FACULTY AUTHORS
Revisiting Darwin
Professors Sue Parker and Karen Enstam Jaffee have co-authored a new book called Darwin’s Legacy: Scenarios in Human Evolution. In this joint effort, Parker and Jaffe describe and analyze ideas about human evolution that have been developed and debated since Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex in 1871.
The authors recount how evolutionary scientists have explained such distinctly human characteristics as bipedalism, language, male and female secondary sexual characteristics, and culture. They evaluate these evolutionary ideas in light of recent research on hominin fossils and primate behavior.
Richard Milner, author of The Encyclopedia of Evolution, says "Sue Taylor Parker and Karin Enstam Jaffe have given us a lively and 'no-longer-missing links' that have been discovered since Darwin's day. A contentious dialogue of competing views on the origins of language, bipedalism, sociality, cognition, and culture, Darwin's Legacy provides a much-needed overview of what we think we know about how we got here."
Parker is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Jaffee is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Linguistics. She is also Director of SSUPER, the University's Primate Research program.
PROFESSIONAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
Cora Neal, Mathematics, recently received the Dex Whittinghill Outstanding Contributed Paper Award for Statistics Education. Neal gave her award-winning talk on "Using Humming to Teach Experimental Design in Elementary Statistics" at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego earlier this year. Neal shares the award with Rodney X. Sturdivant, professor from the United State Military Academy, who presented on "Antrax, Killer Bees and Murder to Motivate Statistics." Neal and Sturdivant will receive $100 and a plaque during the ceremony at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Washington D.C., January 2009. Above, Neal works with one of her high school interns this summer. (Photo by Gina Voight)
Biology Professor J. Hall Cushman's research on the spread of Sudden Oak Death by human activity is featured in the July issue of of the Journal of Ecology. Cushman's findings suggest that humans distribute the pathogen into already infected areas and also into areas lacking the disease. He believes that these results indicate a conflict between humans and the disease, and that efforts to address this problem may require aggressive management of human activity. For more information on Cushman's study, see the July 2008 issue of the Journal of Ecology, an Official Journal of the British Ecological Society, online at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118509661/home.
Brian Wilson, Music Department chair, spent his tenth summer on the Greek island of Spetses where he co-directed the University of Detroit Classic Theatre Company in an original adaptation of The Knights, a political comedy by Aristophanes. Working with theatre professionals and students from around the United States, including SSU music major, Fionna Lane, Wilson led three weeks of vocal warm-ups, coachings and rehearsals that culminated in two productions.
Wilson wrote 15 original songs in the musical comedy style, set to lyrics by Arthur Beer, UD Theatre Department Chair. Beer adapted the play for today's politically savvy audience, renaming it Democracy and setting the action in present-day, election-year America. The world premiere took place in Spetses on July 4 with a repeat performance in Athens