St. Olaf College

Combining the spirit of entrepreneurship with efforts to increase campus sustainability, a group of St. Olaf College students is using a grant from the Piper Center for Vocation and Career to create the Ole Thrift Shop.

The "shop" will take items that students might otherwise throw or recycle as they move out of the residence halls this spring and will sell them during a campus-wide event this fall. Proceeds from the sale will support other environmentally sustainable projects on campus as well as several local organizations.

The students organizing the project — Sudip Bhandari ’14, Lyla Amini ’14, Corey Ruder ’16, and Emily Hoar ’16 — hope the Ole Thrift Shop will reduce the waste generated by student residential life. Bhandari says he was inspired to get involved in the project after seeing the amount of clothes, electronics, and other materials thrown in the dumpsters at the end of the academic year.

"Most of the things seemed to be new and working,” he says. “I did not understand why there was no systematic way of managing those items.”

The team is collecting donations for the event through May 27 in large boxes that have been set up in each of the residence halls and honor houses, as well as other high-traffic areas on campus.

The group will then sell the items at a campus-wide sale September 6. Once the sale is over, organizers intend to use the profits to support other environmentally sustainable projects on campus. They also plan to donate certain items to other charitable organizations in the Northfield community.

"We believe that expanding our cause to outside of the student body demonstrates our commitment as Oles to sustainability for all," says Bhandari.

The group’s efforts are supported by a $3,000 entrepreneurial grant from the Piper Center. After a smaller pilot run of the project last year that was led by Duy Ha ’14, the committee expects that the Ole Thrift Shop will hit the ground running this year.

The Ole Thrift Shop committee members believe that their interdisciplinary backgrounds will help this event reach its fullest potential. While Bhandari in interested in implementing social change through entrepreneurship, Amini aims for change in the environmental and social implications of perpetuated waste production, Ruder is fascinated by the environmental and economic backdrops to wasteful habits, and Hoar provides administrative support to the group through her interest in marketing and design.

“Through our collaborative effort in creating this project, we feel that we have a well-rounded, innovative effort to put forth, and one that considers many of the different implications of waste production by students on campus,” says Bhandari.

While they hope the event will eventually reach out to the larger community, the committee is adamant that Ole Thrift Shop is a project for students right now. “Everyone has a say about how they want to live, but at the same time, we have to think about our actions and how those actions impact our environment,” Bhandari says. “By choosing to reuse through donation, students can give back to St. Olaf.”

During one class period, students talked with Justice David Stras about his time clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his current position on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

During another class, Judge Susan Richard Nelson led students in a discussion about how cases find their way to the federal district courts.

And every time the group met, the students analyzed constitutional law using insight their instructor, retired Minnesota Court of Appeals Justice David Minge '64, gained during his time on the bench.

This semester, students in American Constitutional Law had the opportunity to do more than read and discuss cases. They were able to learn about some of the most important periods of U.S. history directly from people who work on a daily basis with the constitutional issues they studied.

The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the principles of American constitutional law, emphasizing how civil rights and civil liberties have been central to Supreme Court jurisprudence. When Minge learned that Associate Professor of Political Science Douglas Casson, who usually teaches the course, would be researching at the University of Oxford while on sabbatical this spring, he pursued the opportunity to teach at St. Olaf in addition his seminar at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Minge used judicial experience combined with his legislative experience to ensure students looked at material from a variety of different angles. His four terms representing Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives allowed him to paint the picture of how Supreme Court rulings are implemented through the creation of laws.

"It's crucial to analyze how the legislative branch looks at constitutional issues in order to understand their effects," he says.

In addition to hearing Minge's insights about the cases covered in the material, the class of 21 students heard from a variety of guest speakers throughout the recently ended semester.

"The speakers we had were stimulating because they gave us a feel for different perspectives," Minge says. "Not only did our guests offer various career experiences, but they offered a wide range of worldviews that enhanced our study of the material."

When the students briefed a property rights case earlier this semester, Minge invited the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the law firm that had litigated the case before the Supreme Court to lead a class discussion about the constitutional questions at hand.

After the class had read cases involving the American Civil Liberties Union, the class welcomed the executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota to share stories regarding the kinds of issues the organization represents in court.

Whether the class was hosting a speaker or Minge was leading the conversation, the students were able to hear insights from professionals who worked with the constitutional issues they had been studying.

"I enjoyed our speakers because their experiences provided us with personal accounts of what careers in the field of law might look like," says Ken Fox '14. "As a potential law school applicant, their stories have helped answer some personal post-graduation questions."

Although many students enrolled in the course are political science majors, being a major is not a requirement to be in the class.

"This course embodies what the liberal arts is all about — it teaches students how to think," Minge says.

Six St. Olaf College students have been named Fulbright fellows for 2013-14.

Three of the students will use their Fulbright awards to conduct research on topics ranging from social activism to cochlear implant use. The other three students will take on English teaching assistantships.

All but one of the St. Olaf Fulbright recipients are seniors. The group brings the college’s Fulbright total to 94 since 1995.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is sponsored by the Department of State and awards more than 1,500 grants to U.S. students every year. The program operates in more than 140 countries, seeking to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and people of other countries” and “contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.” Program participants are chosen based on many factors, including leadership potential and academic merit.

The St. Olaf Fulbright recipients and their projects:

Kristell Caballero-Saucedo ’13 will be in Oaxaca, Mexico, researching the social activism of Afro-Mexicans in the Costa Chica region. She plans on interviewing activists and elected officials and will then analyze their responses and the literature on social activist strategies. Caballero-Saucedo is a participant in the St. Olaf TRiO McNair Scholars Program and TRiO Student Support Services.

Lauren Carlson ’13 will conduct public health research with the Universidad de San Francisco Quito in Quito, Ecuador.

April Curtis ’12 will work as an English teaching assistant in Bulgaria.

Kelsey Klein ’13 will be investigating the factors relating to the variable outcomes of cochlear implant users in Oslo, Norway. She will join a research group working at the University of Oslo and the Oslo University Hospital to help gather data through various cognitive tests and self-report surveys.

Martha Nielsen ’13 will work as an English teaching assistant in a university setting in Argentina from March to December.

Brynn Rathjen ’13 will work as an English teaching assistant in Malaysia. She will be working in primary or secondary schools, leading activities that teach English language skills and demonstrate culture from the United States, along with helping with various extracurricular programming.

In addition, five St. Olaf students — seniors Christopher Bowman, Reed Deardorff, Benjamin Keisling, Catherine O'Connor, and Andrew Rudd — were named Fulbright alternates.

Three St. Olaf College students recently received an award from the Council on Undergraduate Research for their study of perceptual learning of cochlear implant simulations.

Jane Burton ’13, Sarah Phillips ’13, and Carly Stork ’13 presented their research, which they conducted under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Psychology Jeremy Loebach, at the Midwestern Psychological Association conference in Chicago.

Over the past few years, the team has worked to develop a training program for people who are deaf and receive a cochlear implant. Burton, Phillips, and Stork examined how listeners who are put through a training program recognized environmental sounds compared to a control group who received no training.

"For cochlear implant users, we hope that such training will help them learn how to hear using their prostheses, and therefore be better able to understand spoken language as well as the sounds and events that are occurring around them," says Loebach.

The St. Olaf Psychology Department and the college's Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry program provided the team with the resources to travel to Chicago to present their research.

They were accompanied by four other teams of St. Olaf students:

• Hannah Erickson ’13 and Kelsey Klein ’13 presented their research on phoneme identification under a cochlear implant simulation, which they conducted under the guidance of Loebach.

• Juan-Ita Effiom ’13 presented her research comparing speech perception between normal hearing listeners and cochlear implant users, which she conducted under the guidance of Loebach.

• Jonathan Aga '13 and Christopher Stolp-Smith '13 presented their research on the preference for phonetically extreme words among extraverts, which they conducted under the guidance of Associate Professor of Psychology and Department Chair Donna McMillan.

• Nancy Castaneda '13 presented her research on how children learn about emotions through reading with their parents, which she conducted under the guidance of Associate Professor of Psychology Grace Cho.

Both Effiom and Castaneda are part of the TRiO McNair Scholars Program at St. Olaf. "Attending and presenting research at a conference at the level of MPA was a terrific opportunity," says Stork. "Along with our presentation, the conference allowed us to explore and learn about the vast research currently being done with the many subfields of psychology." Loebach says the opportunity to present in Chicago was a wonderful way for the student researchers to round out their final year at St. Olaf. "This is such an exciting time for all of us," says Loebach. "Not only did the students help get this project completed, but it is an excellent capstone to their experience in the lab. I am really looking forward to seeing what they go on to do after St. Olaf."

St. Olaf cross country and track athlete Tim Lillehaugen '13, a four-time All-MIAC honoree, was named the college's Dave Hauck Award winner Monday evening. The honor is awarded annually to a senior in his or her final year of eligibility in recognition of athletic excellence, distinguished service and leadership, and academic achievement. Read more at St. Olaf Athletics . . .

St. Olaf College Writer in Residence Benjamin Percy recently released his second novel, Red Moon, to widespread critical acclaim.

In Red Moon's alternative vision of America, werewolves live alongside humans as second-class citizens and must take mind-numbing drugs to suppress their monstrous sides. But in the beginning of the novel, a violent werewolf attack sparks a lycan revolution against the government, and thereby transforms this horror story premise into a political allegory.

Against this backdrop of civil unrest, Percy weaves together six story lines following characters that include a politician on an anti-werewolf crusade, a pair of young lovers, and a history professor involved in the rebellion.

The reviewer in the Star Tribune writes, "I charged into the lycan world of Benjamin Percy’s Red Moon with wild abandon and was rewarded with a remarkably rendered speculative history of America, as well as a gripping, grisly horror story."

USA Today says that "while some writers of paranormal novels wrap their creatures in romance and comic subplots, Percy has chosen a darker, more literary path. Red Moon is a morality tale cloaked in fur, fangs, and social injustice."

Entertainment Weekly calls the novel "sharp pulp" and gives it an A-. Percy says that this is "so much better than the B- Mrs. Zeeganhagen gave me in sixth grade for my werewolf research paper."

Additionally, Percy's Red Moon appears on CNN's list of "must read books for May," and on the Amazon editor's top picks list.

Listen to Percy talk about his new novel on Wisconsin Public Radio (download the audio here), and catch him reading from Red Moon and signing copies in Northfield May 20.

St. Olaf College Associate Professor Emerita of Psychology Mary Ellen Ross, 66, died May 5 at Three Links Care Center in Northfield, Minnesota.

Ross came to St. Olaf in 1977 and taught at the college for three decades before her retirement in 2007. She ran the center at the college dedicated to improving teaching and was an advocate for women’s rights, especially the rights of St. Olaf’s female students. She also taught in the Paracollege and the women’s studies program.

During her time at St. Olaf, Ross was particularly interested in developmental and school psychology. Early in her career, she spent time in Cuba studying psychology as it relates to medical and school systems. As her research subjects aged, however, her focus evolved. Much of her later research dealt with the psychology of aging women, especially in regard to biological phenomena like menopause.

Ross earned her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University and both her master’s and doctorate degrees from Syracuse University. She also completed postdoctoral work at the John F. Kennedy Child Development Center at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver.

A memorial service will be held May 29 at the First United Church of Christ in Northfield.

Read Ross’s obituary.

"A photography exhibit opening May 9 in Northfield offers us a window into the lives of community members rarely seen with such intimacy. But the eyes opened widest were likely those of the young photographers themselves," Star Tribune columnist Gail Rosenblum writes about 12 St. Olaf College art students who developed the exhibit as part of a class.

Each student in the intermediate photography course, led by Professor of Art Meg Ojala, spent six hours with a client of Laura Baker Services Association, an organization that provides resources to people with developmental disabilities.

The St. Olaf students took hundreds of photos of everyday moments, from one client visiting his mother to two others making lunch. They then selected the best images to display at nine locations around Northfield.

Gina Gaetz '13 tells the Star Tribune that she initially worried about feeling a sense of separation from clients Larry and Glen as she got to know them from behind a camera lens. Instead, she wrote in her artist's statement, “I formed unforgettable relationships with two members of my community.”

The photography class is part of the academic civic engagement program at St. Olaf, which prompts students to apply what they learn in the classroom to community-based experiences.

As part of this year's academic theme, Innovation in the Liberal Arts, St. Olaf College invited students to submit their creative solutions to campus problems. The winner of this competition will be announced at the Innovation Theme Year celebration this Thursday.

"Our mission for the theme year is to elevate creativity and innovation in both our pedagogy and our curriculum," says St. Olaf Entrepreneur in Residence Sian Muir, who is a member of the theme year committee. "We believe that the liberal arts is uniquely predisposed to fostering this type of culture as, by definition, we are innately interdisciplinary."

Ole Ventures, the social and sustainable entrepreneurship club led by Audrey Phillips '13 and Melody Rosen '13, collaborated with the theme year faculty committee in planning and sponsoring the student innovation challenge.

The competition focused on an interdisciplinary approach to innovation by requiring that students work with others from different academic backgrounds. For example, one team consisting of a biology major, an English major, and a philosophy major made plans for an online platform to improve communication between students and campus decision makers.

Several other entries also called for new online platforms to improve areas of campus and community life. One team proposed that St. Olaf create a website for used textbook purchases, so that students find it easier and more efficient to sell their old books to their peers. Another proposal called for an interactive web page to highlight events in the greater Northfield community.

The remaining entries reflect the range of ideas possible when students work in an interdisciplinary setting. These proposals include a St. Olaf thrift shop, ways to reduce student stress on campus, and adding a public health concentration to the campus curriculum.

"We are excited by the variety of proposals that we received as it further validates the fact that our students, when giving a problem solving challenge, can collaborate to find superior solutions," Muir says.

In recent days, St. Olaf College Professor of Philosophy Gordon Marino has covered two of his greatest passions — boxing and philosophy — for media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and CNN International.

Marino began his media blitz with a piece in the global edition of the New York Times honoring the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.

"Throughout the ups and downs of the scholarly market, the intellectual world has remained bullish on Kierkegaard, in part because the Dane, unlike other members of the Socrates guild, always addressed what human beings are really up against in themselves," writes Marino, who also serves as the curator of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf. The library will celebrate two centuries of Kierkegaard with a conference this summer.

In a piece published in the Wall Street Journal, Marino turned his attention to assessing the boxing career of "the planet's premier pugilist," Floyd Mayweather, who faced off against Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero over the weekend.

"Simply put, the question facing the 36-year-old Mayweather is this: What is his signature fight? Has it even happened yet? And will he be remembered most for never getting in the ring with Pacquiao, the one fighter who might have been his equal?" Marino writes.

He also live blogged the fight for the paper and wrote follow-up pieces on Mayweather's victory and future plans. In addition, Marino did pre-fight and post-fight interviews with CNN International. On the same day, Marino also penned a piece for the Huffington Post about a fight in Germany between world heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and Francesco Pianeta of Italy.

Botticelli's Birth of Venus is world-famous. For Madeleine Senko ’14, it has become an old friend.

While studying abroad in Florence, Italy, this year, Senko landed an internship at one of the world’s most renowned museums: the Uffizi Gallery.

Senko, a studio art major, was studying in Florence through the Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s Arts, Humanities, and Culture semester when the program director, Jodie Mariotti, encouraged her to apply for an internship in the Uffizi’s exhibition loan office.

"Jodie arranged for us to pay a visit to Antonio Natali, the director of the Uffizi gallery," Senko says. "I was rather starstruck and extremely nervous, but was able to prove my chops."

Balancing coursework with time at the museum became an art form in and of itself. At the office, Senko was responsible for processing loan requests from other institutions around the globe and then seeing that, once there, the Uffizi’s art was being properly cared for. Once she even was asked to serve as a translator for a British patron who was hoping to have a piece of art authenticated by the Uffizi Gallery.

Senko’s language skills were vital to the position. After a month of intensive language courses at the Linguaviva Institute, Senko spent the remainder of her semester outside of classes in the Uffizi’s offices conducting business primarily in Italian. She had studied Italian in high school, and took advanced language coursework at Linguaviva in preparation. (This fall, St. Olaf College students interested in learning Italian will be able to take advantage of the new Alternative Language Study Option program.)

From the very first day on the job, Senko became privy to the inner workings of the museum. "I was able to witness several pieces of art packed up to be mailed across the globe to an exhibit," she says. "I have been interested in the inner workings of museums for many years, and I find the behind-the-scenes work and preparation every bit as interesting as the art and artifacts on display."

This knowledge of museum inner-workings will aide Senko this summer, when she will most likely return to her position as guest facilitator at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, a position she also held last summer.

Still, it is the arts and artifacts on display that Senko treasures working with most, be it Botticelli masterpieces or scientific academic manuscripts.

"My knowledge about art has expanded exponentially," she says. "It’s amazing to flip through art history textbooks and see photos of works I have seen in person or walked past a dozen times. Every day I was surrounded by beautiful and important art, and it never ceased to awe me."

Students at St. Olaf College will soon be taking a few extra trips to the water fountain — and they couldn’t be more excited about it.

The student-run Take Back the Tap initiative, spearheaded by leaders from the St. Olaf Environmental Coalition, has collaborated with the college and its food-service provider, Bon Appetit, to dramatically reduce the sale and distribution of bottled water on campus.

"We are so excited about these changes on campus," says Cassie Paulsen '15, one of the Take Back the Tap leaders. "Not only is this a great example of our college putting ideals to action, but it is something the student body truly cares about."

Last year, after a campus-wide campaign by Take Back the Tap, the student body voted in support of eliminating the sale and distribution of bottled water on campus. The referendum passed with 86 percent of student voters supporting the idea.

Recognizing that the move supports the college’s sustainability efforts, administrators began working closely with Take Back the Tap leaders to dramatically reduce bottled water on campus.

While the college will retain the sale and distribution of bottled water at the St. Olaf Bookstore and at some catered events, the following changes will occur this spring, throughout the summer, and into the coming year:

• Beginning this summer, bottled water will no longer be available in the vending machines.

• Bon Appetit will remove bottled water from the bagged lunch line and for sale in the Cage.

• There will be no bottled water under the chairs of graduating seniors and faculty attending Commencement this year. There will instead be a common water source for all guests to use in filling their own water bottles.

• The college will begin a process of installing filtered water dispensers in bathrooms in residence halls and academic buildings on campus, with the intention of installing them in every bathroom as budgets and time allow.

Students involved in the Take Back the Tap campaign will continue to work toward finding alternatives to bottled water at other campus events as well. "We want to continue an education campaign for students, faculty, and staff about why bottled water is not a wise commodity for social justice, economic, and environmental reasons," says Sonja Helgeson '15.

This Sunday, May 5, marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.

And St. Olaf College, which is home to the largest collection of works by and about Kierkegaard outside of Denmark, is preparing to celebrate in style.

The college will host one of the largest celebratory conferences around the globe this summer. St. Olaf, which houses the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library, will use the Seventh International Kierkegaard Conference to honor the existentialist.

“I thought this would be quite small because of so many competing conferences this year,” says St. Olaf Professor of Philosophy and Kierkegaard Library Curator Gordon Marino, who wrote a piece honoring Kierkegaard that was published in the New York Times global edition this weekend. “It turns out that it will be an enormous conference, with around 70 paper presentations and attendees from more than a dozen countries.”

The conference will feature a cast of impressive Kierkegaard scholars. The keynote speaker will be Bruce Kirmmse, a renowned Kierkegaard scholar who is currently stationed at the Soren Kierkegaard Research Center at the University of Copenhagen.

This year's conference could even top the one at St. Olaf three years ago that is widely believed to have been the largest gathering of Kierkegaard scholars in history.

The conference attendees are not the only ones who will be spending time with Kierkegaard at St. Olaf this summer. Around 50 scholars visit the library each summer to conduct research. The library also hosts the participants of the Young Scholars Program, which meets in July and brings together more than 20 undergraduate seniors and recent graduates for a month to study the famous philosopher.

The number of scholars and students who visit the library each year is a testament to its success. “Most people are surprised to find a collection of this caliber at an undergraduate institution,” says Marino. “We have people coming from Denmark to do research because we have such good access to very rare volumes. Here everything is on the shelf.”

The library began with a donation from Howard and Edna Hong's private collection in 1976. The Hongs fostered a passionate interest in the works of Soren Kierkegaard and over the years devoted themselves to the task of providing a new English translation of the philosopher's writings.

“That’s what Howard really wanted,” says Marino. “To have the library be really accessible to people who are interested.”

The lecture that Ezra Klein recently delivered at St. Olaf College will be broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio May 6.

The Washington Post journalist, blogger, and columnist visited St. Olaf April 24 to discuss "How Washington Really Works."

Klein, the St. Olaf Political Awareness Committee's spring speaker, talked about the impact that the lack of consensus and bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., is having on the U.S. and many countries around the world. His lecture was streamed and archived online.

Klein currently manages the Washington Post's Wonkblog, a contributor-based forum that covers various facets of policy development. His own pieces for the blog tend to cover health care and budget policy. Additionally, Klein is a columnist for Bloomberg and is a contributing policy analyst for numerous outlets at MSNBC, including The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball with Chris Matthews.

In 2010 The Week magazine named Klein Blogger of the Year for his coverage of the health care debate and Congress’ passage of the Affordable Care Act. In 2011 GQ magazine named him one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington and Time magazine labeled his blog as one of the 25 best financial blogs.

"Ezra does real analysis of issues: the kind of thing that you really need to know to make an informed judgment, but that’s all too rare even in financial journalism," Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote for Klein’s bio in Time. "[He] was absolutely invaluable during the health care debate."

Emma Cornwell ’13 earned top honors for the research poster she recently presented at the Minnesota Academy of Science’s Winchell Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Her poster, titled “The Effects of Different Nitrogen Fertilizer Rates on Soil Characteristics, Plant Properties, and Economic Returns in Southeastern Minnesota Cornfields,” described the project she undertook this fall on two cornfields on the St. Olaf College agricultural lands that are leased by farmer Dave Legvold.

Cornwell studied the environmental and economic effects of nitrogen fertilizer, which is commonly used to increase crop yield. Nitrogen can have serious environmental consequences, often making its way into streams through stormwater runoff and contributing to algae blooms and dead zones in major rivers like the Mississippi.

“I liked the idea of contributing to research about the environmental effects of farming while also helping a local farmer to optimize his economic returns,” Cornwell says.

She worked closely with Legvold to determine the optimum level of nitrogen fertilizer application by looking at soil characteristics, plant properties, crop yield, and economic returns. Legvold is an environmentally conscious farmer and has worked with other St. Olaf students in the past.

Cornwell’s poster presentation was one of two to receive the “best in session” award out of 30 entries at the symposium. Seven other St. Olaf students also presented their research at this year's meeting.

“There were very few posters dealing with agriculture,” Cornwell says. “In fact, I think most of the other projects with agricultural themes were by St. Olaf students. We have the unique advantage of our location in a rural agricultural community to work with local farmers to perform ‘on-farm’ research, building connections and communication between academia and practical agriculture.”

St. Olaf students have performed well in past years at the symposium.

A 'natural' step Cornwell’s project derives from a long history of agricultural study. Last summer Cornwell, who is majoring in biology and environmental studies, held an undergraduate research position with St. Olaf Professor of Biology Kathy Shea, performing maintenance work on the St. Olaf Natural Lands.

“It was very beneficial for me to have this summer research position, because it allowed me to study the corn fields from the beginning to the end of the growing season,” Cornwell says. She continued to study the fields throughout the fall in an Independent Research project through the Biology Department and through her time working as a student naturalist.

Cornwell’s international background in agricultural development has also guided her project development. During her sophomore year, she spent an Interim in Ecuador working on an organic permaculture farm. She also spent a semester during her junior year in Costa Rica, where she designed and carried out a research project comparing the soil quality of an organic cacao farm to banana and pineapple plantations.

She will spend this summer in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, interning at Troy Kids’ Garden, where she will work with youth to plant and maintain garden beds and develop healthy nutrition habits.

“I’ve been fortunate to have lots of experience with research, but I’m ready to tackle sustainable food from a different angle,” Cornwell says. “It seems like a natural step.”

St. Olaf College recently hosted more than 100 students from across the Midwest interested in semantics and syntax.

They were here thanks to the initiative and drive of Michelle Frank '13 and the St. Olaf Student Linguistics Society, which was responsible for imagining, organizing, and executing the first Minnesota Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium.

“One goal of the conference was to reflect the diversity of linguistics,” says Frank, president of the Student Linguistics Society and lead organizer of the symposium. “We wanted to emphasize the experiential potential within the field.”

The symposium served as an arena for students to share their research in the field of linguistics, and featured undergraduate presenters from St. Olaf, Carleton, Luther, and Macalester Colleges, as well as the University of Minnesota.

Their work examined linguistic phenomena from a range of languages, including Modern Standard Arabic, Basque, Northern Italian dialects, and Amharic, a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia.

To illustrate the broader social context and potential applications of their research, the students also assembled a panel of professionals to discuss the various career paths a linguist can pursue. They also invited Stephanie Farmer of the University of California, Berkeley to deliver a keynote address on graduate studies in the field.

In doing so, Frank and the Student Linguistics Society aimed to increase student awareness of opportunities to conduct linguistics-related research at St. Olaf.

“We've now established the symposium as an annual event, and look forward to another strong showing of student research at next year's conference,” says Frank.

St. Olaf College Professor of Chemistry and Department Chair Bob Hanson "has a knack for explaining to those who aren’t chemistry professors why helium is necessary," notes a Star Tribune article about the dwindling production of helium.

Although helium is most often associated with balloons and squeaky voices, Hanson explains that it also plays an important role in some serious tasks. Its special property — a very low boiling point — makes it an excellent cooling product for things like the magnets that run MRI machines.

With helium prices rising, Hanson tells the paper, more hospitals and research institutes are recycling helium. “It’s a fairly new technology and costs a lot of electricity” but bolsters the supply, he notes.

The work of composer Dan Cavanagh '01 can been heard around the world, in venues ranging from Lincoln Center to the Bucharest International Jazz Festival.

And this week he'll bring his talent back to the St. Olaf College campus. The St. Olaf Jazz Ensembles (Jazz I, II, and III) and the Percussion Ensemble have been rehearsing a selection of Cavanagh's works in preparation for their spring concerts. The composer himself will work with the ensembles in the week prior to the performances. (Both jazz concerts will be streamed live and archived online.)

"It's important for St. Olaf jazz and percussion students to work with an accomplished musician who got his start performing with the same ensembles they are in," says St. Olaf Artist in Residence Dave Hagedorn, who conducts the jazz ensembles. "There is always something special to be learned by experiencing music with the person who originally created it. This is an immense help for interpretation and trying to realize the composer's intentions."

Cavanagh, the associate director of jazz studies and an associate professor of music at the University of Texas at Arlington, has garnered numerous awards for his jazz compositions. He has received an International Music Prize for Excellence in Composition, a First Music Commission from the New York Youth Symphony Jazz Band Classic program, and a featured performance at the International Jazz Composers Symposium. He is also an honorary fellow of the National Academy of Music.

He shares what drew him to jazz, what inspires him, and the artist he can't get enough of right now.

Your compositions vary widely in genre and style. Where do you draw your inspiration? My inspiration comes from many different places, and can be different depending on the piece. I read a great deal, and often I try to encapsulate ideas from those readings into my compositions. Much of my inspiration comes from other art, especially poetry.

Your music is fun to play. How do you achieve that? I think a composition means nothing without the people who perform it, and without the people who listen to it. Because that is so important to me, I typically think about that quite a bit during the composition process. Duke Ellington was reported to think that individual lines in a composition needed to be as interesting to play as the melody, and that is an important consideration for me. I also think that a piece has an overall energetic shape that needs to come across for the performers and listeners, and so the pieces that are fun to play (and listen to) are the ones that have captured that energy in the right way.

What drew you to jazz? I began taking piano lessons in kindergarten. I would always make up my own "compositions" when I was in grade school. My family moved from St. Paul to the suburbs (Woodbury) when I was in seventh grade; because of that I changed piano teachers. My new teacher ended up moving three months after I started with her, and she recommend I begin with a jazz piano teacher. It's a great case of a teacher recognizing the strengths or interests of a student and steering them in the right direction.

What's one of your favorite memories of having your pieces performed? It was a very special experience to have my piece titled Joy Soup performed in the Allen Room at Lincoln Center, with huge windows overlooking Central Park in New York City around dusk. That piece was commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony Jazz Band Classic program and performed by them in 2006.

What is your go-to album or artist right now? I just can't seem to get enough of Dave Douglas. He is restless in his activity as a performer and composer, and I currently have two friends who are playing in his band, which is amazing. His album from last year, Be Still, is fantastic, and the same quintet just released a new album, Time Travel, which I'm really looking forward to getting to know.

You did a Radio Head piece for jazz ensemble. What other musical groups would you be interested in arranging? Actually, I don't really keep a list of pieces I'd like to arrange, and frankly I don't spend much time listening to pop music. I have been really interested in bluegrass lately (there's a really cool bluegrass album by Charlie Haden), and it would be fun to wrangle that kind of stuff into a big band context.

St. Olaf College Professor of Philosophy Charles Taliaferro penned a chapter in the recently released Routledge Companion to Modern Christian Thought.

Taliaferro's chapter is titled "Prolegomena," which is a term that refers to an introductory essay that sets the stage for what is to follow. The chapter discusses the methodology and basic approaches to take when digesting philosophical discourse.

"What if many reasonable, fair-minded people read what follows and disagree about the conclusions?" Taliaferro writes. "I think there needs to be more dialogue and reflection, not despair or suspending one’s conclusions or beliefs. In philosophy, disagreement is almost inevitable, and yet it can be seen, not as a flaw, but as a powerful motivator and opportunity for growth and further, richer communication, exercising philosophically the golden rule and good samaritanism."

The book has received high praise from scholars around the country.

This is not the first time Taliaferro has played a prominent role in a Routledge publication. He edited the Routledge Companion to Theism that was released last September.

 

Two St. Olaf College students have each received a grant from the Davis Projects for Peace initiative to establish grassroots projects abroad.

Love Odetola ’14 will use the $10,000 grant to develop a public health initiative in Senegal, while Duy Ha '14 will use it to create an interactive educational experience about environmental issues in Vietnam.

The grants are awarded to students who use creativity and innovation in the development of a project that promotes peace and addresses the root cause of conflict among parties. Over the past five years, seven St. Olaf students have received the prestigious award.

Odetala’s project, “Peace through Public Health and Women Empowerment,” will take her to Lambaneme, Senegal, just hours from where she grew up in Dakar.

Ha will spend his summer in his hometown of Hanoi, Vietnam, implementing an interactive learning experience for students about environmental issues in the Vietnamese rainforest. His project is titled “Rung Oi!,” which literally means, “Hi, Forest!”

A love of public service Odetola credits the development of her project to conversations she was having both inside and outside the classroom at St. Olaf. She developed her own “Health and Wellness Disparities in the Developing World” major through the St. Olaf Center for Integrative Studies, combining diverse methodologies and subject matter across the curriculum related to public health.

“I started thinking about the disparities I see at home and what I could possibly do to change the problems I was seeing,” she says. “Senegal was a good place to start, because its familiar, I speak the languages, and I understand the people.”

Through connections with her father’s mission work in the region, Odetola was able to get in contact with Mission Inter Senegal (MIS), an evangelical nonprofit that focuses on community development in the rural interior villages of Senegal, and they agreed to act as her partner organization for the project.

MIS put her contact with the village spokesperson of Lambaneme, and together he and Odetola developed the three goals she will work on over the summer: the implementation of a water pipe to bring fresh water to the village from the nearest source (currently more than four miles away); the development of multiple public health workshops in conjunction with the women of the village, in order to focus on their individual wants and needs; and the establishment of micro loans for about 10-15 women to develop small business ventures in the field of agriculture and livestock.

“I’m excited to be a leader with the same authority as the adult directors I’ll be working with,” Odetola says. “This is leadership on a whole new level.”

Education and the environment While on a canopy tour in Costa Rica last winter, Ha noticed a group of elementary school students going into the rainforest to do experiential learning activities.

“I quickly came to admire the allocation of public and private resources into the development of environmental education programs in Costa Rica,” he says. “I thought, ‘Vietnam, a beautiful country with extensive biodiversity, is facing serious problems of deforestation. Why shouldn’t we have a similar program back home?’”

Ha was inspired to apply for a Davis grant to develop an interactive learning experience about the rainforest in his native Hanoi. Over the course of the summer, he plans to: directly reach at least 1,000 Vietnamese youth and expose them to the rainforest; provide training for 50 exceptional young leaders with interest in the cause; publicize materials through Vietnamese mass media and online networks; and establish a network of youth interested in Vietnamese rainforest protection and environmental preservation.

“The rights to be educated about living sustainably and harmoniously are crucial to keeping the world a peaceful place,” he says. “I hope to balance that social injustice by providing in-depth and experiential learning opportunities about one of the under-addressed major issues facing Vietnam today.”

As an economics major with a concentration in management studies, Ha hopes to one day develop a sustainable business in Vietnam.

A 'United' front The Davis Projects for Peace grants are open to all students (both international and domestic) at the 94 Davis United World College partner schools. St. Olaf has been a member college in the UWC program since the fall of 2008, and 46 of the college's current international students are Davis UWC Scholars.