ANNOUNCEMENTS

Please help welcome our 2012 IAS Graduate Staff Assistant (GSA), Nate Brown. Nate is a second year Policy Studies student and will be responsible for a variety of activities that contribute to the successful operation of the IAS graduate programs: Master of Arts in Cultural Studies, Master of Arts in Policy Studies, and Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Poetics. The GSA works closely with the IAS Graduate Office staff and interacts with UWB faculty and current students. Students will be receiving emails with program information from Nate throughout the academic year. Feel free to contact Nate anytime via e-mail (NBrown@uwb.edu) with questions or just to chat about life as a student. You can find Nate in the Truly House or around campus!

The Cultural Studies and Policy Studies programs also have a Graduate Student Liaison (GSL) who facilitates communication among current students and program faculty and staff, assists with the shaping of program events, and participates in program and committee meetings, as appropriate.

The GSLs for 2011-2012:

MACS Graduate Student Liaison, Katherine Shaw

MAPS Graduate Student Liaison, Megan Dunn     

Welcome Katherine and Megan! 

New Student Profiles   

UWB Graduate Commons  

 

The Graduate Commons will open for the academic year on September 24! The primary purpose of the Graduate Commons is to support graduate education by providing a comfortable drop-in space for relaxation, study, and collaboration. The Graduate Commons is designed as a hub for graduate student life, enhancing academic, research, and social interactions.

 

The Graduate Commons is located on the first floor of the Truly House, located at 18140 110^th Ave NE (i.e. the "back road" of campus). The Graduate Commons hours are Monday through Friday 3pm - 9am and on the weekends it's open 24/7. To enter the Graduate Commons, swipe your Husky Card outside of the main door. 

  

  

UPCOMING EVENTS              

  

New Student Orientation   

Orientation for the incoming Cultural Studies, Policy Studies, and Creative Writing and Poetics cohorts will be held on Thursday, September 20. Cultural Studies and Policy Studies orientation will be from 4:30 to 9 pm and Creative Writing and Poetics will be from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. Arriving students are invited to drop by the 2nd Floor Vista of UW1 to grab a cup of coffee before heading to their respective rooms.  Cultural Studies will meet in room UW1-202, Policy Studies in room UW1-210, and Creative Writing and Poetics in room UW1-220. New students should plan to attend this important event. See you there!    

 

Paul Auster in Conversation: 'Winter Journal'    

Thursday, September 20, 2012; 7:30-9:30 pm
Seattle Town Hall, Great Hall (enter on 8th Ave); Tickets are $5 

 

Thirty years after his moving meditation on fatherhood, Auster has written a second unconventional memoir, about his mother's life and death. Facing his 63^rd winter, the bestselling novelist bookends The Invention of Solitude withthe new Winter Journal, a highly personal history of time, language, memory, and his body and its sensations-both pleasurable and painful.  "That is where the story begins, in your body," writes Auster; "and everything will end in the body as well."Author Rebecca Brown, herself eloquent in that notion, in memoir and other relevant themes, interviews Auster after a short reading.Presented as part of the Town Hall Arts and Culture series, with Elliott Bay Book Company. 

Rebecca Brown, Senior Artist-In-Residence for the MFA in

Convergence on Poetics Conference     

September 27-30, 2012

UW Bothell, North Creek Events Center

The MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics will host its inaugural fall conference, Convergence on Poetics, at the end of this month.  Convergence on Poetics queries the current understanding and practice of poetics within writing communities and the academy. The conference includes esteemed local and international writers and consists of keynote panels, poetics postings, and author performances. 

The MFA program will begin each academic year with a similar conference that enables graduate students to acquaint themselves with the MFA faculty and invited writers.  Through this convergence of established writers and writing students, the MFA intends to create an active community of writers and writing discussions that extend well beyond our academic setting and this initial gathering.  To learn more about this year's conference, Convergence on Poetics, visit the conference website.   

School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Research Colloquium 

Join us for a monthly showcase of research-in-progress by Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences faculty members. The campus-community and the general public are invited to interact with faculty in conversations about their research, gain a sense of how research practices shift as they move across disciplines and sectors, and think critically and creatively about the implications of different forms of research design.       

"The Role of Civil Society in Environmental Policy" with Nives Dolsak
Tuesday, October 2, 4:00 - 5:30pm
UW Bothell, Rose Room (UW1-280)

This article examines ratification of the Kyoto Protocol across 26

transitional economies of Europe and Eurasia for the period of 1998-2009; the

period between the Kyoto Protocol and the 2009 Copenhagen meeting. The

dependent variable measures whether or not the country has ratified the Kyoto Protocol in a given year. The key variable of interest is the strength of domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). To account for the nascent stage of the NGO sector, I measure NGO strength as a ''stock'' and as a ''flow'' variable. Using an event-history model, I examine the impact of the NGO strength while controlling for other domestic-based and international drivers of treaty ratification. All time variant independent variables are lagged by a year. My analysis suggests that the stock of domestic NGO strength is a significant predictor of the timing of ratification. Further, EU accession pressures, ratification levels in contiguous countries,

Please visit the web for detailed information, upcoming presentations, and past colloquium archives.       

 

Career and Community Connections Fair         

Mark your calendars for the Career and Community Connections Fair in North Creek Events Center.  Participating organizations will be on campus to promote career, internship, and volunteer positions.  Come prepared to find out more about these organizations and the kinds of opportunities they offer.  Many will be actively recruiting for employment, so don't forget to bring multiple copies of your resume!  A list of participants may be found here.

Student, Alumni, and Faculty News

Students

Kaelyn Caldwell (current Cultural Studies) was accepted as a PAGE Fellow for the Imagining America (IA) conference in NYC, Oct 4-7.  The Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) program is distinctive in that its agenda is set, almost exclusively, by graduate students. Present strategies to advance PAGE include developing a theoretical framework for publicly engaged graduate education; creating opportunities for mentorship and collaboration, both with peers and with advanced scholars; and researching and promoting professionalization and career pathways for engaged students. PAGE embodies the principals of participatory democracy by demonstrating how networking and self-organizing among graduate students can strengthen their facility for career decision-making and for realizing their aspirations.

Each year, IA supports graduate students to participate in the national conference. These Fellows attend a day-long PAGE Summit that includes seminar-style discussion and analysis of public scholarship literature; in-depth dialogue and activities for building the language and practical skills of engaged scholarship; and small group exchanges for sharing and receiving feedback about their research and creative practice. Fellows also participate in conference sessions and meet with senior scholars and veteran practitioners for individual mentorship.

 Megan Dunn (current Policy Studies), was selected to join the team of researchers from UW (Professor Nives Dolsak), Washington Sea Grant (Dr. Penny Dalton) and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (Dr. Phil Levine and Dr. Karma Norman) on a research project developing social indicators of human wellbeing for Puget Sound and the California Current.

Michael Ng (current Policy Studies) spent this summer working for a political party (New People's Party) and its academy (Savantas Liberal Arts Academy) in Hong Kong. In the Party, he worked as a councilman assistant in the district office. Because this year is election year in Hong Kong, his job usually focused on political campaigning, but sometimes he still processed some community issues, such as complaints and financial aid for hospital bills. In the academy, Michael worked as a program administrator at the headquarters to coordinate summer programs for high school students, maintain the academy's alumni activities, and develop digital strategies for promotion. This summer Michael also continued to pay attention to the Chinese art auction market and its economic activities.    

Alumni

Debbie Brown (Cultural Studies, 2011) has been appointed a TA position in the Master's degree program in Organizational Leadership at Gonzaga. She will be supervising graduate students who are in their last semester of the program and are putting together their capstone portfolios. Debbie has also become the administrator of the Center for Scholarly Writing at Gonzaga, which is the Writing Center for doctoral students. She continues to be an editor for that program as well.

Priya Frank (Cultural Studies, 2011) is the Assistant Director of Advancement at the UW Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, where her passion for supporting access and opportunities for students and communities of color is utilized through fundraising, communications, and community partnership work. She started here at the end of July.  She also continues to pursue community building through the arts through her involvement in Women of Color in the Arts, On the Boards' Diversity Committee, and her continued research examining how power dynamics influence and shape representation and identity formation, and its reflection within arts marketing.     

Ruth Gregory (Cultural Studies, 2011) has written and directed a short documentary "Hazzard", produced by Luke Ware, with special effects by Ryan Sackman. "Hazzard" will be playing at three film festivals this fall: Local Sighting at the Northwest Film Forum, the Tacoma Film Festival, and the Gig Harbor Film Festival. Information about times and locations of the screenings will be on Ruth's website: http://ruthmakesmedia.com/      

Shana Hirsch (Cultural Studies, 2012) will be beginning her PhD at the University of Victoria in the Geography Department this fall.        

Paul Johnson (Cultural Studies, 2011) finished out his consulting contract with Microsoft shortly after commencement and recently accepted a job in Human Resources at The Boeing Company.  Paul and his wife Ricole are ecstatic to welcome their newest family member, Roman Parker Johnson, who was born on August 28, 2012.      

Logan Micheel (Policy Studies, 2010) is currently working at the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, and recently had the opportunity to present at the National Sexual Assault Conference in Chicago.  The workshop, entitled The Perfect Sexual Assault Case:  Moving Beyond the Myth, was based on her master's research which explored the factors influencing sexual assault case filing decisions in King County, WA.  Following a discussion of the local and national research on the processing of sexual assault cases in the criminal justice system, participants were provided with advocacy strategies for closing the "justice gap" in their communities.     

Bill Pickert (Policy Studies, 2009) is now managing the Northwest Center for Occupational Health & Safety, the Education and Resource Center training grant, the Biostatistics, Epidemiologic and Bioinformatic Training in Environmental Health training grant, and research grants manager for the Exposure Sciences program, which includes pre-award (preparing applications) and post-award administration.     

Jeremy Richards (Cultural Studies, 2010) and Holly Winters (Cultural Studies, 2011) have welcomed a baby girl into the world!  Holly went into labor on the evening of her due date and Julieta Soledad (Juliet) was born 19 hours later on Wednesday, August 29.  Mom, Dad and baby Juliet are all doing great!     

Sean Schmidt (Policy Studies, 2009) has accepted the position of Associate Director of Research Operations at UW Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research (CCER).  CCER maintains the nation's largest twin registry, conducts research on chronic fatigue, and has multiple projects working with tribes around the country within their Partnership for Native Health program.

Ericka Wiggins (Policy Studies, 2011) has helped to conduct an evaluation of the King County Family Treatment Court through her work as a Research Coordinator in the Division of Public Behavioral Health and Justice Policy at the University of Washington. As a result of the evaluation, a manuscript that she co-authored was recently published in Child Maltreatment. The manuscript is titled: Effects of a Multidisciplinary Family Treatment Drug Court on Child and Family Outcomes: Results of a Quasi-Experimental Study. The article is published online and will be published in print later this year. Bruns, E.J., Pullmann, M.D., Weathers, E.S., Wirschem, M.L., and Murphy, J.K. Effects of a multidisciplinary family treatment drug court on child and family outcomes: Results of a quasi-experimental study. Child Maltreatment. August, 10, 2012. DOI: 10.1177/1077559512454216

Faculty

Kari Lerum gave presentations at two sociology conferences in Denver, CO in August 2012. She participated in an American Sociological Association sponsored Sexualities mini-conference in Denver (Aug. 2012), where she: 1) organized a workshop entitled "Reframing 'Sexualization': Why critical sexualities researchers should intervene in the 'Sexualization of Girls' discourse", 2) gave a talk on "Reframing Trafficking", and 3) moderated and provided feedback for a dissertation research panel.  She also presented a paper at the Society for the Study of Social Problems (also in Denver) entitled: "Assessing the Social Context of Transgender Sex Workers: Toward a Human Rights Policy Approach."   

Kari Lerum had her essay "What's Love Got to Do with It?:Life Lessons from Multiracial Feminism" published In Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Edited by Gonzalez, C., Harris, A., Gutierrez y Muhs, G., and Flores-Niemann. Y. Salt Lake: University of Utah Press.    

Julie Shayne spent the summer finishing her edited collection Taking Risks: Feminist Stories of Social Justice Research in the Americas, under contract with SUNY press. The book is an interdisciplinary collection of scholar activist writers representing a wide-range of disciplines: Theater, Spanish, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, American Studies, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, and Cultural Studies, in addition to one novelist/poet. The contributors write about scholar activism and social movements in the Americas. Julie co-authored the introduction and conclusion with IAS and CUSP professor Kristy Liessle. Additionally, she worked with UWB American Studies undergraduate student Mahala Lettvin to transform what started as a research paper into a chapter for the collection.

Robert Turner is the coordinator of the following four-hour post conference workshop at the annual AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) meeting in Los Angeles: Designing Introductory Courses in Sustainability for Undergraduate Learners

The workshop is on October 17.  More details of the conference as well as the abstract of the  workshop can be found online here:  http://conf2012.aashe.org/workshop/curriculum-design

Internships