December 2012 Archives

Episode 42 of the Liberal Arts Voices podcast features Khanjan Mehta, director of the Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship (HESE) program at Penn State.  Susan Knell, director of the Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network, also joins co-hosts Dean Long and John Dolan for this episode.

Dr. Mehta talks about the mission of HESE, which is to bring together students and faculty from a variety of disciplines to develop, design, and implement humanitarian projects in the developing world.  The group discusses recent HESE projects that focus on the development of technology-based solutions to problems facing developing countries. HESE teams transform these solutions into sustainable and scalable ventures that enable positive social change.  Projects have taken HESE teams of students and faculty to Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and many other parts of the world. 

Dr. Mehta also talks about the opportunities of the HESE program for Liberal Arts students, who bring a valuable perspective and skill set to the HESE teams.  For more information about the program and its course offerings, please visit the HESE website. 

To learn more about HESE's mission, view WPSU's "Global Penn State: Kenya" video to hear students and faculty talk about their entrepreneurial ventures in Kenya:


Listen to this podcast episode to learn about HESE:
Liberal Arts Voices: Episode 42: "The HESE Program"
Please note that the "clicking" noise heard at the beginning of the podcast ends approximately 30 seconds into the recording.

We encourage all of our listeners to write to us with comments, questions, or suggestions at laus@la.psu.edu. We may even respond to these comments on the next episode of Liberal Arts Voices.

The following letter was published in the Saturday, December 8, 2012 edition of the Centre Daily Times.  It is shared here in its entirety.

To the Editors:

The faculty of the Latina/o Studies Program at Penn State would like to express their deep sadness about the recent pictures that have appeared on the web of members of the Nu Gamma chapter of Chi Omega sorority.  In them, Penn State students are dressed in mock Mexican attire and bear signs with offensive and stereotypical messages. We clearly condemn this type of behavior and expect the University and the Pan Hellenic council to review the matter carefully, and if necessary, take appropriate action.

The pictures speak for themselves.  They reveal deep ignorance, insensitivity, but worst of all a profound lack of thought about the implications of what these young people clearly thought was acceptable behavior. They probably assumed their actions were harmless good fun, and not meant to hurt anybody.  Perhaps they assumed this display would be seen only by themselves and would not be damaging to anybody else.

The students were wrong on both counts. What people do precisely when they are not thinking, and when they think no one else is watching, reveals deep truths about their true convictions, or worse yet, about their poverty: of knowledge, of maturity, of plain common sense.  We, the faculty of Latino/a Studies, have dedicated our careers to combatting this kind of thoughtlessness by teaching--the history, experience, culture and importance of Latinos, exactly the same hard-working people being mocked by these young women.  We are here to help and hope there are lessons to be learned, not only by these students, but all of the Penn State community and beyond, in this deeply troubling event.

--John Ochoa, Director of Latina/o Studies, on behalf of its faculty. 

LAUSDeanLong: Kasey, one of the things we talk about as a core value of the liberal arts is being open to diversity. This is different from tolerance, which is merely to put up with something that might otherwise be unpleasant. The liberal arts ideal involves more than that, it means to embrace diversity as an enriching part of our lives, as what gives human life texture and depth.

That is why the images we have seen of the Penn State students playing on the most insensitive and demeaning caricature of Mexicans is so disheartening. It reflects poorly on all of us and demonstrates that we are doing a poor job cultivating one of the central ideals of a liberal arts education. How are you and your fellow students thinking about and responding to this incident?

KaseyOK: I think that students are generally disappointed by this situation. While a divide seems to exist as to exactly how out of line the students' actions were, I think we have all acknowledged that the stereotypes that were highlighted were extremely offensive to us and to Mexicans. We simply wish the students had thought about the consequences of representing people of this culture in a degrading manner.

As you mentioned, in Liberal Arts we strongly value diversity and encourage all students to be open to and embrace people of other cultures. Personally, I do not believe this incident stemmed from hate; however I believe it did come out of a lack of these values which we have distinguished as being central to a liberal arts education. Looking ahead, I think we as individuals need to re-examine the way we incorporate diversity into our lives, and learn to do more than tolerate others, but to seek actively opportunities for growth through exposure to diversity.

LAUSDeanLong: You are probably right that the incident did not stem from overt hatred, but it did emerge from a culture of ignorance and xenophobia. It is probably easier to address overt hatred than it is to address more subtle and therefore perhaps more pernicious forms of racism and cultural ignorance. It is our responsibility as an institution of education to respond in ways that enable us to honestly examine and redress our own prejudices, even and especially when they are embedded in the institutional and cultural structures in which we live.

Another important dimension of this episode is the role social media played in exposing the incident. One aspect of social media that I find compelling is the way it can reveal something about ourselves to us as a community; often it reveals aspects of ourselves it is difficult to face. The public nature of social media is critical in this regard. Do you have the sense that students appreciate the extent to which their social media presence is, at heart, a way of appearing in public, with all the power and implications that involves?

KaseyOK: At this point in our lives (being in college, applying for jobs and other opportunities), I believe students are developing an awareness of this public face that social media provides. Students take steps such as altering Facebook names, creating multiple Twitter accounts, and blocking certain people from their social media platforms in order to maintain "privacy." 

Cortney Stevens of Inver Grove Heights, Minn., has been selected as the student marshal for Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts for the fall undergraduate commencement ceremony on December 22, 2012.  She will graduate with B.A. degrees in Psychology, Spanish, and Global and International Studies, and has selected Melanie Archangeli, Lecturer in Spanish, as her faculty marshal at the ceremony.

The daughter of Lynne and Scott Stevens, Cortney has been on the dean's list every semester. She participated in a study abroad language program in Seville, Spain, and served as a research assistant at the Language and Cognition Laboratory on campus.

Her honors include the Evan Pugh Scholar Award for superior academic excellence, the Bayard Kunkle Scholarship, and the Psi Chi International Honor Society for Psychology. She also has been active in the Penn State Spanish Club, the FOTO organization and the OPP (operations) committee for THON, the Campus Band, and the Sinfonietta Orchestra at Penn State.

In the fall, Cortney will be pursuing her life's dream of teaching English in Spain through the Spanish Government for a period of one to two years.  Upon her return, Cortney plans to enter graduate school to pursue an advanced degree in Psychology. 

How would you like to spend next fall in a World Heritage site--visiting a Roman amphitheater, excavating a Lombard tomb in Fiesole, visiting the medieval parts of the Palazzo Vecchio before it was occupied by the Medici family, and enjoying the sights, sounds, and flavors of Tuscany?
 
Penn State's Department of History is thrilled to announce the development of a new study abroad program at ISI: The Institute at Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, Italy. The program offers a great international experience for students interested in ancient and medieval history, archaeology, and culture.  If you've ever wanted to walk the same streets as Galileo, Michelangelo, and Macchiavelli, or experience some of the world's finest cheeses and regional Italian dishes, while studying the history and art of Florence, then this program is for you.
 
The program--Florence: Ancient and Medieval History--includes a fixed schedule of courses taught by both Italian and American professors, visits to several Italian sites including Rome and Pompeii, and the opportunity to join an archaeological dig that is excavating a late Roman and Lombard site. Courses offered are equivalent to CAMS/History 101, CAMS 150, Art History 199, History 407, and Italian language, making this a great program option for a variety of Liberal Arts majors. (Note:  History 407 does not have any prerequisites.)
 
The program will be offered during the fall semester, beginning in Fall 2013.  The application deadline for the Fall 2013 program is January 20, 2013, so start planning now if you are interested in applying to this exciting new program.
 
For additional information, please go to the program website. I will be teaching one of the courses (History 407) for this program next fall, so please contact me at kes30@psu.edu if you have any questions about the program, the courses, or the application process.
 
Hope to see you in Florence!