Associate Professor LeAnn Erickson, FMA, was in the midst of another project when she learned of a group of women who worked as military “computers” during World War II to perform ballistics research. Based at the University of Pennsylvania, dozens of women would figure out things like weapon trajectory. Some went on to help program the earliest mechanical computer. Her research became Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II.
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Some recordings of works by composer Leslie Savoy Burrs, produced by Associate Professor Jack Klotz Jr., BTMM, and Vincent Leonard are going to be featured this month on Raleigh-Durham, N.C., classical music radio station WCPE FM’s “WAVElengths” program as part of their celebration of Black History Month.
Burrs’ work is being highlighted along with that of other notable African-American composers, William Grant Still, Billy Childs, Valerie Coleman and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. during the month of February. The show can be heard here.
Tango Traffic went on the air Jan. 1 to report rubbernecking and crashes, 24/7, whether at the height of rush hour or in the dead of night. “Thirty years ago, everybody laughed at CNN, and 20 years ago, a lot of people were laughing at ESPN,” said Associate Professor Chris Harper, JOUR. “Do we really need a traffic station? For a group of people, the answer is yes.”
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In the aftermath of the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, some are wondering if there is a possible link between this violence, a perceived toxicity in political discourse and how it’s all reported in the media.
One way to abate future violence, says Associate Professor Chris Harper, JOUR, may be to reduce the sensationalistic way many outlets report on suspects.
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Associate Professor Linn Washington, JOUR, appeared on the Jan. 8 edition of GRITtv with Laura Flanders to discuss racism in the American justice system.
“The issue is not hiding what has been in plain sight,” he says. “The issue is doing something about it.”
Simulations are a key component in counterterrorism training, but they’re most effective when they are teeming with realism.
So when counterterrorism expert Stephen Sloan co-authored his latest book on the subject, “Red Teams and Counterterrorism Training,” he asked his wife, Professor Roberta Sloan, THEA, to write a chapter on the vital role dramatic techniques can play in the creation of believable role-playing.
“It’s important because if the personnel playing terrorists are not convincing, then the reality of the exercise is diminished and the training is not as professional and productive as it should be,” she says. “My chapter is a mini-manual on what, if you are not an actor, you need to do in order to portray a terrorist convincingly.”
For example, a terrorist from a Middle Eastern culture would have a far smaller personal space than an American. “That person, indeed, may stand close enough so that their breath goes into the other person’s face when speaking,” Sloan says.
It’s the attention to details like posture, stance, movement, or even ways of eating that help make the situation seem real. However, Sloan doesn’t expect participants to master the art of acting for this part of their job. “When I think of mastery in acting, that takes years and years of work,” she says.
Since his first book in 1981, “Simulating Terrorism,” Stephen Sloan has conducted simulations all over the world for police and military personnel; Roberta Sloan has participated in two of them.
“That was enough for me,” she says. “After all, I’m an actress myself and really get into my roles, so I found that playing a terrorist was ultimately very upsetting to me.”
Sloan hopes her chapter, lauded by reviewers for its “innovative approach,” will result in security personnel “being better trained to defend our nation against the ongoing threat of terrorism.”
“Red Teams and Counterterrorism Training,” published by University of Oklahoma Press and co-authored by Robert J. Bunker, will be released in May 2011. It includes a forward by David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma, a former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
A book chapter co-authored by Jarice Hanson, SCT’s Verizon Chair in Telecommunications, and Alina Hogea, MMC, titled “The Internet as The Public Sphere: Deliberative Democracy and Civic Engagement,” will appear in E-Governance and Civic Engagement: Factors and Determinants of E-Democracy, published by IGI-Global and scheduled to be released in 2011.
Professor Deborah Cai, chair of the Strategic Communication Department, was one of the trainers for a three-day training program for Afghan and Italian diplomats on gender communication and leadership. The program was sponsored by the Italian Foreign Ministry and the training program was conducted by Women’s Campaign International in Rome.
More than 20 Italian and Afghan diplomats, both men and women, participated in the training. Cai, along with Susan Ness, a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission; Kerri Kennedy, executive director of Women’s Campaign International; and U.S. Ambassador Meryl Frank, United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, led the leadership training sessions that covered issues such as competence, power, strategic vision and media management.
The Afghan participants were chosen through written and oral exams and an interview from more than 700 government employees wishing to attend the program.
“At the conclusion of the program one woman said that she returns to Afghanistan with courage, and that she hopes to share that courage with other women,” Cai said.
Producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, a new Broadway show, have announced a fourth delay to its opening from Jan. 11 to Feb. 7 due to “unforeseeable setbacks.”
Openings will be delayed for a variety of reasons, says Professor Roberta Sloan, THEA. “The most common reason is that the producers are not happy with the shape that the show is in and do not feel that it will get positive reviews in its present state.”
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Associate Professor Chris Harper’s new book, “Flyover Country: Baby Boomers and their Stories,” was released Dec. 6.
It examines several members of the Class of 1969 in Sioux Falls, S.D., including Harper and his rock band, The Trippers, which was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the South Dakota Rock and Roll Music Association in 2010. The book tells the stories of their lives and the impact they had on their town and their country.