History Professor to Appear on TLC

Please pardon the wholesale cut and paste job from Bloomsburg University's Today page, but this is too good to pass up:

Professor to appear on TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are

Jeanette Keith, professor of history, will appear on the Tuesday, Sept. 10, episode of TLC’s “Who Do You Think You Are” featuring Emmy-winning actor Jim Parsons of TV’s “The Big Bang Theory.” The documentary-style series pairs celebrities with history experts to discover their ancestral roots. Keith indicated she will appear on the show, which will air at 9 p.m., however she could not reveal more details.

Don't miss it!

What We Did Over Summer "Break": Part 2

While many of the Bloomsburg University's College of Liberal Arts students had productive summer vacations, members of the faculty also managed to keep themselves busy as well. David Miller, assistant professor of Theatre in the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance filled his time away from the classroom by writing, producing, and directing three new plays and musicals.

courtesy of The Artful Conspirators

Sisters of the Eternal Knot is a new, original play that Miller wrote and worshopped over the course of a week with his New York City-based theater company The Artful Conspirators. The play revolves around warring nuns in Medieval France. As the leaders of abbeys Ciel Bleu and Rouge, the nuns' life-long antagonism with one another grows dangerous and the choices they make may result in the life or death of the nuns they serve.

"I don’t set out to communicate a message, per se, but when I reflect on my plays and how they reflect my values, I see that in many of my plays I am interested in the complicated role of leaders and teachers. There are good leaders and teachers and there are poor leaders and teachers. But it’s not as cut and dried as that. One of the questions I want to pose to audiences is 'What are the qualities of a good leader?' There’s something of that in this play, I think," said Miller in an interview with The Artful Conspirators.

courtesy of The New York Musical Theater Festival

Miller also directed the developmental reading of Alice Unraveled, a new rock/electronica musical about a young woman struggling to find her identity in the wake of traumatic experiences, at the New York Musical Theater Festival in July. 

Using characters from Lewis Carroll’s classic novel in a contemporary world, Alice is a teenage girl struggling with the post-traumatic stress. Alice is pulled “down the rabbit hole” and into a nightmarish world in which she cannot separate reality from memory.

courtesy of The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival

Rounding out his summer "break," Miller directed the premiere of In The Early Dark, a 10-minute play about a close-knit family celebrating the first snowfall of winter as part of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival. The play was selected as a finalist and was one of thirty plays selected for performance selected out of more than 800 submitted.

Currently, Miller is directing the BU Player's fall production of Avenue Q which will run November 7-10. 

To see more of Miller's upcoming work, visit www.mrdavidamiller.com.

What We Did Over Summer "Break": Part 1

It's the first day of the Fall semester, and summer has gone by quickly, but for many College of Liberal Arts students and faculty, summer has been an eventful and highly productive period. Take, for instance, Criminal Justice major Carl Frauenpreis, who completed an internship with the U. S. Secret Service under the direction of Dr. Babak Mohassel and had the opportunity to meet with former president Bill Clinton.

Carl Frauenpreis, left, with former president Bill Clinton

Carl writes: 

"On the last day of my work week, we went on a protection detail to escort former president Bill Clinton to a private airport. I was very excited because he was at one time one of the most powerful men in the world and not many people get to privately meet him... We all spoke briefly and he even allowed us to take a picture with him... At the end of the day it was a great experience and a great close to my first week interning."

Internships provide great opportunities to synthesize and apply the concepts students are introduced to in their general education and major courses. They also promote confidence and can greatly facilitate the transition from school to employment--in fact, may internships lead directly to offers of permanent employment. Whatever your major, it's never to early to start planning for an internship. 

In the coming days this blog will feature the summer work of BU College of Liberal Arts students and faculty here on campus and around the world. Stay tuned!

Professor and Students Reflect on Panama Trip

Today’s commonly marketed second language text books so overflow with glossy color photos of peoples and places, and are so saturated with cultural information related to those peoples and places, that the understanding is not lost on anyone: learning language is learning culture.

Anyone who has studied another language acknowledges that the single most significant component to language/culture learning is immersion. What one cannot learn “here” about peoples and places that are “not here” is immeasurable.

Below, several students who traveled to Panamá over Spring Break share an example of what they leaned from their immersion experience. You won’t read about the long, overnight bus rides, uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, and aimless wandering through hot, humid, big-city neighborhoods. But these were precisely the things that reminded me that, try as they may, the glossy photos and long selections of cultural information found in our students’ expensive text books only begin to scratch the surface.

Chris Donahue
Languages and Cultures

***

"I went on the Panama trip not because I was a Spanish major, but because I was interested in getting out and seeing the world beyond a textbook. This was my first trip out of the U.S. so I was preparing for a culture shock, and while I didn't get shocked, I learned quite a bit. Here in the U.S. we take so much for granted: homes with a roof and four walls, hot water, shoes and clothes, just to name a few things. And here in the U.S. we are busy running from one thing to another not truly taking time to notice the little things and the people around us. In Panama, people take care of each other. They may not all have hot water or even homes with four walls. There may be children walking around with one flip flop and clothes that are too small. But the one thing I really took notice of was how happy these people were. They took what they had and made a life for themselves and their family. They smiled and laughed and had a good time. People in the U.S. could learn a thing or two from them. Going on this trip has made me appreciate how much I have. I think anyone who has the opportunity to go on this trip should, it makes you see life in a new perspective.”

Kim Johnson

***

Katie Pyle and her home stay family

“There are many things you can read in a textbook or learn in a classroom and think you understand it, until you find out you really don’t until you experience it. That was the case for me numerous times. I had learned that Hispanic culture was laid-back when it came to time; they aren’t strict like Americans when it comes to the clock. They are very relaxed about it as I found out as I impatiently waited for things like boat rides and breakfast. When I see a sign stating that breakfast will be served at 7:30 a.m., I am up and ready by 7:15 (breakfast just happens to be my favorite meal.) To my dismay, breakfast was never served until 8:15. I was too busy grumbling along with my stomach to realize that I was indeed in another culture and had to remind myself that I was. I know it sounds trite, but even this little snippet of experience opens your eyes to others’ way of life.

Having to speak Spanish constantly especially with our host family was challenging but ended up building my speaking confidence. You really cannot experience another culture without immersing yourself in one.”

Katie Pyle

***

“Traveling to Panamá was an experience that I would never find in the classroom here, simply because I was completely immersed in the culture. Everything around me reflected the culture of the people there and I had to switch from English to Spanish for 10 days. While there, we lived with homestays in which the families spoke Spanish and had very little, if any, knowledge of English. I was forced to speak Spanish in the homestay in order to function. This is something that I would never experience in the classroom. In the classroom, we know we can always revert back to English, or as soon as we leave we can speak in English. In Panamá this was not the case and it resulted in a greater confidence in speaking Spanish.

It was interesting returning to the States trying to switch back to English. I remember saying, the day after we returned, to one of my co-workers, “I feel like I can’t function, everything is in English!” The motivation that I have gained from going abroad for a little over a week inspires me to go to another Spanish speaking country to study. It is an experience that will rock your world like no other, and I highly recommend it.”

Kaitlin Heimback

***

“The single greatest thing that I came back with from Panamá was a sense of preparedness. It was certainly a life-changing experience that I simply can't imagine receiving in any other context. I've been studying Spanish for roughly six years now, I took classes for four years throughout high school and have another two under my belt here at Bloomsburg University, and although I've studied hard and learned an incredible amount from all of my professors and classes throughout the years I still lacked the confidence that I could actually make it a part of my life; I never felt like I could "get there" with the language but rather I would always be stumbling through the conjugations and grammatical differences that we all strive to grasp.

The example I like to use to explain my transition to people after coming home is my experience with our guide in Panama City, Monolo. The first night he took us to a cafe where I struggled through ordering myself a plate of food in Spanish. I had never needed to do this before in my life so what is to be expected? Over the course of just a few days, however,  my Spanish was coming out of me more readily, more confidently and more correctly, and the thought of that first night crossed my mind many times. I wanted to see Monolo again, I wanted to show him my progress, I felt that I was better than what he saw and it just bothered me.

Well the opportunity arose on the last day of our journey, as he drove us from our hostel to the airport in Panama City. On the way we discussed some of what we saw in the city. The previous day my classmates and I had walked around Panama City, accompanied by a guide so we could make the most of our time. We saw a part of the city called Casco Antiguo. It was almost like being in Spain; all the buildings were hundreds of years old and beautifully crafted, yet in desperate need of repair. Our guide showed us some of the progress being made and explained to us that businesses are purchasing the old buildings and having them restored and repurposed. In fact, we had stopped for ice cream in a restored building without even knowing it. In nearly fluent (I think) Spanish I asked Monolo what was happening to the people living in those buildings. They were in disrepair but still housing families and it seemed like they wouldn't have much of a chance to stay in their homes if the property was being bought up by investors.

What Manolo explained to us was very impressive. The residents in those buildings were actually squatters. They didn't pay for their residencies or anything of the sort; they were just living there for lack of a roof to sleep under. But instead of simply throwing them out onto the street as the area underwent renovation, the president of Panama initiated a plan to construct low income housing projects for all of the displaced people in another part of the city. That was a very satisfying end to our trip. Discussing important things that were happening in the lives of the people there in their language with no barriers of communication felt like a huge accomplishment for me. The trip as a whole allowed me to grow as a person and as a student of this language and culture that I've grown to love. There's no substitute for this kind of cultural immersion. Whether you're a student or just curious about the world, it is an experience that I believe everyone should make an honest attempt to have.”

Josh Powell

History Students Shine

On April 13, BU hosted the annual Pennsylvania East Regional conference of the History Honors Society Phi Phi Alpha Theta.   The students in BU’s History Club and its Phi Alpha Theta chapter helped faculty member Dr. Jennifer Oast to organize the conference, which featured seventy-nine presentations by students from colleges and universities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.   Four BU History students presented their history research papers:  Alison Huber, Michael Mock, Gary Stover, and Stephen Swicklik II.   A committee made up of faculty from several universities awarded an “outstanding paper” prize to Michael Mock for his research paper, “American Humanitarian Intervention in Turkey from 1914-1919.”  Congratulations to Michael and to all of the BU History students who presented papers and helped to organize this conference.

Kudos as well to Olga Bertelsen, one of the BU History Department’s many excellent alumni, who in April was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies at Columbia University.  Bertelsen, who completed her BA in History at BU in 2008, recently defended her dissertation at Nottingham University in the UK.  She joins a long list of BU History alumni who have gone on to complete PhDs, author important research studies, and win prestigious post-doctoral grants.

A Short Article on the Value of Liberal Arts

This article from the website Backstage, written by Harvey Young of Northwestern University, makes some excellent points about the importance of the theatre degree. It's not too hard to imagine how similar arguments can be made about most liberal arts discipline. Thanks to Ethan Krupp for the link!

Incidentally, though Young identifies three reasons, he left off an important one: theater students learn how to use power tools.

BU Anthropology Students Present at National Conference

Bloomsburg University Anthropology students participated at the 73rd Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings in Denver, Colorado March 19-25, 2013 under the theme-Natural Resource Distribution and Development in the 21st Century.  Students presented posters on research, internship, and applied projects.

They also attended a roundtable organized by Faith Warner and with DeeAnne Wymer and Gabrielle Vielhauer as discussants where they learned more about preparing for graduate school from representatives of the leading graduate programs in applied anthropology in the U.S.

Posters

STEFFEN II, Julie A. and WARNER, Faith (Bloomsburg U) The Perceived Costs and Benefits of Fracking in Central Pennsylvania

BARRILE, Gabriel and LEACH, Amanda (Bloomsburg U) Comparison of Time Budgeting between Free-Ranging and Captive Ateles Geoffroyi

BILDER, Shannon and DAURIA, Susan (Bloomsburg U) The Creation of a Multi-disciplinary Applied Research Program for Undergraduates within a Liberal Arts College, Using the Concept-model of an Anthropological Field-school

DOWNS, Laurel, GREVERA, Mike, WAGNER, Natalie, and DAURIA, Susan (Bloomsburg U) Bloomsburg University Students Create an Educational Anthropology/Archaeology Summer Camp Program for Community Children

SHAFFER, Krysta (Bloomsburg U) The Impact of Fracking on Rural Communities in Central Pennsylvania (travel supported by the College of Liberal Arts)

VIELHAUER, Gabrielle (Bloomsburg U) Industrial Archaeology within the Forest

(travel supported by the College of Liberal Arts)

  
Paper Presentation

MUWOMBI, Jimmy (Bloomsburg U) Disaster Anthropology, Assessment, and Support in a Flood-Prone Community of Central Pennsylvania (on a session entitled Disaster Perception and Preparedness)