Contact by email:
Director (or send email to emeriti@emory.edu) Letters to the Editor Click on the above link to let us know what you think or send email to emeriti@emory.edu)! |
Upcoming Events
Click on the link below to register for the next Lunch Colloquium on Monday October 6 at 11:30 am. |
Courses
If you would like to find other EUEC members interested in taking a MOOC together, an OLLI course together, or possibly teaching together in an OLLI course, click on the following link to send an email: |
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This 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
The major news in the EUEC office since our last newsletter is the decision by Isha Edwards to leave Emory for a marketing communications management position. We are very sorry to see her go and wish her the very best in her new position. For information on her replacement as well as other items of interest, please see below.
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 "A Letter is not a Tweet"
Our first Lunch Colloquium of this school year had an overflow audience that thoroughly enjoyed learning about The Beckett Project. If you missed it or want to catch some details you missed, read the article by Brenda Bynum below. |
 Our next Lunch Colloquium: Religion and Public Health: Making an Invisible Determinant Visible
The Lunch Colloquium is Monday, October 6, 11:30-1:00 in the Luce Center. Read about the Colloquium below. You may also register by clicking on the link in the left column. This promises to be a very popular event and our room capacity is limited, which is why registration is necessary. Click here to read about the Colloquium |
 Farewell from Isha Edwards
Those of you who were at the Monday Lunch Colloquium had a chance to say goodbye to Isha. It is with great regret that we see Isha leave for another position as she has been the backbone of the EUEC office for many years. |
| |  Report from Steve Nowicki
EUEC member Steve Nowicki was awarded a Heilbrun Fellowship in 2012. In the article below, he describes the research he did using this fellowship.
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Nominate members for awards
Early next year, EUEC will be giving Faculty Awards of Distinction and the Distinguished Service Award. See below for the nomination procedure. |
Faculty Activities
EUEC members continue to be very active. Below is just a sample of their activities. Please help us find and share more! |
Director's Message cont'd.
Isha's Replacement There is of course no way that Isha can be replaced, for her knowledge of our organization and our members and how to do so much in so many areas cannot be duplicated. However, we are extremely fortunate to be able to hire Kimberly Hawkins as a temporary worker while we search for a permanent replacement. Kimberly worked in the office for two months this summer and was trained and mentored by Isha, so she knows as much as any non-Isha person could. Please welcome Kimberly when you get a chance. Lunch Colloquium We had a great turnout for our first Lunch Colloquium for this semester. You can read about it in Brenda Bynum's article elsewhere in this issue. We ask people who are attending to register for two reasons: so we will know how much food to have and also so we will have room for everyone who plans to attend. This second reason came into play for our first colloquium--we had to turn away two members who wanted to come because there was no room. As it was, we had to borrow eight chairs from The Beckett Project and two from our offices upstairs in order to have a seat for everyone. In a way, this is a great problem to have because it is rewarding for those presenting to have a large and lively audience. However, there is a real limit on the number of people who can be accommodated in our conference room, and we don't have much ability to handle overflow audiences. And there's a related issue. Some of you who come do not plan to eat. However, our reservation system does not have the ability to indicate that fact. Therefore if you plan to come, but not eat, please register and then send us an email that you won't be eating. I apologize for asking you to undertake a two-step process, but I hope you understand why. Also, if your plans change and you can't come, please let us know so someone on the waiting list will be able to attend in your stead. Register early is good advice! I plan for each issue of the newsletter to have a link to register as an easy means to that end. Faculty Activities We have a report in this issue from another of our Heilbrun Fellowship recipients, Steve Nowicki. There is also a list of several faculty activities I happen to have heard about. I think one advantage of retirement is that it is possible to be active as a scholar without having to be concerned about whether the results are "enough" or whether they are "better" than one's colleagues. There is no longer a need to list all one's accomplishments to demonstrate one's worthiness nor need one talk up one's accomplishments. However, even friends may not know what one is doing, much less celebrate what they're doing. I'd very much like EUEC members to share information along these lines with me so I can share it with everyone else in this newsletter. It should also be inspiring for faculty who are perhaps thinking about retirement to see that it is quite possible to retire and still be intellectually active in a variety of ways. It also shows the Provost that she is helping to support a vital community. Therefore, please send me information about your activities and honors and awards so they can be shared with all of us. OLLI Teaching I hope at least some of you are in the process of developing a course to teach in OLLI. For a summary of the information about OLLI and EUEC-OLLI Teaching Fellowships that are being offered, please click here. Newsletter Formatting I have heard that some of you have had trouble with some of this newsletter's formatting: some links don't work properly, and/or some items don't display correctly. I have added a link at the very top of the newsletter email that states: Having trouble viewing this email? Click here to view in your web browser Try clicking the link at the top of the newsletter and see if your web browser will display the newsletter in a better format than your email program does. Communicate with us If you would like to comment on an article or make a suggestion, please click on the Letters to the Editor link to send an email to emeriti@emory.edu. I thank Herb Benario, Gretchen Schulz, and John Bugge for help with proofing and editing. |
Religion and Public Health: Making an Invisible Determinant Visible
Speakers: Ellen Idler, Departments of Sociology and Epidemiology; Ken Hunter, School of Nursing; Ted Johnson, School of Medicine Until now, the broad view of the social determinants of health has largely ignored the role of religious practices and institutions in shaping the life conditions of billions around the globe. Now, in Religion as a Social Determinant of Public Health, an OUP book Ellen Idler has edited, 35 Emory scholars across the disciplines (including a chapter by EUEC member Don Saliers!) address this omission by examining the embodied sacred practices of the world's religions, the history of alignment and tension between religious and public health institutions, the research on the health impact of religious practice, and the role of religious institutions in health and development efforts around the globe. Ellen and two other contributors, Ken Hunter and Ted Johnson, from the School of Nursing and School of Medicine respectively, will speak on these subjects and perhaps others like religion's role in the ongoing epidemics of HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer's disease, as well as preparations for an influenza pandemic.
Note: Lunch is provided at a cost of $8. We request that everyone planning to attend register for the event (by clicking on the link in the left column or on our website, http://www.emory.edu/emeritus/) so that we will know how much lunch to provide and also so that the room capacity will not be exceeded. Last week, several people had to be put on the wait list and could not attend. If you want to attend but not eat lunch, please register and then send an email saying you won't require lunch to emeriti@emory.edu; also if you register and find later you cannot attend, please let us know that as well. |
"A Letter is not a Tweet": Emory's Editing of The Letters of Samuel Beckett
A capacity crowd was in place for the first EUEC Lunch Colloquium of the year on Monday, September 15, to hear our Lu ce Center neighbor, Lois Overbeck, talk about The Letters of Samuel Beckett. We were privileged to hear the history of how this significant scholarly and literary project became such an important part of Lois' life as well as how it has taken its place as one of the stars in Emory's international crown. In addition, in was fascinating to hear just how the real work of selection, transcription, verification, annotation, and readying the chosen letters for publication has actually been done. In 1985, Samuel Beckett authorized Martha Dow Fehsenfeld to pursue the edition of his selected letters, and shortly thereafter she made the most important and valuable decision she could have by asking Lois More Overbeck to join her in this monumental project. Beckett himself facilitated their early research through personal meetings and interviews with Lois and Marty until his death in 1989. The project became affiliated with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Emory in 1990 and, with its support, has received repeated funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. It has also provided an opportunity to involve Emory students directly in the work and created a true laboratory for humanities research. The roll call of those students who have had such a unique opportunity for hands-on learning and experience and have gone on to their own distinguished careers over the past 24 years is brilliant testimony to the integrity and inspiring nature of the process. Beckett's correspondence is voluminous (over 16,000 letters) and scattered worldwide in public and private collections. The completed four-volume edition will be comprised of letters which honor Beckett's own request that they be selected for their bearing on his work (some 2500 letters, with another 5000 quoted in the annotations). The body of that work includes all of his writing (published, unpublished or abandoned). It encompasses Beckett's criticism, reviews, and essays on art, as well as descriptions of paintings that are later transposed into stage images and observations on musical composition that inform the patterns of his prose. The letters present information about the origins of works, their preliminary versions, publication or production history, translation, and interpretation. All extant letters have been consulted to make the final selection. Volum e I, The Letters of Samuel Beckett: 1929-1940, was published by Cambridge University Press in February 2009 and was launched in the Long Room of the Trinity College Dublin Library with readings by Barry McGovern, acclaimed Irish actor and Beckett interpreter, and congratulations by Seamus Heaney. The American launch was here at Emory shortly thereafter and featured Edward Albee and Salman Rushdie reading Beckett's words and gratefully acknowledging his enormous influence on their own work.  Volume II, 1941-1956, was published in September 2011 and launched in Paris, with readings again by Barry McGovern who then traveled here for the subsequent launch at Emory. Both of these volumes have received unanimous international critical acclaim and translations into French, Italian and German are well underway. Volume  III, 1957-1965, will be launched in London at the end of October, and the American launch will be on November 5 at Emory in Emerson Hall in the Schwartz Center, once again featuring Barry McGovern, along with Atlanta actors Carolyn Cook, Robert Shaw Smith and Brenda Bynum. It is fortuitous that this volume contains descriptions of Beckett's first meeting and early associations with Harold Pinter, whose admiration for Beckett was unbounded, as he is currently being celebrated by Theater Emory in a semester-long Pinter Fest. The Emeritus College is proudly associated with The Beckett Project in an official way, as it has been designated as one of the portals through which our members can serve the University and the community and, indeed, the entire world of letters by participation in the editorial process, with the kind of close reading and nit-picking we know how to do better than anybody. Through the EC Service Committee our members have logged a phenomenal number of hours proofreading (and are already deep into Volume IV), and we like to think we are bringing the best minds to the best work toward the best possible ends. - Brenda Bynum Additional resources:Click here to see Lois Overbeck's opening slides. Click here to read a description of The Beckett Project. Click here to see a calendar of fall events for The Beckett Project. Click to return to top |
One Last E-mail By Isha Edwards September 13, 2014 In parting there are often words, which give voice to varied feelings; Thoughts of all the days gone by, accomplishments, and experiences, which provide new meaning. What matters most, when there is change, usually goes past the eye. The good that came, with pain we gained, leaving footprints for others to pass by. It has been said that destiny is determined by association and information; the company you keep and what you read.
It is hard not to strive for greatness when the battle cry is, "Lead!" If learning something about everything is what makes wheels spin,
Then what drives me forward is to maximize the potential within. Emory's vision entails improving the world, serving humankind and the environment, making a difference in the community, exercising the virtues of justice and mercy, enhancing the lives of individuals, and helping each other to develop our full humanity.
Imagine if this were a mandate for mankind and not just a university. I thank each of you for the many ways you've impacted my life, e.g., those random stories that never made the history books (fascinating), the admonition to walk more (I'm now at 60K steps/week.), simplify my life, appreciate the art of silence, be adventurous; the value of a life well lived and leaving an indelible mark along the way, hugs, life lessons, and those jokes that I still don't get, but will likely make sense later. If anyone asks, you tell him/her I said that meeting the challenges of our time is not just for youth. So continue to mentor, engage, create, and contribute! After all, if it's true that history repeats itself then who better to guide than those who paved the way? Who better to advise that everything will be all right after seeing what comes with each new day? May your creative later lives be filled daily with light, love, peace, and gladness. Keep well. i.e Click here to return to top |
The Ability to Identify Emotions in the Faces and Voices of Others and Children's Personal and Social Adjustment Stephen Nowicki Candler Professor of Psychology Emeritus For the past three decades I have been involved in the study of relationships and the skills needed to relate successfully. If we are able to relate well, the simple truth is that we increase our chances to be happy and satisfied; if we cannot, we are more likely to be miserable and alone. Being able to relate is not associated with intelligence or wealth, but rather with a set of skills, usually referred to as nonverbal processing abilities, that are learned first in infancy and childhood and later refined in adulthood. Nonverbal abilities include accurately reading emotions in the faces, voices, and postures of others. I have constructed a test called the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) that has been used in a number of studies to assess the level of nonverbal skill in children and adults. It and other tests like it have been used to evaluate whether such accuracy is associated with relationship success. Among other supportive results, researchers have found that children who are less skilled in identifying emotions are less popular, have lower teacher ratings of social competence, and have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression and acting out problems. Although confirming the importance of nonverbal skill, past studies have used relatively small numbers of children and applied cross-sectional methodologies; that is, they gathered nonverbal measures and outcome measures at the same time. The purpose of the study supported by the Heilbrun Fellowship was to establish the importance of nonverbal skill in a much larger more representative population as well as to see if nonverbal accuracy could predict future personality and social outcomes in children. To accomplish my research goals, I traveled to Bristol, England, where I met with a variety of researchers who have been responsible for the operation of a well-respected longitudinal study, that is, a study where children (and their parents) are followed and assessed at a number of times from birth onward. Called A Longitudinal Study of Children and their Parents (ALSPAC), the project has been following all children (14,000) born in Bristol in 1991-1992. One of the most difficult tasks of any longitudinal study is to keep the original population of participants involved and in the study. Rarely do studies this large go on as long as this one has. ALSPAC is in its 22nd year.
I was fortunate to have the DANVA be administered to both the children and their parents when the children were 8 years old. The data gathered then and later allow me to make the following predictions for the present study: (1) the associations found between nonverbal skill and personal outcomes in past smaller and less representative population studies would be replicated in this much larger and more representative population and (2) DANVA accuracy scores at age 8 would predict children's personal adjustment in early and late adolescence when they have to deal with increased stresses and strains in relating. In regard to the second prediction, it is important to note that this was the first time that the ability to use nonverbal skill to predict future outcomes had been evaluated. (Because so little is actually known about how one learns to identify emotion in faces, voices, and postures, I also was interested in finding out what background factors before the age of 8 predicted which children were better or worse at identifying emotions in others. I was especially curious about how the parents' nonverbal ability was associated with their children's. I am presently analyzing these data.) Being on site in Bristol allowed me to talk with the main researchers in charge of the data sets, find out what future plans were for data collection, obtain the latest "cleaned" data necessary to evaluate my predictions, and offer arguments for including the DANVA in future assessments. Although analysis is ongoing, I have a number of findings to report. First, it is clear, that children who are less adept at identifying emotion in the faces and voices of others are more likely to be rated negatively by teachers overall. Second, the inability to identify emotion in faces appears to be more important in predicting personality outcomes than in voices. Third, for boys, the inability to identify anger was specifically associated with negative teacher ratings of greater hyperactivity and trouble forming peer relationships. Fourth, for girls, the inability to identify sadness was specifically associated with negative teacher ratings of their ability to form peer relationships and their levels of anxiety and depression. Fifth, it was found that compared to girls with higher DANVA accuracy scores at 8, those with lower accuracy were more depressed and anxious at age 12 as rated by the teachers and the girls themselves. This association was not found for boys. To summarize, the inability to identify emotion in faces and voices was associated with both present and future failures to form satisfactory peer relationships and with increased feelings of anxiety and depression. Missing anger appeared to be more important for boys and missing sadness was more critical for girls. The fact that lower nonverbal accuracy at 8 predicted depression at 12 for girls is worthy of more comment. Past research has found that compared to men, women have a higher incidence of depression beginning in early adolescence. The findings from the present study suggest that an inability to read others' emotions as presented in faces and voices earlier in childhood may contribute to the development of depression later in life for girls (but not boys). It will be interesting to see if that continues to be the case for girls in later data sets at 14, 16, and 21 years of age. Click here to return to top |
Award Nominations
The time has come to select the recipients of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC) awards for 2014 in two categories -- EUEC Faculty Awards of Distinction and Distinguished Service Award. Please submit your nominations to us no later than October 27, 2014. The selection committee, composed of a chair and four former recipients of the awards, cannot accept late nominations. You may submit your nomination electronically to the EUEC office (emeriti@emory.edu) or mail or hand-deliver it to the EUEC office. The eligibility requirements are as follows: EUEC Faculty Award of Distinction (formerly Distinguished Emeritus/Emerita Award): - All retired Emory faculty who have been members of EUEC for at least two years.
- Significant professional contributions since retirement to Emory University or its affiliated institutions as well as contributions to local, state, regional, national, or international communities or professional organizations that reflect the "spirit of Emory".
- A maximum of four awards given annually.
- This title may be conferred only once.
Distinguished Service Award Eligibility: - All Members of the EUEC, including those who have received the Distinguished Emeritus Award.
- Membership in the EUEC for at least two years.
- Significant documented contributions of service to Emory University or its affiliated institutions as well as to local, state, regional, national or international communities or other organizations that reflect the "spirit of Emory." These contributions must have been made since retirement and are beyond those used to support a previous DEA Award.
- Limited to one award annually - no requirement that an award be given.
When you make your nomination, please include the following: - Name of nominee
- Department or unit
- Contact information
- Name of nominator
- Department or unit
- Contact information
- Description of why nominee should receive this honor, in no more than two pages. Please do not exceed this amount, but be certain to include enough information for the selection committee to make an informed decision. Please include curriculum vitae if possible.
Previous recipients of these awards are shown on our web site (http://www.emory.edu/emeritus/index.html) or in a more convenient form can be seen by clicking here. Please let us know if you have any questions about this process. Thank you in advance for your participation. Click here to return to top |
EUEC Faculty Activities
published a chapter in Religion as a Social Determinant of Public Health (September, 2014) entitled Congregational Hymn Singing in Mainline Protestantism. Ron Schuchard celebrates the launch of the first two volumes of The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot. Read the article about this achievement in Emory Report by clicking here. Brenda Bynum closed the Flannery O'Connor & The Mystery of Place conference in Dublin Ireland with a dramatic reading of selections from the Flannery O'Connor-Betty Hester correspondence. |
Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
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