praxis - duquesne university · 2016-07-14 · praxis message from the deanin 2015, we witnessed...

PRAXIS2016 McAnulty Col lege And Graduate School Of L ibera l Arts

Duquesne Students, Staff Witness Historic

Visit of Pope Francis

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CONTENTSMessage from the Dean .........................................................................1

Military Veterans Week .......................................................................... 2

Liberal Arts in Action .............................................................................. 3

Newsmakers .................................................................................................. 3

Genesius Theater ......................................................................................4

‘Art Beyond Bars’ Allows a Glimpse into the Lives of Incarcerated Men .......................................................... 5

Duquesne Psychologist Takes Veteran Counseling down the Grand Canyon ...........................................6

Fulbrights, International Awards Show that Duquesne’s Philosophy Department is Something to Ponder ................8

Etty, a Kristallnacht Commemoration ..........................................9

Duquesne Students, Staff Witness Historic Visit of Pope Francis..........................................................................................10

Todd Kriedler: The Playwright ........................................................ 12

Duquesne Students Opt for Unique Study Abroad Alternative in Tanzania ........................................................................ 13

Making a Difference: Q&A with Scott Churchill ...................................................................14 Faculty Updates ....................................................................................... 17

JMA Department Work at Ground Zero ................................... 18 The G. Evan Stoddard Learning Community Resource Fund........................................................................................... 21

Message from the Dean

PRAXIS In 2015, we witnessed significant growth and development in our teaching and research missions. Last year, Praxis focused on student accomplishments; this year we dedicate it to several initiatives. The feature story, which highlights our Catholic mission as a Spiritan University, follows four of our Journalism and Multimedia Arts students as they worked alongside Adjunct Faculty member Mike Clark to cover Pope Francis' inaugural United States trip as Pope.

The students are working to assemble their report into a documentary.

Each department and program boasted noteworthy accomplishments for the year. Among them:

• The Theology Department worked on a grant to increase the awareness of how to teach issues of race in our classrooms.

• The Communication and Rhetorical Studies Duquesne Debating Society hosted a successful debate tournament on campus.

• The English Department hosted Penn State University Professor of Literature Michael Berube and launched an after-school tutoring program at a local school.

• The Philosophy Department began an endowed Examined Life speaker series.

• The Journalism and Multimedia Arts Department hosted another successful internship for two of its students at the 9/11 Visitor Center in New York City.

• The Psychology Department’s Clinic provided 4,067 psychotherapy sessions and 111 intake assessments. In total, 167 clients were served, 16 of whom were through the military track.

• The Healthcare Ethics Program hosted a Kelly Bioethics Lecture focused on the impact of bioethics on the Ebola crises.

• The College continued to partner with the African Studies Program to provide course work and to involve students in our African Study Abroad programs.

• The Theater Arts Program and Red Masquers ran 12 performances of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman to inaugurate our new Genesius Theater. Several performances sold out.

• The Modern Languages and Literatures Department hosted two successful new community engagement immersion experiences at a Spanish-speaking,

after-school program in Beechview Elementary School.

• Members of our Sociology and History Departments partnered to promote criminal justice and to sponsor an art exhibit entitled Art Beyond Bars, which featured art by State Correction Institute of Pittsburgh inmates.

• The Department of History hosted its first Public History Program Social at the Frick Art and Historical Center. More than sixty stakeholders participated.

• In commemoration of Kristallnacht, our Jewish Studies Forum hosted Etty, a one-woman play, in the new Genesius Theater.

• The Women’s and Gender Studies Program collaborated with the Department of History to host a Pop Up Museum on Secular and Holy Saints.

Our mission in the College is to educate students in a Catholic and Spiritan liberal arts curriculum. Our continual challenge of teaching well our traditional and long standing liberal arts competences is coupled by the demands of a globalized world and the need for increased practical focus in liberal arts programs. We meet these challenges with the development of our faculty and staff expertises, and with the help and support of our alumni.

Dr. James C. Swindal Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University

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C O L L E G E & D E PA R T M E N T N E W S C O L L E G E & D E PA R T M E N T N E W S

Military Veterans Week

A documentary raising awareness of 22 suicides a day among veterans who served in

Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Screening of

Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m.Peter Mills Auditorium

Rockwell Hall

6 p.m. reception followed by 7 p.m. screening

Free and open to the public.

Dr. Roger Brooke, founder and director of Duquesne’s free military psychological services, is interviewed in the documentary. He will be present, along with executive producer and law school alumnus Theo Collins, and the two vets who made a cross-country motorcycle ride to raise awareness of the suicide issue.

If you’d like to learn more about the entire list of Veteran’s Week events, please visit, www.myduquesne.duq.edu/veterans2015

Co-sponsored by McAnulty College and Office of Military and Veteran Services.

A documentary raising awareness of 22 suicides a day among veterans who served in

Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Screening of

Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m.Peter Mills Auditorium

Rockwell Hall

6 p.m. reception followed by 7 p.m. screening

Free and open to the public.

Dr. Roger Brooke, founder and director of Duquesne’s free military psychological services, is interviewed in the documentary. He will be present, along with executive producer and law school alumnus Theo Collins, and the two vets who made a cross-country motorcycle ride to raise awareness of the suicide issue.



Warriors and WarfareThe Sacred and ProfaneMonday, Nov. 9, 7 p.m.

Room 104, College HallFree and open to the public

DR. EDWARD TICK

Tick, an internationally recognized healer and psychotherapist, is co-founder and director of the nonprofit Soldier’s Heart. He has served as the U.S. Army’s 2012 and this year’s Air Force National Guard’s expert in the holistic healing of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, training more than 2,500 chaplains and officers. Author of the award-winning book War and the Soul, Tick will discuss war’s roots in religious traditions, moral vs. immoral use of force, the prevalence of the shadow as well as the spiritual warrior, and essential conditions needed for spiritual healing of troops and veterans. He also will share how best to serve veterans’ spiritual distress in the combat zone and upon return.



For the first time at Duquesne, the Office for Military and Veteran Students hosted a week-long recognition of veterans. For years, the University has hosted the state’s largest morning gathering of veterans at a Veterans Day breakfast. This past year’s event, in collaboration with the College, branched out to include a lecture, a documentary screening and a military appreciation night at the men’s basketball opener for the University’s 100th season. The events focused on the education of veterans, says Dr. James Swindal, dean of the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, which co-sponsored this landmark week. “These events served Duquesne’s educational mission, particularly the moral and spiritual education that is specific to Duquesne,” he adds. Military and veteran students comprise nearly three percent of Duquesne’s student body and are registered in all nine schools, says Don Accamando, director of the Office for Military and Veteran Students. About two-thirds of these veteran students are enrolled in the McAnulty College.

Events co-sponsored by the College during the week included:

Dr. Edward Tick, Warriors and Warfare: The Sacred and Profane Tick, an internationally recognized healer and psychotherapist, is co-founder and director of the nonprofit Soldier’s Heart. He has served as the U.S. Army and Air Force National Guard expert in the holistic healing of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, training more than 2,500 chaplains and officers. Tick discussed war’s roots in religious traditions, moral vs. immoral use of force, the prevalence of the shadow as well as the spiritual warrior, and essential conditions needed for spiritual healing of troops and veterans.

Project 22 Project 22 is a documentary intended to raise awareness about the 22 suicides that occur daily among veterans who served in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Roger Brooke, founder and director of Duquesne’s free military psychological services, was interviewed in the documentary. He attended the event, along with executive producer and law school alumnus Theo Collins, as well as the two vets who made a cross-country motorcycle ride to raise awareness of the suicide issue.

Liberal Arts in Action There has been much public discussion about employment outcomes for liberal arts majors. At the same time, research has consistently shown that the skills a liberal arts education fosters are exactly the skills that employers value the most. The challenge facing the College as well as higher education as a whole is to continue to make the connection between the value of a liberal arts education and its vocational expression. Spring 2015 marked a new undertaking for the College by actively addressing this challenge

via a new course called, Liberal Arts in Action. Liberal Arts in Action is a course that covers a lot of ground. Imagine early in your college career learning how to write a resume or cover letter or how to develop an online profile that is attractive and substantive to employers. Yet, this is completed under the heart of a Duquesne education where students have a chance to clarify their values and examine what they would like to achieve in life. Co-taught by WTAE-TV Channel 4’s Mike Clark and Bill Klewien, academic advisor in

the College, Liberal Arts in Action challenged students to dig deep in understanding what they would like out of life. The semester culminated with a networking event on April 8 where a group of diverse College alumni came together to speak with students enrolled in the class. Alumni ranged from lawyers to medical doctors to those working in marketing and communications. The students found this experience overwhelmingly productive and helpful as they begin to progress throughout their Duquesne careers.

NewsmakersWe recognize and applaud the accomplishments of the following McAnulty College faculty and students.

Dr. Greg Barnhisel, Chair of the Department of English, authored in Slate an article about the State Department’s secret guidelines for handling William Faulkner on his 1950s overseas tours.

Dr. Roger Brooke, of the Department of Psychology, was featured in the documentary film, Project 22, about veteran suicides.

Dr. Lew Irwin, professor of political science, has been promoted to Major General in the U.S. Army Reserve and is among a rare number of academics to achieve this position ranked second from the top in the Reserve forces.

Dr. Patrick Juola, of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, received an Innovation Works funding award for his

by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She was one of only ten recipients of the 2015 award from a pool of approximately three hundred nominees.

Dr. James Risser, of the Department of Philosophy at Seattle University, is the inaugural Endowed Visiting Phenomenology Scholar in the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center. He is teaching a graduate course in Philosophy during the spring semester.

Dr. Daniel Scheid, of the Theology Department, published The Cosmic Common Good: Religious Grounds for Ecological Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He made a presentation on topics in the book at the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University and also at a conference on Laudato Si’ cosponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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research. He used some of his software recently to verify the authorship of one of J.K. Rowling’s books.

Dr. Matthew Hyland, of the Department of History, gave a lecture “A New Deal for Old Key West: A Case Study of Preservation and Populism,” at the Landmarks Preservation Center.

Dr. Lucía Osa-Melero, of the Modern Languages and Literatures Department, has been named The Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL) Mead Leadership Fellow.

Dr. Magali Cornier Michael was appointed in July as Associate Dean of the College. She brings many rich years of academic experience to the position both as a full professor and as the former Chair of the English Department.

Erin Rentschler, a current doctoral student in English, was awarded the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award for 2015. This award is sponsored

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Genesius Theater Duquesne University hosted a special dedication of the new Genesius Theater for the campus community. The 10,500-square-foot, black-box style theater features include:

• Seating for up to 130• Portable risers• A rehearsal hall• Dressing rooms• Building shops


• Costume storage• Mechanical

electrical rooms• Offices• A green room

The theater is used by Duquesne University’s Red Masquers, Spotlight Musical Theater Company and Mary Pappert School of Music ensembles for performances. It also has space for production classes.

‘Art Beyond Bars’ Allows a Glimpse into the Lives of Incarcerated Men Artwork imagined behind prison walls was displayed at Duquesne University, thanks to the work of the University’s public history program, the State Correctional Institute-Pittsburgh, and the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. The exhibit, Art Beyond Bars, brought approximately 20 pieces of artwork from different media—poetry, drawings, sculptures, raps—to the Les Ideés Gallery in the Duquesne Union in April 2015. The goal of the exhibit was to “humanize the inmate, to show that everyday people can relate to these men in one way or another,” explains Abigail Kirstein, a public history master’s student who was involved with promoting the exhibit. “We were attempting to build a relationship through the medium of art.” While the men had the opportunity to share their work, they and the graduate students also learned about curating an exhibit, constructing a historical narrative and developing public history skills. Besides sharing this work with the campus community, students worked with residents of the men’s home communities, offering them the opportunity to discover these previously hidden talents, share new viewpoints and engage with thought-provoking ideas represented in the exhibit. The idea for the show was grounded in the work of Dr. Norman Conti, associate professor of sociology and leader of Pittsburgh’s Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, and Dr. Elaine Parsons, associate professor of history. The Inside-Out program holds classes inside jails and prisons, with class members including typical Duquesne students (outside) and incarcerated (inside) individuals. As an outgrowth of this work, Conti has established a think tank with seven men serving life sentences who hope to impact the safety of their home communities. While working with the think tank, Parsons discovered that these men expressed themselves through art. “It is too easy for us to forget that there are many incarcerated people who are our neighbors,” Parsons says. “They are physically walled off from us. But taking the time to look at their art helps us to remember them and ways in which we are connected to them.” Working with Dr. Michael Cahall, director of graduate studies in history, as well as the graduate students and think tank members, the idea of an exhibit moved forward. “This art tells a deeper narrative, one that most people do not get to hear, reflecting the past, present and future of these men,” Cahall says.


"Understanding combat trauma as a human universal event offers the experience, dignity and direction through the life span."


Duquesne Psychologist Takes Veteran Counseling down the Grand Canyon Eighteen veterans with physical and psychological wounds from war participated in a healing raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon last July. Dr. Roger Brooke, the clinical psychologist on the trip, is a professor of psychology and director of Duquesne University’s free military psychological services. He made his first trip with disabled veterans from the Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the summer of 2014 and returned again this past year. Brooke and the participants not only navigated physical obstacles that might be encountered by their 36-foot-long dinghies in the storied river, they also had to maneuver the delicate terrain of

personal and emotional landscapes. Brooke, a veteran himself and the father of a veteran, has a special interest in the needs of those who serve and have served in the military, as well as their families. In his work, Brooke reframes combat trauma as a universal human experience of initiation onto the warrior’s spiritual path, but not primarily as a psychiatric issue. He has found this distinction critical and, in itself, liberating for participants. “Understanding combat trauma as a human universal event offers the experience, dignity and direction through the life span,” Brooke observes. As in the previous year’s session, addressing these spiritual and moral aspects became part of

a nightly ritual. Veterans had the opportunity to place memorabilia on a campsite altar and discuss it. “Everybody would put something on the altar and explain the significance of the item,” Brooke explains. “The experience highlighted the need for a veteran community that includes civilians, the need for a continued sense of service among veterans, and the moral and spiritual trauma at the heart of war. “Each evening, I would talk for a few minutes about some lessons learned from traditional warrior cultures and invite people to think about the relevance, what we might learn from these cultures for our own healing and integration, and they found it very helpful,” says Brooke, who also did one-on-one work. This past year, Duquesne

University post-doctoral psychology fellow Denise Mahone, under Brooke’s supervision, joined the trip. Sponsored by Canyon Heroes, a Ligonier nonprofit funded by foundations and donations, the wilderness adventure

Dr. Roger Brooke (far right) leads the "Canyon Heroes.”

uses holistic interventions to touch the emotional, moral and spiritual wounds of veterans. Each participating veteran has a disability from post-traumatic stress disorder and/or other injuries. This past year, as in the year before, male and female veterans were selected for participation from the Pittsburgh area and beyond. The goal, according to Brooke, was to provide veterans with an opportunity to rediscover equilibrium and move their lives forward.

“We’re still in the process of getting the outcomes (from last year), but all of them found the experience helpful and most of them have written that they felt their lives turned around,” Brooke says.


S T U D E N T & A L U M N I N E W S C O L L E G E & D E PA R T M E N T N E W S

Fulbrights, International Awards Show that Duquesne’s Philosophy Department is Something to Ponder

Fulbright Scholar Martin Krahn, Jamestown, N.Y. Krahn will study the relationship between metaphysics and physics in Hegel’s philosophy of nature at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. From March through July, he is participating in a student and faculty exchange program at the University of Heidelberg. He received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Middlebury College in Vermont.

Fulbright Scholar Paul Zipfel, Belleville, Ill. Zipfel’s Fulbright will support the study of the phenomenology of Husserl; he will look at the ways people find themselves surrounded by others for whom they feel an ethical

Etty, a Kristallnacht CommemorationEtty Hillesum loved life. Even in occupied Amsterdam in 1941. Even in a concentration camp. Her writings, which show a young Jewish woman wrestling with her love-hate world, came to the Duquesne

University campus in a special one-night performance on Tuesday, Nov. 10. The play, directed by Austin Pendleton (Finding Nemo, My Cousin Vinny) was a haunting roller

coaster ride of emotion and expression of human experience. Etty marked the remembrance of Kristallnacht, the night in November 1938 when tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi Germany and Austria were removed to concentration camps, their property and temples destroyed. “The messages in Etty’s diaries and letters provide a very personal window into the Holocaust. They advocate social justice, challenge prejudice and examine genocide,” says Susan Stein, the author and actress in the one-woman play, Etty, which relies only on Hillesum’s words. “Etty Hillesum invites us to examine our own personal lives and offers us a model for living without hate,” Stein says.

Stein offers the example that Hillesum wrote on Sept. 23, 1942, “Every atom of hate we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable.” Prior to the performance in Duquesne’s Genesius Theater, the historical context of Kristallnacht and biographical information of Hillesum was shared by Drs. Marie Baird, Daniel Burston and Matthew Schneirov, faculty members of Duquesne’s McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts. Besides the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, the event was sponsored by the Nathan and Helen Goldrich Foundation, Duquesne’s Jewish Studies Forum and its Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

EttyA one-woman play

that challenges us to rethink questions

of resilience, responsibility and

humanity.

In commemoration of Kristallnacht, Duquesne University’s McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts and the Jewish Studies Forum, in partnership with the Nathan and Helen Goldrich Foundation, are delighted to host Susan Stein’s one-woman play Etty, based on the diaries and letters of Esther “Etty” Hillesum.

Adapted and performed by Stein, and directed by acclaimed actor, director and playwright Austin Pendleton, Etty is a portrayal of one woman’s struggle to sustain humanity in the face of the Nazis’ unspeakable brutality

Two performances scheduled,in Duquesne University’s Genesius Theater:

FOR DUQUESNE STUDENTS ONLY

Monday, Nov. 9, 20154:30 p.m.Cost: Free to attend. No reservations required.

FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 20157:30 p.m. Cost: $15 per ticket.

“We were invited into the private places of Etty’s suitcase and Susan’s writing process and

because of this, we asked deeper questions of ourselves, and of each other.”

– Meghan McNamaraProgram Director, Girls Write Now

Photo: Ricardo Barros, 2009

Due to theater size, seating will be limited.

To reserve a seat, please purchase your ticket online at duq.edu/etty.

flourishing. She received her bachelor’s degree in philosophy and classics at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.

SSHRC Scholar Tristana Martin-Rubio, Toronto, Canada Martin-Rubio is in Berlin, where she has received a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst to attend an intensive, eight-week language course at the Goethe Institute for German language studies; she also studied there last year as a Summer Language Grant winner. Martin-Rubio received the most elite award for Canadians

studying at international institutions and one of the top doctoral awards in Canada last year. This four-year, $20,000 CAD Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship from the Canadian government supports her doctoral work at Duquesne, which focuses on phenomenology, which is the nature of reality and our experience, as related to space, time and the body. She received her bachelor’s degree from Trent University in Ontario and her master’s from Concordia University in Portland, Ore.

obligation—or the ability to act unethically toward them. Zipfel is studying language in Nantes, France, before starting research at the Husserl Archive at the University of Cologne in September. Zipfel received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religious studies at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., and a master’s in philosophy at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. Chateaubriand Spring Fellow Alessio Rotundo, Torino, Italy One of only 15 awards issued by the French government will allow Rotundo to study at the Husserl Archives in Paris. Rotundo will critically evaluate Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on biological nature and the

place of human beings within nature. A graduate of the Università degli Studi di Torino in Italy, he received his master’s degree from Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg in Germany.

Munich School Fellow Bethany Somma, Fayetteville, Ga. Somma received a three-year research fellowship from the Munich School of Ancient Philosophy at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, starting in October, to produce her doctoral dissertation on late antique Greek and classical Arabic philosophy. She is tracing the development of non-rational notions—for example, desire and animals—to show how they are important to philosophy and human

SSHRC Scholar Aaron Higgins-Brake, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Another winner of the elite four-year SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship from the Canadian government, Higgins-Brake chose to pursue his doctoral degree at Duquesne. He is studying Plotinus’ philosophy of the self, explaining that self-knowledge is not only necessary for individual happiness but for understanding the world at large. Higgins-Brake graduated with a bachelor’s degree in classics, with honors, from the University of King’s College and received his master’s degree in classics from Dalhousie University, both in Halifax.

Critics of the liberal arts have asked, “What does one ‘do’ with a degree in Philosophy?” The short answer: a lot. Two Duquesne University philosophy graduate students have been selected as Fulbright recipients from the same department—a first in University history. These two are joined by four other graduate philosophy students receiving prestigious awards. For those unfamiliar with the Fulbright Scholarship, “In 1945, Senator J. William Fulbright introduced a bill in the United States Congress that called for the use of surplus war property to fund the ‘promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture and science.’ On August 1, 1946, President Harry S. Truman signed the bill into law, and Congress created the Fulbright Program, the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Government (fulbrightonline.org).” “We consider it an amazing year in terms of national and international awards,” says Dr. Ronald Polansky, department chair, who credited the dual emphasis on philosophy as well as contemporary and ancient languages with the department’s international success. “Because the program is focused on continental thought, it seems you need requisite learning in the language,” Polansky says. ‘We think that this, in addition to good philosophical study, is helping them get these awards.” In addition to the success with the Fulbright program, the Philosophy department also had other international successes in 2015.


F E AT U R E S T O RYF E AT U R E S T O RY

Imagine walking into an internship or job interview and mentioning to a prospective employer that you had the opportunity to cover the historic visit of Pope Francis as a member of the media. Journalists from around the world and the United States would treat this experience as an opportunity of a lifetime. This is what happened for four Duquesne journalism and multimedia arts undergraduates who were credentialed to cover the papal visit as part of a class with Mike Clark, adjunct instructor and WTAE-TV Channel 4 reporter. Talk about a resume builder. Emily Stock and other student journalists, working on a project for Clark’s class, traveled to Philadelphia with pilgrims from the Diocese of Pittsburgh to cover the World Meeting of Families. They also had the opportunity to travel to the Canonization Mass of St. Junipero Serra in Washington, D.C., before returning back to Philadelphia. In addition, the student journalists had the opportunity to interview law makers as well as Bishop of the Pittsburgh Diocese, David Zubik, DD. As Stock, a junior, of Pleasant Hills, shares, “The experience was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me both professionally and spiritually.” Clark and Dr. Dennis Woytek, assistant professor of journalism and multimedia arts, previously helped Duquesne students to gain major news experience of covering a papal visit in 2008 and looked forward to a similar experience for the current students

Duquesne Students, Staff Witness Historic Visit of Pope Francis

documenting Pope Francis’ first U.S. visit. “In 2008, the students worked alongside local, national and international journalists, and on occasion, they collaborated with these fellow journalists,” Clark says. “They were interviewed by FOX News and CNN live on the air, and I think, more than anything, they know they can do the job as a working journalist. Clark applauded Dr. James Swindal, dean of the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, for his hand in making this independent study course a reality. “He really wants the women to have a great experience because it’s all about the Duquesne mission of serving, to explore your faith, to explore other people’s faiths, to come together as a team to learn about this pope and learn about his messages,” Clark says. “I think that’s really in line with what Duquesne’s mission is all about." While no one can predict the future, this much we know: “Regardless of what the kids do when they graduate,” says Clark, “they’ll keep this experience in their hearts forever.”

"The experience was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me both professionally and spiritually."


S T U D E N T & A L U M N I N E W S S T U D E N T & A L U M N I N E W S

Todd Kriedler: The PlaywrightApollo native and successful playwright, Todd Kriedler, A'96, had the opportunity to return to his alma mater in the spring of 2015 to speak to current students and the public about his life and experiences as a playwright. We had the chance to speak with him about his time at Duquesne, advice for current Liberal Arts students and his career.

When you were selecting a college or university, what drew you Duquesne?Growing up outside of Pittsburgh yet in a rural area, Pittsburgh was my New York City. The 412 was my 212. I had applied to another university in the city and wasn’t accepted so I started looking for alternative options. I knew I wanted an urban, downtown location so Duquesne’s location suited me exceptionally well. I actually began at Duquesne as a Physics major but found the Liberal Arts at the end of my first year by almost stumbling into things. The Liberal Arts have been a foundation that have served me well throughout my career.

Tell me about your experience here as a student?The Red Masquers were my spoke. I did everything with the Masquers from running props, to sound, to acting. Oddly, I didn’t see a play until I was seventeen. Jay Keenan was a major influence on me. I took one of his playwriting courses and it changed my life. I have a deep appreciation for the gift of a formal Liberal Arts education.

Advice to someone currently in the Liberal Arts?Be ever curious. Because of the Liberal Arts, I’m a lifelong student. I remember taking classes in history, philosophy and economics and being so curious that I wanted more. I remember when Duquesne went to flat rate tuition and I intentionally took 21 credits in one semester because I was curious. Jay Keenan told me that I needed an attic. I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time but now I understand. I needed exposure to all of these areas to become better at theater.

What was it like to come back to campus last spring and speak to students?Totally surreal. I wasn’t prepared for how many people were there. I hadn’t been back on campus since 2001 and it was amazing to see the changes campus has undergone. I’m grateful that I had the chance to speak with some of the students on a one-on-one level afterwards.

Let’s talk about your professional career? When I say the name August Wilson, what comes to mind?Father, best friend, mentor. He’s one of the primary relationships of my professional career. He once told me to “claim it” as it relates to this profession. That has stuck with me. I met him at 26-years old and consider his family my family. It took me a long time to go from Mr. Wilson to calling him August.

I noticed some of your playwright work and professional projects have revolved around music—Tupac, Nikki Sixx and David Foster. It sounds like you’re a big music fan?A lot of stumbling into things. I was fifteen and remember listening to Bob Marley and his words had meaning to me. It wasn’t just music. From that moment, I began to listen to music differently. Kenny Leon was completely influential regarding, Holler if You Hear Me. I was never the biggest fan of Motley Crue growing up but my agent, Susan Levy, gave me Nikki Sixx’s biography and I found myself reading it late one night. Not long after, I was at his house talking about how I found meaning in his words and would love the opportunity to write about it and make it come alive. I’m having the career of my dreams in a way I never imagined.

Duquesne Students Opt for Unique Study Abroad Alternative in Tanzania Duquesne University’s commitment, along with the College’s, to Africa and other international experiences for our students remains strong. Nineteen students could have opted to spend part of their summer studying in Italy, Germany, France or any of the popular European sites. But they decided to ramp up their travels with study abroad in Tanzania and Zanzibar. For some of the students, like Ryan Shilling of Kittanning, Pa., this adventure was their first major trip abroad. Organized through Duquesne’s Center for African Studies and the Office of International Programs, students spent four weeks in Tanzania following in the footsteps of Spiritan priests who began their ministries in African countries centuries ago. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me,” says Shilling, noting the intricacies of planning the trip. “I had to take it!” He managed to talk a classmate into going and earning the six credits in theology and journalism and mass media. On the trip, Shilling and his colleagues were introduced to the rituals of the Maasai. “I did not expect to actually be able to visit an African ethnic group,” he says. “It took us out of our comfort zones.” The study-abroad students stayed in Arusha, where Duquesne has long-

standing relationships with the diocese and the Spiritans, the University founding organization. Students also visited the Ngorongoro crater; trekked up part of Mount Kilimanjaro; and enjoyed the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam; the spice markets of Zanzibar and the site of the first Spiritan missionary landing in Bagamoyo. Besides providing a new window on life in Africa, the trip offered Shilling a different perspective on life in America. In Tanzania, though it is a poor country; people were smiling and welcoming. “It takes so much for us to be happy and to be pleased,” he observes, “It makes me think how much money we actually waste on stupid things.” Retaining the congregation’s legacy

of service, the students carried 250 pounds of previously donated vitamins to a flying Tanzania medical mission as well as 10 boxes of books for the newly opened Spiritan run Marian University College in Bagamoyo. “This experience gives our students a unique appreciation and understanding of other people and spaces, and it does prompt our students to begin to construct ways of what it means to think and act in our world as global citizens,” says Dr. Gerald Boodoo, director of Duquesne’s Center for African Studies. “Going to Africa not only changes our perceptions, but our way of acting based on these perceptions.”


Dr. Scott Churchill is a graduate of the College’s Clinical Psychology program and a current Professor at the University of Dallas. We talked with him about his time at Duquesne as well as his role in the American Psychological Association’s (APA) legislation to ban the use of psychologists in the use of interrogation regarding national security measures.

Making a Difference: Q&A with Scott Churchill

S T U D E N T & A L U M N I N E W S S T U D E N T & A L U M N I N E W S

What drew you to Duquesne’s Clinical Psychology program? I had studied pre-med biology at Bucknell while taking several courses in existential phenomenology along the way, and had developed a deep and abiding interest in this fascinating and inspiring field of thought. When graduation approached, I began to waver between medicine and philosophy. I visited Bucknell in the fall and met Ernie Keen, a phenomenologist in the psychology department who told me to apply to Duquesne. While working at a New Jersey psychiatric clinic the following January, I read the Duquesne catalogue and it was as though the program description had been written specifically for me! I immediately began writing my application essay. Because of my limited psychology background, I was placed on the wait list. A pre-med student accepted to the program decided to attend medical school so I was called as his replacement. Back then, classes were constructed as a gestalt by the faculty. It was not a simple matter of having a number on a wait list: you were selected to fill a particular spot. So it felt amazing to have made it, finally, into Duquesne.

How has your professional and personal experience shaped being a key sponsor of a bill by the American Psychological Association banning the involvement of psychologists in national security interrogations? Torture has always been a concern to me, perhaps because of an almost “too intense” capacity for empathizing and imagining the horrors that people have been subjected to in the course of human history, whether depicted in books, film, painting, etc. As a member of APA Council—beginning when I was a substitute representative in the early 2000s—I became aware of psychologist involvement in torture. This issue continued to concern me over the course of the next decade. I came from a strong Christian background; my mother, a sympathizer for the cause of Native Americans, wrote letters to President Eisenhower on their behalf when I was a child. Two of my Duquesne mentors, most notably Constance T. Fischer and Amedeo Giorgi, had been involved in APA governance as Division 24 and 32 presidents. Fischer was APA president for many years, which involved her in professional ethics issues.

My therapy professors, Charles Maes and Anthony Barton, had deeply impressed me with their profound sense of empathy for their patients; and Rolf von Eckartsberg and Frank Buckley, also Duquesne psychology graduate professors, along with Paul Colaizzi, inspired a strong sense of commitment to social justice. Indeed, my first of two internships—both arranged by Fischer—was for the PA Governor’s Justice Commission, writing qualitative assessments of police, court, jail, juvenile detention center, and other social programs funded by the Allegheny County Planning Committee. Fischer’s guidance helped me to see how I could use my role in these settings as an advocate for social change. As a Council Rep for Division 32 (Humanistic Psychology), I had been privy to the ongoing review of the APA's torture policies, and its longstanding efforts to keep psychologists out of interrogations. When in the early summer of 2013 I read a letter to the list serve for the Council of Representatives from activist Dan Aalbers, I decided to write back to him, to reach out and offer to bring a resolution to Council to finally implement the 2008 membership resolution to remove psychologists from GITMO and other black sites, for once and for all—if for no other reason than that the very presence of a psychologist in an


interrogation (for many years, until most recently) meant that by definition whatever happened in the room would not legally be defined as torture. This was a result of Bush administration attorneys, Yoo and Bradbury1, who interpreted the U.S. Reservations to the UN’s Convention Against Torture in such a way as to enable torture by virtue of having a psychologist present. This enabled the president to state that we were not engaging in acts of torture when we clearly were. Something had to be done. In June 2013, I began working on APA policies amendments, removing language that compromised our intentions, and making prohibitions clear, along with creating an action plan for implementation. The implementation has been achieved: (1) we revised the 2006 and 2013 policies; (2) we sent 12 letters to key government officials including President Obama, the Secretary of State, and the directors of the CIA and of GITMO; and (3) General Kelly, commanding officer at GITMO, two weeks ago removed all psychologists from GITMO.

What are some of your fondest memories of your time at Duquesne as a student? Bonding with classmates in Duquesne’s first one-year master’s program. Then as a doctoral student in a specially combined class that included eight students accepted from my master’s program and another eight from the previous year’s two-year program, I became part of what von Eckartsberg referred to as an “existential village” of students and faculty. We bonded for a

common cause: what Giorgi had termed “the project” of an existential phenomenological psychology. The Department parties held annually in the old, dilapidated Psych Center as well as on Father Murray’s farm; the informal Friday night soirees held at Rolf and Elsa’s Squirrel Hill mansion; Sunday afternoon teas held at Frank and Ruth Buckley’s grand Fifth Avenue home that was part of Chatham College (and named “The Inwood Morning” by philosopher Henry Bugbee), building a geodesic dome on campus during our social psychology class with Rolf in the summer of 1975, in which we studied Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; Saturday afternoons in Shadyside walking through art fairs with Duquesne peers, and attending repertory films at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, by Bergman, Fellini, Herzog, Dennis Hopper, Fassbinder, Wertmeuller, etc. The “Spirit of the Sixties” permeated the department, and we felt as though we were riding on the cutting edge of intellectual life, being led by so many giants who we called our mentors. The Philosophy Department was right down the hall; John Scanlon taught us Husserl and Sartre; Andre Schuwer taught Heidegger and Ricoeur and shared anecdotes of visits with his “master,” Professor Heidegger, who furnished our class with an assignment from the master himself; and John Sallis, one of the greatest teachers and Heidegger scholars one could ask for! All were available at arm’s reach, willing to spend an afternoon with you in their offices along the fifth floor corridor, their doors open and inviting.

Have you had regular contact with the Psychology department? I’ve been back to the Psychology Department on each visit since graduating in 1984—at least twenty visits in 35 years. I’ve stayed in touch with all of my professors, often staying with them. I have enjoyed watching the department grow and develop, and continue to welcome students who are interested in developing what we used to think of as “alternatives to mainstream psychology”—alternatives that now, thanks to advocacy in the APA inspired primarily by Fischer, who taught us to work within the system to change it—have become part of the mainstream. The Humanistic Psychologist (which I’ve edited since 2004) and Qualitative Psychology are now both APA division journals. Several Duquesne faculty have been invited onto the editorial boards of these and other journals, which continue to develop inquiry into the further reaches of human nature. I still dream of coming back and doing a mini-course one day, as a kind of “pay-back” to the department that I have loved for all these years.

Endnotes1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos

S T U D E N T & A L U M N I N E W S

Dr. Rebecca CepekWriting Program

Dr. Richard DuqueSociology

Dr. Jeff MartinWriting Program

Dr. Rebecca MayWriting Program

Dr. John MitchamHistory

Dr. Katie RaskClassics

Justin SinesTheater Arts Program

Dr. Gregory SpecterEnglish

Dr. Jerry StinnettEnglish

Dr. Annarita PrimierModern Languages and Literatures

Dr. Pamela WalckJournalism and Multimedia Arts

New Faculty

Faculty AdvancementPromotion to Full Professor:

Dr. Jennifer BatesPhilosophy Dr. Laura EngelEnglish

Dr. Kathleen RobertsCommunication and Rhetorical Studies Dr. Darlene WeaverTheology

Tenure/Promotion to Associate Professor:

Dr. Faith BarrettEnglish

New Scholars in Residence John Wagner GivensPolitical Science

Limin Jia Philosophy

Wang MaioPhilosophy

George MikrosComputer Science

LiLong QiangPhilosophy

Zhuo TangPhilosophy

Habib TurkerPhilosophy

Aminu WushishiCenter for Qualitative Inquiry

Wu XiaoanPhilosophy

FA C U LT Y U P D AT E S

Faculty RetirementsDr. Patricia DunhamPolitical Science

Dr. Charles HannaSociology

Faculty Endowed ProfessorsDr. Ronald C. ArnettCommunication and Rhetorical StudiesPatricia Doherty Yoder and Ronald Wolfe Endowed Chair

Dr. Clifford BobPolitical ScienceRaymond J. Kelley Endowed Chair

Fr. Eugene ElochukwuTheologyPierre Schouver C.S.Sp. Endowed Chair

Dr. Linda KinnahanEnglishHillman Endowed Chair

Dr. Eva SimmsPsychologyAdrian van Kaam C.S.Sp. Endowed Chair

Special Achievement College 2015 Excellence AwardsDr. Laura EngelEnglishFaculty Excellence in Scholarship Award

Dr. Mark HaasPolitical ScienceFaculty Excellence in Teaching Award

Dr. Linda KinnahanEnglishFaculty Excellence for Service to the Mission Award

Dr. Holly MayerHistoryFaculty Excellence for Service to the Mission Award

Dr. Doug HarperSociology

Dr. Gregorio MartinModern Languages and Literatures

Dr. G. Evan StoddardAssociate Dean of the College

Dr. Steven VardyHistory

Dr. Lori KoelschPsychology Dr. Emad MirmotahariEnglish Dr. Danielle St. HilaireEnglish Dr. Anna ScheidTheology Dr. Daniel ScheidTheology Dr. Elisabeth VaskoTheology


JMA Department Work at Ground Zero The McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University has a unique partnership with the 9/11 Tribute Center in New York City. We were fortunate to send two Journalism and Multimedia Arts students to participate in their summer internship program. Sara Speedy and Jen Liedl, two master’s of media arts and technology students, participated in the 2015 program. This is their story.


Sarah Speedy The September 11th Families Association welcomed Jen Liedl and me with open arms, excited to share their knowledge with us and welcome us into their workplace. I was given a list of projects I’d be working on over the summer and some daily tasks. I was lucky enough to get to spend time getting to know the staff and volunteers of the Tribute Center while filming events and programs throughout the month. I filmed the weekly program, We Were There and the story telling program The Moth, and I photographed quite a few events such as the teacher’s workshop and a benefit

both held by the Families Association and Tribute Center. I spent the majority of my time creating, filming and editing a video for the crew of the U.S.S. New York. The ship, adopted by the Tribute Center, is made with seven tons of steel from the Twin Towers. On Sept. 11 last year, the video was aired on the ship thanking its crewmembers for their sacrifice and service. The September 11th Families Association strives to preserve the memory of Sept. 11, 2001 and educate those who did not

"This internship was about

much more than videography. It was

unlike any job I've done before."


experience it. This internship was about much more than videography. It was unlike any job I’ve done before. It was emotional, rewarding and heartbreaking consecutively. I wasn’t just taking photographs of a teacher’s workshop. I was photographing a teacher as she broke out in tears as she told the room she had students who lost a parent that day. I filmed as she vowed that she would work toward improving the education of 9/11. I had the honor to meet a volunteer who flies into New York once a month from her home in Boston to give a tour of the 9/11


Tribute Center and ground zero. She shares her story in honor of her husband who left her a final voicemail minutes before his plane struck one of the Twin Towers. I watched as a volunteer told her story at The Moth, telling us about her friend and coworker who lost his life on 9/11 because he refused to leave the side of his wheelchair bound friend who couldn’t make it down the Tower’s crowded staircase. I filmed as a fireman told his story of working on the site during the recovery process. He, along with many others, spent days looking through rubble hoping to find a single survivor. He told us, when the site grew silent, he knew another fallen brother or sister was discovered. The site went silent to salute them. Each of these stories was as important and powerful as the next. They were full of terror, tears, love and sometimes joy. These stories, however, always ended with a bit of hope. They were shared to spread knowledge, to educate, to make our world a better place. Visitors from all over the world left messages of hope, unity, peace and thanks on the visitor cards available inside the Tribute Center’s gallery.

Jen Liedl New York City is a city of perseverance, strength and resilience. Their firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, doctors and nurses are second to none…Ordinary people showed their strength and hearts of gold on Sept. 11, 2001. On this day, and the days, weeks and years that followed, a city, a nation and a world came together. The Tribute Center, located in lower

Manhattan, is run by people who experienced the tragedy of 9/11 firsthand. Volunteers speak and run guided tours of the Center as well as the memorials. They tell their personal stories to visitors throughout the tours, in We Were There presentations and during The Moth workshops (workshops for storytelling). Some of the volunteers were firefighters, some were police officers, construction workers, recovery workers and others who were close loved ones of the victims of that day.

Personally, I come from a firefighter family. My dad is a volunteer firefighter in the area where I grew up. I know what it is like to have my loved ones leave at a moment’s notice to go on a call. Regardless of the time of day or night, they go with no questions asked. So, I understand the feeling of not knowing what the future may hold for them when they respond. With that being said, during my time working for the Tribute Center, two peoples’ stories made me cry. I cried for them and the pain that they had been through, and I cried because I thought of how easily my dad could suffer the same fate. One story that really touched me was told by a woman whose father was a firefighter. She began by saying that once she heard the

C O L L E G E & D E PA R T M E N T N E W S

The G. Evan Stoddard Learning Community Resource FundNamed in honor of our former long-serving Associate Dean who retired in 2015, the G. Evan Stoddard Learning Community Resource Fund is dedicated to helping provide funding assistance to faculty, staff and students engaged with the College’s First-Year Learning Communities.

Jen Liedl (left) and Sara Speedy (right)

news of the attacks she knew that her father would be one of the many who would respond. As she told her story, I could feel the tears in my eyes beginning to form. She concluded her story by saying, “I know that the first step to recovering is to acknowledge that something happened… so this is in memory of my father, Captain – -, New York City firefighter.” At this point, I began to cry uncontrollably. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she and many others had to go through; that sadness reached my heart. She had to go through something that no one should ever have to experience—an unfair death of a loved one. After I retreated to the restroom to attempt to gain control over my emotions, a woman, whom I have never met before, gave me a hug and I lost control again. She gave me a pat on the back and told me, “I know, it’s hard to listen to these stories. It’s so hard.” How could someone that I’ve never met before be so comforting and supportive? I believe that, in that moment, I experienced a piece of New Yorkers’ caring and supportive nature. When they’re faced with tragedy, they bond together and help in any way that they can. When I was in a time of need, this woman helped me—sure, it wasn’t a big sign, it was just a simple hug to let me know that she was there. This is what people did every day after Sept. 11, 2001. New York, the nation and the world came together to help, big or small. New Yorkers and all of those affected by the attacks are some of the strongest people that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. This is in memory of all of the victims of the attacks and all of the service men and women that were lost that day. You will never be forgotten.

In the past, funding has helped support key tasks of the Communities:

• To defray the cost of off-campus learning activities, such as the class criminal justice students take through the Inside-Out Program with inmates in the Allegheny County Jail.

• To coordinate student participation with our Center for Community Engaged Teaching and Learning in community based projects.

“My experience with the McAnulty College

of Liberal Arts Learning Communities

established the foundation for my

education, and more broadly for how I

view the world. My sense of responsibility

to others was instilled in me through

the service learning component of the

communities. The central themes of

Judicium (my learning community) stuck

with me throughout my education and I

still carry them with me in my everyday life.

To discuss concepts in my courses and

subsequently help implement them in the

real world through service to others was

a totally comprehensive and immersive

way of learning, and it was instrumental in

defining who I am as a person today.”

–Neal Caldwell (A’13)

Our specific program is unique among Universities offering first-year student experiences. Our Learning Communities’ students report high levels of satisfaction with the program. Through the dedication and direction of Stoddard, the Learning Communities have become a powerful tool in attracting and retaining first-year students to both Duquesne and the McAnulty College.

In order to continue to grow this program crucial for our first-year students, we need the help of College alumni like YOU. Through the generosity of Dr. Stoddard himself and the family of an alum, we have created the G. Evan Stoddard Learning Community Resource Fund.

Please join Dr. Stoddard and your fellow alumni by making a donation to the Fund today. To make your gift, please go to duq.edu/make-a-gift and click “Give Now.”


22 • M c A N U LT Y C O L L E G E | P R A X I S

www.duq.edu/liberalarts

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praxis - duquesne university · 2016-07-14 · praxis message from the deanin 2015, we witnessed...

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