Katrina Gamble published in Legislative Studies Quarterly

Our own Katrina Gamble's findings on racial differences among legislators participating in select House committees are published in the current issue of Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Black Legislators More Active Than White Counterparts, Study Finds
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In a behind-the-scenes analysis of the U.S. Congress, Brown University political scientist Katrina Gamble found that black representatives put more time and resources than white representatives into developing policies and advocating for legislation of interest to African Americans. Furthermore, Gamble’s findings indicate that black representatives are more actively involved on legislation of all types – not just on bills benefiting African American constituents. Her research focused on three committees in the House of Representatives from the 107th Congress, in session through 2001 and 2002. The findings are published in the current issue of Legislative Studies Quarterly.

“With Congress becoming increasingly diverse, it is crucial to study how diversity affects deliberation, discussion, and policy outcomes,” said Gamble, assistant professor of political science at Brown. “These findings demonstrate that diverse political institutions are important for providing political representation to racial minorities. As we see more and more African Americans run for state-wide and national office it is significant to know that many black politicians work as advocates for racial minorities, but are also active on a variety of issues relevant to all Americans.”

Read the rest of the Brown Press Release

Her life's a real circus

The Madison Capital Times has a great story about our own Krin Haglund. Shortly after graduation Krin succumbed to the pull of the circus and is now planning to create her own troop. Congrats Krin and best wishes!

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Her life's a real circus: Multifaceted performer with Canadian troupe is coming home
MONTREAL -- Here are the clues.

When Krin Haglund was a little girl, her dad would tip her upside-down every day. In the Madison family's archives is a snapshot of her at age 6, fixated on performers in Baraboo.

This is a woman who has long loved the circus, but it wasn't until age 21 that she decided to join one. Nothing has shattered her dream, but events have challenged it, and she continues to reinvent herself as a professional clown, comedienne, aerialist and acrobat.

Since 2002, she has performed with Cirque Eloize, a 13-year-old Canadian company that travels the world, most recently returning from the Chekhov Festival in Moscow. It was in Germany two months before that.

Haglund will lead a two-day clowning workshop next month in Madison. The Cirque Eloize cast of 12 will come to Milwaukee in November to present "Rain," a globally acclaimed theatrical and acrobatic tribute to childhood.

Read the rest of the article

Cirque Eloize in action. Krin is in many of the shots in this clip.

A boy for Penelope!

Penelope Stranc-Roberts and her husband welcomed their son Ethan Franklin Roberts into their March 12, 2007.

Congrats Penelope!!!

Provincetown Gathering

Karen Embraza (Zaidberg) spent a week in P-Town with a few other Smithies for a great reunion and a much-needed break from a busy season!

Back row, L-R: Martina (Rachel Vorkink's girlfriend); Carmen Wheeler (Eleanor's wife); Eleanor Cartelli '99
Middle row, L-R: Karen Embraza (Zaidberg) '99; Rachel Embraza (Karen's wife)
Front row, L-R: Rebecca Libed; Rachel Vorkink '01

Another great Smith ranking

The third annual Washington Monthly College Guide came out this moth. The guides' aim is to offer an alternative to U.S. News & World Report and the like. The Washington Monthly Guide seeks to focus on what colleges are doing for the country. Their site states, "The whole point is to recognize the broader role colleges and universities play in our national life and to reward those institutions that best fulfill that role... we rank colleges based on three criteria: social mobility, research, and service."

Smith College ranking among liberal arts colleges: #2
Overall Score: 95

Social Mobility
• % of students receiving Pell Grants: 28%
• Predicted/actual grad rate based on % of Pell recipients and incoming SATs: 73%/86%
• Difference between predicted/actual grad rates (rank): 13% (10)

Research
• Federal research grant dollars in millions (rank): $1907 (11)
• Rank of % of Bachelor's going onto PhD studies: #7

Service
• Peace Corps Rank: 58
• ROTC rank: 18
• % of federal work-study funds spent on community service (rank): 15% (60)

Explanation of Scores:
Overall Score: Overall score represents the combined score of our three metrics—social mobility, research, and service—where the highest is 100 and the lowest is zero. Each individual metric is worth 33 ¹/³ total points.
Social Mobility: The first column shows the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants. The second shows the predicted rate of graduation, based on incoming SAT scores and Pell Grant percentages, versus the actual rate of graduation. The third shows the difference between the actual graduation rate and the predicted graduation rate—a measure of how well the school performs as an engine of social mobility —arrived at by subtracting the latter from the former. (The higher the number, the better; negative numbers indicate subpar performance.) Rank follows in parentheses.
Research: The first column shows the number of dollars (in millions) received from the federal government in research grants. Rank follows in parentheses. The second shows the school’s ranking in the number of bachelor’s recipients who go on to receive PhDs.
Service: The first column ranks the school by percentage of students who go on to serve in the Peace Corps. The second column ranks the school by percentage of students who serve in ROTC. The third gives the percentage of funds in federal work-study money that goes to community service (versus noncommunity service); rank follows in parentheses.

Wedding of Ernessa T. Carter

Ernessa T. Carter married Christian Hibbard in Los Angeles on July 1, 2007. She was extremely happy to have Katie Cissell (Gardner), Madeline Simmons (Nemeth), Emily Farrell, Monique King-Viehland, Karen Foxman, Nina Dunphy, and (not pictured) Tamara Larsen (Williams) in attendance. Reportedly, fun was had by all.

Congrats Ernessa & Christian!!

And the Rankings are out....

The new US News and World Report college rankings are up and Smith has moved up from last year to land at #17. Smith also ranked in the following categories for liberal arts colleges:

Economic Diversity Among TOP Liberal Arts Colleges: #1
Schools that Award the Most Need-Based Aid: #2
Best Values: #7
Top Liberal Arts Colleges: #17
Campus Ethnic Diversity: #23
Economic Diversity Among ALL Liberal Arts Colleges: #75
Schools whose freshmen are least (and most) likely to return: Smith is roughly in the middle at 91% returning

The Princeton Review also released the following rankings:

Dorms Like Palaces: #1
Best Career/Job Placement Services: #8

Wedding of Audrey Tang

Audrey Tang married Matthew Sousa on July 7, 2007 in Seattle, WA at the Newcastle Golf Club. Smithies pictured here are: (L to R) Linda Siu '99, Debbie Tay '98, Lori Kauffman '99, Phoebe Ingraham (Bartlett) '99, Audrey Tang '99, Anna Colletti (Carey) '99, Katie Ho '99 and Julia Cassaniti '99.

Congrats Audrey and Matthew!

Not From Canada

Looking for a theater option in NYC this week? Why not check out our own Ishah Janssen-Faith.

Ishah is currently in "Not From Canada" at the FringeNYC theater festival and receiving great reviews. There are only two shows left to catch Ishah and I have linked to the ticket purchase pages below by date.

not from canada
Writer/Director: Kevin Doyle
Three "unusually" white appear in a restaurant -- with no memory and no idea how they know each other. A tolerable state, if only the waiter would take their order. A satire for the literary set about having a pleasant time.
VENUE #19: CSV Cultural and Educational Center - Milagro
Fri 17 @ 9:15
Tue 21 @ 7:30

Congrats on a successful showing at FringeNYC Ishah!

Smith Ranks the Hottest

Smith and Northampton rank high this week...
Newsweek came out with the its Top 25 Hottest Universities list in the most recent addition and Smith came in as the hottest women's college. Newsweek characterizes the ranking as, "Instead of a numerical ranking, our list is a quick but colorful snapshot of today's most interesting schools. We've talked to a range of experts—admissions officials, educational consultants, students, parents, and college and university leaders—in making our selections. We've been particularly influenced by the views of high-school counselors, the people most in tune with what matters to the latest wave of college applicants."

Hottest Women's College
Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
With 2,800 students, Smith is the nation's largest women's college, and the first to start an engineering program. It is part of the Five Colleges consortium with nearby Mount Holyoke, Amherst, Hampshire and UMass Amherst. The facilities, particularly the cottage-style houses where students live in groups of 13 to 80, are so attractive that visitors originally preferring a coed college often change their minds. "Smith kind of won me over," says Katie Green, who thought she would go to a school with men. "When else in your life can you get the experience of being surrounded by smart, motivated young women who really care about what they're doing?"

Also making a best of list is Northampton. Smartertravel.com has ranked Northampton as one of 5 perfect college towns.

Want to avoid the hustle and bustle of Boston college life? Look no further than Northampton, a small New England city in the Berkshire foothills surrounded by no less than five colleges. The downtown area is filled with ma-and-pa-owned boutiques, coffee houses, hip restaurants, and theaters housed in historical buildings. Home to Smith College, the nation's largest liberal arts college for women, this funky little town is well-known for its art—many galleries feature local artists' work—and for its thriving gay and lesbian counter-culture scene.

In nearby Amherst, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the top choice for more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and hosts some major musical acts. These two colleges, plus the others in the area, provide the perfect backdrop for a formal education in the natural setting of the Berkshires.

Finding things to do outside of the classroom is a breeze, as many outdoor activities throughout the year offer a break from the books, including rafting on the Connecticut River, biking along Smith campus, hiking in the mountains, and window-shopping along Main Street. What sets this town apart from others is its energy. It may be a small town, but it's big on all things creative.

Class Notes Submissions Time

It's that time again, the class notes deadline. Notes submitted now will appear in the Winter 2007 Quarterly. Please send your updates to the class email address on or before Tuesday, August 14th or post your news to the comments section here and I will make sure Ingrid "Ms. Class Secretary Fantastico" Howard gets the info. If sending email please be sure to put "Class Notes Update" in the subject line.

Also, let us know in your email or comment if it is ok to post your news to the blog or add your photo to our flickr account. Please include the names of all people in the photo, along with class year (if different) and date/event the photo is from.

Cheers and have a great weekend all!
Tiffany

Feminist Fatale

The current issue of US News and World Report is doing a retrospective on major events in the year 1957. Betty Friedan ('42) is profiled because that year she began writing an article in that would later become her book The Feminine Mystique. The article was in response to a popular new book of the day, "Modern Women: The Lost Sex", which suggested American women were overeducated and not properly adjusting to their role as women. To say the least Ms. Friedan set out to prove differently.

Feminist Fatale:Betty Friedan and the book that changed women's lives
The housewife in Grandview, N.Y., was busy doing what so many women were doing in 1957: hustling three kids to school, running the Cub Scout meetings, cooking hamburgers for dinner. When Sputnik flew overhead, Betty Friedan woke up her son and carried him outside to see it tracing its way across the sky.

But Friedan, then 36, still had time to become annoyed over a popular new book, Modern Women: The Lost Sex. The authors, Freudian psychoanalysts, said that American women were over educated and not properly "adjusting to their role as women." Friedan, who had reveled in debates over politics and economics at Smith College, didn't buy it, and she set out to prove that the academic experiences of her fellow alumnae had made them better mothers. "I knew my Smith classmates were doing great things in their own communities, and having a great time, as I was, fixing up their houses, getting their kids educated," she later wrote.

The rest, as they say, is history. Friedan polled her peers about their marriages, their sex lives, their children. Two hundred women responded. The ones who were focused solely on home and family seemed depressed and frustrated. Those with other interests seemed to be enjoying their children and marriages.

Maybe it wasn't education that was making women frustrated, Friedan thought, but the limited role that women were asked to play.

Read the rest of the article

Smith Secret Societies

While looking for something completely different in the Smith archives I can across an entry about two secret societies that were once active on campus. I could only find any detailed information on one of the two groups mentioned, but thought it would be interesting to pass on.

From the Archives:
"Founded at Smith College in 1890, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (A.O.H.) was a secret society devoted to "the maintenance of devilish wit and the promotion of hellish spirit in the college." The group was intended to be a spoof upon "The Hibernians," a fraternal order of Irish Roman Catholics.

"A.O.H.'s patron saint was St. Patrick, its color was green, and its emblem was the shamrock. A.O.H enjoyed an intense rivalry with fellow secret society, the Orangemen, with whom they would compete for members." Membership was limited to twelve women from each class and members were inducted in the first semester of their first year. During the swearing in ceremony new members were given secret names and made to take the oath "I swear eternal hatred to the Orange and everlastin' loyalty to the Green, so help me St. Pat."

A.O.H was on of Smith's most popular secret societies until 1948 when President Davis abolished all secret societies on campus, calling them "undemocratic." At that time the group was forced to end all official activities, but records indicate that the group continued unofficially until the mid-1960s. All documentation ends with the 1965-1966 academic year.

Ford Hall

A new building will be going up at Smith very soon. Ford Hall will be the new home for engineering, chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology and computer science. It was sad to see the old mail room and bookstore gone, but this will (hopefully) replace the now long term temporary building that was attached to Bass Hall to house engineering.


Smith.edu Introduction to Ford Hall
"Capitalizing on a four-decade legacy of leadership and innovation in science education, Smith College has approved plans for a science and engineering facility that will intentionally blur the boundaries between traditional disciplines, creating an optimum environment for students and faculty to address key scientific and technological developments of our time. Both a structure and a symbol, the new home for the Picker Engineering Program, computer science, chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology will be a compelling, visible statement of Smith’s public identity as the women’s college with the strongest programs in science and engineering. The first building in the multi-phase complex is Ford Hall, named in honor of the lead donor to the project, the Ford Motor Company Fund. Through its Advanced Education Program, the Ford Fund supports programs that emphasize diversity in engineering and business and linking classroom learning with real-world projects and issues."

Check out all the details at Smith College: Ford Hall

Campus Guide Captures Smith Architecture

Smith News Release:
The range of architectural achievements at Smith is captured in a new book, The Campus Guide: Smith College, a lustrous volume filled with colorful, glossy photographs of the Smith campus.

The guide, which is available through Amazon.com and soon at Grécourt Bookshop, is organized into five “walks” among 67 campus buildings, each illustrated and discussed architecturally and in historical college context. Walk One tours the corner of campus around College Hall, including Neilson Library, Wright and Hatfield halls, and the Brown Fine Arts Center. The walks proceed through campus, exploring the architecture of other notable buildings, such as Sage Hall, Burton Hall, the president’s house, Lyman Conservatory, Helen Hills Hills Chapel, and many others.

As noted in the book, a tour of Smith’s 100-plus buildings is like a literal review of architectural history for more than 150 years. The Campus Guide: Smith College seeks to capture the history of Smith’s aesthetic evolution in pictures and prose.

The Campus Guide: Smith College is one in a series of books that illustrate the architecture on notable American campuses, including Duke, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale universities, and Vassar College. It was published this year by Princeton Architectural Press.