English Professor Named Next Provost

excerpted from story by Erika Mantz, Director, Media Relations:

President Mark W. Huddleston has named Lisa MacFarlane as UNH’s next provost and vice president for academic affairs. Her appointment, pending approval by the Executive Committee of the USNH board of trustees, is expected to begin July 1, 2013.

MacFarlane, an accomplished scholar and leader, was one of three finalists for the position. She currently serves as senior vice provost for academic affairs. A professor of English at UNH since 1987, she has also served as director of the University Honors Program and of the American Studies program.

“Lisa MacFarlane has a significant record of academic leadership at UNH and has demonstrated time and again her commitment to the institution as well as its faculty and students,” said Huddleston. “She has been a true partner on the development and implementation of the university strategic plan, especially strengthening our efforts around internationalization. She was instrumental in bringing both the Confucius Institute and the Navitas program to campus, and I look forward to partnering with her as we continue to move forward.”

Read full story in Campus Journal

UNH Researcher Changed How Young Children Are Taught to Write

Donald Graves, UNH professor of early childhood education and founder of the UNH Writing Process Laboratory.
Credit: Lisa Nugent/UNH Photographic Services

Excerpted from story by Lori Wright, UNH Media Relations:

Up until Donald Graves’ pioneering work on literacy, the idea that young children should think of themselves as writers, much less even be able to write, was unheard of. That changed in 1983 when the University of New Hampshire professor changed the way writing is taught across the United States and the English-speaking world with the publication of “Writing: Teachers & Children at Work.”

Graves’ book was based on a two-year study of elementary school children at Atkinson Academy in Atkinson, N.H. His research revealed writing as a natural human need for self-expression and a way to develop and hone critical thinking skills.

“Children will continually surprise us if we let them. This is what happens when we slow down, listen, and let the children lead. That is the joy of both research and teaching,” Graves said.

In their new book Children Want to Write, Thomas Newkirk, professor of English at UNH, and co-editor Penny Kittle, an English teacher at Kennett High School in North Conway and teacher educator at the summer UNH Literacy Institutes, present a collection of Donald Graves’ most significant writings paired with a disk of recovered videos that illuminate his research and his inspiring work with teachers.

“This collection allows you to see this revolutionary shift in writing instruction, with its emphasis on observation, reflection, and approaching children as writers,” Newkirk says. “It was breathtaking even to be on the fringes of this research, to be an observer, to be one of the more than 1,000 visitors to Atkinson Academy, a rural New Hampshire elementary school that was the site of his work, and to hear Don present this work to teachers across the country. I recall vividly watching the tapes made of children at work.”

“We now assume young children can write, even that they want to write. The new Common Core State Standards have high expectations for writing in the early grades – expectations that would be inconceivable without Donald Graves’ work,” he says.

Read full story.

Commencement!

Congratulations, UNH Class of 2013!
The College of Liberal Arts is proud of you.

Commencement information.

New Perspectives

The Sociology department announces the publication of the spring 2013 edition of its undergraduate journal, Perspectives. This edition was edited by undergraduates Benjamin Bullock and Sharon Tarleton with the assistance of graduate students Matthew Cutler and Melissa Day. Assistant professor of sociology Rebecca Glauber oversees the publication of this annual journal.

The 2013 edition contains six articles that cover a wide range of topics. Whitney Mills studies the experiences of women who were of reproductive age when the birth control pill was unveiled. Jared Liamos explores criminal kidnappings in Mexico City. Catherine Lee looks at the experiences of traditional college students who choose to attend a Christian organization on the UNH campus. Audrey Hickey presents a brief history of teen-focused abstinence groups and virginity pledge traditions in the United States. In a literature review, Alexandru Panait evaluates how information and computer technology use differs by socio-economic status, gender, and age in social science research. Benjamin Bullock conducts a literature review to better understand how the personality characteristics of self-efficacy and sensation seeking influence alcohol initiation and use by youths, and to identify how parents and peers influence those characteristics.

Read the journal.

Prevention Innovations Hosts Workshop for International Visitors

On May 6, 2013, Prevention Innovations, a UNH center devoted to research and practices for ending violence against women, will host a half-day workshop with a group of international visitors from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Latvia, Netherlands, Russia and the Ukraine. The workshop is sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is hosted nationally by FHI 360, a nonprofit human development organization, and locally by the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire. The visitors are part of a Regional Project for Europe, “Empowering Women Against Domestic Violence.”

During the workshop, the group will examine the impact of violence against women on families, communities, and countries and the benefits of preventing violence and advancing women in all sectors; explore laws, programs, and legal and judicial safeguards to combat violence, especially domestic violence, against women; explore examples of how to empower women to impact public policy through participation in civic organizations and through the political process; and preview economic and educational programs and resources for women that aid in establishing independence.

Prevention Innovations will highlight their cutting edge research, prevention strategies to end sexual and relationship violence and stalking, and researcher/practitioner collaborations. The Women’s Studies Program, the Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) and UNH Health Services will also present overviews of their important work in empowering women, preventing violence, and supporting survivors on campus.

The 2013 Trout Scholars

B. Thomas Trout

Four students have been awarded B. Thomas Trout Scholarships from the College of Liberal Arts to support their study abroad experiences.

Laura Bello, a Spanish major, will be studying nutrition in the UNH-in-Italy summer program in Ascoli Piceno, Italy.

Cory McKenzie, a history and philosophy double major, will be studying Roman architecture and history in the Rome January Term program.

Melanie Platt, a linguistics major–and avid painter, will be studying art in the UNH-in-Italy summer program.

Brianna Smith, a fine arts major, will be studying art in the UNH-in-Italy summer program.

The late B. Thomas Trout was a professor of political science and an associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts. Throughout his career, Professor Trout actively and tirelessly promoted international studies as a vital part of the college curriculum. He was equally dedicated to the development of study abroad programs for undergraduates, convinced that expanding the range of international study opportunities for American college students was integral to their understanding of a complicated world.

In Professor Trout’s honor, the College of Liberal Arts established the B. Thomas Trout Scholars Fund, which supports annually up to five College of Liberal Arts undergraduate students with outstanding academic records and financial need, allowing them to participate in a UNH-managed study abroad program in the College.

Inquiring minds

An illustration of a mid-seventeenth-century lamb to human blood transfusion (Science Photo Library)

A new edition of Inquiry, the UNH undergraduate online journal of research has just been published. Several Liberal Arts students are featured in research articles and commentaries, including Jennifer Allen, a pre-med student with a minor in history who has an interest in the history of medicine. She worked with Professor Marion Girard Dorsey on research into the history and practice of bloodletting and blood transfusions.

“I found many interesting articles and much information,” writes Allen, “such as a video which described an early transfusion technique that used goose quills in place of needles and lamb’s blood for the transfusion…. I learned that cadaver blood was used for transfusions in the 1920s by the Soviet Union, and the first mobile blood service was established during the Spanish Civil War. I further found that transfusion medicine was spurred by the many advances in transfusion techniques made during wartime, especially during World War II.  Examples were the invention of blood bags and the discovery of plasma. I began to envision how political, societal, and scientific factors like wars, technological innovations, and race influenced blood transfusion medicine.”

Read more about Allen’s research experience.

Other Liberal Arts research stories include:

In the Shadow of Court-Clearing: The New Hampshire Supreme Court’s Struggle for Autonomy
by Cory McKenzie (Mentor: Jessica M. Lepler)
Cory McKenzie’s curiosity for New Hampshire legislative history led him to discover that a nineteenth-century trend for abolishing the state court is still a pertinent constitutional issue today.

“Who Will [Independence] Please but Ambitious Men?”: Rebels, Loyalists, and the Language of Liberty in the American Revolution
by Alexa Price (Mentor: Eliga Gould)
Alexa Price studied documents written by New Hampshire loyalists during the American revolutionary period and learned that the loyalists shared a common rhetoric of liberty with their patriot neighbors.

Interviewing the Street Children of Mekelle City, Ethiopia: Their Plight and What Help Public and Private Organizations Offer
by Merhawi Wells-Bogue (Mentors: Lisa C. Miller, Eden Fitsum)
Merhawi Wells-Bogue visited his home country, Ethiopia, and was inspired to use his journalism training to help the street children there.

Investigating the Presence of a Red Zone for Unwanted Sexual Experiences among College Students: Class Year and Gender
by Elizabeth Wible (Mentors: Victoria Banyard, Ellen Cohn)
Elizabeth Wible investigated a red zone for unwanted sexual experiences on a New England university campus as part of an on-going research project.

A 2009 alumna, Emily Louick (Spanish and theatre/dance double major) contributed an article about her IROP experience at UNH: “Menudas Vueltas da el Destino”: How Choosing to Live in a Homestay Brought Me Closer to a Culture.