Chelsea Mills (left) and Alex Mathison observe snow monkeys at the Minnesota Zoo as part of their psychology project.

It’s a droll contrast to the indoor viewing area, where a thunderous procession of schoolchildren, hopped up in a frenzy of field-trip fever, press their noses to the windows, beseeching the primates to entertain them.

These Japanese macaques, more commonly known as snow monkeys, are the subject of a study conducted by St. Thomas seniors Paige Peterson, Chelsea Mills and Alex Mathison. The trio recorded six hours of video footage of the monkeys over six days in an effort to study the primates’ play behavior. Specifically, they scrutinized the younger monkeys (under 4 years old) and infants to determine how parental interference influences their play behavior.

One logistical challenge the group faced was dodging the aforementioned packs of children – free from watchful parents’ eyes – gone wild. Apparently, they enjoyed monkeying around with their cameras. “There were so many times when our cameras were blocked by a kid standing in front of them − sometimes done on purpose to wave at the camera − or were bumped into, which moved the camera angle around,” Mills said.

When mommy’s away, the children will play

Dr. Sarah Hankerson, a psychology professor at St. Thomas and adviser for the project, said, “This project represents one of the first attempts to understand why Japanese macaque mothers are so protective of their young. By focusing on the circumstances surrounding intervention, we can generate strong hypotheses on maternal concern. We can also examine the frequency, composition and timing of play bouts.”

Before beginning the study, Peterson, the project’s lead researcher and a psychology major, hypothesized that “there will be very few events of play (chasing, light biting and pulling, etc.) behavior inside a 10-foot circle of the mothers.”

Why? The group expected that the juvenile monkeys, much like humans, would feel less pressure to conform to adult social practices the further away they are from their mothers. They chose 10 feet because it seemed to be the easiest distance when making assessments from afar through videos.

Peterson explained that the social structure of Japanese snow monkeys is considered “despotic” (with the alpha male, beta male and older mothers, in that hierarchical order, ruling the roost) and that, contrary to the popular belief that monkeys swing care-free from tree to tree all day, snow monkeys have low levels of social tolerance.

“Based on previous studies,” she said, “it appears that since mothers don’t have good social bonds with other adults, they are going to be more protective with their offspring. This prevents the young monkeys from having contact with other group members. Babies are overprotected and grow into overprotective parents. It’s a cycle. They’ll try to play, but mothers usually keep one hand on their babies.”

Hankerson explained further that “as a result of strong maternal concern, it is possible that Japanese macaque juveniles need to be ‘sneaky’ in order to engage in play behavior.” She added that of any well-studied primate species, snow monkeys are the top party poopers – a fact that sparked Peterson’s curiosity; likewise, much of primate research investigates the connections between humans and or evolutionary predecessors, and according to past research the team scoured before beginning their study, scientists already have determined that both humans and primates spend much less time playing as they become grown-ups.

According to Hankerson, “Non-human primates can tell us a lot about the basic structure of behavior in group settings. We can look at the rudimentary way individuals handle conflict and affiliation. Being highly social animals, Japanese macaques can serve as models of group dynamics. This study looks at play behavior, which may seem a non-functional activity, but infants (both human and non-human) develop skills, improve physical strength and dexterity, and learn a lot about the world around them and their place in it by engaging in play behavior.”

The students’ research of human children found that the tapering of children’s play behavior coincides with the time period when schools eliminate recess from the children’s school day – roughly at the end of middle school.

Furthermore, Mills and Mathison explained, “In humans, authority figures place pressure on children to stop playing, causing play to become less frequent as they grow older. This pressure may be perceived by children that it’s time to focus on school and conform to a more structured schedule. Seeing this sort of behavioral pattern in snow macaques could suggest that we are not the only species to experience these types of pressures.”

What the group found after reviewing the footage was consistent with their hypothesis, with a small twist. Mills said, “The young monkeys played more often, and for longer periods of time, when they were farther away from the mothers. Chasing play tended to happen even if their mothers were close (less than 10 feet away), but a lot of the wrestling and biting play happened when they were farther away (more than 10 feet ). When the mothers were close and the young monkeys started wrestling, the mothers tended to interrupt their play, too.”

She added that while play behavior lets young monkeys practice certain behaviors on their own (such as how to avoid a predator), it can be troublesome to the group as a whole. “Play behavior tends to draw a lot of attention to the group, making them more noticeable to predators,” Mills noted. ”Along these lines we can kind of understand the role it plays in human behavior, too. While playing for a child is really important in their own individual development, it’s only when they reach the age when play stops that they can really start contributing to society as a whole. I think whether that is a good thing or bad thing just depends on how you look at it and what you consider to be more important.”

Although there are many mysteries still to be solved regarding snow monkey behavior, relatively speaking, much has been discovered, as they are among the world’s most studied animals.

The group hopes that “this research could help give insight into the complicated evolutionary pressures we experience today and the reasons behind why we experience them.”

About snow monkeys

Japanese macaques are the northernmost-living nonhuman primate and are native to Japan. Many inhabit northern Nagano, a mountain town in Japan that hosted the 1998 winter Olympics.

They are one of the few animals that are known, like humans, to wash their food before eating it. Their diet includes insects, soil, leaves, fruit and fish.

They also have been known to roll snowballs and fling them at each other in playful fights.

So why weren’t the monkeys, uh, monkeying around much on that cold day in April? Peterson shrugged and took a guess: “I think they’re a lot like us that way. In this weather they just want to hole up and keep warm.”

Tonia Bock

Consider for a moment two extreme historical examples: Martin Luther King Jr. and Adolph Hitler. The degree to which each was a good person is a rather stark contrast. One worked to alleviate gross societal injustices and oppression while the other worked to instigate it. How did each get to be such a person?

We can look to historical biographical sources, of course, to help answer this question. Yet we also want a more general answer that applies not only to these two individuals but also to you and me, and our young generation in particular. How do infants become morally upright adults? Ultimately, psychologists studying morality, such as myself, want to understand moral development so that we can inform teachers how to facilitate, strengthen and support future generations’ moral character. Some psychologists (e.g., the late Lawrence Kohlberg) dedicate their entire career to advance our knowledge of moral development so that we can educate our young to be more like King and less like Hitler.

One of the first generations of psychologists studying moral development (e.g., Kohlberg) focused on understanding how our reasoning about right and wrong changes from childhood to adulthood. The psychologists believed that adults who grow to reason in morally principled ways will behave morally. Plato once said, “To know the good is to do the good.” If we know the morally principled thing to do, then we will do just this. Right? Certainly this early generation of psychologists believed as much. Many studies since have shown that the psychologists weren’t necessarily wrong – there is a positive correlation between moral reasoning development and moral behavior; however, the correlation, even though it is statistically significant, is pretty small, meaning that knowing the right thing to do does not always lead to the person doing the right thing. We have countless examples of this from history as well as from our everyday lives. We regularly see news stories about politicians and Hollywood stars who do things they know are wrong. If we look closely at ourselves, we see that we also sometimes do things we know are wrong, except that unlike the politicians and stars, our wrongdoings are not usually news headlines.

So if people know the right thing to do, why don’t they just do it? This question has inspired some psychologists studying morality to turn their attention away from moral knowledge and reasoning to a concept called moral identity. What is moral identity? It is generally defined as the degree to which moral concerns (e.g., justice, caring, generosity) are a central part of one’s identity (i.e., your sense of who you are). It is a somewhat new concept, with psychologists starting to develop slightly different conceptualizations. Regardless of how psychologists are conceptualizing moral identity, they all assume and are interested in individual differences, meaning that some individuals have a strong moral identity while others have a weak one. Individuals with a very strong moral identity prioritize moral commitments over all other nonmoral commitments, obligating themselves to live consistently with their respective moral concerns; thus, one who has a strong moral identity would feel compelled to be a good person, at least respective to his or her prioritized moral commitments. Theoretically, then, these people would not only know the good but also prioritize and consistently do the good. A person with a weak moral identity, on the other hand, would highly prioritize nonmoral commitments (e.g., having wealth, being attractive, being popular) over moral commitments; thus, he or she would be more likely to know the right thing to do but not act accordingly with their knowledge, presumably because they are more driven by their highly prioritized nonmoral commitments.

Being a psychologist who studies morality, I of course find this notion of moral identity to be quite fascinating. My particular interest in this area surrounds two specific questions: How do we think moral identity is developed over time? How do we best assess people’s moral identity? Given that psychologists are still working on their theoretical conceptualizations of moral identity, there is a lot of work to be done on answering both of these questions. I’ll briefly sketch out some of the ideas and challenges that lie ahead for us.

If psychologists presume that individuals vary in how strong their moral identity is, then they should have some idea about how these differences emerge over time; currently, it seems we have some very general ideas. Some psychologists mention the importance of parenting in early childhood, describing how parents who frequently, consistently and jointly attend to the moral dimensions of situations with their young child will help them to not only build mental images of what it means to be a moral person but also construct memories of morally relevant events and interactions.

Other psychologists have focused on the importance of moral identity formation in adolescence. According to them, adolescence is a time of unique growth in cognitive, social and personal understandings. Individuals in their teens (and early 20s) become better able to construct more complex notions of who they are, now being able to incorporate abstract ideals and traits, possibly moral, into their sense of identity. To date, the most specific theory of moral identity formation argues that individuals must simultaneously develop and increasingly prioritize the values of (a) benevolence and (b) achievement. As the theory goes, these two values are initially independent from one another. As they become increasingly prioritized, the person cannot allocate his or her attention and resources to both – the person either needs to choose one over the other or integrate them. According to this theory, those who integrate the values of benevolence and achievement in their goals and commitments are those who have the strongest moral identity. Initial research has supported such a developmental model, but there is a long road ahead to more fully verifying it. It is hoped that additional explanations and models of moral identity development will also be advanced in the near future to paint a more complete picture of moral identity development from birth through old age.

My other interest in moral identity is how we should best assess it. The currently existing assessments have faced some rather serious criticisms. A few paper-pencil surveys of moral identity exist. The advantages of this type of assessment are that they are very easy for researchers to use and participants to complete. For example, one assessment has several virtues listed at the top of the survey (e.g., caring, fair, generous). Participants are then asked to indicate whether they agree or disagree with several statements about the importance of these virtues. Not surprisingly, all participants rate these virtues as being important to who they are. Individual differences exist, but they are very small.

The main criticism is that surveys such as these underestimate the individual differences in moral identity because, well, who would want to acknowledge that these virtues are not important to them? Psychologists call this social desirability bias, and it is a frequent issue in any research that deals with morality.

The other type of moral identity assessments are lengthy, intensive individual interviews. Social desirability is less of an issue because researchers ask rather general open-ended questions about how the interviewees describe themselves. The main disadvantage, though, is the time and energy it takes psychologists to not only conduct the interviews but also reliably code and analyze the data. Few researchers use this method, and when they do, it takes a rather long time to complete the entire research process.

These are just a few examples of the issues and challenges that researchers currently face in studying moral identity. I am quite confident that exciting theories and research are yet to come. I am most curious about how important researchers will find moral identity to be in doing the good. Maybe one day we can modify Plato’s saying to read, “To prioritize the good is to do the good.”

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

In 2001 and 2002, two German computer scientists became acquainted with each other over the Internet. One man, Armin Meiwes, had long harbored a desire, ever since childhood, to eat someone. He had been raised in a lonely and troubled family and had always craved a brother who would never leave him. This led him to fixate on cannibalism as the one sure way of internalizing that brother who would never, ever depart. But he could not cannibalize just anyone. His victim had to meet certain standards, be talkative, interested in becoming lifelong friends, and willing to give repeated, voluntary consent to making himself a sacrificial offering.

As luck would have it, there was someone out there who satisfied these exacting criteria. Bernd Brandes was an executive at Siemens Corp., but despite considerable professional accomplishments, had long desired annihilation. Ever since childhood, ever since his mother committed suicide when Bernd was 6 or 7, he had desired his own immolation, preferably in a cannibal feast.

After discovering one another on the Internet, they tested each other, made sure their resolve was fixed and certain. Armin had Bernd satisfy a series of requests. He had to sign a “willingness agreement.” He had to videotape his consent. He made his will, naming third parties, not Armin, as beneficiaries. This, in other words, was the law professor’s dream hypothetical case. It tested, in pure form, the limits of autonomous consent.

I set about investigating the case. As a legal scholar, I am someone strongly committed to having the facts speak for themselves. I believe that exacting historical records need to be developed in order to analyze a case properly. So, I plunged into the case.

I had studied German for a couple of years in graduate school and found myself resuscitating my German-language skills to read accounts of the case available only in German. I even read some of the German legal periodicals, immersing myself in the details of German law on assisted suicide.

It seems, in fact, that Armin and Bernd very nearly committed the perfect crime. Had Bernd committed suicide without Armin’s direct assistance – but with the intent of being eaten – this would have been legal. German law criminalizes only active euthanasia, and did not, at least at that time, criminalize cannibalism. At most, Armin would have been convicted of the misdemeanor offense of desecrating a corpse.

The plan called for Bernd to take an overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. But when Bernd did not die of what should have been a lethal combination, Armin finished the job by stabbing him through the throat. It was this act that allowed the German courts to prosecute and finally to convict him.

Armin defended himself at trial by arguing the morality of his actions. He could not have done wrong, he claimed, because every step he took was done at the explicit consent of his “victim,” Bernd. The two men had made sure to videotape all of their actions on the evening they met to carry out their plan, so Armin had proof for his claims. In the end, the German trial court imposed a light sentence (Armin could have been paroled in as little as four years). But the appeals court – in Germany, the prosecution can appeal the length of sentence – mandated a second trial at which a life sentence was imposed.

The final part of my research is an analysis the nature and limits of consent. I focus especially on libertarian commentary on this case, which is extensive. In the end, while I believe the libertarians succeed in advancing some reasonable claims, I find myself rejecting their position.

In purely Christian terms, of course, we find consensual cannibalism troubling for its violation of human dignity. But on secular terms, one could use several neglected aspects of John Stuart Mill’s work to argue against such all-encompassing autonomy. Mill, after all, grounded his theory of liberty in a set of background considerations about civilization.

Civilization, to Mill, entailed all of the kindnesses and gentilities of Victorian England. It was a concept Mill contrasted with the “barbarian” Europe of Charlemagne’s time. We could not just tuck into one another at meal time. Second, Mill developed a set of substantive norms from a complex of ideas he called the “religion of humanity.” Mill stressed altruism, decency and a respect for others as elements of this faith he believed all people of good will could share. Eating one another simply fell outside the boundaries of civilized and ethical conduct.

Under Mill’s construct, not only was Armin properly convicted of the crime, but in the end he received the sentence he deserved.

By my senior year of college, I knew I was going to Columbia Law School to prepare myself for a life as an international diplomat, preferably working for some U.N. agency on refugee issues. After three years at Columbia Law School, though, I was just as certain that I was destined for a career at a corporate law firm in Washington, D.C. I was quickly drawn into the fascinating world of the regulation of banks – writing testimony for Visa and MasterCard in congressional hearings on the regulation of interest rates, helping banks figure out how to securitize credit-card loans and even helping Target Corp. set up its very own credit-card bank. Though my journey toward partnership in a corporate law firm was slowed by a couple of significant life events – moving from D.C. to Minneapolis when I fell in love with a guy from Duluth and having a couple of kids – the path itself never changed. Until, of course, it did.

Around the time I got pregnant with my third child, my husband decided to pursue a long-time dream of his, leaving his law firm job to teach at a law school. The most attractive offer he got was from Notre Dame Law School. Right around the time that he got that offer, we learned that the child I was carrying had Down syndrome. Though I had never seriously considered teaching as a career before then, knowing that my world was going to be turned topsy-turvy by my new child somehow opened me up to whatever else I might find in that upside-down world. What I found was a part-time, tenure-track offer to teach at one of the country’s greatest law schools. And that offer opened the door to the most satisfying and rewarding career I could possibly imagine – teaching law and doing scholarship in two extraordinary

Catholic law schools – first Notre Dame, and then St. Thomas. I entered the world of scholarship rather timidly, writing about the world I had left, the world of banking regulation. As an academic, I found that the more I was able to take an objective perspective, the more I was able to more fully appreciate the tensions between the very real pressures felt by lenders forced to compete in increasingly larger national and international markets, and the very real costs paid by vulnerable consumers when those markets fail. My ongoing work on consumer credit regulation explores these tensions. After three articles on consumer credit in America, my most recent article finds some global insights in the recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which I relate to the schemes of consumer-credit regulation in the United States and the European Union.

While I was developing this body of scholarship on consumer-credit regulation, my experiences in raising a son with Down syndrome and (we later discovered) autism, also was exposing me to the world of disability rights. When I mentioned to a colleague at Notre Dame that I would like to explore some of these issues in my scholarship, she recommended that I read the book Dependent, Rational Animals: Why Human Beings, by Alisdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre’s book explores the question of how moral philosophy would be affected “if we were to treat the facts of vulnerability and affliction and the related facts of dependence as central to the human condition.” In his introduction, MacIntyre acknowledges his debt to the work of a group of feminist scholars who have been critiquing the traditional liberal theory of justice, based on the ideal of autonomous, independent actors. Known as “care feminists,” “cultural feminists” or “relational feminists,” these scholars argue that what all humans share, most fundamentally, is not some elusive (and largely mythical) state of autonomy and independence but rather a state of dependency – at the beginning and often at the end of life, and at various stages in between.

Right around the time that MacIntyre’s book introduced me to this line of feminist thought, I received an invitation from another Catholic law school to speak at a conference on the identity and mission of Catholic law schools. Because it was fairly clear that I had been asked to participate, in part, because of concerns about the under-representation of women at the conference, I decided to provide an unabashedly female perspective. In preparing this talk, I read, for the first time, the writings of Pope John Paul II on women, such as his 1988 Apostolic Letter, “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women,” and his 1995 “Letter to Women.” I was immediately struck by the dramatic convergence between the arguments of these Catholic teachings and the arguments of relational feminists. I have explored these convergences in a series of articles that focus primarily on the workplace restructuring necessary to support the effective witness of women in the public sphere that both the Church and most feminists advocate: Should Bearing the Child Mean Bearing All the Cost? A Catholic Perspective on the Sacrifice of Motherhood and the Common Good (2007), Motherhood and the Mission: What Catholic Law Schools Could Learn From Harvard About Women, and West, MacIntyre and Wojtyła: Pope John Paul II’s Contribution to the Development of a Dependency-Based Theory of Justice.

Engaging the work of secular feminist legal theory from any faith perspective, let alone the perspective of a Catholic woman, has been a challenge. But one of the most unexpected rewards of this engagement has been the professional and personal relationships I have forged with feminist scholars of all sorts. These friendships led to my current book project, co-editing a collection of essays by feminists of different faiths to be published in the next year by Ashgate Press, Feminism, Law, and Religion. My own contribution to this collection is an exploration of the contemporary Catholic feminist interpretation of the theory of gender identity known as complementarity, which posits that men and women are fundamentally different yet fundamentally equal. This theory has its roots in a Thomistic affirmation of the unity of body and soul; it was developed by a group of predominantly Catholic philosophers who rejected the Cartesian dualism underlying most post-Enlightenment philosophy – phenomenologists such as Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand and St. Edith Stein, and personalists such as Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier and Gabriel Marcel.

As my work on feminist legal theory drew me more deeply into the Catholic intellectual tradition, I began to feel the need to learn more about that tradition. During a sabbatical, I began to take courses toward a master’s degree in Catholic studies, earning that degree in the spring of 2010. The interdisciplinary nature of that degree program exposed me to the breadth of the history, philosophy, theology and literature of the Catholic tradition. In almost every class I took, though, I found myself focusing on questions of dependency and vulnerability, particularly as manifested in the disabled. My master’s thesis, “Jesus Wept: A Theological Reflection on Disabilities,” explored the contributions of a series of theologians and philosophers to making sense

of the lives of our most vulnerable fellow-citizens, the mentally disabled. This led to an invitation this past fall to participate in a symposium at Duke Law School on “Theological Argument in Law: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas.” My contribution to that symposium was an argument that Hauerwas’ critique of modern humanism (which parallels in many ways the relational feminists’ critique of modern liberal theories of justice) was consistent with the non theologically-based arguments of a prominent disability rights scholar critiquing inconsistencies in the current state of disability rights theory. Such convergences in thought, I argue, may point the way to fruitful alliances in advocating for fairer inclusion of those with disabilities in our society. This article will be published this year in Duke Law School’s Journal of Law & Contemporary Problems as “Exposing the Cracks in the Foundations of Disability Law.”

My scholarship in three different areas seems to lead me again and again to the discovery of convergences between Catholic thought and secular legal theory. I found this in feminist legal theory, in disability rights theory and even in consumer-credit regulation. I consider this an encouraging discovery, particularly in our increasingly polarized political climate, characterized it seems by ever-escalating tensions between institutional witnesses of faith and increasing pressures toward secularization. It suggests to me that the challenge at the heart of the mission of the University of St. Thomas School of Law – our dedication to “integrating faith and reason in the search for truth” – is not, in fact, an unrealistic one.

Elizabeth Schiltz is professor at the School of Law, a Thomas J. Abood Research Scholar, and co-director, Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

Why teens? My take on society’s perception of adolescents, admittedly painted with a broad stroke, was similar then to what it is now: I had a tendency to view teens as difficult, emotionally tormented individuals who frequently make poor decisions and can be unpleasant to be around. This perception was supported by stories I heard from my colleagues who worked with teens as well as from friends who shared of their own teen years. It crystallized for me when my 10-year-old daughter informed me last summer that she dreaded becoming a teenager because adults would no longer like her. She cited example after example of adult conversations she’d overheard in which they described their adolescent children with an array of negative anecdotes and adjectives, followed by eruptions of laughter and nods of agreement. She didn’t want to suddenly become, by virtue of passing time, a person no longer valued by the adult world.

We sometimes forget that adolescents are, in fact, children, despite their adult-sized bodies. When I got past the outer protective shell, what I found with homeless youth was scared, vulnerable, hurting children who desperately wanted to be loved and respected. As I shifted to the foster care system, I found a plethora of resources for young children and waiting lists of foster parents who want to care for them; however, once they become teens, they are considered “unadoptable” and “difficult-to-place” in foster home settings. As such, they are often relegated to less family-like settings such as group homes. These are the kids who are most likely to linger in foster care until they turn 18, aging out of the system instead of reunifying with their parents or being adopted. What we now know about these young people is that when they “age out” of the child welfare system, they have a very rough transition to young adulthood. Without the safety net of family support, they are at extremely high risk of joblessness, homelessness and incarceration. The system that was set up to protect children fails them once they are no longer small, and we all pay the price when a young adult is homeless or in prison rather than an engaged and contributing member of society.

One of the core values of my profession is “the importance of human relationships.” As a social worker, I lean toward solutions that occur through this venue. While we often think of adolescence as a time of separation and independence, we often do not see that this occurs in the context of relationships and interdependence. A recent research study of mine was an evaluation of a foster care program called Creating Ongoing Relationships Effectively (CORE) at Family Alternatives, Inc. CORE focused on older youth in foster care, helping them identify supportive adults in their lives who would commit to seeing them through their transitions out of foster care and into adulthood. We learned from that study that these youth want such relationships but do not have the skills to build them nor the ability to recognize potential supporters. More importantly, we learned that supportive adults are, in fact, out there and willing to help. We also found it is critical that older foster youth be given the reins to take charge of their lives and make decisions while they were still in care. It was hard for adults to permit the youth to make “poor” decisions. Yet, shortly, in some cases only a few months, they would be completely on their own. The CORE model encourages youth to play out their choices and make mistakes before they are on their own, when the stakes are lower.

I now am embarking on a related three-year study, “Fostering Youth Transitions,” funded by the Andrus Family Fund, which will be conducted with the same agency. The study will assess the effectiveness of a framework developed to help youth and their foster parents make sense of the emotional and social processes youth undergo during major life transitions, in particular the transition into and out of foster care. If this study demonstrates that the framework improves outcomes for young adults once they age out, it will be one of the only such tools available for social workers.

In keeping with the CORE model of youth empowerment, at the center of the transitions study is the voice of the youth. In all the adolescent topics I’ve studied, most of the information about children comes from adults. We have so much to learn when we listen to the ideas and perceptions of children and youth. In my earlier research years, I conducted one of the first studies to interview children of incarcerated parents rather than gather information about them from other sources. The teens in my runaway and foster care studies always have proven to be incredibly articulate and insightful. I count on them to help us adults make sense of their world.

Engaging students in research is critical to me. I want to witness another generation of social workers who not only use information from research but also want to engage in it. For that reason, I built research assistant funding into my grant proposal. It allows me to hire both an undergraduate BSW student and a graduate MSW student through the school year as well as the summers for the next three years. Already, only a few months into the study, they are highly engaged, and in response I have opened more opportunities to meet their enthusiasm. They have taken charge of managing data, have suggested ideas for measurement and analysis, and not only attend the foster agency meetings but are active participants.

Andrea Nesmith is assistant professor at the School of Social Work.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

Surrounding this third largest metropolis in India were densely settled rural areas, the location of most of my field research. After some preliminary investigation, I narrowed my study to 40 villages with a population of 400 to 800, and with literacy rates varying from almost none to nearly 100 percent. My goal was to find out why the rates varied so much; in a nutshell, the answer included the economic status of the villages, agricultural productivity, their religious make-up, location and history. The nights in a sleeping bag, with sacred cows huddled comfortably in the next room, the simple food of the villagers and their warm welcome made the site visits quite an experience! A year or two later, a condensed version of my dissertation, edited by my adviser, was published in a Cornell University Press volume titled, An Exploration of India: Geographical Perspectives on Society and Culture. The research experience was more than exhilarating and the recognition of being published was quite satisfying.

To say the least, India was a long way from the Minnesota home I had known for most of my life. I grew up near the Mississippi River on a dairy farm in southeastern Minnesota with my parents, grandparents and six brothers. Parts of my German heritage were important to the future direction my life would take – being committed Catholics, being well-organized and disciplined, being active participant-observers of and commentators on all the life around us were essential elements. Though I never would have imagined it would be so huge, that background had a profound impact on my research agenda and ability in later years. After attending the College of St. Teresa in Winona, Minn., for a few years, I entered the Sisters of St. Francis in Rochester. After religious formation, I graduated from St. Teresa’s with a history major; just two years later I began graduate school at Syracuse University, earning a master’s and Ph.D. in 1973. For 11 years I taught and held administrative positions at St. Teresa’s, during which time my main research was for my courses dealing with various geographic topics. As an administrator my tasks were to develop an effective undergraduate curriculum and write grants to support some innovative ideas related to curricular changes, both of which required a unique kind of research.

At the end of those years, my community asked me to study moral theology at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. One goal was to have someone in the order prepared to deal with the medical-moral questions that arose at the hospital we sponsor in Rochester, St. Mary’s, which is affiliated with the Mayo Clinic. Since I had served for nine years on the Board of Trustees of the hospital, I had a reasonably good sense of some of the major ethical questions. In a few years I earned a master’s and license in theology from Weston.

At that point my career and research agenda took a decidedly unexpected detour. Because of my dual preparation in the social sciences and theology, the officers of the Lilly Endowment Inc. asked me to consider writing about the status of Catholic seminaries. Another author had done an overview of Protestant seminaries, and there was interest in a comparable study for Catholics. From 1984 onward, the Lilly Endowment and other agencies have funded most of my research.

In the beginning my first Lilly project was focused quite specifically on graduate-level diocesan seminaries and religious order schools of theology. The field was unfamiliar to me, but the research tools I had acquired in both the social sciences and theology were immensely helpful. Site visits were indispensable, and in the three years I had to amass information and write the manuscript, I visited more than 40 seminaries. Msgr. William Baumgartner, former Rector of the St. Paul Seminary, then executive director of the NCEA Seminary Department, was of immeasurable assistance. He introduced me to the seminary world and wrote to all the rectors asking them for cooperation. Every seminary I visited welcomed me as I invaded their territory with a packed interview schedule and endless questions for administrators, faculty, staff, students and board members.

At Weston, where I then was working, the well-published older faculty helped me organize the manuscript, edit content and find a publisher. Realizing that producing a book is very much a collaborative effort, I vowed ever after I would assist faculty who were new to the publishing world in the same way I had been supported. In 1989, the Michael Glazer Press (later affiliated with the Liturgical Press) published Reason for the Hope: The Futures of Roman Catholic Theologates. While it was never on the best-seller list, it was deeply appreciated in the seminary world, especially among the schools that were part of the research. Consequently, ten years later the Liturgical Press published Seminaries, Theologates, and the Future of Church Ministry: An Analysis of Trends and Transitions, a fresh look at the seminary situation ten years later.

Through the years as my knowledge of seminary education deepened, the scope of my research gradually and naturally broadened to incorporate numerous topics related to the Catholic Church in the United States and to seminaries world-wide. In 1995 I was invited to an international gathering of seminary rectors from more than 75 countries at the University of Louvain in Belgium. I presented talks on the status of American seminaries and at the same time learned a great deal about seminaries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Following that event I was asked to make presentations to several Vatican-sponsored programs in Rome for English-speaking rectors from all over the world, and to conduct conferences at many other seminaries in Rome, Ireland, England, Scotland, Canada and Belgium. U.S. seminaries continue to be frequent consumers of my research, but international, national and regional organizations, dioceses and parishes also invite me to present material I have researched and had published.

Two developments in my research agenda resulted in other books, Educating Leaders for Ministry and Priestly Ministry in Multiple Parishes, both published by the Liturgical Press in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The second book especially resulted from teaching seminarians. In the late 1990s these graduate students began to inquire more and more about priests in their dioceses who had been asked to serve more than one parish. Almost nothing was published on the topic, so during my sabbatical in 2005, I applied for and received the Henry Luce III Fellowship in Theology, which supported my research on priests serving more than one parish. The topic has grown in popularity among seminarians, many of whom have since done their own research projects on this future ministry for their final papers in the course on “Pastoral Ministry in American Culture.”

My most recent research projects are among the most absorbing, and I hope among the most beneficial for seminaries and for the Church as a whole. For the past five years I have worked with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on studies of the causes and context of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The extensive study, published in May 2011 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is an in-depth report on why and how the abuse took place. My task this year is to prepare study guides for seminaries, parishes and dioceses, with the goal of preventing such abuse in the future – a major issue of human dignity and justice. The second focus relates to my 30 years of studying Catholic theological education, mainly as provided in seminaries. My intent over the next two to three years is to produce a “retrospective and prospective view” of where these institutions have been and directions they may take in the future. Funding for the research is all but assured by a major foundation.

One of the most unexpected and intriguing dimensions of the research I have undertaken is the convergence of several diverse aspects of my background. Cultural studies done in the field in India carried over to studying the culture of Catholic seminaries by site visits to all of these institutions. My knowledge of seminaries opened up broad areas of related studies on topics so vital to the Church today – vocations, priestly life and ministry, the development of lay ministry, and most recently the effects of sexual abuse.

What motivates me to continue examining these vital subjects? Most importantly, it is my Catholic faith that both motivates and sustains me. The richness of our tradition and the ups and downs of its 2000-year history serve as founts of wisdom and of challenge. As a Franciscan, my early formation included several years studying the life of St. Francis. One particular story about his life always has touched me deeply. St. Francis was praying before an ancient crucifix in the Chapel of San Damiano when he heard a voice say, “Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin.” Francis took the request literally at first, but eventually came to understand that it applied to the whole Church. Through the years I have translated the meaning to be “Build my Church,” a call that is the foundation of whatever ministry has been mine to do.

Sister Katarina Schuth, O.S.F., Ph.D. is Endowed Chair for the Social Scientific Study of Religion at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

Academic training in three different disciplines in three different countries, combined with practical experience in law and finance, made comparative scholarship a natural fit for me. Accordingly, my scholarship focuses on the intersection of economics, finance and law with a particular emphasis on comparative and transnational finance and comparative corporate, securities, civil, and European law and Law and Economics. Because of the comparative and methodological character of comparative research, comparativists often have new and different perspectives on academic debates and real-world problems. As a comparativist, my scholarship is motivated in large part by the desire to make practically relevant contributions to relevant real-world problems from a comparative institutional perspective. I find that this approach enables scholarship that seeks truth independent of political or economic pressure. In my work on the extraterritorial application of securities law, hedge funds, and contingent capital, I strive to suggest socially optimal solutions to real-world problems and policy debates.

In the context of the extraterritorial application of securities laws, I show in several pieces that U.S. policy responses can have repercussions in other jurisdictions with suboptimal social welfare outcomes that merit changes in policy. My most recent article in this context, forthcoming in the Minnesota Law Review, shows that European countries are increasingly changing their rules to capitalize on recent changes in U.S. policy pertaining to the extraterritorial application of securities laws. I suggest that many of these issues can be addressed through a bilateral treaty and parties’ choice of law in securities transactions.

In the context of contingent capital securities, a hybrid financial instrument that has the potential to optimize social welfare and already has been used in Europe, I suggest in several articles that using contingent capital securities can improve regulatory regimes that are based on “stable rules,” i.e. rules that do not adjust to ever changing market and economic environments. In several new pieces and a book, I will develop the theory that a combination of approaches and experimentation with different legal regimes may result in “dynamic regulation” of the financial services industry. In addition, I will show that dynamic regulation has great potential to address the shortcomings of current financial market regulation.

In the context of hedge fund regulation, several articles suggest an indirect regulatory approach that balances economic and political demands with social welfare optimizing solutions. Several new pieces examine the policy implications of recent hedge fund registration and disclosure requirements in the United States. In the last two decades, the SEC repeatedly has attempted to register private funds, i.e. funds that otherwise were not regulated if they complied with certain requirements. The Dodd-Frank Act now authorizes the SEC to bring private funds under its regulatory supervision by requiring registration and enhanced disclosure for private equity and hedge fund managers. I examine if the new registration and disclosure rules have an effect on private funds and the private-fund industry. Because new rules pertaining to private funds also have been implemented in Europe, several follow-up pieces will compare the impact of these rules in the respective countries and the United States.

Given the policy and social welfare implication of my scholarship and the large practical application, the concepts and theories used can be transferred easily to the classroom. By explaining the real-world policy implications of my research, I hope to enable and support my students in becoming morally responsible, wise, skillful and critical leaders who are capable of discerning the importance of their decisions for the common good and social policy. My classes in international finance, securities regulation, business associations, and European law present many opportunities to accomplish that objective. Although the subject areas can be very technical, and it is important for students to appreciate the technical details, I always emphasize the methodological and theoretical foundations of the material. I strive to expose my students to the full spectrum of perspectives and discourse pertaining to the methodological and theoretical foundations of their respective subject matters. By introducing my students to my own scholarship and research, I underscore that the concepts students learn can affect our perception of the common good and have enormous practical and policy applications.

My work in the context of hedge funds, contingent capital and the extraterritorial application of securities law may be followed by several theoretical projects that explore the long-term, theoretical and methodological implications of policy initiatives, regulatory developments, and the empirical findings of my research. As my scholarship in these areas evolves, I hope to explore with my students some of the common denominators of Catholic social thought and institutional economics as well as the implications for theoretical foundations of corporate and securities law.

Wulf Kaal is associate professor at the School of Law.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

Stephen Brookfield

I have been teaching since 1970 and have worked in the U.K., Canada and the United States. My first full-time adult education job in England had the title ‘Lecturer/Organizer’ and required me to build bridges and cross boundaries between the worlds of formal education and community life. For the past 42 years I have worked to connect the often dry world of scholarship to people’s everyday concerns. I have written, co-written or edited 14 other books on teaching methods, critical thinking, community education, adult learning and critical theory.

At the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling, John D. Holst teaches graduate courses in critical pedagogy, social theory and educational research. John entered the informal field of adult education in 1984 as a social movement activist by working in the student, labor, anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity movements. He entered the formal field of adult education in 1988 as an instructor of English as a Second Language in community and work-based adult education in Chicago. While teaching in factory lunchrooms, hotels, church basements, government and nongovernmental organizations, John became actively involved in the labor union of adult educators at the City Colleges of Chicago.

He is the author of the book Social Movements, Civil Society, and Radical Adult Education (2002). In addition, he is the author of several book chapters and articles that have appeared in the Adult Education Quarterly, the International Journal of Lifelong Learning, Educational Philosophy and Theory, and the Harvard Educational Review. His work has been translated into Spanish, German and Italian. He is a Houle Scholar Fellow (2001-2003) and, as such, he is working on the forthcoming text Gramsci, Globalization and Pedagogy.

We first began talking about a co-written book in 2005. In the process, we put on several pounds since our meetings were typically held in Brit’s Pub on Nicollet Ave. in Minneapolis. In our early meetings neither one of us anticipated that two major events would happen in the United States before the book was published. The first would be the election of the first African-American President of the United States. The second would be the meltdown of the banking and investment sector; some would say the near collapse of capitalism itself. These two events intersected as President Obama attempted to regulate the operations of the financial sector (banks, insurance companies and investment capital) and to reform the largely private health care system.

John Holst

The two of us had been talking for some time about the way that the field that had defined and nurtured our careers – adult education – seemed to have become disengaged from its traditional concerns with such events. Surely the election of an African-American president had all kinds of implications for education about race, racism and diversity? And didn’t the collapse of brokerage firms, banks, insurance companies and investment capital involve a great deal of learning to adjust and survive by those harmed in the fallout? Our belief that a contemporary book that addressed the social role and relevance of adult education was needed in the field only was confirmed by these events.

We decided to call the book Radicalizing Adult Learning (rather than Radicalizing Adult Education) because we wanted to focus on the purposeful learning adults undertake in pursuit of political and economic democracy, whether or not that occurs within programs described as adult education. Much of our attention is on social movements and on organizing that takes place outside of formal institutions, and much of that is self-directed – guided by experimentation and trial and error without the benefit or guidance of an experienced teacher. For the two of us, adult learning is inextricably tied to creating and extending political and economic democracy – to equalizing democratic control of, and access to, wealth, education, health care and creative work, and to promoting collective and co-operative forms of decision-making and labor.

This kind of work for both of us is perhaps seen most clearly in community movements. Every act of adult learning in such a movement entails alternating and intersecting dimensions. When adults learn how to create a tenants’ organization, build a grass roots coalition of environmental groups to stop a corporate-sponsored change in land use, organize a series of ‘Take Back the Night’ vigils, set up bar-and-pool-room classes to teach literacy for voter registration, mobilize a citizen army to fight apartheid, establish a worker’s co-operative in Turin, Clydeside or Nova Scotia, they increase their own knowledge, skill and insight. Radicalizing Learning begins by proposing this kind of learning as being particularly important and then works backward to explore how it is best encouraged, including the role of program planning, teaching and training in that endeavor.

The audience we had in mind for the book was all those who are interested in understanding better how people learn to build democratic, participatory and collective social and economic forms. In more specific terms, we hoped the book would be useful to graduate students new to the field of adult education who were seeking to understand its historical purpose. Educators with an activist agenda—particularly those in social movements, the media, community organizations and workplace learning programs—were another audience. In the preface we write, “We can see this book being used by staff, volunteers and activists in churches, in health care organizations, in labor unions, in economic and housing co-operatives, in tenants’ associations and in community development—in fact in any situation in which people are learning to assert their rights against corporate capitalism, unresponsive bureaucracy and mainstream media.” We are gratified that both a mainstream professional association and activist groups have high regard for the book. There are, for example, study groups formed around the book in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Both of us are elated to have won the 2011 World Award for Literature. For me, this is my fifth such award (I first won it in 1986) and I compare it to winning the adult education Oscar. Since the award is given by a group of adult education scholars – many of whom are previous winners of the award – it is the ultimate scholarly recognition by peers. This is John’s first World Award (though I predict it will not be his last), and he feels particularly gratified that a book that some might see as being too controversial has been recognized by the chief professional association in the field, the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education.

In the preface each of us thanked the other for the gifts of scholarship and commitment that we shared. I indicated that John had provided a constant stream of ideas and criticism from which I benefitted enormously. I also credited John for tightening up my thinking and introducing me to whole areas of practice and theory I had little or no awareness of. John acknowledged his appreciation for my willingness to collaborate with him on the project. He thanked me for taking the decisive steps to concretize our long discussed plans for collaboration by coming up with the specific plan and outline of the book. Both of us have already talked about a follow-up to Radicalizing Learning, which might extend further on the ideas we explored in that book on the role of arts (song, film, theater, poetry) in social movement. But, for now, the planning and editorial lunches at Brit’s are on hold and the weight loss program can start!

Stephen Brookfield and John D. Holst both teach at the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling. Brookfield is Distinguished University Professor and Holst is associate professor.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

I would say that my interest in behavioral neuroscience is both inborn and a product of my upbringing. I grew up on a farm in East Texas. My mother is a veterinarian, and our farm served as a makeshift convalescence home for injured and abandoned animals of all types (horses, pigs, gerbils, cats, dogs, llamas, emus, cows, peacocks, iguanas, turtles, chickens and geese, etc). I accompanied my mom to the vet clinic, rode “shotgun” with her on house calls, observed the necropsy process and watched how she worked to patch up, nurture and train our own brood. I remember asking my mother what specific animals were thinking, and she would answer with such precision that I believed she could literally understand secret languages of animals. She helped hone my process of observation and encouraged me to “notice what happens when… .”

My father was a health physicist and an amateur astronomer. I remember feeling in awe of the enormous range of scale he worked with – gasses measured in the parts per million in the laboratory and a telescope at home trained on objects millions of miles away. I inherited from my father an appreciation for measurement and calculation. The family games we played (Scrabble, bridge and poker) involved assessments of risk versus reward. From my father, I learned to speculate, “what would happen if… .”

Growing up, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you when football season ended and basketball season began, but I did have a sense of natural rhythms like the periodicity of hurricanes, lunar cycles, breeding seasons and blue bonnet blooms. I knew when the chickens went to roost, when the horses would start pawing and snorting for their feed and when the barn rats and cats started their nightly pas de deux. When I travelled, I noticed the different patterns in human activity; e.g., how Spaniards and Moroccans retreat for a few hours each day when the sun is overhead but stay awake long into the night, and how Icelanders reveled in the midnight sun.

When I started college at Transylvania University, a small liberal arts college in Lexington, Ky., I became acutely aware that I was a morning person living in a night owl world. I was bright-eyed for morning classes, but missed out on plenty of social events because I liked to be in bed by 10 p.m. I started off taking science and math classes but quickly became fascinated by the field of neuroscience and designed my own biopsychology major. To quote from one of my favorite hymns, I wanted to know more about “the mystic harmony/ linking sense to sound and sight.”

I enrolled in a Ph.D. neuroscience program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research mentors, a psychiatrist and comparative anatomist, invited me to join them on a project investigating how the rat brain responds to different types of light exposure. After speaking with Nobel Laureate Torsten Wiesel about his research on how rearing kittens in complete darkness permanently disrupted visual skills like depth perception, I was inspired to investigate what happened to animals’ sleep patterns when they were exposed to all dark or all light (like that of a neonatal ICU ward) for the first few weeks of their lives. In short, our research team found that rats deprived of light early in life were hyper responsive to light cues (like the folks who fall asleep in lecture as soon as the lights are dimmed), whereas the rats who were reared in all light weren’t able to adjust their sleep patterns to new lighting conditions (like people who are more sensitive to jetlag). These behavioral changes reflected actual anatomical differences in the eye-brain connections.

Once I began teaching college full time and I witnessed the delirium and exhaustion of students struggling to stay awake, my research focus switched from rats to students. Sleep is a good indicator of overall health, and college students in the United States are at the center of a major public health crisis. Most psychological and physiological illnesses involve disruptions in sleep, and likewise, disruptions in sleep can contribute to illness. Diagnosed mental illnesses in college students have been on the rise and freshmen are reporting higher levels of stress than any previous generation. My first research endeavor in this field was to document exactly how poorly college students are sleeping and to start to figure out what was most responsible for disturbing sleep in students.

I did an extensive survey of over 1,000 students to evaluate relationships between sleep quality, schedule, “sleep hygiene,” mood, psychoactive substance use and academic performance. Not surprisingly, we found that students weren’t getting enough sleep; however, the reason for their lack of good quality sleep was surprising to me. Feeling stressed provided the largest explanatory power for poor sleep quality, whereas alcohol and caffeine consumption and consistency of sleep schedule were not significant predictors of sleep quality. These data are published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, and to the best of my knowledge, this article has the largest sample size and includes the most extensive survey on sleep behaviors of any published article on sleep in college students in the United States. This study also received considerable attention in the popular media, and was summarized as a press release by Medical News Today.

Now that we know more about how students are sleeping, our next step is to figure out how to improve it. College students in particular are notorious for bad sleep hygiene – sleeping in on the weekends, socializing, studying or playing video games late into the night, and using triple shot lattes and 5-hour energy drinks to fuel their busy lifestyles. Although most contemporary guidelines focus on improving sleep hygiene, my research suggests that teaching students cognitive and behavioral techniques to help manage their stress and anxiety might be a more effective intervention strategy. I currently am partnering with the St. Thomas Student Wellness Center to follow a group of freshmen who have gotten together every morning to enjoy a healthy breakfast and talk about issues that are stressful for students (finances, relationships, time management, etc). We haven’t analyzed the data yet, but I suspect that just taking time every day to meet and talk face to face will have a positive impact on these students’ sleep, stress and health. People love to talk about sleep, and college students are certainly no exception. Students working with me have compared levels of cortisol hormone and immune function of those students with regular schedules versus those with irregular ones; have convinced students to go to bed with their cell phones off and measure differences in their sleep quality; and have studied the effects of energy drinks on decision-making behavior. I have really enjoyed teaching students to apply a critical lens to their own sleep and health. I trained that lens on myself, too and noticed, for example, how my sleep switched to a bi-phasic pattern during the last few weeks of pregnancy to a fragmented delirium during the first week with our newborn daughter. My hope is to figure out ways to make everyone sleep a little better in this frenetic, caffeinated 24-hour world.

Roxanne Prichard is professor of psychology at the College of Arts and Sciences.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

It took me several years, though, to bring my interests in Brazilian language and culture together with my passion for art history. After completing a B.A. in art history at the University of Iowa, I enrolled at Tulane University for my master’s degree, where I focused on 19th-century French painting; however, Brazil kept calling me back, and midway through my Ph.D. program at Indiana University, I determined to change my research path and focus on the material culture of Candomblé, an African-Brazilian religion.

Since that time, my primary body of research focuses on the material culture associated with Candomblé, both within the sacred spaces used for religious practice and in the secularized realm of public art. Emerging as a religion among enslaved people, Candomblé was oppressed and even criminalized by the dominant class through much of the 20th century. Although it is now legal to practice Candomblé, the religion remains marginalized in many sectors of society. At the same time, the symbols of Candomblé are frequently extracted from the sacred context and appropriated for use in public art projects under the sponsorship of private corporations and governmental organizations. A fundamental transformation in aesthetics, function and meaning occurs when representations and symbols of the Candomblé orixás (deities) are taken out of their sacred context, adopted for public art projects and interpreted for consumption by a wide audience in a secular space. This process requires a shift in aesthetic principles and allows for the incorporation of Candomblé imagery into newly constructed forms of regional and national identity.

The methods and theories of art history and anthropology guide me in my fieldwork, but I would make no progress without solid language skills. After I completed the introductory language courses at the University of Iowa, I took more advanced courses in Brazilian literature. I continued this line of study as a Ph.D. student, and I also did a few intensive summer language programs in Brazil. When I began my fieldwork, though, my command of the Portuguese language was very formal. I had learned the language by reading literary classics and writing academic papers, striving for impeccable grammar. Many of the people who make the greatest contributions to my research through their deep knowledge of Candomblé have not had the advantage of formal education, and their use of language is much more colloquial. One of my great challenges in the course of my fieldwork was learning to expand my use of language to adapt to the context of its everyday use.

I enjoy teaching Candomblé to students who have experience with Catholic traditions because there are many interesting parallels to explore. In some Candomblé communities, people juxtapose African traditions with Catholic imagery and practices, a remnant of the power structures of the part that placed Candomblé in a vulnerable position. Through an exploration of art works, my research and teaching examine the ways in which people of differing worldviews and backgrounds create meaning about the world around them.

Heather Shirey is professor of Art History at the College of Arts and Sciences.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

The event, which will be held in the state Capitol’s rotunda, celebrates the research of Minnesota’s private college students. Thirty-seven students from 15 private colleges and universities will display and present 28 posters describing their research in various disciplines.

Sam Jensen and Julie Rech, both seniors, will represent St. Thomas at Scholars at the Capitol. Faculty advisers also are invited to participate.

The Minnesota Private College Council is the primary sponsor of the event. Each college selects and sends its own students to the event. Students will present to visitors in the rotunda from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Research Summaries

Assessing Estrogenic and Androgenic Activity of UV Filter Photoproducts

By Sam Jensen
Faculty advisers: Dr. Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt, Biology; Dr. Kristine Wammer, Chemistry

Previous research suggests that some UV filters commonly used as active ingredients in sunscreens may exhibit estrogenic or androgenic activity and produce photoproducts that are also potential endocrine disruptors. Here, UV filters were exposed to simulated sunlight to generate photoproduct mixtures and characterized by HPLC and LC-MS. Mixtures were screened for endocrine activity using two transcriptional assays. The endocrine activities of the samples were interpolated by a least-squares means procedure from a nonlinear sigmoidal dose response curve fit to the relative luminescence units of the estradiol/testosterone standards. Octyl methoxycinnamate (octinoxate) and a mixture of its photoproducts exhibited androgenic activity in vitro; one active photoproduct (4-methoxybenzaldehyde) has been identified. Octyl dimethyl para-aminobenzoic acid (padimate O) had no androgenic activity in vitro, whereas a mixture of its photoproducts was found to have activity. Utilizing flash chromatography, present work is focused on isolating and identifying the active photoproduct(s).

Great River Greening: Managing Environmental Data and Evaluating Restored Landscapes

By Julie Rech
Faculty adviser: Dr. Paul Lorah, Geography

As the significance of Earth’s natural landscapes gains increasing acknowledgment, many people are beginning to actively work toward making remedial environmental changes. With these efforts comes the question of how to measure a conservation project’s success. Great River Greening is a nonprofit organization promoting and leading volunteer and community-based restorative projects in Minnesota. It has been asking this question and is interested in understanding its projects’ successes. In partnership with this organization, field research was undertaken by studying its existing sites; further work was done in its office and at the University of St. Thomas GIS Lab, where the organization’s data was managed. Evaluations were collected, datasets were formatted and geodatabases were built. This project also had a marketing aspect, which yielded informational maps and graphics for the organization’s use. Ultimately, this project’s value will lie in its potential future use for evaluations of project sites and maps and for marketing.

Abstracts of all 28 of the research presentations can be viewed in the Scholars at the Capitol abstract booklet.

The Minnesota Private College Council (MPCC) represents 17 liberal arts colleges and universities with 60,000 students. These institutions award about 30 percent of the baccalaureate degrees in the state. The organization’s mission is to advocate for high-quality private higher education.

Editor’s note: The research of Sam Jensen and Julie Rech was conducted with assistance from the Grants and Research Office’s Young Scholars Grant Program, Community Based Research Grant Program and Student Travel Grant Program.

A brief political tract on the well-ordered society, The Great Harmony is a Confucian depiction of institutions functioning in accord with individuals’ needs and demands. The “harmony” synchronizes institutional supply of goods and services with market demand, signaling one way in which work may be termed “meaningful.” However, in reality, Wong’s family, his community, and their needs were immaterial to the orderly functioning of the greater society. Born into peasantry when inequality prevailed, Wong could not wait for “the great way” to reappear. He broke ranks with the existing social order in his search for a better life.

“The worthy and able were chosen as officeholders. Mutual confidence was fostered and good neighborliness cultivated. Therefore, people did not regard as parents only their own parents, nor did they treat as children only their own children. Provision was made for the aged till their death, the adults were given employment, and the young enabled to grow up.”

As if to underscore the irony, in this period of his life Wong was also a child among adults, working as a local newspaper copyist to support himself beyond the care the school had offered him in room and board. By copying The Great Harmony hundreds of times, he had distinguished himself as a calligrapher, one of the marks of the Chinese scholar, as well as one of the skills of the productive worker of the time and place. When he was not practicing The Great Harmony, he worked long hours outside of school, in seemingly dingy conditions and little light, at eye-straining work that the newspaper would have preferred to be performed by a machine. He was compensated accordingly.

The conditions of work comprise a second way in which work might be meaningful. The more that work is performed out of necessity rather than possibility, the less meaningful it tends to seem to the worker. When institutional ends are incompatible with individual ends, the worker might as well be a machine, and the conditions of work might as well be minimally sufficient to enable the efficient operation of the human machine until it wears out and is replaced by another.

Wong’s search for a better life led him to employ his considerable natural intelligence and gifts in the art of persuasion to escape subservience at work. Those traits, which made him more valuable than any machine, carried him from peasantry through elementary school to military school to a high post in the military government, serving a country escaping thousands of years of imperial rule. In the second quarter of his life, he survived three enemies – warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist insurgents – before the last drove his army and his family from China in 1949. Subsequently, having left behind most of the wealth he had accumulated, he failed twice as an ordinary businessman in São Paulo, Brazil. For what became the majority of his 98 years, J.C. Wong, as his name was rendered in his adopted country, was supported by his children.

“Old widows, widowers, the orphaned, the old and childless, as well as the sick and the disabled were well taken care of. Men had their proper roles and women their homes.”

By old age, Wong had transcribed The Great Harmony perhaps thousands of times. In the beginning, he and the other children in his school were required to memorize such passages and practice calligraphy, seated in orderly rows under the scrutiny of an authoritarian teacher. The consequences of failure for a student who came from outside the community were especially high. Not only would he be subject to harsh discipline, but expulsion for him would mean the end of his education, forcing him back to the countryside. Amid that pressure, Wong produced characters that were uniform and dignified, their strokes bold and alive as though a part of the nature they resembled, and he cultivated a discipline that he preached throughout his lifetime: The final character must be as well-formed as the first. Transcriptions of The Great Harmony that he produced as an older man decorate the walls of the homes of his descendants, and scores of other surviving copies are rolled in scrolls within their storage trunks and on rice paper and silk. Usually, there were few errors; he focused as though he were an intelligent machine, and when he was done, berated himself for the imperfections.

This work, which was initially an externally imposed requirement and evolved into an internally assumed duty, held little pleasure for Wong, in the usual sense of the word. He was utterly serious while he did it and generally displeased upon completion. Especially when his sight and dexterity began to fail, calligraphy became a source of emotional pain and self-disparagement. Not only could he no longer improve upon it, he could not use it to occupy himself with it because he was so disgusted with the final product. About the time his skills were in noticeable decline, his second wife died, and his calligraphy followed.

In a third way, in which meaningful work fulfills an individual’s desire for self-expression, what he perceives as his proper role, Wong’s work was no longer meaningful to him.

“While they hated to see wealth lying about on the ground, they did not necessarily keep it for their own use. While they hated not to exert their effort, they did not necessarily devote it to their own ends. Thus, evil schemes were repressed, and robbers, thieves, and other lawless elements failed to arise so that outer doors did not have to be shut. This was called the age of Great Harmony.”

Wong survived for nearly a decade after that – an unusually strong body sustaining a weak will to live. Calligraphy had been the primary occupation that allowed him, as an able-bodied adult, to overcome the indignity of being supported by his children. It had been his first marketable skill, and although it no longer had any market value, it was meaningful work in a fourth way, that of being socially beneficial to the wellbeing and education of his descendants and other relations.

When he died, Wong left 20 grandchildren, most of them working-age products of the middle and upper class in urban centers of Brazil and the United States. They have grown up in the imposing shadows of their immigrant parents, whose considerable professional success was motivated by their father’s demanding work ethic and their selective acceptance of tradition, rejecting traditional gender roles with his implicit approval. But the meaning of meaningful work has not remained the same through the generations. For Wong, meaningful life required hard work, and though some of his grandchildren work hard at professions they consider to be meaningful, others would like to work less so as to preserve the possibility of meaningful lives outside of work. His identity and patriarchal style were shaped by his early career generalship, even after he left it behind, whereas they may not always see themselves first and foremost as workers. He struggled to evade tyrannical leaders, whereas they struggled to break away from seemingly tyrannical parents who promoted his work ethic. Like most of the world’s population that is unaccustomed to material comfort, he had to work to survive, whereas they have had the means and freedom to seek self-expression through their work.

*****

By the time I was born, I think that any hopes my grandfather – or Gong-Gong, as I called Wong Jun-Chow – might have had for a happy life had long vanished. From childhood he had been self-sufficient, leaving one home and then another as he progressed up the socioeconomic ranks, trading a miserable though uncluttered life as a peasant for the complications of professional success and responsibility. He lost two sons before a daughter finally survived infancy. After four more children, he lost his first wife, from whom he was often separated for long periods during wartime owing to professional duty. Then he remarried, and subsequently lost his country. Relocating to a new hemisphere with seven of his eight surviving children, he learned Portuguese but never could be mistaken for a Brazilian. Although he was grateful to his host country, he never again felt at home and never was able to replicate his early professional success. He died at peace, however, with what he had accomplished, I think. So much of his sorrow had been wrought by forces beyond his control. And although not everything he sought turned out as he had hoped, he felt he had done what he could to live a good life. In the end, this was enough for him to die in peace and without regrets.

In aggregate, his grandchildren who have by now reached adulthood are ill at ease with the place of work in their lives. As my grandfather became ever more silent in his progression toward death, I had to wonder if he had willfully silenced himself out of a sense of hopelessness. He had watched too many promising young people – his own descendants – grow up either with the wrong professional goals or with no goals at all. For many of them, work was an entitlement, not a responsibility, and a choice, not a requirement. I think we, his grandchildren and those like us under the spell of affluent economies, resist his example only because we can. As one of that generation who has not entirely figured out his own place, I think my general interest in philosophy, and my particular research interest in meaningful work, has roots in my grandfather’s example.

Although he never purported to articulate a theory of meaningful work, his practical conception of it was multifaceted, emphasizing more its social fit and impact than his personal self-expression. Those who have the capacity to think about self-expression through work may not be fully aware of the luxury they enjoy; therefore, my research on meaningful work examines the intersection between the motivation and obligation to perform and provide meaningful work. Before my grandfather died, I said to him that someday I would write a book about our family. I’m not sure that the book on meaningful work that I recently began will turn out to be the book he was expecting, but I would like to think he would recognize its origins.

† The English translation used here of The Great Harmony was found on a yellowed sheet of paper taped to the back of one of Wong Jun-Chow’s calligraphic renderings in Chinese characters, with no attribution. It is nearly identical to Liu’s (2000) translation.

Christopher Michaelson is assistant professor of ethics and business law at the Opus College of Business.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

Greg Mowry

While I now smile at this memory, it did stimulate my imagination and ultimately led me to research optics and laser technology. The next thing that strengthened my love for science and engineering is a bit compounded: the space race along with the television series, “Star Trek.” The phrase, “To boldly go where no man has gone before” still echoes in my mind. All three gave me a thirst for discovering the unknown. (I am still trying to invent a warp drive and a teleportation device.) Finally, attending Davenport Central High School solidified my future in science and engineering. Davenport Central had math, chemistry and physics courses taught by former college professors, all of who were exciting and had an eye to the future. These teachers inspired me. Davenport Central also had access to a state-of-the-art IBM-360 computer (which dates me if you know anything about these) and a great shop program.

At Iowa State University (ISU) I earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in metallurgical engineering with a solid-state emphasis. Today that curriculum would be akin to a combined mechanical and materials engineering curriculum. There I worked as a junior researcher in the Rare Earth Information Center of Ames Laboratory under Dr. Spedding and Dr. Gschneidner. Today they are considered to be the fathers of rare-earth metal research. Both of these men, along with a host of other scientists and technicians at Ames Lab, helped hone my skills as a scientist. My work in magnetics began at Ames Lab and continues to this day. Magnetism and its applications are fascinating.

While at ISU I also was inspired to eventually pursue electronics and electric machines. A visiting professor from India was instrumental in this process. He taught the required ENGR-350 and ENGR-410 course equivalents (electricity and controls) that all non electrical engineers ‘had to take’ and his style so resonated with me that I developed a love for these topics as well. After graduating from ISU and with corporate support while working at Hewlett-Packard and later Seagate Technology, I worked on advanced degrees at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota. At Stanford I worked on a non-thesis M.S. program in electrical engineering and afterward received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering with a minor in physics from the University of Minnesota. My Stanford work focused on micromagnetic phenomena while my Ph.D. dissertation involved high-power semiconductor lasers.

Both Hewlett-Packard and Seagate Technology (two of the three large corporations that I worked for) required that all young engineers/scientists partner with experienced senior-level mentors. My mentors noted in me an aptitude for academics and discussed the possibility of ultimately transitioning from industry to academia. When the offer to join the School of Engineering at the University of St. Thomas materialized, it occurred at a time when my family and I were poised to pursue the opportunity for which I had prepared a lifetime. This launched my adventures at St. Thomas.

While working at Seagate Technology I also had the opportunity to take a significant amount of job-related international travel. Over the years this significantly altered my views on people, wealth, entitlement; and ways of doing business. My travels ultimately provided the stimulus and direction for applying the results of my research.

If one were to list the disciplines that are important or useful for alternative energy research, then the list would minimally include physics, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, energy systems and electronics. In an unplanned and serendipitous manner, my career (the accumulated degrees and experiences in almost all of these disciplines) was an excellent preparatory process for this research.

My first international research project (and first alternative energy project) came shortly after arriving at St. Thomas. The project involved collaborative work with faculty at the Technical University of Moldova (TUM) in the capital city of Chisinau. The research launched me into the world of both small and large power systems as well as solar, wind and hydro-based alternative energy systems. I led a team of six St. Thomas students to the TUM during a long and cold J-Term circa 2005. The team performed extremely well and the research progressed so fast that it was clear to me that alternative energy research would become my last great focus area. In addition, it became very clear that there was a need to develop small, robust and economic power (and water) systems for use in developing countries. The success of this research could make a significant and positive impact in many developing countries.

The alternative energy research and development that began in Moldova ultimately expanded into multiple research lines – all with a humanitarian focus. To date this has included: Developing the alternative energy power systems for a150-bed hospital in Dodoma, Tanzania, inventing a method for erecting grid-size wind turbines (for use in developing countries) that does not require cranes, inventing a new catalyst and heat exchanger for portable biodiesel productions systems for use in developing countries, a village solar-power-lighting project in Uganda, a small wind turbine project that is currently ongoing, development of a technical MSME program at St. Thomas that has a power requirement and the pending announcement of a technical MSEE at St. Thomas, which contains a significant power, power electronics, electric machines and alternative energy emphasis. This work has engaged several dozen undergraduate and graduate students over the past seven years. Many of these students are now working in energy related fields. The research has also spawned multiple senior design and additional research projects.

There is a great need for social entrepreneurship with the goal of developing economical and robust systems that provide fresh water and electricity. The engineering challenges are significant but surmountable. It simply takes will and funding. Engaging students in these research projects resonates with the students who often view social entrepreneurship, with an engineering emphasis, as a positive and valuable alternative to conventional corporate careers. The work is exciting. It is one thing to perform
research that ultimately helps develop systems using the techy toys that we have available in developed countries; e.g. the United States. The question is whether the research can pave the way for engineering systems that help people in developing countries, where the techy toys and spare parts are not available and where the work will be done without technician support. This is not to mention what happens when people come to depend on these systems and they fail (hence the need for economics and
robustness).

The work that the student teams and I have performed has demonstrated that research with a social entrepreneurial focus can lead to discovery, peer-reviewed technical publications, patents and importantly, solutions and products that benefit society. To me this demonstrates a holistic approach that integrates career, heart, mind and soul.

Over the years I have lost track of the number of undergraduate and graduate students who have been engaged by my research; however, they all are an integral element in all of my research.

My research projects are selected so that students will be challenged as they grow and mature, learn to solve problems and earn that “sense of ownership” that comes from substantive contributions toward a common vision. I make sure that the students are engaged in tasks that I cannot do; or more often then not, do not know how to do. This empowers the students because they develop the solutions, not me.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to meet and work with an amazingly diverse and truly wonderful group of colleagues, sponsors and friends (along with a very supportive family) while helping others. It was either in Tanzania or Uganda that I saw a billboard that read, “Our most valuable resource is our people.” This statement resonated with me and captures why I truly enjoy my work and my student researchers, and why I invest myself in this endeavor while remaining focused on the people whom I help.

Greg Mowry is associate professor at the School of Engineering.

 From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

Chad Brinsfield

After two years as an assembly line worker I was offered a position in management. The company provided partial tuition assistance if the degree was related to one’s job, so pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration seemed like the most viable and rational career route. After completing my bachelor’s degree I took a position with a large producer of automotive glass. I was hired into this company as a warehouse supervisor, but during the next five years worked in information systems, marketing, operations management and, eventually, was offered the position of general manager. Also during this time I went back to school to pursue an M.B.A. This was an impactful experience, not only in the tactics and strategies I would learn to increase bottom line performance but also in its reinforcement of my view that maximizing shareholder value was the core purpose of business (this seemed to be the prevailing wisdom at the time).

After six years with this organization I decided that I wanted to run my own company. Because of my background and available opportunities, I started a distribution business that transported commercial freight for manufacturing and wholesaling organizations. Customers eventually would include K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Wilson’s Sporting Goods, Siemens Corp., Cargill, Emerson Electric and Enron Logistics Corp. After seven reasonably successful years in business, in 2001 two large customers unexpectedly filed bankruptcy and, subsequently, did not pay their outstanding invoices. Around this time the rate of growth in the economy also began to slow. Both events reduced demand and put downward pressure on pricing in the distribution industry. To make matters worse, around this time fuel prices began rising, which dramatically increased operating costs. Given the reduction in expected returns and increasing risk, I decided to sell the business in 2003.

Considering my background in business, and the important role work plays in peoples’ lives and society, I believed that I could have a positive impact by helping to educate the business leaders of tomorrow; moreover, the human side of work always had interested me, so I enrolled in a doctoral program in organizational behavior and human resources management at The Ohio State University. As a doctoral student I had the opportunity to collaborate with leading scholars on a wide variety of organizational behavior-related topics. As a result of these opportunities I have worked on projects related to trust in the workplace, workplace commitments, emotions and fairness, employee monitoring, social capital, and employee silence and voice. Trust in the workplace, workplace commitments and employee silence and voice are three areas in which I am especially excited and continue to actively conduct research.

Trust is a topic with wide ranging implications for individuals, organizations, and society. For personal and professional relationships to flourish, trust is essential. Without trust, commerce can become inefficient and corrupt, and people may suffer a wide range of negative psychological consequences. I have a deep interest in trust and it is also of relevance to the missions and values of St. Thomas and The Opus College of Business.  I have co-written three book chapters on trust in the workplace.

The first of these chapters looks at the role of trust in social capital. Developing and sustaining social capital requires a complex orchestration of building trust and managing distrust. While efforts to build trust are important and admirable, building and sustaining social capital also requires the effective management of distrust. This chapter articulates a number of strategies for leveraging trust, and managing distrust, to build and sustain social capital within the workplace. The second of these chapters examined how trust can function as a heuristic. A heuristic is a mechanism for processing information that allows the decision maker to select some information and ignore other information as a way to make a quicker or “easier” (less complex) decision. During the last three decades, heuristics have been studied extensively by decision-making theorists. This chapter advances our understanding of heuristics to demonstrate how interpersonal trust judgments also can function as heuristics. The third chapter discusses issues associated with empirically researching trust. We also discuss implications arising from conceptualizing trust and distrust as distinct constructs, as well as measurement challenges associated with trust development, decline and repair over time.

The topic of commitment first was examined outside of the workplace in the fields of sociology and psychology and now is frequently examined in a broad range of academic disciplines. Within the management sciences, commitment has historically been one of the most frequently examined constructs. This is likely due to the impact workplace commitments have been shown to have on important individual and organization relevant outcomes, such as absenteeism, turnover, motivation, performance, prosocial behaviors, and employee well-being. Working in conjunction with colleagues, I recently co-wrote an article published in the Academy of Management Review, wherein we address widely acknowledged concerns regarding the conceptualization, definition and validity of the commitment construct. We reconceptualize commitment to highlight its distinctiveness and improve its applicability across all workplace targets. We also developed a continuum of psychological bonds reflecting the different types of attachments people can experience at work and reconceptualized commitment as a particular type of bond reflecting volitional dedication and responsibility for a target. This research should bring clarity, consistency, and synergy to the research and management of workplace commitments.

Another primary area of research interest, and the focus of my dissertation, is employee silence and voice. In the workplace intentional silence may have profound impact on both individual and organizational outcomes; however, despite decades of research on employee communication-related constructs and processes, lapses in communication continue to be cited as factors for poor organizational performance, low job satisfaction, high levels of employee stress and depression and widely publicized corporate scandals (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Abu Ghraib prison, the Bernie Madoff scandal). My dissertation represented one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the various underlying motives for intentional silence in the workplace. To achieve this I conducted four studies with over 1,300 subjects from two universities and three manufacturing organizations. This research is currently under review, and I hope to have it published next year.

I feel fortunate to be at a university that is very supportive of both excellent teaching and research. As a result, I have experienced a significant synergy between the work I do in the research domain and how that translates into the classroom. My research informs my teaching, and interacting with students and hearing about their experiences also informs my research. I can’t think of a better career than to explore ideas and share them with students.

Chad Brinsfield is assistant professor of management at the Opus College of Business.

 From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

As a policy advocate for children’s issues, I wondered why so few low-income parents were involved in advocating for issues related to poverty and child welfare. My doctoral studies led me to consider policy makers’ roles in constructing the citizenship identities of marginalized groups and how these influenced participation of low-income parents and resultant policies. My article on legislators’ depictions of low-income mothers in the 1996 welfare reform debate, “The Political Act of Public Talk: How Legislators Justified Welfare Reform,” in Social Service Review demonstrates how citizenship constructions can justify policies that marginalize citizenship. I found that parenting work, which had prompted the drafting of Aid to Dependent Children legislation in the Social Security Act, was ignored in the Congressional floor speeches and committee debates; no longer was it considered a legitimate means to claim citizenship rights. This neglect of parenting work under the new policy, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, allowed for the inclusion of time limits and work requirements to receive public assistance, regardless of the labor market, available child care and the importance of parenting work.

This research influenced my thinking about creating and perpetuating a disenfranchised class through legislators’ public talk. Membership in the national community (citizenship) requires the fulfillment of rights and obligations—yet, the question of how they are defined is key to the quality of that citizenship. In welfare reform, particular rights and obligations were connected in a quid pro quo fashion: paid-work engagement for economic benefits; however, when applied to more privileged groups, the connection is not so clear: For example, what are the obligations of middle and upper classes to gain mortgage interest tax deductions?

There is more than just a single citizenship obligation of paid work. T.H. Marshall (1950) theorized three domains of rights and obligations of citizenship that still are widely accepted: civil, political and social (Heater, 1999). While civil and political rights are well known, the idea of social rights, or providing for a “modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society” (Marshall, 1950, p. 78), is not.

The three obligations of citizenship are also not well known. Civil obligations include interpersonal and organizational obligations in which members respect one another’s civil rights, promote the general welfare by respecting laws and individual rights and assure resources for the legal system. Political obligations include obligations of voting and informed political participation, organizational cooperation with other political groups, following political laws and regulations (as well as including resources needed to run such a system), military service to protect from outside threats and protesting and even overthrowing governments that violate rights. Social obligations involve raising a loving family, using health care prudently, maintaining a safe and clean environment, taking advantage of opportunities (such as education), pursuing a career to the benefit of society and tolerating social diversity. Also, those who receive unemployment or public assistance should look for work if they are able and willing to accept employment in or out of their homes. Likewise, we should respond to other persons’ needs for economic-transfer payments; furthermore, the state should provide resources for social rights. This delineation of rights and obligations highlights that citizenship is much more multifaceted than the simple fulfillment of paid-work engagement.

In the fall of 2011, I presented this framework at the Council of Social Work Education annual conference in Atlanta and received positive feedback. I was invited to co-write a chapter on citizen-friendly child welfare administration for a textbook for an international social work audience, titled “Providing Citizen-Centered Administration for Child Welfare.” This chapter articulates this emerging intervention style that focuses not only on claiming the rights of citizenship but also fulfilling obligations. The presentation of citizenship duties fulfilled will, one can hope, position low-income persons as full citizens deserving of the full array of citizenship rights.

Additionally, my sabbatical in the spring of 2013 will focus on fleshing out this theory of citizenship by conducting archival research on the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House. I will look for ways in which rights and obligations of citizenship were embodied in a social intervention that was developed for African-Americans in Minneapolis during the Depression and into the Civil Rights Era. Looking to social work’s history may inform social work’s future practice. I am hopeful that a book outlining citizenship social work, with regards to theory, historical context and present-day social work will be an outcome of this research.

The ways we claim citizenship are not solely based on the obligations we fulfill, but the way others and we portray and construct these obligations. Historically, social work has been deeply involved in addressing needs and invoking the idea of “rights” to demand services; from Jane Addams to Charlotte Towle to Dorothy Height, social workers have engaged in rights-claiming focused on a wide range of issues including alleviation of hunger, poverty and discrimination. In this manner, social work has helped people gain voice and benefits; however, rights-claiming without highlighting the fulfillment of citizenship obligations becomes problematic in public debate and policy. For example, Linda Kerber (1998), a noted American welfare historian, argued that women’s exclusion from citizenship obligations (military duty, juries, certain paid work) limited their citizenship rights claims (benefits from the GI Bill, representative juries and economic equality).

I hope that infusing “citizenship” into social work will influence the profession by having us be intentional about presenting the already fulfilled obligations of people who need social services; furthermore, I hope this theory propels a conversation about the need for social workers, regardless of their focus of practice, to be involved in shaping how our clients are portrayed in the wider public, as this influences the nature of policies created regarding them.

As emerging theory, students do influence its development. I actively discuss these concepts in class and have students wrestle with them. My hope is that in the future, I will conduct interviews with low-income persons about their perceptions and embodiment of citizenship, as well as investigate the extent to which social work organizations assist clients towards this end.

Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House, and one of the founding mothers of social work, was really the first to suggest that citizenship and democracy are at the core of working with disenfranchised groups. Her settlement-house model was based on incorporating immigrants into communities through organizing self help groups, recognizing cultural strengths, encouraging civic participation and advocating for social reform; however, with the emergence of the individual casework method (based on the medical model) and the related desire to professionalize, the settlement house model lost favor. Scholars argue that Addams’s lack of an articulation of a specific method spelled the demise of this citizen-based intervention. Perhaps this attempt to develop just such a theory goes some way to address this, placing the profession squarely where we were when we set out to help the poor. Addams says in her book, Democracy and Social Ethics, “To follow the path of social morality results perforce in the temper if not the practice of the democratic spirit, for it implies that diversified human experience and resultant sympathy which are the foundation and guarantee of Democracy.”

Jessica Toft is associate professor at the School of Social Work.

 From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

That is the key finding of the Minnesota Commercial Real Estate Survey, a poll of 50 Minnesota commercial real estate leaders from the fields of development, finance and investment. The survey has been conducted each fall and spring since 2010 by the Shenehon Center for Real Estate at the University of St. Thomas’ Opus College of Business.

The fall 2012 composite index was below 50 for the second-consecutive survey. An index score higher than 50 represents a more optimistic view of the market over the next two years, while a score lower than 50 indicates a more pessimistic view.

The fall 2012 index was 47, and the spring 2012 index was 49. This continues a downward trend since spring 2011 when the index was 56. In all six surveys the same group of 50 industry leaders were polled on their expectations of near-term, future commercial real estate activity.

“Our surveys conducted in 2010 and early 2011 indicated some mild optimism on the part of the panel with expectations of improving market conditions in 2012 and early 2013,” said Herb Tousley, director of real estate programs at the university.

“Market conditions over the past year have demonstrated some improvement in most areas of commercial real estate, which is consistent with those earlier survey results. The results of the surveys conducted in the spring and fall of 2012 show a change in attitude about expected market conditions in 2014 – turning from slightly optimistic to slightly pessimistic,” he said. “We will know in about 18 months if the survey respondents’ change in enthusiasm was well-founded.”

“Our panel members continue to be confident that rents and occupancy will continue to grow in the next two years, although they are indicating that the rate of growth will be slower than previously expected.

“The expected increase in land prices and building materials will continue to have a negative impact on development activities. They expect that financing terms are going to continue to remain stable and there should be moderately increasing amounts of equity capital available.

“That being said, lenders and investors are going to continue to be very selective in their underwriting criteria and evaluation of potential deals. The bottom line for the fall 2012 survey finds our panel showing increased concern about uncertain economic conditions and their hindering effect on the commercial real estate market. The shift in the composite index from mildly optimistic to slightly pessimistic reflects the panel’s increasing uncertainty about general economic conditions in the next two years,” Tousley said.

The fall 2012 survey was conducted just after the 2012 general election. In addition to the survey’s standard questions on commercial real estate, panel members were was asked if results of the election had influenced their outlook for the commercial real estate market.

Approximately 37 percent of the panelists responded to the election question and a large majority agreed that their outlook had been negatively influenced by the outcome of the elections. None of those responding to the election question were optimistic.

The panelists who stated that their responses were influenced by the election were then asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, if they had become more optimistic or pessimistic. The results are:

• More Pessimistic, 5.6 percent;
• Pessimistic, 61.1 percent;
• Neutral, 33.3 percent;
• Optimistic, 0.0 percent;
• More optimistic, 0.0 percent.

The survey is conducted and analyzed by Tousley and Dr. Thomas Hamilton, associate professor of real estate at St. Thomas. Additional details, including the poll’s outlook on market conditions, rental rates, occupancy levels, land prices, cost of building materials, equity requirements and return on investment can be found on the Shenehon Center’s website.

My college years found me at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., where I did work in chemistry and environmental studies. My motivation stemmed from my interest in, and concern about, the practices that are used to grow crops and raise animals. I wanted to learn more about how human activities are impacting our environment, particularly freshwater sources like those impacted by the runoff from my family’s farm.

I moved to Princeton University for my graduate work. There, I studied pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are components of oils and tars and byproducts when fossil fuels are burned. My work contributed to our understanding of how quickly bacteria can break these molecules down in the environment. I examined how easily various PAHs can get into the bacterial cell and be transformed by enzymes within the cell. I returned to Minnesota to perform postdoctoral work at the University of Minnesota; in an interdisciplinary project (with advisers in chemistry, civil engineering and environmental health sciences), my work focused on a class of contaminants of relatively recent concern – pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs).

At St. Thomas, my work has continued to focus on PPCPs. Numerous studies have reported the occurrence of pharmaceuticals at low levels in surface waters, and interest in this topic has moved beyond the scientific literature to the popular press. For example, a story by the Associated Press highlighted the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the  drinking water supply of at least 41 million Americans. Extensive research is ongoing to determine the potential effectiveness of various treatment processes for removing pharmaceuticals in waste-water treatment plants. Legislation has been proposed both at the state and national levels to regulate use or disposal of pharmaceuticals; a bill recently passed by the Minn. House and Senate will regulate pharmaceutical disposal while a current bill in the U.S. Congress would restrict the use of antibiotics for agricultural purposes. While the environmental occurrence of these compounds clearly has spurred interest in both the scientific community and the public realm, major gaps still remain in our understanding of their significance and potential health and ecological impacts; therefore, the critical question of which PPCPs are of the most concern is still largely unanswered.

The primary goal of my research group is to elucidate some of this needed information about what happens to PPCPs (fate) and what kind of impacts they may have (effects) in the environment. Our research projects are designed to efficiently identify PPCPs of likely concern to focus future monitoring campaigns, treatment strategies and regulatory efforts. We have been directing most of our effort to date toward one subset of PPCPs: antibiotics. This is due to concern about the potential threat of development of enhanced antibacterial resistance due to long-term exposure to low levels of antibiotics.

We have completed several projects designed to understand the role sunlight plays in breaking down antibiotics in sunlit surface waters; this is called photodegradation, and the resultant transformation products are called photoproducts. We are particularly interested in potential biological activity of photoproducts. Identifying all photoproducts for all antibiotics found in natural waters does not seem a practical goal, especially when it is anticipated that the majority of these products will not have ecological significance. It is also not acceptable, however, to ignore the potential for products to have impacts; therefore, we use a bacterial assay as a screening tool to identify those compounds for which photoproducts may retain antibacterial activity. This allows us to focus efforts for comprehensive product identification on those compounds for which it is necessary, and to provide valuable information as to which compounds may be of the most long-term concern. In related projects over the past few years, we have expanded beyond looking at reactions due to natural sunlight and begun studying reactions that occur during water-treatment processes. As is the case for photochemical transformations in natural systems, a major interest of ours is in understanding the significance of transformation products. We wish to efficiently determine whether water treatment strategies may be creating molecules that retain biological activity. While all of our published work in environmental fate of PPCPs has involved antibiotics, we recently have expanded into examining potential endocrine disruptors. In collaboration with Dr. Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt from the University of St. Thomas Biology Department, we are using breast cancer cell assays to assess whether photoproducts of UV-filter molecules used in sunscreens are likely to have significant estrogenic activity.

On the effects side, we are very interested in the potential for the low, subtherapeutic antibiotic concentrations that are found in natural waters to result in proliferation of antibacterial resistance among environmental bacteria. Resistant environmental bacteria are of concern because they can serve as a reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes that can potentially be transferred to pathogenic strains. Our work to date primarily has focused on the impacts of triclosan, a commonly used topical antibacterial compound (e.g. handsoap, toothpaste), on bacterial communities in natural waters from Lake Superior to the San Francisco bay area to local waters impacted by waste-water treatment plants (WWTPs). In our most recent project, we are looking at several classes of antibiotics in collaboration with researchers at the University of Minnesota and Gustavus Adolphus College. We are measuring antibiotic concentrations and antibiotic resistance among bacterial communities at several sites and hoping to elucidate the relative impacts of agricultural and human-based sources. Our study sites are in a portion of the Minnesota River basin and include those same drainage ditches I fished in when taking a break from bean walking as a child.

I have conducted all of my projects at St. Thomas in collaboration with my incredibly able and fun group of undergraduate research students. My six current group members range from freshmen to seniors; all work full time during the summer and squeeze in as many hours as they can during the academic year. They learn so much from this part of their St. Thomas experience: how to communicate their findings clearly, orally and in writing; how to design experiments and refine those experiments as they learn more; and how to fail and keep trying until they succeed. My group alumni have done well with their post-St. Thomas ventures. Three are in graduate school, with three more headed that way next fall. Two are in medical school, two are working as chemists and one as a high school chemistry teacher. I couldn’t be more proud of all of these wonderful students with whom I have had the privilege to work, and I am excited to keep discovering important information about contaminants in our waters with future generations of Tommies.

Kristine Wammer is associate professor of chemistry at the College of Arts and Sciences.

 From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

These basic geologic principles launched budding geologist Jane de Lambert’s research project, ”A Detailed Study of the Upper Horse Spring Formation in the Lake Mead Region of Nevada: Ancient Lakes and the History of the Central Basin and Range.”

De Lambert, a junior at St. Thomas, studied the geologic history of the Lovell Wash, the youngest, or “upper,” of the four members that constitute the sprawling Horse Spring Formation in southern Nevada.

Her goal was to “undo the faulting to understand the original geography of the area and, by doing so, unravel the geologic history of the region,” she said, adding, “this exercise also can be important for resource exploration because these types of environments are similar to other areas that have been found to contain important petroleum and other mineral resources. … There’s an economic viability aspect, which brings an unexpected and interesting dimension to this kind of research.”

Led by her adviser, Dr. Lisa Lamb, professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Geology Department, de Lambert, with two other students from St. Thomas, roughed it “in the middle of nowhere,” over spring break last semester. “We rode these big trucks as far as we could, then hiked a mile in and set up camp near the formation,” she said.

Lovell Wash, also known as the upper Horse Springs Formation, stretches across the middle ground in this photo taken last March in Nevada by Jane de Lambert.

During the day, de Lambert took notes on her observations of the upper formation, identifying rock types and minerals and “hacking off rock samples (limestone, gypsum and volcanic ashes) with a rock hammer” in stratographic units, layers of rock that provide a chronological timeline for the formation’s geologic history; afterward, she would record the GPS coordinates where each sample was collected so it later could be geochemically analyzed.

The samples she collected are important because they have, in effect, “recorded” a large portion of the deformation that occurred as a consequence of the tectonic shifts of the time.

History of the Horse Spring Formation

“There was volcanic activity (in the area), and we can send our samples to the lab to date the ash fall from the eruptions,” de Lambert noted.

“Twelve to 16 million years ago extreme tectonic stretching (over time) altered the entire Southwestern desert region of the United States. Sediments were deposited both during and after this activity, creating complicated basins and mountain ranges,” de Lambert explained. “After deposition, these rocks were further distorted by even more tectonic activity.”

The time frame she studied falls into the Miocene epoch (23 to 5 million years ago), a period known for spreading grasslands and retreating tropical ecosystems.

The Lake Mead region of Nevada contained very little biologic activity during that period. Before the tectonic shift that initially created the Horse Spring Formation, the area consisted of “small, shallow lakes with saline water,” de Lambert said. “It was a very harsh environment, which would explain why no fossils have been found in the area.”

In partnership with Lamb, she is still in the process of re-creating the basin architecture, using a variety of methods, including detailed mapping, geochemical analysis of the ancient lake sediments, and correlation between rock unit beds across the area.

“There wasn’t one dominating event that changed the topography; tectonics and changes in structure are continuous and ongoing; however, the particular environment and tectonic setting which we are most interested in studying is when ancient lakes were present in the area. These lakes created the rocks that we study today,” de Lambert explained.

Her research culminated at the Geological Society of America’s national conference in October in North Carolina, where she presented her findings.

De Lambert said, “Being a part of this research project has been the highlight of my undergraduate career thus far. I have learned so much from both my field experiences and my analysis in the UST labs; in addition, this project has played a large role in solidifying my post-graduate plans” – a Ph.D. in environmental health.

“It also has been thrilling to be among the first to research this formation and document these rocks,” she added.

An individualized major in “geology and human health,” she changed course slightly this semester because she “really identified with a medical geology course I’m taking this semester,” in which she studies how the earth and toxic chemicals in the environment affect health (for example, the lack of minerals in soft drinking water can lend detrimental effects to cardiovascular health).

She credits her study, which was funded by a Young Scholars Grant, for teaching her how to work independently: “Conducting my own research project without the day-to-day instruction of a typical classroom, required that I think critically and problem solve when I was working alone.”

The Young Scholars Program awards individual grants to undergraduate students at the University of St. Thomas who are interested in spending an entire summer working closely with a professor on a significant research project or creative activity .

Mandatory contraception coverage is the latest iteration of a question that has appeared throughout history and has driven much of my research and writing: when a civil law enacted for secular reasons conflicts with religiously motivated codes of behavior, does religious freedom call for the law to give way, and if so when? This issue, which goes back as far in America as Quakers’ refusals to swear oaths or serve in the militia, took a new turn in the early 1990s, sparking my interest just at the start of my academic career. First the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a case involving Native Americans’ sacramental use of the illegal drug peyote, that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion does not require exceptions for religious adherents from secular laws “of general applicability.” In response, a nearly unanimous Congress – realizing that the Court’s rule could leave religious minorities subject to severe even if unintended burdens – passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), which required government to show a strong reason to justify imposing such burdens on sincere religious practices.

My first scholarly article was one of the first two major analyses of RFRA’s background and intended meaning. Since then, in a number of articles and appellate briefs, I’ve argued for a vigorous interpretation of the statute to protect the conscientious beliefs of all faiths. In litigation I’ve represented, among others, liberal and conservative Christians, orthodox Jews, Native Americans, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hare Krishnas and a tiny sect called the Uniao do Vegetal whose members ingest small amounts of a hallucinogenic tea at worship services.

My own beliefs about the foundation and importance of religious freedom for all faiths could not be better expressed than in the words of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom:

It is in accordance with their dignity as persons – that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility – that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth… However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom; therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person [or in the truth of his beliefs], but in his very nature.

Here as in many other areas, I as an Episcopalian take great inspiration from Catholic teaching on human dignity. Among my recurring scholarly themes have been (a) that religious freedom is a value that “progressives” and civil libertarians should vigorously support even for those whose religious views they oppose, and (b) that there are principled ways to strike sensible balances between religious freedom and the interests of others and of society. So, for example, in one article I argued that evangelicals and other religious conservatives are often among the minorities for whom civil libertarians should have sympathy. In another article, I argued that the very same values that support recognition of same-sex marriage – respect for fundamental aspects of persons’ identities – also call for strong protection of those who object to directly facilitating such marriages, such as Catholic adoption agencies or evangelical wedding photographers. Together with a half dozen other legal scholars, I’ve proposed model statutory provisions accommodating conscientious objections in states that are considering recognizing same-sex marriage. Several states recently have adopted parts of our proposal.

I hope that one legacy of my work will be provisions that preserve the ability of both sides in this contentious debate to live consistently with their deep values and identity. The efforts concerning same-sex marriage exemplify one of the most satisfying parts of being a law professor: the chance to link theory and practice, to translate scholarly research and theses into arguments that can affect courts and legislatures. To make forceful arguments while preserving the scholar’s respect for nuance is a challenge, but I believe it’s a worthwhile one.

Another satisfying part of my job is to work with intelligent and motivated law students. Research assistants have made many valuable contributions to my work, finding information, providing both substantive and editing comments, and in several cases co-writing articles. In offering a yearly paper-writing seminar on Religious Liberty during my 10 years at St. Thomas Law, I’ve also benefited again and again from student ideas on these issues.

Thomas Berg is James L. Oberstar Professor of Law and Public Policy.

 From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

When you hear this word as a St. Thomas community member what do you immediately think of?

Saint John’s University?

We all know about the competitiveness we have with Saint John’s in sports. What you might not think about when you hear UST and SJU in the same sentence however, are the ties that bind us together.

Many who work or study here at St. Thomas are Johnnies (or Bennies for that matter) like Terry Langan, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences or Mike Sullivan, associate professor of finance in the Opus College of Business. Art History graduate student Brady King is an alum of Saint John’s undergraduate studio art program. But what are our similarities?

We are both anchored in the Catholic intellectual tradition, a tradition we have brought to bear so strongly on higher education in the state of Minnesota and beyond. King also appreciates the quality of the faculty at both schools and the fact that everyone says hello to each other on campus. Although the rivalry with Saint John’s in sports is emotional, the respect between our two schools is profound.

Another important shared belief between St. Thomas and Saint John’s is the importance the arts have in a humanities-based education.  I have witnessed this first hand in two significant ways. First, for the past decade or so, I’ve been researching and writing about architect Marcel Breuer’s 1953 design for the Abbey church in Collegeville.

Since my first visit to central Minnesota I have been treated with the greatest kindness and respect. The Benedictine monks have always supported my work and in fact the completion of my book manuscript in the coming months is in large part due to and because of them. They share information, constantly find things in the depths of their archives, and always encourage me to get the project done.

Of course, it is not that there haven’t been interesting moments given that I am a Tommie. In the fall of 2011 the president of Saint John’s and the abbot of Saint John’s Abbey invited me to a fiftieth anniversary celebration of the completion of the Abbey church. Dinner was lovely and then we headed into a lecture hall for a roundtable discussion about Breuer’s work on the church.

As I was waiting to be introduced to the crowd, I grew just a little nervous because the Tommies had beaten the Johnnies in football on Palmer Field in O’Shaughnessy Stadium just three days prior by a score of 63-7! Yet, there were no boos from the crowd and only laughter when I told them (jokingly) that I was a little nervous to be on the stage at that moment.

The second collaboration has been going on around us for the past three months and showcases our mutual respect for the arts. “Stoked: Five Artists of Fire and Clay” is currently on display in the lobby gallery of the O’Shaughnessy Education Center on the St. Paul campus of St. Thomas.

Master potter Richard Bresnahan speaks with guests at the Stoked: Five Artists of Fire and Clay Exhibition Opening, Oct. 4, 2012 (Photo by Olga Ivanova)

We have Art History Department manager Sue Focke to thank for making this exhibition and a wonderful series of supporting events happen. Keenly aware of the artistic nature of this region, Focke had a vision to bring Saint John’s long-time artist in residence and potter Richard Bresnahan, and the work of his apprentices, to our campus, with the support of the department and the College of Arts and Sciences leadership.

Focke recalls that Bresnahan was thrilled at the opportunity, as he had always wanting to show his work on our campus.

Installing “Stoked” in early September was an excellent learning experience for our art history student exhibitions assistants, as Bresnahan’s installation team, led by Steven Lemke and Ryan Cutter, allowed them to be a part of the entire set up.

Graduate students from art history also assisted in publicity for the event, organized the keynote lecture and opening reception, and acted as docents during the many gatherings we’ve had in the OEC lobby gallery and beyond, including a Saint John’s alumni event held in the Anderson Student Center this fall.

At all of these events Bresnahan shared of his time generously, talking with students and other guests at the many receptions hosted on campus. In addition, Bresnahan invited Focke and myself to his pottery at Saint John’s for a tour and afternoon tea. The collaboration has been a great success and in my mind there is no doubt there will be more between the urban and rural Catholic cousins.  Saint John’s is home to a thriving studio art program that complements nicely with the art historical focus we have here at St. Thomas.

In every class I teach at St. Thomas, I spend a great deal of time talking about the Abbey church in Collegeville. There is never a sigh of disdain from my students when it shows up on the screen – they are genuinely interested in the visual power of the concrete church and bell banner and what it means to its Collegeville users.

I’m thrilled that both St. Thomas and Saint John’s are powerful entities in my life. For me they are rivals in the best sense – forces that compete in order to bring out the greater good in each other. From football to fine art, we are fortunate to share the relationship we have with the Johnnies.

As senior biology majors, Schmura and Houserman are lead student researchers for “Team Turtle” in collaboration with Biology Department chair Tim Lewis, a wildlife ecologist whose research involves monitoring the turtle population at Lake Judy. Lewis believes field research is a necessary element to becoming a scientist, and he has been taking St. Thomas students into the field since 2009, when he came to the university.

“Learning science is a lot like learning a musical instrument,” Lewis said. “Somebody can talk to you about playing the French horn forever and you won’t learn how to play. You have to pick one up; you have to have somebody take you and mentor you through the process. It’s the same way in science. You need to go do it.”

Students such as Schmura and Houserman are treated like professionals in field-based research collaborations because their work is done at a professional, and often, publishable level.

“You get to experience the life of actual biologists and ecologists,” Schmura said. Houserman quickly agreed, adding, “There’s something about being out there with the organism you’re studying. In a lab you’re with your organism and you’re studying it, but you can’t see it interact the way it normally does. In field-based research, you’re playing in their ball field.”

In the College of Arts and Sciences, faculty and student collaborative research projects such as this occur in many departments. Much of the drive to foster undergraduate research comes from a faculty commitment to the St. Thomas mission statement, which calls for educating students to become “morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to advance the common good.” As well, a commitment to student-faculty collaborative research is one of the priorities listed in the vision statement of the College of Arts and Sciences. In focusing on these commitments, some St. Thomas science professors are placing an emphasis on research that surrounds one of Minnesota’s most precious resources: water.

Studying the Results of an Oil Pipeline Burst

One of the reasons geology professor Jennifer McGuire came to St. Thomas in 2008 was the interdisciplinary nature of the environmental science program. McGuire’s research focuses on examining what happens to chemicals when they are released into the natural environment, such as in an oil spill. With her student researchers, McGuire asks questions to determine where the chemicals will flow and how fast those chemicals might get into the drinking-water supply.

“For me, it’s really easy to get excited about the importance of clean drinking water,” McGuire said. “It’s fundamental to life. I’m obviously passionate about that, and it’s pretty easy to get students thinking that [working toward] access to clean and safe drinking water is an important contribution to society.”

McGuire believes it is her duty to foster a strong student connection to the environment. “Part of it is getting over this idea that what’s good for the environment is somehow a sacrifice you have to make,” she said. “I think we have to move away from this model that the environment is something that is external, outside of us. The environment is our parking lots. The environment is our backyards. It’s where we eat, and we are part of it.”

When McGuire takes her students just west of Bemidji, Minn., to the site of a 1979 oil pipeline burst, the students have the opportunity to work with her and with  professionals from all over the world.

“The students are thrilled to have this kind of opportunity,” McGuire said about the two-week, on-site stay. Here, students work with her to understand the types of chemical reactions that can happen when two separate water sources come together in an area affected with a crude oil spill. Students are able to look at points where an aquifer discharges and flows into a wetland. They test the changed chemistry of the water and help determine if there are any threats to local drinking water sources. When they are not working directly with McGuire, students are able to meet other professionals. The students’ help in the field is often in high demand, McGuire said. “It makes connections, gives them models for UST portfolios. It’s everything – connections and figuring out where your own interests lie.”

Analyzing Antibiotics in the Minnesota River

When professor Kris Wammer came to the St. Thomas Chemistry Department in 2005 she was excited to see the students’ enthusiasm in and out of the classroom. “All the work I do is involved with undergrads. That’s what I wanted to do – go to a school where I could do good, real research with undergraduate students,” Wammer said.

One of her current projects takes students off campus to Minnesota’s streams and ditches to analyze and understand what antibiotics are present in the water, and where they come from. A typical day in the field for Wammer’s students involves everything from going inside water treatment plants to leaning over the edge of a boat landing or standing in a freezing cold stream to collect water samples. Over the past few summers, Wammer and her students have found clear sources of both antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes affecting the Minnesota River. Because of these findings, next summer Wammer and her students will start examining drinking-water sources in the Mississippi River to determine whether there is a potential human health threat from similar antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes.

Wammer describes working with undergraduate researchers as not just “a professor-student thing.” Of her experience working with chemistry majors and environmental science majors, Wammer said, “When we’re out slopping in the mud, you get to really know each other.”

Determining the Effect of Contaminants on Turtles and Fish

Biology professor Kyle Zimmer came to St. Thomas in 2003 because he wanted to conduct research with undergraduate students. He said he had experienced working with undergraduates while getting his doctorate and he saw St. Thomas as a place that didn’t just say, “We value undergraduate research,” but actually supported it.

Zimmer’s research focuses on aquatic ecology. He and his students seek to understand how ecosystems work in shallow lakes and wetlands, and what humans are doing to influence “the smaller and shallow” water sources, such as ponds and swamps, all over Minnesota. Zimmer and his students are collaborating with other St. Thomas professors and their students: with Lewis and his team of turtle ecologists, with biology professor Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt and her fish physiology team, and with neuroscience professor Kurt Illig and his student team, which examines the health of the ecosystems in Minnesota waterways. The research explores how contaminants of watersheds might influence the biology and physiology of turtles and fish. When the water drains into Minnesota lakes and streams, contaminants in the water have the potential to make hostile impacts on the ecosystem, such as exposing fish and turtle populations to higher levels of environmental estrogens, which could result in reproductive changes. The end goal of this research collaboration is to develop strategies for reducing the effects of contaminants.

Zimmer believes that this research exemplifies the St. Thomas mission to educate students to work for the common good. “I personally feel that [when we] identify problems in the environment [and] try to come up with ways to manage and alleviate that, we make advances for the common good,” Zimmer said.

Connecting With the Community

Undergraduate research allows St. Thomas science programs to be more than an “ivory tower of learning,” Zimmer said. Each summer his students drive to outstate Minnesota in search of what most people would call a slough, and drag canoes out of the cattails and into the water. For the next eight hours they combat heat and everpresent mosquitoes, collecting samples and on occasion, answering questions from local farmers.

“A lot of times (students) will be standing by the side of the road, getting ready to push the boat out onto the lake and the farmer across the street will stop,” Zimmer said. “They get a chance to explain what they’re doing.”

“It’s really interesting running into the farmers around our lakes and having them ask us why we’re out there,” said Rachel Rockwell ’12, who has worked with Zimmer. Senior Christine Buelt agreed, saying that collecting water samples connects her to the research and the community affected by her findings. “We all take a personal interest [in the research] because we’ve been to these places,” Buelt said.

Buelt is interested in studying the intersection of ecology and environmental science as it is concerned with public health, and she hopes to go to graduate school. Rockwell plans to apply to pharmacy school. Both agree that they fell in love with research because of their fieldwork and community interactions. Of her project on the effect of bugs on the decomposition of plants in shallow lakes, Rockwell, said, “It was a really stinky job, but fun.”

Because their field research is current and practical, the students’ and professors’ main goal is to publish their research and get the information out to the public.

Research led by biology professor Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt takes her students to waste-water treatment plants in Minnesota. This research is part of a project sparked by a call from the Minnesota legislature to determine the effectiveness of waste-water treatment plants.

“Probably the most beautiful part about something like this is that your data is actually published and is part of a government report,” Martinovic-Weigelt said. “Those types of activities really grow that liberal arts student we hope to grow.”

Student researchers also grow when they are able to present their research at national and international conferences. Eight of Zimmer’s students attended the 2012 annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland, Ore. Two of his other students attended the 2012 annual meeting of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography in Lake Biwa, Japan.

Gaining More Than a Bullet Point on a Résumé

Undergraduate students are driven to field-based research projects for many reasons. Summer or year-round undergraduate research may appeal to many students applying to graduate or medical school. That extra bullet point on a résumé or project in the portfolio can do a lot for students, sometimes even landing them a spot in a graduate program. But talk to any of the St. Thomas students or faculty involved, and it becomes apparent that a student needs more than a desire to fill a résumé to become an undergraduate researcher.

Grant Schmura said his spot on “Team Turtle” was achieved by “annoying” his professor, Tim Lewis, on a regular basis. “There are so many other students who will do the same thing as you,” Schmura said. “You have to single yourself out. Always ask questions; that’s a big thing.”

Lewis looks for three things in student researchers: how smart they are, and how hard working and reliable they are. “Frankly the world is run by the hard-working people, and if they’re hard working and smart, it’s a killer combination,” Lewis said. “Brilliance never hurts, but brilliance alone is worthless.”

Lewis believes that research will benefit all students, regardless of what they plan to do after graduation. He lists problem solving as the most important skill a student gains in doing research because it is the first thing “everybody in the world” is looking for in an employee.

Schmura agrees. “If you don’t know what the answer is going to be, you have to figure it out yourself,” he said. “You leave school [and go] into the real world where there are no clear-cut answers.”

McGuire believes students transform into scientists when they begin to ask questions on their own. “[Then] everything is really curiosity driven,” she said. She also notes how lucky she is as a researcher to have a constant connection to the energy of the next generation of scientists.

Challenging the Next Generation

In the College of Arts and Sciences, there is no shortage of professor or student enthusiasm for going out and doing field-based research. Zimmer believes that by methodically “plowing through” the course material required to fully grasp the field-based research, students become independent thinkers and are transformed into young scientists.

“I tell students the goal for all faculty is not to produce people that are as good of scientists as we are. Because if we do that, then society is just status quo,” Zimmer said. “Our goal is to have them leave St. Thomas far better prepared, far more knowledgeable, far better citizens than [we] were at that age – to keep moving forward.”

Back out on Lake Judy, Lewis’ student Schmura and a few undergraduates moved forward in their research as they returned from checking the turtle basking traps. The researchers shed their life jackets, stowed their canoes and began examining the day’s turtle haul. After weighing, measuring and determining the sex of each turtle, Schmura attached a pit tag (used for tracking) to the turtle’s shell before returning it to the water.

Now it’s the turtle’s job to swim and the students’ job to dive back into their research.

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

SWPBIS is a set of intervention practices and organizational systems for establishing a positive social culture and intensive individual behavior supports needed to achieve academic and social success for all students (Sugai, Homer and Lewis, 2009). It is based on a three-tiered prevention model designed to match the needs of the student with the intensity of the intervention. Through this social culture, educators aim to create an environment that will support appropriate behavior and minimize problem behavior and prevent an existing condition from worsening (tertiary prevention).

To date, over 16,000 schools nation-wide are implementing SWPBIS (pbis.org), and in Minnesota over 300 schools are involved in training or are trained and actively implementing SWPBIS (MDE, 2012; Neilsen Gatti, Ryan and Adams, 2011). The majority of participating schools are typical public schools; however there is an increasing variety of alternative schools, juvenile justice programs and Federal Setting 4 schools participating. For example, in Minnesota, of the 300 schools implementing SWPBIS, seven schools involved in the MDE-sponsored initiative are Federal Setting 4 schools.

Federal Setting 4 schools are programs in which all students have IEPs and are placed in these programs due to their significant needs and supports for challenging behavior. In all of the Federal Setting 4 programs participating in the study 50 percent to 93 percent of the students are eligible to receive free or reduced lunch and approximately half of the students served in these programs are students of color. One component of the mission of our college is advancing the common good. By conducting research at these programs and addressing issues of teacher efficacy we are addressing this important part of our mission.

Several researchers have examined the efficacy of SWPBIS on student outcomes, systems processes and structures to support teacher implementation in these alternative sites (Joliette and Nelson, 2010; Lewis, Jones, Horner and Sugai, 2010; Nelson, Sprague, Jolivette, Smith and Tobin, 2009; Simonsen, Britton and Young, 2009); however, there are no published studies examining the relationship between SWPBIS and special education teacher factors of burnout and perceptions of efficacy. This is particularly important in the field of EBD where burnout is significant, teacher retention is a challenge and a large number of teachers are not fully licensed.

This project started as a Community of Practice (COP) with leaders from the first five sites involved in Minnesota’s Project on SWPBIS getting together to share common challenges and solutions for similar issues in implementing SWPBIS in their programs. Kim Adams, Char Ryan, and Shelley Neilsen Gatti initiated this during fall 2010 and continue to communicate with these leaders on ways to continue the COP. Due to the challenges associated with different school calendars, different day start and stop times and geographical challenges (over 40 miles across the metro) the teams are exploring creative ways to stay in touch. In addition, we have established a WIKI to share common documents.

Ryan, Adams and Neilsen Gatti presented information regarding the COP at a regional conference last winter. At this conference, we attended a presentation by Rob Horner, one of the founders of SWPBIS, where he discussed fidelity of treatment and various ways to measure the impact of SWPBIS. During this presentation he discussed the use of teacher burnout and efficacy as one dependent variable of SWPBIS. Ryan, Adams and I brought this back to our COP to see if they would be interested in participating in a study on this. Last spring we began researching the issue and invited Busch to assist us in this project.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relation between outcomes of teacher well-being (burnout and perceptions of efficacy) and the implementation of SWPBIS in separate site schools for students with EBD. The research question is: What are teacher perceptions of self-efficacy and burnout in Federal Setting 4 programs and how do these differ in SWPBIS schools at different phases of implementation and during different times of the year?

There were a variety of reasons why this sparked our interest. First, all of us had various experience with Federal Setting 4 programs, with Adams having the most recent and firsthand experience as the director of a Federal Setting 4 program. As a result of this experience we all understood the unique nature of this type of setting and realized that it was one of the most high-stress settings in which special educators worked. In addition, we were all excited about the potentially positive impact SWPBIS could have on the working conditions of teachers in SWPBIS. Finally, Adams’ school participated in the state SWPBIS training, as the second Federal Setting 4 program trained in SWPBIS, and recognized the issues these programs were dealing with were significantly different than those of the typical public school. Ryan has taught in Federal Setting 4 and served as the Minnesota specialist in EBD where a priority was placed on teacher retention, supply and demand of teachers for students with EBD. Due to Adams’ immediate experience, Ryan’s experience as a trainer and Neilsen Gatti’s work with teachers in training, we realized the importance of examining SWPBIS in these programs.

To date, we’ve collected and scored the survey data for fall 2011, and we’ll collect spring data during April and May. We’ve had a number of developments over the past six to nine months. We continue to have support from the MN ECSU, and our department funds a graduate assistant to assist on various aspects of the project. Recently, Busch was awarded a Faculty Development Grant to fund our consultation with Dr. James Appleton in Georgia. In addition, Ryan has been in correspondence with Horner throughout the planning and implementation stages of the project, and he has offered his support. Finally, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the reception of the administration and staff at the programs. They are excited that they are getting acknowledged for their work, that their perceptions are valued and believe they are making a contribution to the field.

We all feel strongly about conducting research that impacts students and educational professionals. This project focuses on teachers on the frontline of providing services to students with EBD and how professional development models allows them to be better teachers by increasing their sense of efficacy and decreasing burnout.

On a different note, and as described below, one important insight is the importance of collaboration as a research team. We couldn’t do this project alone, and this established collaboration should provide the conduit to continue future research and collaboration between St. Thomas and schools. We think this research will have an impact on the field. It builds off the work already completed on the use of SWPBIS in alternative and separate sites, and it will increase the knowledgebase on how SWPBIS impacts teachers’ perceptions of efficacy and burn out. This may have immediate impact in our state by providing important ways to retain licensed and experienced EBD teachers in these Federal Setting 4 programs. In addition, this research may give us important information on how programs refine the implementation of SWPBIS in Federal Setting 4 programs. Finally, each of the sites will have more information on the impact of SWPBIS on their staff, which may lead to improved professional development and support of staff.

We each have various aspects of this project that have been fascinating for us. The use of teacher efficacy as a dependent variable to examine how individuals/adults benefit from PBIS has been particularly fascinating. Secondly, we are learning about and using new statistical methods to analyze data. We each have played an important role in the project and really need each other’s expertise and connections to pull this project off.

We’re excited about the next steps of the project. First, we will finish the spring round of data collection and score all of the data. We will work with Appleton to analyze the data and write the results of the study. We plan to present the results of the study at various conferences, namely the Association for Positive Behavior Support, the Council for Exceptional Children and the Midwest Symposium Leadership Conference on EBD. In addition we plan to submit our results to Exceptional Children and the Journal for Positive Behavior Interventions. Finally we plan to continue COP with leaders of the programs by putting together a strand at a fall and spring conference so we’ll have regular and ongoing opportunities to communicate with one another, which will allow us to put this knowledge in the hands of practitioners.

Over the course of the project, two graduate assistants have participated in the project. One student was from the English Department and helped collect, score and enter data. The second student is in the Department of Special Education and Gifted Education. She has and will continue to help with data collection, scoring, entering and writing various manuscripts and presentations proposals.

Neilsen Gatti and Todd W. Busch are both assistant professors in the Department of Special Education and Gifted Education in the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling. Char Ryan is a coaching coordinator and evaluation specialist for the Metro Regional PBIS Implementation Project (MRIP) and works at the Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health (MACMH). Kimberly Adams is director of special education programs (behavior) for the Minneapolis Public Schools. Additionally, she is an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas in the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling.

 From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

The first event will take place Wednesday, Nov. 28. Each event will begin in Owens Science Hall, Room 150 (3M Auditorium), with a short talk of approximately 30 minutes followed by a Q-and-A session. Afterward, visitors are welcome to tour the observatory and, if weather permits, observe the night sky.

Events this semester will begin at 8:30 p.m. and will run until approximately 10 or 10:30 p.m.

The first two events will feature short talks by Dr. Elizabeth Wehner:

• Wednesday, Nov. 28 – “Exploring the Solar System”
• Wednesday, Dec. 12 – “The Milky Way: Our Galaxy, Our Home”

For more information visit the UST Observatory website. All are welcome.

The vision of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province, became a reality when they developed the St. Joseph Worker Program in 2002. The young women (generally 21 to 25 years old) in the program spend a year in service, living in intentional community and working 36 hours each week at nonprofit organizations throughout the Twin Cities. St. Joseph Workers (SJWs) are provided with training opportunities and other growth experiences to develop the program’s four core values. In addition, they receive housing, a monthly food budget, a small stipend and health insurance. The nonprofit settings in which the workers are placed include sites that provide English language classes for immigrant populations, shelters for women experiencing domestic violence, housing for women and children who have nowhere to go, ministries for young adults, justice advocacy centers, free health care clinics and organic farms for helping children learn how to grow their own food.

This program review seemed like a straightforward task for us, a project that would capitalize on our expertise and experiences in program evaluation and service-learning as well as provide an opportunity for us to learn about a unique service-learning program in our community. Our methods for data gathering involved typical procedures for evaluation work. We learned relatively early in the process, however, that this project would exceed our expectations for learning new things about our community and have a significant impact on us.

First of all, an amazing aspect of our journey was witnessing the transformative power of the Sisters of St. Joseph and the SJWP on the individual and collective growth of the young women. The SJWP is a highly effective program for achieving its mission and serving the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph Carondelet. We could hear the CSJ mission and values ring in the words of the SJWs. Current and former workers told us how the CSJ mission is reflected in their personal, professional, civic and spiritual lives today.

Before the SJW program I wasn’t civically involved, other than voting, and I didn’t really pay much attention to political issues. Now I follow politics and public policy closely and am conscious of their connection to social and moral issues. I often engage in discussions with people on these topics, send letters to my political representatives and attend rallies to support the vulnerable populations that are too often on the losing end of public policies.

Getting to know many of the Sisters of St. Joseph and seeing how they have made their charism – love of God and the dear neighbor without distinction – into a lifestyle has inspired me to do the same. The young women talked about being advocates for justice and for those in need; being more spiritual, reflective and aware of sacredness in life; being actively involved in their communities; and living intentionally and simply. We also were moved by how the young workers described the Sisters of St. Joseph. As a matter of fact, a highly animated discussion occurred when we asked the alumnae about the CSJs. When describing the sisters, one alumna said, “Phenomenal women, I’m so grateful to be connected to the community. Strong women, decades of commitment to justice; 80 year-olds still working for justice. Retirement to the sisters means closing one chapter and starting something new.” Another alumna said, “They provide a radical example of how to care for people, and they don’t apologize for it. They strengthen women. They meet people where they are and if you’re not there yet, they will help you by their example.” It should be noted that none of the alumnae with whom we spoke had previous associations with the CSJs before their involvement with the SJWP. They provided anecdotes about specific sisters, including comments about how joyful the sisters were (and we heard stories about singing and dancing with the sisters). The alumnae workers had a great deal of respect and affection for the CSJs, which was wonderful to observe. One cannot help but be awed when hearing stories about the sisters’ lives of service and some stories of how spunky they are.

We also found it heartening to validate the benefit the SJWP brings to nonprofit organizations. While it seems obvious that organizations enjoy the added workforce of volunteers, it also can be a drain on their resources and systems. Discovering the motivations of the nonprofits to partner with the SJWP and the value derived from the their participation provided great insight. The workplace supervisors explain that it is beneficial for nonprofits to partner with programs that share their mission and accept the responsibility and burden of recruiting, supporting and assisting in training young adults in yearlong commitments to serve. They describe how their organizations gain by educating others about their mission; building an educated, committed corps of allies for their cause; increasing their capacity to meet the needs of their clients; and reinforcing their relationship with the Sisters of St. Joseph. One supervisor explained, “They [workers] carry our work to other places that we don’t even know about, and the benefit to communities is immeasurable.” They also observe that the workers grow and mature in their worldviews. As one supervisor said, “After these experiences, the workers just don’t have an academic understanding of what it is like to work with disenfranchised populations; they learn what life is really like for them.”

Supervisors acknowledge the benefits of having an on-site worker in terms of their increased capacity to provide direct services to those they serve as well as enhanced advocacy efforts. They described the relationships the workers developed with clients that were so important. And, they shared how they saw the young women workers gain many vocational and life skills during the year. As one said, “It is a two-way street.”

These nonprofit organizations are dedicated to serving or partnering with the marginalized populations in our community. Seeing firsthand the individuals being served in these sites was very moving. We observed East African immigrants demonstrating appreciation for the opportunity to attend free English language classes taught by sisters and other volunteers. We witnessed immigrant, homeless women joyfully singing in a cafeteria as they prepared a community meal. We heard stories about the desperate circumstances of women of Africa who ended up in Minnesota after enduring physical atrocities and fleeing from their homeland. We met individuals who are working to make their communities safer and more economically vibrant.

Observing and learning more about these individuals and the people committed to making a difference in the lives of the marginalized in our community is awe-inspiring and increased our appreciation for the work being done in the Twin Cities. We are fortunate to experience these unexpected outcomes from the evaluation of the SJWP. Not only was it a two-way street for the workplace sites and St. Joseph workers, it was a two-way street for us in that, we hope, the program benefited from our evaluation work, and the evaluation work most certainly had an impact on us.

We are reminded of the dual role of researchers. We approach research projects not only as professionals but also as individuals who enter into relationships with those we interview. In this instance, it was with the SJWs who opened up to us and shared very personal, transformative stories about themselves. Similarly, the worksite supervisors described their thoughts and feelings about those they served – the students, clients, guests and patients. As a result, we as individuals were also transformed through new understandings. We became more critically aware of pressing social justice issues in our local community and developed a broader perspective of the lives of our sisters and brothers in need. We saw the potential to make positive change through the eyes and hearts of the committed individuals who are walking the walk.

Karen Westberg is professor at the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling. Susan Cipolle is adjunct professor at the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling.

 From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

When you consider her fellow presenters: the vice president of racial justice and public policy for the YWCA of Minneapolis, professionals working for human rights and social justice, and a slew of Ph.D.s, well, you might start to think Fraction is onto something.

“It’s very intense what St. Thomas and the national McNair program does for these kids. It’s a whole lot bigger than just learning about research. It’s presenting their research, building an academic portfolio, giving definitive shape to where they want to take their academic careers. What Shanea is doing at this conference is huge. She just started with the program in June and she already has proven herself capable of presenting her research to her peers. I’m so proud of her,” Fraction said.

Turner-Smith, took some time before the conference to talk about her project, “The Multiracial Experience: Identity Formation and the Perception of Racial Prejudice and Discrimination at Predominantly White Universities,” (on which Dr. Buffy Smith, Sociology and Criminal Justice Department, College of Arts and Sciences, served as her adviser) as well as her own experience.

Do you consider yourself multiracial, and what has been your personal experience with prejudice and discrimination? 

I do. My mom is Nigerian, African American, Creole, Scottish, French and Native American (Sioux, Choctaw). My father is African American, German, Irish, Puerto Rican and Native American (Blackfoot, Cherokee).

My personal experience with prejudice and discrimination is few and far between. I didn’t experience a lot of prejudice or discrimination because I have always lived in racially diverse communities. My elementary school, in particular, was very diverse, so my ethnicity was never questioned, nor was I ever attacked because I was a minority. I will say that by going to a predominantly white high school I never felt like I could connect with my white classmates, and I always felt “less than.” I also always knew that there was racial tension between races because my parents would come home and vent about their shared experiences with racial prejudice and discrimination. I can say that my race has been questioned quite frequently. I’ve had people think I was white, and when I told them I was mixed with African American, they treated me differently or made an alarming face that seemed to show they were uncomfortable to learn that. I even have had people call me “momma cita” because they thought me Hispanic, and I also have had Hispanic individuals assume I am also Hispanic, based on my physical characteristics, and speak Spanish to me! So to answer the question I have not had too many direct encounters with prejudice and discrimination, they’ve just been more subtle or based on my perception of what I believe people are thinking about me judging from the things they say or do.

The research question your project seeks to answer is: How do multiracial and minority “mono-racial” students perceive and experience racial prejudice and discrimination at predominantly white universities? Now that you’ve completed your research, how would you answer that question? Are there significant differences between their perceptions and their experiences?

I would say that multiracial and minority mono-racial students perceive racial prejudice and discrimination the same, meaning that while they know that both happen on their campuses, they experience racial prejudice and discrimination differently to an extent. My research showed that multiracial and minority mono-racial students both felt like a minority at their predominantly white campuses. They felt alienated in the classroom when called upon to give their “minority perspective,” or they felt uncomfortable getting into groups for projects and class discussion because they felt “out of place,” and as if their opinions were not valued. The students who participated in my study (all from St. Thomas) felt that there was prejudice and discrimination taking place on campus, but the multiracial and Hispanic participants faced this differently than the minority mono-racial African students. The multiracial and Hispanic students’ racial identities were always in question, which made them feel that they were the odd one out or that they could not identify fully with either of their ethnicities (for the multiracial students). The Hispanic students were mistaken for other Hispanic groups. For example, one participant was Puerto Rican and people perceived him as Mexican or made statements to him like, “Aren’t Mexican and Puerto Ricans pretty much the same thing?” This was very frustrating for that particular participant because his ethnic identity wasn’t valued or respected for its rich heritage and traditions. Instead it was put into a generic category of “Hispanics.” That said, my multiracial and Hispanic students felt that their ethnicities were not being recognized and appreciated in a sense. The African participants felt like they were always being asked, “Why are you acting white?” because they did not fit the stereotype of their perceived race. Instead of the African students being congratulated on their individualized success and merit they were seen as exceptions to their “lazy and uneducated” race, which in return sends the message that valuing education is a white attribute, and any person of a minority race who values his or her education is “acting white.” This was very hurtful for my African participants to have all of their hard work be boiled down to their race instead of who they are as a person. All of my participants stated that as “minorities” their merit was always questioned by their peers who believed they received scholarships based on race instead of merit. It would be great if everyone just received a scholarship due to their race without having to work hard in school, but that is not the case at all and it is insulting when people make statements like that. If that was true then school systems would be flooded with students if merit was not a criteria when applying to college and being awarded scholarships.

I would argue that there aren’t significant differences between my participants’ perceptions and their experiences because their perceptions are based on their experiences. I think that it is possible to know that racism exists even if you haven’t experienced racism firsthand, but my participants disclosed their personal accounts with prejudice and discrimination so their personal experiences impact their perceptions of racial prejudice and discrimination on their campus and in society. Since my participants did have personal experiences with prejudice and discrimination I think it validated for them that racism is a real issue of concern and oppression that still exists today.

How has the McNair Scholars program transformed your approach to your career path?

From a young age I knew I would go on to graduate school. My parents never had to force me to do my homework! So the focus the program places on intensive, graduate-level research was a great fit for me. I now know that I need a Ph.D. The degree will give me the credentials I will need to make a change. I’m a social work major now, which is important to me because social workers are the people working in the field with the families we want to help. We’re hands on, which is so important. But I also know that I want public policy and sociology to be a part of my graduate education because those fields provide the intellectual and political tools necessary to change the system. You have to play the game in order to change the game; you have to know the system in order to change the system.

Some race scholars contend that “race is an experience, not a fact − so if a person is treated as black, he or she is black, regardless of the number of ‘drops’ (regardless of whether he or she has parents of multiple races but may have, for example, a grandparent or great-grandparent of a minority race).” (I borrowed that from Microtrends by Mark Penn.) What is your take on that statement?

I would agree that race is an experience and not a fact. Race is a social construct that consists of ambiguous labels that can change over time. For example, African Americans were called the N-word, colored, negro, Black, and then finally African American. If race were a fact, the labels wouldn’t have changed over time, and we would not categorize people differently. The “one-drop rule” placed anyone with African American lineage in the racial category “African American,” but today we classify people who may have both African American and Caucasian lineage as biracial or multiracial. I agree that race is an experience not only because the concept has no biological basis, but also because people will perceive and interact with you differently depending on how you self-identify racially or how they perceive you racially. As you encounter people you immediately place them into one socially constructed box based on “race.” You have already made assumptions about that person. Speaking for myself, today we had a Dakota speaker who talked about past wrongs to her indigenous people, and it affected me personally. Even though people may not look at me and classify me as Native American, I know that that blood runs in me. It’s a spiritual connection. Those were my ancestors and the great hurt I feel knowing what happened to them is undeniable.

Tell us more about the “unique standpoint” of multiracial people compared to those who are minority mono-racial.

Multiracial people have the ability to be chameleons in a sense. Although they may or may not be perceived as minorities based on their physical features, they have the ability to understand and connect with multiple races. And although they may be drawn to one of their ethnic identities over the other(s), they still are able to see both a minority perspective to a situation as well as the dominant perspective. When you are multiracial, the world truly isn’t white and black to you. By being the “gray” area, so to speak, you are a part of both worlds and can feel accepted by both races (white and black). When you are multiracial, people cannot always pigeon-hole you, which makes you feel unique in a sense, but it also can make you feel alienated if your racial identity is questioned in an offensive way. My research showed that the biggest difference between the multiracial and the minority mono-racial experience is the sense of culture and belonging. Minority mono-racial people can have a stronger sense of culture because they only have one racial/ethnic identity. Not only do they identify with just one racial category, but their physical features may categorize them with the racial category as well they may not get asked “What are you?” Multiracial students, on the other hand, may find it challenging to identify with all of their ethnic identities at once. Not knowing where you fit in in society it can make you feel alienated racially and can weaken your sense of belonging to a racial culture. I feel that being mono-racial and having family members who identify with you will create a strong connection to your ethnic background.

The phrase “self-identify” has popped up in academic and popular culture often in recent years, especially in terms of race and gender. In your paper, you often use the term “self-identify” to describe how your interviewees classify themselves by race – most having chosen two races. How important is this concept of self-identity when discussing the multiracial experience?

A person disclosing how they “self-identify” is important to both the multi- and mono-racial experiences. Before I interviewed my participants I asked them to fill out a nine-item demographic survey. Some of the questions I asked were: What are all of your ethnicities? What exactly are your parent ethnicities? Who was your primary guardian growing up and what was their ethnicity? How did they self-identify racially? And how did they think society racially identified them? These questions came to be very important when I analyzed the audio-recorded interview during the transcription process because it allowed me to identify the primary influences on their racial identities. It allowed me to see why they chose to self-identify racially the way they did when they may have had other ethnicities that they did not choose to identify with. One of my major findings did show that the family environment of my participants did play a major role in the way they chose to identify. The positive and negative messages in which they received from their family members about their ethnic identities would impact how they viewed themselves racially positively or negatively. Another point is that even if you are multiracial you may have only polarized to one race due to your “experience” and may for example consider yourself mono-racial such as African American although you have Caucasian lineage. This self-identity also shows how translucent race is and you can put yourself in to the box you feel most comfortable with and are not forced to disclose your other ethnicities if you do not want to, but society may still want to put you in a certain box even if you do not want to be put in that box. I know that my father, for example, who is also multiracial sometimes checks only White/Caucasian on job applications and employers are puzzled when he comes in for an interview. He has a European first and last name so it seems standard on paper that he could be White/Caucasian. He does this because he identifies with his German ancestry, his grandmother (my great-grandmother) was a prominent figure in his life and mine, so in essence is it really misleading or being untruthful for a multiracial person to identify with the dominant culture? I think this honestly proves that race is a social construct, but also shows how even if you choose to self-identify a certain way that doesn’t mean society will want you to identify that way if they’ve come to the consensus that your physical features don’t match their perception of your race..

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges multiracial students face in forming their racial identities?

To me, it’s not knowing where or how they fit in society. A multiracial person may identify with multiple ethnic identities but may only hang out with peers from one racial group or they may feel accepted only by peers who identify with one of their ethnic identities. I think being multiracial means you are perceived as a minority so you will have a minority status regardless, for instance, if you grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and only had white friends. Though the truth of the matter is that society will resist a person like that choosing to identify with the dominant culture. On the other hand multi-racial students who solely identify with their minority ethnic identities society is more supportive of that decision dating back to the historical context of the “one-drop rule.” So multiracial people’s biggest challenges are not knowing where they fit in and having society constantly question their racial identities. They can feel like outcasts, not gaining acceptance into any racial group.

What has been your personal experience as a multiracial student at St. Thomas?

There have been some moments that I felt alienated as a student of color, but my experience has been positive overall. I am glad I am came to a predominantly white university because it allowed me to communicate with the dominant population in a way that I was afraid to during my high school education. Also, I was able to come into my racial identity through college courses and by having my core group of friends as a support system. College has given me the opportunity to become friends with individuals who racially identify with as multiracial or biracial, and it has allowed us to have open dialogue about our experiences. The only time I’ve felt alienated is when the term “mulatto,” which means ”mule offspring of a horse or donkey” in Latin, is used to describe mixed-race people. I’ve also overheard racist jokes about ethnic groups that are part of my lineage. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s hurtful. One wish I share with my friends, who are also students of color, is that I’d like to  have college friends who are of the dominant culture. I know it’s a two-way street and that I need to make an effort and extend my hand as much as I want them to reach out to me. I do have many Caucasian peers whom I consider associates, but I have never been able to make that connection with them to talk about issues that go beyond the surface. As a multiracial person who sees myself as white as much as a person of color, I would like to leave St. Thomas with a diverse group of close friends because I enjoy learning from people of all backgrounds. I know I am growing into my racial identity as I still find it challenging to connect with my peers from the dominant culture in environments and subjects that are not related to academics.

You use “standpoint theory” in your research. Can you describe this for the layperson and also tell us a bit about how this theory is a good fit for analyzing the multiracial experience?

By definition standpoint theory is utilized to suggest that “subordinate positions in society generate “privileged” perspectives relative to those who occupy advantaged positions.” For example, if you are a White male in the United States you sit at the top of the hierarchy, so a woman or person of color may have a privileged perspective when it comes to how they view injustices amongst women and people of color because they have experiences that the White male does not readily have. I would argue that standpoint theory really is just lending voice to a group of people so White males also have their own standpoint and experiences. The theory fits perfectly for analyzing the multiracial experience because it is, by nature, qualitative, so it gives a “voice” to the multiracial experience. This method allowed me to incorporate personal testimonies and accounts, which enriched my research. This isn’t to say that the quantitative method is a bad approach, but to really understand the multiracial experience I had to give the participants freedom to express themselves and describe their standpoint on how they feel they fit in society. Their personal accounts allowed me to show how their experience is unique compared to other racial groups and that their experience had legitimate concerns, but I also wanted to simply shed light on the beauty of being multiracial and what that truly means. Using standpoint theory was perfect because it allowed multiracial people to speak on their own behalf versus having society speak for them.

Can you think of one multiracial public figure, living or dead, whom you think has made great strides in the way multiracial people are perceived? 

I think American singer Alicia Keys is an exceptional individual and multiracial advocate. Keys self-identifies as Irish, Scottish, African American and Italian. In an interview she said she grew up in New York – a place where she never had to experience feeling “not Black enough” or “not White enough” but that she became comfortable with her biracial heritage because it allows her to relate to different cultures. This is true testimony from a public figure who embraces being multiracial and sees it as an asset. On top of that, at 31, she’s 14-time Grammy-award-winning singer, songwriter, music producer, activist and entrepreneur! She helped start an organization – Keep a Child Alive – which benefits children affected by AIDS in Africa and India. She also started an interactive learning app for children that was inspired by her multiracial son (her husband is African American and Puerto Rican). Keys has always carried herself in a classy way (both speech and dress), given back to others, and has always been comfortable in her skin and vocal about being multiracial. I respect her outer and inner beauty and she has touched lives around the world with her beautiful voice and through her caring ways.

Why do you think society, generally speaking, persists in pigeon-holing multiracial people into classifying themselves by only one race?

I understand demographics are useful to employers and universities, but I wish they would get rid of those race boxes. Society, however, is used to its system of race and identifying people based on one racial group. Race is a social construct, and being multiracial goes against the grain. Multiracial people do not fit into one racial category and they’re becoming less tolerant of being placed in one box. I think society recognizes the terms biracial and multiracial more often, or at least they recognize the term when it used, but it’s still frustrating to not be able to pin-point someone’s ethnicity. As humans we make assumptions about people all the time based on how they look so when you do not know what a person’s race is you cannot put them into a stereotypical category or make connections between them and to other people you may know from a particular racial group. I think racial categories simplify people’s ethnicities. For those who identify as multiracial, this limits them from truly expressing who they are. I would like to think that as more people start to identify as multiracial, society will change the way it views race.