ASU’s Graduate College awarded 16 fellowships to provide support to first-year doctoral students participating in research that advances knowledge and contributes to the public good.

Their diverse research includes mathematical models in medicine, volcanology, ways to improve communication between doctors and patients from diverse backgrounds, exploring the use of theatre as a tool of empowerment for youth, law as related to diverse populations, research in American Indian and environmental history, and how to develop social policy that better serves communities affected by substance and alcohol abuse issues. Download Full Image

Students are nominated for the fellowship by their academic unit. They must demonstrate academic excellence and be underrepresented in their field of study. Doctoral Enrichment Fellows receive a monetary award plus tuition for their first academic year. With satisfactory progress, their academic department will provide a TA or RA position in their second year.

“This was a very competitive selection process, and these represent the best of our new Ph.D. students,” says Andrew Webber, Associate Vice Provost. “They should be very proud of their accomplishments.”

The Doctoral Enrichment fellows for 2010-2011 are:

• Chelsea Allison, Geological Sciences, School of Earth and Space Exploration, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Roberto Alvarez, Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Monica Bilka, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Karen Carter, English (Rhetoric, Composition, and Linguistics), Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Jeremiah Chin, Justice Studies, School of Social Transformation, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Chelsea Derlan, Family and Human Development, School of Social and Family Dynamics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Grace Gamez, Justice Studies, School of Social Transformation, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Andrea Garfinkel-Castro, Environmental Social Science, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Darlene Gonzales-Galindo, Curriculum and Instruction, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College

• Phillip Koshi, Spanish, School of International Letters and Cultures, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Dhara Kothavala, School of Sustainability, Global Institute of Sustainability

• Aaron Likens, Psychology, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Marcos Martinez, Social Work, School of Social Work, College of Public Programs

• Aaron Sanchez, Communication, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Asantewa Sunni-Ali, Theatre (Theatre for Youth), School of Theatre and Film, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts

• Henry Wynne, Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Part recognition event, part educational opportunity, and part celebration, an upcoming art exhibition at ASU’s Fletcher">http://lib.asu.edu/fletcher">Fletcher Library at the West campus features the works of local artists, Phoenix South Mountain High School students, youth in detention, HUD housing residents and others.

“Human Rights Meet Civil Rights” will be featured at ASU’s Fletcher Library on the university’s West campus Jan. 22-March 18. The exhibit on the library’s second and third floors is presented by Cultural Arts Coalition, Arizona, and is free to the public. Download Full Image

The nearly two-month exhibit will highlight the works of 100 magnet arts high school students taught by seven visual arts teachers at South Mountain, including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and crafts.

“This exhibition provides an opportunity to recognize the work of local high school student artists and professional artists around the fundamental issue of human rights,” said Judy Butzine, who joins Melanie Ohm as a co-founder and co-director of Cultural Arts Coalition, Arizona. “It expands opportunities for student and community learning through personal reflection and an exchange of ideas, both in the classroom and in the public arena.”

This is the coalition’s third year of presenting art exhibits by local professionals, students and others at Fletcher Library. Past exhibits have focused on peacebuilding and Latino cultures and communities.

“During the academic year, we often have one exhibit or another in the library almost constantly,” said Dennis Isbell, Fletcher Library director. “The library is developing a reputation as a place for groups to exhibit their work, which is important because they help the campus and the university make connections to the community, and they enrich the cultural environment of the library and the campus.”

The South Mountain High students will tour ASU’s West campus on Feb. 4 and visit with exhibit attendees and other artists.  During their visit, the students will hear from featured guest Joseph Perez, better known as Sentrock, a Valley dancer and a painter who has gained a Valley following by combining visual art, hip-hop and breakdancing to create innovative and unique works.

“We are celebrating student and community artists as valuable conveyors of information in the communities where they reside,” said Butzine, exhibit curator. “The South Mountain High School students have been considering the role of human rights and civil rights and what it means to enact peacebuilding.

“It is essential for all our youth to critically engage the concepts of human rights and civil rights in order to make informed decisions about their actions as citizens and leaders,” Butzine continued. “One human’s rights should never be diminished by another’s, whether it is a civil right or a human right.

“The artwork in this exhibition was selected for its perspective on this community concern.”

Ohm added the exhibition is particularly relevant in light of the recent shooting tragedy in Tucson that killed six and left 14 wounded, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

“The exhibition is dedicated to those who are committed to our democratic process for upholding the liberties we cherish,” she said. “During this time we honor those who have been impacted by this horrific event, including Representative Giffords for her efforts on behalf of human and civil rights.”

Isbell has seen the coalition exhibit grow and is impressed with the talent of local student artists.

“Every year the students’ work is very creative and engaging,” he noted. “In their artwork they are responding to things in their lives, such as friends, family and popular culture. I think each year there is more variety in the kinds of media the students are featuring, such as paint, photography, ceramics and many more.”

In the end, Ohm and Butzine hope those who visit the exhibit will leave with a greater sense of the value of visual arts as a means of communication to present concepts of community concern.

“In the process of viewing, reflecting and interpreting the artwork, we hope participants will also reflect on their ideas and beliefs about human and civil rights concerns,” said Ohm. “The intention is that these visual expressions create conversations that lead to respectful understanding and increased participant engagement where human rights and civil rights meet.

With the exception of university holidays and breaks, the exhibit will be open during Fletcher">http://lib.asu.edu/hours/west/select">Fletcher Library hours: 8 a.m.-11 p.m, Monday-Thursday; 8 a.m.-6 p.m., Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday; noon-8 p.m., Sunday.

For more information about the exhibit, contact Judy Butzine (jhb6">mailto:jhb6@mindspring.com">jhb6@mindspring.com or 602-375-9553) or Melanie Ohm (Melanie">mailto:Melanie@conceptsconsultinggroup.com">Melanie@conceptsconsultinggroup.com).

ASU’s West campus is located at 4701 West Thunderbird Road in Phoenix.  Parking on campus is $2/hour.

Before Arizona and its neighbors were states, and before there was a U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S.-northern Mexico regions were linked by nationality, ecology, travel, economic and familial relationships, and social networks.  Then came the border – a line on a map that has increasingly been cast in politically contentious ways and has served to highlight human rights and citizenship complexities between the two nations.

This “line in the sand,” which has created many challenges to the well-being of the respective populations on both sides of the border, is the focus of ASU’s new School of Transborder Studies within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Download Full Image

Notably, the border issues don’t stop at the primary cities, like Juarez, Tijuana or Naco. According to Carlos Veléz-Ibáñez, founding director of the school, “Our mission is much broader. It encompasses not just the land contiguous to the U.S.-Mexico border, but the area extending to the end of South America.”

“The School of Transborder Studies reflects ASU’s commitment to addressing global challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective,” said ASU Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi. “The school’s faculty and programs are well suited to understanding the complexities associated with geographical and political borders and we anticipate eagerly the unit’s future contributions to both understanding and solutions.”

Established Sept. 1, 2010, the school will look at issues such as health, migration, social policy, community enhancement, media, expressive and visual culture, language, and learning.  These issues, further, are common to other borders around the globe, and thus, the school’s intellectual territory will not be limited to the U.S./Mexico border.

“This School of Transborder Studies joins other schools in the social sciences in taking up the 21st century challenge of creating new ways to address the complex social issues of everyday life,” said Linda Lederman, dean of social sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Professor Veléz-Ibáñez has been the guiding force behind the transformation of the new school.”

As its mission statement notes, the school will “generate the most cutting-edge knowledge on the development and functions of transborder regions and the utilization of that knowledge to solve the myriad issues and problems that emerge historically from nations sharing common political boundaries while engaged in regional and international economies.”

“The school also will develop and promote ‘best practices’ to secure the well being of constituent populations,” Veléz-Ibáñez said. “Our research is multidisciplinary, theoretically challenging, and methodologically rigorous.

“Our job is to focus on what our students need to know in order to deal with the realities of a transborder region and all of its contradictions of wealth and poverty, of learned languages erased, of integrated economies of two nations, of policies that do not fit the structure of production, of labor needed and discarded like commodities, of children raised following an American civil life forced to leave with their parents, and of educational systems pushing an individualistic model rather than embracing social dynamics of human interaction,” he said.

The new school is an “organic” creation, rather than one carved out of existing programs because of budget constraints, Veléz-Ibáñez said.  “It was formerly the Department of Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies, but the faculty wanted to make a change. It took us about a year to read all the literature on transborder studies, and create the plan.”  The school of transborder studies now offers a bachelor’s degree and an approved doctoral degree, and is in the process of putting together a master’s program.

The school will take a multi-pronged approach to its mission of teaching and research.  Students will be actively involved in the research, Veléz-Ibáñez said, and the school will work with parents and teachers as part of its focus on primary and secondary education.

The school’s community involvement will also be reflected in cooperative research projects with transborder, regional and local institutions, including non-government organizations and school districts.  Ultimately, these efforts will serve to enhance the transborder populations’ quality of life.

Broad in its reach, the school will support the engagement of students, especially those of Mexican and Latina/o origin to ensure their success at ASU.  The school will work with other units, particularly as it relates to the planned Interdisciplinary Program in Comparative Border Studies.  This initiative will bring major scholars and students from around the world to research and develop the “most salient theoretical and methodological ideas for the study of transborder regions,” according to Veléz-Ibáñez.

Several current faculty have recently published books on their research and have had their work featured in major venues. Veléz-Ibáñez’s newest book, published by the University of Arizona Press, “An Impossible Living in a Transborder World: Culture, Confianza and Economy of Mexican Origin Populations,” traces the development of “cundinas” or “tandas,” local savings and loan operations in the border regions, and looks at how they are part of greater transnational economies.

The University of Arizona Press also recently published “Resolana: Emerging Chicano Dialogues on Community and Globalization,” by Miguel Montiel, Tomás Atencio and E.A. “Tony” Mares. Rutgers University Press recently issued “Homecoming Queers: Desire and Difference in Chicana Latina Cultural Production,” by Marivel Danielson.

Prior to the establishment of the school, many of the faculty helped write and produce “State of Latino Arizona,” published by the Arizona Latino Research Enterprise, ASU Department of Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies and ASU Office of Public Affairs.

Veléz-Ibáñez has gathered a number of distinguished faculty for the school, including Paul Espinosa, a filmmaker specializing in documentary and dramatic films focused on the U.S.-Mexico border region.  Espinosa has won eight Emmy Awards for his work.  Recent hires include Desiree Garcia, a highly touted film critic and producer, and Matthew Garcia from Brown University, who will direct the program on comparative border studies.

Veléz-Ibáñez earned his doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of California, San Diego. He has taught and held deanship and research director's positions at the University of Arizona and the University of California, Riverside, and his research interests include migration, economic stratification, political ecology, transnational community and household formation, and applied social science.

Veléz-Ibáñez, who was born near the U.S.-Mexico border, was lured to ASU by the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create, from scratch, a School of Transborder Studies.  He is currently the Presidential Motorola Professor of Neighborhood Revitalization in the School of Transborder Studies. He has authored eight books and numerous articles, and his honors include the prestigious Bronislaw Malinowski Medal, presented by the Society for Applied Anthropology in 2003, and the 2004 Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology awarded by the American Anthropology Association. In 2010, he was honored by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education for outstanding support of Hispanic issues in higher education.

Though many people seem to have an opinion about what “should” be done to monitor the border today, Veléz-Ibáñez said there are no simple answers in understanding the border dynamics.

“One of the fundamental misconceptions is that the border can divide the political and labor processes of this region.

“The U.S. is only 160 years old in this region following the American invasion of Mexico and the purchase of southern Arizona and New Mexico in 1853.  Mexicans were already here, so that the Mexican presence was obviously a fact of history.

“After this period and especially through the 19th century the industrial form of production including railroads, agriculture, construction, mining, and ranching required the same population and many more to fill the employment needs created by those industrial forms. This population did not have to cross an ocean – it was already present and 90 miles south from Phoenix, 60 miles from Tucson, and 2 feet from Nogales, Arizona.

“It’s a different history and quite different from the eastern Ellis Island model and premise.”

The borderlands, with their entwined histories and futures, are an important and vital area of study and development, Veléz-Ibáñez asserted, and the area south of the border richly deserves this attention. “The impact of the United States on northern Mexico has been enormous,” added Veléz-Ibáñez.

“Surviving Castro’s Cuba”, a harrowing account of Juan Carlos Jimenez’s remembrances of one of history’s most famous dictators, will commence a Downtown Phoenix campus lecture series as well as a universitywide initiative on the humanities.

Jimenez will kick off the spring 2011 Humanities Lecture Series as well as Project Humanities, a universitywide initiative to promote the importance of humanities within the higher education system and community. His lecture is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., Jan. 27, at the Nursing and Health Innovation Building Two, 550 N. Third St., Phoenix, Innovation Auditorium, Room 110. Download Full Image

The lecture series is free and open to the public.

“The Humanities Lecture Series provides us with opportunities to analyze, discuss and interpret current events. We look forward to public discussions that help us understand and appreciate various points of view on political, social and cultural issues,” said Frederick C. Corey, director of ASU’s School of Letters and Sciences and dean of University College.

Jimenez, a mathematics instructor with ASU’s School of Letters and Sciences, said he will recount the nightmare he and thousands of other native Cubans experienced more than 50 years ago as a result of Fidel Castro’s 1959 government takeover.

“Many of my people believed the promises of a young and charismatic bearded lawyer named Fidel Castro who promised free elections in six months, respect for the 1940 Constitution, complete freedom of the press, and respect for human rights among many other things,” Jimenez said. “He betrayed every one of his promises and implemented a totalitarian regime that would make him dictator for life.”

Born into a privileged lifestyle, Jimenez’s family owned hotels, restaurants, retail shops, and a construction business. However, those assets were confiscated by force with no compensation by Castro when he came to power. While his home was subject to weekly raids and inspections by soldiers, Jimenez and his sister were dispatched to the United States with an aunt in hopes of returning when the country settled down. Unfortunately, Castro had other plans and the separation lasted approximately seven and a half years.

Having found himself in unfamiliar surroundings, Jimenez knew only four words of English when he arrived in Miami, Fla., in April of 1960. Determined to make a better life for his sister and aunt, Jimenez became innovative in his endeavors as a child to help support all three.

“I was already gifted in math, but it took me a good year to become conversant in English,” Jimenez said. “It soon became apparent that education was the key to a better life and that’s the direction I took.”

Jimenez later graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, with a double major in marine sciences and mathematics, earning his doctorate in marine sciences, as well as a bachelor's degree and master's degree in zoology and mathematics.

Before moving to Arizona, Jimenez taught at various colleges and universities in the New England area, the University of Puerto Rico, and was a lecturer/consultant to the Science Museum in the Dominican Republic. He also led the first expedition to study the humpback whale population in the northern waters of the Dominican.

For directions, visit http://nursingandhealthasu.edu/contact/nursing-buildings.htm">http://nursingandhealthasu.edu/contact/nursing-buildings.htm">http://nur.... For parking information, visit http://nursingandhealth.asu.edu/contact/parking/htm">http://nursingandhealth.asu.edu/contact/parking/htm">http://nursingandhe.... For more information call Dr. Mirna. Lattouf, lecture series organizer, at (602) 496-0638 or visit http://sls.asu.edu/news.html.">http://sls.asu.edu/news.html">http://sls.asu.edu/news.html.

When the Heard Museum opens the doors to its annual Indian Market, Mary Hood is there. You also might see her at the Santa Fe market, in art galleries and at powwows, and any other festival where Native Americans display their art.

She’s not there to shop for turquoise, or enjoy some fry bread. She’s on the hunt for artists to invite to the biennial “Map(ing)” project she runs at ASU. Download Full Image

Hood selects approximately a half-dozen artists, who work in various media, to participate in “Map(ing),” a project that brings together graduate printmaking students and the Native American artists to produce new works of art.

She creates “teams” of students to work with each artist, and over a five-day period in January the teams collaborate to create a new work of art, with the student printmakers serving as instructors to the artists.

“Most of the Native American artists have never done printmaking,” said Hood, who teaches printmaking in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. “The students get to be the experts, teaching the artists about printmaking, and the artists share their ideas with the students.”

The idea is to create community between the students and the artists, and to expand the artistic knowledge of both.

It’s a grueling schedule. The teams put in long hours during the five-day creation process, then the artists discuss their work at a public forum at ASU’s Night Gallery in the Tempe Marketplace.

“Map(ing)” concluded with a silent auction of the collaborative works. Two prints from each artist were auctioned off to benefit future “Map(ing)” events. The prints are on display at the Night Gallery, located in Tempe Marketplace, through Jan. 30.

When Hood selects Native American artists to invite, Hood looks for a diversity of ages, experience, and skills – a “good balance,” she said.

This year’s roster includes Ahkima Honyumptewa, Hopi, who creates drawings, weavings, Katchina Dolls, and carvings; Eliza Narajano Morse, Santa Clara Pueblo, who draws on canvas with micaceous clay and volcanic ash; Marilou Schultz, Navajo/Dine, a weaver; Hulleah Tsinhanhjinnie, Seminole/Muscogee/Dine, photography and video; Dallin Maybee, Northern Arapaho/Seneca, who is known for his beading and drawing; Wanesia Misquadace, Fond-du-Lac/Objibway, who practices the rare art of birch bark biting; and Randy Kemp, Choctaw/Cree/Euchee, who paints, draws, makes videos and performs music.

Students include Nicholas Dowgwillo, Caroline Battle, Karl Johnson, Lauren Kinney, Dana LeMine, Matthew McLaughlin, Kathleen Moore, Gabriela Munoz, Rachel Nore, Brett Schieszer, Nan Hutchinson-Vaughn, Nic Wiesinger, Patrick Vincent and Angela Young. Undergraduate students Tiffiney Yazzie, Tom Greyeyes, and Jelena Milesic also have been working with the artists.

It’s hard to say who benefits the most from the experience, or who works the hardest, the artists or the students

Dallin Maybee, who designed a 14-layer print, said that his team members, Caroline Battle and Kathleen Moore, have faced more challenges in the process than he has.

His print includes drawings of some of his favorite old cars, with running buffalos embossed between the cars, inspired by his family’s Plains culture. The first layer of the print is an inkjet image of an antique ledger page, followed by 12 layers of screen printing – one for each color – with embossing as the final step.

Battle said she was impressed that Maybee came in “knowing exactly what he wanted to do,” which helped their process along.

Student Kathleen Moore was part of a team for the first “Map(ing)” in 2009, and said she feels ”more technically savvy” this year as she works alongside the artist.

She also has learned “how much more you pay attention to the details when you’re printing someone else’s work.”

Moore agreed that there’s more pressure in printing someone else’s work. “Something you might let slide by in your work you can’t when it’s someone else’s,” she said.

Collaborating with the artists also helps the students broaden their horizons, Moore added. “It gets us out of our normal way of working.”

Some of the artists who hold jobs, take vacation time to come to “Map(ing),” and welcome the opportunity to spend uninterrupted time in the studio working on their art.

Randy Kemp, who graduated from ASU with a degree in art and now is an environmental graphic designer at ASU, and who was part of the first “Map(ing),” said he was thrilled to be in the studio in the School of Art with nothing to do but create his art.

His art is “of the moment,” he said as he daubed paint on a sheet of Plexiglas in preparation for making a monoprint. “I just paint something I’m feeling right now. There is no particular tribe or culture associated with it.”

Since the artists and students spend so much time together, they form bonds that will be long lasting, Hood said. “The connections last well beyond the project.“

Beyond artistic achievement, beyond the building of new relationships between artists and students “Map(ing),” is, above all, is another way of teaching, Hood said.

“Map(ing),” which grew out of a discussion between Hood and Joe Baker, former director of community engagement at the Herberger Institute, about “place,” is “another tool we have to educate students. It’s not just talking to them.”

For more information about the silent auction, complete biographies of the artists, and ways to get involved, visit http://asumapping.wordpress.com.">http://asumapping.wordpress.com/">http://asumapping.wordpress.com.

Marcel Tyberg, an Austrian composer who studied at the Vienna Academy of Music, took on the challenge of finishing Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, using notes and sketches the famous composer had left at his death.

Tyberg did complete the work sometime during the middle of World War II, and if not for a terrible turn of events, Tyberg’s music, and his name, might well have been as famous as that of Schubert. Download Full Image

But shortly after finishing the composition, which he named his Third Symphony, Tyberg, who was then living in Italy, was arrested by the Nazis and eventually met his end at the notorious Auschwitz death camp.

Just before he was sent to Auschwitz, Tyberg stuffed his score into a suitcase and gave the case to a friend. Somehow, some way, the suitcase made it to Buffalo, N.Y., where it remained unopened for several decades.

In another twist of fate, the music made its way to The Phoenix Symphony and became part of an unusual, and moving, series, titled “Rediscovered Masters: A Concert Series Honoring the Music of Jewish Composers Who Were Silenced.” The series, which began in fall 2010 and continues through spring 2011, is co-presented by ASU’s Center for Jewish Studies.

The series includes lectures, films and numerous concerts by the Phoenix Symphony.

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, director of the Center for Jewish Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and a co-founder of “Rediscovered Masters,” said, “We want to bring this music to the attention of Jews and non-Jews, and to present the music of composers who have been silenced twice – first by death, and then by non-performance of their music.”

The series began last October with a lecture by Tirosh-Samuelson, “From Mendelssohn to the Holocaust,” and a performance of Hans Krása’s “Brundibár.”

The next concerts and lecture will be Feb. 2, 3 and 5. David Schildkret, professor of choral music at ASU, will give a free lecture at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2 at Congregation Beth Israel, 10460 N. 56th St., Scottsdale, titled “Judaism and Christianity: Shared Heritage, Diverse Interpretations.”

Schildkret will repeat the lecture at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 3 at Symphony Hall, and the Phoenix Symphony will perform Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3, and again at 8 p.m. Feb. 5.

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16, musicians from the ASU Herberger School of Music and singers from the community will join for a free concert at ASU Gammage titled “Composers in the Concentration Camp,” conducted by renowned maestro Israel Yinon. Yinon has devoted his career to performing and recording the works of Jewish composers.

As part of the February lineup, the film “Against the Tide” will be shown Feb. 12-28 at various times at Harkins Chandler Crossroads and Camelview theaters. “Against the Tide” is the story of a young activist named Peter Bergson who challenged American Jewish organizations to rescue Europe’s Jews during the Holocaust.

The idea for “Rediscovered Masters” grew out of a relationship between ASU and the Phoenix Symphony that started several years ago when Tirosh-Samuelson was introduced to Maryellen Gleason, then president of the orchestra, by Robert Tancer, president of Friends of Jewish Studies at ASU.

“He thought the two of us would hit it off and he was right,” Tirosh-Samuelson said. She invited Gleason to chair a session at a 2010 conference on Felix Mendelssohn at ASU, and then they began discussing the possibility of presenting music by Jewish composers who had been victims of Nazi persecution.

“The Phoenix Symphony’s was an artistic decision,” Tirosh-Samuelson said. “They wanted to bring the repertoire to the public, so we decided to combine music and academia and present a lecture series.”

The composers being featured in “Rediscovered Masters” range from those with slim ties to Judaism, such as Tyberg, who was raised a Catholic, to Mieczyslaw Weinberg, whose family was decimated by anti-Semitic violence even before his birth in 1919.

Their stories are all profoundly tragic. Tyberg’s family was living in Italy when, during a Nazi-mandated census in Italy in 1943, his mother told census-takers that she and her family were racially Jewish because one of her great-grandfathers was a Jew. She was not worried, since the Tybergs had never practiced Judaism and were well-known musicians. But laws were changed and Tyberg was eventually sent to Auschwitz.

Krása was imprisoned in the Terezin work camp, where he was able to reconstruct his 1942 children’s opera, “Brundibár,” and present it more than 55 times with a full cast of child performers and musicians before he and most of the musicians were taken to Auschwitz and murdered.

“Art and music were allowed in Terezin – but it was a façade,” said Tirosh-Samuelson. “The music, much of which was saved, turned out to be an unwitting gift of the Nazis.”

Another of the composers is Erwin Schulhoff, whose Symphony No. 2 was performed in November. Schulhoff composed classical music for radio performance, and was an outspoken Marxist and supporter of the Soviet Union. He applied for citizenship in the Soviet Union, but before he could emigrate, he was arrested by the Nazis and deported to the Wüzberg concentration camp, where he died of tuberculosis in 1942. (His father, also a musician, died the same year in Terezin.)

Composers to be featuring in the spring are Kurt Weill (“Suite from The Threepenny Opera”) and Pavel Haas (“A Study for Strings”). Weill was born to a religious Jewish family in 1900 and his music was targeted by the Nazis. He moved to the United States in 1935 to escape persecution.

Haas, born in Czechoslovakia, knew he was going to be a target when Nazis began to focus on his town of Brno. He divorced his wife so she and their young son could escape the Nazis. Haas was soon arrested and sent to Terezin, where he composed music, including “A Study for Strings,” until he was sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

The series also includes several works by Mendelssohn, who was born into a prominent Jewish family in 1809 but later in his life was baptized a Lutheran. His music was suppressed during the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of anti-Semitism in Europe.

Michael Christie, the Virginia G. Piper music director of The Phoenix Symphony, who conducts each of the concerts, said he feels “a tremendous sense of responsibility to the memory and legacy of each composer when we perform their music.

“Since most of the works will be new to our audience, this could be their only experience with these composers. This sense of ‘once in a lifetime’ is taken seriously. I also like the idea of spurring the curiosity of listeners and performers alike.”

The orchestra members, he added, feel this sense of responsibility, too.

“I don't think they feel somber as much as serious about the task of bringing these works to life again. I feel like all of us on stage share a great sense of stewardship for these musical colleagues who experienced unspeakable stress, heartache and in some cases, death.”

Though all the music that the orchestra is playing in this series, with the exception of Tyberg’s Unfinished Symphony, has been published, it is rarely played, if at all, in the United States,” Christie noted.

“It is quite widely known that incredible amounts of music was suppressed or destroyed during Nazi occupation of Europe. It amazes me however that so many works have either fallen out of general knowledge or haven't been played even if people know that the piece was written. Perhaps there could be a renaissance of certain composers as a result of this series.”

One of Tirosh-Samuelson’s goals with the project is “to show the depth and the complexity of Jewish culture in the years before the Holocaust, to show how incredible that culture was.”

Music is a perfect vehicle for entering that world, according to Tirosh-Samuelson. “Music is a cultural agent. There’s something beautiful, compelling and powerful about the music. It’s profound. We read the program notes, but there’s much more to learn.”

Tirosh-Samuelson said she is not a Holocaust scholar, and that the Holocaust was “not the pivotal point of Jewish history. But it should not be forgotten. By bringing this music we will never forget what happened. There’s a legacy here that can be recovered.

"Many of the composers were secular Jews who were fully integrated in European society and culture, but they died as Jews and because they were Jewish. They were marked out by a Jewish star and they were gradually removed from society. 

“The existence of Jews today is a testament to the remarkable Jewish power of survival, notwithstanding the attempts to annhilate the Jews.”

The music that was left behind is also a testament to the human spirit, Tirosh-Samuelson said. “Brutality cannot squelch the human spirit.”

Tirosh-Samuelson also sees the series as a perfect example of what the university should be doing. “For me, the role of the university is not about producing degrees. The pursuit of knowledge is lifelong,” she said. “There are a lot of intelligent people in our community who are dying to learn. We need to encourage them to read more, learn more.”

For more information about the series, go to http://jewishstudies.clas.asu.edu/.">http://jewishstudies.clas.asu.edu/">http://jewishstudies.clas.asu.edu/

<p>David Gibson, associate research professor in the School of Social Transformation&rsquo;s Equity Alliance center, was featured in the recent Jan. 5 edition of <em>Education Week</em> in a story about the rise of teaching simulation programs to better prepare teacher candidates for the realities of the classroom.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Gibson&rsquo;s <a href="https://exchange.asu.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=1d848060b6e649b3adcad98c77efab... tracks how student engagement and performance rise and fall as teachers respond minute by minute in a dynamic simulated classroom environment &ndash; building confidence and classroom management skills working with virtual students who possess a variety of personalities and abilities.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What happens when you shut the door and you&rsquo;re teaching? What are you going to say? What are you going to do? What happens when the kids change?&rdquo; Gibson said. &ldquo;I wanted to take apart the black box that was actually the classroom.&rdquo;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.equityallianceatasu.org/" target="_blank">Equity Alliance at ASU</a> represents a set of funded programs that promote equity, access, participation and outcomes for all students. Since 2008, it has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education&#39;s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to serve as the Equity Assistance Center supporting equity issues for state and local school systems in the Arizona, California and Nevada region.</p>

In Arizona there are more than 80,000 American Indian/Alaska Native children of school age – but only about 1,000 Native public school teachers. The School of Social Transformation’s Center">http://center-for-indian-education.asu.edu">Center for Indian Education has been working on many fronts to alter that imbalance, most recently with teacher preparation projects focused on the Navajo Nation, which reports nearly 63,000 students in Arizona’s elementary and secondary schools.

Toward that end, the center was awarded a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Indian Education last fall to fund its innovative distance-learning effort “The Arizona Four Corners Teacher Preparation Project.” The four-year project integrates distance-learning technology, summer teaching academies and on-site mentoring to present an opportunity to 16 American Indian/Alaska Native individuals in the Four Corners area to earn a bachelor’s degree and certification in elementary education – without leaving their home communities. Download Full Image

Using Polycom videoconferencing technologies, participants will attend ASU classrooms virtually, with each classroom able to see the other and interact in real time. The academic programming for the grant is carried out in partnership with ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

Center for Indian Education co-directors Bryan Brayboy and Teresa McCarty serve as principal investigator and co-principal investigator for the project, respectively. Both are faculty members in the culture, society and education research cluster of the School of Social Transformation, an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Brayboy is Borderlands Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and McCarty is the Alice Wiley Snell Professor of Education Policy Studies and a professor of applied linguistics.  

Project director Davina Spotted Elk, a citizen of the Navajo Nation who grew up in the Four Corners area, oversees the day-to-day activities of the grant. Spotted Elk has worked as a researcher with the Navajo Nation and served as an academic specialist and project director on federally funded grants.

In addition to addressing the shortage of Native teachers, the program will address the need to prepare them with a strong content area foundation, as recommended by recent research undertaken by the Navajo Nation. Participants will develop a specialized knowledge base to meet the cultural and academic needs of American Indian students.    

The project’s ultimate aims are to create culturally-relevant learning environments where Native American/Alaska Native elementary students in an underserved region of Arizona will have every opportunity to thrive and experience academic success before moving on to middle school.  

“Research shows that the critical difference in student academic outcomes, particularly for linguistic and cultural minority students, is the presence of highly qualified teachers,” Brayboy says. “Further, effective Native student learning is closely associated with curricula that incorporates students’ language and culture. Teachers who share the cultural and linguistic background of Navajo students in the Four Corners area offer a critical contribution to children’s schooling experiences.” 

The project draws on knowledge gained through the Center for Indian Education’s highly successful Indigenous Teacher Preparation Program, which has prepared 10 Native teachers to date with a 100 percent retention and graduation rate. One-third of the graduates have continued into master’s programs in Indian education. Two other of the center’s recently funded projects prepared 40 Native teachers for certification. These 50 educators are now making a difference in classrooms in their respective tribal communities or in schools with high American Indian enrollments.

“Access to a quality education is one of the basic human rights that faculty scholarship and outreach in the School of Social Transformation addresses,” says Mary Margaret Fonow, professor and director of the school. “This partnership between the Center for Indian Education and the Navajo Nation not only impacts access to degree programs at ASU, but helps build a more stable, highly qualified force of teachers able to give Native children in Arizona a quality education designed to meet their learning needs.”

For more information about the project, contact the Center for Indian Education, at 480-965-6292, or email CIEhelp">mailto:CIEhelp@asu.edu">CIEhelp@asu.edu.

There is a Ghanaian proverb that advises, “When you are sitting in your own house, you don’t learn anything. You must get out of your house to learn.” Vinita Quinones, a graduate student in ASU’s New">http://newcollege.asu.edu/">New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences social justice and human rights master’s program has seen the proof of this with her own eyes.

She literally has gotten out of her own house and learned. She has learned with a capital “L,” and the classroom was not limited to four walls – it was central Ghana; the lessons took place during a recent Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad scholarship program. Quinones was joined by fellow New College grad students Paul Bork and Ted Novak; faculty members Duku Anokye, Charles St. Clair and Les Irwin; and a group of Valley teachers who travelled to and around Ghanaian towns and villages for 28 days. Download Full Image

“When I enrolled in the social">http://newcollege.asu.edu/graduate/degrees/sjhr">social justice and human rights program (MASJHR), I simply imagined continuing my educational career,” said Quinones, who received her undergraduate degree in sociology in 2005 from ASU’s College">http://clas.asu.edu/">College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on the Tempe campus. “Well, my journey of discovery took on a new dynamic and experiential dimension in Ghana. Our travels provided us the opportunity to learn about the culture, people, language, spirituality, tradition and rich history. The access to full immersion in the culture provided invaluable insight that has opened a gamut of information to be further explored and developed.”

The group landed in Ghana’s capital city of Accra, a metropolis of nearly two million people located on the Gulf of Guinea. For the next four weeks they travelled into and through Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast and Takoradi; from these locations they ventured into neighboring sites, towns and villages. The focus of the project – “Stories from the Other Side” – was to collect interviews that would shed light on the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that marked centuries of injustice on a global scale.

“The journey allowed us to connect historical and indigenous forms of slavery in Ghana to contemporary issues of human trafficking within the region,” said Quinones, who hopes to eventually enter the workforce as an advocate of children’s rights in a setting that addresses global issues. “As a young and aspiring human rights worker, I feel this experience has contributed to my personal and professional consciousness and my commitment to serving others.”

Quinones’ consciousness has been nurtured over a short lifetime and many miles. Born in Bloomington, Ind., she was raised in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She returned to the States in 1996 after convincing her mother to let her join her brother and sister in Arizona where her sister had enrolled at Northern Arizona University and later transferred to ASU. She had completed her high school freshman year in St. Croix, where she was active in cultural/traditional dance, including moko jumbie – stilts walking/dancing. Once landed in the Valley of the Sun, she enrolled at Tempe McClintock High School and immediately expanded her learning opportunities, participating in a business internship in the Tempe Police Criminal Investigation Division and joining such extracurricular campus groups as the Unity Club, Close Up, Black Student Union, National Art Honor Society and Capoeira. She also earned athletic letters while competing on the Chargers basketball and track and field teams.

Following her graduation from ASU in 2005, Quinones served in Honduras as a Youth Development Volunteer from 2006 to 2008. During her time in the Central America republic, she worked with youth, community leaders and educators in a variety of settings, collaborating with community members to develop a variety of service programs and helping implement programs through the local library while facilitating activities with local youth.

In Ghana, Quinones and company pursued oral histories from families left behind during the slave trade.  They familiarized themselves with the realities of human trafficking and modern-day slavery in the region.  They recorded in writing and on film the stories provided by villagers, community leaders, activists and non-governmental organizations.

They gained, said Quinones, a better understanding of the impact of the slave system on the Ghanaian people.
“During our trip we visited several historical sites – castles, forts and museums,” she noted. “These are the physical structures that are evidence of the magnitude of the slave trade, structures associated with the trade that still hold significant relevance to the nation’s identity.

“In my personal conversations with Ghanaians, it was interesting to learn about individual historical accounts, their connections to the bigger national history and the remembrance of the slave trade. The content found in the conventional educational setting and the oral family histories and traditions was like vicariously living their incredible journey. What truly captured my imagination were the connections between familial and national remembering.”

Anokye, a New College associate professor in the Division">http://newcollege.asu.edu/harcs">Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, has travelled to Ghana nearly a dozen times, collecting oral histories and studying Ghanaian culture, religion, storytelling, and dance. She said the Ghana experience was a clear reflection of the MASJHR program.

“When I think of students in the MASJHR degree program, I think of activists,” said Anokye, a sociolinguist, whose research focuses on African Diaspora orality and literacy practices, folklore, discourse analysis and oral history. “These students are not waiting to graduate to become involved in making social change occur. Vinita, if she had lived in the 60s, would have been in the streets, marching and inciting to get people involved. She has very important leadership qualities that she is discovering, and the program facilitates that kind of growth and involvement.”

The trip could have a lasting impact not only on Quinones and her travel group, but also on the greater education landscape: four teachers from Betty H. Fairfax High School and another from Starlight Park Elementary School were on board and brought their own special talents to the trip. The teachers and the Ghana participants will develop K-12 curriculum materials, a monograph and a documentary video based on their research.

“The trip provided us the opportunity to collaborate closely with these amazing teachers,” said Quinones. “Our hope is that our efforts will contribute to a promotion of a global consciousness by incorporating these themes on multiple levels in the American education system. We hope that through the creation of a curriculum that embraces a global identity, future students will be able to look beyond distance and borders to embrace humanity.”

What might that curriculum look like?  Quinones offered: “I envision it as a curriculum that to some degree illustrates cultural, social and political awareness; content that provides the opportunity for students to connect personal experiences and outlook to people of different cultures and regions.”

She added, “From an MASJHR perspective I hope that in an age of increasing global ties through technology, mass media and communication, these can be tools used to increase civic and civil participation – teaching students about the realities of the world and giving them the tools to contribute to the changes they would like to see. This allows the next generation to look beyond borders to get to the core of societal ills, rather than focusing on issues from an individualistic or nationalist sense.”

At the end of the day, Quinones is grateful for the chance to experience a different culture and learn from those living it. She appreciates the full immersion that came with the summer program and looks forward to the chance – somewhere down the line – to incorporate education as a preventative mechanism to stimulate change. And she knows now the program has changed her. She also has come to expect no less from New College and the social justice and human rights program.

“What really captured my attention in New College was the human rights and advocacy component, both domestic and trans-national,” she said. “I was drawn by the opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and skills in non-profit management, and the focus on the interdisciplinary approach.

“As graduate students, we are exposed to best practices in the field from more than one discipline. It allows us to understand the issues through a broader lens. Personally, I value this approach because I need to see the bigger picture; it just illustrates the interconnectedness of what we do. It promotes a degree of flexibility and creativity in the ability to pull from a variety of resources, which helps to strengthen programs and meet the needs of the community and/or the organizations served.”

Spoken like someone who has left the house…and learned.

A 20-year tradition at Arizona State University’s West campus will continue Wednesday, Jan. 19, at 11 a.m. as Charles St. Clair reenacts Martin Luther King, Jr.’s most famous speech. The public is invited to attend this and two other free events as part of the campus’s annual celebration of King’s legacy and the civil rights movement.

St. Clair, a faculty member in ASU’s http://newcollege.asu.edu/" target="_blank">New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, is the newly announced recipient of the 2011 Promoting Inclusiveness Award from the city of Glendale. The annual award is designed to recognize those who “go beyond the scope of their jobs to promote inclusiveness in their actions, and exhibit qualities that are consistent with the ideals advocated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” He will receive recognition during the http://www.glendaleaz.com/unityday/index.cfm" target="_blank">2011 Unity Day Luncheon, Jan. 14 at the Glendale Civic Center. Download Full Image

On the 19^th, St. Clair will deliver the “I Have a Dream” speech as part of the West campus’s annual March on West event. More than 1,000 students from 11 local elementary and middle schools will come to campus that morning to reenact the 1963 March on Washington, which provided the setting for King’s speech. Prior to the march, students will gather in smaller groups to learn about important civil-rights era milestones.

“It’s an honor to share this unforgettable speech with a group of young people,” said St. Clair, who arrived at ASU’s West campus in 1990 and first presented King’s famous speech in 1991. “You never know who will be inspired to do great things by hearing Dr. King’s powerful message of harmony among all people.”

Arriving school children will be greeted by the drum corps from Independence High School, whose members will lead the students in a march around campus to the Fletcher Library lawn. The event also will feature performances by the musical group Elevated Unda’Ground.

On Thursday, Jan. 20, the celebration continues with the screening of “Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama – A Conversation on Life, Struggles and Liberation.” This film was produced and directed by ASU professors C.A. Griffith and H.L.T. Quan. The screening, at 5 p.m. in the Kiva Lecture Hall, will be preceded by a reception at 4:30 and followed by a question-and-answer session with the filmmakers. In addition to helping commemorate MLK Week, this event also is part of the New College ThinK (Thursdays in the Kiva) series on the West campus.

MLK Week activities wrap up on Friday, Jan. 21, with the Poetry Jam. Sponsored by the Black Graduate Student Association, this event features the theme “The Evolution of his Dream…in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” Performers include Elevated Unda’Ground. The Poetry Jam, at 7 p.m. in the Kiva, is billed as “an evening of poetic, lyrical, soulful expressions and multimedia presentations of how Dr. King’s dream impacts and motivates us as artists.” The evening’s activities start with a reception at 6:30.

Attendees at these events are encouraged to bring non-perishable food items for the MLK Food Drive. Collected food items will be donated to local food banks. There will be several collection sites around campus, including Fletcher Library.

For more information, call (602) 543-5300.