Précis | Winter 2004

Reclaiming the grandeur: Restored to its original two-story height, the Matheson Reading Room once again serves as the centerpiece of Candler Library, with all its old grandeur on proud display. Dark, gleaming wood tables unencumbered by computer wiring, heavy chairs, hand-crafted book and periodical shelving, graceful hanging chandeliers, and a noble row of arched windows recall the room’s former state, when for some thirty years it was the heart of academic life on campus.

“And bright morning turned to night”: This fall, the Woodruff Library hosted the Peace Museum’s traveling exhibition, “Searching for Peace: The Experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” which tells the story of the bombings through poems and drawings by survivors, panel photographs of the destruction and the victims, and charred, melted artifacts from the cities.

The thrill of teaching: In nearly two decades at Oxford, Lucas Carpenter,a poet and widely published author, has been honored with several teaching awards including the Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Oxford Professor of the Year. In 2003, he became the first Oxford professor to be honored with the University Scholar/Teacher Award, Emory’s highest faculty honor.

A LeWitt for Emory: Emory boasts rare literary collections, precious Greek and Egyptian artifacts, and a wealth of fine architecture, but no major piece of sculpture–until now.An anonymous donor has enabled Emory to buy a sculpture by renowned minimalist artist Sol LeWitt, the first such significant contemporary sculpture in the University’s holdings and only the third LeWitt on view in Atlanta. The piece, recently installed between White Hall and the Administration building, is a simple tower of white concrete titled Tower With Vertical Blocks 1.

Love Across borders: Jennifer Hirsch, assistant professor of international health in the Rollins School of Public Health, talked with thirteen families in which one sister or sister-in-law had migrated to Atlanta while the other stayed behind in Mexico. Then she spent similar time with their sisters in Atlanta’s burgeoning Latino community, as she explored how their lives compare to those of their relatives south of the border.

“To dream and travel”: In October, about two-hundred preschoolers, kindergartners, and first-graders took part in “Around the World With Deans and Directors,” sponsored by Reading is Fundamental and Atlanta Public Schools Head Start program and organized by Elizabeth Hornor, director of education programs at the museum.

First class of Foege Fellows: Martin Swaka has run hospitals with little or no electricity in Somalia and Southern Sudan. Rose Zambezi organizes adolescent reproductive health projects in Zambia. Sadi Moussa has engineered clean water supplies for much of Niger. And Ayman Elsheikh helps track infectious and parasitic diseases in Sudan. These four public health workers–the first class of William H. Foege Fellows in Global Health–will spend two years at Emory earning master’s degrees in international health at the Rollins School of Public Health.

Sour Grapes: Just as a human toddler will indignantly throw down a cracker if he sees his friend receive a cupcake, monkeys will turn down previously acceptable rewards—cucumbers—if their partners get sweet grapes for doing equal or less work. In addition to revealing emotions such as grief and empathy, monkeys may have an innate sense of fairness, according to researchers at Emory’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Living Links Center.

A Perfect Fusion: When alumna Sarah Knisely Handy ’01C found herself drafting congressional testimony for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), she realized she had traveled full circle. “It was a perfect fusion of my personal, professional, and academic lives,” said Handy, a program analyst for the financial management office of the CDC since shortly after her graduation from Emory with highest honors in political science.