Support EUEC
Your financial support is greatly appreciated and needed.
|
Upcoming Events--
All on Zoom
Lunch Colloquium Marilynne McKay
August 31, 2020
Sheth Lecture
Rosemary Magee
September 8, 2020
|
|
|
This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
|
 Message from the Director
After a short two-week break, our Lunch Colloquiums began again last week with a talk by Stacy Bell about how teaching in prisons also impacts the teaching she does with Oxford students. It was a fascinating talk that generated a lot of discussion in the Q&A session; thanks to Lee Pasackow you can read about her talk below, and the recording of her session will soon be on our website, thanks to Don O'Shea. We also had a super talk by one of our very distinguished young faculty members, Bill Wuest, on Monday, and you can read about that talk in the next newsletter.
We have some great upcoming programs, too. Next week our own Marilynne McKay will take on the topic of Confederate Memorials, and that should lead to some fascinating discussion. Some of us, like me, were born and raised in the South, others in different regions of the US, and some of us in other countries. Therefore, what we were taught, if anything, about these memorials and the Civil War in general is likely to be quite different.
Then on September 8 we will have our special Sheth Lecture with a special speaker, Rosemary Magee. The problem, of course, is how do we signal that this lecture is "special?" Normally we have the lecture in Governor's Hall with a lunch provided by the endowment established by Jag and Madhu Sheth, but that is not possible this year. You can read below how our Mind Matters Committee proposes to help us celebrate this occasion in spite of Zoom constraints.
We continue to welcome new members identified below. There is also information below about new parking passes and the process that you will need to follow if you plan to be on the campus.
I am very grateful to Gretchen Schulz, Ann Hartle, and Marge Crouse for help with editing and proofing.
|
|
|
Lunch Colloquium--Monday, August 31, 2020
"MONUMENTAL DECISIONS: The Origins and Messages of Confederate Memorials"
Location: Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Marilynne McKay,
Professor Emerita of Dermatology, Emory University School of Medicine
|
Sheth Lecture--Tuesday, September 8, 2020
"Creativity in Later Life: The Music Box"
Location: Zoom Meeting 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Rosemary Magee
Senior Faculty Fellow, Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry,
Director, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library,
Vice President and Secretary of the University, Emerita
|
Lunch Colloquium Report--Monday, August 17, 2020
"Teaching in the Oddhouse: What the Prison Classroom Has Taught Me about Compassionate Pedagogy"
Stacy Bell, Professor of Pedagogy in English, Oxford College
|
New Members
|
We note the death of member Doug Murray
|
One of the worthwhile retiree benefits for those members who will be on campus at any time is free parking. From the HR website:
Parking
Retirees will receive a yearly parking permit at no cost, unless you are rehired full-time. Call 404-727-6106 or visit online. Member John McGowan received this message from the Parking Office: "The entire structure for parking on campus this year will be quite different, at least for the fall semester. (Those who have to pay for parking will pay a usage fee, rather than a set monthly charge.) Emails will be sent with Instructions for renewing your permit." If you don't yet have a parking permit, you should contact the office.
An additional issue is that at present visitors are not allowed on campus (i.e. the non-healthcare part of campus). There is a special procedure for faculty and staff who plan to be on campus: "If you are planning to be on campus for any amount of time this fall, you are required to complete the onboarding process." Information and instructions for completing the onboarding process can be found by clicking here. |
Walking the Campus with Dianne
|
Lunch Colloquium--Monday, August 31, 2020
"MONUMENTAL DECISIONS: The Origins and Messages of Confederate Memorials"
Marilynne McKay,
Professor Emerita of Dermatology, Emory University School of Medicine
The Civil War lasted only four years long ago (1861-1865), but it casts a huge shadow. In 2019 the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 780 Confederate monuments and statues at county courthouses, town squares, state capitols and other public venues (not including cemeteries or battlefields). The majority (604) were dedicated before 1950, but twenty-eight went up between 1950 and 1970. (Georgia's Stone Mountain Memorial was dedicated in 1973.) Thirty-four Confederate statues were dedicated after 2000. In the past two years, however, almost 200 monuments have been removed, relocated, or toppled. President Trump says it's "sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart," but others argue against memorialization of revisionist histories and a culture of white supremacy. A movement to get rid of public works honoring "traitors and racists" is starting to address what we might begin to build instead. Join us to discuss some old and new Southern monuments in terms of their origins and likely dispositions.
About Marilynne McKay:
There is perhaps no better way to introduce Marilynne (for those of you who might not know her) than to quote from John Bugge's nomination letter for the 2017 EUEC Faculty Award of Distinction:
She richly deserves it -- for her achievements in her career as an Emory physician both before and after retirement; for her second career as a woman of the theater (actor, director, critic); and for her liberal service to the ongoing mission of this Emeritus College, not least through the quality of her intellectual contributions to the collective life of the mind it exists to promote.
A graduate of the University of New Mexico with an MS from Oklahoma State University, Marilynne worked as a medical research technologist before deciding to enroll in medical school at the University of New Mexico. Fittingly, as a dermatologist, she followed the sun with an internship in San Diego and a residency in Miami, coming to Emory as an assistant professor in 1980. Here she rose to Chief of Dermatology at Grady Memorial Hospital and was later appointed Executive Director of Continuing Medical Education. Her publications include articles and book chapters on vulvar disorders for generalists, as well as for specialists in dermatology, gynecology, and psychiatry. She co-edited a classic textbook, Obstetric and Gynecologic Dermatology, and was elected President of the International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease. Acclaimed as an informative and entertaining lecturer, she won the Teaching Exhibit Gold Award at the American Academy of Dermatology Annual Meeting in 1987, and she organized (and for six years directed) the forum on teaching techniques at the American Academy of Dermatology. In 1999, Marilynne "semi"-retired, moving back to her hometown of Albuquerque, where she soon found herself chairing the dermatology department at Lovelace Health System.
Maybe her second career as a theater person officially began when she enrolled in a Master's Program in Directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at UNM; it was an avocation she'd been preparing for most of her adult life, in the painstaking and even theatrical preparedness behind her award-winning teaching style in medicine.
In 2005 she returned to Atlanta with her husband, Dr. Ronald Hosek, planning to combine her interests in medical teaching with her passion for the performing arts. That same year she was invited to deliver Emory's seventh annual Mary Lynn Morgan Lecture on Women in the Health Professions, in which she reflected on her own experiences in teaching and doing clinical medicine; with typical drollery she titled her address, "The Vulva Monologue." I had the good fortune to be able to share a stage with Marilynne in a performance of Wit, Margaret Edson's play about a woman dying of ovarian cancer, which is set in a patient's room of a large university hospital. Marilynne directed the production and played the leading role; everything in the production went so well because she so seamlessly melded her own performance with her long experience in medical practice. Her talents as a director have been acknowledged by her appointment as a judge for the annual Suzi Bass Awards, which celebrate outstanding work from twenty Atlanta professional theaters in twenty-six performance categories. Meanwhile, she continues to put in at least a full day of work each week in the Department of Dermatology at Grady Hospital, where - no surprise here - in 2010 she received the Emory Dermatology Teaching Award for the quality of her instruction of residents. Finally, there is a certain dramatic flourish, I suppose, in the fact that Marilynne is that rare being, a Baker Street Irregular, a member of a society that, in the words of the novelist Lyndsay Faye, "present[s] a mysterious face to outsiders, wreathed in gaslit fog and draped in the obscuring mists of the moors, . . . an invitation-only concern." In 2015 her essay on "Dressers to Professors: A Spectrum of Canonical Doctors" appeared in a collection directed at Holmes-and-Watson fans entitled Nerve and Knowledge: Doctors, Medicine and the Sherlockian Canon, illustrating yet another facet of her post-retirement versatility.
Finally, I want to take note of Marilynne's exemplary service to the Emeritus College in several ways. The first is the public-relations work she's done and continues to do on behalf of the national meeting of AROHE, the Association of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education, to be held at Emory in October and sponsored by the Emeritus College. Here she has demonstrated another set of skills entirely - artistic creativity in drafting, layout, and web-page design, along with a formidable aptitude in management. In addition, several of her resourceful suggestions have been the inspiration for the Interdisciplinary Seminars held in the Emeritus College each year, while her participation in them has been a source of delight. And finally, she has contributed that most essential quantum of all to the work of the Emeritus College (it is the thing that distinguishes her above all else) - a boundless and energetic enthusiasm for the life of the mind.
Moving on from John's wonderful letter, we might note that Marilynne has continued to contribute to the Emeritus College since John's passing, following earlier entertaining and informative Lunch Colloquium programs, "The History of White People" and "Doctors in the Sherlockian Canon," with a program from the summer of 2019 entitled "Taking Your Skin Outdoors: Sun, Bugs, and Poison Ivy." And she has perhaps most notably stepped forward to take responsibility for the continuance of the Interdisciplinary Seminars that John himself had made such a mainstay of EUEC programming.
|
Lunch Colloquium Report - Monday, August 17
"Teaching in the Oddhouse: What the Prison Classroom Has Taught Me about Compassionate Pedagogy"
Stacy Bell, Professor of Pedagogy in English, Oxford College At the Zoom Colloquium on Monday, August 17, Professor Stacy Bell of the Oxford campus provided an illuminating and thought-provoking talk about teaching within prison walls and how it has reshaped her teaching at Oxford and indeed her way of thinking about and being in the world. In 1994, Bell, who had recently earned her MS in Applied Linguistics at Georgia State, returned to Oxford, where she had done her first two years of college, as the faculty specialist in English for speakers of other languages, trained at Temple University to learn how to bring the classroom into the prison. Soon she began bringing her Oxford students to Metro Atlanta prison for a collaborative experience with the incarcerated people. When Metro became a transitional center, Bell started taking her students to Lee Arrendale State Prison in Alto, GA, instead. In 2009, she enhanced the skills her experience had already given her through training in a special program on teaching carceral students at Temple University. Since 2017 supportive Oxford and Emory administrators have allowed her to be hired by Life University to teach in their Associate Degree Program in Psychology at Arrendale. She and her fellows in the Program have graduated two cohorts and are just starting to offer a Bachelor's degree this year. Life University also offers college scholarships to prison staff who wish to enroll in the courses available. As Bell explained, prison education dramatically changed in 1965 when President Johnson made prison programs eligible for Pell grants. In 1994, Clinton's Crime Bill eliminated the Pell grants for prisons. By 2005 there were only 12 college programs in 12 prisons. In 2008 the Second Chance Act provided more funding for college programs in prisons. In 2016 the Second Chance Pell Experimental Initiative expanded programs. In 2017 there were 63 college programs in prisons in 42 states. In 2020 there are 130 Pell sites in 42 states. Three universities in Georgia have prison programs of some sort: Central GA Technical, Georgia State University, and Life University. Some programs offer certificates in lieu of college credit, like Emory's Candler program. Certificates are valued by incarcerated people because they can be used as evidence of positive development in parole hearings. Adult Education, GED, and non-degree programs all prepare incarcerated people for college programs. It is challenging to staff a prison college program from just one university. Here in Georgia, a consortium made up of professors from Life University, Oxford, Georgia State, and Spelman staff the work at Arrendale. Bell stressed how important it is to have a diverse faculty that reflects the diversity of the prison population. She also noted that formerly incarcerated people should serve in leadership positions such as on the boards of college prison programs. Bell is active in the Georgia Coalition for Higher Education Prison (GACHEP). Members include Candler School of Theology at Emory, Reforming Arts, Common Good Atlanta (the program that Oxford's Sarah Higinbotham helped to found in 2014), Georgia State, Life University, and Inside Out. They are aiming to provide wrap around services for people who get out of prison, not just education. One question that drives Bell's research is: What is the value of an education in a place that punishes people? Funders and legislators often ask, "Why educate people who have done bad things?" Research has shown that incarcerated people who are college students have low recidivism rates. However, college students are being trained to be critical thinkers who know how to wield negotiation skills. These skills are not always perceived as positive by prison officials. Bell shared that her experience at Arrendale has made her more empathetic in her Oxford classroom. Since March, Emory faculty have been encouraged to take a trauma-informed approach to their work with students -- in short, to be more kind. Bell wondered, if the kindness is to be reserved for crisis situations, what should our approach be during normal circumstances? Surely we should always be kind. Teaching on both sides of the wall has raised many such questions for Bell. The university confers privilege on many who are already privileged. What about its treatment of others? What is inclusivity in an institution that is exclusive? Bell recommends the NYT article of 04/08/20: "College Made Them Feel Equal. The Virus Exposed How Unequal Their Lives Are." The pandemic has reminded us that faculty and staff need to be attentive to all the needs of all our students. It's in order to be so that Emory and Oxford offer food pantries for students whose funds are more limited than their peers' as well as clothes closets so students can be prepared for interviews and other such special occasions. Teaching in prison has helped Bell see that every class, taught anywhere, is a gift. There can be so many reasons why a class could be cancelled that any class that isn't needs to be enjoyed to the fullest. Bell has become more process-oriented, not outcomes-oriented. And she better understands that the process should not be punitive. Prison educators must not reproduce oppressive structures and practices they're used to in their home institutions such as the honor council and grades. In prison the stakes are much higher if a student breaks a rule or fails an assignment. Bell has implemented "upgrading." She provides feedback to students, allowing them to do multiple revisions until they have succeeded with all the requirements such as doing research well and citing sources correctly. And she's doing this at Oxford as well as Arrendale. There was a lively Q&A--as is our wont. Asked if there was any organized opposition to efforts to introduce college programming into prisons, Bell responded that former Governor Deal wanted to reduce the prison population and, given that recidivism is much lower among incarcerated people who have access to higher education, he was very supportive of prison education. The Metro Re-entry program here in Georgia is a model program. However, Governor Kemp has reduced the prison budget by 20%. Though Georgia has the fourth largest prison population behind CA, TX, and FL and there are 52,000 incarcerated people in GA, there are just four college programs here. Those supporting expansion of prison education are looking for funding from Pell grants and Coalition Building. --Lee Pasackow
Note: In response to questions about readings on the subject of higher education in prisons, Stacy Bell identified two books she would recommend.
Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair, Danielle Sered, New Press, 2019. (Sered is an Emory graduate. The book has just been reviewed in the New York Review of Books.)
Are Prisons Obsolete, Angela Y. Davis, Seven Stories Press, 2003.
Note: Larry Vogler mentioned in the Q&A that there is a scarcity of books in Georgia prison libraries. He wants us to know that if anyone is interested in donating books to the Georgia Department of Corrections, they may do so by contacting the office of Director of Library Services, Emmanuel Mitchell at 478-992-5292 or by email at [email protected].
|
New Members
New members are the lifeblood of any organization. Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, PhD, Professor Emerita of English
Professor Garland-Thomson received her PhD from Brandeis University in 1993. She was appointed to the Emory faculty in 2002 as Associate Professor of Women's Studies and joined the Department of English in 2014. She will complete her Master of Arts in Bioethics degree in August 2020. Professor Garland-Thomson is one of the founders and continuing leaders of critical disability studies and more recently of disability bioethics.
Marianne K. Lancaster, MA, Senior Lecturer Emerita in German Studies
Professor Lancaster joined Emory University in 1991 as a part-time lecturer in the Department of German Studies. Prior to this, she received an MA from Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1984, followed this with two additional years of pedagogical training in Germany, was granted tenure by the state of Bavaria in 1991 and, after moving to the United States, taught courses at Agnes Scott College and Oglethorpe University in addition to those at Emory. Hired full-time on Emory's lecture track in 2000 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2007, she served for nineteen years as the Department of German Studies' First-Year Coordinator and frequently directed its Summer Study Abroad Program in Vienna. Throughout her career at Emory, Professor Lancaster regularly taught first- and second-year German classes (being one of the first of Emory's foreign language instructors to design her own interactive website for Beginning German), "Business German" (having developed this offering as a two-semester course for third-year students), and various courses in the Vienna Program. She also occasionally taught "Reading German for Academic Purposes" as a summer graduate course, a Freshman Seminar, and "Language across the Curriculum" courses in coordination with other departments. As part of frequent service to broader learning communities, Professor Lancaster gained certification as a tester for the German Business Diploma (WPD) and as an evaluator in the southeastern United States for the Certificate for German Business (ZDfB). Finally, Professor Lancaster received several accolades over her career at Emory: the Foreign Language Teacher of Excellence Award in 2008 from the Emory College Language Center; an ECLC Curriculum Development Fellowship in 2010; and the 2013 Stephen A Freeman Award for "Best Published Article" from the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages for "Overcoming curricular bifurcation: A departmental approach to curriculum reform," coauthored with four of her departmental colleagues and published in Die Unterrichtspraxis. The last of these led, in part, to the Department of German Studies' receipt of a national award of excellence. From Professor Lancaster: Since joining Emory in 1991, I have witnessed Emory go through many "ups and downs." Besides all the many good moments, the singular worst experience for me personally was on September 11, 2001. As disaster struck, I was in the classroom teaching. What I remember the most is that this left me with the task of announcing to my students, some of whom were from New York, what had just transpired. I tried to help my students and advisees--then and later--as best I could. Our confidence and sense of security were shaken fundamentally but, over time, we learned to adapt to this new world. Now, during the current pandemic, we are confronted with a new enemy, one invisibly endangering even more people. Unfortunately, we are again struggling to adjust emotionally, to hold on to our traditions and way of life, and to move forward. My greatest hope is that we, again, adapt well to these new necessities and grow even stronger--personally and as a community--despite and because of them.
Amanda I. Starnes, DVM, Senior Lecturer Emerita in Biology
Professor Starnes received her DVM from the University of Georgia in 1991. She has taught in the Biology Department since 1992. Professor Starnes is a valuable mentor who advises pre-veterinary undergraduates, existing majors, and prospective students. Professor Starnes received two Crystal Apple Awards: one for excellence in undergraduate lecture class education and the other for excellence in undergraduate large class education. She also received an Excellence in Teaching Award for the Natural Sciences from Emory's Center for Teaching and Curriculum and An Excellence in Teaching Faculty Award recognizing "High Achievement in Maintaining an Open and Productive Relationship with Students".
From Professor Starnes: Take the opportunity to use some of these days while we are social distancing to reconnect with someone you have lost touch with over the years. Through virtual means, there's the chance to revive a meaningful relationship from the past. By making such an effort, this may reopen a door that has been shut for much too long. And don't stop there. Why not reach out to your immediate family members and develop an even stronger bond with them? By doing so, you may look back on "sheltering in place" as a time when memories like no others came to be during a time in history like no other.
Carol M. Worthman, PhD, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor Emerita of Anthropology
Professor Worthman received her PhD from Harvard University in 1978. She was appointed to the Emory faculty in 1986 as Assistant Professor of Anthropology. Professor Worthman's research focuses on biocultural anthropology related to global mental health, health disparities, and human development. Professor Worthman is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She will be addressing us emeriti at a Lunch Colloquium on September 21.
From Professor Worthman: Neruda's "Keeping Quiet" is so apt for this time out of time.
"Keeping Quiet"
by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
Click here to return to top
|
Faculty Activities
Perry Sprawls, PhD, FACR, FAAPM, FIOMP Distinguished Emeritus Professor, Emory University
The above article by Perry has just been published. Medical Physics International is an open access journal, and the entire article may be read by clicking here.
|
In Memoriam
Douglas Robert Murray, MD, Professor Emeritus of Surgical Oncology
Douglas Robert Murray, MD, born June 19, 1934, passed away on July 21, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended the University of Michigan on an Academic Athletic scholarship where he played football for the Wolverines. He completed his medical training at the University of Michigan. His surgical training took him to St. Luke's Hospital Case Western Reserve, Cleveland, Ohio, followed by two years of service at Little Rock, Arkansas Air Force base as a U.S. Air Force Medical Officer, Captain. His training then took him to New York Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital for a fellowship in surgical oncology. He practiced surgical oncology for thirty-six years at Winship Cancer Center, Emory University, retiring as Professor Emeritus. He retired from the Veterans Administration Hospital, Decatur, Georgia in 2018. He was a member of numerous professional surgical organizations. During his tenure at Emory, Dr. Murray became known as a compassionate physician to his patients, and was considered an expert in the continuum of surgical and medical strategies for treating melanoma, soft tissue sarcomas, head and neck carcinomas, breast carcinoma, and hepatic and gastrointestinal tumors. In the words of Charles Staley, MD, who joined Emory as Chief of Surgical Oncology in 1995 and often worked alongside Dr. Murray, "He was a gifted surgeon, highly skilled in treating soft tissue tumors, and cherished by his patients, staff, and collaborators. Doug Murray was the kindest person I ever knew." |
Walking the Campus with Dianne
The huge satellite dish viewed on our last walk can be found on top of the Peavine parking deck on Eagle Row.
It's not hard to miss and can easily be seen from a few vantage points.
Not long ago, I rode my bike to the top of Peavine deck and was surprised to see a large hawk sitting in the satellite dish! I wonder if that big bird caused any glitches? I was lucky enough to snap a photo of the hawk flying out of the dish--see below. I've also included a photo showing you how large the dish is in relation to the cars in the parking deck.
Let's stay on the main campus and take a look at a fairly new addition. This spot has become safer with handrails installed in the middle of the stairway, but also has become a bike friendly thoroughfare with a bicycle ramp installation.
Where will you find this on the Emory Campus?
Click here to return to top
|
Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
|
|
|
|
