Top Stories
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Spring lineup for Bucknell Forum announced
A Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist, a premier Wall Street analyst and TV personality, a best-selling American author, and a panel of leading experts on religion will headline the spring semester's continuing national speakers series, "The Bucknell Forum: The Citizen & Politics in America." [full story]
The scheduled speakers for spring are:
- Jim Cramer, popular host of the CNBC's "Mad Money," radio host, author, co-founder of the Internet financial news hub The Street.com, and graduate of the Harvard University School of Law. He will speak on "The Capitalist Citizen and Democracy." (7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 29, Weis Center for the Performing Arts)
- A leading panel of experts on religion in politics, including Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Dr. Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life; and The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6, in Trout Auditorium)
- Barbara Ehrenreich, author of best-selling books, including "Nickel and Dimed" and "Bait and Switch," will speak on "Working for Change: Citizenship and Class in America." (7:30 p.m. Monday, March 17, in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts)
- Leonard Pitts, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist. Title of talk to be determined. (7:30 p.m. Monday, March 24, in Trout Auditorium)
Free tickets are required for the Cramer and Ehrenreich lectures. Distribution details will be announced in January.
The series, which kicked off this fall with a discussion about media and its influence on citizenship and the presidential election, has drawn large crowds through the first three events. The forum will continue through the inauguration of the next U.S president in 2009.
Hear a podcast interview with Bucknell management Professor William Gruver about Jim Cramer, their Wall Street experiences, and ideas Cramer may talk about at Bucknell.
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Engineering funding and honors
Three different departments in the College of Engineering recently announced notable achievements by faculty and staff. [full story]
- Congressman Christopher P. Carney and Bucknell have announced a joint research project between the University and investigators from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) to develop robots that will help protect members of the military and law enforcement in urban environments. Carney worked with Bucknell to secure $800,000 in federal funding for the project. The work will develop and demonstrate technologies for unmanned ground vehicles (legged robots) with the advanced mobility necessary for negotiating urban terrain to enhance the capabilities of the U.S. Armed Forces and reduce risk for troops. The lead researchers for Bucknell are Keith Buffinton, professor and department chair of mechanical engineering, and Steven Shooter, professor of mechanical engineering. They will work with researchers from IHMC, which is based in Pensacola, Fla.
- A team of Bucknell electrical engineering students took second place in a computer networking competition sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The 2007 MANIAC Challenge brought together teams from around the world to compete in a challenge that combined sophisticated wireless ad hoc networking and game theory. Team Bucknell, comprising seniors Richard Clark of Broomall, Pa.; Braden Izumi of Glendale, Calif.; and Kafu Chau of York, Pa., competed under the direction of Michael Thompson, assistant professor of electrical engineering.
- For the third year in a row, Bucknell students were invited to give research presentations at the Biomedical Engineering Society national meeting in Los Angeles in November. Elizabeth Banerjee ’09 gave the peer-reviewed poster presentation, "A First Step Toward an Understanding of the Unique Characteristics of the Mouse Electrocardiogram." Her advisor was Joseph Tranquillo, assistant professor of biomedical and electrical engineering. Qiushui Liang ’08 gave the platform presentation, "Numerical Modeling of Ice Ball Formation During Cryosurgery using COMSOL Multiphysics." The research was advised by James Baish, professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, and was conducted in collaboration with the Department of Urology at the Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. Other Bucknell students at the conference were seniors Stacey Kang, Adhira Sunkara, Michael Ambrosi, Sarah Henderson, and Andrew Inglis, and junior Robert Littlefield.
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Hurricane Recovery Team makes third relief trip
A delegation of 26 Bucknell students, faculty, and staff will visit the hurricane-ravaged New Orleans area before Christmas to erect housing and to get a first-hand look at how the region is coping with recovery more than two years after Hurricane Katrina. [full story]
The Bucknell Hurricane Katrina Recovery Team is the third delegation from the University to visit the area since the August 2005 hurricane and will be deployed in the St. Bernard Parish area, just outside New Orleans, where it will work alongside the New Orleans chapter of Habitat for Humanity to build new houses.
"Some of the work we'll be doing is different than previous delegations in that we're working on rebuilding homes," said Janice Butler, director of the Office of Service-Learning at Bucknell. "In the past, we were mostly involved in gutting work. That is, clearing debris and taking out wet sheetrock and other kinds of material from people's homes so that they could rebuild. This year, we're excited we're going to be part of the rebuilding effort and, hopefully, trying to get some families back into their homes in time for the New Year." Audio
In addition, the Bucknell delegation will spend one day in Waveland, Miss., to see firsthand the damage caused as the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over that area, the storm's so-called "ground zero."
The Katrina volunteers will leave Lewisburg the day after fall semester exams end, Dec. 14, and return from the New Orleans area on Dec. 22.
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Samek Art Gallery to receive gift of Andy Warhol art
Samek Art Gallery will receive nearly 150 original Andy Warhol photographs and prints by the end of January 2008 to be added to the University's permanent collection. [full story]
The gift is part of the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program in honor of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ 20th anniversary. The program is giving selected groups of photographs from a collection of 28,543 original Warhol photographs, valued in excess of $28 million, to 183 college and university museums across the United States.
"Bucknell is honored to be chosen for this program," said Dan Mills, director of the Samek Art Gallery. "The addition of these Warhol photographs will enhance the University's growing permanent collection."
Each of the participating institutions will receive approximately 150 original Polaroid photographs and gelatin silver prints.
"Recognized as the most influential pop artist (the media often call him the 'prince of pop'), Warhol also was a native Pennsylvanian," said Mills. "In addition to benefiting Bucknell's students, this substantial gift of Polaroids and black-and-white photographs has regional significance. Many images from this body of work are portraits and snapshots of people. It will be exciting to see just what work we receive and who may be represented in the photographs."
See video of Mills discussing the significance of Warhol’s photographs.
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Bucknell grads featured in national poetry anthology
Three recent Bucknell University graduates are included in the new anthology Best New Poets 2007. [full story]
K.A. Hays ‘03, Tyler Mills ’05, and Rebecca Wadlinger ‘06 were among the 50 emerging poets selected for the anthology.
The three alumnae also participated in the Bucknell seminar for Younger Poets, a four-week summer program of intensive writing. A fourth poet, Donika Ross, who participated in the Seminar in 2004, also is included in the anthology.
"In the last several years, this anthology has become an increasingly competitive and distinguished one," said Shara McCallum, director of the Stadler Center for Poetry. "This year's judge, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey, selected only a tiny fraction of the poems nominated for inclusion. When you consider that fact, it is even more remarkable that not one but three recent Bucknell alums, and a fourth student with connections to the University through the Stadler Center’s summer program for younger poets, have received this kind of attention to their work.”
Founded in 1988, the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell offers a wide range of programs and residencies for emerging and established poets and writers, including the summer Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets, the Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing, the Sandra and Gary Sojka Visiting Poet Series, and the annual poet-in-residence program.
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Give the gift of travel for graduation
The Office of Alumni Relations announces the European Odyssey, a trip for members of the Class of 2008 from May 30-June 17, 2008. [full story]
Celebrate your new graduate’s achievement with a tour of England, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Vatican City, with the option of a Greece add-on from June 17-22. Professional tour guides accompany the group 24/7 on this trip of a lifetime for college friends, which features three- and four-star hotels. Complete information is available online.
