SBS Newsletter – July/August 2007
In this issue
 Solt Selected for Boston Business Journal’s 2007 “40 Under 40” Award |
 “Free Spirits” Film Wins Awards, Available on DVD |
Student Seeks Path to Stability and Influence |
 A Passion for Politics |
Chancellor Search Committee Appointed
 Communication Professor Participates in Prestigious Advertising Program
Faculty Notes Associate Professor Charles M. Schweik (natural resources conservation and public policy), associate director of the National Center for Digital Government, has been awarded a grant from the USDA Forest Service to develop an online carbon calculator. NCDG is based administratively in the Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA), part of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Read more... (pdf) Lots of news from Anthropology. Julie Hemment has received tenure. Michael Sugerman is on leave from teaching this fall as he prepares his tenure case for next year. Martin Wobst has been selected as one of four University Distinguished Lecturers for 2007-8. More on this in an upcoming newsletter. Dickie Wallace, a recent PhD alumnus, will be teaching Anthropology 105, Language Culture and Communication, this fall while David Samuels is on a yearlong fellowship at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. Lecturer Stephen King has received an NSF postdoc at Stony Brook for three years, under a grant entitled "Losing the Edge: Senescence schedules and longevity in Malagasy rain forest primates." Principal Investigator is Patricia C. Wright, Stony Brook University. Co-PIs are Laurie Godfrey and Jukka Jernvall, Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Finland. King will divide his time among UMass Amherst, Stony Brook, and Helsinki. The grant also includes some funding for PhD candidate Marina Blanco's dissertation fieldwork in Madagascar. Marty Norden (communication) recently gave several presentations in Prague. While there he visited the Filmová a Televizní Fakulta Akademie Múzických Umëní (Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts) and lectured on the Czech filmmaker Ivan Passer and his 1981 American film “Cutter’s Way.” He then traveled to Masarykova univerzita in Brno, where he attended a conference on contemporary Central and Eastern Europe and gave a paper on the work of the Munich-based organization Arbeitsgemeinschaft Behinderung und Medien (Disability and Media Association). Michelle Budig (sociology) has been awarded a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to spend 10 months conducting research at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. This is a tremendous honor, both in terms of the granting foundation and the invitation to spend it at Max Planck. More information will be forthcoming in the next newsletter. In a wonderful testimony to the collaborative nature of the sociology department here at UMass Amherst, Dan Clawson, Robert Zussman, Joya Misra, Naomi Gerstel, Randall Stokes, and Doug Anderton have coedited the new book, Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-first Century. In 2004, Michael Burawoy, speaking as president of the American Sociological Association, generated far-reaching controversy when he issued an ambitious and impassioned call for a "public sociology." Burawoy argued that sociology should speak beyond the university, engaging with social movements and deepening an understanding of the historical and social context in which they exist. In this volume, renowned sociologists come together to debate the perils and the potentials of Burawoy's challenge. Congratulations to Paula Chakravartty (communication and public policy) who recently received tenure. She is coeditor of Political Economy of Global Communication: Towards a Transcultural Perspective (Rowan & Littlefield, 2007). This book takes a new approach toward understanding the uneven flows of global communications by examining political economic power and communication in relation to historically specific encounters with modernity. The chapters spotlight China, Ghana, India, Japan, Palestine, Russia, Singapore, and Venezuela, and foreground the transnational formations of the European Union, the pan-Arab and Spanish-speaking markets, and civil society actors in sub-Saharan African, the Middle East, and North America. Alumni News Former UMass Amherst baseball standout Paul Wennik '62 (government), of Salem, Mass., will be inducted into the UMass Athletic Hall of Fame this fall. As an undergraduate he was named first team All-Yankee Conference and first team All-New England, after going 5-1 on the mound with a 1.24 ERA, which is the sixth lowest single season ERA with a minimum of 40 innings pitched in school history. This helped UMass finish second nationally in team ERA. Wennik also helped the team at the plate, hitting .333 in 1960 and .400 in 1961. He then signed with the Washington Senators organization, playing in the Appalachian League in Middlesboro, Kentucky. After his baseball career, Wennik joined the recording industry as a marketing executive, helping to shape the careers of Bon Jovi and John Mellencamp, among others. Semi-retired now, he still serves as a consultant. Writer Bob Albright chronicled his UMass Amherst career and and professional life in the Eagle Tribune. Read more about Wennik and his career... Catherine Pulley '95 (journalism) of Brookline, Mass., is writing a book about dyed-in-the-wool female Boston Red Sox fans. She invites submissions of their yarns for consideration. Pulley says, “I’d love to find the woman who was at Ted Williams' last game. I’d love to find the woman who named her kid after Johnny Damon, and then he goes to the Yankees. I mean, what do you do, right? I want to find that woman who was giving birth during Game 7 of the 2004 American League Championship Series." Read more... Dave Strader '77 (communication) has signed a multi-year contract to join the Phoenix Coyotes broadcast team as the hockey club’s new TV play-by-play announcer. Strader has broadcast games for ESPN, NBC and the Detroit Red Wings. Read more... Do you have news you'd like to share? Send it to sbsalum@sbs.umass.edu. SBS in the News Ann Arbor News, 8/05/07; Springfield Republican, 7/31/07. Donal Carbaugh and Emily E. West (communication) comment in a story about a new line of greeting cards that features famous lines of dialogue from movies, including classics, popular television shows and from various celebrities. Read more... Canadian Broadcast Company, 7/30/07. Tom Juravich (labor studies) was denied a work visa to accept a visiting professorship at Carleton University in Canada, apparently because he was arrested in 1981 during a protest at a picket line. Juravich was never convicted of a crime. Read more... The Daily Hampshire Gazette on 8/6/07 followed up this story with a happy ending: Having produced the documents clearing his name, Juravich is now in Canada. In addition to Juravich's ability to dig up old court records, he attributes his return to Canada to press coverage surrounding his ban and well-placed letters of support. "I don't know how I can ever thank everyone who wrote letters, sent emails, faxes and made phone calls on my behalf," Juravich said. Business 2.0, August 2007. In the law section of the "Top Ten Products, Ideas and Trends," Ethan Katsh (legal studies) comments about the growing popularity of online legal contracts. Read more... Sun Chronicle, 7/17/07. In an article about playing hooky from work, Eve Weinbaum (labor studies) says absenteeism at work is much less of a problem than the small number of vacation days offered to most employees in the U.S. Read the article... San Diego Online, 7/9/07. A news story notes a 2002 study done by Anthony Harris (sociology), published in the journal Homicide Studies. In it Harris estimates that without advances in trauma care, there would have been 45,000 to 70,000 homicides nationwide in each of the past five years instead of 15,000 to 20,000. Read the article... A Word from SBS Gifts from alumni and friends are vital to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Your investment allows us to create remarkable opportunities for today’s—and tomorrow's—students. If you are already a donor, please accept our sincere thanks. If not, please consider a donation to SBS for your department, student financial aid, or a purpose that speaks to your personal experiences and priorities. To make a gift online, click here. Questions? Contact: We welcome feedback related to this newsletter, the college in general, specific concerns, or topics of interest. Please address all correspondence, including story ideas, to Sabine Cray, marketing and communication specialist. If you wish to add your name to the mailing list, or if you wish to unsubscribe, please write to the SBS Newsletter. If you have had a change of address, email or other personal information, you can update it online. The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences respects your privacy. Your contact information will not be shared with anyone unrelated to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. |
