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The following is a selection of recent media coverage of Lafayette:
National and Regional Media
The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 24
President Dan Weiss’ art-history seminar, Pilgrimage and Crusade in Medieval Art, is featured in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education. Students in the course discussed the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that have sparked outrage in the Muslim world, looking at the complex role of images in both the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions and exploring the reasons for the violent response. The article notes that Weiss is “not afraid of controversy” and brings to the issue his background as a renowned authority on religious art during the age of the Crusades.
San Francisco Chronicle and The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), March 19, and The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), March 21
Ilan Peleg, Charles A. Dana Professor of Social Science, was one of ten national experts featured on the OpEd pages in an article marking the third anniversary of the Iraq war. Titled “The Defiant War: When it began three years ago, few people could have anticipated that the combat in Iraq would last so long or that the enemy would become a stubborn and resilient insurgency,” the article asks Peleg and a variety of other experts and analysts what they believe the United States should do, starting now, about the situation in Iraq. A longer OpEd piece by Peleg on the same topic appears in The Patriot-News and The Morning Call.
Baltimore Sun (Md.), March 24
Romeo Urias is receiving a four-year, $120,000 scholarship to Lafayette, where he plans to study chemical engineering. The son of Central American immigrants, Urias will be the first in his family to attend college. He won the award through the Posse Foundation, a youth leadership and college access program that recruits outstanding high school students and sends them to college in “posses” that act as support groups. He was one of 32 students chosen from 700 applicants. Posse seeks students who demonstrate leadership, strong academic promise, and the ability to work well in a group. Marcy Mistrett, director of the D.C. Posse Foundation, says the program “also considers diversity, in terms of interests and community and religious backgrounds.”
Spotlight on Students in Their Hometown Newspapers
Times Leader (Pa.), March 9 and Journal Herald (Pa.), Feb. 23
For an honors thesis that brought her to Prague, Trustee Scholar Lori Weaver ’06 of White Haven is researching the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the separate nations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “I think that the Czech-Slovak case is an extremely interesting one and a topic that has been given little analysis within American academia,” says Weaver, a double major in history and government & law. “Personally, I think that Central and Eastern European history tends to get pushed behind the history of Western Europe. It’s something so relevant, yet something we don’t talk about.” She traveled to Prague, the largest city in the Czech Republic and its capital, in June to interview several individuals affected by the split. Weaver’s faculty adviser, Ilan Peleg, Charles A. Dana Professor of Social Science, says that she is gaining exceptional knowledge from the research.
Milford Daily News (Milford, Mass.), March 8
Marquis Scholar Judith Hirx ’06 of Milford is delving into the background and current state of the national debate about same-sex marriage. A double major in government & law and economics & business, Hirx is undertaking a yearlong research project on the same-sex marriage debate in pursuit of departmental honors. She is striving to show how arguments made in defense of Virginia’s law banning interracial marriages in the 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia (in which the Court unanimously ruled the Virginia statute unconstitutional) parallels current arguments against same-sex marriage. She’s attempting to establish that there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage in the United States. Her interest in the topic was sparked during an internship in the office of Massachusetts state representative Robert Spellane in the summer of 2004.
The New Jersey Herald (N.J.), March 5
Sara Nersesian ’06 of Sparta is studying the work of artist Arshile Gorky as a way to understand both the Armenian-American artist’s influences and her own Armenian ancestors. A double major in art and English, Nersesian is conducting senior honors thesis research to connect the influence of secular and religious Armenian iconography with Gorky’s abstract expressionist years. Nersesian also will examine Gorky’s attempts to separate himself from his heritage for much of his life and his desire “to reacquaint himself with his heritage and thus himself” in the 1940s. Nersesian’s paternal grandfather was a prominent general during the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government during World War I. She has been helped through her two-year project by her adviser, Robert Mattison, Metzgar Professor of Art History, and Terese Heidenwolf, associate director of informational services at David Bishop Skillman Library.
Princeton Packet (N.J.), Feb. 17
Danielle Horowitz ’08of West Windsor participated in the College Writing Program’s course Writing and Community Service in the fall 2005 semester. She performed her community service component at Third Street Alliance for Women and Children, a nonprofit agency in Easton. Horowitz, a graduate of Princeton Day School, is majoring in government and foreign languages.
The Courier News (N.J.), Feb. 15
Lafayette’s College Writing Program was a major influence in junior Maggie Oberrender’s decision to attend Lafayette. The fact that the program is primarily run by students dedicated to helping their peers become better writers impressed the Bridgewater resident. “The program is something that other schools didn’t have,” says the double major in English and French. “Getting to work with students is a unique aspect to it all and something that helped sway my decision to come here.” Now in her third semester as a writing associate, she has already tutored more than 40 of her peers on the importance of strong writing skills. As a first-year student, neuroscience major Lauren Finder ’08 of Ridgewood turned to Oberrender for pointers on technical writing. Richard Krebs ’08 of Kennebunk, Maine, worked with her during his First-Year Seminar on international conflict and became a writing associate himself.
Bristol Press (Conn.), Feb. 14
Farmington’s Danielle Martin ’06, a biochemistry major and EXCEL Scholar, has co-authored a paper with a pair of faculty members that was recently published in Journal of Liquid Chromatography & Related Technologies. Martin’s work on the project was the culmination of extensive research that broke new ground in the study of medicinal leeches. Research of this caliber is rarely done on the undergraduate level, said the faculty members with whom she collaborated. She co-authored the paper with Bernard Fried, professor emeritus of biology and an expert in parasitology, and Joseph Sherma, professor emeritus of chemistry. The researchers broke new ground by analyzing lipids found in medicinal leeches that are used in plastic and reconstructive surgery to help restore blood circulation to grafted tissues and reattached appendages. “Danielle really is very strong at what she does,” says Fried. “She’s intrinsically an excellent student.”
The Suburban and Wayne Times (Pa.), Jan. 19
Aspiring journalist Marianna Macri ’06 of Malvern expects to have a full-length article published in Parenting magazine this spring. She got a rare peek into the competitive magazine industry by working for the magazine last summer through the American Society of Magazine Editors internship program. Macri, who also has interned with the Associated Press and Easton’s Express-Times newspaper, worked at Parenting as one of only 30 students nationwide accepted into the ASME program. Lafayette alumna and ASME member Marilyn Balamaci ’74 knew exactly how rewarding the internship could be and encouraged Macri to apply for the position. A senior editor at Parade, Balamaci learned about Macri through an article featuring her in Lafayette’s Alumni News magazine. “The program was phenomenal,” says the English major and editor-in-chief of The Lafayette. “The interns were given a holistic view of how magazines work.”
Other recent media coverage reports:
March 1, 2006
Jan. 27, 2006
Sept. 12, 2005