UNH political scientist a fellow at Washington think tank

Professor Stacy VanDeveer, bottom center

The Transatlantic Academy in D.C. announced last week the arrival of its new group of fellows, who will spend the next nine months in residence studying “The Competition for Natural Resources – The New Geopolitical Great Game?” UNH Associate Professor of Political Science Stacy VanDeveer is among the six scholars chosen for this year’s Academy.

The Academy will consider how the rise of the new economic powers, especially China and India, a rapidly growing world population living increasingly in urban environments, climate change, and other factors will combine to increase the competition for natural resources in the years ahead, and how this will impact the transatlantic community.

The Transatlantic Academy is a scholarly forum for dealing with the mutual challenges facing transatlantic relations in the coming years.

Interactive history website wins media production prize

This photograph shows anthropologist William H. Egberts examining a collection of ancient skulls at the Smithsonian in 1926.

The New England Council on Latin American History has awarded their 2011 Best Media Production Prize to an online database project supervised by UNH Associate Professor of History Julia Rodriguez.  Funded by the National Science Foundation, the History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean website, or HOSLAC for short, provides a virtual archive of over 200 primary sources along with introductions based on the latest scholarly findings. Launched in 2010, the site is intended to assist teachers, scholars, and members of the public who have an interest in science in its distinct Latin American and Caribbean contexts.

The Media Prize committee praised the website for the way in which it promotes interactive learning and research and for the strong interdisciplinary, transhistorical and transnational character of the project, as it spans the history of the Americas, of Europe and trans-Atlantic interchange, and the histories of science and technology.

As Principal Investigator on the project, Professor Rodriguez will be presented with the award at the Council’s November meeting.

Hamel Scholars featured in video

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History major Kerry Murchie and Political Science/Philosophy major Connor Strobel, both juniors, are part of the 2011-12 class of Hamel Scholars. Find out how these stellar students spend their busy days.

The Hamel Scholarship program was established in 2008 by longtime UNH supporter Dana Hamel and his family to attract to UNH in-state students who excel in community service, leadership, and academics. The program is comprised of Hamel Family Scholarships, awarded to incoming first-year students, and Hamel Scholars awards, awarded to rising juniors. Hamel students meet as a group for regular topic-focused luncheons, peer mentoring, and other leadership development activities.

Rebellon looking for common ground in the age of fast communication

Cesar Rebellon, Associate Professor of Sociology, joins in the campus wide University Dialogue about finding common ground and solving complex problems. He penned a brief essay on how the speed of communication today may be amplifying our normal human tendency to interpret our social world in biased ways, making it easier to be inaccurate in our own statements and harder to hear points of view beyond our own. Find out what he says about national politics as well as issues right here on campus (pdf).

Primary class on C-SPAN

Tune in to C-SPAN3 American History TV to watch Professor Andrew Smith’s class on the history of the New Hampshire presidential primary, a course available to students only once every four years. The class will air this Saturday at 8 p.m. and midnight and Sunday at 1 p.m. Check out the preview here: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Preview/10737424282-1/

UNH students earn regional honors for diversity/inclusion scholarship

Matthew Kleinman, a junior English major from Brentwood, New Hampshire, has been named a winner in the Seventh Annual Kingston-Mann Student Achievement Awards (www.km-awards.umb.edu) for his  essay, “Liberated Improvisation: The Pursuit of Free Expression Through Jazz.” Also a junior English major, Sawyer Theriault from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, earned an honorable mention for his essay, “Writing in Jazz: Identity and Multiculturalism in Jazz Literature.” Both will be honored at a banquet held at U-Mass Boston on November 4.

The Kingston-Mann Student Achievement Awards are intended to acknowledge the work of students who make a valuable contribution to diversity/inclusion scholarship by expanding the understanding of ideas and experiences that have not always been acknowledged or recognized by traditional disciplines. Interdisciplinary approaches and analysis that considers the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, social class, age, disability, and sexual orientation are particularly encouraged.

Campuses eligible for this student awards program include Emmanuel College, Lesley University, Massasoit Community College, Rhode Island College, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell, and University of New Hampshire.

The awards are named for Esther Kingston-Mann, former director of UMass Boston’s Center for the Improvement of Teaching (CIT) and founding director of The New England Center for Inclusive Teaching.

Alumnus publishes nonfiction book to critical acclaim

Alumnus Lou Ureneck ’72, a former editor of The New Hampshire, has  published a book called Cabin: Two Brothers, a Dream and Five Acres in Maine (Viking Press) that has garnered positive reviews in Kirkus Review and the New York Times.  In a New York Times blog written over the course of a year, Ureneck tracked the progress and reflected on the experience of building a rustic cabin in western Maine with his brother. The building project led to unexpected personal transformations, a list of lessons learned, and this book, described as simple yet abundantly rewarding by the Kirkus Review.