Alumni News
German & Scandinavian Studies values our alumni and is proud of their accomplishments! You remind us of our history and give us inspiration for the important work that we continue to do in GSS!
News from Undergraduate Alumni
Tim Wilson (B.A. 1999) has worked in fundraising at Harvard Business School since 2000, and earned his Master's in History from Harvard Extension School in 2007. He writes, "My wife, Becky, and I have two adorable little girls-Caroline, who is almost 2; and Amelia, who is 3 months old. We live just outside Boston and are fixing up our house. I wish I had more opportunity to practice my German, and I long to revisit Freiburg, where I studied for one year while at UMass. I'm also training to run my first marathon. My 10th UMass reunion is this year, so I've been thinking more of UMass lately--my time in the German Department as a student and at DEFA are some of the most meaningful and pleasant learning experiences I had in college."
News from Graduate Alumni
Beret Norman (Ph.D. 2004, M.A. 1995) has been awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor of German at Boise State University as of August 2009.
Alison Behling (M.A. 2006) completed all coursework in May 2009 for the dual degree program in Environmental Policy/Natural Resource Management (Master of Public Affairs) and West European Studies (Master of Arts) at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She expects to complete and defend her thesis on comparative nuclear energy policy in Germany and Sweden this summer, after which she will officially receive both degrees. She received the Bill Cohen Award for Indiana University’s Best Graduate Student Paper on West European Studies in 2007, for her research on Germany’s role in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. During her time at IU, she was active and served as an officer in several student organizations, including the International Public Affairs Association and the community service group START (Students Taking Active Roles Today). She also worked with Bloomington’s Deutsche Samstagsschule for two years, helping to teach young children German through songs, vocabulary exercises, stories, and crafts. In summer 2008, she worked as a State Department intern at the US Embassy in Berlin. Among other tasks, she researched and wrote text for an Ambassador’s report on German-American cooperation in solar, wind, and medical technology, and for a policy brief to Washington, DC on offshore wind energy in Germany. Inspired by this experience, she applied for and recently passed the final stage of the process for a career in the Foreign Service. In addition to this career path, Alison is pursuing openings at think tanks, foundations, and non-governmental organizations in the United States and Europe that specialize in international environmental issues.
Jeffrey High (Ph.D. 2001, M.A. 1991), currently Associate Professor of German at the University of California Long Beach, has published Schiller's Literary Prose Works: New Translations and Critical Essays (2008), in which he is a contributor and translator. From the publisher: Friedrich Schiller was a dramatist and poet for the ages, an important aesthetic theorist, and among Germany's first historians. But he left few works of literary prose behind -- seven short tales and fragments, almost all from early in his career -- and although they include some of his most resonant in his own time, they are largely overlooked today. Several of the pieces -- which include The Ghost-Seer, A Magnanimous Act from Most Recent History, The Criminal of Lost Honor: A True Story, A Curious Example of Female Vengeance, Duke Alba at Breakfast at Castle Rudolstadt, Play of Fate: A Fragment of a True Story, and Haoh-Kiöh-Tschuen -- have never before appeared in English translation. But they are a seminal link in the evolution of the then-nascent German novella. They exhibit the anthropological curiosity and moral confusion that made Schiller's first drama, The Robbers, a sensation, demonstrating an original artistry that justifies consideration of scholars and students today, on the eve of the 250th anniversary of his birth. New translations of the seven works appear here together with introductory critical essays.
