IN AUTHE NTIC BLUES • FATHER OF MICRO S URG E RY • EBADI NOBEL PEACE PRI Z E

HI STO RIAN’S TAKE ON IRAQ WAR • FEISTY LAWYER STO PS FCC

RI CH A RD CLA RKE IN THE CRO S S H A IRS

T WO NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWA RDS

A ND A PUL ITZER PRI Z E

A LUMNA TRA N S LATOR TAKES ON A CLAS S I C

RE N A I S SA N CE CE O

A IRBO RNE ARCH A E O LOG I ST

NEWS

S oon to Be aM o t ion Pi cture

Majo rEnglish professor Ti m o t hy Co r r i ga n

sits in the dire cto r ’s chair of the new

Cinema Studies Pro g ra m

A publication of the School of Arts and Sciences

University of Pennsylvania / Spring 2004

Fe a tu re s

10 Cover Soon to Be a Motion Picture Major

Cinema Studies Premieres at Pennby Randall Couch

14 Earning Their Wings

Long Hours and Tough Love Turn MarginalizedMiddle Schoolers into Top Scholarsby Joan Capuzzi Giresi

18 Bird’s-Eye View of the Amazon

Airborne Archaeologist Challenges the Myth of a Pristine Wildernessby Ted Mann

22 Between the Boundaries of the Known

The Molecular World between Solid and Liquidby Lisa Jo Rudy

26 Aiming the Lance of Language

Tra n s l a tor of Con tem pora ry Lit Ta kes on a Cl a s s i cby Tom Devaney

Bri efs

5 Clarke in the Crosshairs

Former Terrorism Czar Attacks White HouseHandling of the War on Terror

25 The Business of the World

Lauder Institute Gives MBAs the Language andCultural Savvy to Succeed Overseas

28 Renaissance CEO

Roy Vagelos’ Intersecting Careers in Medicine,Science, and Merck

Dep a rtm en t s

3 Letters

4 Dean’s Column

Did You Hear the One About…?

6 SAS Journal

Rethinking KingGuggenheim GoldTwo Best BooksDean’s ForumPulitzer ProfessorClassroom FieldworkRhodes Scholar

8 SAS Frontiers

Digital Brother against BrotherAnti-“Feminists” for FeminismEmbryonic QuestionsRank Monkey Business

29 SAS Partnerships

Alumni Role ModelsScholarship ChallengeCASI CelebrationGift Gets Cinema Studies off the GroundCollaboration by College and Library

INSIDEPenn Arts Sciences

3S P R I N G 2004

Poor David

Poor David Grazian! The guy justdoesn’t get the blues experience(“Conning the Blues,” winter 2004). Inhis eagerness to inject some sociology, hecompletely missed the spirit of the bluesscene. His Trojan-horse appearance at anopen mike is the clearest indication.

The blues community is a supportiveone in which everyone encourages othermusicians. When you stand up to play,it’s an admission, often a hard one whenm a ny more talen ted people have precededyou,that “I play the sax.” The audienceunderstands,and they applaud theirsupport. The quality of your play isbeside the point. To use one musician’sencouragement as an indictment is justludicrous. The key is to participate andto keep going back. Then, on those dayswhen you hit the good notes,the onesyou want to hit,and the music flows andyou feel buoyant on the stage, you don’tneed the encouragement. You just know.

Sad to say, Professor Grazian has yet to“know.” My suggestion to him is throwaway the notebooks and sociologicaltheories,and come back with just asaxophone. It will be a far more honestway to approach the blues.

David Lott,C’72, Newtown, CT

Ghastly but justified

I am not the Rush Limbaugh devoteein my family, but I find myself pushedin that direction after reading BruceKuklick’s remarks (“Through a GlassHistorically,” winter 2004). If this iswhat’s passing for historical thinking atPenn these days,it’s no wonder theconservative talk show hosts rant aboutthe liberal bias on college campuses.

Profe s s or Ku k l i ck says , “Tod ay, with theexcepti on of Nazi Germ a ny, it is gen era llyt h o u ght that the evil attri buted to ouren emies never re a lly ex i s ted .” Wi t h o utdeb a ting the ph i l o s ophical issue of “evi l ,”we can cert a i n ly say that in the Secon dWorld War there was a helluva lot ofs om ething like evil coming out of Ja p a nbefore (Ra pe of Nanking) and du ri n g( Bataan Death Ma rch) the war, to goa l ong with the ad m i t ted evil of the Na z i s .At the out s et of the First World Wa r, t h erewas a certain amount of s l a u gh ter by theG ermans in Bel gium—the death by firi n gs qu ad of the English nu rse Edith Cavelland nu m erous other atroc i ti e s .

Moving ahead to Korea (I’m an armyveteran of that skirm i s h ) ,i t’s true the warm ay have been poi n t l e s s , but I don’t rec a llthat our oppon ents were “dem on i zed ” tothe ex tent that the Germans and Ja p a n e s ewere . We did, i n deed ,h a te the en emy, a sone learns to hate anyone wh o’s trying tok i ll yo u , and we referred to them in term sthat are not po l i ti c a lly correct anym ore .Our bro t h ers in the Vi etnam War felt thesame abo ut their oppon en t s ,a l t h o u ghs ome of the evil may have come fromWa s h i n g ton , as it pro l on ged the warde s p i te evi den ce of f a i lu re .

I do agree with the profe s s or ’s com m en tabout the “relatively untouched nature ofthe U.S. during wartime,” which was trueup to September 11, but not true of anyf a m i ly who lost anyone du ring any of o u r

w a rs , ju s ti f i ed or otherwi s e , and cert a i n lynot true of combat veterans.I won’tdebate whether we should have gone toIraq.I agree that it’s “obscene” to focuson American families who’ve lost lovedones there. But it’s obscene because themedia’s intrusion into personal loss isalways obscene, not in contrast to thepresumably greater losses of the Iraqipeople. That’s an insult to those whohave given their lives.

War is ghastly—quite correct. Fewpeople with any real contact with warever want to engage in it again. But Ithink there will continue to be, post-9/11,situations in which war will bejustified and Americans who willsupport it in spite of how ghastly it is.

David Hudnut,C’62, Schwenksville, PA

Bogus history

I was surprised to learn in Ted Mann’sarticle (“Ezra’s Dream,” winter 2004) that“Just before his [Ezra Pound’s] death in1972,the first creative writing classesemerged on campus.” With all duerespect,that sounds like bogus campushistory. At my age, memory is suspect,but I distinctly recall taking creativewriting classes with some very good andchallenging teachers—Maurice Johnson,Charles Lee,and Richard Bozorth—between the years 1953 and 1956.

Steve Fayer, C’56, Boston

Your memory’s fine; our facts were wrong.—Ed.

Penn Arts & Sciences welcomes letters and

reserves the right to edit. Write to us at

3440 MarketStreet,Suite 300,

Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325 or e-mail a t

pennsas@sas.upenn.edu.Letters

D E A N ’ S C O L U M N

Did You Hear the One About...?BY DEAN SAMUEL H. P RE STO N

Her remark helped to

confirm an impression

I’ve developed as dean

that good teaching

often includes a libera l

dose of sto r i e s .

ACollege of Arts andSciences student told merecently that she never took

a single note in a class taught byJeremy McInerney, a prize-winningteacher in our classical studiesdepartment. The reason, sheexplained,was that all of histeaching was in the form of storiesthat were easy to remember.

Her remark helped to confirman impression I’ve developed asdean that good teaching oftenincludes a liberal dose of stories:

chronological accounts of linkedevents, often with vivid charactersand revealing scenarios. The Biblegains more of its instructionalpurchase from its powerful storiesthan from its lovely psalms.Ourbest communicators among recentpresidents, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, were also the beststorytellers. It is not far-fetched toargue that humans are wired to beunusually receptive to stories,perhaps because they mimic theserial way in which we experiencethe world. From the unfoldingchronologies, we drew the lessonsthat were essen tial to human su rviva l .

The discipline of history wouldseem to have a special pedagogicadvantage because a major missionof the historian is to tell stories thatare “true”—as true, that is,asdistance and perspective will allow.This orientation may be partiallyresponsible for the fact that ourhistory department enjoys one ofthe highest departmental teacherra ti n gs in the Sch oo l . Ri ck Beem a n ,an historian of colonial America,embellishes his classroom storiesby dressing as one of the featuredcharacters therein. In the sciences,cosmology and evolutionarybiology are the disciplines whosesubject matter contains enoughsweeping chronology to allowfascinating stories to be crafted.Again,these areas appear to spawnunusually popular teaching.

Stories are not the primary waythat a chemist or neuroscientisti nve s ti ga tes or talks abo ut the worl d .These specialists,and many others,have developed complex analyticframes that are used to study aparticular set of relationships. True,these relationships unfold in time,but often in microseconds ratherthan at the more stately pace ofconscious human experience.Teachers of economics,anotherdiscipline long on analytic frameand short on ch ron o l ogy, devel opeda sensible seminar convention adecade or so ago in which speakersare asked to “tell the story ” of t h ei rcon tri buti on before launching into higher math.

Aesop’s fables and Jesus’parables still teach effectively,even though their stories werefirst told thousands of years ago.Whether or not our disciplines areconducive to storytelling, it makessense for all of us who teach to beaware of the mind’s apparentreceptivity to stories. They canlighten the spirit while teaching alesson. And compelling tales likeJeremy McInerney’s teach lessonsthat last for a lifetime, which afterall, is the point of an arts andsciences education. ■

4 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S

DEAN TO STEP DOWNSamuel H. P re s to n , dean of the School of Arts and Science s

s i n ce 1998, has announced t h at he will step down when

his seve n - year term concludes in Dece m b e r. “As all who

k n ow him will agre e , ” said Penn Pre s i d e nt Judith Ro d i n ,

CW ’ 6 6 , “Sam has an unusual blend of pra g m atism and

v i s i o n ,and he has bro u g ht both of those qualities into play

in his quest to provide the best e nv i ro n m e nt possible fo r

both students and fa c u l t y.” Under his leadership, t h e

School has pursued a strategic plan focused on fa c u l t y

d eve l o p m e nt , u n d e rg ra d u ate educat i o n , and inve s t m e nt

in co re academic pro g ra m s . “I look fo rwa rd with pleasure

to serving a final year as dean,” he said,“and returning to

scholarship and teaching in the sociology depart m e nt a n d

the Po p u l ation Studies Ce nt e r.”

Lisa Godfrey

Richard Clarke,C’72,has emerged from more than

20 years in Washington’s bureaucratic shadows

with a hard-hitting critique that blames the Bush

administration for failing to understand the threat posed

by Al Qaeda while launching an unnecessary war on Iraq.

Clarke,a political science major who became the nation’s

first “counterterrorism czar”under President Clinton,held

the same postin the current Bush Administration.He

resigned last year after the president and key advisers

ignored his warnings.

Clarke’s story appears in a new book, Against All

Enemies:Inside America’s War on Terror. In the memoir, the

author claims that senior advisers declined his urgent

request,some nine months before September 11,2001, to

hold a top-level meeting on the danger posed by Al Qaeda.

Bush insiders assigned a low priority to the terrorist group,

he said,because they were obsessed with Iraq and

determined to make war against it.

Fo l l owing the strikes aga i n s t the World Trade Ce nter and

the Pentagon,he writes, the president ordered him and his

Counterterrorism Security Group to “[s]ee if Saddam did

this.” Clarke’s repeated assertions, and reports from the

CIA and FBI,that there were no Iraqi links went unheeded.

By September 12,Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

was talking about “getting Iraq.”

The Bush Administration has denied that itignored

warnings aboutAl Qaeda and contends that Clarke’s

allegations are inconsistent with statements he made

during his tenure as the head of counterterrorism.“This

book is 180 degrees from everything else he said,and he

just can’t have it both ways,”National Security Adviser

Condoleezza Rice said at a White House press briefing.

In a bid to strengthen the administration’s argument,

Rice later agreed,after resisting intense public pressure,

to testify before the National Commission on Terrorist

Attacks Upon the United States.

On National Public Ra d i o ’s Fresh Air ( M a rch 24), C l a r ke

s p e c u l ated t h at if the Bush Administration had given

Al Qaeda the scrutiny he and others had called fo r, t h e

i d e ntities of t wo 9/11 hijackers would probably not h ave

remained “ b u r i e d ” in FBI files. With appro p r i ate publicity,

t h ey might h ave been capture d , he said, foiling the at t a c ks .

Top Bush advisers seemed impervious to “analysis”that

didn’t coincide with their own ideological beliefs, he told

NPR.“The people around the president don’t show him

things that don’taccord with their views and his views.”

Clarke,a hard-working bureaucrat who reportedly

doesn’t mind offending people when necessary, garnered

sympathy during testimony before the 9/11 Commission by

apologizing to victims’ families for what he said was his

own failure and that of the government.

In the NPR interview, Clarke denied that his book—

published justtwo days before he gave evidence to the

commission and some eight m o nths befo re the pre s i d e nt i a l

election—is politically motivated.He said he would

decline any job offered by a future Democratic president.

Administration officials also charged him with seeking

publicity for the book.

The war with Iraq has diverted financial and military

assets from conducting a far more important and effective

war on terrorism,particularly in Afghanistan,Clarke

argued,and has inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment throughout

the Muslim world.“We have played right into [terrorists’]

hands,”he said in the radio interview. “We’ve radicalized

a generation of young Muslims, and we’ve given fuel and

ammunition to the terroristmovement.”

“By invading Iraq,”he told the 9/11 Commission, “the

president of the United States has greatly undermined

the war on terrorism.” ■

—JON HURD L E

5S P R IN G 2004

AFP/Corbis

C l a r ke in the Cro s s h a i r sFormer Te r rorism Czar At t a c ks White House Handling of the War on Te r ro r

B R I E F S

“We’ve radicalized a generation of young Muslims,

and we’ve given fuel and ammunition to the

terrorist movement.”

S A S J O U R N A LS A S J O U R N A L

Rethinking Ki n gThe Reve rend Jesse Jacks o n s t rolled onto

the stage of Irvine Au d i torium to co n d u ct a

public co nve r s ation with Michael Eric Dys o n,

the Avalon Professor in the Humanities, o n

the life and legacy of Martin Luther King.

Each ye a r, the Dr. M a rtin Luther King, J r.

Lecture in Social Justice brings to campus

a scholar of African descent committed

to a justsociety. Jackson,head of the

Rainbow/ PUSH Co a l i t i o n , was one of King’s

l i e u t e n a nts during the 1960s civil right s

s t r u gg l e. Tu kufu Zu b e r i, s o c i o l o gy profe s s o r

and dire ctor of the Ce nter for Af r i c a n a

S t u d i e s, which sponsored the eve nt ,

m o d e rated the exc h a n ge of ideas and aske d

a b o u t the meaning of King’s lega c y. D ys o n ,

author of I May Not G e tT h e re With Yo u :

The True Martin Luther King, J r., re m a r ke d

t h at m a ny had “f ro zen King’s legacy into a

single moment”—the I Have a Dre a m

s p e e c h — w i t h o u t understanding how

radical the leader’s views are. “The fo c u s, ”

said Jacks o n ,“ m u s t be on the promise and

n o t a dream because the dream doesn’ t

h ave a budge t attached to it.”

Gu ggen h eim GoldSix members of the SAS faculty received

fellowships from the John Simon

Guggenheim Foundation,the School’s

largestnumber in one year since 1995. The

2004 fellows were selected from over

3,200 applicants and we nt to 185 individuals

from 87 institutions. Only five institutions,

including SAS, had six or more fellows.

“These are extremely prestigious awards

for which there is intense competition,”

noted Dean Pre s to n . “ T h at six of them we nt

to SAS faculty is another very gratifying

i n d i c ator of the caliber of scholarship in t h e

S c h o o l .” The SAS Guggenheim Fe l l ows are :

• Professor of English Joan Dayan for a

legal,cultural,and religious history of

incarceration and slavery and their

impact on identity;

• Associate professor of religious studies

Talya Fishman to study the inscription

of Oral Torah and the formation of

Jewish culture in the Middle A ges;

• Professor of history and sociology o f

science M.Susan Lindee to examine the

convergence of war, science,and

medicine in 20th-century America;

• Professor of English Peter Stallybrass,

the Walter H.and Lenore C.Annenberg

Professor of Humanities, to explore

technologies of reading and writing in

early modern England and America;

• David Stern, the Ruth Meltzer Professor

of Classical Hebrew Literature, to study

how the physical forms of four classic

Jewish books have shaped their

meaning and significance;

• Walter H.Annenberg Professor of

History Margo Todd for an urban history

of the royal burgh of Perth in 16th- and

17th-century Scotland.

Two Best Boo k sTwo members of the English depart m e nt

we re cited for the exce l l e n ce of t h e i r

n ewe s tb o o ks—one nonfict i o n , the other

p o e t ry — at the National Book Critics

C i rc l e ’s 30th annual awa rd ce re m o ny.

Susan Stewa rt ,G r ’ 78, won for poetry with

her co l l e ction of verse in Co l u m b a r i u m, a n d

Paul Hendricks o n re ce i ved the awa rd fo r

ge n e ral nonfiction for Sons of Mississippi.

“These t wo people are working at t h e

h i g h e s tl evels of writing, ” said Al Fi l r i e s, t h e

Kelly Family Professor of English. “ I t is just

an ex t ra o rd i n a ry aff i r m ation of what t h ey

h ave done.” The National Book Critics Circ l e

consists of book rev i ewers and edito r s

i nt e rested in singling out fine writing and

a d vancing the int e l l i ge nt discussion of

b o o ks .S t ewa rt , the Donald T. Re ga n

P rofessor of English, is a poet and critic

who teaches courses on the histo ry of lyric

p o e t ry, a e s t h e t i c s, and the philosophy of

l i t e rat u re. H e n d r i c ks o n , a prize - w i n n i n g

fe at u re writer for the Wa s h i n g ton Po s t fo r

more than 20 years, teaches advanced

non-fiction writing. “I had been a little

a f raid it was my life ’s pattern to be always

a bridesmaid,never a bride,”he said,

re ferring to t h ree previous nominations of

his books for litera ry awa rds (twice for t h e

Critics Circle and once for the National

Book Award).“Itgives me immense

feelings of pride and pleasure to o, t h at my

co l l e a g u e , Susan Stewa rt , should have wo n

in poetry—a gre at evening it was for Pe n n

and for the liberal arts here.”

6 P E N N AR TS & S C IE N C E S

Paul Hendrickson

Reverend Jesse Jackson

Senator Simon Guggenheim

S P RI N G 2004 7

De a n’s Foru mHistorian and best-selling biographer

David McCullough was the keynote

speaker at this year’s Dean’s Forum.The

acclaimed storyteller spoke to a crowd at

Irvine Auditorium on the qualities o f

leadership. McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-

winning biographies on John Adams and

Truman as well as books on Theodore

Rooseveltand events in American history

make him an authority on the subject.

“Popularity and leadership have never

gone hand in hand,”he said.

Pu l i t zer Profe s s orSteven Hahn, the Roy F. and Jeannette P.

Nichols Professor in American History, was

awa rded a Pu l i t zer Prize for his book A Nat i o n

under Our Fe e t : Black Political Strugg l e s in the

Rural South from

Slavery to the Great

Migration. Hahn is

a specialiston the

social and political

history of 19th

century America

and the history of

the South.His

prize-winning book

tells the story of

h ow former slaves t ra n s formed t h e m s e l ve s

into a political people. History department

chair, Jonathan Steinberg, the Walter H.

Annenberg Professor of Modern European

H i s to ry, p o i nts out t h at “ S t eve n’s re m a r ka b l e

book rests on a very bright idea—that

slaves musthave had networks of kinship

and information that constituted a politics

of the oppressed and that once freed,

they organized to take what had been

submerged into the light.” A Nation under

Our Fe e t had already ga r n e red the Bancroft

P r i ze for the best book on American history

and the Merle Curti Award for the best

social history. Hahn’s grassroots account

“has done something which,once it’s

done,is obvious,”notes Steinberg, “but

nobody had thought of itbefore. That’s

true of a lot of great ideas.”

Cl a s s room Fiel dworkIf anything is sure to give undergraduates

the willies, it’s finding outthat the dean

is seated in their classroom,spying from

the back row. It conjures an image of

Vernon Wormer, disciplinarian out to catch

slackers in the film Animal House. But

Rebecca Bushnell is no Dean Wormer.

Bushnell,dean of the College, explains

that she has been sitting in on science

classes “in order to experience science

education from a student’s point of view.”

And,she adds, “to educate myself better

abouthow science is taught.”

A scholar of Shakespeare and the

Renaissance,Bushnell admits that she’s

long fostered an allergy to the world of

DNA and neutrinos.“I’m one of those

humanities students who avoided science

classes at all costs.” But with the urging of

her daughter, an aspiring physicist,she

decided it was time to face her fears. To

date,Bushnell has audited everything

from organic chemistry to the Big Bang

and Beyond,not to mention an advanced

course on molecular biology and genetics.

Besides the “fascinating”lectures, she

was surprised by some of the teaching

methods.Almostall of the science lessons

were taught with a barrage of images, she

o b s e rve s .“I had no idea t h at s c i e n ce was so

visually orient e d .”Whether used to illustrat e

a n ato my, d i a g ram a molecule, or just i n f u s e

some cartoon humor, the visual cues helped

carry through the “act of translation/

interpretation,”which Bushnell says is the

heart of the educational experience. The

humanities, she believes, could benefit

from this sort of pedagogical lesson.

With David Balamuth, the associate

dean for natural and social sciences in SAS,

she is working to convene department

chairs to discuss which approaches to

teaching science are effective. Though it’s

uncertain what proposals the academic

congress will make,Bushnell’s classroom

fieldwork has convinced her of one thing:

“You can’tsit down and talk to professors

about their teaching unless you truly

understand what itis they teach.”

— TED MA NN

Rh odes Sch o l a rIn the fa l l , David Ferreira,C’04, will enro l l

at Oxfo rd University to study law as a

Rhodes Scholar. The political science ,

p h i l o s o p hy, and economics major was

born in Bermuda but s i n ce age eight h a s

l i ved in England. A citizen of Bermuda, h e

hopes to return and pra ct i ce law on t h e

British t e r r i torial island. Fe r re i ra is one of

some 95 students to re ce i ve the pre s t i g i o u s

i nt e r n ational fe l l ows h i p, which is awa rd e d

on the basis of int e l l e ctual achieve m e nt ,

c h a ra ct e r, and athletic ability. In addition to

p l aying rugby, s o cce r, s q u a s h , go l f, t e n n i s,

and other sport s, Fe r re i ra plays cricke t fo r

B e r m u d a ’s national team and will be part

of the squad this summer in the World Cup

q u a l i fying mat c h e s .“The best way to

describe David Fe r re i ra is t h o u g ht f u l, ”

o b s e rved A rthur Ca s c i ato, d i re ctor of Pe n n’s

Ce nter for Underg ra d u ate Re s e a rch and

Fe l l ows h i p s .“ I ’m not a bit surprised t h at

the selection committee chose him.”

At a dinner t h at fo l l owed the Dean’s Fo r u m , Pe n n

p re s i d e nt Judith Ro d i n , CW’66 (right) who will step

d own this summer after ten years as the unive r s i t y ’s first

female and alumni pre s i d e nt , was honored with t h e

2 0 04 SAS Distinguished Alumni Awa rd .

Di gital Bro t h er a gainst Bro t h erSurfing the vast and trackless sea ofthe World Wide Web, it’s often hard toknow what information is reliable.That’s especially true when it comes tosu bj ects as popular as the U. S . Civil Wa r.“It’s not that the quality of informationis no good,” observes history professorRobert Engs, “it’s just that there’s no wayto evaluate it. If you’re an uninformedresearcher, you can’t tell if you’re gettinggood material or simply the opinion o fa Civil War buff.” Websites tied touniversities and vetted by scholars arethe most reliable,he counsels.

Knowing how much undergraduatesrely on the Internet as an engine ofresearch,Engs, an authority on the war, slavery, Emancipation,andRecon s tru cti on , dec i ded to pull toget h eron one site historical doc u m ents fromthis “most important peri od of Am eri c a nhistory.” The Crisis of the Union<http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/civil

war/index.cfm> is a searchable electronicarchive of 224 original pamphlets,books, broadsides,cartoons, clippings,posters, speeches, reports,and otherprint memorabilia. Working withcurators from the Library Company ofPhiladelphia to compile the digitaldocuments,Engs also wrote abstractsfor each item and set up the websitewith the help of the Schoenberg Centerfor Electronic Text and Image, part ofthe university’s library system. Hedesigned the site with his own studentsin mind but also to aid secondaryschool teachers and students,and othernascent researchers who don’t haveaccess to primary sources.

“I think the most fascinatingm a nu s c ri pt ,” E n gs points out , “is a vers i onof the Thirteenth Amendment, signedby [presidents] James Buchanan andAbraham Linco l n — because it had alre adyp a s s ed both houses of Con gress —wh i chwould have guara n teed slavery forever.”Why was this vers i on not ra ti f i ed? “Ah h ,”the historian be a m s , “the Civil Wa r.”

An ti-“ Fem i n i s t s” forFem i n i s mIn 1963, Betty Friedan published herbe s t s elling boo k , The Feminine Mys ti q u e,which probed the sense of oppressionthat women felt because of socialpressures limiting them to careers ashousewives and mothers. The book letloose the wave of legislation andcultural change that came to be calledthe Women’s Liberation Movement.Even tu a lly Fri edan fo u n ded the Na ti on a lOrganization for Women, one of themovement’s mainstay institutions.Writer Gloria Steinem would later startup another—Ms. magazine—and Bella Abzug in the U.S. Congress soonbecame an outspoken supporter ofequal rights for women.

Those were heady days,and membersof that generation are far more likely tothink of themselves as feminists thanare younger (or older) people, despite

the benefits that were won for them.That’s what sociologist Jason Schnittker

and others reported in a scholarly studypublished in the American SociologicalReview. Men and women who came ofage during the movement, those bornbetween 1935 and 1955,are the mostl i kely to claim the de s i gn a ti on “fem i n i s t .”Schnittker, the Janice and Julian BersAssistant Profe s s or in the Social Scien ce s ,points out that young adults who esch ewthe label may still embrace principleslike equal work for equal pay, or defytraditional gender roles, or promoteother values of a pro-feminist agenda.The meaning of the term is unsettledtoday, but the champions of equalrights are everywhere among us. “Thereappear to be many more conceptions of feminism these days than there werein earlier generations,” Schnittker said,“allowing for a variety of differentpeople with a variety of differentideologies to self-identify as feminists.It’s not just a story about some groupsmoving away from feminism, whichmost people have assumed, but aboutnew and diverse ideological groups—groups moving in and out of feminism.‘Feminist’ is a much more fluid identitythese days.”

S A S F R O N T I E R S

8 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S

Historian Robert Engs

S P RI N G 2004 9

E m bryonic Questi on sCouples who want children but areunable to conceive can have theirdreams of family fulfilled these days,thanks to advances in assistedreproductive technologies. But biologyprofessors Ted Abel and Richard Schultz

have raised concerns about someaspects of new infertility treatments.In findings published in the Proceedingsof the National Academy of Sciences,the two biologists, along with fellowre s e a rch ers , reported that mice devel opedfrom embryos cultured in chemicallydefined media showed worrisomedifferences in memory and anxiety.The scientists say the petri-dish culturesin which the experimental mice were“gestated” before being placed in amother rodent’s uterus are the cause of the abnormal behavior.

Male adults that grew from culturedembryos spent significantly more timein open spaces of a maze. Typically,mice keep to the enclosed portions.The unusual behavior suggests a lowerlevel of anxiety, the experimenters said.In tests that measured learning, thescientists observed that male and femaleculture-derived mice were less able toremember how to find a platform thatwas just below the surface in a smallswimming pool.

“Our re sults are not direct ly app l i c a bl eto children conceived through assistedreproductive technology,” cautionedSchultz, the Patricia Williams TermProfessor of Biology. “Nevertheless,theresults highlight the need for furtherresearch to optimize culture conditionsfor human embryos.”

The study made note of a trend in

fertility clinics of longer culturing inorder to sel ect the “be s t” human em bryo sfor implantation and to reduce the riskof multiple pregnancies.Earlier studiesof mice have shown that many genesare improperly expressed in response toembryo cultures and that the degree ofmis-expression can be amplified bydifferent chemicals in the cultures.“Overall, our findings suggest that aspecial effort should be made tominimize the effect of culture on pre-implantation embryos,” said Abel.“Decreasing the length of time betweenfertilization and implantation andfurther refining the composition ofthe culture medium are two ways thatmay mitigate risk.”

Rank Mon key Bu s i n e s sMuch like humans,baboons classifymembers of their society based oncom p l ex ru l e s . Profe s s ors D o ro t hy Cheney

(biology) and Robert Seyfarth

(psychology),along with postdoccolleagues, published findings on theprimates’ social world last fall in thejournal Science. The paper is part of a12-year research project on a baboontroop they ’ve been stu dying in Bo t s w a n a .The group of over 80 primates has astable and longstanding hierarchyamong families as well as dominanceranks within families and betweenthem. Cheney and Seyfarth are trying to sort out the cognitive skills that makethe primates able to recognize theselayers of kinship and social rank. “We

have watched the extended drama ofbaboon interactions and have a detailedunderstanding of the hierarchy of theirrelationships,” Seyfarth stated. “The bigquestion is whether the baboonst h em s elves have an equ a lly soph i s ti c a tedview of their society.”

The investigators recorded baboongrunts and screams that signifydominance and submission, and thenmixed a soundtrack to make it seem l i kea low - ranking female was dom i n a ti n g asuperior one. When the “rank reversals”were played back, some baboons would“pause and give a look,” as though insurprise. The strongest responses wereto calls that signaled a reversal in theranks of two families. Within-familyreversals got a much weaker response.The experiment shows that baboonscan assess both rank and kinship in the matrilineal pecking order thatstructures their world.

“Humans organize their knowledgeof social relationships into hierarchicalstructure,and they also make use ofhierarchical structures when deducingrel a ti onships among words in language ,”Seyf a rth noted . “The ex i s ten ce of suchcom p l ex social cl a s s i f i c a ti ons in baboon s ,a species without language, suggeststhat the social pressures imposed by lifein complex groups may have been onefactor leading to the e volution ofsophisticated cognition and languagein our pre-human ancestors.”

Soon to Be aMotion Picture Major

C i n e m a S t u d i e s

10 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S

Sociology professor TukufuZuberi laughs and leans hiselbow on the bar. “Yeah,” he

says.“Mos Def is it!”It’s the afterparty for the East

Coast premiere of Paramount’sAgainst the Ropes, and Zuberi,himself no stranger to the camerasfrom his role in the PBS seriesHistory Detectives, is listening tothe movie’s producer, Robert Cort,C’68, G’70, WG’74, talk about hisnext movie-making project. In thebackground, people cluster tocompare notes on the film. Cardschange hands.A young directorin a black bomber and a basebal lcap positions himself next to theproducer while two reporters leanin,taking notes.

Cort’s newest venture is an HBOfeature called Something the LordMa d e, a bo ut the 34-year partn ers h i pbetween white surgeon AlfredBlalock and black lab technicianVivien Thomas, who togetherpioneered open-heart surgery atJohns Hopkins. Rapper Mos Defplays Thomas, and Cort is recallingsome friction with the director.“Mos didn’t realize this olderItalian-American man had beenon the freedom rides and the civilrights marches.Finally the director

says, ‘Okay. Play it however youwant.’”In the disputed scene,Thomas sees a flag being loweredto half staff, signaling the death of his white colleague who hadreceived most of the glory.

“So they start the take,” Cortcon ti nu e s .“ It’s a long shot, and Mo sis walking away from the camera.All of a sudden,his legs give out.Completely collapse. And he justsits there, with the camera on him,p u lling aw ay. It wasn’t in the scri pt .It came from som ewh ere in his ownexperience,and it was just right. Itm ay be the best acting mom ent I’veever seen.” Cort’s listeners nod,composing the shot in their heads.

This convers a ti on is not happen i n gin New York or LA, but at theBridge, a movie theater on the edgeof campus. Alert Penn studentsmake up the crowd, along withcommunity members and faculty

like Zuberi, Ira Harkavy, C’70,Gr’79, director of the Center forCommunity Partnerships,andItalian lecturer Nicola Gentili.Moving among the groups, keepinga watchful eye on the proceedings,is the new director of Pen n’s Ci n em aS tudies Progra m , Ti m o t hy Corri ga n .

An English professor andinternationally respected filmscholar, Corrigan is the author ofseveral books, including A Cinemawithout Walls and New GermanFilm as well as standard textbookslike The Film Experience andWriting about Film . To him, eventslike Cort’s premiere enrich thelearning environment in severalways. Personal access to a bigproducer offers students uniqueinsights into the process andbusiness of moviemaking. Thepremiere shows how films are“platformed” for distribution—

11S P RI N G 2004

P r e m i e r e s a t P e n n BY RA NDALL CO U CH

Photography by Lisa Godfrey

“ T h o s e I ’ v e s p o k e n w i t h h a v e s a i d — w i t h s t u d e n t s

s t a n d i n g t h e re — t h a t i f y o u w a nt t o w o r k i n f i l m s ,

d o n’ t g e t s p e c i a l i ze d , j u s t g e t s m a rt e r.”

with free-preview audiences andrelease locations chosen for theirlikelihood of generating positivebuzz. And they contribute tobuilding what Corrigan envisionsas a “dynamic center of visualculture” at Penn.

Anchoring that vision is arigorous curriculum and a dozencore faculty, from eight SASdepartments and from other Pennschools, teaching cinema courses.In the spring of 1999,through theefforts of a faculty committee andthe encouragement of College deanRebecca Bushnell,a film studiesprogram was formalized with theoffering of an interdisciplinaryminor. Millicent (Penny) Marcus,the Mariano DiVito Professor ofItalian Studies,and James Englishof the English department directedthe fled gling program. Thesefaculty members,says Corrigan,“don’t see cinema studies as just a

trend they want to support.They have a real intellectual andacademic commitment to it. That’swhy it’s been such a solid programfor the last four years,and whyI’m convinced it’s going to bebetter than ever.”

Corrigan’s mandate was toconsolidate, coordinate,and focus faculty efforts and studententhusiasm for film.Plans for acinema studies major are on trackfor September, and Corrigan alsointends to develop a graduatecertificate. The history of artdepartment is appointing a full-time cinema scholar to its recentlyendowed Elliot and Roslyn JaffeProfessorship in Film Studies,further nourishing the p rogram’sroots in that discipline.

As Corri gan ex pected ,m om en tu mis building quickly. “I’m learningmy way around with the help ofNicola,the program’s associate

director, and Penny,” he says.“I’mcertain the new Jaffe professor willplay a large and crucial role inmoving cinema studies forward.Penn was clearly a place withenormous opportunity. The onlyquestion for me was whether I’dhave the energy to direct all thisincredible activity. And my answeris yes,” he laughs,“I do.”

As a discipline,cinema studiesbridges high and popular culture,and stands at the intersection ofvisual media,storytelling, andcultural and social history. The newm a j or wi ll not focus on produ cti on ,screenwriting, or the moviebusiness,though Corrigan expectssome students to follow thosepaths after graduation. Instead, likeany arts and sciences major, it willstress research skills, analyticalrigor, and critical interpretation—teaching students to see, asBushnell has said, what they haveonly watched. An understanding of human behavior and the abilityto weigh and manipulate ideas willtake priority as outcomes.

In this, Corri gan has the su pportof many alumni in the industry.“Those I’ve spo ken with have said—with stu dents standing there — t h a tif you want to work in films, don’tget specialized, just get smarter.”Robert Cort put it like this:“ Un der gradu a te edu c a ti on ought toprepare you to operate in a world

12 P E N N A R TS & S C I E N C E S

Sociology professor Tukufu Zuberi (right) at premiere of Againstthe Ropes.

G i v e n a s t r o n g a c a d e m i c c o re , w h a t C o r r i g a n a n d

A v n e t e x p e c t t o d i s t i n g u i s h P e n n ’s p r o g r a m i s t h e

s h e e r n u m b e r o f t h i n g s g o i n g o n .

Producer Robert Cort chats with student at premiere of his movie.

13S P RI N G 2004

“ T h e re ’s a ‘ Pe n n m a f i a ’ — i t r u n s f r o m e x e c u t i v e s t o f i l m m a k e r s t o

w r i t e r s . I t’s g r e at t o b r i n g p e o p l e o f t h a t c a l i b e r t o c a m p u s .”

you can’t po s s i bly imagi n e . Bec a u s ewh erever you are ,i t’s not going tol ook like that 20 ye a rs from now.”

Filmmaker and producerJon Avnet,C’71,agrees. Avnet isch a i rman of the Boa rd of Di rectorsof the American Film Instituteand producer of the forthcomingmovie Sky Captain and the World ofTo m o rrow. “ It doe s n’t hu rt to have agood edu c a ti on ,” he advises aspiri n gfilmmakers, including “somek n owl ed ge of the history of f i l m ,a n dcritical studies of film,and maybeeven certain produ cti on el em en t s” a sa n a lytical too l s .“ It’s our world tod ay.A movie like Mel Gibson’s Passionwill have a global impact. Wars arebeing fought on audiovisual terms.And if you think that it’s onlygoing to become more important,then it seems to me Penn should beleading the way with an integratedapproach to studying this field.”

If cinema is so important, whyhave elite schools been cautiousabout making it a core subject?

The h i s tory of l i tera ry stu dy of fers a clu e .

It’s easy to assume universitystudents have always studiedShakespeare, but it wasn’t until thelate 19th century that literaturecourses were regularly offered.Penn listed the nation’s first under-graduate course on the novel in1889 and did not offer an Englishmajor until 1914—three centuries

after Shakespeare’s death. It wasn’tthat literature’s importance wentunrecognized. Every cultivatedperson was expected to appreciateit, but its evaluation relied on“taste” and modern literaturewas viewed as too popular forserious scholarship.

Today, we take it for granted thatliterary study provides effectivetraining in critical thinking andcultural awareness. Cinema,longtaught as a craft and long an objectof serious intellectual attention,has likewise come in from the coldto claim an overdue place as auniversity major—after a merecentury of existence.

Given a strong academic core,what Corrigan and Avnet expect todistinguish Penn’s program is thesheer number of things going on:s c reen i n gs of classic and indepen den tfilms at the Bridge; closer ties withthe Philadelphia Film Festival,theInstitute of Contemporary Art, andother film venues; and morecontact with working professionals.

“Penn has put a lot o f people inthe film business,” notes Avnet.“There’s a ‘Penn mafia’—it runsfrom executives to filmmakers towriters. It’s great to bring people ofthat caliber to [campus], but I’dlike to have something much moreintegrated with the film programso students would know how totake advantage of it—as a learning

experience and not just aninspirational moment.”

Junior Wesley Barrow and hisfriends are there already. They’vejust organized several Penn entriesto the third Ivy League FilmFestival,hosted by Brown. Barrowrecently transferred to SAS fromthe engineering school and hopesto be one of the first cinemastudies majors. He is chairman of Talking Film,an organizationthat consolidates several studentgroups. “There’d be one club thatwas into making movies,” he says,“and one into showing movies, oneinto dissecting movies, and oneinto get ting jobs in the movi e s .This way, we can do a bet ter job ofget ting our word out , and pool ourre s o u rces to do more ambi ti o u sprogra m s . It’s also easier for Tim tokeep track of us all .” Talking Filmavera ges 80 atten dees for its even t sand alre ady has a mailing list of 6 0 0 .

Barrow and Talking Film arecommitted to Corrigan’s vision ofPenn as a dynamic center of visualculture. He’s excited about theprogress already made. “There areso many underclassmen who aregung ho about this,” remarksBa rrow. “Th ere’s a big futu re ahead .It’s a good time to be a studentinterested in film at Penn.” ■

Randall Couch is a Philadelphiapoet, critic, and moviegoer.

KIPP founders Mike Feinberg (seated right)

and David Levin (seated left).

Mike Feinberg, C’91,chuckles as he recountsthe story of Abby, the

hapless fifth-grader more duty-bound to her 27-inch TV than toher school work.

Founder and superstar educatorbehind the revolutionary KIPP(Knowledge Is Power Program)network of public schools,Feinberg rocked Abby’s worldwhen he arrived at her doorstepand left with her television.Eachm orning after, the digi t a lly deprivedadolescent was to deposit hercompleted homework next to thech eri s h ed app l i a n ce , wh i ch Fei n ber gkept in his office,“just to be mean.”

All worked out between theprincipal and boob-tube princess:Feinberg returned the TV afterthree weeks. Abby, now a student atTexas A&M,earned high honorsand became class valedictorian atKIPP Academy Houston.

Feinberg’s hard-line approach isdogma at KIPP, where long hoursand in-your-face discipline minglewith street-savvy pedagogies likechanting multiplication tables to foot-stomping beats. The KIPP formula, Feinberg holds,isthe elusive key to improvingeducation nationwide.

The concept began in 1993,when Feinberg and Yale gradDavid Levin had bottomed outemotionally during their two-yearteaching commitment with Teach

for America. Feeling like frustratedsurrogate parents, they questionedthe impact they were having on thei rtroubled pupils who, says Feinberg,“were going off to middle schooland drowning in low expectations.”

Toget h er, Fei n berg and Levin drewup a proposal for an innovativeacademic program that enrolledmainly low-income minoritystudents and used unconventionalteaching methods seated in highex pect a ti on s ,n o - n on s ense discipline,and a tight focus on results.Ho u s ton’s school district embracedthe plan, and KIPP AcademyHouston opened in 1994.A secondKIPP Academy, in New York’sSouth Bronx, opened soon after.

Today, there are 31 KIPPmiddle schools nationwide—with five more, plus a

preschool and a high school,slated to open this summer —allin low-income urban and ruralcommunities.Laurie Bieber, C’93,the program’s manager of resourcedevelopment, says KIPP is a neededl i feline in these com mu n i ti e s , wh erecon cepts like co ll ege edu c a ti on havenot become institutionalized. Toppolicymakers have taken notice.

“A child is a vi ctim of an edu c a ti on a lmonopoly when he or she leavesthe house,” says CongressmanRalph Regula (R-OH), chairman ofthe House Subcommittee on Labor,Health and Human Services,andEducation, and champion of theKIPP approach. “The quality of thete ach ers in each ch i l d ’s public sch oo lreally depends on where they live.”

15S P R I N G 2004

WingsE a rning Th ei r

BY JOAN CA P UZZI GIRE S I

Long Hours and Tough Love

Turn Marg i n a l i zed Middle Schoolers

i nto Top Scholars

I T ’ S A L L A BO U T T E AC H I N G T H E

S O - C A L L E D “ K I P P S T E R S” TO B E

S C H O LA R S I N A N E N V I RO N M E N T T H AT

D O E S N ’T S U P P O RT S C H O LA R S H I P.

KIPP’s goal is simple:To give students wingsto escape their fractured

communities. By providing asuperior education during thetumultuous adolescent years,grades five through eight,KIPPhelps its students shine so theycan gain admittance to elite hig hschools and footing on the path to college.

Elliott Witney, C’97, principal of KIPP Academy Houston andanother of the eight SAS alumniworking in the KIPP network, saysit’s all about teaching the so-called“KIPPsters” to be scholars in anenvironment that doesn’t supportscholarship. “We try to take the bellcurve,put it on our shoulders,andwalk to the right”—bringing bettereducational opportunity to theoutliers on the curve.

This is no easy task. For thestudents, it means marinating inac adem i c s . Classes go from 7:30 A.M.to 5:00 P.M. during the week,halfdays on alternate Saturdays, andnearly a month added in thesummer. That’s 67 percent moretime in school for KIPPsters thanfor their traditional public schoolcounterparts. Add to this twohours of homework nightly,compared to the public schoolnorm of about 30 minutes.

Emilio Gonzalez admits to

frequent bouts of sympathy fordaughter Leslie,a KIPP Houstoneighth-grader who’s shed manytears over her academic burdens.Yet he is grateful for KIPP’s “no-shortcuts” method, which keptEmilio, Jr.—now a senior on fullscholarship at a tony prep school inVirginia—busy and out of trouble.

Students, along with theirparents and teachers, sign contractscommitting themselves to KIPP’shigh demands. Students pledge tocomplete long homeworkassignments,and parents vow tosupervise them. Through KIPP’sWall Street program (the name wasinspired by Feinberg’s Whartonfriends who work on “the Street”well into the night), students can—and do—stay at school until 9o’clock on weeknights to dohomework. Teachers make homevisits to assist parents and provide

their cell phone numbers for after-hours homework questions.

Good behavior and strictadherence to KIPP’s dress code andrules are mandatory. For social oracademic achievement, studentsearn “KIPP dollars,” which areredeemable at the school store andon school trips. But rule violatorsare sent to the “porch,” a symbolicjail where they are required to weart h eir shirts inside - o ut and forbi d denf rom talking to cl a s s m a te s .

Cynthia Hernandez vividlyrem em bers the seclu s i on she felt thetime she was porch ed after for get ti n gto have her mother sign a meritform . As part of h er repen t a n ce ,she had to wri te l et ters of a po l ogy toh er “te a m m a te s” (what the studentscall each other) for behavingirresponsibly. Now a student at the prestigious Peddie School inHightstown, NJ, Hernandez thanks

16 P E N N A R TS & S C I E N C ES

B Y P ROV I D I N G A S U PE R I O R E D U C AT I O N D U R I N G

T H E T U M U LT U O U S A DO L E S C E N T Y E A R S , G RA D E S

F I V E T H RO U G H E I G H T, KIPP H E L P S I T S

S T U D E N T S S H I N E S O T H EY C A N G A I N

A D M I T TA N C E TO E L I T E H I G H S C H OO L S A N D

F O O T I N G O N T H E PAT H TO C O L L E G E .

T H AT ’ S 67 P E RC E N T M O R E T I M E I N

S C H OO L F O R K I P P S T E R S T H A N F O R

T H E I R T RA D I T I O NA L P U B L I C S C H OO L

C O U N T E R PA RT S . A D D T O T H I S T WO

H O U R S O F H O M E WO R K N I G H T LY,

C O M PA R E D T O T H E P U B L I C S C H OO L

N O R M O F A BO U T 30 M I N U T E S .

17S P RI N G 2004

KIPP for its tough love andunforgiving standards. “They don’tteach you about just academics,”she says, “but about life itself.”At the Bronx KIPP school, everys tu dent is requ i red to play a mu s i c a linstrument. And KIPP’s “it’s-okay-to-be-a-nerd”culture has spawnedbook clubs, where seventh- andeighth-graders read classics likeThe Jungle and Jane Eyre.

Having bucked aneducational system thatFeinberg says stifles

c re a tivi ty, KIPP takes a mu l ti - s en s orya pproach to te ach i n g, l et ting stu den t si n corpora te new knowl ed ge usingtheir eyes,their ears, and even theirnoses. In developing this teachingmodel, Feinberg was inspired byWa l ter Mc Do u ga ll , the All oy - An s i nProfe s s or of In tern a ti onal Rel a ti on s ,whose animated lectures—in whichhe would sing o ut of key to make asalient point—made his lessonsimpossible to forget.

Feinberg laments the paucityof inspired teachers. “We live in amicrowave generation. That’s greatfor popcorn, but bad for teachingreading,” he says.“Everyone’slooking for that extra little gadgetto throw into a mediocre teacher’scl a s s room to make them bet ter.” Th eKIPP Fo u n d a ti on ,c re a ted four ye a rsago with a grant from Gap, Inc.

founders Doris and Donald Fisher,trains educators to lead new KIPPschools throughout the country.

Whether it’s the dedicatedteachers,the rigorous academics,the creative latitude, the strictoversight, or the enthusiasticatmosphere, one thing is certain:The KIPP model works.KIPPAcademy Houston has been nameda Texas Exemplary School all yearsrunning, and KIPP Academy NewYork is consistently among the top-performing middle schools in theBronx. KIPP’s statistics also bearwitness across the network: hightest scores,stellar attendance rates,and,in the last five years, over $20million dollars in scholarships atpremier prep schools. Thoughmost of the KIPPsters come frompoor families—nearly 90 percentqualify for the federal breakfast and lunch programs—affluentparents increasingly clamor tosend their kids through KIPP’sopen-enrollment program.

“For every Mercedes Benzpulling into our parking lot,” insistsFeinberg, “we make sure there are10 Chevy Novas.” And,as Abbycould tell you, sometimes one lessTV set at home. ■

Joan Capuzzi Giresi, C’86, V’98, is ajournalist and veterinarian.

Unlike most archaeologists,Erickson doesn’t begin his research

in excavated holes; he starts in the sky,reading the landscape for markers of

vanished civilizations.

A i r b o r n e

Amazon

Bird’s - Eye Vi e w

Pre-Columbian raised fields (lighter) and canals (darker) in Bolivia savanna.

of the Amazon

In the office of a typicalarchaeologist, you wouldexpect to find things likes tone too l s , po t tery fra gm en t s ,

and maybe even a few WoolyMammoth bones. But ClarkE ri ck s on is no typical arch aeo l ogi s t .Oversize rolls of aerial photographsare stacked into tubular pyramidson a desk and worktable in hisUniversity Museum office. Theyfill up file cabinets and populatea storage room. At last count,hehad about 700 giant aerial andsatellite images—almost all ofthem picturing some region ofthe Amazon.

He ro lls out a 1958 U. S . Air Forcephoto of a Bolivian savannah.Even with the vast acreage blownup to movie-poster size, the detailsare as impenetrable as braille tothe sighted. “See that,” he says,pointing to a line running acrossthe landscape. “Anything that’sstraight—it’s not natural.” With a finger, he traces a symmetricalblock of toothpick shapes. “Theseare raised fields. See, you can pickout the linear patterns.” WithErickson’s narration, more andmore geometric designs pop off theglossy print—settlement mounds,fish weirs,irrigation canals, roads.The photo begins to look like aprehistoric engineering blueprint.

Unlike most archaeologists,Erickson doesn’t begin his researchin excavated holes;he starts in the

sky, reading the landscape formarkers of vanished civilizations.

For the past decade, Ericksonhas used aerial images—borrowedfrom the military, scientists,andeven oil companies—to guide hisfieldwork. What he’s discoveredabout the prehistoric Amazonch a ll en ges many tex tbook te ach i n gs .Before Columbus, he argues,thearea was heavily populated andagriculturally advanced. His workhas led to a surprising supposition:Humans may have engineerednearly every aspect of the Amazon landscape.

As an undergraduate, Ericksonwasted no time becoming anarchaeologist. He was part of anexcavation on the first day offreshman-year classes and thenspent two summers at digs onLake Titicaca in South America.The biggest discovery of his youngcareer came at the end—in therear-view mirror of a beat-upVo l k s w a gen bu s . The team wasdep a rting on a five-hour drive backto “civilization.” On an unpaved,u n i n h a bi ted stretch of road ,c re s ti n gover a ri d ge ,E ri ck s on stole one lastgl a n ce at the diminishing lakebed .Through the cracked windows, hecouldn’t believe what he saw: anunnatural crosshatch pattern. Itcovered several square miles,and it seemed to be human-made.

In this part of the Amazon,farming is difficult. The soil spends

half the year scorched in desertheat and the other half inundatedwith rain. For this reason,sayscholars,the region is incapable of sustaining large civilizations.Erickson believes the raised fieldshe glimpsed through the backwindow of his microbus were asolution hit upon by an ancientpeople. The system of mounds andcanals provided irrigation in thedry season and drained the soilduring floods. Ten years before,geographer William Denevan hadwritten about the fields, but by the1970s, when Erickson was there,no archaeologist had studied them.No one knew the age of thestructures, who built them, orif they even worked.

19S P RI N G 2004

BY TED MA NN

A rc h a e o l o g i s t C h a l l e n ges the Myth of a Pristine Wi l d e r n e s s

ArchaeologistClark Erickson

By the time Erickson earned aPh.D.,he was itching to return. Butas he hiked the dirt roads in searchof the earthen structures he’dglimpsed before,the ancient fieldsseemed to have disappeared. Fromthat point on , he says ,“I vowed neverto set foot on the landscape wi t h o uth aving stu d i ed aerial ph o togra ph sfirst.” Now he rents a $300-an-hour Cessna,and a team of threestudents helps him photograph thesites from every angle.

With aerial images,Ericksonrediscovered the missing raisedfields,and he immediately begananalyzing them. Subsequent digsproved that the mounded fieldsdate back to about 100 B.C.andmay have been cultivated until A.D. 1100. The dimensions of therectangular plots were astounding:Each row rose three feet high,measured up to 30 feet wide,andstretched 1,300 feet long. Betweenthe rows were canals,also 30 feetwide and three feet deep.

As much as he learned aboutthe fields,he kept coming back toone nagging question: Were theyproductive? To answer this,he trieda little “ex peri m ental arch aeo l ogy ” —rec re a ting ancient tools and met h od s

in order to better understand howthe raised fields worked. With helpfrom colleagues and local farmers,he built a field from scratch andworked it year-round. “We foundthat productivity was three to fourtimes traditional practices likeslash-and-burn,” he reports.

The more time Erickson spent inSouth America, the more he keptrunning into, and co ll a bora ti n gwith,a group of sympatheticresearchers,including Denevan andanthropologist William Balée.Together, the three men challengedconventional thinking about theAmazon. To begin with, theydismissed “the pristine myth” thatthe Americas before Columbuswere an untouched Eden. Denevancountered that,in fact, much of theAmazon is anthropogenic—humanmade—and the sheer number ofengineered earthworks and theirsize, he concluded, would haverequired a massive workforce.

Looking at an aerial photoof the Baures region ofBolivia,Erickson’s indexfinger dances between

dark polka dots covering bareearth. These,he notes,are forestislands and mounds that can rise

60 feet above the sava n n a . Ca u s ew aysradiate from them like spokes on awheel.Erickson and Balée haveshown that the mounds were oncesettlements,housing between 500and 1,000 inhabitants. Beneath thecanopies of the island forests,thetwo men discovered pottery, bones,and orchards of fruit trees. Thedozens of ra i s ed causew ays ,h owever,still leave Erickson scratching hishead. Most are straight as a ruler,stretching from mound to mound.“It looks like everyone in thesociety had their own road andused it once!”

For all the evidence thatErickson and hiscolleagues have offered,there is still resistance

to the idea of a once populousAmazon. Old-school anthropol-ogists, like the Smithsonian’s BettyMeggers,hold that the region’saluminum-rich soil couldn’t havesupported the agricultural base alarge civilization needs to thrive.Environmentalists push the“pristine myth” and,Ericksonfears, often see his work as “someexcuse that we’re giving developersto go and rape the Amazon.”Even natural scientists abhor thenew anthropocentric view of theAmazon. “When I give talks at theField Museum in Chicago, there isalways a bunch of them literallyyelling at me.” Meggers went so faras to claim, in the journal LatinAmerican Antiquity, that “the mythof El Dorado is being revived byarchaeologists.”

In an ironic twist,the lost goldof El Dorado may turn out to bethat oft maligned soil. In the 1990s, geologists began examiningAm a zonian eart h , and though mu ch

20 P E N N A R TS & SC I E N C ES

What he’s discovered about the prehistoric Amazon challenges many

textbook teachings.

was inhospitable,large swathsturned out to be fertile. CalledAmazonian Dark Earth, or terrapreta by locals,this near-black soilhas amazing properti e s .D a rk Eart hretains its nutri ents du ring trop i c a lrains, while other soil is leeched,and like potting soil,it is far moreproductive for growing crops. Thetrait that makes it so exceptional,and enigmatic,is its ability toregen era te . Locals qu a rry and farmthe ri ch soi l , and their su pp ly alw aysgrows back.Dark Earth re-creates

i t s el f a top a base layer and grows —just like a living organism.

Scientists are still analyzing thebiology, but Erickson believes theAmazon Indians enriched theirearth with a microorganism, onethat resisted depletion and helpedfertilize. If better understood,thisprocess of i n oc u l a ting poor soil wi t ha bacterial boo s ter could aid parts ofthe undeveloped world starved foragriculture. Recently, geographersestimated that the creators of thisancient technology managed to

terraform at least 10 percent ofAmazonia—an area the size ofFra n ce . Al ong with the ra i s ed fiel d s ,fish weirs, causeways,and othera n t h ropogenic fe a tu re s ,D a rk Eart hmay in fact be one of countlessfootprints left by a lost civilization.Indeed,if Erickson is right, theAmazon could be humankind’slargest engineering relic. ■

Ted Mann, C’00, wrote for thewinter issue.

21S P R I N G 2004

His work has led to a surprising supposition:Humans may have engineered nearly every aspect

of the Amazon landscape.

Experimental raised fields based on the shape

and size of prehistoric field platforms,

El Porvenir, Bolivia.

Artistic rendering of settlement mounds, causeways, canals, and fields that

make up the pre-Hispanic cultural landscape of the Bolivian Amazon.

22 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S

Background: Topological defect in a

nematic liquid crystal composed on

nanotubes;from a collaboration

with physicistArjun Yodh,the

James M. Skinner Professor of Science ,

and postdoc Mohammad Islam.

Between the Boundaries

23S P RI N G 2004

BY LISA JO RUDY

The M olecular World between Solid and Liquid

of the Known

Most high school physicsteachers describe threestates of matter: solid,

liquid,and gas. But according toTom Lubensky, the Mary AmandaWood Profe s s or of P hysics and ch a i rof the Department of Physics andAstronomy, there are probablyhundreds of matter states that are neither liquid nor solid, butsomething in between. Substancesthat inhabit these in-bet ween state s ,known as liquid crystals,flow likeliquids yet have optical and otherproperties more characteristic ofc rys t a l s .L i quid crystals are mem bersof a class of materials called “softmatter” or “soft condensed matter.”

As the name implies,soft matteris squishy. JELL-O, soap bubbles,and meringue are all soft matter.So are gels, foams, powders, glues,emulsions, and living cells. Withoutsoft matter there would be no lifeas we know it: no swaying trees,no scurrying animals; just the hard,unyielding rock of a dead planet.

The idea of more than threestates of matter was first suggestedin 1888 by Austrian botanistFriedrich Reinitzer. He wasinvestigating an organic substancerelated to cholesterol and observedthat the material turned into acloudy liquid at high temperatures;as it coo l ed , it became cl e a r, su d den lyturned blue, then crystallized. Hiscontemporary, German physicsprofessor Otto Lehman, dubbed

the mysterious blue phase thatappeared before crystallization a“liquid crystal.” By 1922,liquidcrystals had been i den ti f i ed asu n i que states of m a t ter.

Modern interest in liquidcrystals began in the 1960s withwork by the French physicistPierre-Giles de Gennes and othersthat led in the 1970s to liquid-crystal displays—and to that ’70sicon,the Mood Ring. De Genneswent on to win a Nobel Prize forhis groundbreaking work in thefield of soft matter physics.

In 1969, a young postdoc,Tom Lubensky, joined the Frenchphysicist’s group in Paris. The sonof an Am erican diplom a t , Lu ben s kyl ived overseas for most of his yo ut h .When he was in junior high schoolin Spain,he made a pact with afriend to meet again in college atCaltech, which his friend said was the best science school in theworld. Lubensky kept his part ofthe bargain, entering Caltech in1960. He went on to get a Ph.D.in physics at Harvard, writing athesis on magnetism.

Lubensky is a classical guitarist,as is de Gennes. When he visitedFrance during his doctoral studies,the two hit it off musically as wellas scientifically. As a post-doc,theyoung physicist returned to Franceand renewed the friendship, whichled to dinner invitations at the de Gennes home in a pear orchard.

“I got in on the ground floor atan exciting time,” recalls Lubensky,who developed into a leadingfigure in the field of soft matterresearch. By the early 1970s,newtools such as X-ray scannersallowed for more precise imagingof molecular structures. After ayear in Paris, Lubensky’s researchtook him back to the U.S., wherein 1971 he joined the physicsdepartment in the School of Artsand Sciences.

A theoretical physicist, Lubenskyuses his imagination,his computer,and an ordinary organic-chemistrymodel kit to puzzle out them o l ecular arch i tectu re of s oft matter.Explaining the whys and hows ofthese diverse matter states is the

TH E R E A R E P RO BA B LY H U N D R E D S O F

M AT T E R S TAT E S T H AT A R E N E I T H E R

L I QU I D N O R S O L I D, B U T S O M E T H I N G

I N B E TW E E N .

Faceted crystal of a blue-phase liquid cr ystal

work of a wide range of appliedand theoretical scientists. Togetherwith a cross-disciplinary team infields as broad-ranging as biology,engineering, and optics, Lu ben s kycarries out the conceptual researchthat expands the inner horizons ofthe known physical world.

In soft matter, the molecules aremore structured than liquids butmore random than crystals. Themolecular structure determines thephysical properties. Some phasesreveal a braided structure. Othershave strings of molecules twinedinto helices, and some have flatlayers like baklava that can slideback and forth. Both jelly andrubber, for example, qualify forthe name “soft matter,” but theirdifferent textures, elasticity, andother properties are a result ofhow the molecules are configured.These differences explain whySuperBalls bounce and Play-Dohhits the floor with a dead thud.

Research on the layered, twisted,and bra i ded forms of s oft matter hasyi el ded many important inven ti on s .Latex paint, foam rubber, liquid-crystal displays, toothpaste,andmayonnaise are all made from softmatter. So is Silly Putty. “Invented”as a by-product of research atGeneral Electric,it combines thesoft,pliable qualities of dough withthe elastic properties of rubber.Silly Putty is strange, fascinating,fun—and a gold mine. Though

commercial applications ofLubensky’s discoveries are yet to beseen,his research provides the sortof fundamental understanding thatsets the stage for such applications.

Physicists,he notes,are moreintent upon understanding hownature has put together itsmolecules than on what they mightbe made to do. “We physicists aremost interested in the big pic ture.We’re working toward a generalunderstanding of the principlesthat underlie the natural world.Other researchers are interestedin uncovering trends and devel op i n gapplications.Science needs bothapproaches.” ■

Lisa Jo Rudy is a freelance writerand consultant who lives in ElkinsPark, PA.

W I T H O U T S O F T M AT T E R T H E R E WO U L D

B E N O L I F E A S W E K N OW I T.

In 2003, Tom Lubensky, a member of the National

Academy of Sciences, received the Oliver E. Buckley

Condensed Matter Prize, awarded by the American

Physical Society. The prize, the highest U.S. honor in the

field of soft matter physics, recognized the Penn physicist’s

recent prediction of a new state of matter known as TGB,

or “twist-grain boundary”phase.

“Imagine a Manhattan skyscraper,” Lubensky explains,

“ l ayer upon layer of floors. N ow imagine the floors t w i s t i n g

a round a Re n a i s s a n ce spiral stairc a s e. Add a whole array of

s t a i rcases t h at hold to gether the twisted laye r s . N ow

imagine t h at s t r u ct u re re p e ating itself as a regular pat t e r n .”

Lubensky built his theory o f the TGB phase by analogy.

De Gennes had established that the mathematical models

describing superco n d u ctors and liquid crystals we re similar.

Building on de Gennes’ wo r k , L u b e n s ky pre d i cted t h e

existence of the TGB phase as the analog in liquid crystals

of a phase in superconductors tha t forms in an external

magnetic field. And he developed a mathematical model

of its structure. Serendipitously, experimentalists at Bell

Labs discovered the TGB phase at the same time that the

Penn physicist conceived his prediction.

While the Buckley prize cited this specific discovery, it

was really “a lifetime achievement award” for Lubensky’s

many contributions to the ever-expanding field of soft

matter theory. ■

24 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S

Imagination—and the Math

Schematic

representation of

the TGB phase

25S P RI N G 2004 25

When it comes to chit-c h at , Sam Sidiqi, G , WG ’ 04,

knows justhow to handle it.

The 26-year-old grad student is finishing his second

year at Penn’s Lauder Institute,where students are

pre p a red for careers in int e r n ational business by immersion

in the language and culture of a region at the same time

as earning an MBA.The cultural component has helped

Sidiqi,who has chosen the Arabic track, to recognize the

importance of making casual conversation in the Middle

East. He understands that if you want to close deals there,

you can’tsimply present your terms and hope for the best:

You have to nurture personal relationships.“When you are

doing business in the Middle East, you have to do the

small talk,”he said.

For 20 years, the Lauder program has been producing

graduates who, through Wharton,have top-level business

training, and through the School of Arts and Sciences, are

uniquely qualified to apply that expertise around the

globe. Lauder graduates earn both an MA in international

studies as well as a business degree.

The program was launched in response to difficulties

experienced by founders Leonard Lauder, W’54, and

Ronald Lauder, W’65, who were trying to find professionals

who could do business in foreign cultures and conduct

negotiations in languages other than English.“Too many

MBAs were narrowly trained,had poor language skills, and

were awkward with cultural differences,”said Whar ton

professor and Lauder director Richard Herring.

So far the program has graduated 930 students who

have concentrated in one of eight languages that,in

addition to English,are the mostwidely used in the

business world —French,German,Japanese, Portuguese,

Russian,Spanish,Chinese (Mandarin),and,since 2002,

Arabic. Students spend abouta quarter of their two years

abroad,learning the language and culture of their chosen

track by working with local businesses.In Sidiqi’s case,

the immersion included language study in Morocco and

business meetings in the United Arab Emirates.He spent

lastsummer in Afghanistan,staying in mud-brick houses

with relatives—his family moved to the U.S. when he was

an infant—and working in the fledgling central bank.

Sidiqi plans to use his Lauder education in the Middle

East,where he hopes to introduce more efficient business

practices.“Economies do better when the private sector is

working well,”he said, recalling a Dubai pipe-making

company where he worked whose growth was held back

by a hierarchy that required a senior manager to approve

even minor purchases.

Increased prosperity, he believes, will help to neutralize

simmering resentments toward America in less developed

areas of the world.“It ’s pretty easy to blame other people

when you are notdoing so well yourself,”Sidiqi said.

“Countries need to be dependent on themselves, and if

you cre ate a vibra nt p r i vate secto r, t h at will ease animosity.”

The Lauder Institute attracts “a range of students who

would notnecessarily do an MBA,”noted Herring. “They

have broad interests, a cosmopolitan outlook,and an

understanding of geopolitics.” ■

—JON HURD L E

“ TO O M A N Y M B AS W E R E NA R ROW LY

T RA I N E D, H A D P OO R L A N G UAG E S K I L L S ,A N D W E R E AW K WA R D W I T H C U LT U RA L

D I F F E R E N C E S .”

Lauder Institute Gives MBAs the Language and Cultural Savvy to Succeed Ove r s e a s

THE BUSINE SS OF TH E WO RL D

B R I E F S

Edith Gro s s m a n ,C W ’ 5 7 , G’ 5 9 ,is probably the foremosttra n s l a tor of c u rrent Spanish-

language literature. The 67-year-old New Yorker has rendered intoEnglish more than 30 books off i cti on ,n on f i cti on , and poetry, m o s tnotably works by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel GarcíaMárquez,in addition to writers ofthe Latin American literary boomof the ’60s and ’70s.

So when Ecco Press invited herto translate Miguel de Cervantes’400-year-old classic Don Quixote,she told them,“I work oncontemporary authors. But whatgreater book could a translator inSpanish do? I would love to.”

Grossman, who has a deep voiceand smoky gray hair, recounts herunlikely journey while sitting at around wooden table in her tidyapartment, where she works fulltime as a translator. A Picassomatador, painted in bold blacklines,hangs behind her, and therecent biography Goya, by RobertHughes, is on the side table near acomfortable Eames chair. Theloaded bookcases that line the wallsof each room attest to a lifetime ofreading and immersion in books.

Still, with over a dozen Englishtranslations of the novel, Whyanother Don Quixote? Her answeris simple: “Why not? The book isso large and so terrific that it canstand as many tra n s l a ti ons as peop l e

c a re to do. And each tra n s l a ti on willbring another point of view to thisnovel, which is infinitely interestingand worth reading.”

But Grossman had a problem.It wasn’t Cervantes’ prose, which

she says “is very lu c i d .” The probl em“that loomed very large was theover 400 years of scholarship,research, writing, and translationsof this book,” she explains,herhands momentarily placed togetheron the table. She had to prove toherself that she could capture inEnglish the novel’s opening line,“which is the most famoussentence in Spanish.”

She likens that sentence to thefirst line of Moby Dick: “Call meIshmael.” “People who’ve neverread the book [Moby Dick] knowwhat that’s about, and it’s the samewith Don Quixote,” she observes.“ It begi n s , ‘En un lu gar de laMa n ch a , de cuyo nom bre no qu i eroacord a rm e … ’ ; and I tra n s l a ted it,‘Somewhere in la Mancha, in aplace whose name I do not care toremember, a gentleman lived notlong ago, one of those who has alance and ancient shield on a shelfand keeps a skinny nag and agreyhound for rac i n g.’ What I re a lly

w a n ted was to get that drive — t h em om en tu m . And after I was pret tys a ti s f i ed with my opening sen ten ce ,I said, OK, I can do this now.”

Grossman is not the on ly one wh ois pleased . Her massive Don Quixotehas received lavish praise. Theesteemed Mexican novelist CarlosFuentes, writing in the New YorkTimes, called the translation “trulymasterly: the contemporaneousand the original co-exist.”

Grossman grew up in am i d dl e - class nei gh borh oodof Philadelphia. Her

father was a salesman and smal lbusinessman,and her mother kepthouse for the most part.“Neitherone of them had gone to college,”she says, “so my sisters and I were the first.” She went to GirlsHigh,the city’s best public schoolfor girls at the time, and on ascholarship enrolled at Penn, whereshe majored in Spanish.

Her career as a translator beganas an under gradu a te with the poem sof Juan Ramón Jimónez.Sheremarks,“He writes very beautiful,very lyrical poems….They were thefirst translations I ever did,andthey were published in theuniversity literary magazine.”

26 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S

W H E N E C CO P R E S S I N V I T E D H E R TO TR A N S L AT E

M I G U E L D E C E RVA NT E S ’ D O N Q U I XOT E , S HE TO L D

T H E M , “ I W O RK O N C O NT E M PO RA R Y AU T H O R S . . .

I W O UL D L O V E TO .”

AIMING THE LANCE OF LA N G UAG EBY TOM DEVA NEY

Translator of Contemporary Lit Takes on a ClassicLisa Godfrey

In 1963,she spent a year inSpain on a Fulbright scholarship.Then she finished a doctorate inLatin American literature at NYUand moved on to a career as auniversity professor.

Her first professional job intranslation came by way of a friendat the end of the ’60s. Literarymagazine editor “Ronald Christasked me to do a t ranslation ofa story by the Argentine writerMacedonio Fernández,” she recalls.“I enjoyed getting so deep inside atext that I could recreate it,and Ienjoyed working at home. Fromthen on,I began to do more andmore translation.”

Then in the late ’80s, Grossmanwas asked if she would submit asample for a new novel by GarcíaMárquez. In classic Grossmanfashion she responded, “What,areyou kidding? Of course I would beinterested.” The book turned out tobe Love in the Time of C h ol era. It waswith this breakthrough translationthat her reputation began to build,and she left teaching in 1990 towork full time as a translator.

Grossman’s account oftranslating García Márquez forthe first time is il luminating of herwork and future career. “I thoughtof a generalized 19th-centuryrealistic-novel voice by way ofFaulkner. Faulkner is…verySpanish in the way the sentencesflow and their dependent clauses.”

She continues, “ It’s as if Hem i n g w ayhad never walked the earth.I putHemingway’s impulse to abbreviateand write very tersely aside andused polysyllabic words, and I didnot use contractions.I just let it bea little old-fashioned in its flow,and it seemed to work.”

Grossman has strong thoughtsabout being a translator and abouttranslation itself.On the state oftra n s l a ti on she is blu n t : “The Un i tedStates publishes fewer translationsthan any indu s tri a l i zed co u n try … .The publishers say there is noreadership for them—the readersare turned off by translations. Isuppose they know what they’retalking about, but I wonder ifreaders are turned off.A goodnu m ber of people wi ll re ad or listento wh a t’s ava i l a ble and if p u bl i s h ersdeny them tra n s l a ti on s ,t h en therewon’t be a demand for them.”

On the creative requirements oftranslating she says, “Thinking upch a racters and plot is not a probl emtranslators have to face, but theimagination of language and howone says what one needs to say inthe best way possible—the mosteffective way possible—that’s aproblem that translators have todeal with constantly.”

The impression you’re left withis a refreshing directness mixedwith deep apprec i a ti on and inti m a teknowledge of the writing and theauthors she has translated.

On Cervantes,she comments,“I do not think it’s possible to writeartful prose in Spanish withouth aving Cerva n tes behind yo u . Th ereis no model like that in Engl i s h .”

On García Márquez, she says,“He gives you exquisitely detailedobservations—he sees everything.Everything an observant observercan ob s erve is ob s erved in his boo k s :the cl o t h e s ,f acial ex pre s s i on s , andf u rn i tu re . Any con clu s i ons you wi s hto draw about the emotional life ofthe ch a racters is up to yo u .” Recen t ly,Grossman completed a translationof the first installment of hismemoir, Living to Tell the Tale.

F i n a lly, and with great affecti on ,she con f i de s , “I find García Márqu e zon e of the re a lly rem a rk a ble wri tersin the world in any language… . Idon’t know h ow you can improve ,s ay, on Love in the Time of C h ol era,or Au tumn of the Pa tri a rch, or On eHu n d red Ye a rs of S ol i tu d e. These a re books that are hu ge ; t h ey arem onu m en t a l . Everything he wri te sis bet ter than the last thing hewro te—and differen t . He’s sti ll very mu ch at it.”

And so is Edith Grossman. ■

Tom Devaney is a poet and writer,a creative writing lecturer, and acoordinator at Kelly Writers House.

27S P RI N G 2004

“I D O N OT T H I N K I T ’ S P O S S I B L E TO W R I T E A R T F U L P R O S E I N S PA NI S H W I T H O U T H AV IN G

C E RVA NT E S B E HI N D YO U. T H E RE I S N O M O D E L L I K E T H AT I N E N G L I S H .”

Jason Hinebaugh

To get to the top of the

corporate ladder, do

you need to have a one-

track mind?

For those who assume the answer

is yes, the many callings of P. Roy

Vagelos, C’50, Hon’99,may come as a

revelation.“My whole career was

following leads,”says Vagelos, who

led the pharmaceutical giant Merck &

Co. during a long run as Fortune

magazine’s “MostAdmired Company.”

As documented in his new memoir,

Medicine,Science,and Merck, Vagelos

followed various twists and turns

suggested by his formidable technical

abilities and family t radition of helping

o t h e r s . Ye t the former chemistry major

who became a physician,a professor,

and a researcher—his initial role at

Merck—reached what may seem to

his readers an inevitable destination

at business’s top rung.

Vagelos grew up in Merck’s

hometown of Rahway, NJ, where his

Greek immigrant parents owned a

luncheonette. It was in Boston as an

intern,during a 1955 polio epidemic

the Salk vaccine couldn’t reach in

time,that he saw firsthand how

physicians’ work is bounded by

scientific knowledge. “Although I

loved being with patients, I also loved

the fact that I could understand the

chemical mechanisms behind their

diseases,”he recalls.“When you

understand the disease at that level,

you are more likely to be able to do

something aboutit.”

In the ’70s Vagelos’approach,

targeting a disease with a chemical

that could alter its course,changed

the way of thinking at Merck.The

practice there,as elsewhere in the

industry, had been to screen and

i m p rove various chemical molecules—

and then try to find their applications

in healthcare. Among the innovat i o n s

Merck came to produce were Mevacor

for inhibiting the production o f

cholesterol and Vasotec for lowering

blood pressure,as well as America’s

firsthepatitis B vaccine.

But eventually, directing research

was notenough. “As I watched the

evolution of healthcare," says Vagelos,

“I realized that as CEO of Merck, I

would be able to have an impact on

the whole public policy scene.” In

1987, with an estimated 90 million

people living in areas of the world

t h re atened by River Blindness, Va ge l o s

announced the company would give

away Mectizan,a drug that killed the

culpritparasite. And in 1990, Merck

determined it would counter rising

drug costs by raising prices only in

response to increases in the

consumer price index. The policy later

was adopted by the entire industry.

In 1994, when he retired from

Merck, Vagelos became chairman of

Penn’s board of trustees.He rallied

support and made major gifts of his

own to build a new chemistry lab and

to launch a new pro g ram in molecular

life sciences. Yet even now, having

stepped down as a trustee,he is a

model of not-so-retiring retirement.

With board membership on t wo small

but“hot” research companies, he’s

able to continue his contributions to

m e d i c i n e , his early love. “ I t’s nice to be

able to do t h at at a ge 74, ” he says . ■

— E ILEEN FISHE R

28 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S 28

Renaissance CE ORoy Vagelos’ Intersecting Careers in Medicine, Science, and Merck

“As I watched the evolution of healthcare,

I realized that as CEO of Merck, I would

be able to have an impact on the whole

public policy scene.”

B R I E F S

Alumni Role Model sDifferentiate yourself. Take a risk. Bepersistent. Alumni at a recent careerspanel gave College students this advicefor pursuing careers in finance. Eachyear, the College and Penn CareerServices host such an event to enablestudents to learn from liberal artsgraduates with successful careers in the financial services industry.

The program, which began in 2001,was the idea of Jeff Solomon,C’88.Solomon,a partner at Ramius CapitalGroup, says he hopes to demystify thejob-seeking process. “There’s so muchpressure to get the perfect first job,”he says. “That’s just not the case. I tellstudents they don’t have to have all theanswers. They just need to work hard.That’s what will set them apart.” Andthe students seem to be getting hismessage.One young alumnus wrote toSolomon after a previous panel. He saidSolomon inspired him to apply for ajob at a hedge fund,something he haddreamed of but was not sure he wasqualified to do. He tried anyway and got the job.

This year’s panel featured Jerry Cudzil,

C’97, vice president at Goldman Sachs &Co.; Rafael Rosato, C’88, manager atDeLage Landen Financial Services; andSapna Choksi Shah,C’93, W’93, director ofstrategic planning at Linens ’n Things,and was moderated by Solomon. Otherparticipants have included Jude Driscoll,

C’86, president and CEO, DelawareInvestments; Gerry ScottMcClure,C’86,director, BV-Cornerstone Ventures, LP;Gordon Paris, C’75, WG’77, acting chiefexecutive, Hollinger International;Jonathan Rosenstein,C’86, seniormanaging director, Triology Capital;George Walker, C’91,W’91, WG’92,managing director, Goldman Sachs &Co.; and Adam Wegner, C’87, vicepresident and general counsel,StarpointHealth, Inc.

The program has been so successful itwill be expanded to other fields. Collegedean Re b e cca Bushnell s ays ,“ It’s import a n tfor our stu dents to know there are manypossible career paths and to understandh ow their Co ll ege edu c a ti on can prep a rethem. Conversations with alumni help

them do that.” Donna Reff Shelley, C’82,will moderate a panel on non-medicalcareers for science majors this fall.Shelley is an assistant professor ofclinical sociomedical sciences atCo lu m bia Un ivers i ty's Mailman Sch oo lof Pu blic He a l t h .

S P RI N G 2004 2929

S A S P A R T N E R S H I P S

S ch o l a rship Ch a ll en ge

Thanks to the gen ero s i ty of Warren

Lichtenstein,C’87, and two anonym o u sCo ll ege alu m n i , $615,000 in ch a ll en gefunding is ava i l a ble to help establish 19n ew sch o l a rships for Co ll ege stu den t s .These gifts wi ll provi de a 50 percent matchfor gifts of $67,000 from other don ors ,bri n ging the total con tri buti on for eachgift to $100,000, the minimum neededto endow a scholarship. Each fund willprovide partial support for one student’sfour-year education in perpetuity.

Such partnerships among donors havebeen a tradition in the College for severalyears. University trustee and SAS overseerPaul Kelly, C’62, WG’64, was the first toestablish a match for College scholarships

in 1997. He was followed by trustee andoverseer Mitchell Blutt,C’78, M’82, WG’87,in 1999 and overseer Christopher

Carrera,C’88, in 2002.These funds are especially important

now, when more than 60 percent of allCollege students need some form offinancial support.Scholarship gifts ensurethat a Penn education is affordable for allqualified students, regardless of theirfinancial ability. Donors may designatetheir scholarships for students fromp a rticular majors ,f rom certain geogra ph i cregions, or with specific academic criteria.Anyone intere s ted in meeting this ch a ll en gecan con t act Je a n - Ma rie Kn eel ey at215.898.5262 or k n e el ey @ s a s . u pen n . edu .

USA Today named scholarship recipient Mei Elansary, C’04, to the second team of its 2004 All-USA Colleg e

Academic Team for leading the development of a school-based community health center in WestPhiladelphia.

Elansary, a double major in biological basis of behavior and environmental studies , received a scholarship

established in 1991 by Howard Rachofsky, W’66.

S A S J O U R N A L

30 P E N N AR TS & S C I E N C E S

S A S P A RT N E R S H I P S

CASI Cel ebra ti onThe School’s increasingly global naturehas been reinforced by the completionof a major fund-raising campaign forthe Center for the Advanced Study ofIndia. CASI is the first U.S. academicorganization dedicated to the study ofcontemporary India. An internationalgroup of supporters raised $2 million toendow the center and establish theMadan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study ofContemporary India. Founding directorFrancine Frankel, a political scienceprofessor, is the inaugural holder. Thechair is named for the father of Rajiv

Sobti,Gr’84, and Sanjiv Sobti, WG’85,

Gr’86, who were major supporters.

S reedhar Menon, reti red dep utypre s i dent of Am erican Ex press Limitedand a mem ber of C A S I ’s In tern a ti on a lAdvisory Board, was instrumental inthe campaign’s success. Other keyvolunteers and supporters includedRaman Kapur, Par’07, president,Worl dwi de Gen eri c s ,S ch eri n g - P l o u ghCorpora ti on ; Sunil Mittal, ch a i rman andgroup managing director, Bh a rtiTel ecom Limited ; Dalip Pat h a k , WG ’ 78,m a n a ging director, Wa rburg PincusIn tern a ti onal LLC ; and Peter Geithner,con sultant and form er director, As i aProgra m s , Ford Fo u n d a ti on . C A S Ih on ored its con tri butors in Ma rch at arecepti on at the Penn Club of New York .

The $2 million from these supporterswas matched by an unprecedented$1 million from SAS. Dean Sam Preston

said, “Our commitment to CASI reflectsour awareness of the centrality ofIndia to the international community.It is already one of the most importantcountries in the world,and itsprominence will only grow. CASI’sinitiatives—linking academics,policymakers,and professionals—arefostering a better understanding ofIndia and its importance at Penn and beyond.”

Gift Gets Ci n ema Stu d i e sof f the GoundA gift from parent Jeff Berg is helping to build SAS’s new program in cinemastudies.(For more about the CinemaStudies Program,see story on p. 10).Ber g, the father of a Co ll ege soph om ore,is chairman and CEO of InternationalCre a tive Ma n a gem en t , one of the worl d ’sl a r gest talent and litera ry agen c i e s . His$100,000 gift will help develop theprogram’s video and DVD collection.Until now, Berg has been a strongadvocate for Berkeley, his alma mater.Since his daughter’s enrollment in theCollege, h owever, h e’s become invo lvedh ere ,s erving on the Parents LeadershipCommittee. He also visited campus lastspring as a guest speaker in a Collegefilm course and gave a public lecture onthe effects of media and entertainmenton popular culture, a version of a talkhe gives annually at the London Schoolof Economics. The fact that he madethe gift despite his involvment atBerkeley “makes a statement” about hiscommitment to Penn and the cinemastudies initiative,says Berg. “I thinkPenn has an opportunity to plant a flagwith this progra m — to cre a te som et h i n gunique and valuable among existingfilm studies programs—and I’m pleasedto help in the process of doing so.”

Madan Lal Sobti (third

from left) for whom the

chair in modern India is

named,with his wife,

Promilla,and sons, Sanjiv

(left) and Rajiv (right).

S P RI N G 2004 31

Co ll a bora ti on by Co ll egeand Libra ryThe College and Van Pelt Library haveannounced an innovative project tounite in one location their se rvices thathelp students become better learnersand f ac u l ty become bet ter te ach ers .The new Co ll a bora tory, which will belocated on the first floor of the library,will align the academic strengths of theCollege with the multimedia resourcesand research expertise of the library tobenefit the entire Penn community.

It will provide a central place forstudents and faculty to experiment withresearch, learning, and teachingtechniques; discover new ways ofpresenting their findings; share ideas;and be inspired by one another. Groupworkstations and meeting rooms willfurther enhance this atmosphere ofcollaboration and d i s covery. Th eCo ll a bora tory also wi ll house com p uterlaboratories offering instruction,as wellas assistance in conducting onlineresearch, accessing and analyzing data,and creating multimedia projects.

The Collaboratory will offer aconvenient site for undergraduates totake advantage of a range of ac adem i cs ervi ce s ,i n cluding learning su pport ,wri ting hel p, re s e a rch assistance ,a n ds em i n a rs on useful topics su ch as ti m e -m a n a gem ent and publ i c - s peaking skill s .It also wi ll help fac u l ty become evenbet ter te ach ers by of fering sem i n a rs onped a gogy, tech n o l ogy tra i n i n g, a n dvi deotaping session s . In ad d i ti on ,ex peri en ced re s e a rch libra rians wi ll beava i l a ble to assist both fac u l ty ands tu dent re s e a rch ers in all stages of t h ei rproj ect s ,f rom con ceptu a l i z a ti ont h ro u gh pre s en t a ti on .

“The Co ll a bora tory has the po ten ti a lto make a real differen ce in the wayf ac u l ty te ach and stu dents learn ,” saysRebecca Bushnell, dean of the College.“It’s really about learning from eachother. There’s so much po ten tial in bo t hthe libra ry and the Co ll ege , so mu chknowledge and expertise.Once webring all these won derful people toget h er,just think of the po s s i bi l i ti e s .”

The opening of this groundbreakingproject is scheduled for 2006. The SAS board of overseers has alreadymade a generous contribution to theCollaboratory in honor of formerCollege dean Rick Beeman. But making it a re a l i ty requ i res ad d i ti on a l fundingfor renovation of the library space,thecreation of a digital media lab, and thecreation of flexible study areas as well asa permanent operating endowment. Ifyou are interested in supporting thisproject, contact Jean-Marie Kneeley at215.898.5262 or kneeley@sas.upenn.edu.

M a ke your giftto the School of Arts and Science s

BY CHECK

Send your check payable to the

Trustees of the University of

Pennsylvania to Laura Weber

3440 MarketStreet,Suite 300

Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325.

BY CREDIT CARD

Make a gift online at

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/

home/views/alumni.html.

APPRECIATED SECURITIES

Contact Laura Weber at

215.898.5262 or

lweber@sas.upenn.edu.

PLANNED GIFTS

Gifts to the School can also

bring financial benefits to the

donor. For more information,

contact Janine Ehsani in

Penn’s Office of Gift Planning

at 800.223.8236 or

215.898.1098.

MATCHING GIFTS

Many organizations will

match gifts to the School from

their employees.Ask your

employer for more

information.

Non - Pro fi tU. S . Po s t a ge

P A I DPermit #2563Philadelphia, PA

UN I V E R S I T Y O F PE N N S Y LVA N I A

SC H OO L O F ARTS A N D SC I E N C E S

3440 Market StreetSuite 300Philadelphia, PA 19104-3325

COLLEGE AT PENN

GRADUATE DIVISION

COLLEGE OF GENERAL STUDIES

Penn Arts & Sciences is published

by SAS External Affairs.

Ed i torial Offi ces

School of Arts and Science s

3440 Marke tS t re e t , Suite 300

P h i l a d e l p h i a , PA 19104 -3 3 2 5

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E - m a i l : p e n n s a s @ s a s . u p e n n . e d u

ht t p : / / www. s a s . u p e n n . e d u /

h o m e/n e w s /nw s l t r _ i n d ex. ht m l

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D e a n , School of Arts and Science s

Peter Nichols

Ed i to r

Tra cey Quinlan Doughert y

A s s o c i ate Ed i tor

Gallini Hemmann, I n c.

Design and Pro d u ct i o n

The University of Pennsylvania values

diversity and seeks talented students,

fa c u l t y, and staff from diverse backg ro u n d s.

The University of Pennsylvania does not

discriminate on the basis of race,sex,

sexual orientation, religion, color, national

or ethnic origin,age,disability, or status

as a Vietnam Era Veteran or disabled

veteran in the administration of

educational policies, programs or

a ct i v i t i e s ; admissions policies; s c h o l a r s h i p

and loan awards; athletic, or other

U n i versity administered pro g rams or

employment. Questions or complaints

regarding this policy should be

directed to : Exe c u t i ve Dire cto r, Offi ce of

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PA 19104-6106 or 215.898.6993 (voice)

or 215.898.7803 (TDD).