UIndy News

Moore

Assistant Professor Christopher Moore and a former student-turned-colleague are organizing a substantial archaeological project in southern Indiana’s Floyd County.

Dr. Moore and UIndy research associate Rebecca Van Sessen are applying for a $50,000 state grant to conduct a countywide survey that will identify sites of interest, from the earliest prehistoric settlements along the Ohio River to 20th century houses and buildings. The goal is to create an official record of potential archaeological resources before they are lost to construction projects or the passage of time.

Van Sessen, who grew up in Floyd County, earned her master’s degree in Anthropology from UIndy in 2013. Moore, who teaches in the departments of Anthropology and Physics & Earth-Space Sciences, also is a Greyhound alum, having earned his bachelor’s degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from UIndy in 2004.

To support their application for funding from the state’s Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Moore and Van Sessen are gathering letters of support from local residents and permission slips from Floyd County landowners who are willing to allow surveys of their property. If the funding is obtained, they will lead a student team in conducting the survey during Summer 2015.

A columnist for the News and Tribune newspaper has written about the project here. To learn more about the scientists and their plans, visit the project website at floydcountyarchaeology.com.

How long does it take a backhoe to eat a house?

Just a few hours, apparently, and the entire process is squeezed into a minute in this time-lapse video created by UIndy’s Department of Communications & Marketing.

The house near Hanna and State avenues had been home to the UIndy Police Department but was demolished earlier this month to make way for the new Health Pavilion, opening in Fall 2015. The campus police are working from Schwitzer Student Center Room 208 until August, when they can move into their new digs in the former Music Annex building on Shelby Street.

A brave teen with strong UIndy ties will stop by campus Saturday on a 700-mile bicycle journey to raise awareness and funding for the Arthritis National Research Foundation.

Charissa and Bethany Catlin

Bethany Catlin, a 17-year-old from Franklin who lives with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, is marking Juvenile Arthritis Month with a unique college tour: a week-long bike excursion with her father, Dan, from Franklin to Minneapolis, MN, stopping at several campuses along the way. The trip will raise money and awareness for ANRF’s grants to top research scientists, and Bethany also hopes “to encourage other people not to be limited by disease or adversity,” Dan says.

They’ll leave from Franklin College on Saturday morning and by noon should hit UIndy, where the family has many associations. The closest involves Bethany’s sister, Charissa, who will enter the university this fall as a Music Education major.

But the list goes on: Bethany’s great aunt Cheryl Catlin Larson ’66 ’71 is an alumna and longtime School of Nursing faculty member, now retired. Four great-grandparents and aunt Rebecca Catlin ’98 ’00, a physical therapist, also are graduates. Great-grandfather W. Vern Longenbaugh ’28 and great-great-grandfather Arthur Bertram Catlin served as university trustees.

Follow Bethany’s journey at www.bethanywhere.com and learn more about the cause at facebook.com/CureArthritis.

Frantz

Associate Professor of History Edward Frantz — who also directs UIndy’s Institute for Civic Leadership & Mayoral Archives — was interviewed for two recent stories in the Indianapolis Star.

One piece explored the historical, political and cultural issues surrounding an effort to restore a monument honoring Confederate soldiers in Garfield Park. The other looked at the implications of Joe Hogsett’s resignation as U.S. attorney, perhaps to run for mayor of Indianapolis.

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Woodwell

Associate Professor of International Relations Douglas Woodwell was a key source for a recent WISH-TV report on the political implications of the Malaysian Airlines crash in a disputed region of Ukraine. “Native Ukrainians coming out of their apartments and farms are not going to have the kind of weaponry that is required for this,” Dr. Woodwell said. Watch or read the report here.

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Miller

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Miller brought an academic perspective to an Indy Star story about young women who are planning their weddings, often employing social media, even before having a particular fiancé lined up. ”Dreaming is a response to not actually being able to attain the actual wedding,” Dr. Miller says. That piece, which has since appeared in other papers, is available here.

On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232 lost an engine and all hydraulic controls on its way from Denver to Chicago, tumbling into the Sioux City, Iowa, airport in a fiery crash landing that was captured on video. Though 112 passengers died, 184 miraculously survived, due largely to the heroic efforts of the crew and rescue workers on the scene.

Clapper

Tending to those workers and the wounded that day was a United Methodist minister and National Guard chaplain who just happened to be driving by with his family when he saw smoke and went to investigate. Gregory Clapper is now a professor of Philosophy and Religion at UIndy.

“Some of the bodies were still strapped in their seats, and some had been thrown clear,” he recalls. “I approached some of the wounded passengers who were lying on the ground and talked to them briefly. I asked if anyone was still trapped in the wreckage, and they pointed toward the cockpit. I ran up to the cockpit and talked to some of the crew members while they were still trapped.”

Clapper later wrote a book about the experience, When the World Breaks Your Heart: Spiritual Ways of Living with Tragedy, and made a cameo appearance as himself in an ABC-TV movie starring Charlton Heston.

This year, the survivors, the Sioux City community and the loved ones left behind will mark the 25^th anniversary of the incident with a series of events. Clapper will emcee the official anniversary memorial service July 19 in Sioux City and will preach at three worship services the following day.

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Brown

UIndy junior Ashtyn Brown is featured in an Indianapolis Star story about her role with the LPGA Legends Tour.

A Communication major from Richmond who golfs for the Greyhounds, Brown is working with former pro golfer Rosie Jones to promote the Legends Championship next month in French Lick. The event raises awareness for the Riley Children’s Foundation, a cause near to Brown’s heart ever since a childhood leukemia diagnosis sent her to Riley Hospital.

“It’s kind of the perfect combination,” the now-healthy Brown told the Star. “It’s golf and it’s Riley and I would do anything for Riley to try and figure out how to pay them back.”

Read the full story here.

Curator Mark Ruschman and his colleagues in UIndy’s Department of Art & Design have put together another strong season of exhibitions and events for the coming year at the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center Gallery.

The gallery is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, and admission is always free. It makes a great stop before and after performance events in the adjacent Ruth Lilly Performance Hall. Aside from teaching at UIndy, Ruschman is a noted art dealer and chief fine arts curator for the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites. For more information, call (317) 788-3253 or visit www.uindy.edu/arts/art

The 2014-2015 season includes:

The Department of Yes: 10 Years of Big Car Collaborative in Indianapolis
Aug. 25 through Sept. 26
Reception: 4-8 p.m. Sept. 8

This retrospective show highlights a decade of work by the Indianapolis-based arts and community-building collective Big Car, as its affiliated artists have experimented with collaborative projects, programs and exhibitions ranging from surreal performances to family-friendly social engagement. Visitors will experience an interactive, multimedia timeline of past work and also can take part in new work being made in the gallery space. During the Sept. 8 reception, attendees can enjoy a live showcase in the adjacent Ruth Lilly Performance Hall, featuring an eclectic lineup of performers who have entertained audiences in partnership with Big Car over the past 10 years.

Ed Funk: Printmaker, Painter
Oct. 6-31
Reception: 4-6 p.m. Oct. 6

Ed Funk was a printmaker and painter active in the Indianapolis art scene from the 1980s until his death in 2013. From lithography to woodcuts, he experimented with new approaches to printmaking while pushing the abstraction of form. The Navy veteran also was known to many in Indianapolis and across the country as the owner of Dolphin Papers art supply company, and he was an invaluable resource to students and artists from all walks of life.

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UIndy Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellow David Johnson teaches math at Lynhurst 7th & 8th Grade Center on Indianapolis’ west side.

As UIndy’s Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship program begins its sixth year of preparing math and science teachers for underserved Indiana schools, its numbers tell a tale of success.

The program is aimed at recent graduates and career-changers from STEM-related fields. The fellows undergo an intensive one-year master’s degree program that, from the very beginning, places them in local schools for observation and supervised student teaching. The UIndy fellows undergo rigorous coursework – developed collaboratively by the School of Education and the College of Arts & Sciences – and emerge with a three-year commitment to teach math or science in a high-need urban or rural school.

Sachs

Of the 51 fellows who completed the program in its first four years, all found teaching jobs upon graduation, and 45 of them taught in local schools this past year, says UIndy program director Deborah Sachs. Almost half of them work at schools that partner in the program by hosting student teachers or site visits. Of the seven graduates from the most recent fifth cohort, six already are employed for the fall.

“Our fellows are highly sought after by administrators, who say they are not typical first-year teachers,” Sachs says.

Read more »

Willey

The first season is more than a year away, but the UIndy men’s and women’s lacrosse program leads a story in this week’s Indianapolis Business Journal. Sports business reporter Anthony Schoettle talks with Sue Willey, our VP for Intercollegiate Athletics, about why adding the sport is a strategic move for Midwestern universities. Subscribers can read the story here.

Leading lacrosse website laxpower.com also picked up the news about the coaching team hired to launch the sport at UIndy. Learn more about coaches Greg Stocks and Jillian Howley at the Athletics website.

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Rob and Wilmara Manuel

UIndy’s first couple, Rob and Wilmara Manuel, are featured in a NUVO Newsweekly story about last week’s naturalization ceremony in Indianapolis, where 101 local residents became U.S. citizens just in time for the Fourth of July. The Manuels were guest speakers for the event.

See NUVO’s story and photo gallery here. More photos are on President Manuel’s Facebook page.

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Latham

The UIndy forensics team led by Dr. Krista Latham continues to gain attention for its humanitarian work in southern Texas, where the group seeks to identify the remains of migrants who have died while pursuing new lives in the United States.

Foreign Affairs magazine covers the project in a piece headlined “Northbound: What happens after crossing the border,” which can be read here (free registration required). The story also is available at the website of writer Ananda Rose, who is exploring the technical aspects of the work for a separate upcoming piece in Scientific American magazine.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times — following up on a story that spread worldwide last month — just published another piece on the project, this time focusing on the science involved. The online version is available only to subscribers, but the text is below.

Schmidt

Professor Christopher Schmidt of UIndy’s Department of Anthropology is celebrated in an Indianapolis Star column headlined “5 overlooked yet influential Hoosiers.”

Schmidt, director of the department’s Indiana Prehistory Laboratory, is cited for accomplishments including a student archeological dig that uncovered a 10,000-year-old bone tool, the oldest ever documented in Indiana. He’s one of just two contemporary figures on the list, which also includes 1830s Indian leader Chief Menominee and Underground Railroad supporters Levi and Catharine Coffin.

The Star piece was penned by award-winning journalist, author and historian Nelson Price, host of the Hoosier History Live! radio show. He has featured Schmidt twice on the program, which airs at noon Saturdays on UIndy’s WICR-FM/HD.

Though it’s not clear that an internationally known scientist can be considered “overlooked” (Price himself uses the term “under-known”), we agree Dr. Schmidt is influential and deserves any attention he gets. Not one to rest on his laurels, he and his students have kept busy recently with projects including a May trip to Italy to study victims of the A.D. 79 eruption of Vesuvius, as well as a study of teeth from burials at Britain’s Canterbury Cathedral to learn about the diet and social roles of medieval children.

Read Price’s Star story here.