Campus Connections

Issue Date: April 26, 2004

News and Notices

Broide named teacher of the year

Students at Lewis & Clark chose Michael Broide, associate professor and chair of physics, as teacher of the year. The selection was announced Wednesday, April 14, during a ceremony on campus.

“For me, Michael Broide has been the ‘teacher of my entire college career,’” says Dmitri Gurkins ’05, physics and mathematics double-major. “His teaching style and personality bridge the gap between a student and the professor. His door is always open.”

Broide has been with Lewis & Clark since 1991. His areas of interest include the physics of colloids and macromolecules, phase transitions, aggregation, pattern formation, light scattering and optical instrumentation. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Broide’s courses include Great Ideas in Physics, The Physics of Motion, Advanced Lab, and Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics.

The top teacher is named each year by the Dr. Robert B. Pamplin Jr. Society of Fellows, a group of students recognized, in part, for integrity, scholarship and leadership potential. Learn more.

Binford awarded grant to study spider venom

Don’t expect to see Peter Parker, better known as Spiderman, in Greta Binford’s biology lab. Binford, assistant professor of biology, doesn’t examine spider superpowers; her research focuses on spider venom. She has received a grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to study patterns of diversity in spider venom.

Binford and her students study the composition of brown recluse spider venoms and venoms of their relatives. Binford describes spider venoms as chemical cocktails where the individual components vary greatly between spider species. Binford has already collected relatives of the brown recluse from around the world and is working to reconstruct what she calls a species family tree.

“My research goal is to understand the distribution and diversity of an enzyme in venoms of brown spiders and their relatives,” says Binford. “This is the enzyme that causes damage when brown recluse spiders bite people. It is unlikely that the enzyme is there to hurt people.” Binford says her research will ultimately help develop diagnostics and treatments for spider bites.

Binford’s $47,000, two-year life sciences grant is for a project titled “A Phylogenetic Framework for Studying the Evolution of the Toxic Enzyme Sphingomyelinase D in Venom of Loxosceles and Sicarius Spiders.”

Binford joined the faculty at Lewis & Clark in 2003. She earned her bachelor of arts degree from Miami University of Ohio, her master of science degree from the University of Utah, and her doctorate from the University of Arizona. Binford also served as a set design consultant for Sony Pictures’ 2002 release “Spiderman.” Learn more.

Senior gift honors Evan Williams

The class of 2004 wants to leave a living legacy. The senior gift, usually in the form of funding to support scholarships or to purchase a commemorative bench, will create a restored and enhanced tree walk dedicated in honor of Evan T. Williams, professor of chemistry and founder of the College’s environmental studies program.

“Evan Williams has given so much to the College, his students and the community,” says Clara Elias ’04, who heads the senior gift committee. “His leadership and passion for the tree walk have inspired us now to revitalize the walk so that future generations can find delight in the natural beauty of species native to the Pacific Northwest.”

Elias conducted much of the planning, mapping and rewriting of the guide. Her work began with an inventory of the intact trees and signs on what remained of the original tree walk. In 2001, Elias visited Richard M. McCourt ’74, associate curator of the botany department at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. McCourt is one of two people in charge of the Academy’s Lewis and Clark herbarium, a collection of actual botanical samples that were brought back to the East Coast in 1806. The new tree walk will include numerous shrubs and plants observed during the course of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and reported in their journals.

An overview of the enhanced tree walk is available online. For more information about the tree walk or ways to support it, call ext. 7940 or visit online.

Brown bag talk focuses on elder care

The Wellness Committee will host a brown bag session titled “Working with Dementia and Depressed Behaviors,” on Tuesday, April 27, at noon in the Council Chamber. Professional counselors from Employee Assistance Services Enterprises will talk about different behaviors, dealing with critical situations and other topics. For more information about this elder care event, contact Molly Miles at miles@lclark.edu.

Provost's Forum set

Jane Atkinson, provost, will host the next Provost's Forum on Tuesday, April 27, at 4 p.m. in Albany Quadrangle’s Smith Hall. The forum is an ongoing opportunity for students, faculty and staff from all three campuses to gather and talk about matters of mutual interest to the College community.

Information on the presidential search

Three finalists for College president visited campus from April 15 to 21: Maureen Mahoney, Smith College; Jo Ann Gora, University of Massachusetts Boston; and Thomas Hochstettler, International University Bremen.

Each candidate met with College officials one-on-one and with faculty, staff, and students in separate open meetings. The presidential search committee asked for feedback from all College participants, and committee members are taking that feedback into account in their deliberations, along with other information they have gathered.

If the committee decides to recommend a person or persons for the presidency, it will submit that recommendation to the Board of Trustees, which is the body charged with hiring a president. It is not possible to predict precise timing in these matters, but once a selection is made, the announcement will come from or on behalf of the Board.

Visit the presidential search committee Web page.

People News

Published, presented, honors and achievements

Faculty and staff serve as ambassadors for the College through their publications, presentations, awards, grants and other accomplishments. Recent highlights include:

In February, William Funk, professor of law, served as a judge at the first annual National Animal Advocacy Competition at Harvard Law School, a competition presented by the National Center for Animal Law, located at Lewis & Clark, and the Harvard Student Animal Legal Defense Fund.

Roger Nelsen, professor of mathematics, published a paper titled “The symmetric footrule in Gini’s rank association coefficient,” coauthored with M. Ubeda Flores. The paper appeared in “Communications in Statistics--Theory and Methods” (v. 22, no. 1, pp. 195-96) 2004.

Nicholas D. Smith, James F. Miller Professor of Humanities, will publish a new book in fall titled "Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates," coauthored with Thomas C. Brickhouse (Routledge, 2004).

More listings of faculty and staff achievements can be found in our online pressroom.

L&C in the news

College faculty and staff are in the news on a regular basis. Recent mentions include:

The Oregonian: Article profiling third presidential finalist, Thomas J. Hochstettler, International University Bremen. April 21, 2004.

The Oregonian: Article profiling second presidential finalist, Jo Ann M. Gora, University of Massachusetts Boston. April 20, 2004.

The Miami Herald/Associated Press (Miami, Fla.): Robert J. Miller, associate professor of law, comments on the case of a centuries-old Native American skull found in a Portland home during a remodeling project. Tribes likely won’t fight over ownership, according to Miller, as long as the skull is properly reburied. A legal case arising from the finding would be groundbreaking, says Miller, since the skull was found on private property and is in the hands of a private property owner. April 17, 2004.

The Oregonian: Article profiling first presidential finalist, Maureen A. Mahoney, Smith College. April 15, 2004.

KPAM Radio: Robert Eisinger, associate professor and chair of political science, discusses how President Bush answered the 9-11 Commission question about why the president and vice president will testify together. April 14, 2004.

For a sampling of how and where Lewis & Clark is mentioned by media outlets across the nation and around the globe, visit the online pressroom.

Events

National health administrator Fauci speaks at undergraduate commencement

National health administrator and scientist Dr. Anthony S. Fauci will address graduates at the College’s commencement on Sunday, May 9. His talk is titled “Everything Changes, But Nothing Changes.”

“The results of Dr. Fauci’s scholarship, research and advocacy demonstrate the impact that one individual can have on issues of global importance,” says Paul E. Bragdon, interim president. “His dedication to service is an important example for our liberal arts students.”

More than 380 Lewis & Clark students will have completed their bachelor of arts degrees during the 2003-04 academic year. More than 350 are expected to participate in commencement. Learn more.

Works by Tchaikovsky and Mozart featured for spring orchestra concert

Mozart’s popular Coronation Mass will be paired with Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations when Lewis & Clark’s Chamber Orchestra performs on Sunday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. The orchestra is directed by George Skipworth and the 44-voice choral group Cappella Nova is directed by Susan McBerry. The concert, in Evans Auditorium on campus, is free and open to the public.

“The accessibility of the music on this particular program doesn’t negate the incredible complexity of the works. Our students will demonstrate their artistry through this upcoming concert,” says George Skipworth, visiting assistant professor of music and college orchestra conductor.

Cellist Kim Cook is featured in Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme and in Dmitri Shostakovitch’s Cello Concerto No. 1. The program concludes with Georges Enescu’s familiar Romanian Rhapsody No. 1.

Sierra Club's Carl Pope speaks on environmental progress

According to Carl Pope, environmental progress has been part of the American dream since Theodore Roosevelt took up the cause. But Pope says that recently the dream has begun to fade. Pope, executive director of the national Sierra Club, will speak at Lewis & Clark on Monday, May 3, at 4:30 p.m. His talk is titled “Restoring the American Environmental Dream.” The event, in Agnes Flanagan Chapel, is free and open to the public.

Pope was appointed executive director of Sierra Club in 1992, following several decades of service to the organization as associate conservation director, political director and conservation director. According to Sierra Club, Pope’s leadership has led to the protection of nearly 10 million acres of wilderness areas including Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and California’s Giant Sequoias National Monument. He is on a national tour promoting his new book, “Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress,” coauthored with Paul Rauber. Learn more.

Humanities scholar discusses the legacy of Lewis and Clark’s encounters with Native Americans

The Lewis and Clark Expedition had a profound impact on Native American communities. Clay S. Jenkinson, humanities scholar in residence at Lewis & Clark College, will discuss Lewis and Clark’s encounters with Native Americans in a lecture on Wednesday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. at the World Forestry Center. The event is part of the law school’s symposium on the expedition’s impact on Indian law.

“The story of Lewis and Clark is a deeper metaphor of journeying, of the Enlightenment, of the arts and sciences being applied to a new region of the country, of discovery and of encounters,” says Jenkinson.

Admission for the lecture and a reception is $25. Reservations are requested by April 28 to the law school's Oregon Law Institute, ext. 6580. Learn more.

Upcoming

Visit the campus Web calendar for events coming up in April and in May.