PresRelease

Dr. David Kenny, Professor of Psychology, and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, has been elected to membership in the highly prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He will be officially inducted into membership in October, 2008.

Kenny’s research centers on methods of studying social psychology. His specialty is studying couples, groups, and families. His most cited works are statistical and quantitative in nature, and concern the process of mediation. He has also done substantial research in the area of “person perception,” on what factors lead people to agree or disagree in their perception of another person, and on what factors lead to accuracy of perceptions.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1780 by James Bowdoin, John Adams, and John Hancock. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs. The Academy describes its “unique strength … in the distinguished leadership of its 4,000 Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members and the wide range of expertise they bring to its multidisciplinary analyses of compelling contemporary issues. The Academy is probably best known to the public through its quarterly journal, Dædalus, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading intellectual journals.”

I spent last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday taking in the Spring Weekend events. I went to a host of events on Saturday, including the famous oozeball competition on the CLAS Quad and the T-Pain / Flo Rida concert at Gampel that evening. These events were well attended by tons of enthusiastic students. I especially liked the oozeball competition, now 25 years old. I have to remember to get myself one of the commemorative T-shirts that said “25 Years of Playing Dirty.”

I also toured the happenings at Carriage House, Celeron, and X-Lot. The photos below were taken at Carriage House on the first evening. I was at each event from about 9:30 pm until closing, which was sometime between 12:30 am and 1:30 am, and then toured the campus to see how everything and everyone was settling down for the night.

Besides wanting to see these much publicized “happenings,” I wanted to make sure that our students were taking every precaution to be safe. I wanted to urge them in person to travel in groups, stay together, and take care of each other.

I can’t say that I’m crazy about these happenings. Students seem to go just to be there. It’s like a large lawn party, except on the street or in a parking lot. Most everyone is well behaved and no one expects trouble. Still we get a lot of people from outside the university “crashing” the party, and sometimes with the worst of intentions. They are not here for good, clean fun, but to prey on our students, and they often come with drugs and weapons of one sort or another. The UConn police and the State troopers do an excellent job of protecting the crowds and keeping order. And the same is true of our colleagues in the UConn Fire Department, the Health Center, Student Affairs, and Student Health, not to mention Mayor Paterson and her colleagues from the town of Mansfield.

Yet, when so many people assemble in one place, almost anything can happen. Frankly, I spent every night meeting wonderful students but worried that one or more of them would end up injured. Being a father of four college graduates, I know that parents worry, too, and want us to keep their children safe.

Although most of the students were safe and enjoyed the festivities, some injuries did occur, including a young man whose ear was nearly severed by flying glass, and a young woman who was struck by a thrown bottle and had to have several stitches. I’m glad it wasn’t worse, but I’d rather see a Spring celebration in which no one was harmed.

On Friday night I took in “The Threepenny Opera” performance by the CRT in the Jorgensen Theater. Here’s Mr. Peachum and his daughter Polly (MFA students Christopher Hirsh and Heddy Lahmann):

Many of us are familiar with Kurt Weill’s music to the play written by Bertolt Brecht – first performed in Berlin in 1928 and continuing as a tremendous hit production throughout Europe until Brecht, Weill and the best-known member of the cast, Lotte Lenya (who played the character Jenny Diver) fled Europe and the Nazis who had banned the production. They were eventually reunited in the United States and “Threepenny Opera” revived in English off-Broadway in 1954 at the Theater de Lys where it set a new record of 2,707 running performances.  The production’s signature tune “Mack the Knife” became a popular hit recording by Bobby Darin and then Louis Armstrong. The only time I saw Lotte Lenya was in the James Bond movie From Russia With Love.

Bertolt Brecht

It’s hard to believe that this gritty, outspoken musical is now 80 years old. Many elements of the original and revival productions have been incorporated into subsequent musical and theatrical concepts, most notably Cabaret. Director Dave Douglas has recreated the original edginess and even confrontation of the original production through costuming, set design, and the use of several innovative acting strategies – including a hilarious wedding acted out by the characters on stage using Barbie dolls as surrogates.

It’s a great production and a chance to see one of the most important shows of the 20th Century theatre, at the Jorgensen through May 3.

Richard D. Brown, Director of UConn’s Humanities Institute in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has announced the six UConn faculty members who will receive Humanities Institute Fellowships in 2008-09. Faculty fellows drawn from the University and beyond spend two semesters engaged in research and writing, and in sharing their projects with their colleagues in the Institute and the larger University of Connecticut scholarly community. In one semester they also teach an advanced course related to their research.

Creating the Institute in 2001 was a priority of CLAS Dean Ross MacKinnon, who saw clearly the need for enhancements for faculty scholarship and interdisciplinary communication in the humanities. The Institute also promotes student scholarship by the appointment of graduate and undergraduate fellows, and through advanced courses in humanities fields.

Congratulations to next year’s Fellows, and to this year’s Fellows who are finishing up a very productive year:

2008-09 Humanities Institute Fellows

Amanda Bailey, Associate Professor of English
“Of Bondage: Human Capital and the Early Modern Theater”

Jonathan David Bobaljik, Professor of Linguistics
“(Grammer of) Intelmen: A Language on the Brink”

Rosa Helene Chinchilla, Associate Professor of Spanish
“Literary Patronage in Spain (1500 – 1560)”

Jeremy Pressman, Assistant Professor of Political Science
“60 Years of Conflict: The Central Historic Themes in Arab-Israeli Relations

Helen Rozwadowski, Associate Professor of History
“Always the Last Frontier: The 1960s Ocean”

Nancy Shoemaker, Professor of History
“New England Indians and the American Whaling Industry”

Barbara Fultner, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Denison University
“Meaning, Intersubjectivity, and Social Practice: Social Theories of Meaning”

Stuart Liebman, Professor of Film Studies and History, Queens College CUNY
“The Representation of Atrocity: The Cold War and Early Holocaust Cinema”

2007-08 Humanities Institute Fellows

Joel Blatt, Joel, Associate Professor of History
Paul Bloomfield, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Robert Bonner, Research Fellow, UConn Humanities Institute
Mary Crawford, Professor of Psychology
Sharon Harris, Professor of English
Brenda Murphy, Distinguished Professor of English
Jennifer Travis, Research Fellow, UConn Humanities Institute
Katherine O’Sullivan, Doctoral Candidate, Medieval Studies
Andrew Pfrenger, Doctoral Candidate, Medieval Studies

James Kimura-Green, BFA

Last Friday I stopped in at the opening for the Bachelor of Fine Arts spring 2008 senior exhibition in Willimantic at the Artspace gallery. The show features work by graduating students in studio art, illustration, and design, and marks the culmination of the students’ work at UConn. I was very impressed – by the work of our seniors in Studio Art and by the turnout at the opening. There was music, food, and lots of energy that filled the gallery. I got to meet some of the students – and some of their parents and family.

Here I am with Dean David Woods of the School of Fine Arts awarding a Dean’s Purchase Award to May Babcock, a graduating senior in the Department of Art and Art History, during the opening. The gallery at ArtSpace Windham is located in a renovated mill building in Willimantic. The BFA exhibition will continue at ArtSpace, 480 Main St., Willimantic, this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 25-27, from noon to 6 P.M.

There’s also a show of our M.F.A. students’ work at the Benton, up through May 11, and I encourage everyone to have a look. Our five M.F.A. graduates exhibiting this year are Valerie Garlick, Matt Jensen, Patrick Earl Hammie, Jenn Dierdorf, and Krysten Bailey.

Jenn Dierdorf, MFA