By Amy Vames

What have you been doing since you graduated from Drew? I am finishing up my Ph.D. in optics at the University of Rochester. Last spring I worked for the wavefront sensing group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. At NASA, I worked primarily on the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The Webb telescope will work in the infrared. That’s important because light from far away is heavily red-shifted and cannot be seen by telescopes like the Hubble, which operates at visible wavelengths. The tentative launch date for the telescope is 2014.

Zielinski’s time at Drew’s Summer Science Institute paved the way to his work with NASA.

What did your job at NASA involve? I wrote computer software that will help in the operation of the telescope. The pieces of the telescope are assembled on earth but will be folded up before deployment. Once the telescope deploys, the individual optical surfaces have to be lined up to within a few billionths of a meter. To do that, the telescope will take a picture of a star. Since the surfaces aren’t aligned, the image will be blurry. NASA will use a computer algorithm to analyze this pattern to determine the misalignments, and then calculate the correct commands needed to align the telescope. My job was to make the algorithm work better. The telescope is going to be a million miles from earth, so it will all be done remotely.

What led you to optics? A good portion of my undergraduate research at Drew had to do with optics. I was a Drew Summer Science Institute student as a sophomore. I worked with [physics chair] David McGee on a project with Bell Labs.

How did it feel to work on a project that could open up our understanding of the universe? It was exciting; it’s definitely cutting-edge stuff that has the potential to produce profound science. That was the major motivating factor to go to work every day, the feeling that I was contributing to something bigger.

The atrium of the Dubai hotel Burj Al Arab, which soars nearly 600 feet.

The United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s youngest players in the global economy, is intriguing both for its headlong plunge into opulence and its seemingly tenuous hold on it. Sixteen students traveled there on a Drew International Seminar to see business in the UAE come to life.

By Renée Olson
Photos by Nousha Salimi

The United Arab Emirates is home to the superlative.
It claims the world’s largest mall (Dubai Mall, with 1,200 stores), the tallest building (Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, at 160 stories), the furthest-leaning tower (Abu Dhabi’s Capital Gate tower, which leans more than four times further than the Leaning Tower of Pisa) and the only self-described seven-star hotel, the sailboat-shaped Burj Al Arab in Dubai. Before long, Abu Dhabi will even have its own Louvre and its own Guggenheim.

What fuels this?

Oil, certainly. “Black gold” is what launched the UAE onto the world stage two generations ago, and oil is what will keep the country flush for some time. That, and some strategic investment strategies.

Kyler Robinson C’10 and Dave Brigandi C’10 soak in mall culture.

What’s less certain is whether the UAE can sustain itself while ceding all control to its sheiks, a vestigial holdover from its nomadic tribal past, and its staggering dependence on foreign workers.

On the heels of the semester-long course “Global Business in the United Arab Emirates,” professors Nora Colton and Carlos Yordán piled 16 students on a plane in late May to learn what makes this nation tick, from the people who know best: Emiratis and Western expatriates, unveiled girls on the beach and cab drivers, falafel makers and free-zone executives—plus a world-renowned economist in Dubai.

I should know. The group allowed me, the editor of Drew Magazine, to tag along and sit in on a string of private boardroom meetings in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as experience firsthand the national pastime of riding in taxis with drivers who believe they drive bumper cars. For those of you seated safely in your living room, here’s the takeaway on what the students experienced.

Emirate, defined

Photo op in front of Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab hotel.

A country ruled by an emir or sheik, a male leader in a Muslim country. The United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven emirates, founded in 1971. The Drew DIS made stops in four emirates—Abu Dhabi (the capital, as well as the largest and wealthiest), Dubai, Sharjah and Fujairah. The others are Ajman, Umm al-Quwain and Ras al-Khaimah.

It’s a gusher

Originally a British endeavor, oil exploration finally began to pay off for Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the 1960s. The country ranks eighth in the world in terms of oil production, but the end is in sight. Executives at the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations told us their proven oil reserves are projected to last another 90 years, close enough to push the nation to diversify its economy now.

Hello, where are all the Emiratis?

The Emiratis are not a populous people, and they’ve filled their land with the foreign-born. Fully 80 percent of the population consists of non-Emirati Arabs, Iranians, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangla-deshis, Filipinos, Ethiopians and others. Foreigners are not eligible for citizenship and may not own property. Population estimates vary wildly, but some six million people live in an area slightly smaller than the state of Maine.

Downtime with Professor Nora Colton (in pink) in a food market.

How to make your population happy

What can Emiratis expect from the government? Free utilities, health care and education through college. A free house or free land and $19,000 for wedding costs. And for men, a $55,000 annual subsidy. The largesse, say historians, is a remnant of patronage practiced by Bedouin royalty.

What’s a rentier state?

Nations blessed with natural resources—for the UAE, that’s oil—can opt to use the proceeds, or “rent,” to support their populations, says Will Brackett C’11, who wrote a pre-departure paper on the UAE as a “rentier” state. “What happens is that the government provides its people with a high quality of life,” says Brackett, “but in turn people have to relinquish a lot of their political rights. There’s no democracy.”

When the oil runs out

The UAE is busy pursuing new sources of income, including sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). “The gains made by SWFs”—large investment funds owned by the government—“can offer income smoothing for public expenditures while helping diversify their wealth away from oil,” wrote Kyler Robin-son C’10 in his paper on the topic. Worldwide, SWFs are valued today at upwards of $3 trillion; the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, estimated to be the largest in the world, has assets of more than $6 billion.

What sovereign wealth funds buy

The Jumeirah Mosque in Dubai, open to non- Muslims.

“Whether you look at the Palm projects”—the man-made, palm tree–shaped islands off the shore of Dubai—“or all the amazing hotels, almost everything on a larger-than-life scale in this country seems to have a government hand in it,” says Robinson. “If you follow the trails of ownership and parent companies up the chain, you see that they’re owned either by the government itself, through some sort of authority or through a sovereign wealth fund.”

The plight of the migrant worker

Minami Hamamoto C’12 researched the UAE’s reliance on foreign workers. Her visit confirmed her previous findings: Migrants may find improved conditions in the UAE compared to their native countries, but at a cost. “After talking with taxi drivers and people who work in res­taurants here, it’s [a choice] between the UAE, which they don’t really love, and back home, where things are worse. They get no rights [in the UAE], they live in bad conditions and living costs here are so expensive.”

Why worker rights are unlikely to improve

“There is absolutely no reason for internal change other than the people’s own moral compass,” says senior Michael Noonan, commenting on the lamentable treatment of foreign workers, which he researched for the course. “Even if they turn away, there’s always going to be new labor coming from places like North Africa. To get change you need groups like Human Rights Watch and international NGOs, but they’re often limited as to what they can do here by the government. When they release reports, the government makes promises. Rarely are the promises followed through on.”

The $30 potato chip

One student found that munching a chip on Dubai’s new metro makes for a very expensive snack. A security guard whisked him away to pay a $30 fine.

A presentation on Islam at the Jumeirah Mosque in Dubai.

What women wear

An abaya, a traditional black outer robe that covers all but the face and hands, and a sheila, a black scarf that covers the head and part of the face, often trimmed with rhinestones or sequins. For Emiratis (male or female), dress is a definite cultural signifier: It communicates residential status in the UAE.

What men wear

A kandora, a long robe (white for the summer); a ghutra, a head scarf, often white; and an igal, a double circle of twisted black cord on top to keep the ghutra in place. Legend has it that the igal is evocative of the rope Emiratis would use to tie up camels to keep them from wandering off in the desert.

Bubble trouble

“This country has experimented with many development strategies,” says Associate Professor of Political Science Carlos Yordán. “Dubai has done a very good job positioning itself as a place to do business, and we wanted to explore whether it was hype or reality. The answer lies somewhere in between.” Although Dubai has hit a speed bump—“the real estate bubble has burst, and they’re having difficulty with their economy”—Abu Dhabi is “doing amazing, and its challenge is to not enter into the same bubble that Dubai did.”

When not in a boardroom, we …

got henna tattoos; went dunebashing in 4x4s; woke to the call of prayer before sunrise; rode camels in lieu of eating camel burgers; marveled at the ubiquity of second-tier U.S. fast-food chains like Popeye’s and Hardee’s.

Think again, Dubai

Jasmin Siegle C’10 sees flaws in Dubai’s development strategies. She believes its move to invest in the service sector, primarily tourism, is misguided since the UAE’s  “relatively small national population and oil revenues are suited for a capital-intensive rather than a labor-intensive economy.” Instead, as she wrote in her paper, “Dubai needs to diversify its economy, specifically its exporting sector, in accordance with its resources.” Her recommendations? Capital-intensive technology and R&D sectors, such as solar technology.

A little shoptalk with a leading economist

Nasser Saidi, DIFC chief economist, briefed students on the shift in global economic power to Asia and the Middle East.

“There was nothing here six years ago,” says Nasser Saidi, chief economist of the Dubai International Fin­ancial Centre (DIFC), the emirate’s answer to Wall Street, referring to the skyscrapers ringing DIFC headquarters. In a private, two-hour master class on the economy of Dubai and the region, Saidi, formerly Lebanon’s economic minister, told us about what he called “economic tectonics,” the shift over the last three decades of wealth and production away from “advanced economies,” such as the United States and Europe, and toward “emerging economies,” such as Asia and the Middle East. In a PowerPoint presentation, he explained that in 2009, the U.S. equity market dropped to an estimated 28 percent of the total global equity capitalization from 46 percent in 1999. For emerging economies, which include the UAE, the equity market rose to an estimated 32 percent of global equity capitalization in 2009, up from 8 percent in 1999. “Most of the growth in the world is in the emerging markets,” said Saidi.

A welcome mat for nuclear energy

“It takes a lot of energy to live in a harsh climate,” John Loy, director of radiation safety at Abu Dhabi’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), told us during a visit to the agency. For that reason, Abu Dhabi is pursuing nuclear energy at a breakneck pace. The emirate launched FANR and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) in 2009 and expects to open the first of four nuclear reactors, built with Seoul-based Korea Electric Power Corporation, in 2017. Still up in the air? Plans for disposing the waste.

What students said they’ll remember …

The desert safari; going to the top of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building; the rock-hard beds in Sharjah; learning about Islam.

How a trip like this changes a person

The Dubai Mall.

“I’ve had students tell me that Drew International Seminars make them much more sophisticated, more adaptable,” says Professor of Economics Nora Colton. “It makes them global citizens.”

Renée Olson is the editor of Drew Magazine.

Related

• Watch video from the Drew International Seminar in the United Arab Emirates.
• Read the UAE blog.

By Sally Ann Flecker

“Have you looked at the news in the last few days?” Luis Campos asked in a lively voice at the start of a phone conversation recently. “Craig Venter has claimed to create a synthetic cell.”

Venter, of course, is the entre­preneurial biologist who led the private push to sequence the entire human genome, racing against the publicly funded Human Genome Project. Now his team at the Rockland, Md.–based J. Craig Venter Institute, using lab chemicals and a computer, has created the first viable cell with a synthetic genome.

For an introduction to the field, Campos likes to refer people to “Adventures in Synthetic Biology,” a comic book published by Nature (click photo). Photo by Bill Cardoni.

It’s not surprising that Venter’s name surfaces in the conversation. What Campos, an assistant professor of history who specializes in the history of science, has been documenting lately is the edgy science that Venter and others are doing, and it’s unfolding right now, not in the distant past. It’s a new and—depending on your viewpoint—exciting or unnerving field called synthetic biology. The simplest way to describe synthetic biology is that it’s where engineering and bio­logy converge, with genetics, chemistry and computer science thrown into the mix. What makes it sexy—and increasingly appealing to a generation of budding young scientists—is the promise of creating entirely original sequences of DNA that allow an organism to do something other than what it’s naturally able to do.

It’s that word “creation” that Campos finds compelling. As a historian of science, he looks at science not in a Petri dish but as a part of culture. One of the things he’s been following is the way the term “playing God” gets bandied about uneasily in relation to certain kinds of scientific advances. According to Campos, the accusation is nothing new. In his work he’s explored biology in the first half of the 20th century when geneticists were the new kids on the block, and there was a buzz, much like today, over using science to create new, bigger, better organisms.

With the emergence of synthetic biology, it’s just been a matter of time, he’s been saying, until the claim of creating life in a test tube comes along—and then someone else will deny it happened. That’s what’s got Campos so excited over Venter’s announcement—not the accomplishment as much as the response. Almost immediately, for instance, the Vatican seemed compelled to comment on the breakthrough, acknowledging it as “interesting,” but countering that the scientists who created the cell had not created life, just “replaced one of its motors.”

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama directed the newly minted Presidential Com­mission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to consider the potential medical, environmental and security benefits while identifying possible risks. Which, of course, is the $64 million question: What exactly is this science capable of? And the answer is, nobody completely knows.

Campos was just up the road at Harvard, working on his dissertation in 2004, when synthetic biology pioneers at MIT organized a now-famous conference to bring to­gether researchers from around the world. Campos was struck by the way they were describing what they wanted to do, and what the future of biology could be. The way they talked about biology as something that could be engineered, controlled and predicted echoed how biologists a hundred years ago had talked about their research. It occurred to Campos that his perspective—the long view—might be relevant. “I thought, how unusual is that for a historian to be working on something that might actually be of direct interest to people who are doing the science today,” he says.

Campos submitted a proposal, offering to talk about the parallels he had uncovered. “We didn’t even know our field had a history,” organizers told him. “They thought this was a new way of thinking of biology,” he says. “Understandably, they didn’t know this larger history, something that has come and gone in various ways over the course of the century.”

Campos told them several stories about attempts in the early part of the 20th century to create life as a way to get at the basic nature of living things. (One notable experiment involved radium and beef bouillon, producing strands that appeared lifelike in some ways.) “Oh no, we’re not trying to create life,” they responded. “We’re trying to engineer life.” Campos finds it interesting that they feel a need to make that distinction. “For people at the beginning of the 20th century, the proof that you had a proper engineering understanding and approach to biology was the ability to create it yourself,” he says. “If you understood life properly and fully, then you could make it.”

Although Campos didn’t end up speaking at the conference, he did attend and was blown away, he says, by the way they were reconceptualizing biology. “I had never heard biology described in terms of computer-engineering terminology. Think of logic gates and gene circuits. Who are these people?” he says.

To hear scientists talk about the promise of synthetic biology, it’s going to usher in a new era of personalized pharmaceuticals, solve the petrochemical fuel crisis, clean up the environment. And some of it is more than promise. There are synthetic biologically engineered systems already in commercial development, such as new biofuels engineered from E. coli bacteria. Or take the same E. coli bacteria, this time engineered to make a cheaper artemisinin, the basis of an existing and effective antimalarial drug.

Photo illustration by Walter Vasconcelos.

Biology, through the eyes of a synthetic biologist, is looked at as a technology. DNA is something that can be “programmed.” Living organisms are biological “machines.” Genetic codes can be rewritten. Scientists in the field talk about standardized parts (DNA sequences with identified functions), chassis (the structural framework, often bacteria or yeast) and devices (combinations of basic DNA parts). They call genetic engineers, who use genes to tweak existing organisms and systems, “gene bashers.” They imagine a virtual toolbox full of interchangeable BioBricks, pieces of DNA that connect together like Legos, to create organisms that function in a wholly new way. (The trophy for MIT’s wildly popular International Genetically Engineered Machine competition for undergrad students of synthetic biology is a shiny silver, brick-sized Lego.)

The field is changing and expanding so quickly that in the last five years at least four different approaches have sprung up, according to Campos. “One is parts-based—designing Legolike BioBricks. That’s MIT,” says Campos. Another method uses metabolic engineering to produce disease-curing chemicals that are pro­vided only by endangered species. “That’s what Berkeley’s been doing with artemisinin, a cure for malaria,” Campos points out. “Then there’s the minimal genome approach, which is what Venter has been doing—how small can you make a genome to prevent the interference of having too many genes [complicating the results]. You just simplify the system.” Finally, there is a pure science, primarily Euro­pean, approach that uses synthetic biology to shed light on how life may have originated on the planet.

This is a heady time for synthetic biologists. Its foundations as a discipline are still being developed. Campos describes the field as being in its adolescence. But for the time being, it feels like the heyday of the U.S. space program—limited only by the imagination of the practitioners.

As an undergraduate biology major at Harvard, Campos took a biology seminar that involved building a meta-phylogeny to understand the nuances of how certain families of plants and ants evolved together. The course provided an epi­ph­any for Campos. He noticed that in the separate studies being created for this super-sized family tree, there were differences in the ways individual species had been defined. It piqued his curiosity. “For me, asking the question about the proper method was just as interesting as trying to figure out what actually happened in evolutionary history. I had discovered, in the course of doing my biology degree, I was more interested in questions about the nature of knowledge or why it is that we believe this rather than that,” he says. In other words, he was ready to study the history of science—which he did, first at Cambridge, where he got his master’s in the history and philosophy of science, and then back at Harvard for his Ph.D. work.

He brought this same questioning attitude to his dissertation on the prehistory of radiation genetics. It’s hard to imagine now, but when radium was first discovered at the turn of the last century, the popular belief that it had life-giving properties actually affected the interpretation of scientific experiments. Take one 1906 study where a plant, exposed to radium several times a week, grew strangely off to one side and then died. “We would say that’s damage,” Campos says. “But they understood that to be too much of a good thing, that the so-called life-giving power of radium had accelerated the plant’s life through its natural life span, and therefore, this was the expected result.”

As Campos studied how scientific and popular understandings of radium affected each other, he also began to notice the development of an engineering approach to biology, a morphing that began as early as the turn of the last century. He points to the influential botanist Hugo de Vries in the early 1900s, who advanced the idea of experimental evolution. Or physiologist Jacques Loeb, who discovered the phenomenon of artificial parthenogenesis in his famous exper­iment with sea urchin eggs, where a change in the concentration of salt in water stimulated eggs to develop without sperm. Or H.J. Muller’s work in the 1930s to produce mutations through X-ray irradiation. Synthetic biology didn’t originate a few years ago, Campos says, or in the 1990s, or even in the 1970s with recombinant DNA technology. In fact, he’s traced the first use of the term “synthetic biology” all the way back to Stéphane Leduc’s publication of La Biologie Synthétique in 1912. The engineering of biology, Campos says, was a central goal of the 20th century.

And, so far, of the 21st century as well.

Campos’ field work of late is much different from the long, quiet hours in a library looking at century-old correspondence. These days, he’s just as apt to be found at synthetic biology conferences, where he’s listening intently and furiously typing verbatim transcripts of the discussions into his laptop. (At top speed, he can do 110 words per minute.) “I’m listening in a very different way than how scientists and engineers are listening. They’re listening for what the new discovery is. And I’m listening for which kind of work is now, two years later, being referred to as a classic in the field—everyone just knows it,” he says. “How they’re arguing about certain things that were not even thought to be arguable a couple years before. Or what the interesting metaphors are that they’re using, but that they’re not aware they’re using, and how that affects the development of the field.”

Last year, biosafety scientist Markus Schmidt of the Austrian think tank International Dia­logue and Conflict Management, which specializes in new bio- and energy technologies, invited Campos to write a chapter on contem­p­orary synthetic biology for the book Synthetic Biology: The Techno­science and its Societal Consequences (Springer Nether­lands). “Synbio is frequently alluded to as a ‘new’ idea/ approach/science and Luis showed in his work that the term synbio, as well as the idea behind it, is a recurring theme since the late 19th century. Luis identified several waves of synbio and described them with great insight,” Schmidt says. “Luis’ work on the history of synbio is the best I have seen in the community—a perception that is, I believe, shared by many synbio scientists.”

Google “synthetic biology” and you’ll inevitably run into someone accusing scientists of playing God—or scientists denying they are. Campos is tracking that societal tension as a “history of playing God.” He starts the story around the end of the 19th century with the new discipline of genetics taking off. Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon. Large agricultural sta­tions were being created. Seed companies were competing fiercely by developing better cultivars. Horti­cul­turist Luther Burbank, who developed hundreds of new varieties of fruits and flowers, was becoming famous through his plant catalogs, one of which was called “New Creations.” The production of novel things was an unquestioned good. “A scientist in the early days—even a nonscientist breeder like Luther Burbank—could say, ‘I’m going to make new creations,’ and everybody’s happy because they want better crops and better fruit,” Campos says.

But things begin to get more complicated by mid-century. Campos points to the atomic bomb, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the Vietnam War, use of Agent Orange, the questioning of authority: “Science goes from being our salvation to being a more complex part of society.” There’s a loss of innocence in society, a burgeoning awareness of unintended consequences. “Playing God” becomes a recurring criticism by the time the new technology of recombinant DNA arrives in the 1970s. The debate is whether scientists are tinkering with or tampering with life. And that debate continues to this day.

Even the response Campos got from the conveners of the first synthetic biology conference, when they were careful to say they weren’t “creating” life, only engineering it, is telling. “The fear of being seen as the creators of new kinds of living things—and how that might lead to a backlash —is something that is a post-1970s response,” he says. “We have almost a complete inversion from the beginning of the 20th century until now,” says Campos, who eventually hopes to write a book on the history of “playing God” as a way to look at the larger history of genetic engineering, including the interaction between the public and the scientific community.

History, even of events taking place in the days of lightning-fast communication, requires the passage of time to temper the meaning. Still, says Campos, “It’s fascinating to watch how a discipline begins to emerge, and the time will come when we will want to know what happened in those early years and those early stages. And by sheer chance, I happened to be there.

“That’s sometimes how research happens, right?”

Sally Ann Flecker is a freelance writer in Pittsburgh and the former editor of Pitt Magazine.

Related

• The Idea of “Playing God”
  This fall, Luis Campos and colleagues will present the thought-provoking symposium, “Playing God: Disciplinary Perspectives.” Joining Campos are Catherine Keller, professor of constructive theology from Drew’s Theological School, and Matthew Stanley, an associate professor and historian of science from New York University’s Gallatin School. The event is made possible with the support of the Rita and Melvin Wallerstein Faculty Development Grants, the Center on Religion, Culture & Conflict and the Campbell Colloquium on Science and Society.
  Tuesday, Sept. 14, 7 p.m.
  Founders Room, Mead Hall
  drew.edu/crcc

Edited by Amy Vames

A Mother’s Tale

Preparing her mother’s diary for publication allowed Lillie Edwards to see her late mother as a college student in 1940s Alabama.

Lillie Johnson Edwards, a professor of African-American and African history, spent the past year on sabbatical working to publish the diary her mother kept from

One of the most delightful things about the diary, says Edwards, is hearing “the funny, teenager-ish way” her mother sounded. Photo by Bill Cardoni.

1937 to 1941, when Laverna Williams attended State Teachers College in Montgomery, Ala., a school descended from America’s first state-supported liberal arts college for blacks.

Edwards and her two older sisters always knew about their mother’s diary. But none had ever read it until their mother died in 1994. “That’s when we pulled the diary out,” Edwards says. “Fortunately, we found portions that were actually hilarious. Some about my father were so funny. We were in the midst of mourning, and falling out laughing.”

In 1940, Edwards says, her mother was still seven years away from marrying Allen Johnson, who she knew when both were growing up in Columbus, Ga. But already she had him nailed. In one passage, Edwards says, her mother wrote: “‘Allen is so good that sometimes it makes me sick.’ It’s a 19-year-old talking about a guy back home who is so sweet, so good.”

One summer during college, working as a tutor in rural Greenville, Ala., Williams wrote of the poverty she saw all around her, the children without shoes, the children who always went hungry. That there is little mention of segregation in those Jim Crow days is not surprising, Edwards says, given that a black college campus was some­thing of a secluded haven in which students, unlike working-class blacks, rarely mixed with whites in any setting.

Edwards is writing a lengthy introduction that will frame her mother’s diary within the context of the prevailing social and economic forces in Alabama in those years. “I want it to illuminate the life of an African-American college woman during the Depres­sion,” she says. “It says something about the aspirations of the black working class, particularly in the South.”

For years Edwards kept the 4-by-6-inch, 200-page diary with the green leather cover harbored in a safe-deposit box. On occasion she would read portions aloud at community events near her home in Montclair, N.J.

“The passages I’ve read really resonated with young women in particular,” she says. “But also my age mates would say that my mother’s life looked very much like their mothers’ or grandmothers’ or aunts.’”—Christopher Hann

Continuing Education

Doug Simon’s life, post Drew, involves teaching international relations—and keeping up with grandbabies.

Simon, here with granddaughter Abbey, will lecture on U.S. foreign policy at Homecoming Weekend, September 25. Photo by Bill Cardoni.

Retirement? What retirement? Since he stepped away from the workaday world in 2005, Professor Emeritus of Political Science Douglas W. Simon has hardly slowed down, delivering lectures, traveling extensively and happily indulging the grandkids.

An expert in international relations and foreign policy, Simon also maintains his ties to Drew, serving on the Alumni College Com­mittee board, conducting seminars at Homecoming and lecturing to Drew’s alumni chapter in Washington, D.C. Earlier this year Congressional Quarterly Press published a new edition of The Challenge of Politics: An Introduction to Political Science, a textbook Simon co-wrote with two Drew colleagues, former Associate Political Science Professor Joseph Romance and the late Neal Riemer, a professor of political philosophy. The book had five earlier editions, beginning in 1986. “It’s had a long life,” Simon says. “We’re all pretty proud of that.”

Simon and his wife, Susan, a retired high school math teacher, have traveled throughout Europe, he says, becoming especially fond of riverboat cruises. One took them to Holland and Belgium. Another, down the Danube, stopped in a half-dozen countries. The Simons had planned to move back to the West Coast when they retired—he grew up in Berkeley, Calif.—but those plans were derailed. Simon’s first grandchild, Riley, was born the year he retired, and the second, Abbey, in January. And they live just 20 minutes away. “We’re not going back to the West Coast,” he says. “We’re staying here.”—Christopher Hann

Consciousness of Stream

Catherine Riihimaki’s research is all about flow.

Riihimaki’s work this summer in Glacier National Park helped fill in data gaps for 24 Drew Magazine lakes in the northern Rockies. Photo courtesy Catherine Riihimaki.

Drew’s tree-lined campus may seem an unlikely place to study glaciers, but that’s because you don’t know Catherine Riihimaki, an assistant professor in the biology department and environmental studies and sustainability program.

The Connecticut-born geologist, whose Finnish name is pronounced “Ree-hee-mackie,” arrived at Drew in 2008, via Bryn Mawr College, the University of California at Santa Cruz and Williams College. She has a decade-plus record of studying water—frozen and otherwise—from Alaska to New Mexico in a quest to learn how it shapes landscapes through geological time. Research just this past summer put her in a boat in Montana’s Glacier National Park, taking samples of a lake bed to document glacial erosion.

“We’re looking back through time at things like climate change. We’re learning how and why climate changed in the past and what we can expect in the future,” says Riihimaki.

How do her glacial interests out West square with working in New Jersey? Besides the fact that she’s out in the field only about 15 percent of the time, “I love the liberal arts environment,” she says. “My research is asking big-picture questions and using lots of different tools to answer them. It’s the same with liberal arts. You are not specializing in a single track, but trying to get a diverse education. I’m a strong believer in that.”

The backpacker, marathoner, soccer player and guitarist also loves Drew’s setting near New York City and glacial features like Jockey Hollow, the Delaware Water Gap and the Great Swamp.

“Plus, here’s a funny little tidbit,” says Riihimaki. “The Drew campus sits exactly where the big ice sheet ended during the last ice age. Route 124 is the edge of what was glaciated. That’s an exciting feature I wasn’t expecting.”—Bill Haduch

Where Art Is at Home

Now retired, Phil Peek sinks deep into African culture and folklore.

Peek now has plenty of space for his art collection in his new home in New Hampshire. Photo by Bill Cardoni.

Upon retiring last year after nearly three decades at Drew, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology Philip Peek and his wife, Pat C’80, a longtime Drew staff member, built a house on Hermit Lake in Sanbornton, N.H. Pat grew up in New Hampshire, and their daughter, Megan, lives in Burlington, Vt.

“Thus, the choice,” Peek writes in a recent email. “Two granddaughters are a real draw.”

The Peeks met while both were in the Peace Corps in Nigeria in the 1960s, an experience that inspired their passion for African arts and crafts—pottery and basketry, textiles and carvings, masks and metal work and much more. They returned to Africa often, always adding to their collection, and from time to time at Drew Peek curated exhibits of their holdings. They even designed their new home with ample space to display the pieces, most prominently along the walls of a 30-foot-long gallery and atop the shelves that encircle the 16-by-24-foot great room. “It gives us history,” Peek says of the works. “It gives us the social customs of people. It’s data in one sense, but it’s also beautiful to look at.”

In retirement, Peek’s scholarship on African culture has hardly skipped a beat. Next spring Indiana University Press will publish a book Peek edited, Twins in Afri­can and Diaspora Cultures: Double Trouble, Twice Blessed, in which 15 essayists from America, Europe and Africa explore the two-sided traditions of twins in Africa, where they can be regarded as a gift from God or a threat to the social order.

For the Peeks, the travel bug still bites. Over the summer they traveled to Portugal, where Phil lectured on African divination and twins at the University of Lisbon, then to England, then to Amsterdam, where they met up with their son, Nathan, and their one-year-old grandson.

Peek says he misses teaching and interacting with students, something he did as much outside the classroom as in it. After all, Pat had worked in student activities and alumni relations, among other offices, and he’d led Drew International Sem­inars in Eritrea, Ghana and London. In 1974, in the backyard of their home in Madison, N.J., he and Pat played host to the inaugural FAP.

Anything about Drew he doesn’t miss? That’s easy: “I do not miss marking papers.”—Christopher Hann

She Keeps Moving

Dance instructor Cheryl Clark’s work leaps across theatrical disciplines.

Clark helped lead a workshop this summer at the Manhattan-based Movement Research, a lab for dance experimentation. Photo by Bill Cardoni.

Cheryl Clark’s work as a dance instructor and movement teacher allows her to interact with scores of Drew students—she oversees two dance concerts each school year—as well as a roster of private clients that includes the former Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Barbara Smith Conrad. In August, at Conrad’s invitation, Clark attended the New York City International Film Festival premiere of When I Rise, a documentary about Conrad, who in 1957, as a 17-year-old sophomore at the University of Texas, became an unwitting hero of the Civil Rights movement. An African American, Conrad won the female lead of an opera, but the university removed her from the cast because her love interest was a white student.

“I’ve been working with her on integrating the body into vocal techniques,” Clark says. “She and I have been collaborating together for many years. It’s one of the more personally satisfying aspects of my work.”

An adjunct instructor at Drew for nine years, Clark teaches contemporary dance, choreography and “Movement for the Musical Stage.” This year, she’ll also work with Associate Professor of Theatre Arts Andrew Elliott to present The Killing Game by Eugene Ionesco.

“One of the things I’ve been doing for a long time is helping actors create movement choices,” Clark says. “As much as I love dance, not many actors need to pir­ou­ette on stage. But they do need to know how their character walks or whether they gesture a lot.”—Christopher Hann

Scientific Method(ist)

In 2008, Drew gave Fenstermacher an Alumni Achievement in the Sciences award. Photo by Bill Cardoni.

Bob Fenstermacher C’63 isn’t letting retirement stop him from planning a thoughtful expansion of the Hall of Sciences.

He joined the Drew faculty as a physics instru­c­tor in the fall of 1968, when the Apollo program was preparing to rocket humans around the moon, and Drew’s Hall of Sciences building had just opened its doors for the first time. Forty-two years later in 2010, Professor of Physics and Robert Fisher Oxnam Professor of Science and Society Robert L. Fenstermacher has been lauded for making much happen behind those doors—and he’s not finished yet.

In May, “Dr. F” was celebrated for being the face of Drew physics for nearly a half century. (His 46 years on campus include his under­grad work at Drew before heading to Penn State for his Ph.D.) His accomplishments can fill pages, but here’s a quick summary: Founded the Drew Observatory. Served as founding director of the New Jersey Governor’s School in the Sciences. Taught countless students “How Things Work,” his beloved physics-for-nonscience-majors course. Enlightened the public during endless open houses and astronomy events. And that’s on top of just being an all-around great guy.

New to his retired status, Fenstermacher was recently found on a Saturday afternoon tinkering at the Drew Observatory. He seems amused that he’s now co-chairing the planning effort to expand the Hall of Sci­ences, noting that the lifetime of the building correlates exactly with his teaching lifetime at Drew. “It’s part of the capital campaign, and we’re moving along, meeting with architects, considering all the alternatives,” he says. “It’s a fair amount of work, about equal to a part-time job.”—Bill Haduch

Related

• Watch a video about Robert Fenstermacher on his retirement

The Faculty A–Z

Senior pastor at the First Pres­by­terian Church in Irvington, N.J., Ebenezer Addo (Pan-African Studies) and his congregation hosted 10 students and two faculty  from Achimota Senior High School in Ghana this summer as part of an international exchange program. The group met with Jon­athan Levin, dean of the Col­lege of Liberal Arts, and admissions staff.

Christopher Apelian and Steve Surace (Mathematics and Com­puter Science) published Real and Complex Analysis (Chapman & Hall) last year. The textbook explores the connections and differences of both real analysis and complex analysis, topics usually presented separately. The authors got help from Madison, N.J., resident Akhil Mathew, who began taking mathematics courses at Drew while in middle school. He won third prize in the Intel Science Talent Search this year and entered Harvard this fall.

Lee Arnold. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

This summer, deep in the woods of New Hampshire, Lee Arnold (Art) had two luxurious weeks to work on his photography, animation and videos at the prestigious MacDowell Colony, the country’s oldest artists’ colony. Then in August, he began a second residency on Gov­er­nor’s Island, spon­sored by the Lower Man­hattan Cultural Council.

A Matter of Life and Death, Marc Boglioli’s examination of hunting in modern-day Vermont, was pub­­lished a year ago by the University of Massachusetts Press. During spring break this year, Boglioli (Anthropology) took students to eastern Kentucky to learn about mountaintop removal and the coal industry. “It was a great trip that will probably be made into a yearly civic engagement offering at Drew,” says Boglioli.

A former media executive at NBC, Scott Bonn (Sociology) started at Drew in 2007. His latest book, Mass Deception: Moral Panic and the Iraq War (Rutgers), argues that the Bush administration and the news media created a “public panic” to manipulate opinion surrounding the war.

Lisa Brenner. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

Lisa Brenner (Theatre Arts) wrote about her play Katrina: The K Word, which has been performed in colleges and universities in 12 states and Washington, D.C., in the March issue of Trans­for­ma­tions, a journal on pedagogy.

Got apps? Or at least an idea for one? Barry Burd (Mathematics and Computer Science) is offering a course on developing cell phone applications. The course teaches students how to create a new app for an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android.

Chris Ceraso (Theatre Arts) can easily lay claim to the title “star of stage and screen.” He appeared in Ibsen’s Master Builder with the Resonance Ensemble in New York City and in Law & Order’s final epi­sode, in which he played a public school supervisor who refused to let detectives talk to a teacher suspected of planting a bomb in a school. (His most memorable line: “Bombthreats are a serious matter, but union lawyers are more serious.”) Over the years, he appeared in five Law & Order episodes and is sad to see the series end. He also had his full-length play, Heaven Knows, presented by New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Nora Colton. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

Nora Colton (Economics) is on a year’s leave, heading up international partnerships and joint-degree programs at the Royal Docks Business School at the Univer­sity of East London. She is also awaiting the release of her new book, The Political Economy of Yemen (Palgrave-Macmillan), in October.

Elise DuBord (Spanish) gave birth to Ramona Marie on Jan. 13, 2010.

Leave it to Louis Hamilton (Religious Studies) to make a book about Italy’s Catholic churches of the high Middle Ages a com­pelling read. In his new book, A Sacred City: Consecrating Churches and Reforming Society in 11th-Century Italy (Manchester University Press), Hamilton examines the conflict between the papacy and the emperor of that era, wrought by rapid demographic expansion, urbanization and religious reforms. Pope Gregory VII and Germany’s Henry IV had locked horns over who would control the church, lead­ing to violence among the citizenry and even the destruction of churches.

George-Harold Jennings. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

George-Harold Jennings’ book Passages Beyond the Gate: A Jungian Approach to Understanding American Psychology was published in July by University Press of America. In it, Jennings (Psychology) argues that deeper exploration of spirituality is needed to more fully understand psychology.

Last spring, Minjoon Kouh (Physics) rolled out a new course called “Computational Neuroscience” to help students understand the brain as a computational organ as well as how to use computers to advance neuroscience.

Lydia Ledeen. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

When Lydia Ledeen (Music) was in second grade, she fell in love with Beethoven but was devastated by the fact that he had been nearly deaf and had considered suicide. So she vowed to him (or at least to his spirit) that she would always be his friend. Ledeen, who recently retired from Drew, made good on that promise, collecting cadenzas written for Beethoven’s piano concerti for the past 35 years. She has collected more than 100 cadenzas and hopes to find a publisher for the collection.

John Lenz (Classics) and Robert Ready (Donald R. and Winifred B. Baldwin Pro­fessor of Human­ities) spent nine days in Turkey in May to plan a future Drew International Seminar. Lenz and Ready have led two successful seminars to Greece and are intrigued by the similarities and differences between the two countries.

Well before the James Cameron blockbuster was released, Norman Lowrey (Music) was performing with a group called Avatar Orchestra Metaverse in the virtual realm of Second Life. Audiences in Canada, Europe and Japan have watched the performances by orchestra members, who play virtually, from locations all over the world. (Go to users.drew.edu/nlowrey; click on Virtual Realities.)

In the two years since it was established, public health has quickly become a popular minor at Drew. Afeworki Mascio (Biology), one of the minor’s architects, said this fall’s group includes 60 students, plus several on a waiting list.

Maria Masucci. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

This past summer Maria Masucci (Anthropology) and four Drew students traveled to Ecuador to establish a NASA-sponsored community-technology initiative. The group helped a small village there build and equip a technology center to introduce local elementary pupils to computer technology.

Patrick McGuinn (Political Science) wrapped up a yearlong fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he worked on a new book on federal education policy. Over the summer, he prepared a report for the American Enterprise Institute on President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top, a competitive school-reform grant program. And last January, he and his family welcomed their fourth daughter, Payton.

Rosemary McLaughlin (Theatre Arts) is working on a play set in the early 20th-century salons of intelligentsia like Mabel Dodge and those of Greenwich Village, where movers and shakers like Eugene O’Neill and Dorothy Day hung out. This fall, she’s teaching a new course, “Enter Laughing: Women, Men and Comedy.” “To get an A,” McLaughlin says, “students will have to make me laugh. A lot.”

Joanna Miller (Biology) published RNA Interference and Model Organ­isms (Jones & Bartlett) over the summer. Unlocking the secrets of ribonucleic acid (RNA) interference—when RNA silences gene expression, such as when a body fights a virus—may help researchers find new ways to fight such diseases as cancer and HIV.

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document crafted by an international group, including Eleanor Roosevelt, to reject the horrors of WWII. Hans Morsink (Political Science) painstakingly examines what the document’s drafters intended in his recent book, Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Univer­sal Declaration (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

Frank Occhiogrosso. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

Frank Occhiogrosso (English) has collected papers from a seminar he led at the International Shakespeare Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon into a book, Shakespeare Closely Read: The Written and Performance Texts (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press), due out soon.

Emanuele Occhipinti (French and Italian) led his fifth summer program in Venice this year. In addition to language and culture courses, the program includes an exchange with Italian university students, a mask-making workshop, a trip to Murano and a weekend in Florence.

Good thing for Drew there are so few trees in Dallas. Otherwise, Pfeiffer Professor of Religious Studies James Pain would not be marking his 56th year teaching here. Many years ago, Pain was offered a job at a school in Dallas. Pain seriously considered accepting the job, but upon returning to Drew after his interview, he noticed how beautiful the trees were and how he’d seen barely any trees in Dallas. So Pain turned down the offer and never looked back. Now 80, Pain keeps up a robust teaching schedule and continues to lead the weekly celebration of the Eucharist, something he’s done for the past 40 years or so. With a chuckle, he notes, “I’m a monument to inertia.”

Alan Rosan. Photo by Shelley Kusnetz.

Alan Rosan (Chemistry) is teaching a new course this fall: “Introduction to Green Materials, Pro­cesses and Alternatives.” The course focuses on the emerging imperative for design, production, use and evaluation of greener products and practices.

Ann Saltzman (Psychology) welcomed her first grandchild Sept. 17, 2009. Lena Ruby Wangerin lives in Queens with her mom and dad.

The American poet Elizabeth Bishop, long celebrated as a master of visually rich poetry, was just as concerned with the “surface” of a poem and what it can convey as a painter is with the surface of a canvas, says Peggy Samuels (English), author of Deep Skin: Elizabeth Bishop and Visual Art (Cornell University Press, 2010). Samuels argues that Bishop strove to emulate artists such as Paul Klee, Kurt Schwitters and Alexander Calder, who experimented with tactility and depth in their work. In other news, Samuels’ daughter, Ella, entered Pomona College this fall.

Psychology’s Robin Timmons’ daughter, Emily Hamilton C’04, was married July 31 in Red Wing, Minn. Laura Conger C’04 and Jen Dorenbosch C’04 were bridesmaids.

Carol Ueland (Russian) presented a paper at the VIII World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies in Stockholm. Ueland traced how Russians who ended up in China after the Bolshevik Revolution saw themselves vis-à-vis the local Chinese population. When the center of the emigration was in Harbin, they saw themselves as Europeans. This sense of identity, however, became problematic when the Japanese invasion of Manchuria forced them to move to Shanghai, where they were often viewed as non-European by the local European population.

Who’s New?

Four full-time, tenure-track CLA faculty start at Drew this fall. Photos courtesy of faculty members.

Edward Baring

Department: History
Coming from: Princeton University Writing Program
Ph. D.: Harvard University
Grew up in: Wiltshire, England
Academic specialty: Intellectual history of Europe, particularly the impact of religion and empire on modern thought
Enthusiasm: Playing piano at home in secret

Anoop Mirpuri

Giandomenico Sarolli
Department: Economics; will co-direct the Wall Street Semester

Rebecca Soderholm
Department: Art
Coming from: Yale University
M.F.A.: Yale University
Grew up in: Central Square, N.Y.
Artistic specialty: Primarily photographing people living in tough corners of the Northeast
Hidden talents: Scoring high in Pac-Man, winning office baby pools, chopping firewood

By Mary Jo Patterson

Shannon Daley C’09

Claim to fame: 2010 Fulbright Scholar

Kristin Germinario C’10

Claim to fame: Knowles Science Teaching Fellowship
What this means: Germinario, one of 11 biology teaching fellows nationwide, will receive five years of professional and financial support totaling $150,000, starting in graduate school and spanning the early years of her teaching career. She is currently enrolled in Drew’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.
What comes next: After graduating from the MAT program next spring, she’ll look for a job teaching high school biology.
What hooked her on teaching: Being able to engage an apathetic eighth grader, whom Germinario taught in a summer science public school program. By the time the class ended, the student was not only excited about biology, but also one of her top students.

Marnie Valdivia C’10

Claim(s) to fame: A U.S. State Department Critical Languages Scholarship and a Presidential Internship from the American University in Cairo. The twin honors caused her to set aside her acceptance to graduate school.
What’s ahead: After a summer of intensive Arabic language study in Jordan, she’ll spend 10 months working at the university’s Desert Develop ment Center. After that, “I’m going to apply for everything—graduate school, jobs, internships, fellowships—and see what the best option is,” Valdivia says. Her ultimate goal is to help bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What she is telling family members: That she’s unlikely to come home for Christmas, so they should visit her. That they shouldn’t worry about her safety. And that they will be able to follow her blog, which might just include an Arabic word of the day.

A new book contends that the initial wall separating church and state was thinner than we think.

By Amy Vames

In Church, State, and Original Intent (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Drew Trustee Donald L. Drakeman weaves the Constitution, its framers and the Supreme Court into an examination of one of this country’s most contentious issues.

You argue that the Constitution’s framers looked at the separation of church and state in a far more limited way than we do today. A number of people who came to the state conventions when the Constitution was ratified worried that the federal government might try to set up a national church like the Church of England. Church-state issues were important to people, but they weren’t debated in Congress because there was only one issue that everyone agreed on: Nobody wanted a national church.

Even after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the government lent significant support to religion, didn’t it? The minute Congress adopted the Bill of Rights, it asked President George Washington to declare a national day of prayer. And for over 100 years, the federal government paid missionaries to convert Native Americans to Christianity. Some of the issues that are hotly contested today were not hotly contested then or were thought about in different ways.

How did the “wall” separating church and state espoused by Thomas Jefferson come to have such traction? In the 1870s, Chief Justice Morrison Waite had to decide what the First Amendment meant. So he went to his next-door neighbor, a historian named George Bancroft, who was a big fan of Jefferson. Bancroft told Waite that the First Amendment meant what Jefferson and his friend James Madison were thinking about around the time of the Constitution. So literally, by going next door and chatting with his neighbor, the chief justice created a history of Jefferson and the wall of separation between church and state. Since then, people who believe in that wall see this as what the framers intended.

Hockenberry shared his own experience as a paraplegic, the result of a car accident during college.

Two professors bring personal experience to a debut course on how society considers the disabled.

By Christopher Hann

The veteran journalist John Hockenberry is seated in his wheelchair before a classroom of Drew students, talking about how bias against the disabled person is rooted in American culture, going back to the construction of the nation’s proudest works of architecture. They’re beautiful, he concedes, sweeping in their grandeur, even artistic—the noble columns, the grand porticos, the endless stairs.

Yet such transcendent design, Hockenberry tells the class, bespeaks of a time when little thought was given to the needs of anyone who, say, might rely on a wheelchair to get around. “The idea that they would be out in public was just preposterous on its face,” he says. When advocates call for the preservation of these buildings in their original form, he adds, “Part of what you’re preserving, like it or not, is the time when people in wheelchairs weren’t around.”

Hockenberry, who has reported extensively from the Middle East and these days is co-host of The Takeaway, a public radio show airing on WNYC, was one of four guest speakers to lecture to the spring semester class “Current Issues in the Construction of Disability.” James Hala, an English professor and director of the humanities program, and Associate Professor of History Frances Bernstein team-taught the course, the first time it’s been offered at Drew. They explored myriad ways in which cultures have regarded disabilities, from the Nazis’ views on eugenics (borrowed, Hala says, from the United States) to the doctor who advises a woman pregnant with a Down syndrome child that she might want to abort. They showed films, including The Elephant Man, The Station Agent and Million Dollar Baby, the latter of which disability advocates assailed for its portrayal of a quadriplegic who loses interest in life.

Likewise, the professors’ motivations for creating the course went beyond merely the academic. Both have sons with disabilities: Hala’s 16-year-old son, Zach, has Asperger’s syndrome; Bernstein’s 7-year-old son, Louis, is autistic. The professors say their experiences at home were reflected in their broader examination of disabilities. “Obviously, I was looking at this for my own reasons,” Hala says, “but the more I looked at it, the more I realized how much this paralleled every other civil rights issue.”

Bernstein says many students recounted their experiences with the disabled, a development that was not expected but certainly welcomed. “I talked about Louis all the time,” she says. “There were a lot of personal reflections and providing examples from our own lives, but not in any way to detract from the scholarship that we read, which was really sophisticated.”

Hala says his son has been “hugely influential” in shaping his own understanding of disabilities. “That word normal goes right out the window. He is really gifted with language and history,” Hala says of Zach, “but he has a very hard time with social situations. He helps me to look at the world in a different way.”

As part of the course, the 24 students—mostly neuroscience and pre-med majors, many with disabled family members—surveyed accessibility on Drew’s campus, resulting in a study that three students presented to President Robert Weisbuch and his cabinet. The course so inspired Jessica Yuppa, now a sophomore, that she is working to create a student group focused on disability issues.

“We decided we wanted to not only introduce the students to the topic of disabilities studies,” Bernstein says. “We also tried to engage them politically and socially to think more about disability at Drew and beyond. The accessibility study grew out of that.”

In the survey, the students included suggestions for improving access on campus. Bernstein says two of the guest speakers were unable to meet with her and Hala in their “utterly inaccessible” offices.

“What we found,” Hala says, “is that Drew is very willing to make accommodations, but we’re reactive. Someone has to come to us and say, I need accommodations.”

Yuppa, a 19-year-old from Totowa, N.J., had a personal stake in the course: Her 52-year-old mother recently had a foot amputated. Yuppa says the professors and guest speakers expanded her notion of what it means to be disabled. “I was always ready to give pity or sympathy or empathy, but they said no, that’s not what we’re going for here,” she says. “What we should be doing is trying to make a world where everybody can function normally.”

By Thomas Carr

Maxine Beach

“Art speaks to things you can’t fully put into words,” says Brian Schlemmer T’10, referring to the new stained glass windows commissioned by the Class of 2010 in honor of retired Theo School Dean Maxine Beach. Schlemmer tapped artist Susan Gepford, daughter of Dan Gepford T’07, to create the work, whose panels are inspired by Biblical passages that hold special meaning for the school. The left panel, for instance, interprets Amos 5:24, “Let justice roll down like waters.” “This text is central to our work for justice and ecology,” says Heather Murray Elkins, the project’s faculty adviser. “It’s also Maxine’s favorite passage.”

By Bill Haduch

Hot summer afternoons stoked anticipation in young Ryan Hinrichs as he rambled and played in the fields and woods of Gettysburg, Pa. About supper time he’d often hear the rumbling in the distance. A squall line was approaching.

“I love thunderstorms,” Hinrichs says, over the phone from his office in the Hall of Sciences. “I love their inherent power in our atmosphere. When I was growing up in the ’80s, I spent a lot of time outdoors—I still do—and I developed an awe of nature.”

Now an assistant professor of chemistry, Hinrichs’ passion is in full bloom at Drew, where he works to expand the scientific understanding of the atmosphere.

As a college student, my idea of study abroad was tourism with a little studying thrown in to justify the lark. It’s always been more serious at Drew, a form of cultural study, and our Drew International Seminars (DIS) have exemplified this kind of experiential learning, tied as they are to the semester-long course work that precedes boarding a plane. Perhaps that is why so many of our alumni mention their DIS experience when I ask them about their most cherished memories of Drew.

The tradition continues, but it has been informed more than ever before by a number of factors. One is our growing emphasis on civic engagement, the commitment we’re making to tie learning to the common good. In 2008, we sent students to Mamfe, Cameroon, with the charge to interview residents about their most pressing needs. With microfinance grants developed by Drew students, a school there has been able to pour concrete floors, and a health center has delivery kits for the arrival of the community’s newest and most fragile members.

The world into which our current students will graduate is a complex one, and understanding how the growth of a country a continent away might affect the international community is also something we have defined as an essential part of a 21st-century study-abroad experience.

This spring, students traveled to the United Arab Emirates to see how this desert republic has reshaped itself from a nomadic Bedouin culture into one of the world’s most significant economic players, all in less time than it took Europe to build its grandest cathedrals. Observing the UAE at this juncture is, to me, a singular experience at a remarkable time in history. Our students have acquired a deep understanding of how this country will affect commerce, finance, international relations, even the power balance in an increasingly interconnected world. Read more in “The Wealth of a Nation.”

Still another tradition has been maintained in our study-abroad programs, and even strengthened. Traveling together, Drew students bond deeply with each other—even more profoundly than they could on campus. I love to see them laugh together as they present a slide show, owning jointly a memory the rest of us cannot fully appreciate. In a heartening number of cases, these will be lifelong friendships, adding to the sense that perhaps the most important academic experience at Drew is not strictly academic at all. It is other people, and sharing with them the startling condition of being alive.

Robert Weisbuch

By Renée Olson

Phillips often bikes over the Brooklyn Bridge, then writes aboard NJ Transit on his commute to Drew.

For Patrick Phillips, author of two highly regarded collections of poetry, crouching on a coffee table is key to publishing a book.

“At a certain point, you just gather all the poems you’ve written, and see what you’ve got,” says Phillips, an assistant professor of English. “I literally spread them out all over the floor, and get upon the coffee table and look at everything, all the ones I like, and think, ‘OK, what do any of these have to do with the others?’ And something is usually there.”

It may not be long before Phillips is on his coffee table again. A 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship will give him more time to concentrate on writing, which is essential for Phillips, an affably boyish father of two, whose spare, graceful poems often edge toward darkness. “The best poems for me cut through all the humdrum parts of life because a lot of life is boring, and a lot of life is tedious,” he says. “Writing is a wonderful thing because I can get to what seems vital and important.”

Called “a trustworthy American voice” by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Philip Levine, Phillips readily owns up to the serious undercurrents in his work. “If there’s a darkness to the poems for me, it’s just because there’s a darkness to being … alive,” he says. “A lot of the culture wants to distract us from that. What’s lovely about being a poet is that you don’t have to do that. It’s your ship, and you’re the captain, so you can go wherever you want.”

Related

• Watch a video portrait of Patrick Phillips.

By Christopher Hann

Fornarotto, a poly sci and econ double major from Ewing, N.J., is thinking about entering financial law enforcement.

When did you start playing soccer? When I was 3½ or 4 years old, they would put us on little teams and let us goat it. My uncle is the head women’s soccer coach at the College of New Jersey, and he’s had tremendous success there. As soon as I was born, he would put a soccer ball in the middle of my walker, and I’d kick at it.

What is it about soccer? I can’t imagine life without soccer. I love the competitive nature of it. When I get focused and get out on the field, it’s like another whole world. My parents divorced when I was in first grade, so I found some peace in playing soccer.

You’re also the president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee? We pick a person or group to raise money for. This year it was for Kyle Noonan, a Morristown resident who was diagnosed with leukemia. Last fall we put together a 5K race and raised over $1,000. Our other big fundraiser was Mr. Drew, a male beauty pageant, which was by far one of the funniest nights I’ve ever experienced at Drew.

And you’re on the University Program Board? I was elected to be the chair of annual events, so I’ll be putting together the Holiday Ball in the fall and then FAP next spring.

I’m getting dizzy. I’m on the Living Council for my dorm. I’m on the Student Conduct Board, the Academic Integrity Committee …

You must like meetings. I joke that my whole life is one big meeting. But I don’t mind it. I can’t stand sitting still.

Is the summer when you sleep? No, in the summer I work soccer camps.

Michelle Gbelama finished her career by being named to her third all-conference team.

By Scott Fitzgerald

Women’s Tennis (13–4) The team made history this past spring by capturing its first Landmark Conference title, followed by their first-ever NCAA Tournament berth. The squad traveled to Fredericksburg, Va., and shut out Western Connecticut State, 5–0, before falling in the second round to nationally ranked Carnegie Mellon.

Men’s Tennis (14–7) Men’s tennis continued its decade-long dominance,winning its 10th consecutive conference title this spring. The Rangers moved on to the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the second round for the first time ever. Coach Jeff Brandes was named Landmark Conference Coach of the Year.

Stacie Brown led her team in scoring for the third year, with 32 goals.

Women’s Lacrosse (10–9) The Rangers were one of 28 teams in the nation to qualify for the NCAA Tournament this spring, as they made their second straight trip to the big dance. And for the second time in program history, four Rangers were selected as all-region performers. All will return in 2011.

Men’s Lacrosse (8–7) The team earned a spot in the Landmark Conference Tournament for the third time in as many years, this time as the number two overall seed. The senior-laden squad was upset in the first round by a red-hot Catholic University team. Coach Tom Leanos will say goodbye to 10 seniors, including Jon Bucknam, Drew’s Male Athlete of the Year and one of the most prolific scorers in Drew history.

Dee is starting to cede control at Smarties headquarters in Union, N.J., to his two daughters.

D.Litt. candidate and co-owner, Ce De Candy, Inc., maker of Smarties.

By Renée Olson

I have one more course and then the dissertation. And I have no clue how long the dissertation takes. I’ve fallen in love with Darwin. [My topic] has to do with what Darwin thought about creativity at the time he was trying to be his most creative, the two years after he came back from the Beagle. He made a lot of comments in his notebooks about creativity and free will, and the headaches he got.

I was a math/physics major when I got to Yale. That lasted about a week.

My grandfather was something of an entrepreneur. As a boy he was in Russia during the pogroms, and he and his father escaped. They came up with a formula for clothing dye, and when things went well, they moved to Riga, Latvia. In the ’30s they left Riga and moved to England; some of the family didn’t, and they died in the Holocaust.

My grandfather invested in a coffee plantation in Kenya because all the upper-class British were investing in those kinds of things. He was very much into making a name for himself and emulating what the upper classes did. He ended up investing in a candy business in Cyprus, a chocolate business in Palestine and then a candy factory in London.

I took a creative writing class at Drew, and one of the women in the class said, “Oh, you wouldn’t believe this. My mother was a teacher, and she was known as Mrs. Smartie because she kept a jar of Smarties on her desk.” A lot of teachers use them as treats and rewards for kids, but when her mother passed away, they put her jar of Smarties in the open coffin.

The kids who grew up with Smarties now want a bigger roll, so we came out with Mega Smarties. They still have twisted ends. That’s been very successful.

Guilty pleasure? Dark chocolate.

The courses where I did my best work I didn’t get A’s, which is fascinating. People run away from the discomfort, but if there’s no discomfort you’re not pushing yourself.

It’s not about getting published, it’s about thinking and being creative, and maybe coming up with one or two new ideas. I’m not looking to be the number 1 evolutionary scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, but if I can be a footnote here or there, I’ll be quite happy.