Newsletter Volume 7 Issue 18 May 12, 2021 |
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We also have reports in this issue on two talks from previous weeks. The many of us who were present for the Sheth Lecture heard a great talk on Moral Leadership by Emory Professor Robert Franklin. Thanks to Brooks Holifield, you can read about that talk below. Thanks to Ron Abercrombie, you can also read below about the talk by Sam Sober on “Birdsong and the Brain.” One of the amazing aspects of Sam’s talk is that he made an incredibly complex subject both interesting and relevant and he elicited many questions from faculty representing greatly different fields. Thanks to Don O’Shea and our web person Stacey Jones, these talks are all archived on our website.
I am very grateful to Gretchen Schulz, Ann Hartle, and Marge Crouse for help with editing and proofing.
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Reminder! Thursday, May 20 - 2:00-4:00 pm
Emeritus College Annual Awards and New Members Reception
Please scroll to read more below
Lunch Colloquium - Monday, May 17
Mindy Goldstein
“Climate Change – It’s real. So, What Can the Law Do About It?”
Please scroll to read more below
Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, May 25
Nadine Kaslow
“’The Nia Project’: Culturally Responsive Care for Suicidal African American Women”
Please scroll to read more below
Report - Sheth Lecture - Monday, April 26
Robert Franklin
"Moral Leadership in Turbulent Times"
Please scroll to read more below
Report - Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, May 4
Samuel Sober
“Birdsong and the Brain: The Neuroscience of Vocal Learning”
Please scroll to read more below
Faculty Activities
Ronald Schuchard
Please scroll to read more below
New Members
Timothy Albrecht, Lou Ann Brown, Howard Gebel, Robert Guyton,
Sharon Lewis, T. J. Murphy, Allan Platt, Winfield Sale
Please scroll to read more below
Walking the Campus with Dianne
Please scroll to read more below
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Reminder! Thursday, May 20, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. |
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Our annual Awards and New Members Reception will be Thursday, May 20 at 2:00-4:00 p.m. Normally, this reception would be in Governors' Hall of the Miller-Ward Alumni House, but it will again be on Zoom this year. We will honor many of our members at this reception.
EUEC Faculty Awards of Distinction
It is a great pleasure to announce the award winners for this year. Many thanks to our Awards and Honors Committee for their work in determining the winners of this year's awards. The Committee members for the selection were Donna Brogan, Jim Keller, Marianne Scharbo-DeHaan, and Ron Gould. The recipients this year are:
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W. Virgil Brown, Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Medicine
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Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Condensed Matter Physics
Heilbrun Distinguished Emeritus Fellowship
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Rosemary Magee, Director Emerita, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archive, & Rare Book Library
New Members and Donors
We will also recognize members who have joined in the past year and those who have donated to EUEC in the past year. This is a large and fantastic group and we hope many of you will be present to celebrate them!
Registration
Please register by clicking here
Note: All those on the permanent registration list will also be sent the Zoom information for this event. Please check your email (and/or possibly your spam/junk folders).
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Lunch Colloquium - Monday, May 17, 2021 |
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"Climate Change – It’s Real. So, What Can the Law Do About It?”
Mindy Goldstein
Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic, Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program, Director of Law and Advocacy for the Resilience and Sustainability Collaboratory
Lunch Colloquium - Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
The impacts of a changing climate are being felt across our country and around the world. Temperatures and sea levels are rising. Extreme weather events – like floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes – are becoming commonplace. And we are at a tipping point. Every country must drastically and quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avert potentially catastrophic warming. How will the United States achieve this monumental task?
Mindy Goldstein will explain the various approaches to addressing climate change that have been suggested by the President, Congress, and federal agencies. Which approaches are politically viable? Which will be the most effective? And which will be the easiest to implement within our existing legal framework?
About Mindy Goldstein:
Clinical Professor of Law Mindy Goldstein is Director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic and Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program at Emory University School of Law. Recently, she was also named Director of Law and Advocacy for Emory’s Resilience and Sustainability Collaboratory. Dr. Goldstein has represented clients in complex environmental litigation before judicial and administrative tribunals; in legislative and policy matters at the local, state, and federal levels; and in land use and other transactions. Her work focuses on matters related to sustainable energy and climate change, regenerative agriculture and local food systems, protection of natural resources, environmental justice, and access to information. Her representations have been covered extensively by the media, including National Public Radio, The Economist, and The New York Times.
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Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, May 25, 2021 |
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“The Nia Project’: Culturally Responsive Care for
Suicidal African American Women”
Nadine Kaslow
Professor, Vice Chair for Faculty Development, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Chief Psychologist and Director of the Grady Nia Project, Director, Atlanta Trauma Alliance, Director of Postdoctoral Residency Training in Health Service Psychology, School of Medicine
Lunch Colloquium - Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
The Nia Project began in the early 90s, shortly after Dr. Kaslow came to Emory (and Grady), when she garnered grants to support studies of suicide among African American women. Discovering they had participated in the studies, some of these women came knocking on her door, wanting to know “‘Why do you just ask us these questions? When are you going to give us help?” They wanted a group to talk about suicide and another group to talk about domestic violence—and soon, the two longest running programs of the Project were born, with the Project itself named “The Nia Project,” after the Kwanzaa principle that means “purpose.” In the many years since, Dr. Kaslow and her team, as committed to social justice as she and as determined to integrate research and clinical work, have much expanded the Project programming to still better help the women they serve find meaning enough in their lives to survive and, indeed, to thrive. She will share stories of their struggles and of their amazing resilience, as well. And she will share her dreams for further expansion of The Nia Project.
About Nadine Kaslow:
Nadine J. Kaslow, PhD, ABPP, grew up near Philadelphia, the daughter of psychologist Florence Kaslow. She studied dance when she was young and belonged to the Pennsylvania Ballet in high school and part of college. She attended the University of Pennsylvania and completed a PhD in psychology at the University of Houston. She nearly joined the Houston Ballet while she was in graduate school, but she decided that she would have had to lose an unhealthy amount of weight to do so.
After completing a doctoral internship and postgraduate training at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Kaslow worked at Yale University before moving to Emory University in 1990. Here, she is a Professor and Vice Chair for Faculty Development, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Emory University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Chief Psychologist and Director of the Grady Nia Project, Grady Health System; Director of the Atlanta Trauma Alliance; and Director of the Postdoctoral Residency Program in Health Service Psychology, Emory University School of Medicine. In 2012, she received a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Pepperdine University.
Dr. Kaslow was a Primary Care Public Policy Fellow through the United States Public Health Service, a fellow of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program, and a Fellow of the Woodruff Leadership Academy. She was the 2014 President of the American Psychological Association (APA) and Editor of the Journal of Family Psychology (2010-2015). She is Past President of APA’s Divisions of Clinical Psychology (12), Family Psychology (43), and Psychotherapy (29), as well as the American Board of Clinical Psychology and the American Board of Professional Psychology. She is the President of APA’s Division of Psychologists in Public Service (18). She received the 2004 Distinguished Contributions for Education and Training Award from the APA. In 2006, she received a Presidential Citation from the APA for her efforts to assist displaced interns and postdoctoral fellows in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She is the Former Chair and Board Member Emeritus of the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) and in 2007 received APPIC’s Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Training. In 2011, she gave the Dr. Rosalee Weiss Lecture, an honor from the American Psychological Foundation.
In 2013, Dr. Kaslow received Emory University’s highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award for service to the community. Also in 2013, she was honored at the Grady Gala with the Inspiring Mentor Award. In 2018, she became a Distinguished Lifetime Member of Psi Chi – the national psychology honor society. The recipient of multiple federal and foundation grants, she has published over 320 articles. Her primary areas of research focus include the culturally-informed assessment and treatment of family violence (intimate partner violence, child maltreatment) and suicide in youth and adults, post-traumatic stress disorder and its treatment, couples and family therapy, women’s mental health, integrated healthcare and a competency-based approach to psychology education and supervision. A member of Rosalynn Carter’s Mental Health Advisory Board, Dr. Kaslow is the psychologist for the Atlanta Ballet and a frequent media guest.
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Report - Sheth Lecture - Monday, April 26, 2021 |
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"Moral Leadership in Turbulent Times"
Robert Franklin
Laney Professor of Moral Leadership, Emory University
The speaker for the 2021 Sheth Distinguished Lecture on April 26 was Robert Franklin, the James T. Laney and Berta R. Laney Professor of Moral Leadership at Emory University, who is currently teaching in the Candler School of Theology. His topic—“Moral Leadership in Turbulent Times”—ranged in scope from ancient Greece to this morning’s headlines as he asked how we as a society might cultivate leaders at every level who promote the common good by acting with courage, integrity, and imagination and “inviting” the cooperation of a broader constituency.
While efficient leaders know how to mobilize people and resources to accomplish defined goals, moral leaders look beyond technical efficiency and productivity alone and ask also how to model the moral goods that will elevate an institution or an entire society and mobilize others to share and enact a vision of the common good.
Professor Franklin harbored no illusions about the difficulties of being such a leader. Using American democracy as his example, he began by emphasizing the challenges a moral leader confronts. (1) Every society requires virtues and purposes beyond food and shelter, and every society tells stories to inform itself about what it means to be a citizen. In a society with many competing stories, how can a story of the “good society” receive a wider hearing? (2) Almost half of Americans view our society as caught in a state of steady moral decline. (3) Moral decline in a society is “contagious.” When people see others—especially admired others—lying and seeming to profit from it, for example, they are more prone to lie themselves. (4) Moral corruption can destroy institutions and undermine societies, hollowing them out from within. Moral leadership is difficult.
Nonetheless, in every society moral agents and moral leaders spring forth. Whistleblowers, for instance, are usually people with a binding code of ethics. They act as moral agents, even though they may not ever think of themselves as moral leaders. But all moral leaders are first moral agents, and then some moral agents feel called to be moral leaders. Why is this? How do moral leaders come to be?
As Shakespeare saw and said, some people simply have greatness (and leadership) thrust upon them. But James Baldwin also observed that other people seem to be trapped in history and have history trapped in them. They embody ancient grievance and express time-worn prejudice. Can they be freed to become moral agents? As the courageous civil rights leader Ella Baker suggested: strong people don’t need strong leaders. Can moral leaders then inspire people entrapped by history, creating a social milieu that encourages them to become strong moral agents?
Moral leadership seems to require certain invariable traits of character. It requires knowledge, whether it be knowledge of a moral tradition or knowledge of the situation in which leadership occurs. It assumes a desire to be a moral person, a desire by no means universal. And, as Aristotle argued, it calls for practices that produce moral habits, which can come to include the habit of stepping forth when moral wrong occurs. Moral leaders are usually people who feel consistently called to engage in moral practices that over time usher in moral habits. They can therefore act with integrity, courage, and imagination in ways that invite others to do likewise.
Dr. Franklin asked his audience to think of moral leadership in the context of the current debates over public monuments. Whether such memorializations be street names, the names of buildings and statues, or instances of colossal architecture or sculpture, public memorials inform, inspire, and embody statements of power. Just as the Statue of Liberty in New York or the Eiffel Tower in Paris reflected social and political passions, so also the Confederate Memorial carving at Stone Mountain is a massive political statement. The sculptor, Gotzum Borglum, was already allied with the Ku Klux Klan when he was asked to create a monument to the Confederacy, which he also saw as a statement of white supremacy. Others completed the carving when he moved on, but its political meaning is manifest. An African American minister, the Rev. Abraham Mosley, has just been appointed as the Chair of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. Given the controversy about the meaning of the carving, he faces the weight of moral leadership. What would we advise him to do? What would we do in his position?
Borglum went on to carve a similar colossal sculpture into the face of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. There the motive was to attract tourists to a neglected part of the Midwest, and the carving was to be a monument to the West. Whose faces would be representative? The debates about that question produced numerous candidates: Lewis and Clark? Buffalo Bill? Sacajawea? Crazy Horse? The conclusion: four U.S. Presidents. The Mount Rushmore National Monument is a memorial to power. The debate was social and political, but it was also a moral debate reflecting moral judgments. What would our judgments have been?
Moral leaders engage in lifelong moral practices, manifesting everything from love and justice to empathy and the exercise of power for the good; they frame every issue with attention to its moral dimensions; and they strive to live exemplary lives, though they are undaunted by failure. As Samuel Beckett said: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Attention to the two great American pandemics, the influenza pandemic of 1914-18 and the COVID pandemic of 2020-2021 (and following?), suggests further what we want from moral leaders. We want them to act; to exercise agency; to communicate with transparency; to respond productively to missteps; to engage in constant updating; and, perhaps especially important, we want them to tap into suffering to build meaning.
As Dr. Franklin said in concluding his comments, suffering can be a shortcut to mindfulness and attentiveness; it can generate empathy; it can create common ground with people on the other side of a divide. A moral leader will feel what it is like to be in another’s shoes. Maimonides once said: the world is equally balanced between good and evil; your act might tip the balance.
The discussion was rich and probing. And no wonder—after such a very thought-provoking presentation.
--Brooks Holifield
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Report - Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, May 4, 2021 |
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“Birdsong and the Brain: The Neuroscience of Vocal Learning”
Samuel Sober
Associate Professor of Biology, Co-Director, Simons-Emory
International Consortium on Motor Control
On May 4th, we were treated to a Lunch Colloquium presentation by Dr. Sam Sober, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology: “Birdsong and the Brain: The Neuroscience of Vocal Learning.” He explored in some depth, but for a general audience, how the brains of birds are able to fashion their delightful songs. Dr. Sober approaches this research topic using the singing behavior of the finch, a bird that Darwin famously examined in his Voyage of the Beagle. He described to us how finches rely on the sounds of other finches, adjusting their songs to match the songs they hear. The songs of family members become the main guide for younger birds, which they use for comparison with songs they create for themselves. In one experiment he described, Dr. Sober was able to make a change in what a finch hears. In another, he was able to record the activity of individual bird-brain neurons that are known to be associated with singing. Both of these are clearly technically difficult and demanding experiments to perform.
Much of his talk concentrated on the stability versus the modification of a finch’s singing. Birds will adjust their songs to match the standard of the group in both pitch and pattern. In these experiments, he could change the pitch that birds hear by fitting them with tiny “bird earphones.” He and his colleagues found that the male finch (only the males of this species sing) will correct his pitch to match that which he hears.
But this correction is not as simple, immediate, nor complete as one might think. It depends on the magnitude of the pitch change, it takes time, and it varies with the age of the bird when the change in pitch is imposed. His experiments showed that a small shift in the perceived pitch evokes a quicker and more complete compensation in the produced song than a larger shift in pitch. This change takes days, and he found that younger birds make the change more quickly. Also, and perhaps related, the younger birds have a greater natural variation in the pitch of their songs.
These results do not correspond to the simple concept of feedback control that is familiar to engineers. Engineers, in their simplest models, would have predicted a rapid and complete correction by the finch for any perceived pitch changes. But the songs of the finch over the eons of his evolutionary adaptations apparently have come to be controlled by a more complex and nuanced feedback system. Since his song is used for marking territory and finding a mate, one must assume that the male finch’s modified feedback control system better suits his needs in producing progeny.
Another procedure that Dr. Sober uses is the collection of data from individual neurons in a behaving animal. Recorded single neurons were shown to be correlated with the bird’s singing behavior. In other experiments, he described altering the finch’s brain through selective removal of a portion of a class of neurons that are found prominently in the basal ganglia. He ablated about half of these dopaminergic neurons and found that about half of the bird’s song learning was impaired.
This excellent talk was a rewarding experience for those of us in the Zoom audience. Many in the Emeritus College may have been encouraged to discover that, though learning may change in its timing and characteristics with age, learning does continue into adulthood, and, as we continue to hope, into old age.
-- Ron Abercrombie
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Ronald Schuchard
Goodrich C. White Professor of English Emeritus
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Those of us in the Emeritus College have been privileged to watch as Ron Schuchard has continued to work on his edition of T. S. Eliot’s prose. We can now celebrate with him the following announcement:
Ronald Schuchard, Goodrich C. White Professor of English, Emeritus, announces the publication of the print edition of The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition, in eight-volume sets, by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It was preceded by the online edition on Project Muse, which is available on DiscoverE, and which is undergoing a tremendous upgrade in searchability and function for a new rollout in the early summer as a state-of-the art digital edition.
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New members are the lifeblood of any organization.
Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
Members in Transition / Not Yet Retired
Timothy Albrecht, DMA, Professor of Music, Emory College of Arts and Sciences; Professor of Church Music, Candler School of Theology; Emory University Organist
Lou Ann Brown, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics (Neonatology)
Howard Gebel, PhD, D(ABHI), Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Robert A. Guyton, MD, Distinguished Charles Ross Hatcher, Jr., Professor of Surgery
Markus G. Klass, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
Sharon A. Lewis, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Oxford College
T.J. Murphy, PhD, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology
Allan Platt, PA-C, MMSc, DFAAPA, Assistant Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine
Winfield S. Sale, PhD, Professor of Cell Biology
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Walking the Campus with Dianne |
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The pleasant-looking restroom from our last walk can be found in Michael C. Carlos Hall, which houses the Art History Department, and is right next door to the M. C. Carlos Museum.
As I mentioned, the restroom is quite different from others on campus with its round mirrors and little trash cans rather than the more industrial environments of modern restrooms. Of course, the photo provided is the women's restroom in that building, but I've been told, the men's restroom looks the same.
We've visited this building a few times in the past, but for any newcomers, here's a bit of information on what I think is one of the most interesting and beautiful buildings on campus:
Michael C. Carlos Hall was constructed in 1916. It was one of the first two buildings on the Atlanta campus and was home to the law school until 1972. It was renovated in 1985 to house the Department of Art History and the museum collection. It is named in honor of philanthropist and donor of antiquities, Michael C. Carlos.
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For our next walk, let's again, travel a bit off the beaten path. The two places we are looking at are tucked away in a tree-filled area found on the edge of the main campus. |
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Where will you find these 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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