Boston University Arts & Sciences

Three members of the BU faculty have been awarded prestigious Sloan Research Fellowships. The professors are Corey Stephenson, Chemistry; Xue Han, Neuroscience; and Pankaj Mehta, Physics. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars in recognition of achievement and the potential to contribute substantially to their fields.

A team of research biologists headed by Thomas H. Kunz, professor of biology and director of the Center of Ecology & Conservation Biology at Boston University, recently conducted a symposium on the emerging scientific discipline of aeroecology at this year’s American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting. Aeroecology is a new discipline whose unifying concept is a focus on the aerosphere and the myriad organisms that inhabit and depend on this aerial environment for their existence. The symposium was held on February 19 in the Washington Convention Center.

Boston University has been awarded a grant from the Korea Foundation to support the establishment of a new professorship in Korean and Comparative Literature. The position will be a tenure-track assistant professorship in the Department of Modern Languages & Comparative Literature, and a search is currently under way for a scholar and teacher to begin at Boston University in Fall 2011. Currently, MLCL offers four years of Korean language and a course in Korean cinema. The new position will build on this curriculum to offer courses in Korean literature and comparative literary studies that will serve our concentrations in East Asian Studies and in Comparative Literature as well as opening the door for a concentration in Korean language and literature. For further information, please contact Sarah Frederick, Acting Chair MLCL, sfred@bu.edu.

Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards

You are invited to nominate alumni for the Boston University College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards. These awards are the highest honor the College and Graduate School bestows upon alumni, recognizing alumni whose accomplishments in their professions, communities, and University service reflect the strength and excellence of the Boston University liberal arts education. The nomination form can be accessed online here, and the nomination deadline is March 18, 2011. For your reference, a list of past honorees is available here.

We welcome you to nominate worthy candidates who have distinguished themselves in one or more of the following categories:

Service to Community: To honor alumni who, whether through volunteer service or paid work, have made exceptional contributions to the betterment of their communities or to the circumstances of a group of people

Service to Alma Mater: To honor alumni who have enhanced the stature of the College or Graduate School of Arts & Sciences through their voluntary association with the University

Service to Profession: To honor alumni whose work has brought them recognition within their professions or fields of endeavor or whose work has significantly contributed to the advancement of their professions

MARCH 1
An Evening with Renowned UK Political Scientist Richard Rose
5pm, 232 BSR, 312B

The distinguished, productive, wide ranging and intellectually provocative political scientist Richard Rose will give a talk on referenda. Professor Andrew Reeves will add some thoughts on American experience. Professor Rose is a member of the British Academy and a recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom.

MARCH 2–9
Corinne Jaber Residency at BU
Lectures:
“Sisters and the Status of Women in Afghanistan”
March 2, 4 p.m., 565 Comm. Ave., Room 107
“Love’s Labour’s Lost in Afghanistan”
March 3, 6 p.m., 725 Comm. Ave., Room 200
“Negotiating the Arts in Afghanistan”
March 8, 4 p.m., GSU Terrace Lounge

Corinne Jaber directed an extraordinary production of Shakespeare’s early comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost, in Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006. Her production was the first Shakespeare play performed in Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the later rise of the Taliban. Jaber also directed Sisters, by Fabrice Melquiot, in Kabul and Paris in 2008.

MARCH 7
Framing Migration as Competitiveness: European Employers and the Renaissance of Labour Migration. Dr. Georg Menz
5pm, 232 BSR, 312B

Dr Georg Menz will be talking on "Framing Migration as Competitiveness: European Employers and the Renaissance of Labour Migration." Our own Professor Sofia Perez will respond to his remarks.

A Reader in Political Economy in the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths College, University of London, Georg Menz was educated at James Madison College at Michigan State University and the University of Pittsburgh. Previously, he held Fulbright, Chateaubriand, DAAD and Jean Monnet Fellowships. His publications include Varieties of Capitalism and Europeanization: National Response Strategies to the Single European Market (OUP 2005), which has been awarded the 2006 Best Book Award by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, and The Political Economy of Managed Migration (OUP 2008). In 2005, Dr. Menz co-edited Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Decline of National Models of Capitalism and in 2010 Labour Migration in Europe (Palgrave).

MARCH 8
“Notes on Mozambican Theater”
A lecture by Dr. Luis Madureira, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Presented by the African Studies Center
12 p.m., African Studies Center, Room 505
232 Bay State Road

MARCH 21
"Skid Row: Poverty and Place"
Part of AMNESP's House and Home in American Culture Series
Presenter: Ella Howard (AMNESP'07), Assistant Professor of History, Armstrong Atlantic State University
5:30 p.m., CAS 200
For more info, contact jlroscio@bu.edu.

MARCH 2
Full Chairs/Directors (CCD) Meeting -- CANCELLED
4 p.m., CAS 211

MARCH 9
Faculty Meeting
4 p.m., CAS 211

MARCH 30
Social Sciences Chairs/Directors (CCD) Meeting—Tentative
4 p.m., CAS 132

APRIL 6
Full Chairs/Directors (CCD) Meeting
4 p.m., CAS 211

APRIL 13
Natural Sciences Chairs/Directors (CCD) Meeting
Date and Time TBD

APRIL 13
Humanities Chairs/Directors (CCD) Meeting
Date and Time TBD

APRIL 6
Faculty Meeting
4 p.m., STO B50

Accolades

Professor of International Relations William Grimes has been invited to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a life member. The Council is an independent membership organization and think tank that contributes to public policy discourse on issues of international affairs through its meetings, task forces, publications, and outreach efforts. Membership is selective, and based on exceptional achievement, involvement, and promise in international affairs. Other International Relations faculty who are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations include Andrew Bacevich, Charles Dunbar, David Fromkin, Augustus Richard Norton, and Charles Stith.

BU Postdoctoral Researcher Philip Moquist has received a postdoctoral research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to study in Germany with Professor Gerhard Erker at the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster Organisch-Chemisches Institut in Muenster. His research proposal is to work on the asymmetric activation of hydrogen using electron deficient boron complexes. The Humboldt Foundation aims to promote academic cooperation between German scientists and researchers from other countries.