Newsletter Volume 7 Issue 20 - June 9, 2021 |
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Since arriving at Emory, I’ve served on numerous school and university committees, served as the Director of Graduate Studies at the School of Nursing for six years, participated in the Academic Leadership Program, continued my research on sleep and sleep disorders, and continued to see patients once a week in a collaborative practice arrangement at the Emory Sleep Disorders Committee, and since last December, I have volunteered regularly at the Emory Northlake Vaccine Clinic.
When not working, I enjoy traveling, walking in Briarlake Forest Park, reading for pleasure, listening to and making music. When the campus opens up again this fall, I hope to resume taking weekly flute lessons with one of the Artist Affiliates at the Emory School of Music, James Zellers DMA (although Zoom works for many things, it is not kind to the higher tones of a flute). I’m also hoping that as the pandemic recedes and regulations that require all providers to wear masks and eye protection in hospitals and nursing homes is relaxed, it will be possible for me to begin the internship that is required to become a Certified Music Practitioner (something that is required for playing live music at patient bedsides). Although many students and Certified Music Practitioners were able to resume playing at patient bedsides as soon as they were vaccinated, my instrument makes it impossible to wear a mask while playing.
I have learned so much attending the Lunch Colloquiums during the past month and anticipate that I’ll learn a lot more from Corinne Kratz discussing the different modes of time in museum displays next week and from Eri Saikawa, who will discuss her work addressing environmental issues affecting the Westside community in Atlanta. I also want to applaud Gretchen Schulz and Holly York and their Mind Matters Committee for recruiting a broad range of speakers for our weekly Lunch Colloquiums.
Finally, we have reports in this newsletter summarizing Nadine Kaslow’s presentation about the Nia Project and the most recent talk from Marilynne McKay on Historical Monuments.
I am very grateful to Gretchen Schulz and Ann Hartle for help with editing and proofing.
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Lunch Colloquium - Monday, June 14 - NOTE: Start time 12:00 noon
Corinne Kratz
"The Porcupine of Time: Managing Multiple Temporalities in Exhibitions"
Please scroll to read more below
Lunch Colloquium - Monday, June 21
Eri Saikawa
“It All Started with Yak Dung: The Quest for Environmental Justice in Atlanta and Beyond”
Please scroll to read more below
Report - 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 - Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, June 1
Marilynne McKay
"Historical Decisions: Monuments Gone with the Winds of Change"
Please scroll to read more below
Faculty Activities
Nanette Winger
Please scroll to read more below
New Members
Alan Abramowitz
Kathryn Amdur
Nancy Fajman
Ruth Parker
Please scroll to read more below
In Memoriam
Bill Cody
Please scroll to read more below
Walking the Campus with Dianne
Please scroll to read more below
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Lunch Colloquium - Monday June 14, 2021 - NOTE: start time 12:00 noon |
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"The Porcupine of Time: Managing Multiple Temporalities in Exhibitions"
Corinne Kratz
Professor Emerita of Anthropology and African Studies
Lunch Colloquium - Zoom Meeting
PLEASE NOTE -- 12:00 noon - 1:30 pm
Given her years of experience working with top museums around the world and studying museology itself, few if any are better qualified than Corinne Kratz, Emory’s own Professor of Anthropology Emerita, to comment on the decidedly prickly subject of time management in museum exhibitions. No wonder she was invited to contribute a chapter on the subject to the new book, Museum Temporalities: Time, History, and the Future of the Ethnographic Museum. And no wonder she entitled that chapter, as she has our talk today, “The Porcupine of Time.” As she says, exhibits “bristle” with different modes of time– not only the historical moment addressed by an exhibit itself, but also the period(s) when various objects were made and collected, their biographies, as it were, not to mention the multiple interpretations the objects may have received in the years since they were first studied and displayed. And not to mention constantly changing views of what museum displays are all about—as well as changes in the architectural styles of museums and their spaces for display. Of course, exhibit narratives and design foreground only some of these temporalities, making choices that shape viewers’ experiences in particular ways. And that is a “porcupinish” subject, too. Cory Kratz will help us understand the issues in this area by discussing several recent exhibitions in which they have been much in play.
About Corinne Kratz:
Corinne Kratz is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology and Institute of African Studies. She served as Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Public Scholarship and Director of the African Critical Inquiry Program. Following her undergraduate and Master’s Degrees from Wesleyan University, she completed her PhD at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Kratz’s writing focuses on culture and communication; performance and ritual; museums, exhibitions, photography and representation. She began doing research in Kenya in 1974 and has been collaborating with colleagues in South Africa since 1999. In addition to her books, articles, curated exhibitions, and service on editorial and advisory boards, she has received grants and fellowships from Fulbright, the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and others. Most recently she was awarded the Heilbrun Distinguished Emeritus Fellowship to work on her new book, How Do Ethnographers Know? Communicative Foundations of Ethnographic Knowledge Production. She currently serves on the Board of the Council for Museum Anthropology. And she comes to us from Santa Fe, where she is a research associate of the Museum of International Folk Art.
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Lunch Colloquium - Monday, June 21, 2021 |
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“It All Started with Yak Dung: The Quest for Environmental Justice
in Atlanta and Beyond”
Eri Saikawa
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences,
Rollins School of Public Health
Lunch Colloquium - Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Eri Saikawa, the latest subject of a new series of Emory vimeos called “I am an Emory Researcher,” began her research work in emissions linked to air pollution long ago and far away, in Tibet, where the problem was smoke from yak dung fires. (At least she thought that was the problem.) Much of her more recent work has focused on emission issues closer to home, like those tied to agriculture in rural Georgia. But it is research even closer to home, in the Westside community of Atlanta itself, that has brought her (and her students and their neighborhood collaborators) to the attention of environmentalists everywhere. It was in looking into urban agriculture in this Atlanta area that they made the horrific discovery of toxic levels of lead in the soil of the gardens there—and the backyards and public playgrounds, as well. The evidence their collaborative venture has gathered has forced the EPA to take responsibility for cleaning up the many hundreds of properties polluted by smelters who moved on and left their waste behind. It’s no wonder that other researchers-cum-community-activists are reaching out to Eri from elsewhere in the country, hoping she and the colleagues who have just founded the Resilience and Sustainability Collaboratory here at Emory will be able to assist them in identifying and addressing pollution problems—and perhaps especially those that often affect poorer communities (like Westside) disproportionately, another much needed means to the end of social justice for all.
About Eri Saikawa:
Dr. Eri Saikawa is Associate Professor in Emory's Department of Environmental Sciences. She holds affiliated positions in the Institute for Quantitative Theory and Methods, East Asian Studies, and the Center for the Study of Law, Politics, and Economics. She also has held a position at the China Research Center since 2014. Dr. Saikawa came to Emory in 2013 after time in a Post Doctoral position at Princeton (2010-2012) and time there as a Research Scientist (July - Dec. 2012). She continues to serve there as a Visiting Research Affiliate (2013 to the present).
Dr. Saikawa graduated from the University of Tokyo in 2003 (BE), Indiana University in 2005 (MPA), and Princeton University in 2010 (PhD). Her research interests include atmospheric chemistry (modeling aerosols and tropospheric ozone), environmental health (assessing the adverse health impacts of air pollution), biogeochemistry (modeling global soil nitrous oxide emissions), climate science (estimating emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases), and environmental policy (analyzing the impact of environmental standards and trade as well as analyzing policymaking processes).
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Report - 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
“Our life story determines the work we do.” With this, Nadine Kaslow began her personal account of an experience that set her on the road to developing the Nia Project. Dr. Kaslow, a former professional ballet dancer who still takes class regularly, shared a letter she had received from a former patient on the same day she took her psychology accreditation exam. The patient thanked her for her work during two years of therapy but went on to inform her that despite this support, her pain was so great that she could no longer endure it. By the time Dr. Kaslow held the letter in her hand, the patient had ended her own life, thereby setting the course for much of Dr. Kaslow’s professional journey.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the Nia Project has served over 2000 suicidal and abused low-income African-American women from the ages of 18 to 64 with culturally competent intervention. As suggested by its name, a Kwanzaa term signifying “purpose,” Nia seeks to help women find a sense of purpose and make a new commitment to living. During the early years of the project, some participants expressed the need for services that follow up on the assessment.
Among the risk factors that contribute to a suicidal mindset are a lack of belonging, childhood trauma, sexual coercion and the feeling of being a burden. Suicidal tendency increases geometrically with the number of stressors present in an individual’s life. Factors found to protect these women from attempting suicide include motherhood, hopefulness, spirituality, family and social support, and self-efficacy in the ability to obtain resources. Social support was found to be the strongest protective factor. Many of these same factors, combined with low levels of capability for suicide and perceived burdensomeness, are predictors of suicide resilience.
Building on the observation that self-efficacy is such an effective factor for resilience, Empowerment Groups were designed as a focus for Nia clients. Key to Nia’s success from the start was the notion that rules for the group are set by the participants so it is they, not the therapy team, who determine the group culture. The only rule set for the group is that physical harm is strictly prohibited.
In order to serve patients at Grady, there were planned exceptions to the exclusion criteria of traditional research models, such as the requirement of a single diagnosis and the absence of substance abuse. In addition, it was decided not to require a client to leave an abusive relationship, as most such programs require. Because women’s shelters typically don’t permit residents to bring their adolescent sons, this requirement might exclude women who don’t want to leave their children to the mercy of an abusive partner.
The groups consist of three to six African American women, aged 18-64, who have been in an abusive relationship and have made a suicide attempt in the past year. Among the co-therapists for each group is at least one African American and one senior clinician, plus one helper from the Nia Team. The groups are thematically designed to reduce certain risk factors: interpersonal, social and situational, cultural and environmental. Their theoretical bases are Afrocentric Theory and Black Womanism. (Dr. Kaslow’s mother observed, based on her own professional expertise, that the real basis of the groups is compassion.)
Additional services available to all participants are support groups, skills groups, individual/couples/family therapy, psychiatric medication consultation, 24 hour/365 days crisis services, a Resource Room, and consultation with the Grady Health System psychiatric and medical emergency services. During the pandemic, many of these services were quickly transitioned to virtual media. Community connections include local churches, arts organizations, recreational venues, and the Solstice Foundation.
Topics of the Nia sessions are structured as follows:
- Introduction and commitment to safety
- Suicide and education on intimate partner violence
- Safety planning
- Reducing intrapersonal risk factors
- Enhancing intrapersonal protective factors, enhancing positive feelings of racial identity
- Reducing social and situational risk factors
- Enhancing social and situational protective factors, including annual celebrations
- Reducing cultural and environmental risk factors
- Enhancing cultural and environmental protective factors
- Review, termination, graduation
In a sample participant demographic, the mean age was 34.8 years, 81% were mothers, 55% homeless, 15% currently employed, 58% currently in an abusive relationship, and 81% who had attempted suicide in an abusive relationship.
The sense of having purpose, value, and meaning in life is a primary factor in reducing suicidal ideation and depression. The high level of satisfaction with the intervention was summed up in the moving video testimonial of Ms. H, age 44, a Nia graduate whose backstory included two abusive marriages, a history of alcohol abuse and addiction to prescription drugs, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and two psychiatric hospitalizations. “I learned to love myself… I’m not yet where I want to be but I’m better than where I was…The Nia Project saved my life.”
--Holly York
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Report - Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, June 1, 2021 |
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"Historical Decisions: Monuments Gone with the Winds of Change”
Marilynne McKay
Professor Emerita of Dermatology,
Emory University School of Medicine
Once again, on June 1, Marilynne McKay impressed those attending the Emeritus College Lunch Colloquium with the breadth of her knowledge, this time about the fate of Confederate monuments (excluding battlefield monuments) found in every city and town throughout the South. These monuments, erected from the 1890s through the 1960s, recently have come under increasing scrutiny as communities begin to reexamine the history that they reflect, with many wanting them removed.
Marilynne began by sketching the history of the Black Lives Matter movement from the killing of Trayvon Martin by a vigilante in Florida in 2013, the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York at the hands of the police in 2014, the murders in 2017 at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston by an avowed white supremacist, Dylan Routh, during the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, and the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This movement has led to the growing focus on Confederate monuments and the growing push to remove them from their places of honor and white backlash.
For 153 years, the Southern states have been building monuments and naming streets and military installations after Confederate “heroes.” The Lost Cause mythology promulgated by associations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans holds that the War was fought over States’ Rights and not over slavery, that in fact slaves benefitted from their condition of slavery and were not mistreated, and that Confederate soldiers were always heroic figures and Southern women always chaste and noble.
Monuments were built in different time periods for different reasons. The monuments built during the 30 years after the War were memorial monuments to the fallen Confederate dead. During and just after the War itself, Union dead were buried by the US government, but Confederate dead were left to the Ladies Memorial Society, a precursor to the U.D.C., to deal with. The Ladies Memorial Society established cemeteries and put up headstones for 260,000 Confederate war dead. Small towns north and south raised money to put up monuments to their dead. These were often obelisks or sometimes a single soldier on a plinth, the Silent Sentinel. These were frequently ordered from the same company, so Johnny Reb and Billy Yank were the same figure distinguished only by a different hat or cap and a different insignia on the belt buckle. Often, these monuments were located not in cemeteries, but in the town squares.
From the 1890s on, during the era of Jim Crow, monuments were put up with a political purpose, namely, to demonstrate the supremacy of whites, and the most recent monuments, many of them from the 1950s, were meant to show white resistance to integration following the decision of the U.S Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. A backdrop to this thinking was the persistence of the theory of “scientific” racism which put each racial group in a biogenetic hierarchy – with whites of northern European heritage at the top as both genetically and culturally superior. This was the theory espoused in 1916 by author Madison Grant in his book The Passing of the Great Race, a book Hitler called his Bible.
After the War, the South established Confederate Memorial Day. There were also Emancipation Days, sometimes January 1, sometimes June 19 or Juneteenth. The days were celebrated with parades, and there was often competition for the use of public spaces on such days. In the city of Augusta, Georgia, parades always passed down Broad Street, so in 1878, a Confederate monument was erected right in the center of the street to send a message to black marchers: You are not welcome here.
Marilynne mentioned the Emancipation monument erected in 1876 in Washington, DC. It was paid for by subscriptions from former slaves, and at the time Frederick Douglass supported it, but he later decried it. It depicts the slave naked and on his knees in chains (to be released by Lincoln). Recently this depiction has been declared controversial, and it has been removed until a decision is made what to do with it. The Boston Shaw memorial from 1897, however, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, is widely praised. It depicts the 54th Massachusetts, one of two all-black regiments and their white officer, Shaw. (The story of this regiment is told in the movie Glory). Additionally, Marilynne noted that there is large statue to the Confederacy in Arlington National Cemetery that was erected in 1900, marking a section of the cemetery set aside for Confederate dead.
So, Marilynne asked the question so many are asking: What to do?
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that 165 Confederate monuments of some sort have been removed in 2020. But eight Southern states have laws against removal. Even if there is community consensus that a statue should go, there is seldom agreement on where it should be sent. These are the options: removal to another less contentious location like a cemetery or battlefield or to a museum, selling or giving it to a private party such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, placing it in storage, contextualizing it in place, or destroying it. The last option is rarely used.
These statues are expensive to remove and expensive to maintain wherever they are. It is estimated that 54 Civil War battlefield monuments in battlefield parks need restoration, but it costs approximately $67,000 for each restoration. Museums don’t want them. Cemeteries don’t want them, fearing vandalism. In any event, here in Georgia, the law prohibits moving statues to cemeteries unless they were originally designed for cemeteries. Contextualization rarely works well. And since these are public property, selling to private individuals may also be problematic.
Marilynne gave examples of each of these approaches. A cemetery that received a statue placed it in a remote corner. An enormous statue of Jeb Stuart was sold to a direct descendant, who removed it to the Jeb Stuart birthplace operated by the Jeb Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust. A large statue of Robert E Lee with a young soldier by his side was sold at auction. The bidder paid $1 million for the statue and $400,000 to move it. It now stands on a south Texas golf course. The University of Texas sought to contextualize by changing the messaging around the statue of Jefferson Davis in its museum. Marilynne pointed out that the Georgia Capitol displays memorials to Confederate generals, Confederate governors and senators and others. The prominent statue of General John B. Gordon at the Capitol is the only equestrian statue in the Atlanta area. In Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, Georgia is represented by Crawford Long and Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy. There has been discussion about replacing Stephens with another Georgian. But who should it be? And then there is the enormous problem posed by the carving on Stone Mountain. Clearly there is work to be done. The Andrew Mellon Foundation recently announced funding to help reimagine solutions to these problems.
Marilynne finished her presentation by showing the Slavery Reconciliation Statue in Richmond, a memorial to the horrors of the slave trade in Richmond, Liverpool, England, and the country of Benin. She also showed images of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Lynching Memorial. This latter contains markers for 592 Georgians who lost their lives in this horrific way. Sobering!
So, again, what to do? The city of Durham, North Carolina, developed three criteria for assessing action plans: What community values should be represented and recognized in public memorials? What historic markers are missing in the community? And what might be done with existing statues and other monuments to reflect shared community values? Difficult questions. We thank Marilynne McKay once again for a fascinating presentation and for posing those difficult questions.
--Jan Pratt
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American Heart Association Names Award for
Emory Pioneering Cardiologist Nanette Wenger
Woodruff Health Sciences Center | May 27, 2021
When Emory University’s Nanette Wenger, MD, began practicing cardiology, the medical community assumed that heart disease mainly affected men and there was little research to indicate otherwise. However, after treating many female patients with heart disease in her clinic, Wenger felt compelled to research how the disease impacted women compared to men.
Wenger’s clinical work and research led to the breakthrough that women experience heart attack symptoms differently than men and that – most significantly – cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women in the United States.
Wenger’s extraordinary career and contributions to the field have most recently been honored by the American Heart Association (AHA) which has named a new award in her honor. The Nanette K. Wenger Award for Best Scientific Publication on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke in Women was recently created to recognize Wenger’s monumental work and inspire continued research, innovation, and discovery. The inaugural award will be presented during this year’s AHA Scientific Sessions, Nov. 13-15, 2021.
Wenger is an emeritus professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Emory’s School of Medicine and a consultant to the Emory Heart and Vascular Center.
“Dr. Wenger’s name is practically synonymous with women’s cardiovascular research and care – she has been a formidable leader in the field of women’s heart health and a strong ally and advocate for women in cardiology and medicine. This award recognizes her incredible legacy of paving the way, supporting and mentoring women as scientists and medical professionals, as well as her pioneering efforts in cardiovascular disease research about, for and by women,” says American Heart Association President Mitchell S.V. Elkind, MD.
The award is one of many Wenger has received throughout her career from the AHA, including the Gold Heart Award, the organization’s highest award; the Distinguished Achievement Award; the Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award; a Lifetime Achievement Award; and most recently, the Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award.
“Dr. Wenger is a lifelong leader in cardiovascular research and care in women and in mentoring women as scientists and physicians. We congratulate her on this honor and her incredible career of accomplishments,” says David S. Stephens, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine.
“I am honored and humbled by this fantastic award bearing my name as it will contribute to enhancing the research designed to improve the heart health of women,” says Wenger.
This new award is open to all authors who submit manuscripts focused on cardiovascular disease and stroke in women in one of the AHA’s 12 scientific journals. Submissions for the 2022 award will open June 1, 2021, and remain open through May 29, 2022.
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New members are the lifeblood of any organization.
Please make a special effort to welcome them to the EUEC!
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Alan I. Abramowitz
Alben W. Barkley Professor Emeritus of Political Science
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Dr. Abramowitz received his PhD from Stanford University in 1976. He was appointed to the Emory faculty in 1987 as Professor of Political Science. Dr. Abramowitz’s research deals with political parties, elections, and voting behavior in the United States. He is one of the nation’s leading forecasters of presidential and congressional elections. Dr. Abramowitz’s recent research has focused on the rise of partisan polarization in American politics and its implications for elections and democratic governance. |
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Kathryn E. Amdur
Associate Professor Emerita of History
Dr. Amdur received her PhD from Stanford University in 1978. She was appointed to the Emory faculty in 1977 as Instructor of History. Dr. Amdur’s research focuses on modern European history; French social history; labor, industry, and the European left; and history in film. Dr. Amdur served as the Vice-Chair of the Faculty and Chair of the College Executive Committee. She also served as Co-President of the Society for French Historical Studies, and she received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship for archival research in France.
When I told my students recently that I was about to retire, one asked if I planned to write my memoirs. I thought that idea a bit far-fetched, but I do think I’ve lived in “interesting times”— as have most of us of about the same age. I started college in the year that my school’s campus newspaper ran an April Fools’ Day piece that student draft deferments were ending — a “joke” that soon proved to be far less funny. I finished college the year that Black students took over the school’s Student Union, machine guns in hand, as portrayed in “revolutionary red” color on the cover of Newsweek — even if that violent imagery was a bit overdone. When I started graduate school, an antiwar professor had his tenure revoked for (alleged) incitement to riot; and the Chinese ping pong team (of Nixon’s “ping pong diplomacy” fame) held an exhibition match on that campus. I started at Emory as the first tenure-track woman in our history department; I hope I made it easier for our many women colleagues who came next. And, of course, I’m ending my career during a pandemic that has transformed campus life in ways that may be just as far-reaching as any changes over the past 50 years. Zoom was surely NOT how I hoped to teach my last Emory classes (or to celebrate my retirement!) — so I’m glad the campus is scheduled to reopen for Fall semester. But we can be grateful that Zoom has worked as well as it has. I’m also grateful to Emory for being my surrogate family all these years, and to my students for being the progeny I never had. I arrived here fresh out of graduate school, and I’ve watched the department, the school — and the city of Atlanta — grow and change over the years, just as I grew and changed personally. It’s been a wonderful ride — for me, at least. Thanks to everyone at Emory for making it possible. For those who may now be toasting me, I raise a glass to toast all of you in return!
—Kathryn E. Amdur
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Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
Professor Emerita of Religion
Dr. Flueckiger received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. She was appointed to the Emory faculty in 1992 as Assistant Professor of Religion. Dr. Flueckiger’s research projects share theoretical interests in indigenous categories of religion and in everyday, vernacular religion. One goal of her research is to bring unwritten traditions into the mainstream of the study and teaching of religion, with a particular emphasis on their gendered performance and experience.
Dr. Flueckiger has received the John S. Guggenheim Fellowship, and research fellowships from the NEH, Fulbright, and American Institute of Indian Studies. Dr. Flueckiger is also an exceptional teacher and mentor. She received the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2003 and both the George Peddy Cuttino Mentoring Award and the Women of Excellence Award for Mentorship in 2020.
Although retiring at the end of a year constrained by Covid is certainly strange and a little sad, I’m glad for an opportunity to give thanks to my department and Emory for the space I’ve been given for creativity, learning, and friendships that have taken me on paths I could never have imagined 29 years ago—a unique space within which I’ve been able to bring together personal and intellectual passions for India. One motivation for my decision to retire was observing the creativity and strengths of my younger colleagues, with which they are re-imagining who we can be as scholars, teachers, and mentors—I have confidence and hope.
—Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
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Eloise B. Carter
PhD, Professor Emerita of Biology
Georgia native Eloise Carter, professor of biology, has spent her career not only teaching biology but also in studying, promoting, and conserving the plants and ecology of her home state.
The granite outcrops of local Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area have been a living laboratory for her courses, and she has cataloged and written about the unique plants found there, compiling her work into Guide to the Plants of Granite Outcrops, a photographic field guide published by the University of Georgia Press in 2000. In 1986, while teaching in the biology department of Emory College, she and Bill Murdy, Emory College biology professor who later became dean of Oxford College, wrote what has become known as the Murdy-Carter Report, a document on the rich diversity of vegetation and hardwood forests at Emory, leading to both the university's first forest protection plan and the foundation of its current land-use plan.
Carter joined the Oxford College faculty in 1988. Her efforts and guidance have resulted in Oxford’s being named to Tree Campus USA for several consecutive years. She led students in regular efforts to eliminate invasive plants in the woods surrounding the Hearn Nature Trail and adjacent to the campus. As a co-founder of the Oxford Institute for Environmental Education, she helped educate hundreds of K-12 teachers from Georgia, Florida, and elsewhere in the Southeast using inquiry to teach science in their schoolyards and bringing environmental science alive in their classrooms.
With Judith Morgan, Emory College professor of biology, she co-authored Investigating Biology, a laboratory manual that features scientific inquiry approach for teaching introductory biology laboratories. Published by Pearson, it is now in its ninth edition.
A brick-and-mortar testament to one of Carter’s greatest contributions to Oxford College stands impressively on the northwest corner of the quad. Oxford’s science building, which opened in 2016, was a long-awaited addition to the college’s classroom and lab space and a fitting building for Oxford’s program in science. Carter was appointed faculty shepherd to lead a team of faculty and staff in developing the building’s vision, design, and construction, a years-long process and commitment.
Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives calls Carter “Oxford’s green conscience.” In its Earth Day 2021 observance, OSI awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award. She and two other Emory champions for sustainability are the first recipients of this honor.
Carter’s numerous other awards include the Association of Southeastern Biologists’ Meritorious Teaching Award, the Oxford College chapter of Phi Theta Kappa’s Teaching Award, and Oxford’s Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching.
She received the Emory Williams Award, Emory University’s highest award for excellence in teaching. In 2016 she was the recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award, one of Emory University’s most prestigious honors, given to faculty or staff who have significantly enriched the intellectual and civic life of the Emory community.
Nitya Jacob, professor of biology and chair of Oxford’s Division of Natural Science and Mathematics, says, “Dr. Carter inspired me to ‘reach for the stars,’ to think deeply about my own teaching, and to strive to be an effective leader. She encouraged me from the very beginning and helped me achieve career goals that even I didn’t believe I could accomplish. Her ability to tap into the potential of all students, especially those who aren’t the obvious ones, is something I continue to learn from. I am always struck by her devotion to her students and her passion for biology.”
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Bill (William B) Cody, beloved husband, father, brother and friend, died at home on May 31, 2021.
Bill was the son of B.H. Cody and Jane Satterfield Cody and grew up in Brunswick, GA. After his mother’s death and his father’s remarriage to Mary Cody, he gained a second family.
He graduated from Glynn Academy before attending Auburn University, the University of Georgia (BA, MA, JD) and The New School for Social Research (PhD). He was Emeritus Professor of Political Science of Oxford College, Emory University, where he was recognized for his engagement with students with the Mizell Award, the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award and the Oxford College Alumni Board Distinguished Teaching Award.
When he wasn’t in the classroom Bill enjoyed coaching his daughters’ soccer teams and attending theatre and concerts. He is survived by his wife (Missy McInnis Cody), his daughters (Jae Cody Engman and Liz Cody), his grandchildren (Leo and Cora Engman), his sister and brother-in-law (Elaine and Ed Hummel), and many cousins, nieces and nephews.
The family thanks Robert, his caregiver and buddy, for making the last years of his journey joyful. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to Oxford College of Emory University for the Cody Family Scholarship by mail at 801 Emory Street, Oxford, GA 30054, or online at https://oxford.emory.edu.
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Walking the Campus with Dianne |
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The glass stairwell from our last walk can be found in the Emory Barnes and Noble Bookstore located in the Oxford Road Building at 1390 Oxford Road. The photo is from my stash and was taken probably a couple of years ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if the wall decorations have changed a bit. If you visit the bookstore before I do, please let me know if that spot looks different from my photo! |
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The next place on our walk should be familiar to most of you; however, many of our newer members have never had a chance to even come near this space (I hope we can remedy that in the near future!). |
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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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