The Thinker Summer 2019

THE THINKER

UOFL COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

ecause I am a professor at heart,

please indulge me in a brief recap

of what the liberal arts have

meant to humanity, and why the

debate about the value of the

liberal arts is not new at all. In

preparing for this talk, I asked a

few friends and young people inside and

outside of academe what we mean when we

talk about the liberal arts. It was interesting

that so many people did not know that

the liberal arts have nothing to do with a

political persuasion.

The liberal arts were the characteristics,

the preparation, the foundation that would

be required by a liberal or free citizenry.

This is the idea that a democracy is only as

strong as its people and that an educated

citizenry would beneﬁt from learning how

to think, critique, collaborate, and commu-

nicate. From Dubois to Gandhi to Mandela,

one hears the refrain that education is the

key to liberation and to the preservation of

a free as opposed to an enslaved population.

A witty colleague suggested the question

would be less controversial if we dubbed

our studies Conservative Arts.

And today, we ﬁnd ourselves tasked with

defending the liberal arts in the global econ-

omy. There is a great deal of angst about a

young person going to college to pursue

a liberal arts degree. Parents are worried

about whether the tremendous investments

of time and money will lead to their child

graduating with a college degree that goes

nowhere in terms of a job. Politicians of

every stripe feel compelled based on their

preference or pet peeve, to chide colleges

for churning out too many anthropolo-

gists, or philosophers or graduates of one

language or another. Yet, I believe that a

strong liberal arts education is the best

preparation for addressing the challenges

of globalization. Why? Because a liberal

arts education teaches what the National

Education Association terms the

four C’s

of education – critical thinking, creativity,

collaboration, and communication.

SUMMER 2019

Continued on page 4

THE LIBERAL ARTS

IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY

THE ARTICLE BELOW—“THE LIBERAL ARTS IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY”—IS AN ABRIDGED AND ADAPTED FOR PRINT VERSION OF A TALK UOFL PRESIDENT NEELI BENDAPUDI GAVE ON 3/5/19.

The lecture was given as the annual Phi Beta Kappa Lecture presented by the College of Arts & Sciences in partnership with the Phi Beta Kappa

Association of Kentuckiana. Over the years, the lecture series has welcomed several speakers of national prominence covering a broad range of

topics and intellectual interests, all demonstrating the importance of the arts and sciences to society.

2 | louisville.edu/artsandsciences

ean-Paul and Simone. Anaïs and

Henry. Mary and Percy Bysshe.

History has given us no shortage

of literary power couples, and continuing

in this grand tradition are Department of

English Professors Ian Stansel and Sarah

Strickley, who manage to balance writing,

teaching, and raising two young daughters.

The two met as graduate students at the Iowa

Writers’ Workshop on the large Victorian

porch of The Dey House, a framed photo-

graph of which now graces a wall in their

home. The fact that this meeting sounds

straight out of a novel seems perfect for the

two “book doctors” – their daughters’ favor-

ite way to introduce them to their friends

– who now return to Iowa every few years

to teach writing workshops.

Stansel and Strickley joined the English

department in 2015. Though Stansel had

never been to Louisville before, Strickley

spent her ﬁrst ﬁve years in the city and has

“very vivid memories of rooting vigorously

for the Cardinals with a tiny pair of red and

black pompoms.” The pair were quickly

charmed by both the University and the city.

“With the colleagues we have in the English

department and the larger College of Arts &

Sciences,” says Stansel, “it really feels like

winning the lottery.”

The two have very dierent writing pro-

cesses – Strickley has recently adopted “very

rigorous storytelling structures” and sticks

to scheduled writing time at a desk, while

Stansel’s new project is coming together

“more ﬂuidly and instinctually” as he works

from the dining room table. “I always end up

at the table,” he jokes. “Maybe it’s the close

proximity to food.” Despite diering creative

approaches, they agree that their schedules

ﬂow nicely around family life, a process

made easier by their colleagues. “One of the

great pleasures of working at UofL is that

we’ve been welcomed into a community of

scholars who are also parents,” says Strickley.

Ian Stansel is the author

of The Last Cowboys of

San Geronimo (2017) and

Everybody’s Irish (2013),

a PEN/Bingham Finalist

for Debut Fiction. He

recently completed a

new story collection and

several screenplays and

is currently working on

a new novel.

Sarah Strickley is the

author of Fall Together

(2018). Her short

story “Dewey Dell: An

American Ghost Story”

was recently awarded

the Copper Nickel

Editor’s Prize for Prose.

She serves as faculty

editor of UofL’s award-winning online

literary magazine - the Miracle Monocle -

which can be found at

uoﬂ.me/miraclemonocle.

To support the creative work and teaching

of professors like Stansel and Strickley, go

to uoﬂ.me/give-English.

THE

BOOK

DOCTORS

n May 21, the Department of

Physics & Astronomy inaugu-

rated its powerful new computing

cluster PACER (Physics & Astronomy

Computer for Education and Research),

made possible by a generous gift from the

family of Nathan Shrewsbury Lord and

Rachel Macauley Smith Lord. PACER

will allow faculty and students to engage

in the frontier computational research

areas of astronomy, atmospheric science,

condensed-matter physics, and high

energy physics.

The computing capabilities of PACER will

address the needs of researchers working

on big-data analysis, artiﬁcial intelligence,

and development of novel materials.

PACER paves the way for future cut-

ting-edge research with massive, detailed

simulations and will aid the department

with existing research on galaxy evolution

and searching for exo-planets.

Commenting on his family’s gift, Sam

Lord states, “In the last few centuries, we

humans have made a dire impact upon the

Earth. For us to repair our planet to health

and live to see it, we need every available

tool. We need computers to create new

materials, biology, artiﬁcial intelligence,

and clean energy to sustain this endeavor.”

To be a supporter like Sam Lord, go to

uoﬂ.me/give-physics.

PACER

PAVES THE WAY

IN THIS

ISSUE

The Liberal Arts

in a Global Economy

The Book Doctors

PACER Paves the Way

Breaking 100!

ACCelerate

The Liberal Arts

in a Global Economy

The Future

of Policing

Storm Trackers

Student Spotlight

Developmental

Advising

Meet the Professor

Lunch & Lecture

THE THINKER | 3

leven recent College of Arts &

Sciences graduates have earned

2019 Fulbright scholarships, a pres-

tigious international award coveted by many

high-achieving scholars. That means all but

one of the twelve 2019 UofL Fulbrights got

their degrees from A&S. Since 2000, A&S

has produced an impressive 101 Fulbright

scholars!

A&S students and recent alumni also earned

many other competitive awards this year.

There were ﬁve Critical Language Scholars,

one Goldwater Scholar, and one Rotary

International Award winner. Three A&S stu-

dents received Boren Award oers, but all

three had to decline this scholarship in order

to accept other awards or for personal reasons.

One such scholar, Ben Anderson of Louisville,

may be the most-awarded student in univer-

sity history. The Brown Fellow, Ali Scholar

and Porter Scholar awardee won, this year,

Fulbright, Boren, and Critical Language

Scholarships. He had to decline the Boren to

accept the Fulbright. (In 2018, he also earned

a Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) but

declined it to accept a Public Policy and

International Aairs Program (PPIA) fel-

lowship.) Ben is in China for two months on

the CLS and then will go on to Taiwan on

the Fulbright.

To see a full list of the 2019 awardees,

including biographies and photos, go to

louisville.edu/scholars.

FULBRIGHTS: BREAKING 00!

Adapted from a UofL Oce of Communication & Marketing feature story.

ast April, two standout A&S teams traveled to

Washington, D.C. for the 2019 ACCelerate:

ACC Smithsonian Creativity and

Innovation Festival, a gathering highlighting

the creative exploration and research hap-

pening at ACC universities.

First, Prof. Michael Menze and graduate

student Jonathan Kopechek from Biology,

along with Prof. Brett Janis from the Speed

School of Engineering, exhibited “The

Sweet Way to Preserve Blood,” showcasing

their cutting-edge cross-disciplinary work on

red blood cell de- and rehydration. If you ever

had sea monkeys as a kid, it’s a similar concept…

only this one could save countless lives by stabilizing

the clinical blood supply and increasing accessibility to

blood transfusions around the world.

Second, the Department of Theatre Arts broke

new ground at the Smithsonian when it gave

the ﬁrst ever dramatic performance in the

National Museum of American History. After

a successful Fall ‘18 run at Thrust Theatre on

UofL’s Belknap campus, the African American

Theatre Program reprised The Mountaintop,

a ﬁctional depiction of Martin Luther King,

Jr. set entirely in his hotel room on the eve of

his assassination. The performance was so well

received that Smithsonian ocials expect this will

be the ﬁrst of many live theatre performances.

ACCELERATE: CREATIVE EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH

The 2019 student A&S Fulbright awardees are (top row, left to right): Chelsea Flint (Anthropology; Latin

American & Latino Studies), Alexander Kaliannan (Pan-African Studies), Elizabeth Schaaf (English; Spanish),

Seth Drake (Political Science; Latin American & Latino Studies), Miranda Hale (Spanish), Noela Botaka (Biology).

Second row: Samir Kusmic (Physics), Natasha Mundkur (Political Science), Ben Anderson (Political Science),

Ethan Libby Pelletier (Political Science; Asian Studies), Macey Mayes (Political Science)

1. Critical thinking.

Critical thinking allows one to have not just

many jobs but many careers and many roles.

I think about this as living not just the length

of one’s life but the breadth of it. Nearly 200

years ago, The Yale Report of 1828: Liberal

Education and Collegiate Life asserted that

“The two great points to be gained in intel-

lectual culture, are the discipline and the

furniture of the mind; expanding its powers,

and storing it with knowledge. The former

of these is, perhaps, the more important of

the two. Those branches of study should be

prescribed, and those modes of instruction

adopted, which are best calculated to teach

the art of ﬁxing the attention, directing the

train of thought, analyzing a subject proposed

for investigation; following, with accurate

discrimination, the course of argument;

balancing nicely the evidence presented

to the judgment; awakening, elevating, and

controlling the imagination; arranging, with

skill, the treasures which memory gathers;

rousing and guiding the powers of genius.”

Why is this ability to think more import-

ant than what you store in memory? In a

February 9, 2019 article in the Wall Street

Journal, our Louisville job market was

ranked #8 most vulnerable to automation

by the Brookings Institution, with an average

of 48% of our jobs at risk. Machines have

memory but not minds. That means both

critical thinking and creativity will be inte-

gral to the jobs of the future.

2. Creativity.

I have been preaching the creativity gospel

at least since 1998. Machines can do pretty

much anything we do faster, cheaper, and

with less attitude. The human ability to

create is our dierentiator.

Daniel Pink declares “The future belongs to

a very dierent kind of person, with a very

dierent kind of mind—creators and empa-

thizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning

makers. These people will reap society’s

richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

He goes on to say, “In a world enriched by

abundance but disrupted by the automation

and outsourcing of white-collar work, every-

one must cultivate an artistic sensibility. We

may not all be Dali or Degas. But today we

must all be designers.” (A Whole New Mind:

Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future,

2016).

3. Collaboration.

Often today, teams will be working with mem-

bers from across the globe. There are few lone

rangers anymore. We must come together

quickly, bond as a team, deliver results, and

then be prepared to move on. Most of the

time, when people are let go, it is because they

cannot work well with others. We hire for

hard skills and we ﬁre for soft skills.

Additionally, collaboration is helped when

we have shared metaphors and when we

have empathy for one another. That’s where

storytelling comes in. The activity of telling

or writing stories, can accelerate collabo-

ration while honoring diverse perspectives.

The social sciences and humanities teach us

not only how to tell a story but also how to

listen for one and interpret when necessary.

4. Communication.

In Mortimer Adler’s book How to Speak;

How to Listen, to communicate is to establish

something in common. To communicate, one

must understand the other person, be able to

see the world from their perspective. Oral

and written skills are among the top most

desired in college students and yet they are

areas that are always listed as weaknesses

among graduates.

Many years ago at Ohio State University at a

student show, I heard an audience member

yell to a performer, “I see you.” I had not

heard that before and then I noticed other

people yelling it as well. As I looked into it

more, I learned that it was traceable back to

an African tradition of greeting a person by

saying, “I see you.” It wasn’t just saying “I see

you – your physical presence,” but rather that

“I acknowledge you – the story you bring,

the ancestors that brought you here. I rec-

ognize your presence in this world.” How

very powerful.

The traditional response to “I see you” is “I

am here.” Why is that so important to com-

munication? To be fully present to another

and to their reality, to simply sit with them as

they process a moment in time, is the greatest

gift one can give. That is what we see in the

plaintive and poignant Hebrew declaration,

“Hineni.” Translation: Here I am.

Linguistic competence, cross-cultural com-

munication, empathy—these skills are more

likely to be elicited by a broad-based liberal

arts education.

5. (Connection.)

In closing, I would like to venture a ﬁfth

C— Connection or Connectedness. I ﬁrmly

believe that we want to belong to something

larger than ourselves, that we long to see

connection and feel connected. The social

sciences and humanities teach us not only

how to tell a story but also how to listen for

one and interpret it when necessary. So, in

the spirit of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo

Emerson’s The American Scholar, I would

like to end with this 500 BCE non-denomi-

national Sanskrit prayer meant to be recited

together by teacher and student.

Om, may we be protected together

May we be nourished together

May we work together with great vigor

May our study be enlightening

May no obstacle arise between us

Om peace, peace, peace

Continued from page 1

4 | louisville.edu/artsandsciences

THE LIBERAL ARTS

IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY

The future belongs

to a very dierent

kind of person, with

a very dierent kind

of mind—creators

and empathizers,

pattern recognizers,

and meaning makers.

These people will

reap society’s richest

rewards and share its

greatest joys.

—Daniel Pink

To see a video of President’s Bendapudi lecture in its entirety, go to uoﬂ.me/pbk-lecture-2019.

THE THINKER | 5

f you’ve spent even a few moments

watching one of the myriad police pro-

cedurals on television, you’ve likely

heard of Quantico, Virginia, home of the FBI

law enforcement training center. You may

be surprised to learn, however, that UofL’s

Belknap Campus houses an institute that

consistently ranks alongside the FBI in the

top executive development training centers

for law enforcement in the nation, attracting

students from across the US and locales as

far-ﬂung as Lebanon and Japan. This is the

Southern Police Institute.

In continuous operation since 1951, the

Southern Police Institute (SPI) was estab-

lished to oer social, pedagogical, and

technical training to ocers as a means of

addressing issues of race and improving

partnerships with communities. Though

program oerings have since expanded to

include a command ocers development

course (CODC), an administrative ocers

course (AOC), and extensive professional

development courses, the central idea of

partnering with communities remains the

same. “It is crucial for law enforcement

ocers to learn how to place ourselves in

the community,” says director Cindy Shain.

“Issues of critical interest [for our students]

are building trust and transparency with com-

munities, keeping pace with ever-changing

technology, and recruitment and retention of

quality, guardian-minded personnel.”

Dwindling budgets create diculties for

departments in underserved communities

to provide professional development, so SPI

works to meet them where they are—literally.

SPI has oered command ocers training in

Florida and New England; homicide inves-

tigation courses in North Pole, Alaska; and

background investigation training in Bamako,

Mali. Shain sees enormous value in diversity

in training settings. “Sharing ideas with col-

leagues from a variety of agency types and

locales allows participants to enlarge their

views and networks to beneﬁt their career

and the profession as a whole.”

Donor-funded scholarships have aided in

improving diversity within the program,

especially for women, who are still vastly

underrepresented in the ﬁeld. Shain’s pas-

sion to create paths to recruit and retain

women is evident, and this mission is buoyed

by the Cynthia and George Nichols AOC

Scholarship, which seeks both to increase

the number of female ocers in command

roles and to encourage law enforcement

agencies to identify and develop more

women for these positions.

As a woman who entered law enforcement

several decades ago, Shain attained many

“ﬁrsts” in her career — one of the ﬁrst

women on patrol in Louisville and, later,

the ﬁrst female district commander for

the Louisville Metro Police Department.

After retiring from LMPD as Deputy Chief

with 24 years of service, she has shared her

unique expertise around the globe through

her work with the International Association

of Women Police and the International

Association of Chiefs of Police, paving the

way for a more diverse future in law enforce-

ment. “One day,” Shain says, “hopefully there

won’t be so many ‘ﬁrsts’ and women will be

represented in equal measure.”

THE FUTURE OF POLICING

Graduating class of the 141st Administrative Ocers Course, May 2019

Southern Police Institute

What do you want to do/

be when you graduate?

I want to become a Sustainable Design

and Development Planner/Specialist.

[I want to] focus on how to improve

our built environment in order to save

resources and the environment for

future generations.

What is it that drew

you to your major?

My love for the outdoors originally

drew me to Sustainability. I want to

protect what we have because so much

has already been destroyed. I also love

how Sustainability can lead into many

dierent ﬁelds – economics, govern

ment, policy, and design. It can be

applied to all aspects of how we live.

If you were to recommend

your major to someone, what

would you say about it?

You can go in so many directions with

a Sustainability degree. Sustainability

is something most people don’t really

understand; they assume it just focuses

on National Parks or trees. In fact,

sustainability [meets] the needs of the

present without compromising the

ability of future generations to meet

their own needs.

What is something

you dream of doing?

My dream is to go to Nepal and to

do a service program that focuses on

sustainable agriculture or sustainable

communities.

What’s your favorite

thing about UofL?

I love how diverse the University of

Louisville is. I also love all its won-

derful resources – the wide variety of

majors and state-of-the-art facilities

(new athletic buildings, Speed Art

Museum/Cinema, and the Belknap

Academic Building).

6 | louisville.edu/artsandsciences

our smartphone beeps a warning

followed by a call from the National

Weather Service notifying you of

another severe thunderstorm in your area.

Powerful storms with damaging winds, heavy

rains, and ﬂash ﬂooding: you know the drill.

What used to be a rare occurrence now seems

commonplace. Both anecdotal and scientiﬁc

evidence indicate there are signiﬁcant changes

to weather patterns as a result of climate

change. But can where you live relative to an

urban core impact the severity of weather?

Professors Dave Howarth and Jason Naylor

(Geography & Geosciences) think so.

Get this: The National Weather Service

issues more severe thunderstorm warnings

for eastern Louisville than any other part of

the city, with weather models showing storms

strengthening as they move over downtown.

This phenomena seems to be true for other

metropolitan areas as well. The possible

cause? The urban heat island eect or UHI.

Howarth and Naylor, along with research

coordinator D.J. Biddle and undergraduate

students Logan Twohey and Brandon Ryan,

seek to understand UHI on weather patterns.

An urban heat island describes when the tem-

perature of the urban area is warmer than its

surrounding rural areas. Scarce vegetation,

impervious surfaces, and the use of dark,

heat-absorbent building materials are just a

few of the reasons why downtown Louisville

can be up to ten degrees warmer than sur-

rounding areas. Elevated urban temperatures

increase energy demand and costs, air pollu-

tion, and greenhouse gas emissions. And as

it turns out, they may also impact a storm’s

intensity.

To test this theory, the research team is deploy-

ing thirty Davis Vantage Pro-2 weather stations

around Jeerson County to collect data on

temperature, humidity, wind speed, and pre-

cipitation. Their aim is to identify how UHI

impacts the structure and intensity of thun-

derstorms which, according to Naylor, could

“help forecasters issue more timely and accu-

rate severe weather warnings around cities

like Louisville.”

Understanding the spatial distribution and

magnitude of the urban heat island could also

identify areas most vulnerable to heat-related

injury, helping policymakers protect the public

during heat waves. “Hopefully we can con-

tinue to provide information relevant to public

health issues to the Mayor’s Oce and other

policy makers,” Howarth says.

To help make climate research like this possi-

ble, go to uoﬂ.me/give-geo.

UOFL GEOSCIENTISTS

TAKE THE CITY BY STORM

SPORT: LACROSSE SPORT: SUSTAINABILITY

FAST BREAKS

TO FAIR TRADE

SARAH BLALOCK

THE THINKER | 7

Think you know what an

academic advisor is?

Think again.

hink back to your college days.

What, if anything, do you remem-

ber about your advisor? What kind

of support or guidance did you receive in

choosing a course of study? Did anyone

ask about your passions or your short- or

long-term goals? What about guidance on

personal matters that might impact your

studies?

If you were a student in the 80s or before, you

likely don’t even remember your advisor(s).

Any memory at all is probably of a stodgy

faculty advisor telling you what courses to

take, signing a paper, and sending you on

your way. If you already knew the classes

you needed to take, advising appointments

felt like a chore, a hoop you had to jump

through in order to be cleared to register.

The process was transactional and highly

prescriptive. The advisor was the doctor, the

authority ﬁgure; the student was the patient,

the underling. Advising appointments could

be awkward, impersonal, tedious, intimidat-

ing, or all of the above.

This prescriptive advising experience is

analogous to teaching someone to swim by

throwing them into deep water: If they don’t

drown, bully for them. If they sink, well,

they probably weren’t cut out for swimming

anyway. Unfortunately, this way of thinking

privileges those who already have experi-

ence in or around the water and leaves the

rest behind.

Enter developmental advising.

Developmental advising, an outgrowth of

developmental psychology, views the advi-

sor and advisee as collaborators in a journey

of educational and personal discovery. The

holistic, student-centered approach empha-

sizes process, exploration, and growth, not

just academic achievement.

To set the stage, let’s return to the swimming

analogy. Imagine if, instead of dumping

someone in the deep end and shouting

instructions from the side of the pool, the

instructor got to know the swimmer ﬁrst.

Perhaps the instructor asked the student to

reﬂect on their previous experiences with

and around water, helped the student deter-

mine what they wanted out of the learning

process, looked at potential barriers to suc-

cess, and collaborated with the student to

create a plan for learning to swim.

This developmental approach is what

advisors in the College of Arts & Sciences

use today. The A&S Advising and Student

Services website deﬁnes advising as “a part-

nership tailored to the individual student by

teaching students how to utilize resources

in order to achieve academic, personal, and

professional success and empowering and

encouraging students to think critically

when making decisions.” Instead of the old

“sage on a stage” notion of advising, the

A&S team prefers the “guide on the ride”

model. A&S advisors want their students

to know that they are on this educational

journey with them and are committed to

their success—through both celebrations

and setbacks.

Since a working partnership is so critical

to the desired growth, good developmental

advising begins with relationship building.

Danielle Dolan, assistant dean for Advising

and Student Services in A&S, encourages

her advising sta to spend the ﬁrst ﬁve

minutes of every student appointment “ice

breaking.” After that, it’s time to dig in and

explore with questions:

● “What are you passionate about?”

●

“What problems do you want to solve?”

● “Who do you want to serve?”

● “Let’s explore your values. How do

they align with your goals?”

As a long-time advisor herself, Dolan

views the role of academic advising as “not

so much about helping students choose a

major, but rather about helping them choose

a purpose.” How does she convey that lofty

charge to her sta in concise but illustra-

tive terms? She simply states: “I need you to

be the advisor you needed when you were

younger.”

ACADEMIC ADVISING: THEN & NOW

THEN

NOW

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