Fall/Winter 2020 Issue
Fall/Winter 2020 Issue
Feature Story
Confronting Our Past: Slavery, Racism and the Quest for a Just, Humane Community
Davidson College commits to action toward a just, humane, inclusive community. The following stories discuss how members of the Davidson Community are confronting the college's past and taking action.
Feature Story Order to Crisis: Drive for Data Fuels In-demand Research Initiative
The College Crisis Initiative, a Davidson College pandemic research project led by Prof. Chris Marsicano and students, makes international headlines.
Read Order to Crisis: Drive for Data Fuels In-demand Research Initiative
President's Letter Exploring the Past, Building Davidson’s Future
Pandemic Visual Diary
College Photographer Chris Record, and student photographers Claire Tatum ’24, Sydney Schertz ’24 and Zoe Ren ’24, canvassed campus to provide a glimpse of life on a college campus during a pandemic.
The Well
Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, a cautious college welcomed new and returning students with a message that caring for each other has never been more important. Davidson’s hopes of remaining on campus hinged on a community-wide effort that followed months of extensive planning and preparation—stringent weekly testing, adherence to safety protocols and contact tracing. It worked. Through a very different kind of semester students created opportunities for connection, engaged in service, planned activities, confided in mentors and friends.
Theatre Prof. Steve Kaliski ’07 and student directors embraced the challenge of creating in the time of COVID with a socially-distanced production titled “Ubi Orta Pestilentia: A Davidson Zombie Apocalypse.” Each director conceived of a five-minute zombie scene inspired by a piece of Davidson history or folklore and executed the scene somewhere on campus. The audience watched from their vehicles, driving to various campus locations. Student directors took on all aspects of the production, from scripting to casting to holding rehearsals outdoors as dusk became dark.
Jeremy Chan ’23 did not return to Davidson for the fall. He attends classes remotely from his parents’ home on the outskirts of Hong Kong. While he enjoys being with friends and family and eating the foods he can’t readily find around Davidson—steamed fish, soy-sauce chicken, hotpot—the time difference makes for a challenging schedule. This semester, his first class began at 10:50 p.m., and his last class ended at 3:30 a.m. Students who could not attend live classes accessed recorded classes. Chan, an economics major, took this photo from Victoria Peak, a popular Hong Kong tourist site.
The Davidson football team and supporters from the campus community gathered on Chambers Lawn to commemorate the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington and announce a new initiative to fight injustice. The idea for the organization—called PACE, for progress, advocate, cooperate and educate—came from within the team, in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the national outcry that followed.
Cora Martin ’21 went to Brazil as a Boren Scholar in fall of 2019, studying the conflict between conservationists seeking to protect the Amazon rainforest and the current government's push for more development. In March, COVID-19 forced her to leave Rio de Janeiro and return to her Kansas City, Missouri, home. Then, an opportunity to play a role in history arose: Martin, a history major and economics minor, now serves as a Center for Presidential Transition intern. The non-partisan, Washington, D.C., non-profit is assisting leadership teams for President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the United States’ first woman vice-president-elect.
Class Notes are Now on Davidson Connect
Class Notes have moved to Davidson Connect, the alumni connection, directory, and mentoring platform. If you have already activated your Davidson Connect profile, use your password to access the Class Notes. You must activate your profile to use the platform. Contact alumni@davidson.edu with questions or help logging on to Davidson Connect.
The Union
Bookshelf
Alumni
East Lake: Where Bobby Learned to Play by Linton C. Hopkins ’61 (2018, Deodara Press, LLC). A journey through the history of East Lake Golf Club, the only course where golfers can match shots with Bobby Jones and Alexa Stirling.
30 Days With Abraham Lincoln by Duncan Newcomer ’65 (2019, Front Edge Publishing, LLC). Lincoln scholar and host of the “Quiet Fire” podcast series Duncan Newcomer collects 30 of his best stories to offer readers a month of inspiration.
Rescuers from the Sky by W. Lee Fanning, M.D. ’66 (2020, FriesenPress). True stories of the Air Medical Rescue Teams of the U.S. Coast Guard who risk their lives to save others, as seen through the eyes of a newly trained flight surgeon (1971-1973).
Milton at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson’s Reading of John Milton by Kemmer Anderson ’67 (2019, Xlibris). With the intuition of a poet, Kemmer Anderson approaches these icons of liberty and reason and shines a light on their subtle kinship.
Search: A Guide for College and Life by Jeff Duffey, M.D. ’69, and Barbara Roquemore, Ed.D. (2020, Cairde, Karuna and Hedd Publishing, LLC). A guide to college success and well-being for students and parents, with guidance on topics ranging from relationship skills to avoiding financial pitfalls.
The Contemplative Skeptic: Spirituality for the Non-Religious and the Unorthodox by Barrett A. Evans ’93 (2020, Aprocryphile Press). Barrett Evans explores the value of skepticism, a source of solace from harmful forms of religious indoctrination, and a stimulus for more peaceful, authentic and compassionate living.
In Someone Else’s Country: Anti-Haitian Racism and Citizenship in the Dominican Republic by Trenita Brookshire Childers, Ph.D. ’05 (2021, Rowman and Littlefield). In this groundbreaking work, Trenita Brookshire Childers explores the enduring system of racial profiling in the Dominican Republic, where policy changes have created statelessness for hundreds of thousands of people of Haitian descent.
Add Yourself to the Shelf
To submit your book for this column, as well as to E.H. Little Library’s Davidsoniana Room, please send a signed copy to:
Davidson Journal
Box 7171, Davidson College
Davidson, NC 28035-7171
Faculty Notes
Africana Studies
Devyn Spence Benson published a book titled Afrocubanas: History, Thought, and Cultural Practices with Rowman and Littlefield press. This edited collection is the English translation of the first book written by Black Cuban women intellectuals and activists about Black women’s experiences in Cuba.
Takiyah Harper-Shipman recently received an American Political Science Association (APSA) Centennial Center Research Grant to fund a multi-institutional and multi-regional workshop on Black women writing on African Politics. Harper-Shipman co-authored the recently published chapter, “Race and Ethics in International Relations” in the Routledge Handbook to Rethinking Ethics in International Relations.
Art
Joelle Dietrick and Owen Mundy launched their online art project, “Tally Saves the Internet.” Funded by many organizations, including Davidson College, the Mellon Foundation and UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, and developed with many Davidson College students, the project was exhibited at Locust Projects in Miami and North Carolina State University as part of their Immersive Scholar Project.
Biology
Karen Bernd was named a visiting fellow for assessment of AP biology in spring 2020. Her work focuses on reviewing current AP Biology curricula and tests and providing the College Board with feedback regarding scope and inclusive design of the AP test and alignment of its content with college introductory biology courses.
Karen Hales published an essay, “Signaling Inclusivity in Undergraduate Biology Courses Through Deliberate Framing of Genetics Topics Relevant to Gender Identity, Disability, and Race,” in the journal CBE-Life Sciences Education.
Sophia Sarafova and Nicole Snyder collaborated on a paper titled, “Sequence-defined Heteromultivalent Precision Glycomacromolecules Bearing Sulfonated/Sulfated Non-Glycosidic Moieties Preferentially Bind Galectin-3 and Delay Wound Healing of a Galectin-3 Positive Tumor Cell Line in an in vitro Wound Scratch Assay,” in Macromolecular Bioscience.
Kevin Smith recently published an article with students Madeline Seagle ’20, Max Vierling ’21, Ryan Almeida ’18, Jake Clary ’19, Will Hidell ’21, Erin Scott ’20, and Carlos Vargas ’22. The article, “Low abundance of three tick species in the Piedmont of North Carolina,” was based on DRI- and NSF-funded research and appears in Journal of Medical Entomology.
Dave Wessner has written several articles about COVID-19 for Forbes.com, covering social and scientific aspects of the pandemic.
Chemistry
The Department of Chemistry, in collaboration with Hailey Holck ’22 and Luis Montero-Lopez ’22, recently published a paper on transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The title of the article is titled, “#DavidsonTrue: Transition to Remote Teaching While Maintaining Our Values as a Liberal Arts College During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Nicole Snyder published a paper with undergraduate coauthors Eddie Palumbo ’15 and Jennifer Levine ’20 titled, “Synthesis of isobemisiose, neosartose, and fischerose: three alpah-1,6-linked trehalose-based oligosaccharides identified from Neosartorya fischeri” in the journal Royal Society of Chemistry Advances. Snyder is included in one of seven teams of scientists to have been awarded a grant through the Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s COVID-19 Initiative: Detecting and Mitigating Epidemics, for Glycomimetics for Inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 Entry.
Communication Studies
Amanda R. Martinez wrote a review of the book, This Bridge We Call Communication: Anzaldúan Approaches to Theory, Method, and Praxis, published in Women & Language journal’s spring 2020 volume.
Economics
Jaya Jha and Fred Smith collaborated with EJ Kelley ’20 on a paper that was conditionally accepted for publication at Applied Economics Letters. The paper was a result of EJ’s independent study.
Vikram Kumar published “Liquidity shocks: A new solution to the forward premium puzzle” in the journal Economic Modelling.
Clark Ross was the special editor for the Advanced Placement edition of the recently published (2020) 22nd edition of the McConnell-Brue-Flynn Economics text.
Shyam Gouri Suresh co-authored the paper “Income Segregation and Access to Healthy Food” (American Journal of Preventive Medicine), with Stephanie Schauder ’15. Gouri Suresh also co-authored with Paul Studtmann (philosophy) the paper “Universalizing and the We: Endogenous Game Theoretic Deontology,” forthcoming in the interdisciplinary journal Economics and Philosophy.
Educational Studies
Hilton Kelly co-authored a piece in the GLQ Forum on queer battle fatigue and leadership in the American Educational Studies Association titled, “The Queer Love Project: AESA, Fatigue, and Building the Body of an Organization.” He has been invited to serve on the editorial board of the Western Journal Black Studies and, for a second time, the editorial board of Educational Theory.
English
Suzanne Churchill published the digital scholarly book “Mina Loy: Navigating the Avant-Garde.”
Brenda Flanagan’s prize-winning short story, “A Dance With My Brother,” has been translated into Russian and included in a book of short fiction, 9 Stories. Flanagan was invited to read from the story and talk about her work as a writer at the annual GoViral Book Festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Ann Fox’s comic, “#crockpotrunner: a not-finished tale of becoming a mid-life athlete,” has been published in Menopause: A Comic Treatment. Fox’s essay, “Disability, Drama, and the Problem of Intersectional Invisibility,” was recently published in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Disability, and her article, entitled “Why Do Disability Aesthetics Matter? A Lesson in Porcelain” was published in Diversity Gains: Stepping Stones and Pitfalls. With Jessica Cooley ’05, Fox co-curated an exhibition, entitled "Indisposable: Structures of Support after the Americans with Disabilities Act," at the Ford Foundation Gallery.
Alan Michael Parker’s story, “Unemployment Benefits,” won First Place in the Lunate 500 contest. Parker’s book, The Age of Discovery launched on Facebook Oct. 4. He has also published two poems in The American Poetry Review, “Breakfast” and “The Trees of Kraków.”
Environmental Studies
Brad Johnson published an article, entitled “Stream capture and the geomorphic evolution of the Linville Gorge in the southern Appalachians, USA” in the journal Geomorphology.
Film and Media Studies
Amanda R. Martinez and series co-editor, Leandra H. Hernández have published the first book in their Cultural Media Studies series, Dangerous Dames: Representing Female-Bodied Empowerment in Postfeminist Media, by Heather Hundley, Roberta Chevrette, and Hillary A. Jones.
German Studies
Maggie McCarthy published an article, co-written with Katharina Gerstenberger, in Feminist German Studies, “Mapping out the ‘Co’ in Collaborative Work: External Pressures, Institutional Responses, and Individual Affects.”
History
Robin Barnes participated by invitation in an online seminar organized by the University of Minnesota Center for Early Modern History in cooperation with the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine.
Peter Krentz published “Battle of Salamis: 480 BC,” a solicited and peer-reviewed article, in the Oxford Bibliographies in “Military History.”
Sarah Waheed has secured a book contract with Cambridge University Press for her forthcoming publication, tentatively titled Hidden Histories of Pakistan: Censorship, Literature and Secular Nationalism in Late Colonial India. Waheed has been awarded, in addition to the Fulbright for India, an AIPS (American Institute of Pakistan Studies) fellowship, which will support Waheed’s research on the project, “Her City Disappeared in Black Gold: South Asian Muslim Urbanism Between India, Pakistan, and the Persian Gulf.”
Hispanic Studies
Rosalba Esparragoza and Kyra Kietrys teamed up with former Davidson connections to support new international collaborations in the face of COVID-19. These initiatives include a program through which SPA 201 students and middle-schoolers from Metrolina Regional Scholars Academy wrote letters to COVID patients and healthcare workers in Spain and Colombia. Kietrys worked with a former Davidson international student to create “Ven, Ask Me,” a language collaborative between Hough High School and a public school in Spain.
Kyra Kietrys co-edited a collection of essays, titled “La tradición cultural hispánica en una sociedad global [The Hispanic Cultural Tradition in a Global Society],” published by the Universidad de Extremadura Press.
Anthony Pasero-O’Malley has been offered a book contract with Cambridge Scholars Publishing for a manuscript project, titled Rebels with a Cause: Contemporary Spanish Women Playwrights. Pasero-O’Malley’s article, titled “Las chicas no fuman igual: Visibilizing Oppression and Gender-Based Violence through Forum Theatre” has been accepted for publication in the Spanish theatre journal Anagnórisis: Revista de Investigación Teatral and is forthcoming this December.
Luis H. Peña and Magdalena Maiz-Peña published Chapter 12, “Staging Modernity: Reports on the Murder of Delmira Agustini, Cursed Celebrity,” of Negotiating Space in Latin America.
Magdalena Maiz-Peña recently published “Geografías interiores, cuerpos-hablantes y texturas visuales de la depresión: el manifiesto corpóreo nepantlista de Laura Aguilar (1959-2018)” Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades, Special Issue Re-imagining Female Disabilities in Luso-Hispanic Women’s Cultural Production. Maiz-Peña also wrote the prologue “Cuerpos-textos poéticos, memoria enraizada y género” to introduce Poesía reciente de voces en diálogo con la ascendencia hispano-hablante en los Estados Unidos; Antología Breve.
Latin American Studies
Russell Crandall and Frederick Richardson published “What Centuries of Latin American History Say About Inequality” in Americas Quarterly. Crandall also published “Miller Versus Biden: Competing U.S. Doctrines for Latin America” in Americas Quarterly.
Philosophy
Daniel Layman published Locke Among the Radicals: Liberty and Property in the Nineteenth Century with Oxford University Press.
Paul Studtmann and Shyam Gouri Suresh (economics) co-authored the paper “Universalizing and the We: Endogenous Game Theoretic Deontology,” forthcoming in the interdisciplinary journal Economics and Philosophy.
Physics
Mario Belloni, Wolfgang Christian and colleagues from Eckerd College, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Jagiellonian University in Poland recently published, “Teaching with Physlets,” in the peer-reviewed journal Physics Education.
Tim Gfroerer and Morgan Bergthold ’20 published an article entitled “Laser Diode Coherence” in the American Journal of Physics, which was chosen as the featured article in the September issue of AJP.
Anthony Kuchera co-authored a research paper with Tan Phan ’18, titled “Low-lying level structure of the neutron-unbound N=7 isotones,” and another paper titled “Observation of T=3/2 isobaric analog states in 9Be using p + 8Li resonance scattering” in the journal Physical Review C. In addition, Kuchera co-authored a paper titled “New segmented target for studies of neutron unbound systems” in the journal Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research, A. Kuchera has been awarded a National Science Foundation RUI Grant titled: “Collaborative Research: RUI: Study of exotic nuclei and neutron detector response.”
Michelle Kuchera and Raghu Ramanujan were awarded a National Science Foundation grant for their project, titled “Machine Learning Approaches for Accelerating Scientific Discovery in Nuclear Physics.”
Political Science
Katherine Bersch’s book, When Democracies Deliver: Governance Reform in Latin America, has been selected by the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on the Structure of Governance as the 2020 recipient of the Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize. Bersch and colleagues recently published, “Responding to COVID‐19 Through Surveys of Public Servants,” in the peer-reviewed Public Administration Review.
Melody Crowder-Meyer, with Rosalyn Cooperman, published “Standing on Their Shoulders: Suffragists, Women’s PACs, and Demands for Women’s Representation” in PS: Political Science & Politics. Crowder-Meyer also published “Community Income Inequality and the Economic Gap in Participation” with James Szewczyk in Political Behavior.
Psychology
Jessica Good recently published an article entitled "The Impact of Classroom Diversity Philosophies on the STEM Performance of Undergraduate Students of Color” in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
John Kello and J.A. Allen, co-authored a chapter on workplace meetings, “The staff meeting… and beyond” in the book Managing meetings in organizations: Research on managing groups and teams.
Julio Ramirez presented in a virtual webinar the Joseph L. Martinez Jr., and James G. Townsel Endowed Lecture at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass. The lecture was entitled “Broken Brains and Breaking Barriers.”
Laura Sockol has published a manuscript with Katie Little ’18, “Romantic relationship satisfaction and parent-infant bonding during the transition to parenthood: an attachment-based perspective” in Frontiers in Psychology.
Laura Sockol and Kristi Multhaup are co-authors with Sarah Kopp ’19 on an article in Psychology and Aging. Sarah is the first author on the article, “Age-related differences in flashbulb memories: A meta-analysis,” which is based on Sarah’s senior thesis and was supported by a DRI.
Emily Rounds ’21 and Lauren Stutts published an article called “The impact of fitspiration content on body satisfaction and negative mood: An experimental study” in the Psychology of Popular Media journal. The article was also featured on Psy Post.
Religious Studies
Greg Snyder edited the recently published book Christian Teachers in Second-Century Rome, Schools and Students in the Ancient City.
Sociology
Gayle Kaufman’s book Fixing Parental Leave was chosen as a Choice Editors’ Pick for September.
Gerardo Martí published his seventh book, The Glass Church: Robert H. Schuller, the Crystal Cathedral, and the Strain of Megachurch Ministry. Martí was elected President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion and recently received a $1 million Lilly Endowment Inc. national Thriving Congregations Initiative titled, “Churches That THRIVE for Racial Justice.”
Theatre
Ann Marie Costa presented a directing workshop entitled “Retaining our Embodied Practices in our Directing Courses: Theme Exercise” as one of the featured presenters of a COVID Directs panel for the Directing Focus Group (DFG) of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education 2020 conference.
Sharon Green participated in a roundtable discussion, titled “Theatre and Activism” at the Conversations on Applied Theatre Conference, sponsored by Hollins University’s Playwright’s Lab. Green is also a member of a newly convened international Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) working group that is redesigning TO structures for online