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  A Man for
All Reasons
Associate Professor of
Philosophy Dan Cohen '75 says it has taken a long time to develop the course he
will help teach this spring. Four hundred years, to be exact.
"It all started in 1596," Cohen said. "Rene Descartes was born."
Cohen and Professor Jim Fleming, the head of Colby's interdisciplinary
Science and Technology Studies program, decided two years ago that the College
needed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Descartes' birth in some
meaningful way. So, said Fleming, "We're having an event."
In a spring-semester course that underscores Colby's commitment to
cross-disciplinary learning, Cohen and Fleming have combined a seminar and a
colloquium series in an all-out examination of Descartes' influence. Called
Cartesian Legacies, the program brings together 18 members of Colby's faculty
and three top Descartes experts from other institutions to ponder such subjects
as dualism in literature, the mind-body split in psychology and what it means
to be "modern." Students will write research papers on aspects of Descartes'
thought and participate in recitation sessions, and each lecture will be open
to the public.
The course is reminiscent of an interdisciplinary seminar on Thomas Aquinas
that Cohen took as a student at Colby from Professor of Philosophy (now Dean of
Faculty) Bob McArthur. Cohen loved that course, "even though I find Thomism dry
as dust," he said.
"Descartes is one of the few figures who begs for interdisciplinary
treatment because his effect has been across the curriculum," Cohen said. "If
you ask me `Who was Descartes?' I say he was a great philosopher. If you ask a
mathematician, he was a great mathematician. If you ask a physicist, he was one
of the leaders of the scientific revolution."
In the course's planning stage, Fleming and Cohen recruited faculty
members by asking them what difference Descartes made--and continues to
make--in their disciplines. As the person whose world-view supplanted
Aristotle's during the Renaissance, Descartes is considered the father of
modern thought. So, Cohen says, "we had no problem finding people who could
talk about his influence." And both he and Fleming are anxious to hear about
these other points of reference.
"I'm used to reading Descartes as a philosopher, and I read him with a
sense of where he's going and what's happened to this discussion in philosophy
for the last four hundred years," Cohen said. "It's often hard to keep sight of
the extra-philosophical motivations that he had, his connections to science,
religion, politics and all the other things that were going on in his life that
formed his thought. I hope the course will give me a whole new perspective on
the context in which Cartesian philosophy developed."
Fleming says he is interested in "putting philosophy into conversation
with all these other disciplines." The value of the course for students, he
says, is that "they'll see lots of interesting threads but they'll find one to
identify with and will write a paper and see connections rather than
disciplinary splitting off. They are going to see connections between math and
history, between philosophy and environmental studies, between anthropology and
English."
Remembering McArthur's seminar, Cohen adds that, as he did, students will "get
to hear a lot of Colby legends," popular professors from whom they haven't had
a chance to take classes. He recalls the friendly competition that developed
among the faculty of McArthur's course. "People didn't want to embarrass
themselves in front of their colleagues, so we got some great lectures," he
said. "I think that may happen with the Descartes course, too."
"It's an odd fact about teaching as a career that this is my life, this is
what I do, but I very rarely get to see other people do it," Cohen said. "It's
a treat to hear my star colleagues."
Fleming and Cohen are investigating ways to publish the colloquia papers,
perhaps in an anthology. Fleming notes that some faculty members may come away
from the seminar with fresh ideas for research projects--and perhaps, too, with
a more interdisciplinary outlook.
"The idea is to get the ferment of knowledge throughout the curriculum, so
you might find, for instance, sociologists putting more and more about medical
technologies into their courses on death and dying," he said.
Making Math Count
by J. Kevin Cool
Tom Berger says most people don't understand math. Anybody who has agonized
over the value of "x" knows what he means. But that's not what he means.
"There is little appreciation for math because of the way we teach it," said
Berger, Colby's new Carter Professor of Mathematics. "We put too much emphasis
on computational mathematics, teaching kids to turn the crank. So what if you
can solve quadratic equations? What does it mean?"
Berger, who came to Colby after nearly 30 years at the University of
Minnesota, says he is a pragmatist, not a theorist. Perhaps that's why he has
spent much of his professional career trying to figure out the best way to
teach kids math.
Berger has immersed himself in virtually every aspect of math education, from
developing materials for various curricula to evaluating how federal agencies
determine grant recipients for new programs. "I'm a relative late-comer to
education, but it's an interest I've had for a long time," he said.
Since the early 1980s, Berger has been involved in the University of Minnesota
Talented Youth Mathematics Program (UMTYMP--affectionately referred to as
"umpty-ump"), a program for exceptionally gifted middle and high school
students. The experience led Berger to a deeper understanding and awareness of
the shortcomings in math education and prompted his involvement in formulating
programs at the national level. In 1988 he took a leave of absence from UM to
serve as program director for teacher preparation and enhancement at the
National Science Foundation. He remained at the NSF the next year to oversee
the agency's program in instructional materials development and research, and
returned again in 1990 as director of the evaluation unit. But for all his
administrative accomplishments, Berger still is happiest in the classroom. And,
in that respect, he feels that coming to Colby is a return to his roots.
"I taught for a year at Trinity [College] early in my career and it was a
toss-up whether I would go back [to Minnesota] because I loved the small
college environment," said Berger, who did his undergraduate study at Trinity.
"I made the choice to go back because of the research I was doing at that time,
but most of my career has been a compromise. I always have wanted to be in this
kind of teaching environment."
He concedes that Colby is an adjustment after 28 years at a sprawling
university with 50,000 students, but says the differences can be summed up in
one word--scale. "I had never attended a faculty retreat until I came to
Colby," Berger said. "They flew me back for the retreat last summer and I sat
next to Bill Cotter. He and Bob McArthur were both there listening to what
faculty had to say. After you've been most of your career at a large university
you aren't accustomed to being listened to. It's not that people don't want to
listen, they can't. The scale is too large. Things like that [retreat]
fundamentally change the character of the faculty and create an attitude, a
feeling, that makes Colby the place it is."
Berger says that Colby is just what he expected--a humane place where faculty
and students care about their work and about each other. "The faculty here take
teaching very seriously," he said. "This is not surprising because the faculty
are close to their students. I have students coming into my office all the
time, working next door, down the hall--there's a relationship."
A personalized environment is particularly important for math students,
Berger says, because the work can be intimidating without a faculty mentor to
help. "Studies have shown that students in calculus begin a downward spiral
when they're struggling to understand the material, and unless they get help at
that early stage they probably will fail. A math class should have no more than
about thirty students, which is the maximum we have at Colby. The teachers are
available and the students prosper as a result," he said.
Outdoor Market
Professor Thomas Tietenberg, in a lecture during Fall Trustee Weekend
inaugurating the Mitchell Family Professorship in Economics, spoke on the value
and limitations of market-based approaches to environmental problems.
"Using the market to protect the environment has become almost a fad in U.S.
policy circles, and it has already spread to Latin America, Africa and the Far
East," said Tietenberg, an internationally recognized expert in environmental
economics. "[It] is clearly an idea whose time has come." But in some circles,
he added, inviting industry to participate in environmental cleanup "is treated
as roughly akin to showing up with the Devil for communion." He said many
ecologists blame big business for causing environmental problems in the first
place, and trusting the polluters to solve those problems is for them "a form
of ideological suicide."
Either extreme--wholesale adoption or rejection of market-based solutions--is
inadequate, Tietenberg said. He noted that tremendous strides have been made
where regulators have approved programs that allow one entity to transfer
pollution credits to another. If a region is restricted to a finite number of
pollution units, one company that does not use its full allotment may sell its
excess units. This process can lead to a reduction in pollution, since the
number of pollution units available may be reduced over time, and it could be
extended to include swaps and trades among nations.
But Tietenberg, an early proponent of such programs, said they are no
cure-all. "In some ways we were a bit naive in our assumptions about how easy
implementation would be and how completely these systems would produce cost
savings," he said. "On the other hand, we underestimated the impact they
ultimately would have both in terms of the number of possible applications and
the degree to which they would transform the regulatory system."
Tietenberg's lecture was delivered in the Colby Museum of Art, and his
audience included College Trustee Edson V. Mitchell III '75, whose gift endowed
the professorship Tietenberg holds, and Mitchell's parents, Helen and Edson V.
Mitchell Jr.
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Spinning Their Wheels
The budget impasse between President Clinton and Congress was becoming
a game of "Russian roulette," Assistant Professor of Economics Saranna
Thornton told the Boston Globe in a November 14 article.
Thornton, a former staff member at the Federal Reserve, said that the
disagreement was more serious than a similar rift between then-president Ronald
Reagan and congressional leaders in 1981. "It was resolved without this sort of
big standoff," she said. "The two sides were more willing then to negotiate
than to manipulate the debate."
The drawn-out battle threatened to damage financial markets if an agreement
was not reached quickly, Thornton said. "They're playing Russian roulette on an
issue that is traditionally dealt with at election time using ballots," she
said. "The Republicans believe they have a mandate from the last election and
the president feels like he has a mandate from his election. For this to be
resolved, there has to be a compromise."
Letter of Recommendation?
Hawthorne expert Pat Brancaccio, John and Caroline Zacamy
Professor of English, commented on the film The Scarlet Letter for the
Voice of America in November. Brancaccio said that the film, although
wildly inaccurate in its depictions of colonial life, was "not a bad costume
drama" if taken on its own merits. Its depictions of Hester and Dimsdale bore
little resemblance to the characters in Hawthorne's book, he said, "but if you
remove yourself from the idea that it's a faithful representation it wasn't so
bad. They changed everything but the names."
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Changing Landscapes
A New York Times article November 26 cited James M. Gillespie
Professor of Art and American Studies David Lubin as an influential
voice in the recent reinterpretation of the work of 19th-century
African-American painter Robert S. Duncanson.
Lubin, whose 1993 book Picturing a Nation: Art and Social Change in 19th
Century America included a chapter about Duncanson, has helped engage art
critics in a reevaluation of the landscapes that previously were dismissed as
second-rate examples of the Hudson River School of painting.
Keeping It Together
The referendum last fall to decide whether Quebec would remain part of
Canada created extracurricular activity for Jane Moss, Robert E. Diamond
Professor of Women's Studies and French, who became a frequent commentator for
various news organizations.
Moss, one of the premier U.S. academic experts on Quebec, was quoted in two
nationwide Associated Press stories, on Reuters Canadian wire
service and in the International Herald Tribune. She also was
interviewed about events in Quebec by CBS and Maine Public
Radio.
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Trouble in Paradise
"Alien" species from Argentine ants to the mongoose are devastating indigenous
Hawaiian flora and fauna and threatening the world's most pristine evolutionary
laboratory, said F. Russell Cole, Oak Professor of Biological Sciences, at the
inaugural Oak Professorship lecture on October 27.
Cole, whose talk was presented in conjunction with the annual convocation
honoring Bixler and Dana Scholars, said that plants and animals brought to
Hawaii by missionaries, merchants and tourists over the past few hundred years
have wiped out many indigenous species unprepared to deal with the disease,
predation and habitat destruction the foreign invaders introduced. For example,
Cole said, mosquito larvae brought to the islands in water barrels by whaling
vessels and dumped into local streams became established and transmitted a new
and virulent disease--avian pox--that has virtually destroyed the lowland bird
population. In another case, he said, feral pigs introduced by humans and now
established in the wild devastate vast areas of native grasses. That allows
hardier foreign plant species to proliferate and removes habitat for indigenous
fauna.
Argentine ants, probably brought to Hawaii by merchant or military ships, are
particularly destructive because they breed rapidly and devour defenseless
local insects. These voracious eaters are responsible for actually altering
ecosystems where they reside by endangering or extirpating native fauna, Cole
said.
The combination of exotic predators and loss of habitat have far-reaching
effects, he said. "We are losing, on average, twenty species per year [in
Hawaii]. Under normal circumstances the rate of extinction would be about three
or four species per hundred years." If it continues unchecked, the loss of
biodiversity will deprive the world of its most extraordinary "living museum of
evolution," according to Cole.
He said efforts to stop the degradation of Hawaii's fragile ecosystems include
carefully monitoring biological control experiments, such as the introduction
of predators to offset the presence of other species who have no natural
predators. He noted that these experiments have backfired in the past because
the control animal disregarded its intended food supply and selected an
alternative. For example, mongoose introduced to control rats in sugar cane
fields instead entered the rain forest and decimated the bird population.
"Research has shown that these ecosystems are resilient if the destruction is
stopped," Cole said. "We don't have a lot of time left to save the remaining
biodiversity of Hawaii. If we fail, it may be the folly for which our
descendants are least likely to forgive us."
The Oak Professorship was established in 1993 by founders of the Oak
Foundation, a private philanthropic organization devoted to education and
social service.
Faculty Notes
Charlie Bassett, Lee Family Professor of English and American studies,
Phyllis Mannocchi, assistant professor of English, and Associate
Professor of English James Boylan were listed as Colby "legends" in the
1996 Insider's Guide to Colleges.. . . . Tamae Prindle, associate
professor of East Asian studies, served as a panelist for the Japanese Women's
Studies Association in Osaka. . . . Nikky Singh, associate
professor of religious studies, presented papers for the Institute of
Commonwealth and American Studies and English Language in Mysore, India, and
for the American Academy of Religion in Philadelphia. . .
. Barbara Best, assistant professor of biology, presented a paper
and chaired a panel for the American Society of Zoologists in Washington, D.C.
. . . Jim Webb, assistant professor of history, has been named the
first president of the Saharan Studies Association. . . . Assistant
Professor of Sociology and Anthropology David Nugent presented a paper
and served as a panelist for the American Anthropological Association in
Washington, D.C. . . . Paul Doss, assistant professor of geology,
was elected chair of the Committee on Geology and Public Policy at the recent
national meeting of the Geological Society of America in New Orleans. .
. .Visiting Instructor of Sociology and Anthropology Constantine
Hriskos presented a paper for the American Anthropological Association in
Washington, D. C. . . . Sandy Grande, instructor of education and
human development, served as a panel moderator for the American Educational
Studies Association in Cleveland. . . .Assistant Professor of Government
Paul Ellenbogen presented a paper for the Southern Political Science
Association meeting in Tampa, Fla. . . . Mary Beth Mills, assistant
professor of sociology and anthropology, presented papers for the American
Anthropological Association in Washington, D.C. . . . Jill
Gordon, assistant professor of philosophy, presented a paper for the
Society for Ancient Greek philosophy at Birmingham University. . . .Visiting
Assistant Professor of History Robert Lafleur presented a paper for a
conference on 16th-century studies in San Francisco. . . . Robert
Nelson, assistant professor and chair of geology, presented a paper for the
Geological Society of America in New Orleans. . . . Charles
Conover, assistant professor of physics, presented a paper for the New
England Section of APS at Bowdoin College.
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