tuft alma matters winter 2011

M AG A ZINE FO R GR A D UAT E A LU MNI O F A R T S A ND S C IEN C E S A ND EN G INEERIN G WINTER 2011 VOL . 6 NO. 2

ALMA MATTERS

Capturing Life as They Know It

Point of Views

PLUS: BEYOND THE BLACKENED OVAL n TAKEN IN CONTEXT n WATER WORKS

L I F E A F T E R T U F T S

PHOTO: GENARO MOLINA

Christopher Bell, E93, EG95

Christopher Bell, E93, EG95, has the heart of an entrepreneur and the mind of an engineer.

He and his brother, Michael, recently cofounded Zoomergy, LLC, which specializes in building targeted online stores for consumer niche markets such as home fitness equipment.

The classically trained civil and environmental engineer said, “I still consider myself an engineer because of that mental approach to problem-solving. My undergraduate experience at Tufts was really positive. And the two years of graduate school were hugely influential in teaching me how to think.”

Bell completed his master’s degree in water resource engineering working with advisers Professor Richard Vogel and Professor Emeritus Linfield Brown.

“I was learning mathematical techniques and approaches to solving problems with conflicting interests, such as: How do you manage the water level in a dam to protect against floods, but also to provide electricity?”

After graduating, Bell applied his quantitative modeling skills at NASA. He said he quickly realized an academic research career was not for him. He moved on to tech startups in a variety of industries that sought his skills in software development and technology management. Eventually, he founded his own business, his brother at his side.

“One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned as an entrepre-neur is that the business you’re building may be distinct from the idea that drew you in,” said Bell. “If you’re not thinking about the framework and the infrastructure, you’re just creating a different kind of job that’s going to be a bigger hassle.”

But, at some point, Bell said, you have to act, get your product in front of customers, and start to iterate.

“You have to be willing to ignore the risk and go for it, because if you really knew all you have to do, you’d never get started.”

A Time to Think and a Time to Do

On the cover: Discover the secret lives of Tufts graduate students on page 19.Photo by Stuart Darsch

Excerpt from “A Taxonomy of College Students,” created by OnlineTeachingDegree.com.

contents

19

9

departments

2 SETTINGTHESTAGE A M E S S A G E F R O M T H E E D I T O R S

3 QUADANGLE N E W S F R O M A R O U N D C A M P U S

22 ONCAMPUS

features9 BeyondtheBlackenedOval

Can the new assessments help graduate programs improve educational and professional attainments? by Johanna Schlegel

14 TakeninContextWe share an excerpt from Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World. by Samuel R. Sommers, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology

19 PointofViewsStudents share their Tufts experience through photography.

WINTER 2011 VOL . 6 NO. 2

2 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s w i n t e r 2 0 11

change, as they say, is good.

After much consultation, it was decided that we, the coeditors of Alma Matters, would write the maga zine’s introductory message. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Lynne Pepall and Associate Dean Lewis Edgers of the School of Engineering will be fea tured throughout upcoming issues, sharing their take on a number of different subjects.

While this message is “under new management,” we’ll still use it to introduce some of the articles in each issue. For example, our cover story, “Point of Views” (page 19), is a photo retrospective of graduate student life. The images—all taken by graduate students or alumni for the annual Graduate Student Life Photo Contest—capture points of view ranging from a graduate student’s very busy night in the library to a student’s unique use of pantyhose in her research. The photographs, like our students, are engaging, diverse, and always interesting.

We also ask what recent changes to the GRE may mean for graduate admissions (“Beyond the Blackened Oval,” page 9); peer into the lives of graduate alumni who are making their marks in Hollywood (“Hitting the Big Time,” page 3); and give an early glimpse at a book by a popular associate professor of psychology on the important role of context in our lives (“Taken in Context,” page 14).

There’s also some exciting news. We are proud to announce the creation of the Alma Matters Editorial Board. The advisory group, whose members are named on the mast-head to the right, comprises graduate alumni who have communications-related experience and/or an interest in enhancing the quality of Alma Matters. Working with us, the board will generate ideas for articles, suggest potential writers, and consider ways to expand readership, including social media strategies. We are very grateful for their help.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue of Alma Matters and, as always, we welcome your comments and questions.

MessagefromtheEditors

S E T T I N G T H E S TA G E

VO L . 6 N O. 2 W IN TER 2011

Editors-in-ChiefRobert Bochnak, G07 Julia C. Keller

Managing EditorRobert Bochnak

Design DirectorTim Blackburn

Original DesignTufts Office of Publications

Contributing WritersRobert BochnakJulia C. KellerJohanna Schlegel

Copyeditor/ProofreaderJohanna Schlegel

Contributing PhotographersStuart Darsch Melody Ko Kelvin Ma Genaro Molina

Editorial BoardHeather Conover, G78 Karen English, G73Ingrid Hoogendoorn, A88, G88 John Kolb, E95, EG99 Catherine Marenghi, J76, G77 Liz Preston, J72, G75 Hugh Roome, A74, G74, F77, FG80, A11P, Tufts Trustee Randi Rotjan, G07

Director of Communications School of Arts and SciencesAnne Fishman

Tufts’ Alma Matters is published twice a year by the Tufts University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering.

We welcome your comments. Correspondence should be sent to: Robert Bochnak, Editor-in-Chief Alma Matters Tufts University Office of Graduate Studies Ballou Hall, Medford, MA 02155Tel: 617.627.5826 Fax: 617.627.3016 Email: [email protected]

We’re online. Please check out the magazine at http://gradstudy.tufts.edu/almamatters.

ALMAMATTERS

robert bochna k, g07coeditor-in- chief

ju li a c . k ellercoeditor-in- chief

Tufts Prints GreenPrinted on 25% postconsumer waste recycled paper. Please recycle.

Mark MorelliAlonso NicholsJD SloanEmily Zilm

Q U A D A N G L E

w i n t e r 2 0 11 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s 3PHOTO: © 2009 FROM SLAP: A SHORT CONVERSATION ABOUT THE STATE OF THINGS. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF GAYLA KRAETSCH HARTSOUGH. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Hugh Long, G10, wasn’t looking for a fight when he walked onto the set of Mark Wahlberg’s The Fighter in 2009. But that’s exactly what he got.

“I was a union extra when they were shooting in Lowell, Massachusetts,” said Long. “While sitting ringside waiting for one of Wahlberg’s scenes to start, I overheard [director] David O. Russell and the fight coordinator saying they needed someone to get into a fight in the stands.”

To Long, them’s fightin’ words.

“I let them know I was a ‘fight guy,’ and the coordinator and I started talk-ing,” said Long, whose experience as a fight choreographer was chronicled in the spring 2010 issue of Alma Matters. “A short time later, they grabbed somebody for me to hit and we coordinated the scene. I suddenly went from being an extra to a day player.”

Although most people endure many rounds before succeeding in film, Hugh Long and the following GSAS and School of Engineering graduate alumni have fearlessly entered the cinematic arena.

HittingtheBigTime

Steve Moysey, EG98 (M.S., engineering management); G01 (interdisciplinary doctorate) DAY JOB: Writer

IN THEATRES SOON: Moysey’s 2007 book, The Road to Balcombe Street: The IRA Reign of Terror in London (Routledge), is being adapted into a film. The script is being written by Ronan Bennett, whose screenwriting credits include Public Enemies and Lucky Break. The film is being produced by London’s Unanimous Entertainment and Los Angeles-based Stylopik.

ONE COOL DUDE: Moysey is former chief technology officer of MooBella, a Taunton, Massachusetts-based company that makes vending machines that serve ice cream on demand.

Gayla Kraetsch Hartsough, G73

(M.Ed., education)

DAY JOB: President, KH Consulting Group

TRIPLE THREAT: Three of Hartsough’s scripts—Blood and Water; The Last Days of the Caterpillar; and Heloise + Abelard—have been optioned. (Editor’s note: a film option is a contract between a potential producer and a writer or third party who owns a screenplay.)

HE’S A LOT NICER IN HARTSOUGH’S MOVIE:

Hartsough’s 2009 short film Slap—which she wrote and produced—costars Clancy Brown, known for playing the brutal prison guard in The Shawshank Redemption and Kurgan, the evil, immortal hunter who pursues Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery in Highlander. Slap is currently touring the United States as part of the America: Now and Here tour.

Hugh Long, G10 (Ph.D., drama)

DAY JOB: Adjunct professor of theatre in the Department of Performing Arts at Eastern Connecticut State University. Long also teaches theatre history, dramatic literature, acting, and stage combat at Tufts, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Northern Essex Community College.

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS…AND ROLES: Last summer, Long worked on a commercial shoot for the Jennie-O Turkey Store; did fight choreography for the online program 617: The Series; and was an extra on Ted, the upcoming film starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis.

BEFORE THEY WERE STARS: Long appeared in nine episodes of the short-lived series Freaks and Geeks. “I hit James Franco with a water balloon, hung out with Jason Segel, and was Seth Rogen’s stand-in for a few episodes,” said Long.

Graduate alumni battle their way to film stardom. by Robert Bochnak

Scene from Gayla Kraetsch Hartsough’s film, Slap: a short conversation about the state of things

Q U A D A N G L E

4 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s w i n t e r 2 0 11 PHOTO: EMILY ZILM

n Psychology GSAS doctoral students Michael Slepian and Priya Mitra and biology graduate student Crista Burke were 3 of only 2,000 graduate students in the United States awarded 2011 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. The three-year award includes a $30,000 annual stipend, cost of education and travel allowances, and access to the TeraGrid supercomputer.

n Aaron Brown, who earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from GSAS in 2011, was awarded an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. The two-year, $130,000 fellowship will support Brown’s continuing research on the classification of basic sets in three-manifolds and his investigation of the structure of the group of measure-preserving diffeomorphisms.

n Konstantinos Tsioris, EG08, was one of four Tufts grad-uate students to receive $10,000 as part of the annual Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge. The awards are bestowed for research involving some of the world’s most urgent challenges, including access to clean water, developing renewable energy, and creating green medical technologies. Tsioris, a biomedi-cal engineering doctoral student, earned the prize for his research into developing a biosensor to detect the highly toxic bacterial compound lipopolysaccharide.

n Corey Shemelya, EG10, an electrical engineering doctoral student, was named an “optics superhero” by Edmund Optics in January 2011. Selected from more than 250 applicants, Shemelya secured third place and a $5,000 grant to support his research on developing optical tools for evaluating materials used in photovol-taic and thermophotovoltaic power generation.

n Urban and environmental policy and planning gradu-ate student Julia Ledewitz was one of only twenty graduate students in the country to receive a fellowship from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. The fellowship comes with a one-year, $15,000 cash award as well as networking and leadership support. The foundation funding will support Ledewitz’s graduate work investigating how to improve the energy use of existing building infrastructure, especially in the context of multibuilding owners, such as campuses and municipalities.

Konstantinos Tsioris (third from left) with fellow Dow Student Challenge award winners

hich is easier to secure: venture capital to start a business, or funding for graduate research? During the 2010–2011 academic year, the following GSAS students and students from the graduate programs in the School of Engineering “closed rounds” with funding sources including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Edmund Optics. W

ResearchFundingFlows toTuftsGraduateStudents

w i n t e r 2 0 11 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s 5PHOTO (TOP): KELVIN MA

here’s a new president at Tufts University this fall, and we’re not talk-ing about President Anthony Monaco. Okuary Osechas, doctoral candidate in electrical and computer engineering, is

the new president of the Graduate Student Council (GSC). He takes up the mantle most recently worn by fellow engineer Joanna Xylas. Xylas, who will take this final year at Tufts to com-plete her dissertation in biomedical engineering, is stepping down from the GSC after three years of service. Under her tenure, the GSC promoted profes-sional development by creating new programs, includ-ing networking receptions, research symposiums, and other workshops. “Many of my greatest learning experiences and memories come from my time on the GSC, inter-acting with students, administrators, and faculty,” said Xylas.

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

has launched a Flickr photostream at http://www.flickr.com/TuftsGSAS.

PHOTOS INCLUDE IMAGES SUBMITTED FOR THE

annual Graduate Student Life Photo Contest; the art of a graduate alumnus whose creations are inspired by his time as a soldier in Iraq; photos from a chemistry graduate student’s trip to Germany (where she visited, among other locales, an active mine); shots taken by a biology graduate student who studies the Northern Saw-whet Owl; and images from the annual Graduate Student Awards ceremony.

QUESTIONS? CONTACT ROBERT BOCHNAK AT

[email protected] or 617.627.5826.

TChangingoftheGuard

Photos, Photos Everywhere

Travel To exTraordinary places wiTh excepTional peopleTravel To exTraordinary places wiTh excepTional people

Visit our website to see the exciting lineup of 2012 destinations!

From South America to Mongolia, from Vietnam to Polynesia, our journeys feature intellectual inquiry with lectures and exploration. There’s a perfect trip for every taste! Contact Usha Sellers, Ed.D., Director, at [email protected] or 617-627-5323 for our brochure or visit our website for itineraries:www.tuftstravellearn.org

From South America to Mongolia, from Vietnam to Polynesia, our journeys feature intellectual inquiry with lectures and exploration. There’s a perfect trip for every taste! Contact Usha Sellers, Ed.D., Director, at [email protected] or 617-627-5323 for our brochure or visit our website for itineraries:www.tuftstravellearn.org

Travel-learn Travel-learn TufTsTufTs

www.tuf ts t rave l learn .orgwww.tuf ts t rave l learn .org

Okuary Osechas and Joanna Xylas

6 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s w i n t e r 2 0 11 PHOTO: JD SLOAN

Q U A D A N G L E PROFESSORSROW2010–2011ACADEMICYEAR

Fred Rothbaum, a professor of child development in the School of Arts and Sciences, died on August 24, 2011, of a heart attack while on vacation in Maine.

An expert in parent–child and family relationships, Professor Rothbaum taught at Tufts since 1979, and was an integral part of the department. He served as director of the graduate program for the past five years and as department chair from 1986 to 1989 and from 2003

to 2006. Professor Rothbaum published more than fifty journal articles and a book on children’s emotional problems. But perhaps the professor will be remembered most for the care and concern he showed his graduate students.

“Fred was one of the kindest, most tolerant, and most respectful people I’ve ever known in my life,” said graduate alumna Nancy Martland, G01.

“He was so respectful of students and their ideas.”

Melissa Orkin, a doctoral student, added, “For me, working with Fred was like no other academic experience. He held his students to very high standards and regularly challenged me to think about topics on a deeper level. Yet he was also wonderfully supportive and had an ability to validate students’ ideas, while also pushing them to produce well conceived, high-quality work.”

A ceremony celebrating Professor Rothbaum’s life was held on September 24, 2011, at Tufts’ Cohen Auditorium.

A R T A N D A R T H I S T O R Y

Adriana Zavala, associate professor, received the 2011 Association of Latin American Art’s Book Award for Becoming Modern, Becoming Tradition: Women, Gender, and Representa-tion in Mexican Art (Pennsylvania State University Press). Assistant Professor Eva Hoffman was a residential fellow at the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College. The department held a public colloquium “Disput-ing the Global: Art History’s Future” in November 2010. Participants included every faculty member—as either a speaker or a respondent—as well as discussants from Harvard, Brown, Boston, and Brandeis universities; Wellesley College; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

B I O L O G Y

Mitch McVey, associate professor, received a five-year, $1 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant which will support his research on how inaccurate repair of DNA double-strand breaks causes genome instability and tumorigen-esis in Drosophila. Anne Madden, a Ph.D. student in Associate Professor Philip T.B. Starks’s lab, received grants from the Sigma Xi International Research Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and the American Philosophical Society.

B I O M E D I C A L

E N G I N E E R I N G

Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto was named a Guggenheim Fellow—the only engineering fellow named in 2011—from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Doctoral candidate Jeff Brown was awarded the Savio L-Y Woo Young Researcher Award. Catherine K. Kuo,

assistant professor, received a young investigator award from the March of Dimes Foundation.

C H E M I C A L A N D

B I O L O G I C A L


Robert and Marcy Haber Endowed Professor in Energy Sustainability Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos

copublished a paper in Science. Nan Yi, a Ph.D. student, received the School of Engineering Award for Outstanding Graduate Researcher and fellow Ph.D. student Matthew Boucher received the Johnson Matthey Student Award from the International Precious Metals Institute; both are members of Professor Flytzani-Stephanopoulos’s lab group. Assistant Professor Matthew Panzer was named the Dr. Gerald R. Gill Professor of the Year. Engineering Overseer Robert Haber, E79, EG80, received the GSAS and School of Engineering Outstanding Service Award.

C H E M I S T R Y

E. Charles H. Sykes, associate professor, was selected as a 2011 Camille Dreyfus Teacher–Scholar; the award is presented annually to a small number of top chemists and chemical engineers. The program supports talented young faculty in the chemical sciences with an unrestricted research grant of $75,000. Professor Krishna Kumar was recognized for excellence in chemical sciences by the Indian Society of Chemists and Biologists. Kumar’s research uses both chemistry and biology to understand and/or control biological processes.

C H I L D D E V E L O P M E N T

John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service Maryanne Wolf was awarded

the International Dyslexia Association’s 2011 Samuel Torrey Orton Award. Wolf is also featured in the film Journey into Dyslexia, which premiered on HBO2 in May 2011. W. George Scarlett, lecturer, and Amy Eva Alberts

Warren, G03, G09, published “Religious and Spiritual Develop-ment Across the Life Span: A Behavioral and Social Science Perspective” in The Handbook of Life-Span Development (John Wiley & Sons, Inc).

C I V I L A N D

E N V I R O N M E N T A L


Professor Steven Chapra was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Allison St. Vincent, doctoral student, was awarded an Environmental Protection Agency STAR Graduate Fellowship and a P.E.O. Scholar Award for her research on ultrafine particles in air pollution. Tufts received a $4.2 million grant to create an interdisciplinary graduate program in water diplomacy (see article on page 22) led by Professor Shafiqul Islam. The department received a $1.6 million National Science Foundation grant to create an Environmental Sustain-ability Laboratory.

C L A S S I C S

The department hosted its annual Miriam S. Balmuth Lectures in collaboration with the family

w i n t e r 2 0 11 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s 7PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS

Anthony P. Monaco

and friends of the late professor. The featured speaker was Christine Kondoleon, the George D. and Margo Behrakis Senior Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Perseus Digital Library project, led by Professor Gregory Crane,

received grants from Google, the National Endowment for the Humanities, NSF, and the Mellon Foundation.

C O M P U T E R S C I E N C E

The department received two Clare Boothe Luce fellowships to support incoming female graduate students in computer science. Senior Lecturer and Research Assistant Professor Ben Hescott

was awarded the IEEE Computer Society’s 2011 Computer Science and Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award. Assistant Professor Sam Guyer received an NSF CAREER award for his research on virtual machines. Doctoral recipients Marc Chiarini, E92, EG93, EG10, and Saket Joshi, EG10, received Computing Innovation postdoctoral fellowships.

D R A M A

The department was ranked the No. 2 program of its kind in the U.S. by the National Research Council. Fletcher Professor of Oratory Laurence Senelick was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; published a translation of Mustn’t Do It! by Johanna Maria Van IJssel de Schepper Becker (Broadway Play Publishing Inc.); and delivered the keynote address at the Art of Theatre: Word, Image and Performance in Nineteenth-Century France and Belgium conference in Belfast, Ireland. The department added two new tenure-track assistant professors, Natalya Baldyga

from Florida State University and Noe Montez from the Cleveland Playhouse and Cleveland State University.

E C O N O M I C S

Professor Gilbert Metcalf was named deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy for the United States Department of the Treasury. He is responsible for developing, coordinating, and executing the Department’s role in the domestic and international environmental and energy agenda of the United States. Associate Professor Marcelo Bianconi

published an article titled, “Transfer Programs Under Alternative Insurance Schemes and Liquidity Constraints” in the Journal of International Trade and Economic Development. Industrial Organiza-tion: Contemporary Theory and Empirical Applications, 4th Edition (Wiley-Blackwell), a book published by Lynne Pepall, professor and GSAS dean; Professor Daniel

Richards; and George Norman, the William and Joyce Cummings Family Chair of Entrepreneurship and Business Economics, was named the top-selling textbook on industrial organization for 2010.

E D U C A T I O N

Associate Professor and Chair Bárbara M. Brizuela and Lecturer Linda Beardsley were part of a team—which included faculty from the School of Arts and Sciences mathematics and physics and astronomy departments—that was awarded a $2.1 million grant through the NSF-funded Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. Lecturer Patty Bode received a grant from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation. Sabina Vaught, assistant professor, published Racism, Public Schooling, and the Entrenchment of White Supremacy: A Critical Race Ethnography (SUNY Press).

E L E C T R I C A L A N D

C O M P U T E R


Tom Vandervelde, assistant professor, won an Air Force Young Investigator Research Program award and an NSF CAREER Award for his research on thermo- photovoltaics and green energy technologies. Professor Karen Panetta (above left) was named a 2011 Woman of Vision by the Anita Borg Institute. Professor Alex Stankovic was named the inaugural Alvin H. Howell Professor in Electrical Engineering. Sam Veeraraghavan, EG10, was named a New Face of Engineering by the National Engineers Week Foundation.


M A N A G E M E N T

The team “Roof for Two”—which aims to develop a combined shield and roof for motorcyclists specifically for Southeast Asian countries that have to deal with monsoon season—won the classic competition in the Tufts Gordon Institute’s annual $100K Business Plan Competition. “Roof for Two” also was named a finalist in this year’s MassChallenge Competition. Professor of the Practice John F. Hodgman was elected to the board of directors of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation. Matthew Toia, a graduate student and software engineer at Raytheon, received the Gordon Institute Outstanding Student Award.

E N G L I S H

Fletcher Professor of English Literature and Chair Lee Edelman delivered presentations at American and Wesleyan universi-ties and the University of California, Irvine. Elizabeth Ammons,

Harriet H. Fay Professor of Literature, published Brave New Words: How Literature Will Save the Planet (University of Iowa Press). Christina Sharpe, associate professor, published Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects (Duke University Press).

F R E N C H

Professor Gérard Gasarian and Zeina Hakim, assistant profes-sor, each had books accepted for publication in 2011. Gasarian’s book is La Poésie et son Double (Hermann Editeurs) and will be published in 2012; Hakim’s forthcoming book, Fictions déjouées. Le récit en trompe-l’oeil au XVIIIe siècle (Droz), will be published this year.

H I S T O R Y

David Ekbladh, assistant professor, won the 2010 Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Award for The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order (Princeton University Press). Benjamin L. Carp, associate professor, was named a “Top Young Historian” by the History News Network of George Mason University, which selects scholars who have made “outstanding contributions to the discipline in their area of research.”

Professor Karen Panetta with students

8 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s w i n t e r 2 0 11 PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS

Q U A D A N G L E PROFESSORSROW

Press). Associate Professor David Locke received the Tufts Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Faculty/Staff Multicultural Service Award. Janet Schmalfeldt, associate professor, published In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music (Oxford University Press).

O C C U P A T I O N A L

T H E R A P Y

Professor Sharan L. Schwartzberg received the 2011 Massachusetts Occupational Therapy Association’s Catherine Trombly Award, which honors individuals who have contributed to occupational therapy practice and have demonstrated excellence in areas including education, research, administra-tion, and service. Jane Koomar, professor of practice, received the 2011 A. Jean Ayres Award from the American Occupational Therapy Association for her contributions to pediatric research and occupational therapy practice. The department maintained its position as one of the top five programs as ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

P H I L O S O P H Y

Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy Ray S. Jackendoff

(above) received the Distinguished Scholar Award in Arts and Sciences from the Tufts Faculty Research Awards Committee. The department hired Dilip Ninan,

Carp’s book on the Boston Tea Party—an excerpt can be found in our spring 2011 issue—also received an award from the American Revolution Round Table of New York for Best Book on the Era of the American Revolution.

M A T H E M A T I C S

Professor Zbigniew H. Nitecki

was appointed to a two-year term as associate treasurer of the American Mathematical Society. Professor Loring Tu published the second edition of his book, An Introduction to Manifolds (Springer). Bruce M. Boghosian, professor, became the third president of the American University of Armenia in Septem-ber 2010. Boghosian plans to return to Tufts once his appoint-ment is over. Professor and Chair Boris Hasselblatt received the Graduate Student Council’s Outstanding Faculty Contribution to Graduate Studies award during the annual Graduate Student Awards in April 2011.

M E C H A N I C A L


Associate Provost and Professor Vincent Manno received the 2011 Seymour Simches Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising. In fall 2011, Professor Manno became the provost and dean of faculty at the Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. Researchers led by Associate Professor Caroline Cao developed endoscopic fiber optic shape tracker (EFOST) technology to reduce patient discomfort while ensuring the accuracy of a colonoscopy exam.

M U S I C

Richard Jankowsky, assistant professor, published Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (University of Chicago

who specializes in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and metaphysics; Ninan will become an assistant professor in January 2012.

P H Y S I C S

Professor Kenneth R. Lang

published the second edition of The Cambridge Guide to the Solar System (Cambridge University Press). The updated edition includes discoveries from twelve recent solar system missions and hundreds of new images. Research Associate Professor Ken Olum earned second place (illustration division) in the Visualizing Research @ Tufts competition; Olum’s winning illustration showed the shape of a cosmic string taken from a simulation at a particular moment in time.

P S Y C H O L O G Y

Professor Phillip J. Holcomb received a Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) award from the NIH. The award seeks to “provide productive investigators with a history of exceptional talent, imagination, and with a record of preeminent scientific achievements the opportunity to continue making fundamental contributions of lasting scientific value.” Professor Joseph DeBold was honored with the Tufts Lillian and Joseph Leibner Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising. Professor and Chair

Robert Cook coauthored an article titled, “Temporal control of internal states in pigeons,” which appeared in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Professor Robin Kanarek was named interim dean of the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Graduate student Patricia Allen was named the recipient of the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award.

S T U D I O A R T

Artwork of full-time faculty member Mark Cooper was included in “Polaroid [Im]possible,” a group exhibition at the Westlicht Museum in Vienna, Austria. L’Impero Invertito, a multimedia installation by full-time faculty member Abigail Child, premiered at the American Academy in Rome. Andrea Wenglowskyj, G07, received a 2010–2011 Fulbright scholarship to develop an online archive of the contemporary arts scene in Ukraine.

U R B A N A N D

E N V I R O N M E N T A L

P O L I C Y A N D P L A N N I N G

Justin Hollander, A96, assistant professor, published Sunburnt Cities: The Great Recession, Depopulation and Urban Planning in the American Sunbelt (Routledge). Professor Sheldon Krimsky’s 2010 book, Genetic Justice: DNA Data Banks, Criminal Investigations, and Civil Liberties (Columbia University Press), which he coauthored with Tania Simoncelli, was awarded a gold medal during the annual Independent Publishers Awards. Associate Professor Francine Jacobs coedited Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.); the book was published in October 2011.

Professor Ray S. Jackendoff

w i n t e r 2 0 11 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s 9

The instruction once caused dispropor-tionate anxiety: “Please blacken each oval completely using a No. 2 pencil.” Test scores once carried a foreboding weight in admis-sions decisions ; and exams themselves posed challenges unrelated to the ability to excel in school. A prospective student’s chances of being admitted to a top-choice program could be put in jeopardy by mis-haps ranging from a hard-to-find testing center with poor signage to an accidentally skipped row of ovals.

Standardized tests draw both applause for providing some meaningful basis for comparison across disparate populations; and criticism for alleged biases in test design and administration. And although graduate education is arguably more fre-quently related to career planning than is undergraduate education, one legacy of No Child Left Behind is greater scrutiny of aca-demic and professional attainments across the board (see sidebar on page 12: Dean of Admissions and Enrollment Management for Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Lee Coffin on standardized testing). Specifically, in both undergraduate and graduate educa-tion, faculty and administrators have been held increasingly accountable for measur-ing student achievement and tracking stu-dent outcomes. A focus on results where the responsibility lies with the institution sug-gests logically that institutions would want to find even more accurate ways to predict success prior to admittance.

To their credit, testing bodies such as Princeton, New Jersey-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) have committed themselves to continuous improvement over the years—providing accommodations for examinees who need them, performing rou-tine validity testing, reworking or eliminat-ing problematic questions, even modifying rating scales and test formats.

In August 2011, ETS introduced the GRE® revised General Test, promoted as “one test for graduate and business school…featuring the new test-taker–friendly design and new questions” that “more closely reflect the kind of thinking you’ll do in graduate or busi-ness school and demonstrate that you are ready for graduate-level work.”

Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Lynne Pepall, who joined the GRE board in January of this year, said, “Now test-takers can go backward to previ-ous questions; before, you could only go for-ward. This change makes people less anxious.

“I was also impressed by how the test designers are interested in capturing infor-mation useful for both the student and the school. In the verbal portion, for example, the analogy questions have been eliminated. Graduate schools are instead looking for the comprehension skills students need.

“The test has also been given a new scale. Scores will range from 40 to 130 instead of 200 to 800. With only a seventy-point difference between the lowest and highest scores, reviewers will interpret results differ-ently; they’ll want to look at percentiles.”

In addition to these changes, the on-line version of the revised GRE also lets test-takers “tag” questions to revisit later. The quantitative reasoning section provides

Can the new assessments help graduate programs improve educational and professional attainments?

Beyond the Blackened Oval

an on-screen calculator. Although the ubiq-uitous machine-readable circles remain, some questions allow for answers in dif-ferent formats, such as numeric entry and highlighted sentences.

The paper-based GRE no longer features a separate answer sheet (making it harder to skip a line accidentally). ETS also provides test-takers with calculators, the only ones permitted.

Further, Dean Pepall said, “ETS is mak-ing test preparation widely and freely acces-sible. The more you understand the nature of the tests and practice them, the more com-fortable you are. They’re also pushing more subject tests to give a better idea of the cur-ricula with which applicants are familiar.”

Even though some graduate programs no longer require the GRE, the consensus remains that standardized tests play at least a supporting role in admissions—what Lewis Edgers, associate dean of the School of Engineering, cal ls a “second-order indicator”—to corroborate other data in the application: the school, the academic record, and letters of recommendation.

The observation holds for professional programs, too. Laurie Hurley, director of admissions and financial aid at The Fletcher School, concurs that the GRE score is sub-ordinate to other application materials. “We discuss test scores in the context of each individual and don’t use a cutoff. Our applicants come from so many countries and educational backgrounds that we must look at the big picture and all the pieces. Nevertheless, the GRE is a helpful tool to make sure students can learn what we teach and be successful.”

Blackening the Oval Checking your Work

by Johanna Schlegel


In addition to revising the GRE General Test, ETS is hoping to improve the effective-ness of input from evaluators with a new, noncognitive assessment called the Personal Potential Index, or PPI.

Introduced in July 2009, with roots in per-sonality psychology and labor economics, the PPI, according to ETS, “provides stan-dardized information based on evaluators’ responses to a common set of structured questions about six key personal attributes. The ETS PPI Evaluation Report can incor-porate ratings from a number of evaluators rather than just one, adding to the reliability of the report.”

The School of Engineering (SOE) already calibrates references using its own system, according to Associate Dean Edgers. To con-trol for rater bias, he said, the engineering admissions team looks at “the applicant’s experience record, then the reference letters. The home institutions of the applicant and the reference letter writers are very impor-tant. A well crafted, thoughtful recommen-dation is very important.”

At Fletcher, Hurley’s team manages potential bias in references by requiring both academic and professional letters of recommendation.

Still, said Dean Pepall, letters of recom-mendation are replete with praise and no small measure of exaggeration. “So many applicants are said to be in the top 10 percent. The PPI is designed to get recommenders to focus on specific things. This will be espe-cially useful in considering applicants to professional master’s programs—those who aren’t pursuing research-based careers.”

“There is a subjective quality to letters that is difficult to control,” said Pat Kyllonen, senior research director at ETS. “The good news is that evidence so far suggests that the PPI is measuring areas of importance that are not well reflected in standardized tests.”

The concept seems sound, according to Hurley. “Good, informative recommenda-tions already address personal attributes, but some letters are much more general than

others. From that perspective, this appears to be a helpful tool.”

Evaluators provide an overall evaluation and rate applicants on the six traits, each with four associated probing statements. Results are compiled, summarized, and aggregated in the report. The six traits and probing state-ments are as follows (source: ETS).

o Knowledge and creativity. Has a broad perspective on the field; is among the brightest persons I know; produces novel ideas; is intensely curious about the field.

o Communication skills. Speaks in a clear, organized, and logical manner; writes with precision and style; speaks in a way that is interesting; organizes writ-ing well.

Shading the Contours: (the Personal Potential Index)

123 Main Street 24 Second Street Princeton, NJ [email protected]

Institution Code: 1837Institution Name: UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY Department Code: 1200Department Name: ENGLISH

RECIPIENT:

Date of Birth (MM/DD/YYYY): 11/19/1988Gender: FemaleSocial Security Number (Last 4 digits): 0000 Waived rights to inspect under FERPA: YESReport Date (MM/DD/YYYY): 01/02/2010Report ID: 1234567

EvaluatorsAnne Barnes

Associate Professor of English Evaluation Date: 01/15/2010Carlisle State University (MM/DD/YYYY)2854 East West DriveSecond Address Line Phone: (123)123-4567Carlisle, PA 1234567890USA Email: [email protected] Has known applicant 25 - 48 months as Instructor, Department Chair, Academic Supervisor, Research Supervisor, Committee Member, Employer/Supervisor and Person of Importance.

Dennis Edwards


Robert M. Gauthier


Francis Gomez


Linda Hyungen


1 of 5

King, Patricia S.Last (Family/Surname) Name, First (Given) Name Middle Initial.

ETS Security GuardSee back for details

ETS Personal Potential IndexEvaluation Report Department Copy

® ®

Overall Evaluation

Teamwork

Knowledge and Creativity

Planning and Organization

4.0

3.8

4.1

3.4

Below Average Above Outstanding Truly ExceptionalAverage Average (Top 5%) (Top1%)

1 2 3 4 5

*See back of page 1 for interpretive information. “NA” indicates there are no evaluations for this category.

Resilience 3.5

Ethics and Integrity 4.2

Evaluation Category

Mean Rating*

3.7Communication Skills

Sample

o Teamwork. Supports the efforts of others; behaves in an open and friendly manner; works well in group settings; gives criticism/feedback to others in a helpful way.

o Resilience. Accepts feedback without getting defensive; works well under stress; can overcome challenges and setbacks; works extremely hard.

o Planning and organization. Sets real-istic goals; organizes work and time effectively; meets deadlines; makes plans and sticks to them.

o Ethics and integrity. Is among the most honest people I know; maintains high ethical standards; is worthy of trust from others; demonstrates sincerity.

“These are wonderful measures,” said SOE’s Associate Dean Edgers. “The first parameter, knowledge and creativity, is extremely important. Resilience matters, of

Figure 1: Excerpt from a Sample ETS Personal Potential Index

Source for Figure 1: Educational Testing Service


course, in a four- or five-year program. We are very interested in people’s English com-munication skills—oral communication, writing, communicating with teammates, preparing research papers—though each is required to different degrees in differ-ent contexts. Our engineers have a breadth and worldliness that includes strong man-agement and leadership skills, which relate to planning, organization, and teamwork. And matters of ethics and integrity are very important.”

At Fletcher, Hurley said, “We look for good writers and public speakers; people who can communicate quickly, for example in crafting one-page policy papers.

“In students who do well here we also see a level of passion and commitment,” Hurley continued. “Do they know where they’re going? What do they hope to get out of here?” [resilience; planning and organi-zation]. “That’s bolstered by an entrepre-neurial spirit that can take them far—the ability to take risks, think big, try different things” [creativity]. “Also, because of our focus on international relations, we look for empathy, the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes” [teamwork; ethics and integrity].

Kyllonen of ETS proposes that the PPI can also help graduate programs build a more diverse class. “The difference in aver-age scores between racial/ethnic groups in the United States is lower for the PPI than for other standardized test scores. That means that using the PPI in admissions will not only result in a more qualified cohort, but also in a more diverse cohort.”

To help ensure widespread adoption of the PPI, ETS conducts ongoing validity test-ing and makes modifications based on the results. Also, according to Dawn Piacentino, director of communications and client ser-vices for the GRE Program, ETS shares information about the ETS PPI at confer-ences and campus visits in addition to its public relations outreach.

The first four reports are free to appli-cants who also take the GRE revised General Test, which is important to Fletcher. Hurley said, “We’re trying to keep the cost of apply-ing down for our prospective students.” Otherwise, reports are $20 each. (See excerpt from a sample PPI report in Figure 1.)

Substantiating your Work

While working well in teams is arguably a much better marker of a future graduate student than dexterity with a No. 2 pen-cil (fine arts notwithstanding), it begs the question: How are academic achievement and degree completion related to attain-ments after graduation? Does it depend on the type of program (academic versus pro-fessional)? On whether the student hopes to pursue the tenure track? On the field of study?

Kyllonen of ETS said, “There is some evidence that working well with others, or social abilities, may be particularly impor-tant in certain domains (e.g., social work, teaching),” but she also said it will be one or two years before ETS can report on any differences between academic and applied professional programs.

“Given the dearth of tenure-track openings,” said SOE’s Associate Dean Edgers, “these characteristics seem important, certainly for an academic career. They relate to teaching and classroom abilities; all engi-neers are working increasingly in teams; and getting sponsored research requires the ability to identify important societal needs

and develop creative solutions to address those needs.”

Fortunately, the field of human capital management, which is rife with general frameworks on the subject, may provide clues as to how excellence in graduate study, teaching assistantships, and postsec-ondary instruction are related. Figure 2 compares the ETS PPI with existing compe-tency profiles for a teaching assistant (TA) and a professor (developed by Robert W. Eichinger and Michael M. Lombardo) as part of one such framework from the firm Lominger Limited, Inc. (The full profiles, available online, include exposition of each competency.) Similar competencies have been grouped to show the progression and occasional gaps.

Given the different levels of respon-sibility, the profiles for teaching assistant and professor appear to map fairly closely to the PPI categories, with a few excep-tions. For added insight, we turned to a competency expert who is also developing educator competencies and who has wide-spread experience in higher education. Dr. Stephen C. Schoonover, M.D., founder

ETS Personal Education Success Profile: Education Success Profile: Potential Index Teaching Assistant College/University Professor

Knowledge and Creativity Functional/Technical Skills Creativity

Intellectual Acumen Intellectual Acumen

Communication Skills Presentation Skills Presentation Skills

Written Communications

Teamwork Interpersonal Skills Interpersonal Skills

Listening Listening

Motivating Others Motivating Others

Compassion

Developing Others

Valuing Diversity

Resilience Personal Learning and Development

Planning and Organization Time Management Time Management

Ethics and Integrity Integrity and Trust Integrity and Trust

Figure 2: How the ETS PPI Relates to Education Success Profiles for Teaching Assistant and College/University Professor

ETS PPI TA Professor

Source: ETS PPI; excerpts from education success profiles. Copyright © 1992, 1996, 2001–2003 by Robert W. Eichinger and Michael M. Lombardo.


Possible Headings:

Cultivating Talent

Bolstering Your Claim

Completing Your Responses

All of the Above

Corroborating Evidence

It has often been said of highly competitive academic institutions that “the hard part is getting in” (see graphic, “Means-to-an-Ender,” in the table of contents). But researchers and academic leaders might claim instead that the hard part is applying yourself once you’re there.

According to ETS’s Kyllonen, “There are now suggestions that some of the same attributes that are strong predictors of suc-cess in college and graduate school are also predictive of success in the workplace. A pri-mary predictor is one’s ability to work hard. Working well with others is another impor-tant predictor.”

Let us not forget the graduate school or program itself. Dr. Schoonover’s model for excellence in education distinguishes among the competencies for which you “hire and select,” those you “grow and learn through guided experiences over time,” and those you “master through formal instruc-tion and certification.” After the admissions team has taken care of “hire and select,” there remains the all-important work of providing “guided experiences” and “for-mal instruction and certification.”

Put in simpler terms, “An engineer-ing student’s development depends on the mentoring he or she receives while at Tufts,” said Associate Dean Edgers (see related story on mentoring in the spring 2010 issue). Cultivating students’ talents and

We asked Lee Coffin, dean of admissions

and enrollment management for Arts,

Sciences, and Engineering, about the

role of standardized test scores in Tufts

undergraduate admissions.

Q. What do standardized tests do best and what are their limitations?A. Standardized testing continues to have a valuable role in a holistic and highly competitive undergraduate admissions process like the one at Tufts. Certainly, testing has its critics, and many factors complicate our interpretation of the results, but a standardized element is a meaningful supporting component to our evaluation process. The SAT-2 subject tests, in particular, are very useful tools to gauge academic achievement against the wide array of grading scales secondary schools use. Advanced Placement scores are similarly valuable.

Q. What personal traits are you looking for in prospective undergraduate students? Where and how are those traits usually expressed?A. We look for intellectual curiosity and engagement, leadership, well-roundedness, passion, citizenship, analytical reasoning, creativity, good judgment, generosity, kindness, affability, teamwork, collaboration, courage, and character. Simply put, we look for “good kids,” and we find evidence in every element of the application: essays, recommendations, interviews, extracurricular activities.

Q. Do you see a correlation between high test scores and success in school? Between high test scores and success in a career?A. At the undergraduate level, testing predicts first-year performance in the undergraduate curriculum, and we do see a correlation between testing and the first-year GPA. Again, the SAT-2 subject tests are very predictive. (Editor’s note: the College Board says students who achieve a benchmark score of 1500 across all three sections of the SAT have a 65 percent chance of earning at least a B- average during the first year of college.)

and president of the talent management consultancy Schoonover Associates, LLC, said, “I believe ‘conceptual integration’ and ‘strategic thinking’ are extra competencies required for higher-level academic roles in addition to ‘continuous learning’, which captures the requirement for TAs.” Further, he argued, “the actual coaching relationship and conversation skills are underempha-sized.” To the “planning and organization” category, Dr. Schoonover said he would add

“‘observation and assessment’, ‘problem solving’, ‘program management’, and ‘mea-surement skills’.” He also said he would place more emphasis on interpersonal skills and self-reflection/self-improvement.

On the whole, though, the attributes measured by the PPI seem to apply not only to graduate study, but also to academic careers—a conclusion ETS has drawn from its own research, according to Kyllonen.

professionalism is indeed part of the mutual “hard work” of seeing a degree through to completion.

The Fletcher School takes career prepa-ration very seriously, said Hurley. “We offer a full professional development program; all students complete a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (often abbreviated MBTI) at the outset; and the career office keeps track of what employers are looking for, which could vary from sector to sector.”

“Beyond our efforts,” said Associate Dean Edgers, “a lot depends on the per-son’s interests and plans. Some students are clearly directed toward Ph.D. study, academic careers, and research; others are looking for a very practice-based master’s degree and enter into engineering-based practice.”

That’s good, because there just aren’t a lot of teaching jobs in higher education.

In 2008, the last year for which data is available, students enrolled in graduate programs outnumbered all postsecondary teachers (1.75 million versus 1.7 million). Moreover, the number of graduate teach-ing assistants was less than 10 percent of the number of graduate students. Projected growth in the sector is an anemic 15 percent over ten years. (Sources: 2008 CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.)


Maximizing the ScoresCorroborating Evidence

So, what difference can a new standard-ized test make in the vitality of graduate education in the United States? Why should it matter to a prospective student (or the stu-dent’s parents) whether a rating scale goes from 40 to 130 or from here to eternity—or why resilience is as important as knowledge?

For graduate schools, “There are strong reasons to believe the PPI will increase ROI (return on investment) when measured in various ways, such as grades, time to com-plete graduate school, and other outcomes,” said Pat Kyllonen of ETS. “A particularly important outcome is persistence to degree. There is evidence that personal attributes are better than cognitive test scores in pre-dicting persistence in various training pro-grams, and we think this will carry over to graduate school.”

GSAS’s Dean Pepall explained the urgency of improving such attainments. “The dean of the University of Florida, which now requires the PPI, has said they are starting to analyze attrition rates and compute the dollar value of a student not finishing. A university cannot allow this level of invest-ment and dollar expenditure on a matricu-lation that doesn’t result in a degree.”

The student’s own investment includes the out-of-pocket costs of the degree, fin-ished or not (likely including loan repay-ments and interest); the incremental cost of delaying degree completion; the diminished value of an education curtailed (reduced earning potential summed over a career); and the opportunity costs of not investing the time in some other endeavor.

Moreover, the academy has been quite focused on learning assessments and fac-ulty accountability of late, in part because it is good pedagogic practice to do so and in part because these measures have become increasingly linked to accreditation standards.

But according to Associate Dean Edgers, “Assessing attainments beyond graduation is a wide-open field. How well do gradu-ates do when they leave school? Do they

achieve their educational objectives? These outcomes are very difficult to measure and it’s hard to get data, although we try. We know that for at least the first five years, a very large percentage of graduates of SOE go into careers in engineering, whether in academia, industry, public service, or else-where. Beyond that, it’s hard to measure their accomplishments. We ask alumni about attainments; we also survey employ-ers. But we’re just beginning to develop databases and strategies that could connect standardized tests before admission with outcomes afterward.”

The high stakes may explain Dean Pepall’s commitment to serving on the GRE board and applying lessons learned at ETS to the GSAS and the larger university. Although GSAS does not yet require the PPI, Dean Pepall has invited representatives to speak with the admissions committee.

“For this university,” she said, “particu-larly in international markets; particularly in professional master’s programs such as occupational therapy that admit very few students—it’s costly to make a wrong admissions decision, so let’s get it right. That’s why we want to help our admissions committees understand as clearly as pos-sible whether a person’s a good match.” AM

Johanna Schlegel is a freelance writer and marketing consultant in greater Boston. She has a professional affiliation with Schoonover Associates.

Q. Do you see “testing fatigue”? How do you level the playing field for kids who aren’t experienced test-takers?A. Today’s high-achieving high school students generally test well, and test prep certainly enhances that performance. We

“level the playing field” by assessing a student in context. In other words, we adjust our interpretation of the scores based on local factors. “Big scores” in a test-savvy suburban environment, for example, are not as revealing as low scores in that same context and “low scores” (relative to our means) from a more disadvantaged background are interpreted against the local norms. For example, a student who tests 100 or more points above a local mean has submitted “successful” testing even if that score is below the Tufts mean.

Q. What other observations do you have about the role of assessment in predicting success in and beyond higher education?A. Undergraduate applicants submit many types of credentials, quantitative as well as qualitative, that the admissions committee assesses. At Tufts, a substantial majority of undergraduate applicants are “qualified” for admission based on the data they submit, and that data reliably predicts

“success” in our undergraduate curriculum. However, the more subjective assessment of a student’s voice and drive enhances that statistical assessment. Data and voice complement each other as we render decisions. AM

Dean Lee Coffin

PHOTO: MELODY KO


Math is Hard

Taken in ContextArts and sciences psychologist

favors “nurture” over “nature”

in debut title.

Excerpt from Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World by Associate Professor Samuel R. Sommers, Department of Psychology

It ’s inescapable : women are vast ly underrepresented in the fields of science, engineering, and mathematics. In January 2005 the National Bureau of Economic Research held a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, devoted to exploring this disparity. One of the headlining speak-ers was Larry Summers, then president of Harvard University.

In a lunchtime talk, Summers focused on the gender gap in science and engineer-ing positions at elite universities, evaluating three possible explanations. The first, as he referred to it, was the “high-powered job” hypothesis, the idea that women are less likely to consent to the schedule and family sacrifices necessary to attain such a position. Second, he discussed the possibility of gen-der differences in innate math and science

ability. Third, he addressed societal consid-erations, such as socialization pressures that steer boys and girls toward different disci-plines, and the potential for discrimination in hiring and promotion decisions.

Within two months, prompted in large part by this very talk, the Harvard faculty passed a motion of “no confidence” in the leadership of their president. By the follow-ing winter, Summers had resigned.

What was so incendiary about his remarks? After all, Summers just articu-lated, in his own words, “three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities that this conference’s papers document.” And he was anything but dismissive of the problem—to the contrary, he ended his talk by stating that “I think we all need to be thinking very hard about how

to do better on these issues.” So why the controversy?

Summers ran into trouble because he did more than present three hypotheses worthy of exploration. He also ranked these expla-nations in terms of how he saw their relative importance. There would have been no con-troversy had he stopped after the suggestion that the relative dearth of female scientists and mathematicians could be attributable to 1) family-related pressures or 2) inborn differences in aptitude or 3) societal expec-tations. But he continued as follows: “In my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described.”

It’s easy to see why so many at Harvard were distressed by their president’s belief that innate ability plays a greater role in the underrepresentation of females than


societal or institutional factors. After all, he’s the guy who signed off on faculty per-formance reviews and pay raises, and here he was endorsing a view of the gender gap as largely biological and inevitable. Even before he gave this talk, many faculty mem-bers already had questions about Summers’s commitment to gender equity: during his administration, tenured job offers to women at Harvard had dropped dramatically, to the point where only four out of thirty-two new hires the previous year were female. So while some outsiders and media pundits decried Summers’s ouster and celebrated him as a victim of the overzealous speech police, it’s easy to appreciate the concerns held by those who were working under his immedi-ate supervision.

But even from across town and outside his jurisdiction, I found Summers’s com-ments disquieting. Living in Boston in the aftermath of the controversy, I felt the need to bestow upon him a parenthetical middle name anytime casual conversation veered in his direction—as in, Larry (No Relation) Summers. This desire to distance myself from his comments ref lected not political considerations but rather more scientific concerns. You see, beyond being contro-versial, Summers’s conclusions were also flat-out wrong. And twice over, at that.

Take a closer look at one brief passage from Summers’s remarks: In arguing his position, he claimed that “the human mind has a tendency to grab [on] to the socializa-tion hypothesis when you can see it. And it often turns out not to be true.”

Really?Let’s take these assertions one at a

time. First, the argument that the human mind tends to grab on to the socialization hypotheses. This was an off-the-cuff remark for which Summers offered no real sup-porting evidence. And it flies in the face of everything you’ve now learned in this book regarding our tendency to look right past the power of situations.

Just think about it: When the mom at the playground tries to excuse her son’s rambunctiousness, does she latch onto the socialization hypothesis, suggesting that he’s only acting this way because this is what society expects of boys? Of course not—she shrugs her shoulders and says something

along the lines of, “Well, you know how it is with boys.”

In analyzing the actions of the cheat-ing husband—be he politician, athlete, or next-door neighbor—do we veer toward the socialization account, arguing that society is simply more tolerant of such bad behavior from men versus women, thereby reinforc-ing the male tendency for infidelity? No, our first move is in the opposite direction, toward debate about whether monogamy runs contrary to the way that men are natu-rally wired.

And when the best-selling author pitches his manifesto on the psychology of gender differences, does he title it “Men Are Taught to Act Like Martians, Women Learn to be Venusian”? Clearly, no. He opts for the quintessentially nature (as opposed to nur-ture) thesis, that men and women might as well be beings from different planets.

Despite Summers’s claim, we don’t gravi-tate toward the socialization hypothesis—quite the contrary. Our knee-jerk reaction to gender disparity is to offer internal, innate, and immutable explanations. Often, it’s only the concern of appearing sexist—our deference to political correctness—that leads us to claim otherwise in public. Larry Summers had it backward.

Admittedly, though, it’s the second half of Summers’s quoted statement that’s the more important part. So what to make of this claim, the idea that the socialization hypothesis “often turns out not to be true”? If Summers was right, it would lend empiri-cal heft to the argument that he was unfairly pilloried for his remarks. To the extent that gender differences in domains such as sci-ence and math are consistent across situ-ations—that is, resistant to variations in context and expectation—his conference comments, while still controversial, would at least carry the stamp of research support.

Unfortunately for Summers, the data aren’t kind to him on this count, either. But don’t feel too bad for Not-My-Uncle Larry—I’m sure he’ll land on his feet somewhere. You know, like director of economic policy at the Obama White House, for starters.

MORE... .

Psych

Samuel R. Sommers, associate professor of psychology and author of this issue’s excerpt, starts the first day of his social psychology class with a bang. “I tell my students it’s going to be the best class they will take in college,” he said. “By ‘best,’ I mean the most interesting and the most applicable to their daily lives.” Sommers isn’t kidding. The class provides an opportunity (as does his new book and Psychology Today blog) for students to under-stand the social factors present in everything from a doctor’s visit to a first date. “Students keep a journal, and every week they write a brief paragraph about something that happened to them,” said Sommers. “Then they analyze the entry in light of the psychological findings and theories we have discussed.” Sommers’s blog is an extension of the journal assignment. Several times a month, he explores the social psychological underpinnings of an event or concept. Sommers has written about Osama bin Laden and the psychology of closure; the dark side of being beautiful; the Women’s World Cup and its relationship to raising daugh-ters (Sommers has two); and a congressman’s, er, inappropriate use of Twitter and how we never really know who a public figure is. “What’s interesting to me is that social psychol-ogy is the science of everyday life, everyday so-cial interaction,” said Sommers, whose primary research focuses on race and how people act in diverse versus nondiverse settings. “I hope the blog and book help readers understand what is going on around them and empower them to apply what they have learned.” AM

PHOTO: MARK MORELLI


at all. The average scores for these men and women were nearly identical.

It’s a pretty amazing finding. All the stu-dents took exactly the same math test. Under normal circumstances, the average man outperformed the average woman, a dispar-ity consistent with the idea of entrenched, even inborn differences in math ability. But tell students that the test was engineered to be “gender-neutral”—you know, no word problems involving football blitzes, testicle care, and the like? Then the sex difference vanished entirely. Just like that.

How a test is described is far from the only situational factor that can eliminate (or exacerbate) the gender gap in math. Asked to solve math problems in mixed company, women don’t perform as well as men, but this underperformance goes away when the test is administered in single-sex groups. Shown a series of ads depicting girls as fixated on boys and shopping, women do poorly on a subsequent math test, yet there’s no gender difference after they watch com-mercials about intelligent and articulate women.

And in a study that sounds eerily like a recurring nightmare I had in junior high, researchers even examined the effects of taking a math test while wearing a bath-ing suit. How, exactly, did they pull this off? Participants were told that the study was about consumer preferences. Led to a private dressing room with a full-length mirror, they were presented with a rack of swimsuits—trunks for men and one-pieces for women—and asked to try on the one closest to their size. Then, much as those who climb Everest must stop every few thousand feet to reacclimate, students were told that they’d have fifteen minutes to get used to the unfamiliar clothes they were now wearing. To pass the time, they could help some researchers in the neighboring department of education by completing an ostensibly unrelated test of mathematical aptitude.

Clad in water-repellent Lycra, men out-performed women on the math test. For the fortunate participants asked to try on and evaluate a sweater instead, the gender dif-ference was far smaller.

What do we learn from these findings? Namely, that the gender disparity in math

isn’t entrenched and unavoidable. It depends on context, perspective, and expectation. It’s actually surprisingly fragile. You can’t put much stock in the notion of inborn, immu-table differences in aptitude when minor tweaks to a test’s instructions—or, for that matter, a nice cardigan—reduces or even wipes out the gender gap.

These very different studies converge a situational conclusion: remind women of the low expectations society holds for them in math and they will, indeed, underperform. Whether in the form of purportedly scientific conclusions regarding the genetic superior-ity of the male brain or a bathing suit that conjures up thoughts of female objectifi-cation, simple reminders of gender-based stereotypes are threatening enough to undermine actual math performance.

Think of how litt le it takes in this research to lead women to worry that they might confirm the expectation that they aren’t cut out for math. Merely having men in the room is enough. In fact, just think-ing about math does the trick: even though women do fine when they’re told a math test is gender-neutral, their default tendency is to assume otherwise. And this message that girls can’t do math is a self-fulfilling one. Recent education research demonstrates that it’s reinforced in the classroom itself, as female elementary school teachers’ own anxieties about math predict increased anxiety and decreased performance among their female students.

The ease with which women can be prompted to think about low math expecta-tions reflects a reality in which the onslaught of gendered messages begins early in life and never really lets up. Remember the notori-ous talking Barbie doll from the early 1990s that cheerfully reminded girls that “Math is hard”? Okay, so the exact quote was actually “Math class is tough,” but same idea. Thanks to movies, TV shows, toys, and more, young girls don’t even have to leave the comfort of home to learn what’s expected of them when it comes to math. The answer is not very much.

Contrary to Larry Summers’s sugges-tion, you can’t explain the gender gap in the sciences and math without considering the major role played by social forces. A predominantly biological account doesn’t

Almost a decade before Summers’s talk, three researchers at the University of Michigan—Steve Spencer, Claude Steele, and Diane Quinn—set out to test just how entrenched the gender difference in math is. Their first study was straightforward: they recruited twenty-eight male and twenty-eight female college students to take a difficult standardized test. These students were all high achievers—to be eligible for the study, they had to have scored in the eighty-fifth percentile or better on their math SAT.

The study’s results were also straight-forward: the men did much better than the women. In fact, the average score for male test takers was more than twice as high as the average for females, a gender differ-ence practically begging for a simple Mars/Venus/Larry Summers explanation.

But the researchers refrained from jumping to conclusions about sex-based differences in math aptitude. Instead, they kept digging. They wondered why such a gender gap would emerge when all these men and women had enjoyed previous success in math. The women in the study spent just as long working on each prob-lem as did the men—why were their scores so much lower? To answer these lingering questions the researchers ran another study that included more than a simple gender comparison. This time, they also varied the context in which the test was taken.

Specifically, half of this new group of men and women again took a math test under normal circumstances. The other half received a different set of instructions that changed the entire context of their experi-ence. Before the test, this second group was told that while some previous research had found evidence of gender differences in math ability, other studies hadn’t. These stu-dents heard that the test they were about to take fell into the latter category—it had been found to avoid any type of gender disparity.

This little change in procedure made a big, big difference.

Students who took the test without addi-tional instructions once again exhibited a gender gap: men’s scores were almost three times higher than women’s. Students who took the test under the impression that it was gender-balanced? No gender difference


square with the data. Not to mention that it never really made sense in the first place why testosterone would draw men to the Pythagorean theorem like some math-ematical version of a monster truck rally. How, exactly, is the Y chromosome sup-posed to help with long division? Sure, over generations and generations, natural selec-tion can lead men and women to evolve in different ways, but why would any of them involve trigonometry?

and female brain to have evened out. Those explanations just don’t cut it.

Arguing that the gender gap in math per formance resu lt s pr imari ly f rom inborn, inescapable differences in apti-tude is more than just politically incorrect. It’s also wrong.

As one last example, consider that in 1983 boys outnumbered girls thirteen to one in the ranks of students scoring 700 or better on the math SAT. Almost thirty years later, that ratio is less than three to one. Two and a half decades is a long time: long enough in the United States for five dif-ferent presidents and a doubling of postage rates. But it’s nowhere close to long enough for evolution to have reversed course or for hard-wired differences between the male

Perhaps you never really bought into the idea of male math superiority. So maybe the fragility of that gender difference doesn’t strike you as particularly surprising or impressive. Well, then, how about the grand-daddy of all gender differences? What about the well-documented conclusion that men are more aggressive than women? Could situational forces really have anything to do with that gender gap?

As cited in the opening of this chapter, scores of studies have found males to be more physically aggressive than females, regardless of age or culture. Moreover, much like science and engineering are fields dis-proportionately dominated by men, so is the act of homicide, both in terms of perpetra-tors and victims. And there are biological explanations for such gender differences: testosterone has been directly linked to aggression in studies involving people as well as animals.

But the nature of this gender difference depends, first and foremost, on how you define “aggression.” When talking in strictly physical terms, males are more aggres-sive than females. However, dictionary

definitions of aggression aren’t limited to physical acts: rather, they describe a more genera l categor y of host i le behav ior intended to cause injury. When you cast this wider net, you find that women are actually as aggressive as men—it’s just that their aggression often looks different.

Child development research has found that starting in early elementary school, boys are more likely to engage in direct forms of aggression like physical domina-tion and verbal assault, while girls more often practice indirect efforts to cause harm. This Mean Girls route to aggression focuses on the manipulation of social rela-tions. Such as, for example, campaigns to convince the group not to be friends with a particular child. Gossip. Or announcing to Mrs. Robbins’s entire fifth-grade class that Sam’s shirt wasn’t “a real polo shirt” because the guy on the horse was holding a flag instead of a mallet.

Damn you, Knights of the Round Table® and your deceptively haute logo!

In strictly physical terms, aggression is more of a male tendency. But defined more socially or relationally, women assume the

Ready to Rumble

lead in this Pyrrhic battle of the sexes. And when you consider “aggression” in more general terms, it becomes difficult to iden-tify a consistent gender difference in either direction.

Even if we stick to the realm of physical aggression, however, the gender gap isn’t as entrenched as we think it is. When behav-ioral scientists study aggressive behavior in a research laboratory—by, for example, giving adults the opportunity to adminis-ter electric shocks or blast another person with loud bursts of white noise through headsets—men regularly emerge as more likely to aggress. This gender difference goes away, though, when participants are first provoked. That is, while women are indeed less likely than men to initiate an aggressive interaction, they tend to be just as physically aggressive in response to insult or direct threat.

Moreover, you’re already familiar with another contextual factor that can elimi-nate gender differences in aggression: direct orders from authority. Milgram’s famous obedience study was also an examination of aggression, as respondents believed that they


were giving painful (and even lethal) shocks to a fellow participant. Though most would have predicted otherwise, Milgram found no evidence of a gender gap in aggressive behavior: women in his study performed no differently than men, administering shocks just as great in number and voltage.

So women are just as physically aggres-sive as men after provocation or in the face of direct orders. And women aren’t lacking in the general drive to aggress—rather, they just tend to channel this impulse in differ-ent, less physical ways than men do. These conclusions don’t jive with the idea of a gen-der difference in aggression based on innate or biological factors. Instead, it seems more like women have many of the same aggres-sive tendencies as men, but they’re com-pelled to keep these feelings at bay most of the time. It’s as if something else causes them to hold back, or at least to aggress in ways that are less overt or easily recognized.

Like those ubiquitous societal norms regarding gender. Women aren’t supposed to be aggressive, but men in a scuffle are just boys being boys. Thus, women often refrain from showing an aggressive side unless they have an obvious excuse for it. Or they try to inflict harm, but in subtler ways.

Is this mere speculation on my part, this indictment of gender norms when it comes to aggression? No, there is clear evi-dence linking gender norms to this appar-ent gender difference. Namely, that when researchers place men and women in a con-text in which gender is unimportant or even unidentifiable, the Mars/Venus difference in aggression disappears.

In one study at Princeton, researchers randomly selected names from a campus directory and invited eighty-four students to the lab in groups of six. Upon arrival, half of each group was directed to sit in front of the room. They wrote their names on large name tags and were asked aloud a series of questions about their personal background and experiences. The researcher explained to these three individuals that their perfor-mance would be monitored closely for the duration of the study.

The other three students stayed in the back of the room throughout this public inquisition. They didn’t answer questions, they didn’t put on name tags, and they were

told that their performance would remain anonymous so as to create a nameless com-parison group for the research. They just sat there and watched quietly.

At this point, all six students were led to a computer room and seated at individual ter-minals. Their next task was to play a strategy game during which they had to both defend their own territory against a bombing assault and attack their opponent’s territory. Each participant played the same game against a computer-controlled opponent, though they thought they were playing against someone else in the room.

How aggressively did students attack their cyber opponents? The front-of-the-room name tag–wearing half exhibited a famil-iar gender difference: women used only twenty-seven bombs per game compared to thirty-one for men. The women played less aggressively.

But a funny thing happened among the anonymous participants. Informed that their individual performance wouldn’t be assessed, confident that no one would know what they had or hadn’t done, everyone was more aggressive. Even more notewor-thy, women were no longer outaggressed by their male compatriots. Liberated from con-cerns about appearance or how they were “supposed” to act, the average female now outbombed the average male, forty-one to thirty-seven.

Sugar and spice and everything nice, sure . . . but not afraid to take the gloves off as long as nobody’s looking. AM

Reprinted from Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World by Samuel R. Sommers with permission of Riverhead Books, a member of The Penguin Group USA, Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Samuel R. Sommers.Available now in stores and at Amazon.com. Samuel R. Sommers is an associate professor of psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. Situations Matter is his first book. Citations were omitted from this excerpt for use in Alma Matters.

Praise for Situations Matter

@NicJohnsonPEC: @samsommers-Hi Sam! I’ve started your new book (SITUATIONS MATTER) and I am loving it-Bravo!!

@samsommers: Another nice blog review for my book: “Witty, fun, and absolutely fascinating...”-http://www.jennyannfraser.com/situations-matter/

@glory_anne: Psychology of Wellbeing blog: A fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s OUTLIERS? You’ll love #SituationsMatter by Sam Sommers. http://bit.ly/pT6vcl

@samsommers: First review for #SituationsMatter: “With a conversational, laid-back tone and a penchant for storytelling...” http://www.publishersweekly.com/

Point of Views

“I took this photo in Costa Rica at about the time I was writing my thesis on climate and shoreline change. I was inspired by the beauty of the beach, but more important I was concerned about how climate change would affect the beauty of the landscape if left unmitigated.”— Donna Au, A07, G11 (economics)

“I was always taught that apart from their usefulness, equations can also be artistic. It’s not easy to capture that on a static photo and make it interesting for people with little or no mathematical background. So I added the human parameter by handwriting the equations. The ring was not part of my original thinking, but since I always wear it I decided to include it. I used the hdr tech-nique—three different exposures—because of the live and artistic result it produces.”— Eleni-Alexandra Kontou physics graduate student

“My research focuses on characterizing the microbes of novel habitats and inves-tigating the relationships among microbes and between microbes and metazoans. In this photo, I’m using pantyhose to handle house flies used in research and housed in an aquarium. The pantyhose decrease the likelihood of escape.”— Anne Madden biology graduate student

“Volunteers at the Massachusetts Audu-bon’s Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary have been monitoring the population of the Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus) for several years. Owls are lured in by playbacks—audio recordings of conspecific owl vocalizations—and captured in mist-nets. After capture, volunteers take the standard morphometric measurements (in this photo, wing length)and then give the birds some jewelry: a silver United States Fish and Wildlife Service band.” — Jennifer Mortensen biology graduate student


For the past five years, GSAS students and students from the graduate programs in the School of Engineering have submitted photos as part of the Graduate Student Life Photo Contest. What follows is a rare, inside look at the graduate student experience on the Medford campus and beyond.


“I took this photo on a cold February 2011 night in the small, empty basement of Tufts’ Tisch library. Several friends have told me that this is often how they feel during graduate life.”— Gregory Meyerhoff mechanical engineering graduate student

“While I was a graduate student, baby-sitting was my part-time job of choice.In between courses and research, I found babysitting to be a welcome reminder that my original motivation for pursuing a degree was to specialize in infant develop-ment and help infants at risk.”— Sarah Frederiksen, G09 (child development)

“This is the impressive entry to Ballou Hall on a cold winter night. I tried to give some extra toning to the photo using vivid colors and taking advantage of the existing light.”— Konstantinos Metallinos physics graduate student

“I took this photo in my office in Robinson Hall. It includes an old sign; physics books; a telephone; experimental physics instru-ments; and an image of Dirac, the founder of contemporary quantum physics. The computers—the background for any science created by physicists—and the very new theories on the screen of the laptop bring us into the new physics era.”— Konstantinos Metallinos physics graduate student


“This photo is a visual representation of what goes through the minds of many science graduate students when studying for doctoral qualifying exams. Graduate school often feels overwhelming and pres-ents many potentially insurmountable challenges. When there are research papers to read, exams to grade, grant proposals to write, classes to teach, exams to study for,

“If I were to give this photo a title, it would be ‘Incubation Time.’ Incubation time is extremely important for graduate students, who typically have to handle multiple things in between planning and execut-ing their research. I believe inspiration and breakthroughs mostly happen in between the numerous PCR reactions, heat-shocks, matings, gel runs, and fly crosses involved in research. This picture sums up the spirit of incubation time—if you are not busy setting up an experiment, you are actively doing something else equally productive.”— Ranjith Anand, G10 (biology)

“As a traditional Asian girl, I’ve experi-enced a lot of distressing but somehow fun culture shocks since I came to the United States for my graduate studies in 2009. My dear friends—and many valuable sources of news—have opened the door to an interest-ing new world for me to explore.”— Chongyang Wang chemical engineering graduate student

“Walking home from my of f ice in Anderson Hall, I passed the Nathan Park in Powderhouse Square. I was fascinated by the beauty and purity of the undisturbed snow in the park, so I went home, picked up my camera, and returned to the park a few hours later, after midnight. It was bone-freezing cold outside, but worth it!”— Ali Boroumand civil and environmental engineering graduate student

manuscripts to write, and meetings to pre-pare for it’s hard to believe anything will ever get done. At this point, the only way to move forward is to embrace the words of Aretha Franklin and say to yourself over and over again, ‘I will survive.’ Because we will, right?”— Anne Madden biology graduate student

O N C A M P U SO N C A M P U S

22 t u f ts a l m a m at t e r s w i n t e r 2 0 11 PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS: SHUTTERSTOCK IMAGES

This fall, Tufts University opened an integrative doc-toral program to address the complexities of manag-ing an increasingly scarce, but vital, natural resource: water.

Water issues are complex because they cross multiple boundaries—physical, jurisdictional, geographic, and political—and involve many stakeholders with competing needs. The graduate program in “water diplomacy” aims to educate a new generation of pro-fessionals who can resolve complex water problems through negotiated solutions.

Tufts launches water diplomacy doctoral program. by Julia C. Keller

“We recognize that science alone will not solve major water problems nor will policies operating in a vac-uum without input from science,” said Shafiqul Islam, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the School of Engineering and a professor of water diplomacy at The Fletcher School.

Today, more than a billion people lack access to clean water.

“Population growth, uneven distribution of water, rapid urbanization, ecosystem degradation, biodiver-sity losses, and global climate change all affect access to this precious resource,” said J. Michael Reed, an expert in conservation-related research programs and a biology professor in the School of Arts and Sciences.


Consequently, a major transition is taking place in water resources development; management; and use on local, regional, and global scales.

Tufts’ new water diplomacy program blends knowl-edge from natural, societal, and political domains with explicit recognition of interdependencies among these disciplines. While science-based management traditionally has been the dominant driver in design-ing graduate water-related programs, the Tufts pro-gram emphasizes diplomacy and negotiation as a means of resolving water conflicts among stakehold-ers’ conflicting and competing needs.

“This program closes that critical gap between nego-tiating stakeholder interests and implementing feasible scientific or engineering solutions,” said William Moomaw, professor of international envi-ronmental policy and director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School. “Particularly when water crosses political boundaries, it is essential to negotiate effective and acceptable treaties to resolve conf lict-ing national economic and political interests, and to resolve inconsistent regulatory measures despite a lack of a universal international water treaty regime or even consistent U.S. domestic water law.”

In addition to receiving classroom instruction, the stu-dents will identify locations of current water conflicts for on-site fieldwork with guidance from real-world partner organizations and faculty of the program. There, they will use their training as water diplomats to engage in dialogue with stakeholders to develop negotiated solutions to these complex problems.

“The goal is to prepare students to address real-world water issues before they are handed a diploma,” said Islam. “We’re looking to create a new breed of water diplomats—be they engineers, advisers, or policy makers—who can create ‘actionable knowledge’: solutions they can implement in the real world in the midst of conflicting demands, not in a classroom.”

For more information, visit http://waterdiplomacy.tufts.edu.


O N C A M P U S

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TAMARA TURNER

HOME: Fort Collins, Colorado

AGE: 36

CURRENT WORK: I am researching changes since 1960 within the Gnawa music healing tradition of Morocco. Working with three master musicians and healers of various regions and ages, I am learning the songs and philosophy of each master and documenting memories and views of Gnawa history—past, present, and future.

AWARDS: Colorado’s Young Woman of the Year; Outstanding Scholar in Music (University of Oregon); Research Grant Award (Tufts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering)

BIGGEST INFLUENCE: My father, who was a symbolic interactionist sociology professor

DREAM JOB: Being paid to research and write about little-known or misunderstood musical cultures

FAVORITE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT: Moroccan guimbri

FONDEST TUFTS MEMORY: The white board in the Graduate Student Lounge where students note memorable quotes from professors

FAVORITE QUOTE: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”—Albert Einstein

PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT: Spending a year traveling solo and studying music with various masters in Morocco, Mali, and Turkey

DEFINING TRAITS: Energetic, open, and trusting

HOBBIES: Mountain climbing and backpacking; discovering live music in Boston

G R A D U A T E S T U D E N T, M U S I C

Tamara Turner

Tamara Turner

Practicing her favorite instrument in Marrakech, Morocco

Turner on a sand dune in the Sahara

The Whole Truth

When real-life victims and witnesses prepare for real courtroom dramas, Francesca Devaney, G11, is on their side.

“My job is to keep victims and witnesses informed about the criminal cases in which they are involved, along with their rights,” said Devaney, a victim/witness advocate for the District Attorney’s Office of Essex County, Massachusetts, who earned a master of arts in child development from GSAS in 2011.

Spanning every phase of a case, Devaney’s respon- sibilities include explaining the different kinds of hearings and informing victims about their right to make an impact statement when a plea bargain is under consideration or during sentencing if a defendant is found guilty.

“It’s essential to tell victims as much as possible about testifying,” said Devaney, who works in Lynn, Massachusetts. “They need to know the defendant will be present in the courtroom and the defense attorney will be asking questions. This part makes victims the most nervous because they fear the defense attorney may try to trick or confuse them. The district attorney and I stress the importance of telling the truth; that even when victims say things that damage their credibility, at least they’re being honest.”

Devaney said she became interested in victim/witness advocacy as an undergraduate after interning with the Strafford County Superior Court of New Hampshire. She credits her Tufts graduate experience with helping her navigate the complications that come with the job.

“Victims, especially in domestic violence cases, may have conflicting feelings about the alleged perpetrator,” she said. “The victim may love the person and not want him or her to get into trouble, even though the victim is getting hurt. What I learned about family dynamics and crisis intervention as a graduate student helps me deal with these complicated issues.”

Francesca Devaney, G11

A C T I V E C I T I Z E N

PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS

NONPROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDBOSTON, MA

PERMIT NO. 1161

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences School of Engineering

Office of Graduate Studies Ballou HallMedford, ma 02155http://gradstudy.tufts.edu

KEEPIN’ IT REALStudent photogs and their take on graduate student life.

See page 19. 00035.07.11

tuft alma matters winter 2011

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