If an amendment such as the one Coburn proposed were to come to pass, it could have a direct impact on University government professors and their research. Assistant Professor of Government Erica Chenoweth, who conducts a large amount of research, often with government funds, explained that Coburn’s assessment of political research is inaccurate.

“It’s pretty off the mark,” said Assistant Professor of Government Erica Chenoweth. “It’s more or less politics driven with the idea that political science research has implications that are critical of the government.”

According to Chenoweth, however, this dialogue appears in Washington about every four years.

“A Republican in Congress tries to take money away from political scientists because they think they are critical of Republicans—there is plenty of political science research that is critical of Democrats too,” Chenoweth said. “Good ideas and really good research are not the only things that affect the policy process, so the idea that it is entirely the political scientist’s fault for not affecting policy is ridiculous.”

Chenoweth explained that government funding is important for her own research. Her research is specifically focused in three areas: the effectiveness of violent insurgency compared with non-violent social movements, the effectiveness of counterterrorism efforts by states, and the forecasting of terrorist attacks. While the first is funded by an NGO, the latter two projects are funded by the federal government through the Department of Homeland Security. Chenoweth’s research briefs have been examined by top-level government appointees in the Defense and Homeland Security Departments.

Chenoweth noted that her research is a true science and has straightforward and important implications for real-world politics.

“I collect data on counterterrorist tactics by States in the Middle East... and look at how these tactics affect the trajectory of terrorist attacks,” Chenoweth said. “This is getting exactly at the issue of which counterterrorist policies are best in reducing terrorist attacks. It has direct policy relevance and tells us hot spots around the world where we can expect violence from non-state actors.”

Professor of Government James McGuire also opposed Coburn’s proposal. He took an active role in fighting the Coburn legislation, phoning both of his Senators to vote against the amendment. McGuire is currently planning on applying to the National Science Foundation for a grant to study why certain provinces of Latin American countries do better than others in enacting policies that help reduce infant mortality.

According to McGuire, in order to determine whether social science research matters, two questions must be considered.

“First, you have to ask whether the subject matter that you’re studying is relevant in broader policy concerns,” McGuire said. “Second, you have to ask whether the methods you are using are rigorous enough to produce answers that go beyond speculation. In order to be useful, social science research must be on topics relevant to public action, and rigorous enough to produce findings that have scientific credibility.”

Senator Coburn suggested, however, that news media sources like CNN, Fox, and NBC already answer these political science questions.

“Senator Coburn’s particular objection was to funding the National Elections Study, a systematic random sample survey that has been conducted every two years since 1974 and, in a slightly different form, all the way back to 1948,” McGuire said. “If systematic sample surveys are abandoned because Amy Goodman or Rush Limbaugh can tell us all we need to know about the public mood, then we are in a heap of trouble.”

Chenoweth agreed with McGuire’s assessment that popular news media is a less than credible source than political science research.

“Anyone with intelligence will be able to critique this sort of thing,” Chenoweth said. “Political scientists are trained to account for these counterarguments and holes in arguments and to demonstrate whether there is a pattern or not. Transparency of research designs and sophistication of methodologies is something political scientists can contribute.”

Professor of Government Douglas Foyle also sees political science research and opinions of the news media as “apples and oranges,” explaining that the people on the news are there to debate, understand, and advocate policy issues.

“That purpose is important but different from what we do in political science,” Foyle said. “In our research, we don’t care about the issue of the day. We do our research over years.”

Foyle also disagreed with Coburn’s idea; however, his response differed from those of McGuire and Chenowet. In the end, he characterizes himself and his colleagues as political scientists, rather than a policy advocates.

“[Coburn’s proposal] fundamentally mischaracterized the contribution and purpose of research,” said Foyle. “The purpose of most research is not to affect policy. The purpose is to understand political life.

Steinfels does not think that everyone needs to be religious, but he believes that everyone should at least be religion-literate. He thinks the University should take a central role in religious education, possibly by enforcing a graduation requirement that students take courses regarding religious knowledge and history. Steinfels says misunderstandings between the religious and secular world are partially due to a lack of knowledge of the simple stories related to even Judeo-Christian traditions.

“The Post-secular era, in my view, is that religion is not about to go away,” Steinfels said. “Nor is secularity, and the co-existence of the two of them means they are both going to have to change.”

Steinfels used the term “post-secular” in the beginning of his lecture, claiming that “post-modernist” and “post-imperialism” serve the same purpose.

“Maybe people interested in religion should take advantage of this unusually powerful four letter word,” Steinfels said, quoting one of his own articles. “A word that declares something new by declaring it something old—‘post.’”

Father Hal Weidner, the University’s Catholic Chaplain, says Steinfels ideas can be the building blocks for increasing religious awareness on campus.

“It has been said that we are a religious nation of religious illiterates,” said Weidner, who does not see the University as lacking entirely in religious awareness.

Weidner says he brought Steinfels to campus to start a discussion on coexistence of religion and secularism in a largely secular community. He believes that Steinfels brings an intelligent and credible voice to the issue.

“All our cards are on the table [for this lecture],” Weidner said. “I think that it was one way to see how we can introduce more religious literacy.”

Although the event drew a small turnout, Weidner seemed encouraged by what Steinfels had to say. The issue has been introduced, but he is not positive as to what the next step will be towards more religious awareness on campus.

“How we present these things is another question all together,” Weidner said.

Argus: What are you reading now?
Professor William Pinch: I’ve been reading “Sunlight on a Broken Column” for my class [HIST 285: India and the West]. During the break I get a lot of outside reading in. I became chair of the department over the summer, and one of my colleagues gave me a copy of a book that I had to read about being a department chair, it’s absolutely hilarious. It’s “Straight Man” by Richard Russo. The lead character, Devereaux, is the chair of a dysfunctional English department in a small state college in Pennsylvania. It’s kind of a seventh circle of hell as far as academics is concerned—it’s a state university that is strapped for funds. It’s a really funny book and quite charming. I think a few people die but all is well in the end. Actually, I can’t remember now if any of the major characters die; but there is a hilarious scene with a duck, or goose—possibly the funniest scene I’ve ever read. I love to read historical fiction. This past summer I read a book called “The Historian,” by Elizabeth Kostova. It’s about Dracula. I particularly liked it because it involved three generations of historians in the Balkans, Bulgaria, and Romania. I enjoy books that involved people struggling with documents, partly because that’s what I do: translate things and trying to tease out meanings. Another book I read that I liked was “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” by Louis Des Bernières. That was a novel about a Greek island in World War II after the Italian and German occupation of that island and the Greek resistance. It went over a few generations, and it had a romance story, which was nice. My wife is from a Greek family, and it reminded me of her family history in some ways.

A: Have you seen the movie adaptation?
WP: Yes, the movie is terrible. It’s got Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz. I really wanted it to be good, but I couldn’t finish it. My daughter checked it out for me, I love Nicolas Cage, but the movie was miserable.

A: Have you seen “National Treasure,” his new series?
WP: Yeah, my kids love them. I mean they’re fun, it was brain candy. I liked “Leaving Las Vegas.” I loved “Raising Arizona”.

A: What are some of your favorite movies?
WP: One of my favorite films is “The Big Lebowski.” I love that film. I really want to see “The Men Who Stare at Goats”, because that has George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. I used to have a ponytail and one of my in-laws told me I looked like Jeff Bridges in “The Big Lebowski”. That was probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

A: As an expert on India, what Bollywood films would you recommend?
WP: I love “Shatranj-ke Khilari” [The Chess Players], which I use in class. I love “Monsoon Wedding.” “Amar Akbar Anthony” with Amitabh Bachchan. “Vidhaata” is another favorite of mine, it’s a really trashy film but I love the soundtrack. “Nagina” is one of my favorites. It’s based on a legend, where if you kill a snake and don’t take out its eyes, its mate will see its eyes and kill her mate’s killer. This woman snake turns herself into a woman to kill the killer and she falls in love with him. In one song, called “Main Teri Dushman” or “I am your enemy,” she can’t decide whether to love him or kill him, a classic Bollywood dilemma.  She’s singing this when she’s dancing for a mysterious snake charmer. When my family was in India in 1987, this song was constantly playing everywhere.  It’s played on the “beenbean,” it’s an instrument that the snake charmers use, it’s a big gourd with a pipe sticking out of it. My kids love “Dhoom”, and “Dhoom 2”, they are sort of like James Bond films, completely over the top.  It has the stars from “Jodhaa Akbar”, Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan, the actor who has six fingers.

A: Six fingers?!
WP: Yes, he has a “supernumerary thumb” on one hand.

A: What are some of your favorite books on India?
WP: One writer I enjoy is Amitav Ghosh. I’ve read a bunch of his stuff. My favorite is “In An Antique Land,” that was a combination of first person traveler’s tale intertwined with the history of the Indian Ocean networks of trade in the 12th century, following a Jewish merchant who goes to India and purchases a few slaves, one of whom becomes his wife and one who becomes his business partner. The study of slavery is dominated by the Atlantic slave trade, but there was an Indian Ocean slave trade that is quite compelling. At that time, in the 1980s, there was a lot of discussion about what constituted slavery. Amitav was engaging in those debates as well while he was writing the history. He interweaves it with writing about being an anthropologist in Egypt. You get a contrast of the Indian Ocean in the 12th century, and then in the present, in the Middle East. I really liked his “Glass Palace,” about the Indian National Army in Burma. It also has several generations of characters. He wrote a very interesting book called “The Calcutta Chromosome,” it has a little bit of science fiction, about the discovery of the cause of malaria in the late 19th century by a doctor working in Calcutta. It’s a kind of science fiction detective story. More recently I read his “Sea of Poppies.” It just came out last year or this year. It’s the first of a trilogy about the Opium Wars in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. The first installment is set mostly in North India and Calcutta, in an eastern Uttar Pradesh village where opium is cultivated, and also in Calcutta where a ship in Baltimore has docked as part of the opium trade. The captain is a young mixed race guy from Baltimore whose mother was a slave and his father was a slave owner, if memory serves. A number of different characters are introduced in the novel, many are loosely based on historical figures, and it’s quite interesting in that sense.

A: What novels would you recommend to students interested in learning about Indian history?
WP: I love Kim [by Rudyard Kipling] and Gora [by Rabindranath Tagore]. They are really two of my favorites. They complement each other so beautifully. There’s a really interesting book I haven’t used in class. It’s called “The Dancing Girl” by Hasan Shan. It’s a semi-autobiographical account of a romance between an author who is a munshi, a Persian clerk, and a young girl who belongs to a family of courtesans, a troupe of dancing girls called natch girls. This troupe joins up with a company regiment and the munshi works for the captain. He falls in love with one of the girls in the troupe. It’s a wonderful heartbreaking story that catapults you into the late 18th century. That’s quite an interesting book. I very much like Naipaul’s “A Million Mutinies Now.” He wrote three books on India: “An Area of Darkness”, the second one was “India: A Wounded Civilization”, the third one was “India: A Million Mutinies Now”. It’s a much more complex work. He goes back to the people he met and interviews them again, and provides a much more multi-dimensional account of their families and their lives. It gives a good account of post-colonial India, and goes back even to pre-Mughal times, you get a good account of the layered quality of Indian history. Dalrymple’s “City of Djinns” is a great introduction to the city of Delhi. It was written in the ‘80s, he begins with the anti-Sikh riots in the wake of Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination, and he discusses partition, the war for Delhi in 1857, and the creation of New Delhi. It’s a great introduction for anyone going to Delhi.

A: What about nonfiction works?
WP: One I enjoyed was William Dalyrmple’s “The Last Mughal,” which is nonfiction. Even though he engages in some historiographical heavy breathing that was a little distracting, it was very interesting and quite good. A great book on partition is “Indian Summer” by Alex Von Tunzelmann. It’s a good, fun treatment of partition, Gandhi, Nehru, and the Mountbattens. I think it’s a pretty fair treatment. There are not many good treatments of the high goings of Partition and the transfer of power. Erik Erikson’s book on Gandhi is a classic. It’s incredibly interesting, about the psychobiography of Gandhi. In the middle of it he decides to write a letter to the Mahatma, who has been dead for some time at that point. He writes a letter because he’s kind of annoyed by the Mahatma and his treatment of his wife and young girls in the ashram. The thing he was annoyed about was that Gandhi is famous for his celibacy, his decision to abstain from sex. It becomes evident in the course of his autobiography that he never asked his wife how she felt about that, that he imposed it upon her. There were episodes in the ashram [spiritual community] in South Africa where he was very manipulative and cruel, he punishes the girls for tempting the boys when he finds them frolicking in the bathing pool in an inappropriate way. He only punishes the girls, and he cuts their hair. Erikson is quite upset about this and discovers Gandhi’s dictatorial qualities, and interrogates Gandhi about it. Of course, it’s a one-sided interrogation. It’s a way of cluing in the reader that Gandhi had a bad side, too. He was very coercive.

Argus: So, Drew, why do you think that you are a WesCeleb?
Drew Flanagan: Well, clearly I don’t! I guess people might consider me one because I have been writing folk music since I was a freshman here. I took up the guitar at the end of my senior year of high school. I played the violin ever since I was old enough to remember, maybe since fourth grade, but long enough ago that it feels like a long time ago. I guess I’m a musical person, that’s what people know about me. I play the Westco open mics almost every week, which are a really amazing thing—you should stick a plug in there for them since they’ve done such a good job with it and with getting people out there. Music has always been a hobby for me. I never saw it going anywhere as a career wise, but I’ve gotten a good response from people on campus, so I’m very flattered by that.  

A: Why folk music?
DF: Well, I come from a classical background, obviously as a violinist, but also because the first music I listened to was classical. I sort of found folk music through that because it was pleasant to someone’s ears who had been tuned in to classical music. The standard that I held my music to was more a standard of beauty than a standard of excitement or whatever. I wasn’t looking for the same things in music that other people were at that age, that age being seventeen or so. I also received my musical education from mostly older, sort of 60s and 70s music, but especially Cat Stevens and Neil Young; they were very important to me. Paul Simon, too. Actually, my plan was to learn to play the guitar well enough to play Paul Simon songs, that’s it, it was a limited goal and I reached it, then I was like, “Well what do I do next?” That was the short-term goal. Something about folk just suits me, for while I am an energetic person and an outgoing person, I’m not a very loud person, so maybe that’s it.  

A: What instruments do you play?
DF: Other than guitar and violin, sometimes I sling a harmonica around my neck. I played the mandolin for a little while, but I had to sell it. I play a little viola because I picked it up to help a friend. Viola players are always in demand because it is a random, misfit instrument—you have to wonder how it was invented. I’ve always wanted to play the cello because I think it has this really deep expressive voice that you can’t get from anything else. I love percussive cello. There is a great blue grass band that played here a little while ago, maybe two years, and they have amazing rhythms that are almost entirely the bowing of the cello and I love that. I think the cello is the best string instrument for cello.  

A: Are you a music major?
DF: I’m a European history major, actually. 

A: Are you doing a thesis?
DF: I am. I’m writing a thesis about the French resistance against the Nazis in World War II, but I’m focusing on a particular individual who was the leader of a political organization prior to the war that has been widely considered to be a fascist organization. His name was François de La Rocque. I’m trying to challenge a prevailing narrative about this individual who is very well known in France, not so much here, who is widely considered the best runner up for a possible French fascist leader prior to World War II. I’m trying to examine his legacy in light of his service to the resistance against the Nazis because I think it reflects on the complexity of his character that he was not a Nazi sympathizer. He actually converted his political party into a resistance network.  

A: Why history?
DF: When I was younger I was at a pretty high reading level, like most people at this school probably were, and so I read a lot of novels. I made a seamless transition into reading history through biographies. I think it is the characters that draw me to history—I described my thesis and it’s about an individual, an individual who is controversial, who has some pathos, who has some personal interest, and who may or may not have been wronged by history.  

A: Who are your favorite historical individuals?
DF: I tend to like the ones that I wouldn’t like as people, who are complicated. I was always interested in Nicolas II of Russia, the last czar. I really like the lasts of royal lines, like the last Mughal emperor of India. He was a poet and he didn’t rule anything more than the walls of his own palace and was just a puppet but he became the center of this wild drama. Stories like that—sad stories, human stories—that are transferable. I love stories like that.  

In the midst of a Weswars scavenger hunt, the final event in the competition between class years, several participating students received text messages claiming the discovery of the Douglas Cannon at the foot of Foss Hill. Arya Alizadeh ’13 had been scavenging with his hall mates when he received word of the cannon’s discovery, the final task in the night’s game.

“The sophomores had found it,” said Alizadeh. “They were surrounding it in the bed of this red pick up. There were men and women in black hoods and those masks robbers wear, standing guard.”

Samantha Pop ’11 had also heard the rumors and rushed with her team of juniors to join the flock of curious students at the bottom of Foss. Both members of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA), Alizadeh and Pop encountered each other within the crowd and, noting a once in a lifetime chance, hatched a plan to seize the prized cannon for grade glory.

“People were milling around, taking pictures with the cannon, touching it, with these four adults in ski masks,” recounted Pop. “So, I looked at Arya, and you’re a Wesleyan student, when you’re in the presence of the Douglas Cannon, you have to try and steal it!”

Cutting an imposing figure, former high school wrestler Alizadeh leapt into the back of the pick-up truck, followed by Pop, and, hoping to follow in the long tradition of cannon theft, attempted to throw the masked guards off the famed cannon.

Plucked from the Douglas Armory in Middletown in the mid-1800s, the cannon had originally been part of the annual “cannon scraps” between freshmen and sophomores, a race to either set off or silence the cannon. After the yearly battles were banned in 1916, the cannon was mounted on College Row in 1931, where it remained for nearly thirty years. Yet its engraved epitaph, “The Douglas Cannon / Born in Obscurity / Reared in Strife / Tempered by Travel / Never Discouraged / Home at Last,” would prove woefully ironic and comically true. Disappearing on an early spring morning in 1959, the cannon was passed through University dorms, discovered in classrooms, and dropped out of windows before finding its way into the United Nations, where it was presented to the secretary of the Russian delegation, Nikoli Burov, as a gift of friendship between the University and the Soviets in 1961.

“Evidently the Russians had been completely taken in by the hoax,” Dean of Students Mark Barlow, tasked with retrieving the cannon, told The Argus in 1963.

Home at last for all of two years, the cannon disappeared again in 1965, turning up on the desk of then Life Magazine managing editor George P. Hunt in 1966, and at the gates of the White House as a gift to then President Richard Nixon in protest of the Vietnam War. The cannon disappeared and reappeared various times throughout the ’70s before surfacing again in 1981 at the University’s sesquicentennial (150 year) celebration. In the midst of cutting the celebratory cake, Nancy Campbell, wife of President Colin Campbell, heard a resounding clink, as the cannon baked inside the cake met her knife.

The cannon, which was thought to be in University administration hands for much of the nineties, returned to students in 1998 by four masked men, two of whom were rumored to be President Douglas Bennet and Vice President Peter Patton. Both, however, denied involvement. Once again in student hands, the cannon was documented playing slots in Las Vegas, cruising the streets of Kansas City, and parading through the former MoConaughy Dining Hall, with an entourage of Eclectic members. Many students saw the cannon’s first appearance on campus since President Roth’s inauguration as a momentous occurrence.

Pop and Alizadeh grappled with the hooded cannon-guards for several minutes before the truck began to drive off, with Alizadeh still planted in the back of the car.

“We wrestled for a good two minutes,” said Alizadeh, “These were big guys! They began to speed off and I was stuck in the cab.”

“He jumped out,” said Pop, with a chuckle, “My roommate and I jumped in our car and started having this speed-limit car chase. They had a white piece of paper over the license plate number—they were pretty in to it.”

The cars pulled out onto Vine Street, where Pop lost the truck for a moment, before finding the red pick-up laying low in the driveway of the Middletown Fire Department. Darting up Long Lane, Pop and her roommate continued their pursuit of the shadowy cannon-keepers.

“We chased them all over Middletown, down to Wadsworth,” Pop said, “We eventually turned into a Cul-de-Sac and we tried to block them in. They proceeded to swerve around me and another car came behind us, so we weren’t able to turn around fast enough. That’s where we lost them.”

Pop, a member of the Cardinal Council, a group of students who work with the University Relations Office to promote school spirit among students and alumni, has a theory as to the identity of the masked men and women.

“I’m pretty sure it was them at the Relations Office,” Pop said. “I saw one of the peopled I worked with there discreetly walk outside of the office while we were on the scavenger hunt, so I thought something was up. I was pretty sure he knew where it was, and if it was part of the scavenger hunt, someone had to of known about it.”

Despite Pop’s hypothesis, speculation is still rampant as to the cannon’s possessors. Posters on the ACB have conjectured that the cannon is located in the “top floor of Eclectic” and are “100% sure” that the brothers of Psi U are in fact in possession.

Others, still, are unsure of the authenticity and validity of the cannon that was found. Pictures of the cannon from that night, although shaky, show a slim, straight, golden cannon on a set of wooden stands; this stands in sharp contrast to old pictures in which the cannon is smoother and cold grey. Although the lighting is disorienting and the cannons depicted are similar, they are different enough to add further layers to the Douglas Cannon mystery.

The incident last Saturday night raised a host of questions: does the University really still have the cannon? Are those maniac drivers in ski masks from a week ago now sitting behind desks at the University Relations building? Are there two cannons? Which is the real one?

Argus: What was the evolution like from student to professor?

Professor Lisa Dombrowski: When I was a student, I had no intention of becoming a professor. No one in my family had pursued advanced degrees; no one in my family was in academia. It never occurred to me as an option. As I went on at Wesleyan, I began working as a writing tutor and eventually in my last year, I was hired as a Ford Fellow at the Writing Workshop. In the 5th year that I took as a Ford Fellow, I was also a TA in the Film Studies Department. Professor Jeanine Basinger and Anne Greene convinced me that perhaps graduate school and academia was something that I might be interested in. I didn’t quite believe them. I went and worked in New York for a number of years as a writer and an editor. During that period, I realized that I missed the interaction that came with the academic stetting. When I was writing and was done, my work went out into the world but I never got to see what people thought of it. I missed the immediate give and take that is a part of the intellectual experience within the world of the University and that is when I started to think more seriously about graduate school in Film History and Aesthetic. That was something that I wanted to pursue. I applied to graduate school in late 1990s and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When I was working on my dissertation, a position opened up at Wesleyan. Professor Basinger encouraged me to apply. I did. I started back at Wesleyan in January 2001, this time as a professor.

A: What was your time like at Wesleyan?

LD: Wesleyan appealed to me because it was a small campus but still one that stressed diversity both in terms of academic experiences that were offered and in terms of the student body. It also appealed to me that there were no required courses. I came to Wesleyan and it wasn’t what I necessarily expected. I had never been to New England before. I was coming from a very small Catholic girls’ school in northeast Ohio. I imagined Connecticut to be a bucolic, pastoral state and was really thrilled to discover how varied the state actually is. I was thrilled to see that it had a post-industrial history. At Wesleyan, I encountered types of students from backgrounds that I never would have before. I really got interested very quickly in Film, my first semester here. I also became involved in WESU. The two, the Film department and WESU, formed the basis of my existence at Wesleyan. This was true for all five years at Wesleyan. I started out with a tight knit group of friends, but by my fifth year when most of my friends had graduated I was meeting a wider range of people from all sides of campus. It was my best year at Wesleyan. It forced me to be more social, forced me to investigate parts of Wesleyan and Middletown that I had never paid attention to before. I got a lot out of that experience.

A: Why did you decide to attend Wesleyan?

LD: Wesleyan changed my life. It gave me the field that I ended up pursuing— Film Studies. Many of my current friends are Wesleyan alumns. Several of my post-collegiate boyfriends are from Wesleyan. Wesleyan impacted my personal life as well as my academic life. I’ve had regrets about things that I did and did not do at school, but I have never had regrets about going to Wesleyan.

A: I read that you came to Wesleyan with the notion that you would major in English and History. Why did you choose to become a Film Studies and American studies double major?

LD: My first semester at Wesleyan, I took a Film class that actually is no longer offered as the professor has since retired. There was no Film program offered in my high school. I realized that I did not know how to think analytically about movies. I felt at the time, even though this perception was incorrect, that I did know how to write an English and History paper but not a film paper. That challenge appealed to me. As I continued in Film, it opened up new ways of thinking about a field of art that I found really exciting and challenging. That is what drew me to Film. My father was not very excited about that choice. He did not think that it was very practical to major in Film. He encouraged me to double major, so I did in American Studies because it enabled me to continue my interest in History and English and organized a series of classes that focused on the twentieth century, which I thought was complementary with Film. As time went on, I was able to convince my dad that Film was worthwhile. I talked to him about the industry and the economics of film—he comes from manufacturing. I knew that if I talked to him about film as a manufactured product, then we would reach an agreement on that too.

A: What were some of your favorite courses at Wesleyan?

LD: I think one of the key Film courses for me was the first one I took with Professor Basinger, which was “Comedy.” It was important because it was the first upper level Film class that I took. I was a sophomore and most of the students in the course were juniors and seniors. I didn’t know them and I felt that I had to prove myself. The TA was a woman named Susan Glatzer. She is still very active in the alumni community and film industry. She was very encouraging of me. I worked in a small group for a presentation on the film The Apartment with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. When I got through that presentation with my peers and felt that I contributed to it, then I knew that I could hold my own. By my senior year, when I took “Hitchcock” with Professor Basinger, my group was composed of a few women. We studied Bunny Lake Is Missing, directed by Otto Preminger. We went to Olympia diner, it was the only diner open all night at the time, and hashed out the presentation together. Our presentation rocked and the three of us are still really good friends.
A: What are some of your memories as an undergraduate?

LD: It was a tumultuous time for Wesleyan. I was here during the years when the campus was very involved in anti-apartheid movement. I was here during the years of the Chace administration when the president’s office was firebombed, when there was racist graffiti that appeared in Malcolm X House. It was a real period of questioning regarding race relations on campus and relationships between the student body and the administration. There were a lot of positive things about my experience but it was also a difficult time.

By the end of my years at Wesleyan, the economy was in a recession—as it is today—there was less money on campus and fewer job opportunities off campus. When we were graduating a lot of my friends went into the service industry—they worked at coffee shops, bookstores, video stores. It was a period like today when students were leaving school with uncertainty regarding what they would find in the world outside. My generation was a little more pessimistic than today’s generation of students. We were not encouraged to think in professional terms earlier. There were fewer kids with internship experience but a lot of people had work experience, like scooping ice cream over the summer as opposed to being the assistant to a high power executive. We had less ambition. A lot of my friends took a good part of their 20’s to figure out their lives. We are very impressed with the kids coming out of school today who seem to have a much better sense of what opportunities might lie ahead in the fields that they are interested in.

A: How has your perspective changed from being a student to a professor?

LD: There certainly is a change in perspective because I am playing a different role on campus now. I am aware of different things. When I was a student, I was not aware of what went on between the administration and the faculty. I wasn’t aware of the economic issues that the University was suffering with at the time. I did not know that the Film Studies department was separating from the Art department, which had previously been its umbrella department. As a professor, there are bigger picture issues that I am more aware of now. The flip side is that I am not that in touch with the student experience today. I still get questions from alumni like “What is it like for students today?” and “What drugs are students doing these days?” A lot of these questions I can’t answer, students don’t tell me.

A: Who are some professors that you studied with that are still at Wesleyan, in addition to Professor Jeanine Basinger and Professor Anne Greene?

LD: Professor Richard Slotkin, who just retired was very key, particularly for my American studies classes. Professor Khachig Tölölyan made a big difference for me. Professor Joel Pfister let me in to an upper level American literature class, which nearly killed me during my first semester at Wesleyan. We read so many books and I’m a slow reader! The course gave me a foothold in American literature and in English that was really significant for me. In the History department Professor Ronald Schatz gave me a C on a paper, it was my first C ever, and I was shocked. I went back and reread the paper and I said “You know what, he was right. This is not very good.” I learned a lot from that C.

Georgios Malliaros  ’12, an international student from Greece, formed the Hellenic Society earlier this year. He had contemplated starting a Greek society last year but was unsure of how many people would be interested in joining. While as a freshman he was the only student from Greece at the University, this year another Greek international student arrived, and Malliaros felt more confident.

“This year one more Greek came, so I felt more secure,” Malliaros said.  “I felt that as a sophomore maybe now I could create [a Greek society]. So I started it by e-mailing five people, and then the thread just continued to grow.”

Now the thread has more than a hundred e-mails, as more and more students with Greek backgrounds found out about the proposed society.  After Malliaros saw that there was enough interest in the group, he filled out an application for a new student group, and the Hellenic Society was born.

There are about fifteen members in the group, and they usually hold informal meetings every Friday at Earth House.  Over authentic Greek food, members discuss their plans for promoting Greek culture.

Even though many of the members are only partly Greek, they still feel strongly connected to Greek culture.

“If you’re Greek, you’re going to have strong cultural ties—it overwhelms everything and you can’t ignore it,” said Eliana Theodorou ’12, a member of the Hellenic Society.

Next semester they are planning on running a student forum, taught by Malliaros, to teach students the Modern Greek language.  The only Greek classes available now are on ancient Greece, but the Hellenic Society hopes to change that.

“One of my main goals is to promote the academia of Greek culture,” said Malliaros.  “Greece is not just ancient Greece—Greece still exists as a country.  We want to focus more on Modern Greek history and language.”

They are also planning on holding seminars on Greek cooking, showing Greek movies, and inviting Greek professors to give lectures.

The Greek Easter, one of the most important celebrations for Greeks, will likely be their biggest event of the year. The goal of the event is twofold: not only to promote the holiday, but also to encourgae new students to join the Society. The event will include Church services and lots of homemade food, and promises to be a celebration that will make any Greek students stranded on campus during the holiday feel like they’re at home.

“The worst thing that can happen to a Greek person is not having enough food,” said Theodorou.  “I usually cook so that if we have ten unexpected guests show up, they’ll still be more than enough.”

Though the WesGreeks plan on throwing big celebrations, they don’t want to be confused with the fraternities on campus.

“We want to show that there’s something else between Aristotle and Psi U—not to say that Psi U isn’t great, but we’re great in a different way,” said Chris Kaltsas ’11, a member of the Hellenic Society.

The Society is open to any students interested in Greek culture, regardless of their backgrounds. Members say they hope to contribute to campus diversity.

“[Greek culture] is very consuming, and it’s kind of like a support group in a way—we’re all in this together, and we all love it,” said Kaltsas.

Stone described her foray into sports broadcasting as “serendipitous.”

As a student, Stone was very involved with theater productions on and off stage. However, she became frustrated with the instability of the theater world post-college—she worked on a show for two years that opened and closed in one night in New York.  While working as a sous-chef for a catering company to make ends meet, a friend contacted her to cater her wedding. The friend turned out to be a production coordinator for football coverage at NBC. She encouraged Stone to enter into sports broadcasting.

“My friend said, what would you do if the sky was the limit,” Stone said. “I said I would own a baseball team because I love baseball.  It’s ironic that I’m at the MLB network now, because that’s how I originally decided to go into sports.”

Upon her friend’s suggestion, Stone applied for a production coordinator job at NBC.  First, she had to pass a typing test, and practiced incessantly on the Smith-Corona typewriter she used to type her college papers.  She passed the test, and after a few months, was offered a full time job at NBC Sports.

While her first job at NBC as a production manager involved typing up videotape work orders and submitting crew requests, Stone has moved up the career ladder. She moved to CBS Sports, the NFL network, and then to the MLB network last year. Stone’s advice to current students interested in broadcasting is to take advantage of internships, which can provide a valuable foothold in the industry.

At MLB, Stone oversees all the non-creative aspects of broadcasting—the extensive logistics of broadcasting a major league baseball game, which includes setting up equipment on location and overseeing the sets, lighting, wardrobe and crew of studio shows. A challenge of broadcasting baseball games is filling airtime during pauses and reacting quickly when a game takes shorter or longer than expected, Stone says.

Stone was on the field broadcasting the World Series this past year. Conveniently it was between New York and Philadelphia, an easy commute from MLB network’s headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey. Apparently, the World Series can be frantic behind the scenes.

“The World Series is crazy,” Stone said.  “On the field you have all the various networks (YES, ESPN, local stations), you have your own dedicated position plus all of your equipment. We had a pretty simple setup, but it still took hours to get ready, and then we had to strike it off the field in 5 minutes before Fox came on the air. It took us 12 minutes to reset for the postgame show.”

With over 20 years in sports broadcasting, Stone has seen the industry change significantly. When she started in 1987, there were no computers or voicemail—not even Fedex. These days, the industry has been digitized and is now conducted on fiber optic cables. Stone noted that because the business has been simplified with technological changes, it is actually more difficult to break into the business because lower level, menial tasks can now be done by computers.

While Stone enjoys the excitement of being on the front lines of sports, being on the business side can change your perspective.

“In a way, it makes you a little less of a fan,” Stone said.  “You think of it from a company perspective. When I was at CBS and I would be covering a Pittsburgh-Jets game, maybe I would want Pittsburgh to win, because that would be the big game match up for us next week. So you sort of lose a little bit of your ability to be a fan…When I was at NFL, I was at Phoenix when the Giants won against the Patriots—I was totally a fan for that. I am still a Giants fan, and I was always a Mets fan. But I guess I’m more of a generic baseball fan now, since it behooves us to have all of the teams succeed.”

Stone was a spectator of small-time sports as a student.

“My fondest memories are sitting on Foss Hill and in front of the library during football games, and going to spring fling,” she said.

Stone also enjoyed the vibrant arts scene and academic atmosphere.

“I loved the intellectual stimulation of Wesleyan,” Stone said.  “I loved the creativity, the passion that people had for their political beliefs or what they were studying.  It was a great place to be for ideas, and to think about your place in the world, to get a good grounding in social justice, and really get a chance to get exposed to different viewpoints.”

One of Stone’s favorite college memories was simply the free time she had to ponder these philosophical ideas.

“All these ideas I never think about now,” Stone said. “With my family and my job, I don’t have the luxury to sit and think about these things. It was so wonderful and stimulating and exhilarating.”

The earliest historical record of beer making and hop-growing in the Czech Republic dates back to the 11th century at monasteries in East Bohemia. Though this beer would most likely be considered undrinkable by today’s standards, the centuries-old experimentation with brewing has clearly made extensive progress. In 1842, a single municipal brewery was founded just outside of Prague in a town named Pilsen, and a single, now-world-famous lager was conceived. The baby’s name was Pilsner Urquell, and it is now one of the best and most imitated beers in the world.

Most Czech beers are bottom-fermented lagers, locally brewed using Moravian malt and hand picked hops. The beer is fermented using strictly natural ingredients: water, hops, yeast, and barley. It is brewed in the traditional, simple way, and breweries proudly use no chemicals in the process. There are two main families of Czech beer: svetly (light) and cerné (dark). Svetly is a pale amber or golden-hued lager-style beer with a crisp, hoppy flavor (like Staropramen or Pilsner Urquell), while the dark beers are sweeter, richer, and fuller-bodied (Kozel, Gambrinus, etc.). Beers are served at what the Czechs call "cellar temperature,” which might be a bit warmer than what Americans are used to, but the temperature is most conducive to enhancing the flavors of the beer. Regardless of what brew you order in Prague, it will come out in a giant half or one-liter mug with a signature tall, creamy head, and it will be no more than three U.S. dollars. For this reason, most visitors to Prague pick up the word "pivo" right away.

Walking down any street in Prague, a love of beer emanates from bar after bar. Pilsner Urquell, Budvar, Gambrinus, and Staropramen signs adorn the sides of buildings, and tourists stagger past with glazed-over expressions of glee after partaking in this cultural phenomenon. It is not unheard of to spot a Czech with a small bottle of beer in hand at 8 am on their way to work; Per capita, Czechs drinks more beer than anyone else in the world. With an impressive figure of 157 liters of beer per head per year, the Czechs leave both Germany and Australia in the dust when it comes to the art of drinking. Though these statistics seem impressive, they do little to fully represent the importance of beer drinking as perhaps the dominant social practice in Prague. In recent years, there has been a tremendous amount of new interest in the traditional brewing process in the Czech Republic and closer attention is paid to the values and quality of breweries, resulting in sprinklings of unique microbreweries across the country.

The microbreweries in Prague are some of the best in the country. Take for example the famous microbrewery Pivovarsky Dum, where a sour cherry beer is served. The seemingly antagonistic flavors of fresh cherry and hops balance out in this particular brew and create a sweet, sour, and refreshingly smooth blend. The brew is served with a fresh cherry and will alter any pre-conceived notions you may have had about how beer should taste. At another restaurant, Kolkovna, the most famous brew is a mixed svetly and cerné beer, which combines the best of both worlds into one full-bodied yet crisp beer. These interesting concoctions are the product of years of experimentation in the brewing process, and a love for the art itself.

Beer in Prague is a work of craftsmanship and creativity, and this attention to quality is what makes this cultural practice so powerful. To Czechs, beer is ziva voda or "life-giving water,” and beer drinking is treated more as a philosophy than a pastime.

After ten days with no sign of my package in sight, I began to get a little worried. After fifteen, and with Pedro Jose’s birthday rapidly approaching, I began to really worry. Finally, on his birthday morning, I gave up waiting hopefully and took the situation into my own hands -- in the Ecuadorian way. We tried calling Correos del Ecuador, the national post office, but because of multiple two-hour lunch breaks, our calls went unanswered. Sole then called her friend whose brother works in the post office. Calling friends to get their friend to help is the number one way to resolve anything in Ecuador. After the obligatory chat, the friend gave Sole her brother’s phone number. We called the friend and he gave us the name of the person in the office who could find the package.

Although everyone knows that, “waiting is the hardest part,” I quickly learned that waiting was a blissful period of anticipation, and actually getting the package was like trying to recover the contents of the Titanic. Sole drew me a map that explained how to find the post office. It was basically four squares with lines in between them forming a cross. Unaware of the ineffectiveness of the map, I cheerfully hopped on the bus to head towards the post office. The bus is where the trouble began. I had mistakenly timed my journey close to lunch hour, when hoards of people return home to eat with their families. The buses generally exceed their maximum capacity by about 200 people and several animals during this time.

When I finally got away from the sweating, pushing, grabbing, and occasional groping, I was still enthused about the pending mission. As I walked past my first landmark, the giant white QuiCentro mall, I confidently turned right as my map had indicated. After crossing the third block, when I should have found my street at the first intersection, I became wary. Based on the of advice several clerks, one child, one guard, and one drunkard, I turned around and walked far beyond the boundaries of my map, and turned right on the designated street. However, instead of encountering a bustling post office, or even a desolate office filled of angry paper pushers, I encountered a deserted back street. With the voice of my director warning me of secuestar express always present in my mind, I quickly found the nearest guard to point me in the right direction.

He led me away from the deserted street and began the usual “wow, why are you here/what do you think of Ecuador?” question session. I told him that I thought Ecuador was beautiful and I am extremely happy here. As his paces became more diagonal and his arm brushed against mine, he responded to my statement with “como tú,” which means “like you.” However, I was confused and said, “yes, Ecuador is pretty” about three times until I realized he said Ecuador was beautiful like me. At this point, I thanked him for his directions and darted across the five lanes of maniac traffic. On the other side, I breathed a sigh of relief (and of exertion; running across the street in Quito is my cardio) when I saw the parking lot in front of me bordered the elusive post office.

I suddenly realized that the office was only accessible from the street, and I was caged inside the lot. After circumnavigating the giant parking lot, I finally arrived at the post office, 45 minutes after getting off the bus.

Instead of thoughts of joy, butterflies, and rainbows, and extreme relief, I was met with darkness. The prolonged summer and lack of winter rain has taken a serious toll on the energy reserves of the country, and we had abruptly entered phases of darkness to conserve what little electricity is left. Requesting the name given by my host mom’s friend’s brother, I was told that she was here but could not help me find my package since there was no electricity. Faced with going postal, crying, or laughing, I sat down on the plastic chair and laughed. After all this, still no package.

An hour later, the lights flickered back on and the small manila envelop with my name on it emerged from the depths of postal hell. A dollar later, it was all mine. In the cab, munching on the Reese’s Cup I found in the package, I looked at the crumpled map, which had the post office on the wrong side of the street about seven blocks too early, and thought about how much I love being in Ecuador, packages or no packages.