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Upcoming Events
March 5
Emeritus Art Exhibit
Reception
March 6
Lunch Colloquium March 6 WEBCAST - LC
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Contact Other Members
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find out about a travel destination or find other EUEC members who would like to travel with you, send an email to:
Find other members to get together for shared interests, whether it is forming a book club or a photography club, or getting together to take a hike. Send email to the following link to contact member who would like the same activity!
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This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
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 Message from the Director
We have two major events occurring this week. This Sunday, March 5, at 3:00 pm, for the third year in a row we celebrate the opening of the Exhibition of EUEC Art in the Chace Lobby of the Schwartz Center. More information is below; I hope you will be able to come, enjoy the art, and meet the artists. The next day, we get to enjoy a Lunch Colloquium presented by one of my Biology colleagues, Jaap de Roode. If you read the information about him below, you will discover that he is experienced in working with senior Emory faculty, having organized a butterfly tour in Mexico for Emory faculty member Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn.
If you missed the fascinating Lunch Colloquium by Caroline Schaumann last week, you can read about it below. And yes, the picture of the climber in the previous issue of this newsletter was she!
Another significant event taking place today at the Luce Center is the third training session for retirement mentoring. Four more of our members are participating in this training. I am truly grateful for our members who are volunteering to be retirement mentors. Not only has it proven to be enjoyable for our members, but it is a great service to our active faculty colleagues.
I am very grateful to John Bugge, Herb Benario, and Gretchen Schulz for help with proofing and editing.
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Lunch Colloquium March 6
 As Smart as They Are Beautiful? The Use of Medicinal Plants by Monarch Butterflies
The Luce Center
11:30-1:00
Room 130
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Lunch Colloquium February 20
Icecapades: James David Forbes and Louis Agassiz in the Alps
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Artists Reception--March 5
 We celebrate the opening of the exhibition of EUEC art in the Schwartz Center on Sunday March 5 with a gala reception.
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A summary of the University Senate meeting of January 24, 2017, can be found by clicking here. Included in the summary is a brief report on discussions concerning the "sanctuary campus" petition circulated in late November. |
Walking the Campus with Dianne
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EUEC Artists Exhibition and March 5 Reception
We celebrate the opening of the exhibition of EUEC art in the Schwartz Center on Sunday afternoon March 5 at 3:00 pm with a gala reception. This will be a great opportunity for family and friends to get together and see the amazing art our members have contributed and meet the artists. It is the beginning of Spring Break at Emory, so parking in the adjacent deck should be particularly easy. This year we have eight EUEC members who have contributed their artwork for the Exhibition in the Chace Upper Lobby during March. Many thanks to our EUEC Committee consisting of Katherine Mitchell, Pat Miller, David Goldsmith, Judy Rohrer, and Clark Poling. They have put in enormous effort in selecting pieces to be displayed and working with Greg Catellier in the Schwartz Center to get them located and mounted for the exhibition. We are certainly very grateful to the Emory College Center for Creativity and the Arts for helping to sponsor this exhibition; particular thanks go to Leslie Taylor, Candy Tate, and Rachael Walters Brightwell. We are also very grateful to Don O'Shea who has designed the poster for this year's exhibition.
If you can't make the reception, we hope you will be able to drop by the Schwartz Center during March to enjoy the talents of our members.
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Lunch Colloquium March 6
As Smart as They Are Beautiful?
The Use of Medicinal Plants by Monarch Butterflies
Jaap de Roode, Associate Professor, Department of BiologyJaap and the colleagues and students with whom he works at the "De Roode" lab here at Emory study the ecology and evolution of parasites and their hosts. Their work with monarch butterflies has revealed that they act to counter the virulence of the protozoan parasite that threatens them when they use milkweeds as their larval food plants. Milkweeds contain toxins, which monarchs use as a defense against predators. And these toxins also function as herbal medicine, suggesting monarchs may use the plants to treat their diseased offspring. However, it seems that the butterflies' "medical practice," like that of humans, can have a downside--an evolution of the very virulence it protects against, making it more threatening than before. With a combination of experiments, field work, theoretical models, and molecular biology, Jaap and his fellow lab workers are investigating this phenomenon--a phenomenon important enough in its implications that Popular Science named Jaap one of the ten most promising US scientists under 40 a few years ago.
About Jaap
Jaap de Roode works at Emory University, where he runs a research lab on parasites and teaches ecology and evolution. Born in the Netherlands, he studied population biology at Wageningen University. While there, he completed three research projects as well as a journalism internship at the Dutch magazine Intermediair. Between finishing his MSc degree at Wageningen and starting his PhD degree, he spent one year as a full-time science journalist. He then crossed the North Sea and spent three years in Andrew Read's lab at the University of Edinburgh to complete a PhD on the evolutionary biology of malaria parasites. After that, he stayed in Read's lab as a postdoctoral researcher for another three months, before crossing a slightly bigger sea to study butterfly parasites with Sonia Altizer first at Emory University and then at the University of Georgia in Athens. Until he knew that butterflies carry interesting parasites, Jaap never used a butterfly net. Jaap's research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases. Since starting at Emory University in 2008, he has developed monarch butterflies and their parasites as a prime example for the study of virulence evolution and animal self-medication. He has embarked on novel projects to study the effects of industrial beekeeping practices on disease evolution in honeybees, and to study how parasite competition in human malaria infections drives the evolution of drug resistance. Jaap has published 43 peer-reviewed research papers stemming from his work at Emory University, including in Nature, Science, and PNAS. He has obtained five federal research grants, and was awarded a Popular Science Brilliant 10 award (for the 10 most promising scientists under 40 in the US) in 2011 for his discovery that monarch butterflies use medicinal plants to reduce disease. Jaap has actively engaged in Public Scholarship, for example giving TED talks and creating TED-ed lessons. In 2013, he organized a monarch butterfly tour in Mexico for President Jimmy and Mrs. Rosalyn Carter, which resulted in subsequent collaborations on monarch butterfly conservation. Click here to see the de Roode lab webpageClick here to return to top
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Lunch Colloquium February 20
Icecapades: James David Forbes and Louis Agassiz in the Alps
Caroline Schaumann, Associate Professor of German Studies
Dr. Caroline Schaumann's scholarly efforts focus on ecocriticism, a relatively new interdisciplinary field that broadly examines the relationship between literature and physical environment. Mountaineering history and literature provide a fertile field for ecocritical analysis. Her upcoming book, to be published by Yale University Press, will focus on 19th-century mountaineering in three parts: early mountaineering in South America, the grand age of climbing in the Alps, and finally the influence of these two eras of climbing on the development of North American mountaineering.
For her talk to EUEC, she focused on early to mid-19th-century climbing in the Alps. Two classic gentlemen scientists (Forbes and Agassiz) independently studied the natural environment and spent summers studying glaciers in the Alps during the 1830s. After meeting at a conference in 1840, they planned to meet in Chamonix for investigations into glaciers in the summer of 1841. During that summer they accomplished a challenging technical ascent of the Jungfrau, punctuated by rest stops with wine! Although the ostensible objective was to make scientific measurements on the glacier, both men and their assistants were deeply moved by the experience of achieving the summit and attempted to express their emotions either orally or in writing. There was a sense of the sublime on reaching the summit as well as a sense of male intimacy that was somewhat suppressed by societal restraint.
James David Forbes was a well-to-do British academic who had discovered European mountain ranges during extensive travels with his family. He spent many summers in the Chamonix area studying glaciers and the general environment. Louis Agassiz came from a more modest family in the French area of Switzerland and grew up immersed in a variety of natural history studies. He too eventually achieved an academic appointment--with formal training in ichthyology. He also began spending time near Chamonix as his eclectic interests led him to glaciology. He quickly developed controversial theories about glaciers that led colleagues to suggest that he stick to research on fossil fish! His publications on both fish and mountains were filled with beautiful illustrations, forming a connection between the arts and science.
In the summer they spent together, the austere, solitary Forbes was strongly influenced by the theories of the extroverted and ambitious Agassiz. He became more focused on glaciers and their movements. Agassiz was impressed by the logic and keen observations of Forbes. Forbes was captivated by the social atmosphere of the local hostel and the precarious cabin that Agassiz built on the moraine. Their opposite personalities were reflected in their observations about shape-shifting contrasts associated with glaciers: hot and cold, silent and noisy, permanence and flow, solid and liquid.
Unfortunately, after this summer of mutual interests and friendship forged by a challenging climb, the glaciology theories of these two men diverged and they became bitter rivals. There were accusations of stealing each other's ideas. They developed differing views on glacial movements and their modification of the landscape. Today we know that each of them was partially right, partially wrong.
Although Forbes often used poetic quotes in his writings about his mountain research, he invoked "manliness" and perseverance in his criticism of Agassiz's research methods. While Forbes braved storms and hardship during field research with only one assistant, Agassiz employed a bevy of assistants to gather his data. Thus Forbes was both stalwart and thrifty and accused Agassiz of being frivolous. In their writings, both men introduced their readers to ideas of dynamic fields of ice moving across the landscape and shaping the world.
Many thanks to Caroline Schaumann for a fascinating talk that really resonated with me. The first mountaineering book that I read many years ago was set in Chamonix--and I will finally travel there this summer to hike the Tour de Mont Blanc. In the interim I have climbed a few mountains and experienced the sublime and the bond with fellow climbers. Fortunately, we can now hug each other at the summit without social restraints!
--Marianne Skeen
The video for this Lunch Colloquium cannot be made publicly available. However, a link to view the video will be sent to members requesting it (email: gcrouse@emory.edu).
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Walking the campus with Dianne
Did you recognize our last photo? Most people on campus refer to it as the 1525 Building. According to Emory's website, the official title is Emory Clinic at 1525 Clifton Road. This building is probably one of the busiest on campus because it houses health clinics for students, staff, and faculty, as well as Blomeyer Health Fitness Center on the 5th floor (I believe a few of our Emeritus members belong to the fitness center).
For our next walk let's go inside a fairly recent addition to our campus. The new part of this building is amazing and has a lot of space to explore. I've provided two photos to help you figure out where we are. .
Where will you find this on the Emory campus?
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Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
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