University of Connecticut |Faculty edit International Studies Review
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| Jennifer Sterling-Folker and Mark Boyer, faculty members in political science, are the new editors of the International Studies Review . Photo by Allison Dibble, SFA '08. |
Two political science faculty are the new co-editors of the International Studies Review (ISR), a journal of the International Studies Association that will be housed at UConn for the next five years.
Mark A. Boyer, professor of political science, and Jennifer Sterling-Folker, associate professor, became the co-editors in January.
The ISR "gives landscapes of the political science international field," says Boyer. It is sent to 4,000 members of the International Studies Association.
The quarterly journal was previously housed at Syracuse University . It will remain at UConn until 2012. The move here was supported by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Office, the Graduate School , and the Political Science Department.
It is the second scholarly journal to move to the Political Science Department recently. The Journal of Human Rights , edited by political science professor Richard Hiskes, came to UConn in 2006 from Wellesley College .
The ISR includes peer-reviewed essays synthesizing current literature in the field and mapping future developments, and it has reviews of new books, says Sterling-Folker. It also provides a forum for debates about issues in international studies in which scholars describe their research agendas.
It is widely read by international studies scholars and is frequently assigned as a staple in graduate seminars, Boyer says.
Laura Janik, a PhD student in political science, serves as the managing editor.
Boyer, who has been on the faculty at UConn since 1988, specializes in research on international cooperation and conflict. His most recent book is Defensive Internationalism . In March, he will receive the Ladd Hollist Service Award from the International Studies Association in recognition of his service to the organization. He was also recently elected as ISA vice president for 2008-09.
Sterling-Folker came to UConn in 1994 and specializes in international relations theory and international organization. She is the author of the 2002 book, Theories of Cooperation and the Primacy of Anarchy and editor of the 2006 book, Making Sense of International Relations Theory .
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| Erica Whyte, CLAS '10, and Logan Senack, CLAS '08 |
Sailing in the wake of history
When Logan Senack, CLAS '08, first considered a Study Abroad experience of sailing across the Atlantic on the recreated 19 th -century sailing ship, Amistad , he was terrified.
"And so was my mother," said the Torrington native.
That was in June, when Logan was one of two CLAS students to join the first leg of the Amistad 's yearlong voyage from New Haven to England , Sierra Leone , the Caribbean , and back, following the triangular sea-route of the slave trade.
The unusual Study Abroad opportunity was funded in part by the CLAS dean's office and several other units on campus.
Erica Whyte, CLAS '10, from Hartford , the other UConn student on board, recalls seeing the Amistad for the first time at the dock in New Haven .
"We're going to sail across the Atlantic in that ?" was her reaction, seeing how small the ship was - 81 feet long on deck, 23 feet wide at the widest point.
In fact, the ship, a modern version of a 19 th -century coastal trader, La Amistad , was well equipped with GPS, electronics, and two diesel engines. But much of the time the new ship was powered by wind, as it would have been in the 19 th century.
After six weeks on board, sometimes sailing through squalls, Logan and Erica had become sailors. They learned to swab the deck, climb the rigging, and occasionally crawl into the headrig, a hammock-like spot in the bow, to read a book.
"Man, is that a cozy place," said Logan .
"At first it took a lot of skill just to walk in a straight line and not wobble," said Erica, recalling her first forays on deck.
But by the last day of the voyage, she was ready to apply her experiences toward an AB (Able Bodied Seaman) designation.
Putting out to sea after a stop in Nova Scotia , all of the students on board were seasick. But they soon recovered and joined the crew in standing watches, maintaining the lines, and relying on each other.
The worse days at sea were rainy, cold mornings when he had an early watch, said Logan . But even those bad starts were redeemed when he would find a pod of 50 dolphins playing in the bow wave, almost close enough to touch.
Fundamental to their voyage was learning in detail the history of the transatlantic slave trade and of the original La Amistad , a trader that carried 53 kidnapped Africans up the coast from Cuba . The Africans rebelled, eventually winning their freedom in a Connecticut court and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Logan took from the voyage a new appreciation and understanding of human rights issues.
"There is so much of history to know about and so many human rights issues that are as much of a problem as environmental issues," said Logan , an environmental science major.
Erica wrote some of that history and her experiences on the Amistad into seven songs, including the Amistad Sea Chanty , which was adopted by students on the second leg of the journey, from London to Sierra Leone . Her songs have become a type of diary, reminding her of what she learned.
Returning to land, Erica and Logan both had adjustments to make.
"Things are very stationary here," Logan observed.
Most disconcerting was the flight home from London 's Gatwick Airport . It took the students 23 days to sail to England , and eight hours to fly back.
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| Marsenia Harrison, a PhD candidate in molecular and cell biology, with the student she mentored, undergraduate Makenson Delroy, a UConn biomedical engineering major. |
Grad students learn how to mentor
Graduate students in the sciences received a shot of financial support this summer and developed their skills at mentoring undergraduates.
To hear Ph.D. student Marsenia Harrison talk about her experiences as a mentor and to hear Northeast Alliance student Alvin Thomas comment on his summer of research in clinical psychology, click here.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, through its donor-supported Fund for Innovative Education in Science, provided more than $40,000 for a pilot program that paired graduate student mentors with minority undergraduates doing scientific research with CLAS faculty.
An additional $33,000 was provided by the Vice Provost for Graduate Research and Education and the Graduate School so that 30 graduate students could learn to be research mentors.
The awards provided critical summer support for graduate students, many of whom are paid teaching assistants during the regular school year but lack summer support.
“We tried to work toward teaching them to teach,” said Debra Kendall, associate dean of CLAS and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology.
The funds also were used to supplement National Science Foundation (NSF) summer research stipends to six of the undergraduates that the students mentored.
The undergraduates came from the Northeast Alliance Summer Research Program for Underrepresented Minorities at UConn, a program started last year by Ruth A. Washington and Lee A. Aggison, associate professors-in-residence in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology in CLAS, to encourage minority students to choose careers in science.
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Alvin Thomas, a Northeast Alliance undergraduate from Morehouse College, describes his summer of research at UConn in clinical psychology. |
The mentoring program meshed with the Fund for Innovative Education in Science’s goal of supporting projects that take advantage of the synergy between research and teaching. The fund was endowed by private donors in part to take advantage of the University’s strength as a research institution and to train graduate students to become effective teachers.
An additional $60,000 from the fund is expected to be used next spring for another graduate student mentor training program in CLAS.
Photos by James Kimura-Green, SFA ’08.
