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Vol. 5, No. 6 - April 17, 2006
Faculty/Staff Activities Regina Janes, professor of English, delivered a paper titled "Over-sexing Herodias" at the annual meeting of the American Society for 18th-Century Studies March 30-April 2 in Montreal. Bob Shorb, director, Student Aid and Family Finance, was a co-presenter (with Ned Jones, assistant vice president for admissions at Siena College) of "College Admissions Today the Enrollment Manager, or the Marriage between Financial Aid and Admissions" March 17 at the 2006 Adirondack Counseling Association Conference at Lake George. Publications Sandy Baum, professor of economics, was a source for the following stories: "Fairness for (and Among) Independent Students," April 12, insidehigher ed.com; "The Rich-Poor Gap Widens for College Students," April 7, The Chronicle of Higher Education; "Harvard lowers a tuition barrier: Waiver expanded for the unwealthy," March 31, boston.com; "Harvard Eliminates Tuition for Lower-Income Families, March 30, Bloomberg.com. Christina Grassi, visiting assistant professor of anthropology and environmental studies, has co-authored the cover article in the April 13 volume of Nature titled "Independent evolution of bitter-taste sensitivity in humans and chimpanzees." The article notes that the ability to taste bitter foods is important for appropriate diet choice as well as for detection and avoidance of potentially toxic foods. Grassi and her colleagues found that although both humans and chimpanzees can taste the bitter compound phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), the ability to do so is not a result of shared ancestry. Rather, this ability evolved separately in the chimpanzee and human lineages. They discovered this by locating and sequencing the genes that code for PTC taste sensitivity in captive populations of chimpanzees and comparing that to the chimpanzees' willingness to eat apples, a prized food source, that were soaked in PTC and therefore bitter. Their phenotypes, "taster" or "non-taster," measured by acceptance or rejection of the apples, correlated with their genotype for taste-ability. Grassi, who a Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas at Austin, studies primate behavior and ecology, primate conservation, and captive primate well-being, and has conducted field research on lemurs in Madagascar. Regina Janes, professor of English, had a review of Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics by Isabel Rivers published in The Scriblerian, 37/38 (Spring, Autumn 2005). In addition, Peter Monaghan of The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed Janes about her recent book, Losing Our Heads. Kelly Dempsey-Little, training and documentation coordinator, CITS, created a documentary film based on her father's experience as a tail-gunner in a B-52 during World War II as part of a class, EN 105, "Making Documentaries," taught by Professor Tom Lewis. The class was told to "make something personal," and Dempsey-Little said she always wondered about her dad's untold war stories. Her 30-minute movie titled Untold Stories: A Documentary Film about Sgt. James R. Dempsey, Army Air Corps, WWII, was the subject of a feature story in the Nov. 24, 2005 issue of the Glens Falls Post-Star, and was screened for the public Nov. 25 at Crandall Library in Glens Falls. "I wanted to make a film about something meaningful and personal so I asked my father to sit down with me and his favorite cocktail and tell stories into the camera," Dempsey-Little told the newspaper. Her 87-year-old dad did just that, and the result is a priceless record in his own words. R. Parthasarathy, associate professor of English, had a number of poems and translations published in 2005-06 as follows: Poetry Magazine, April 2006: Ghalib, "Twilight in Delhi" (Urdu) and Anon, "The Sheets"(Sanskrit); Salmagundi, Winter 2006: "The Stones of Bamian"; Fulcrum, Fall 2005: "Remembered Village," "The Concise Kamasutra 1 & 10," "East Window 1, 3, & 4," and "A House Divided 1 & 4." Also, Manushi (New Delhi), July-August 2005: Vimala, "Tongues of Fire" (Pali); Kavarpentu, "The Tiger," Auvaiyar, "Empty Pools," Atimantiyar, "Lament for a Husband Swept Away in a Flood," Kakkaipatiniyar Naccellaiyar, "The Battlefield," Nannakaiyar, "The Heron," Okkur Macattiyar, "A Tamil Mother Sends Her Only Son into Battle," Venmanipputi, "Under the Spreading Laurel Tree," Vellivitiyar, "The Search," and Pontaip Pacalaiyar, "Sand Houses" (Tamil). In addition Vidya, "The Riverbank," Vikatanitamba, "The Bed," Bhavakadevi, "Heart of Stone," and Silabhattarika, "Then and Now" (Sanskrit); and Mira, "When Will You Come, Beloved?" (Hindi). Mary Zeiss Stange, associate professor of women's studies and religion, was interviewed for an article titled "Pope his own man: Benedict surprises left and right," published April 2 in The Post-Star (Glens Falls). Skidmore Intercom |