Grain & Chaff

Full plate for Fulbright

English professor Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan recently received two major honors - a Fulbright to study at the University of Madras, India, and a Society for the Humanities Fellowship from The Society for the Humanities at Cornell University. Radhakrishnan has postponed his Fulbright and will be teaching at the University of Madras during the fall 2003 semester. For this academic year, he is at Cornell University where he and a handful of scholars from across the country who were awarded fellowships are giving talks, participating in conferences and meeting regularly to discuss their research projects. The theme for the Society for the Humanities Fellowship this year is "The Idea of the University," and both Radhakrishnan's research project and the graduate seminar he is teaching at Cornell are titled "The University as Home."

Most wanted experts

Scott Conti and Chris Misra from Network Services in the Office of Information Technologies are among the 56 expert contributors who helped compile "The Twenty Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities (Updated): The Experts' Consensus" list, published in May by the SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security (SANS) Institute and the FBI. SANS is regarded by many in the field as the most respected network security organization in the world.

Top shelf

The Library of Congress is hosting a symposium on Oct. 21 on the "Perspectives on American Book History: Artifacts and Commentary," recently published by the University of Massachusetts Press as its series, Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book. Co-sponsored by the library's Center for the Book and the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies, the symposium will examine both the conceptualization and construction of the volume and the burgeoning field it covers, and the pedagogical uses of the book as a stand-alone text and adjunct to courses in American history and literature. Edited by Scott Casper of the University of Nevada, Reno, Joanne Chaison of the American Antiquarian Society, and Jeffrey Groves of Harvey Mudd College, the interdisciplinary volume consists of 17 chapters written by experts in history and literary studies that survey American print culture from the 17th to the 20th centuries, and it includes a 200-image CD-ROM "Image Archive" written in HTML and designed to run with any Web-browser.

Extra credit

Professor emeritus of Anthropology John W. Cole this week received an honorary degree from the University of Trento, Italy in recognition of his fieldwork and ethnographical research in the South Tyrol region. During his visit, Cole was schedule to present a lecture entitled "Wicked Cool Anthropology."

Class act

Barbara Rose Johnston, who received her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1987, last month received the Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association. The award recognizes individuals who have contributed to the development of anthropology as an applied science and made important impacts on public policy. The AAA called Johnston a "leader in linking our profession with the defense of human and environmental rights." Johnston is a senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Grand openings

UMass Lowell last month opened its new $19.5 million campus recreation center. The facility has three basketball courts, two racquetball courts, a squash court, two multi-purpose studios, a one-eighth-mile seamless rubber compound running track, a 6,500-square-foot dual-level fitness area, a game area complete with pool tables and table tennis, and two fully equipped locker rooms. The fitness area, which features mirrored walls and an eight-speaker sound system, includes 50 cardio-vascular machines, strength training equipment and a separate stretching area. ... Meanwhile, UMass Dartmouth last week dedicated two new residence halls built at a cost of $38 million. The four-story buildings will expand the campus's ability to accommodate on-campus students by providing an additional 800 beds.