Enticing holiday programs from the Center for Community Service

The Alternative Gifts Market provides consumers with the opportunity to purchase a non-traditional holiday gift. Shoppers can dedicate their gifts/donations to friends and family, while also helping people around the world. Gifts available this year include: “One micro loan share to a woman in Malawi,” “One clinic visit for a refugee in Darfur, Sudan,” and “One share for family food assistance in Walla Walla.” You can check out the center’s Web site for information about this year’s gifts or stop by the Alternative Gifts Market from noon to 1 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Foyer, Monday, Nov. 26, through Friday, Nov. 30; or from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 3, through Friday, Dec. 7, in the Reid Campus Center Foyer and Jewett Hall.

The center’s Adopt-a-Family program allows Whitman staff, faculty and students to make the holidays happier for local families with limited resources. The adoption process begins at two nonprofit agencies: Blue Mountain Heart to Heart and Salvation Army. All families who qualify for the program are screened through one of these agencies and live at or below the poverty level. For information on how to adopt a family, visit the Adopt-A-Family page. This program begins Monday, Nov. 26, and the final day to drop off gifts and food is Friday, Dec. 14, at noon.

Questions about either program? Contact Lina Menard ’06, Center for Community Service coordinator, x5765, menardla@whitman.edu, Reid 223.

Faculty Accomplishments

Bruce Magnusson, associate professor of politics, was one of two featured speakers in a public discussion earlier this month on “Genocide in the Human Heart: From the Holocaust to Darfur” at Walla Walla Public Library. Magnusson joined Stanley Yedwab, visiting rabbi of Walla Walla’s Congregation Beth Israel, for the session, which drew a large crowd to the library. Magnusson put the grave situation in Darfur in geographical and political perspective, noting the economic issues in play in the region for world powers China and the United States. Whether or not the mass killings in Darfur are officially recognized as genocide, they are unconscionable crimes against humanity on a large scale, he said. “How do we recognize a genocide before it happens?” he asked. Yedwab talked about the genocide of the Holocaust and made a plea for brotherhood among all people. “As strangers in the beginning, we must look after strangers in our lives.” The discussion was moderated by Noah Leavitt, former lecturer of general studies.

Kari Norgaard, assistant professor of sociology and environmental studies, recently published a BBC “Viewpoint” on the topic of “Understanding the climate ostrich.” Norgaard used information gathered in the year she spent conducting interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in a rural Norwegian community, where she confronted the paradox of climate change that was plainly visible to the naked eye but ignored in conversation. “How could the possibility of climate change be both deeply disturbing and almost completely invisible-simultaneously unimaginable and common knowledge?” she asked. In her opinion piece she described several modes of human thought that made this paradox plausible for people: self protection, a fear of confronting global warming’s security risk; and cultural narratives that allow us to deflect disturbing information.

Finally, she concluded that “Until recently, the dominant explanation within my field of environmental sociology for why people failed to confront climate change was that they were too poorly informed.” And yet, “the fact that nobody wants information about climate change to be true is a critical piece of the puzzle that also happens to fit perfectly with the agenda of those who have tried to generate climate skepticism.”

New bus service

Professor Bob Carson reports that as part of a Washington Department of Transportation effort, there is a new bus service between Walla Walla and Pasco, with stops at Touchet, Wallula and Burbank. According to a report in the Tri-City Herald, a one-way ticket is $6.50, and the trip will take a little less than two hours. For further information and such details as schedule, visit www.grapeline.us.

Free Walla Walla Symphony tickets available

The president’s office is spreading good cheer this holiday season with gifts of Walla Walla Symphony tickets for the Dec. 16 concert. The tickets, no more than two per person, will be given on a first-come, first-served basis by emailing requests to parishlj@whitman.edu.

Faculty Profile: Bill Bogard
Deburgh Professor of Social Sciences and Division I Chair

Department: Sociology
Birthplace: Fort Collins, Colorado
Education: Ph.D., sociology, Colorado State University
Years at Whitman: 21
Courses: Social Theory, Body and Society, Sociology of Everyday Life, Technology and Society
Favorite book/film/music/play/art/etc.: Books – “A Thousand Plateaus” by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari; “A Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Marquéz. Film – “Cache,” for its portrayal of the culture of fear. Music – jazz and blues. Art – I like the dadaists for how they pushed art outside its idea of itself.
Favorite sculpture on campus: I like them all. Each piece adds to the way we see and use the spaces on campus.
Best travel experience: Not the best, but the most instructive and sobering – a trip to India in the 1980s to study the aftermath of the Bhopal chemical disaster.
Interests/pleasures: Playing jazz on my guitar with my son (an incredible jazz drummer), backpacking and hiking, bicycling, talking theory
Recent accomplishment: I just published a paper on haptic control at CTheory.net, one of my favorite online journals.
What people don’t know about me: I used to play in the “Sesame Street” band
Why I teach: Teaching is a way of learning. Students bring me back to the real world.
Favorite aspect of Whitman: Its people; its blend of seriousness and quirkiness. The feeling that this is a community.
What I’ve learned here: Just about everything I can remember since I got here!
Quote: "I don't feel it is necessary to know exactly what I mean." (Michel Foucault)

Comings and Goings

Whitman extends a warm welcome to Aubrey Stone, printing services assistant at Boyer House, and Sarah Abdurrahman, communications officer/photographer.the college bids farewell to Danielle Swan-Froese, housing coordinator

Coming Events
All events are free unless otherwise noted

Monday, Nov. 26 – Sunday, Nov. 29
Memorial and display: A traveling Iraq War Flag Memorial, consisting of 120,000 red and white flags that visually represent Iraqi and U.S. lives lost during the Iraq War, will be displayed on Ankeny Field and surrounding areas.

Tuesday, Nov. 27
Discussion: Professor Julia Davis will lead a discussion on Martin Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism” at 7:30 p.m. in the Olin Hall Faculty Lounge.

Tuesday, Nov. 27
Lecture: Author, playwright and Emmy Award-winner Stephen Most will give a talk in Olin 130 at 8 p.m. Hosted by the Environmental Studies Department and the Outdoor Program.

Wednesday, Nov. 28
Lecture: “‘Wards of the State?’ Women, Citizenship and Nation-State Politics in South Asia” will be presented by Carmen Wickramagamage, O’Donnell Visiting Professor of Gender Studies and Asian Studies, who is on sabbatical from her position as senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Theatre, Hunter Conservatory.

Wednesday, Nov. 28
Lecture: Kip Fulbeck, professor of Asian American and film studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the creator of “The Hapa Project,” will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Ballroom on “Part Asian, 100 percent HAPA: Multiculturalism in America.”

Wednesday, Nov. 28
Art show: the blue moon will host its second “BIG ART” show at Verve Coffee and Art House, corner of Spokane and Alder, at 8 p.m.

Thursday, Nov. 29
Reading: Visiting Writers Reading Series presents Tod Marshall at 7 p.m., Kimball Theatre, Hunter Conservatory.

Thursday, Nov. 29
Candle light vigil, panel and speaker: In conjunction with the Iraq War Flag Memorial, there will be a candle light vigil on Ankeny Field at 7 p.m.; a student-led panel discussion at 7:15 p.m. in Maxey Auditorium; and a talk by Gulf War veteran Larry Whittle, of Walla Walla, at 7:30 p.m., also in Maxey.

Thursday, Nov. 29
Lecture: The Edward F. Arnold Visiting Professor of Psychology Lecture: “Is ‘Simon Says’ So Simple? Imitation as a foundation for human culture and technology” by Emily Bushnell at 7 p.m. in Olin 130.

Friday, Nov. 30
Concert: Whitman Music Department presents “Concerto Aria Competition.” 7:30 p.m., Chism Recital Hall, Hall of Music.

Saturday, Dec. 1
Concert: Whitman Music Departments presents Whitman Chorale and Chamber Singers Fall Concert conducted by Robert Bode. 7:30 p.m., Chism Recital Hall, Hall of Music.

Saturday, Dec. 1
Gallery opening reception: Winter Art Student Salon, a faculty-juried exhibition of selected student works from Fall 2007 classes, opens with a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Sheehan Art Gallery. Show runs through Dec. 14.

Sunday, Dec. 2
Concert: Whitman Music Department presents the String Quartet Recital “Con Fuoco,” a recital of chamber music. 3 p.m., Kimball Theatre, Hunter Conservatory.

Sunday, Dec. 2
Concert: Whitman Music Department presents “Feast of Carols,” conducted by Robert Bode. 7 p.m., Cordiner Hall.

Monday, Dec. 3
Concert: Whitman’s Music Department presents the Cello Choir Fall Concert, conducted by Edward Dixon. 7:30 p.m., Chism Recital Hall, Hall of Music

The Fountain is published by the Office of Communications. Send news to Editor Lenel Parish at thefountain@whitman.edu. Photos are accepted. Submissions are due by Tuesday at 5 p.m. for the following week's issue. Editorial Assistant: Marcy Manker ’10. Managing editor: Lana Brown. Director of Communications: Ruth Wardwell. Online: www.whitman.edu/fountain