Matt Bailey, media librarian and reference & instruction librarian for the arts, recently participated in a panel, "Librarian‑Faculty Collaborations for Teaching Research Methods in Cinema and Media Studies," at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference. Bailey talked about his work supporting students in Carleton's cinema and media studies department, conducting research with primary sources in film history, and working with faculty to build the library's collection of film history resources.

Arjendu Pattanayak, professor of physics, recently attended the Southwest Quantum Information and Technology Fifteenth Annual Meeting with research students Peter Duggins '13 and Henry Luo '13. Pattanayak gave a talk on "Chaos and Lyapunov exponents across the quantum-classical transition" which discussed work done with Duggins, Kevin Hallmann '12, Dustin Anderson '12, and a collaborator, Arie Kapulkin. This work was partially funded by support from the Howard Hughes Medical Fund through Carleton College.

Nancy Wilkie, William H. Laird Professor of Classics, Anthropology, and the Liberal Arts, has been elected President of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, a nonprofit organization committed to the protection of cultural property worldwide during armed conflict, as set forth in the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The International Committee of the Blue Shield and its affiliated national committees work together as the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross, providing emergency response to cultural property at risk from armed conflict. Wilkie has served on the committee since 2003.

Fred Hagstrom, Rae Schupack Nathan Professor of Art, has his work included in the "Print Profs" exhibition at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. The work includes prints of various faculty members from Minnesota colleges and universities who work and teach in printmaking. Hagstrom’s work features several silk screen panels printed on wood and uses found images of the slave trade.  The show is on exhibit through April 6.

Justin London, professor of music, has received a Fulbright Fellowship to spend January through June of 2014 at the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research at the University of Jyväskylä. Under the auspices of this fellowship, London will teach a seminar on rhythm and temporality as part of the Centre's Music, Mind, and Technology program, and he will collaborate with his Finnish colleagues on his research project, "Dance With Me: The effect of self-motion and observed motion on perceived musical tempo."

Steven Schier, Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, has received a 2013-2014 award as the Swedish Institute for North American Studies (SINAS) Fulbright Chair at Uppsala University. The Chair, which is the only one of its kind in the country, is jointly financed by the Swedish Fulbright Commission in Stockholm and Uppsala University. It entails teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in American Studies, broadly defined, along with tutoring students within the grantee's area of research. Schier's appointment is from January to June of 2014. He previously held a Fulbright Senior Lectureship at York University in Toronto, Canada in 2002.

Justin London, Professor of music, recently co-authored the article, "Systematic Distortions in Musicians' Reproduction of Cyclic Three-Interval Rhythms,” with Bruno Repp (Haskins Labs, New Haven) and Peter Keller (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig). The article appeared in Music Perception and examines musicians’ ability to produce and synchronize with complex rhythms. They found that musicians could, so long as the music is not too slow.  Their findings also support dynamic systems models of rhythm perception and production.

Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh, Robert A. Oden, Jr., Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Liberal Arts in Environmental Studies, has recently published an article titled, “Landscape change in Guatemala: Driving forces of forest and coffee agroforest expansion and contraction from 1990 to 2010,” in the Journal of Applied Geography. The research uses various models to examine land-use/cover change dynamics over two ten-year intervals in Guatemala. The article examines biophysical and accessibility factors in order to compare the landscape change of two prominent land-use systems in the region: natural forests and shade-grown coffee agroforests. The results demonstrate that land-use/cover change dynamics and drivers for the two land-use systems are complex over space and time. The research also highlights the importance of agroforests in promoting and maintaining tree cover in tropical areas threatened by deforestation and confirms that coffee agroforests, in particular, provide a number of ecosystem and livelihood services that parallel natural forests.

Jim Fisher, John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Anthropology, Emeritus, has published his book At Home in the World: Globalization and the Peace Corps in Nepal. The book provides a detailed, first-hand account of the impact of the first contingent of American Peace Corps Volunteers to live and work in Nepal. The account not only explores the successes and failures of the Volunteers in their efforts to have a positive effect on Nepalese development, but also the reverse effects of their transformative experience on the lives of the Volunteers themselves.

Professor of music Justin London recently had his article, "Ephemeral Media, Ephemeral Works, and Sonny Boy Williamson’s ‘Little Village’" published in the latest issue of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. London notes that a recording of the great blues harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson inspired the paper. The article explains that although “Little Village” was never released as a single, the piece gives listeners a window into how songs were composed and produced during Chicago Blues era of the 1950s.  In particular, it shows the impact of recording technology on song composition, and forces one to consider the difference between a song and an improvisation.

Marit Lysne, director of student health and counseling; Rose Rezaei, area coordinator; Julie Thornton, associate dean of students; and Kaaren Williamsen, director of the gender and sexuality center, presented "Lead Team: A Collaborative Approach to Address Sexual Misconduct" at the Association of Student Conduct Administration Conference in St. Pete Beach, Fla. on February 9. The presentation focused on how small schools can collaborate with staff from various departments to provide a team effort toward sexual misconduct response, support, and prevention.  The discussion highlighted the unique aspects of Carleton’s support process, including its community concern form and sexual misconduct support advisers; the training of staff, faculty and students; and ways that the College’s process and support mechanisms are transparent and accessible.