The University of Florida
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

IN THIS ISSUE:

Losing a Legend:
Remembering UF
Historian Sam Proctor.................. 3

CLAS Welcomes New Faculty........... 4

Scholar Safari:
Lombardi Scholars
Explore South Africa....................... 5

Survey Says: CLAS
Center Goes to the Polls................ 6

Around the College ....................... 8

Bookbeat ...................................... 10

Convocation 2005 .......................... 12

UNIVERSITY OF

FLORIDA
The Foundation for The Gator Nation.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
News and Publications
2008 Turlington Hall
PO Box 117300
Gainesville FL 32611-7300
editor@clas.ufl.edu
http://clasnews.clas.ufl.edu
CLASnotes is published by the College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences to inform faculty, staff and stu-
dents of current research, news and events.

The Dean's

Musings

Welcome Back to CLAS!
As the bustling fall semester begins, the return of students and faculty to
campus adds an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation as UF shifts
into top gear.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences represents a reference point
for studying and researching our traditions, our sense of values and plan-
ning the future. In a world of growing complexity and strife, the education
of our students must embrace these elements more than ever before.
Understanding our cultural past provides valuable lessons for the future
and an understanding of ourselves. Perhaps no one understood this better
than Sam Proctor, our university historian and professor emeritus of history
who passed away this summer. Sam's love of the university and his passion
for UF and Florida history endeared him to all. Alumni, faculty and staff
of all ages and colleges remember Sam as a gifted teacher who taught more
than just names and dates. During his almost 70 years on campus, he edu-
cated thousands about our state, its growth and its future with a passion
that is all too rare, and gave his students a lasting sense of true values and
integrity.
We also lost another influential faculty member and teacher in July.
English Professor James Haskins passed away in New York City. He was
one of the greatest literary writers of our time and had a profound influ-
ence on his students and colleagues.
As the new academic year gets underway, the college is actively devel-
oping new programs to better prepare our students for an increasingly
global world, with more attention given to studying different societies and
cultures-an area of high student interest. One new initiative is the Bob
Graham Center for Public Service at UF that will provide students with
opportunities to train for future leadership positions, meet current policy
makers and take courses in critical thinking, language learning and studies
of world cultures and literatures. Graham's active leadership will be a bea-
con for students truly interested in public service careers.
We hope it will be another productive year for the college and the
university as we have many new faculty members joining us, and innova-
tive initiatives are on the horizon.
Neil Sullivan
sullivan@phys. ufl.edu

Dean:
Editor:
Contributing Editor:
Design:
Web Master:
Copy Editor:

@ Printed on
Recycled paper

Neil Sullivan
Allyson A. Beutke
Buffy Lockette
Jane Dominguez
Jeff Stevens
Michal Meyer

On the Cover:
Sam Proctor, UFs historian and distinguished service professor emeritus of history, died on July
10 at his Gainesville home. Proctor spent almost 70 years on campus, starting as a freshman
in 1937, earning his PhD in history and teaching thousands of students as a faculty member
"Who among us who raise pens or touch keyboards in service to Florida history has not known
his guidance, his encouragement, his persuasion, perhaps even his goading?" says Michael Gan-
non, UF distinguished service professor emeritus of history, a longtime friend and colleague.
COVER PHOTO COURTESY GAINESVILLE SUN

CLASnotes August / September 2005

page 2

REMEMBERING UF HISTORIAN

SAM

PROCTOR

UF has lost a living legacy, a man who has arguably done
more to advance and protect the history of the University
of Florida and the state than any other person. Samuel
Proctor, a distinguished service professor emeritus of his-
tory and the university's historian, died at his Gainesville
home after a long illness on July 10. He was 86.

Born and raised in Jacksonville, Proc-
tor came to UF as a freshman in 1937.
After receiving a bachelor's degree in
history in 1941, he earned a master's
degree in history in 1942-in just two
semesters-writing a 560-page thesis on
Florida Governor Napoleon Bonaparte
Broward. Proctor then was drafted into
the Army during World War II and
served at Camp Blanding, near Starke,
giving illiterate recruits a basic education
in reading and arithmetic.
When he was discharged from the
service in 1946, he was offered scholar-
ships to pursue an international law
degree at Yale University and The Ohio
State University. But Proctor was per-
suaded to come back and teach at UF
by the chairman of the freshman social
sciences program, William Carleton.
Then-UF President J. Hillis Miller
named Proctor the university's first his-
torian and archivist and commissioned
him to write a book on the history of
UF in honor of the university's 100th
anniversary in 1953. Proctor submitted
the book as a dissertation and received a
doctorate from UF in 1958.
In 1967, Proctor established the
Oral History Program in UF's depart-
ment of history, with the purpose of
preserving eyewitness accounts of the
economic, social, political, religious and
intellectual life of Florida and the South.
CLASnotes August / September 2005

The collection, to date, holds nearly
4,000 interviews and 350,000 pages of
transcribed material, making it the largest
oral history archive in the South and one
of the major collections nationwide.
Proctor published a history of the
university called Gator History: A Picto-
rial History of the University of Florida in
1986 and edited Florida Historical Quar-
terly for 30 years. He was named one
of the 50 Most Important Floridians of
the 20th century, a list compiled by the
LakelandLedger in 1998.
Proctor taught Florida history to
thousands of students during his 50-year
teaching career. One of them was former
Florida Governor and US Senator Bob
Graham, who has described Proctor as
one of the most influential individuals
in his life. "Through his inspirational
teaching, thousands of students were
introduced to the history of our state
and given a better understanding of the
personalities and events that made Flor-
ida what it is today," says Graham. "He
made history an exciting adventure."
Proctor retired in June 1996 but
continued to serve as the official UF
historian and as director emeritus of the
Samuel Proctor Oral History Program,
which was renamed in his honor. He
regularly conducted oral history inter-
views for the program. In July 2004, the
university presented him with an honor-

ary Doctorate of Public Service degree in recognition of
his lifelong contributions to the university community.
David Colburn, a UF history professor and for-
mer provost, knew Proctor for more than 30 years and
says it is hard to think about the future of UF without
him. "Sam is so much a part of this university's history,
and he stood for all of the right things that you want a
faculty member to stand for," Colburn says. "He cared
greatly for his students and stayed in close touch with
them. He invested enormously in UF by participating
in every major committee on campus, and the historic
buildings would not still be standing were it not for his
leadership. No one has done more to advance the his-
tory of the state and the University of Florida."
Proctor is survived by his wife of 56 years, Bessie;
two sons, Mark of Pensacola and Alan of Atlanta, both
of whom are UF alumni; two daughters-in-law; two
brothers, George and Sol, both of Jacksonville; two
granddaughters; and numerous nieces, nephews and
cousins.
Two funds have been established in honor of Sam
and Bessie Proctor. The Samuel Proctor Scholarship
fund in history provides annual scholarships to history
students, and the Samuel and Bessie Proctor Scholar-
ship fund in Jewish studies supports undergraduate
scholarships to Jewish studies majors. Donations can
be mailed to the UF Foundation, PO Box 14425,
Gainesville, FL 32604.
A memorial service for Proctor will be held on
Sunday, October 16 at 2 pm in Gainesville at the Con-
gregation B'nai Israel at 3830 Northwest 16th Boule-
vard. For more information, please E-mail editor@clas.
ufl.edu or call (352) 846-2032.
-Allyson A. Beutke and Buffy Lockette
page 3

~ ~--
a

^

CLAS Welcomes New Faculty
More than 50 new faculty members join CLAS this year. In the next few issues, CLASnotes will introduce these new names and aces.

Deborah
Amberson is an
assistant professor
of Italian in the
Romance lan-
guages and litera-
tures department.
She completed her
PhD at the Uni-
versity of Pennsyl-
vania and received her bachelor's and master's
degrees from University College Cork in her
native Ireland. Before coming to UF, Amber-
son was a visiting faculty member at the Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara.
Her research examines the 20th-cen-
tury Italian novel, and her current project
concerns the representation of rage in 20th-
century Italian literature. Her interest lies in
examining rage not as a form of identity loss,
but instead as a form of intellectual engage-
ment by means of which a political identity is
found or created.
This fall, she is teaching a course on Ital-
ian cinema and Beginning Italian I.

Diane Kendall, an
assistant professor in
the communication
sciences and disor-
ders department,
received her PhD in
CSD from the Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh
in 1999. She is a
research speech-lan-
guage pathologist with an interest in rehabili-
tation of acquired disorders of communica-
tion in adults who have suffered a stroke.
She was a research investigator at the VA
Brain Rehabilitation and Research Center
and an assistant professor in UF's neurology
department before joining CLAS. Kend-
all is interested in developing theoretically
motivated treatments for acquired disorders
of communication such as speaking, read-
ing and writing. She works with individuals
who have suffered a left-hemisphere cerebral
vascular accident and exhibit aphasia, alexia
and agraphia. Kendall teaches Motor Speech
Disorders.

Florence Babb came
to UF in January
as the Vada Allen
Yeomans Professor of
Women's Studies. She
also has affiliations
in the anthropol-
ogy department and
the Center for Latin
American Studies.
Babb earned her PhD in anthropology from
the State University of New York, Buffalo in
1981 and has spent the past 22 years at the
University of Iowa, where she served as chair
of the inrli..p.1l... department and the
women's studies program.
Her research focuses on gender and
cultural politics in Latin America, and she
has conducted research in Peru, Nicaragua
and Cuba. A current project focuses on the
cultural impact of tourism in post-revolution-
ary nations. This year, she will teach graduate
seminars on Feminist Ethnography and on
Love, Sex, and Globalization.

Victoria Rovine is
an assistant profes-
sor jointly appointed
between the Center
for African Studies
and the School of Art
and Art History in
the College of Fine
Arts. She earned her
PhD in 1998 from
Indiana University with a specialization in
African art. Before coming to UF, she was a
curator at the University of Iowa Museum of
Art and an assistant curator at the Brooklyn
Museum.
Her research interests include contempo-
rary African artistic expressions, particularly
dress and textiles and the globalization of
African styles. Rovine's dissertation and first
book focused on the contemporary revival of
a type of textile in Mali, West Africa. She is
currently working on a project that examines
African fashion designers and the uses of
African forms in Western design. This fall,
she is teaching the introductory level course
African Humanities and a graduate seminar
on contemporary African art.

James Harnsberger
is an assistant pro-
fessor in the com-
munication sciences
and disorders depart-
ment. He earned his
PhD in linguistics
from the Univer-
sity of Michigan
in 1998 and was a
postdoctoral research fellow in the psychol-
ogy department at Indiana University before
coming to UE
His background is in phonetics, articu-
lation, acoustics and perception of speech.
Specifically, his work has focused on how
speech perception guides learning, which can
be defined as how information is stored in
long-term memory and how that informa-
tion interacts with prior knowledge. At UF,
he is involved in a number of interdisciplin-
ary projects, including the perception of age
in voices and the acoustic characteristics of
stress and deception in speech. He is teaching
Human Communication Dynamics this fall.

Sergei Shabanov, an
assistant professor of
mathematics, earned
his PhD in theoreti-
cal and mathematical
physics in 1988 from
the State Univer-
sity of St. Petersburg
(Russia). He has held
research positions
at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
(Russia), the Service de Physique Theorique
(Paris, France) and Free University of Berlin,
where he received the Alexander von Hum-
boldt Award. He also was a visiting professor
at the University of Valencia in Spain and in
UF's math department.
His research interests in applied math-
ematics have focused on the development of
fast pseudospectral numerical algorithms for
electromagnetism and quantum physics and
radar signal processing and imaging. This fall,
he is teaching Analysis 1 and a special topics
course for graduate students on pseudospec-
tral methods in numerical simulations.

CLASnotes August / September 2005

page 4

Scholar Safari
Lombardi Scholars Explore South Africa

When sociology senior Todre Allen was selected
as a John V. Lombardi Scholar in 2002, the
Immokalee resident had barely traveled beyond
the borders of Florida. Since then, he has stud-
ied abroad on four continents, experiencing
diverse world cultures first-hand.

"Before, I tended to be very US oriented
in my thinking," says Alien, who has
a minor in African American studies.
"This program has helped me broaden
my perspective and have a greater appre-
ciation for other peoples' culture within
the US and around the world."
The John V. Lombardi Scholar-
ship program was created in 2002 as the
university's most prestigious scholarship
program, in honor of former UF presi-
dent and history professor John Lom-
bardi. Each fall, eight entering freshmen
are selected from among Florida's best
and brightest high school graduates
and awarded a $4,500 stipend for 8-10
semesters, on top of free tuition from
the Florida Bright Futures Program,
and $3,000 start-up money for essential
computing or other academic supplies.
But the most unique aspect of the

Lombardi scholarship package by far is
its four summer study abroad experi-
ences, completely paid for and especially
tailored to participants. Currently in its
fourth year, the program has sent stu-
dents to Mexico, Greece, Japan and, as
of this summer, South Africa.
"In creating the Lombardi Program
it was felt from the beginning that the
international component was a way to
make it different from similar programs
at other institutions," says Associate
Provost Sheila Dickison. "It also seemed
like a very fitting way to honor former
President Lombardi, who is a strong
proponent of international study and
research. Lombardi Scholars are excep-
tional students and it has been our hope
that these four very different experiences
have given them a global perspective
that few students achieve."

This summer, the inaugural group of Lombardi
Scholars, now entering their senior year, took their last
trip to South Africa with Assistant Director of UF's
Center for African Studies Todd Leedy, visiting the
cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Capetown during
May 6-29. They spent the first two weeks based at the
University of Pretoria, attending lectures by university
professors on South African history and politics, the
HIV/AIDS crisis in the region, and US foreign policy.
They toured museums and historical sites in the Pre-
toria/Johannesburg area, and also attended briefings at
the US Embassy and the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) office.
In Capetown, the scholars toured the University
of Capetown and visited key sites, including Robben
Island, where political activist and former South Afri-
can president Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 20
years. They had to keep a travel journal of their experi-
ences and complete a reaction paper comparing a sin-
gle topic of interest in the US and South Africa upon
returning home. The students received three hours of
credit for the trip, which was packaged as a Summer C
course.
"The overall theme I was trying to get them to
look at was the historical and contemporary issues in
South African society, viewed through a comparative
lens with the United States," says Leedy, whose area
of research is on the agricultural and rural history of
the region. "I think one thing they learned is that even
within one country how diverse Africa is-the fact that
they have 11 official languages in South Africa is the
first indicator. They were able to hear a lot of different
perspectives that reinforced or broke down their expec-
tations."
Todre Allen's mother, Callie, says she can defi-
nitely see the Lombardi difference in her 21-year-old
"baby." The single mom says she worried about how
she was going to afford to send the A student to col-
lege when he was named to the inaugural group of
Lombardi's. "I am so grateful," she says. "He's got to
go to places he would never have been able to see, and
it has given him ideas of what he wants to do later in
life by visiting all these different places. He knows this
world is bigger than Immokalee."
-Buffy Lockette

While spending two weeks in the South African capital of
Pretoria, Lombardi Scholars had the chance to meet with fellow
college students from the University of Pretoria and attend lec-
tures on South African history and politics, the HIV/AIDS crisis,
and US foreign policy in the region.

CLASnotes August / September 2UUb

page 5

Surey Says!

CLAS center goes to the poils

The next time you see an unrecognized phone number on your caller
ID box, and the person on the other end says, "Hello, my name is

Janet, and I'm calling on behalf of..." don't hang up until you hear

the rest of the sentence. It might just be a fellow Gator from the
Florida Survey Research Center conducting a research poll.

The Florida Survey Research Center (FSRC) is
housed in the ( .ii of Liberal Arts and Sciences
and provides high-quality survey research and analy-
sis on a variety of topics, ranging from readership
surveys to faculty research studies. Completely self-
funded, the center designs, conducts and analyzes
surveys for clients such as the Legal Defense Fund,
i Association of ..and the NAACP.
But FSRC seems to get the most pleasure from
helping UF faculty and graduate students design and
implement surveys for research projects. The center
was established in 1992 by Political Science Associ-
ate Professor Michael Scicchitano, who serves as its
director in addition to overseeing the department's
graduate program in 1 '. administration.
"I envisioned a center that would fit in with the
political science department and would be a resource
for its faculty and graduate students," Scicchitano
says. When Research Director Tracy Johns came to
work for the FSRC in 1995, the UF alumna saw its
potential and diversified its clientele to other depart-
ments within the .i such as geography, as i
as colleagues from across campus, including IFAS
and the( i of Design, Construction and Plan-
ning.
S.. we started branching out into all differ-
ent kinds of things," Johns says, who earned all three
of her sociology degrees-BA, MA and PhD-from
UF and teaches as an : ..... professor for the
Departments of Sociology and Political Science.
have kept with our core idea, but pull from different
areas which helps us remain self-sufficient."
Located directly off-campus in a facility on
Northwest 8th Avenue, FSRC employs 30-40 part-
time interviewers, many of whom are UF students.

The center has its own state-of-the-art telephone
bank for phone surveys, but also has the ability to
carry out in-person, door-to-door, focus group, web-
based and mail surveys. With Scicchitano and Johns
at its helm, the center also has the expertise to con-
duct data analysis on survey F. I.. and write up
research reports. "One of the things that separates us
from other research or data gathering centers is that
we can either do it all or any aspect of a study," says
Johns.
S. i : client list largely contains govern-
ment agencies, academic researchers, and associa-
tions/organizations. While the center also works
with businesses, it refuses to market or : goods.
The' .: luxury retirement ( .. .....
located between Orlando and Ocala, hired the FSRC
in 2004 to survey employees of local businesses on
their housing situation-type, affordability and sat-
isfaction-since some are unable to reside within the
community due to its age requirement of 55 years or
older.
According to Vice President of Development
Gary Moyer, The "i conducts regular in-house
surveys of its residents by mail, but decided to hire
FSRC to conduct the more complicated task of
S. .: area workers by telephone. The company
has used the survey's findings to plan and track the
affordable housing needs of employees and monitor
its impact on the area community
The' =: is not the only entity to :
from FSRCs ability to make daunting tasks easier.
The Office of the Federal Public Defender for the
: : : District of Florida hired the center to con-
duct a : to help determine whether a change of
venue was needed in the ongoing trial of four :. i

CLASnotes August / September 2005

page 6

members of what is suspected to be
the North American arm of the Pales-
tinian Islamic Jihad, an international
terrorist organization. Three of the
four men arrested in February 2003
reside in the Tampa area and face
charges of racketeering and conspiracy
to commit murder.
Defense attorney Andrea Stubbs,
who represents Tampa medical clinic
worker Hatim Naji Fariz, did not
believe her client or his co-defendants
Sami Al-Arian, Sameeh Hamoudeh
and Ghassan Zeyed Ballut could get a
fair trial in Tampa and employed the
FSRC this spring to poll residents at
random in Florida's largest cities on
their familiarity with the case.
"I looked online and spoke to sev-
eral universities," says Stubbs. "Being a
government agency we had to get bids,
and UF won. There are actually jury
consultant companies that have exper-
tise in this particular kind of survey-
ing, but they are extremely expensive
so we wanted to find someone that

CLASnotes August / September 2005

could do basically the same thing for
far less money. Also, we wanted some-
one who would be well-spoken and
well-received by the court in case they
were asked to speak before the judge."
The judge denied the change of venue
request, and the trial is ongoing in
Tampa.
Since 2000, the FSRC has worked
on nearly 50 research projects with UF
faculty and students. CLAS Associate
Dean for Minority Affairs and Soci-
ology Professor Terry Mills recently
used the center for data collection on
a study on the differences in the indi-
cators of depression among African-
American and Caucasian older adults.
The center called nearly 2,600 house-
holds for the telephone survey.
"It is highly unlikely I would have
been able to conduct this study with-
out the assistance of the FSRC," says
Mills. "Specifically, the FSRC has the
telephone bank and the experienced
telephone interviewers who are trained
to handle such matters, and their set-

up allows a supervisor to monitor the calls and sug-
gest ways to improve communication."
When working with UF graduate students on
their thesis and dissertation research, the FSRC
only charges enough to cover its basic out-of-pocket
costs. IFAS graduate student Crystal Jackson used
the center to poll 5,000 US farms on the effective-
ness of the FDA and USDA's Good Agricultural
Practices program, which educates farms in 23
states on the spread and prevention of food-bourne
illnesses.
FSRC designed and mailed out the survey and
cataloged the results into 14 cross-tab correlations,
lightening Jackson's workload. The FSRC completed
the survey in March, and Jackson graduated with a
master's degree in food science and human nutrition
in August. "They were great to work with," she says.
"During the spring I was doing a 40-hour a week
internship while working on my research project,
and they were able to work around my schedule. It
would have been a nightmare without them!"
To utilize the FSRC on your next project,
call toll free at (866) 392-3475, send an E-mail to
FSRC@ufsurveyresearchcenter.cfcoxmail.com, or
visit www.flsurveyresearch.org for more information.
-Buffy Lockette

page 7

In Memory
English Pro-
fessor James
Haskins, who
taught at UF
since 1977,
died on July 6
of complica-
tions from
emphysema. He
was 63. Author
of more than
100 books on
African Ameri-
cans, including
Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali and Stevie Won-
der, Haskins is probably best known for his
book The Cotton Club, which was the basis for
the 1984 movie starring Richard Gere, Diane
Lane and Laurence Fishburne. He recently
published Delivering Justice: W W Law and the
Great Savannah Boycott (see page 11).
The African American Studies Program
has established a fellowship for visiting schol-
ars in Haskins' name. The Smather's Library
also has created the James Haskins Collection,
comprised of his personal library and papers,
housed in Special Collections.
A memorial service for Haskins will be
held in the University Auditorium on Septem-
ber 19 at 3 pm.

Merle Meyer,
a professor and
former chair of
the psychology
department,
died on June
28 after suf-
fering from a
short illness.
The 76-year-old
had served the
university for
33 years.
Meyer received his PhD from the Uni-
versity of Washington in 1963 and served
as chair of the psychology departments at
both Whitman College and the University
of Western Washington. In 1972, he became
UF's psychology chair, a role in which he
served for 16 years. Meyer returned to full-
time teaching in 1988, and until his death
continued to teach a full course load. He was
in the process of writing a General Psychol-
ogy undergraduate textbook.

Around

the College

Graham Promotes New Center
Retired US Senator Bob Graham held an
open forum on campus in July with more
than 100 faculty, staff and students to discuss
the proposed Bob Graham Center at UE
Senator Graham is working with UF and
the University of Miami to create two centers
that will initially focus on public leadership,
the Americas and national security. The spe-
cific mission of the Graham Center at UF will
be to provide students with the broad training
necessary for careers in the public sector.
Other proposed components include
new degree programs and certificates in public policy and public affairs, a states-
man-in-rresidence program and a leadership institute.
Graham is a native of Miami Lakes and earned a bachelor's degree in history
from UF in 1959. He retired from the US Senate in January after serving for 18
years and also served as Florida's governor for two terms from 1979 to 1987.

GATORS GIVE UF Community Campaign
a The UF Community Campaign, themed
,J_ "Gators Give in a Million Ways," kicks-off
61t ~ September 26 and runs through October 7
with the goal of raising $1 million for local
charities. With a campus community of
more than 12,000 faculty and staff, each of
us has the opportunity to fund the critical
services extended by the 76 charitable agen-
Scies that work to improve the lives of all Ala-
chua County residents.
Once you receive your pledge card, please
take a moment to complete it and return
it to your coordinator. Supporting the UF Community Campaign couldn't be
easier with payroll deduction, and you can even designate which organization
you want all or part of your donation to go to.
$1 a week for one year in our community can provide:
* 156 new books for a children's reading program through Child Care Resources.
* 52 medication prescriptions to be filled by Gainesville Community Ministries
for a person who otherwise would go without.
* 13 hours of dental or medical care at the Alachua County Organization for
Rural Needs (ACORN) Clinic from a licensed physician or dentist to a child
or adult who cannot afford appropriate care or is uninsured.
This year, CLAS Dean Neil Sullivan is the UFCC Leadership Chair, and
College of Dentistry Dean Terry Dolan is the Campaign Chair. In CLAS, Asso-
ciate Dean for Minority Affairs Terry Mills and Executive Secretary Carolyn
James are coordinating the college's overall efforts. Each college unit also has
a coordinator, and you can visit www.clas.ufl.edu/ufcc for a list. Training for
coordinators will be held on Tuesday, September 13 from 2-3 pm in the Keene
Faculty Center. For more information, please contact Carolyn James at cjames@
oasis.ufl.edu or 392-0788.

CLASnotes August / September 2005

page 8

DEPARTMENT NEWS
African American Studies
Faye Harrison, who has a joint appointment in inrlh-..p..l..;.,, gave a
keynote address on the importance of multicultural and global aware-
ness in building minority student engagement at a summer academy
in Snowbird, Utah, sponsored by the Institute for Higher Education
Policy. She also gave one of four keynote lectures at an inter-congress
on "Racism's Many Faces," which was organized by the International
Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Pardubice,
Czech Republic.

Asian Studies
Joseph Murphy, in cooperation with the history department, has
received a three-year grant of $99,000 from the Japan Foundation to
seed a permanent position in modern Japanese history at UE The new
faculty member should be on board by fall 2006.

Communication
Sciences and Disorders
Patricia B. Kricos has been elected to serve a three-year term on the
Board of Directors of Sigma Phi Omega (SPO), the national honor-
ary and professional society in gerontology. Housed in the Association
for Gerontology in Higher Education, SPO was established in 1980
to recognize the excellence of those who study ;,, ,,n r. l.. '' i ri and
the outstanding service of professionals who work with or on behalf of
older persons. The board of directors consists of eight elected directors
and an appointed student representative.

Dial Center for
Written and Oral Communication
Ed Kellerman presented a paper at the International Association of
Intercultural Researchers biannual conference at Kent State University
titled "Updating Cultural Factors in the 1997 Asian Economic Cri-
sis." This updated version of Kellerman's work was an outgrowth of a
grant he received in 2003 from UF's International Center that allowed
him to revisit Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore to see if attitudes
on authoritarianism, collectivism, and power-distance and belief in a
powerful elite had changed as a result of the post-crisis era.

Germanic and Slavic Studies
Keith Bullivant (German) was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of
German Studies during the spring 2005 semester at Jawaharlal Nehru
University in New Delhi, India.

History
Brian Ward has received two awards for his recent book Struggle for
Civil Rights in the South. The American Library Association gave it a
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award, and the Association
for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication selected it as
the best book of 2004 on the history of journalism and mass com-
munication.

Read CLASnotes online at http://clasnews.clas.ufl.edu
CLASnotes August / September 2005

Political Science
The American Political Science Association's section on State Politics
and Policy has selected "Winners, Losers, and Perceived Mandates:
Voter Explanations of the 1998 Gubernatorial and 2000 Presidential
Elections in Florida" as the best paper on state politics presented at the
group's 2004 annual meeting. The authors of the winning paper are
Stephen C. Craig, Michael D. Martinez, Jason Gainous, and James
G. Kane. The award will be presented at the section's business meet-
ing during the upcoming APSA meeting in Washington, DC.

KenWald's book, The Politics of Cultural D -. ... Social Change and
Voter Mobilization Strategies in the Post-New Deal Period, has received
the 2005 Best Publication Award from the American Political Science
Association's (APSA) Religion and Politics Section. The award will be
presented at the group's annual meeting.
Wald also has received the Jack Shand Research Award from the
Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Warren Miller Fel-
lowship in Electoral Studies from the APSA to support his residence
this fall at the APSA's Centennial Center in Washington.

Psychology
Franz Epting presented a keynote address at the International Con-
gress on Personal Construct Psychology held in Columbus, Ohio on
July 18. The Constructivist Psychology Network, in collaboration with
The Ohio State University and Miami University, hosted the meet-
ing. His address, "An Audacious Adventure: A Biography of George
Kelly-The Early Years," chronicled the life of George Alexander
Kelly, the founder of personal construct psychology, on whom Epting
is currently writing a full-length biography.

Romance Languages and Literatures
Libby Ginway's (Portuguese) recent book, Brazilian Science Fiction,
has been translated into Portuguese, and Ginway traveled to Brazil
in July to promote its launch. She held a roundtable discussion and a
book signing at a local bookstore in Rio de Janeiro.

Zoology
Bob Holt has received a 2005 Ecology Institute Prize for his research
in terrestrial ecology. The International Ecology Institute annually
gives the award to an ecologist distinguished by outstanding and sus-
tained scientific achievements. Holt was honored at a ceremony in
Germany in August and received more than $7,000 and the opportu-
nity to have a book published in the Excellence in Ecology series.

Doug Levey's paper, "Effects of Landscape Corridors on Seed Disper-
sal by Birds," which is on how plants benefit when birds use wildlife
corridors, appeared in the journal Science and garnered substantial
media coverage. Levey was interviewed for a story that aired July 1 on
National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," and was the subject
of a National Geographic story.

CLASnotes encourages letters to the editor E-mail editor@clas.ufl.edu or
send a letter to CLASnotes, PO Box 117300, Gainesville FL 32611. CLAS-
notes reserves the right to edit submissions for punctuation and length.

page 9

Bookbeat Recent publications from CLAS faculty

"Stony the Road" to Change: Black Mississippians and the Culture of Social Relations
Marilyn M. Thomas-Houston (African American Studies & Anthropology), Cambridge University Press

"There are many little Oxfords in this coun-
try, especially in the South," says Marilyn M.
Thomas-Houston of the Mississippi town she
studied and lived in for several years; places
the civil rights movement passed by, and that
were forgotten in the history of the move-
ment. "It isn't a matter of people denying
there were places that didn't participate, but
a matter of singing the praises of those who
did," she says.
The burning question for Thomas-
Houston, assistant professor of anthropol-
ogy and African
American studies,
is why did some
black communi-
ties ignore the
benefits of the
civil rights move-
ment? It took
much time spent
in Oxford, Missis-
sippi, along with
a reexamination
Marilyn M. Thomas-Houston of her own views,
to make the scholar realize she was asking the
wrong question. This book is the result.
Thomas-Houston's vision about black
society and culture was based on her South
Carolina middle-class background. "My
research helped me realize that people have

different perspectives on what equal rights
means, what progress means, and what it
means to be black. Prior to that I thought
everyone wanted the same thing, and that
equaled what I had been taught."
The result, says Thomas-Houston, was
that she, along with many other black activ-
ists, had failed to understand the impact of
history on the shaping of the public's world-
view. "When I saw things that conflicted
with my vision, I viewed it as a problem that
needed fixing, rather than a way of being that
was steeped in the processes and structures of
their particular society."
The book is full of interviews with Oxo-
nians and is structured in narrative fashion.
The story of a black police officer who ran
for sheriff and lost vividly illustrates Thomas-
Houston's message. "He had a vision, but
he didn't work that vision in the way blacks
[in Oxford] perceive each other-the whole
positioning, the belonging, the ideolo-
gies associated with insider/outsider ways
of being. He saw himself as black and he
thought that would be enough."
Even today, Thomas-Houston found
blacks in Oxford who cannot imagine the
white community allowing them to compete
on an equal footing. History has taught them
otherwise. The result is that power and status
are to be found only within the black com-

munity. Those who try for power in a world
seen as white are accused of selling out their
blackness.
In her writ-
ing, Thomas-
Houston kept
two audiences
in mind-those t i "
interested in t Cag
African-American
life after the civil
rights movement
and activists
working for black
communities. "I
wanted them to understand that we are even
less homogeneous as a group than is generally
thought. There is a tremendous amount of
diversity in black communities, and you have
to pay attention to that diversity in order to
be able to institute changes that will be ben-
eficial."
The book's title comes from the song
"Lift Every Voice and Sing," often known as
the Negro National Anthem. "I wanted peo-
ple to understand that blacks are still moving
towards a better life for themselves, but that
there are lots of stones-not boulders-but
little things that make progress difficult."
-Michal Meyer

Yoruba Royal Poetry: A Socio-Histori-
cal Exposition andAnnotated Transla-
tion, Akintunde Akinyemi, African
and Asian Languages and Literatures.
Bayreuth African Studies Series.
Yoruba royal poetry constitutes virtual
social, political and cultural charters,
and embodies aspects of the people's
cosmology and worldviews. This book
describes the genre in general before iso-
lating yungba-a poetry form peculiar to
Oyo communities-for analysis. Draw-
ing on archival and other historical materials, as well as extensive oral
interviews and text transcription, the book uncovers the link between
yungba poetry and the royal history of Oyo since 1937. The text pre-
sented in this book is the first full literal translation of a performance
of Yoruba royal poetry. This annotated translation is preceded by an
introduction that provides framework for understanding the recitation
itself. -Publisher

Learning Democracy: Citizen Engage-
ment and Electoral Change in Nicara-
gua, 1990-2001, Leslie Anderson and
Lawrence Dodd, Political Science. The
University of Chicago Press.
Historically, Nicaragua has been mired
in poverty and political conflict, yet the
country has become a model for the
successful emergence of democracy in a
developing nation. Nicaragua overcame
authoritarian government and American
interventionism by engaging in an electoral
revolution for democratic self-governance. Analyzing nationwide sur-
veys from the 1990, 1996 and 2001 Nicaraguan presidential elections,
the authors probe one of the most unexpected and intriguing advance-
ments in third world politics. They offer a balanced account of the
voting patterns and decisions that led Nicaraguans to first support the
reformist Sandinista revolutionaries only to replace them later with a

conservative democratic regime.

-Publisher

CLASnotes August / September 2005

page 10

Environmentalism in
the Muslim World

Ambivalence and the
Structure of Political
Opinion, Edited by Ste-
phen Craig and Michael
Martinez, Political Sci-
ence. Palgrave Macmillan.
The study of political
attitudes typically posits
a straightforward either/
or-either liberal or con-
servative, for example-
across a variety of values.
This tendency to catego-
rize may be an artifact of
given research methodolo-
gies, rather than reflecting
real political opinions.
When opinions vary
across issues, and might
even be in conflict, the
result is ambivalence. This
book represents an impor-
tant step in bringing
together various strands of
research about attitudinal
ambivalence and public
opinion. Essays by a dis-
tinguished group of politi-
cal scientists and social
psychologists provide a
conceptual framework
for understanding how
ambivalence is currently
understood and measured,
as well as its relevance to
the public's beliefs about
our political institutions
and national identity.
-Publisher

Environmentalism in the
Muslim World Edited by
Richard Foltz, Religion.
Nova Publishers.
This is the first book
to provide an overview of
how Muslim activists are
responding on the ground
to the global environmen-
tal crisis. The detrimental
effects of environmental
degradation are felt most
severely by the world's
poor, a disproportionate

number of whom
Muslims. Unfortu
governments of M
societies have been
to respond to envi
mental problems,
opposition move
well have mostly c
to focus on other
Nevertheless, envi
tal awareness and
are growing throu
the Muslim world
book offers chapt
leading Muslim e
mentalists which s
environmental ini
in Egypt, Turkey,
Pakistan, Nigeria,
Malaysia.

Delivering Justice
W Law and the
Savannah Boycot
Haskins, English.
treated by Benny A
Candlewick Press.
As a young boy
ing up poor in seg
gated Savannah, C
Westley Wallace L
was encouraged b)
grandmother to "b
body." As a young
he helped establish

are schools to assist bl
lately, in registering to vo
luslim He joined the NA
n slow and trained protes
iron- nonviolent civil di
while ence. In 1961, he
aents as famous Great Sava
:hosen Boycott, which lec
issues. that city becoming
ronmen- first in the South t
activism racial discriminati
ghout During his long c
. This a mail carrier for t
ers by Postal Service, W.
nviron- delivered much m
survey the mail to the citi
tiatives the city he loved.
Iran, extraordinary biog
and Jim Haskins and I
Andrews celebrate
-Publisher of a quiet but grea
in the struggle for
rights.

*: W Sacred Rites in Moon-
Great light: Ben no Naishi
t, James Nikki, Introduced, trans-
Illus- lated and annotated by S.
ndrews. Yumiko Hulvey, African
and Asian Languages and
grow- Literatures. Cornell East
re- Asia Series.
;eorgia, Ben no Naishi (1228-
aw 1270), a descendant of
Shis a literary branch of the
e some- Fujiwara family, created an
man, innovative poetic account
voter focusing on her public
acks personae as a naishi serv-
)te. ing at the court of Go-
ACP Fukakusa (r. 1246-1259).
ters in Traditional scholarship
sobedi- regards Ben no Naishi
led the Nikki as a naive record
nnah of court minutiae written
to without any literary pur-
the pose, but Ben no Naishi's
o end text is constructed con-
on. sciously by her devotion to
career as sacred and secular duties
he U.S. which legitimized and
W. Law perpetuated the rule of the
ore than royal family. This study
zens of situates the text within
In this the nikki tradition, traces
raphy, the cultivation of patron-
Benny age relationships that led
the life to Ben no Naishi's job at
t leader court, delineates duties of
civil naishi, explores the unique
literary aspects of the
-Publisher work, and reassesses Ben
no Naishi's work as an
innovative poetic record.
-Publisher

Symposium of Praise:
Horace Returns to Lyric
in Odes IK Timothy
Johnson, Classics. Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Press.
Horace's later lyric
poetry, Odes IV, which
focuses on praising Augus-
tus, the imperial family,
and other political insid-
ers, has often been treated
more as propaganda than
art. But in Symposium of
Praise, Timothy Johnson
examines the richly tex-
tured ambiguities of Odes
/Vthat engage the audi-
ence in the communal or
"sympotic" formulation of
Horace's praise. Through
this wider lens of Horati-
an lyric, Johnson provides
a critical reassessment of
the nature of public and
private in ancient Rome.
The book will be of inter-
est to historians of the
Augustan period and its
literature and to scholars
interested in the dynamics
between personal expres-
sion and political power.
-Publisher

CLASnotes August / September 2005

page 11

Convocation 2005

Please join CLAS for Fall Convocation at the University Audito-
rium on September 22 at 6 pm as we recognize outstanding
students and faculty. A reception on the west lawn will follow.

The ceremony's keynote speaker will
be Janie Fouke, UF's new provost
and senior vice president for academic
affairs, who started on August 15. Fouke
previously served as dean of the Col-
lege of Engineering at Michigan State
University, where she was a professor of
electrical and computer engineering. She
also was the inaugural division director
of the newly created division of bioengi-
neering and environmental systems with
the National Science Foundation in
Washington, DC.
After earning her bachelor's
degree in '-i. .1.. irl-' honors from St.
Andrews College in 1973, Fouke spent
the next two years teaching science in
North Carolina. She then earned her
master's degree and PhD in biomedical

mathematics and engineering from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
From 1981 to 1999, Fouke taught
at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland. She has earned the status
of Fellow in a number of professional
societies, including the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science,
the American Institute for Medical and
Biological Engineering and the Institute
for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
David Colburn, professor of his-
tory, stepped down as provost last year
to return to full-time teaching and
research. Mathematics Professor Joe
Glover, who served as the interim pro-
vost, has returned to his duties as associ-
ate provost for academic affairs.

UNIVERSITY OF

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News and Publications
2008 Turlington Hall
PO Box 117300
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