional development, the use of data in decision-making, and successful practices in low-performing schools.

The Leadership Council is an organization for superintendents that provides information and leadership at the local, state and national levels on issues of school reform.

Brown hosted a conference for educators titled "Literacy, Diversity and Equity in the Context of Reform" April 25-27 at the Biltmore Hotel.

The event addressed issues of literacy learning in the developmental period beyond emergent reading and writing – the years in which students develop and solidify the skills they need for success in high school and beyond. It focused on ways to provide equitable opportunities for the literacy development of students from diverse backgrounds. The University's Department of Education, Annenberg Institute for School Reform and Education Alliance LAB collaborated on the event.

Speakers affiliated with Brown included Maria Coady of the Education Alliance; Eileen Landay, senior education lecturer; Dennis Wolf of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform; and Kurt Wootton, director of the ArtsLiteracy Project.

Mike Ferrance, program planning specialist at The Education Alliance, demonstrated the educational use of kaleidoscopes at the 10th Annual Project-Based Learning Conference "Kids Who Know and Do," April 24-26 in San Francisco. The conference gave educators a chance to share teaching insights. In "Kaleidoscope Connections," Ferrance taught participants how to construct their own kaleidoscopes. Participants explored the connections between their project and academic disciplines. In addition to viewing the mathematical patterns of the kaleidoscope, Ferrance shared how color patterns could be transferred to English language arts and fine arts classroom learning.

Julio Ortega, professor of Hispanic studies and director of the Trans-Atlantic Project at Brown, organized an international conference dedicated to the work of Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes. The conference was held April 17-20 and was attended by 120 participants from 66 universities and 14 countries. Jose Saramago, the Portuguese novelist and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, made a surprise visit to the conference to join Fuentes. Another colloquium, held May 3 on Spanish critical thinking, was dedicated to Francisco Marquez Villanueva of Harvard on the ocassion of his retirement. The leading Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo was the keynote speaker.

Ortega recently traveled to Puerto Rico to inaugurate the Brown Club organized by the alumni there. Then he traveled to his alma mater, Universidad Catolica in Lima, Peru, to present his recent novel, "Habanera," with Peruvian writers Fernando Ampuero and Alfredo Bryce Echenique. Ortega was the keynote speaker of the symposium “Spanish and Spanish-American Poetry” at Hofstra University.