April 27, 2014 (Last weeks of classes!)
Dear Students:
Here it is: the last weekly message of the 2013-2014 academic year. This coming week you will have your last class of the semester. So this is a special time for all of us because it’s a time when we are particularly conscious of the present slipping away into the past. This is especially salient, of course, for our graduating seniors.
This past semester I’ve had a couple of experiences connecting the past with the present that I would like to share with you.
In March, I went to the 90th birthday party of my first-semester Russian teacher, Emilia Hramova. She is someone who changed my life because when I entered her class, it was for an elective experience that I thought would be a fun supplement to my academic program. As I think I may have mentioned to you once or twice, I am not only your dean but also a professor of Russian. It’s because of that wonderful teacher that I decided to embark on the Russian path. It was great to celebrate her life at her 90th birthday with former students of hers who flew in from around the country and realize that we had all been touched by this extraordinary teacher. All of us who were there and many others who couldn’t make it wrote letters that were collected into a book for Mrs. Hramova.
Earlier this month I received an e-mail message from a student I taught in the late 1980s while I was a graduate student. He told me I made a big difference in his life and explained that after he graduated he studied some more and became a Russian-English interpreter focusing on arms control and weapons inspection. He told me that I inspired him to continue with his study of Russian and that he felt well prepared in subsequent classes at the Defense Language Institute because of the foundation I had provided him.
When I read his e-mail, I realized that Emilia Hramova had changed his life, too. I thought about other people who had had an impact on me and wrote a note to someone who advised a student organization I participated in in graduate school and thanked him for the impact he had on me, an impact that I think neither one of us recognized at the time, but one that has become clearer and clearer to me as I have become the advisor of that same student organization here at TCNJ.
So after you finish up the work of the semester, I urge you to take a moment to reflect on who has had an impact on your life and let them know, whether it was a professor or staff member here at TCNJ or someone else. And then take the opportunity, when it presents itself, to pay it forward, by helping someone else with the wisdom you’ve gained by virtue of those who have helped you.
I wish you all a successful end of the semester: may you read critically, think analytically and creatively, and write gracefully in all your exams and papers. May the summer be a time of joyful exploration and may you return to campus (if you’re not graduating!) refreshed, re-engaged, and ready to learn every more deeply. Of course as your dean, I urge you to select a book or two you’d like to read this summer and make a plan to do it. Maybe this is the time to read Gravity’s Rainbow orThe Brothers Karamazov or maybe you want to read a book on the theme we’ve selected for our next year’s campus topic, social justice, such as our summer reading for the freshmen, The Other Wes Moore. I hope that you will continue learning but that you’ll do so without exams, quizzes, and papers. And if you’re taking Maymester or Summer School classes, I hope you will enjoy them and find them productive.
Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood dean,
BR
PS to Seniors: I will be writing you separately closer to Commencement with some special wishes as you prepare to enter the ranks of our alumni.
Congratulations
Every year at Commencement time the School of Humanities and Social Sciences celebrates one special graduate in each of our majors, to whom we present the “Dean’s Award for Excellence in the Liberal Arts” or DAELA. The DAELA Laureates have excelled not only academically (they must have a high GPA in their major and cumulatively) but also by virtue of their engagement in one or more of the transformative learning experiences that are so important for the liberal arts: Undergraduate Research, Internships, Study Abroad, Community-Engaged Learning, and/or Experiential Learning. This year’s DAELA Laureates will be celebrated, as always, on Commencement Day with a special event, and on a web page that will be unveiled later this month (look for the link on our HSS home page), but I list them here so that we can all congratulate these extraordinary students (and their faculty mentors, listed in parentheses) on their great achievements at TCNJ and in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences:
Criminology: Mary Johnston (Drs. Stout and Leigey)
English Liberal Arts: Aqeela Naqvi (Professor D. Steinberg and Dr. Hustis)
English Secondary Education: Sarah Smith (Drs. Meixner and Steele)
English – Journalism & Professional Writing: Christine Aebischer (Professor Webber)
History: Paul Mercandetii (Drs. Paces and Rifkin)
International Studies: Matthew Knoth (Drs. Potter and Stauff)
Philosophy: Yale Weiss (Drs. Sisko and Haynes)
Political Science: Sara Cook (Dr. Lowi)
Psychology: Christina Hermann (Drs. Wiley and Borders)
Sociology: Jessica Scardino (Dr. Borland)
Women’s & Gender Studies: Betsy Blumenthal (Drs. Landreau and Nicolosi and Professor Hopps)
World Languages – Spanish: Matthew Knoth (Dr. Morin)
Congratulations to DAELA Laureate Jessica Scardino, who has been chosen to carry the HSS Gonfalon (banner) into the stadium at Commencement, walking with Dean Rifkin, leading all the HSS graduates into the stadium where their degrees will be conferred.
Congratulations to Mariah Copeland, Crystal Johnson, and Zuleica Rosario for earning recognition for academic achievement as graduating EOF seniors.
Congratulations to Damian Robles-Garcia, Hajar Lakhouili, and Leonory Rodriguez, among others, for earning outstanding academic achievement as graduating EOF seniors.
Congratulations to the following students who were recognized with awards at the 7th annual Student Leadership Awards presented earlier this week:
Bessie Cutter-Pearlman ’25 Scholarship: Hannah Pawlak
Elizabeth Allen 1869 Scholarship: Jennie Sekanics
Harold W. and Rosa Lee Eickhoff Award: Robyn Gold
John Wandishin ’79 Scholarship: Swet Patel
Wade Watkins ’87 Scholarship: Carla Cirelli
William M. Klepper Scholarship: Lana Rahal
Omnicron Delta Kappa (National Leadership Honor Society): Kelly Coughlin, Carmella Holl, Benjamin Levine, Tyler Liberty, Christopher Mintelli, Grace Moran
Student Organization President of the Year Award: Tyler Liberty
Harold W. Eickhoff Outstanding First Year Student Award: Leah Duford
Blue and Gold Award: Jenise Banks, Alexandra Brown, Clair Huynh, Tyler Liberty, and Amanda Parks
Congratulations to the following students elected to serve as HSS Senators in 2014-2015 who will therefore serve on the HSS Student Advisory Council next year: Suzanne Conroy-Bray, Kyriaki Christodoulou, Joseph DiCarlo, Nicole Midkiff, Chris Mintelli, Erin Perna, Emily Reyes, Ken Rubin, and Payal Ved.
Congratulations to the following HSS students who have been elected to cabinet-level leadership positions in Student Government for 2014-2015: Sarah Drozd (VP of Advancement), Adam Bonnano (VP of Community Relations), Javier Nicasio (VP of Equity and Diversity), Jess Glynn (VP of Governmental Affairs) and Navid Radfar (VP of Student Services).
Congratulations to sophomores Martin Crosby-Arreaza (International Studies / Diplomacy with minors in Central Eurasian Studies and Russian Studies) and Michael Schiumo (Finance and Russian Studies) who have won Boren Scholarships for study abroad. Martin will study in Tadjikistan and Michael will study in Russia. These are very competitive national scholarships and we are very proud of both students for their achievements.
Congratulations again to Martin Crosby-Arreaza for winning honorable mention in the National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest of the American Council of Teachers of Russian.
Congratulations to members of the Philosophy Society and the Society for Parliamentary Debate who participated in last week’s War of the Words with debates about topics serious (e.g., rehabilitation vs. punishment) and fun (e.g., duct tape vs. WD 40). We all look forward to next semester’s War of the Words event in Fall 2014!
Congratulations to students Erin Shannon and Natalia Zak and Dr. Emily Bent, who have had a paper accepted for the National Women’s Studies Association entitled “It’s not Easy Being a Girl: Contested Sites of Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual Labors” for the November 2014 conference. This is the first time that TCNJ students will be presenting at NWSA so we are all very proud of Erin and Natalia and grateful to Dr. Bent for her fabulous mentoring.
Congratulations to Dr. Jean Graham (English) for having not one, not two, but three manuscripts accepted for publication in the last month: “Milton’s Comus in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho,” “Biblical Women in Herbert, Vaughan, and Traherne …” and “God’s Ganymede with a Womb: The Devotional Poetry of Thomas Traherne.”
Events
Monday, April 28 at 7 pm in the Library Auditorium HSS is showing the Polish film Aftermath (with English subtitles). A review at Tabletmag.com says: “The film takes place in the 2000s and tells the story of Franciszek Kalina, a Polish man living in the United States who begrudgingly returns to his backward hometown in the contemporary rural Polish countryside where his brother, Jozef, maintains their family farm. Though nothing has changed in this quaint village of farmers and babushkas, Jozef has. His wife has left him, and Jozef has been drawing the ire of his neighbors through his new-found fascination with the village’s former Jewish inhabitants, whose disappearances remain an unspeakable subject. Jozef spends his nights wresting old Jewish tombstones—long ago stripped from the old Jewish cemetery and used as paving stones (a common practice in Poland both during and after the war)—from the sidewalks and squares around town and then firmly planting them into a new Jewish cemetery he’s created in one of his wheat fields. He painstakingly restores each tombstone, the Hebrew inscriptions of which he’s taught himself to read.” At the screening we will have remarks from Dr. Cynthia Paces (History), an expert on Central European History and, in particular, historical memory of the Holocaust.
Thursday, May 1 at 7:30 pm at Lake Ceva: TCNJ’s Chinese Calligraphy Club will hold its annual “Lanterns-On-The-Lake” event, a beautiful way to celebrate the end of the academic year. You can make your own lantern and decorate it with your own special message. Please also enjoy the work of the students in TCNJ’s Chinese Philosophy and Calligraphy Class on display this week at our Library.
The TCNJ BFA Senior Art Exhibit will take place from April 30 to May 16 in the Art Gallery with artist talks on Wed., April 30 from 1 to 3 pm and a reception on Sunday May 4 from 1 to 4 pm.
On Sunday, May 4 at 3 to 4 pm a group of faculty and staff will come to Alumni Grove with their very friendly dogs for the“Friends of Webster Stress Relief Day.” If you are stressed about exams, come to Alumni Grove and pet a friendly dog and watch your stress go away (at least temporarily) with each wag of a dog’s tail.