Campus Connections

Issue Date: September 11, 2006

News and Notices

Five years after...

Faculty reflect on 9/11 attacks

Five years after the 9/11 attacks, people all over the world are talking about the heightened conflict between Islam and the West.

But against this background of the clash of civilizations, there is a possibility for dialogue and understanding. After all, it was not so long ago that the first country in the world to recognize the United States of American was Morocco, a Muslim country. And today, several million Muslims have migrated to the U.S. and are becoming citizens of the West.

How has the College incorporated the post 9/11 world changes into its curriculum? Here, three faculty members offer their reflections.

When asked how 9/11 has changed his teaching and research, Tod Sloan, professor and chair of counseling psychology, graduate school, shared this story:

“Having quit my previous academic position to be more directly involved in social change, I was looking for work in Washington, DC during September of 2001. On September 11 itself, after the Pentagon was hit, I happened to have an appointment scheduled to meet with the national coordinator of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, a peace and social justice advocacy organization. I called her to see if she still wanted to meet, and she said that of course we would meet since there was even more work to do now. I got to the office and was immediately asked to draft recommendations on how psychologists across the country could work for a constructive response to the attacks. I ended up working there part-time for a few years before joining the faculty of the Graduate School. During the months following 9/11, we noted very quickly that the government and media were fostering a polarization of the citizenry and that certain reasonable perspectives were being marginalized and labeled as unpatriotic. To address this, we started training psychologists to facilitate community dialogue groups on post-9/11 America and became part of a national surge of interest in dialogue practices. My sense is that the ‘red-blue’ dialogue experiences that were organized in communities across the country had mixed results, partly because citizens have so little practice in listening with the aim of expanding their horizons of understanding. We seem to be much better at listening in order to argue better! Now, having returned to an academic setting, I have been focusing my scholarship and community involvement on dialogue methods for developing collective wisdom and deepening democracy. Eventually, I hope we will be offering a variety of training programs in dialogue facilitation, mediation, and conflict transformation for professionals in a variety of fields as well as for community leaders.”

Bob Mandel, professor and chair of international affairs, is an expert in national security and conflict issues. “The September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States fostered an atmosphere of deep fear and hatred pertaining to ominous foreign developments, causing many observers to question both the goals and the effectiveness of our national security policies,” he says. “As a result, my research has focused on rigorously examining how we define success in this regard (my book “The Meaning of Military Victory," 2006), how much sacrifice we are willing to incur in the process (my book “Security, Strategy, and The Quest for Bloodless War,” 2004), and how we identify and manage threat (ongoing project, to be completed in 2007). My teaching about security has changed to reflect the real sense of national vulnerability to international disruption felt by people and governments around the world today and to emphasize the costs and benefits resulting from reactions to this predicament.”

“A little knowledge about the Middle East can be a dangerous thing,” says Paul Powers, assistant professor of religious studies. Powers teaches a range of courses about Islam, Middle East history, and religious studies. His research interests focus on pre-modern Islam, especially Islamic law. In the years since the 9/11 attacks, Powers has seen people develop a greater awareness for news and issues in the Middle East, but the not the nuanced depth of knowledge and understanding.

“Americans today generally know quite a bit more about Islam and Muslims than they did in 2001,” says Powers. “Unfortunately, this situation has often brought to mind the old adage that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. In particular, the notion of ‘Islamo-fascism’ has emerged as an explanatory dictum, as if now that we have such a term, we know all we need to and can overlook all historical and contextual complexities. This attitude leads to a willingness to conflate disparate entities.”

To mark this day in our nation’s history, the Lewis & Clark community is invited to visit Agnes Flanagan Chapel or the South Campus Chapel on Monday, September 11, for an open time of individual reflection, meditation, and prayer. There will be candles available to light, and chapel visitors will be encouraged to focus their thoughts and prayers on memories of 9/11 and our continuing hopes for peace in the world.

Agnes Flanagan Chapel will be open for this vigil of peace and remembrance from noon to 5 p.m. The South Campus Chapel will be open from 4 to 9 p.m.

For more information, call Rev. Mark Duntley at ext. 7082 or Sr. Loretta Schaff at ext. 7080.

Students return to classes

The College has opened its 140th academic year, welcoming 515 first-year students and 1,473 transfer and returning undergraduate students.

At the College of Arts and Sciences convocation on August 31, Dean of Admissions Mike Sexton hailed the undergraduate class of 2010 as one of the “best and most diverse classes” to date at the college. The 575 new students include undergraduate first-year students from 40 states and the District of Columbia, and 19 countries; there are 60 transfer students. Eighteen percent are students of color and more than six percent are international students.

Lewis & Clark’s incoming undergraduate class maintains the college’s high academic standards: 80 percent had high school grade-point averages over 3.4. The first-year students’ SAT and ACT averages are place them in the top fifth of test takers in the nation, and 82 percent ranked in the top quarter of their class.

Sexton offered up additional statistical data about the incoming class: More than 5,000 students had applied as first-year or transfer students; 93 percent of the students applied online; sixteen women are named Sarah; and there are men with the last names of Lewis and Clark.

The law school received more than 2,200 applications and welcomed 224 first-year students when classes began on August 28.

The graduate school welcomed 663 new and returning on-campus students when classes resumed on September 5. The graduate school holds its convocation on September 15.

Law school’s environmental and natural resources program honors alumni

As law school’s environmental law program celebrates its 36th anniversary, four alumni will be honored at the 19th annual Natural Resource Law Institute Distinguished Visitor public lecture. The event is free and open to the public and will take place at Lewis & Clark on Thursday, September 14, at 5:30 p.m.

Aubrey Baldwin J.D. ’05 works in Berea, Kentucky, as an attorney representing public-interest organizations and citizen activists in state and federal Clean Air Act litigation. Her cases include those that address coal-fired power plant permitting and enforcement and national air quality and climate policy initiatives. Baldwin will receive the Williamson Award which is presented by the law school’s environmental alumni association to a recent graduate who has demonstrated a commitment to public interest environmental work.

David Blount J.D. ’80 is a partner in the Portland office of Landye Bennett Blumstein and he has directed the firm’s multi-state environmental practice group since 1989. Blount has more than 25 years of regulatory and litigation experience in environmental law, products liability, insurance, and hazardous substance issues.

Maggie Fox J.D. ’82 lives in Boulder, Colorado, and is the president of America Votes. She recently stepped down as deputy executive director of the Sierra Club where she had worked for more than 20 years in a number of positions including director of the Southwest Regional Office and as a senior issues specialist on western public lands and resources. Fox has worked extensively on issues as varied as global warming and energy policy, growth and sprawl, and public lands and water resources. She has worked on and led numerous national political and environmental campaigns.

Jan McDonald, LL.M. ’92 is a professor of law and deputy research director at Griffith Law School in Queensland, Australia. Her broad research is in environmental and natural resources law and policy. In recent years, her work has focused on the impacts of globalization, especially the relationship between international trade rules and environmental protection. She recently served as manager of the United Nations Development Program’s environment program in the Solomon Islands.

Legal scholar Robert Glennon was selected as the 2006 Natural Research Law Institute Distinguish Visitor and will give a public lecture titled “The Environmental Consequences of Groundwater Pumping: Herein Tales of Bottled Water and French Fries.” Glennon is the Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Arizona’s Rogers College of Law. He specializes in constitutional law, American legal history, and water law and has more than 30 years of professional experience. He earned a J.D. in 1969 from Boston College Law School and earned master’s and doctoral degrees in American history from Brandeis University.

Graduate school convocation discusses the role of power

The graduate school’s 2006 academic convocation will take place on Friday, September 15 on South Campus. The event features presentations about and a discussion of power and its role in people’s lives. The core program theme for 2006-07 is “Power Over, Power With, Power Within: A Professional’s Journey.”

New students will receive Paul Rogat Loeb’s book, “The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear.” Essays from the book were assigned in advance of the convocation to give the graduate school community a common background to engage in lively small-group discussions.

Students, faculty, and alumni may participate in an optional yearlong discussion of questions generated at the convocation and by related readings. For more information, contact the core programs office at ext. 6010 or gradcore@lclark.edu.

September is bike commute challenge month

September is historically the second driest month of the year in Oregon and SW Washington, which makes it a great time to sign up for the 2006 Bike Commute Challenge. There’s no better time to save on gas money, get in shape, enjoy the long days of summer, and soak up the sun.

Lewis & Clark placed 2nd in the bike commute challenge last year in the competition for business and non-profits with 500 + employees. This year’s challenge offers opportunities for: