Faculty Colloquium: Erik Noftle

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Please join us on Thursday, March 5, at 4:10 p.m. in Ford Hall 102 for our seventh Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Erik Noftle, Associate Professor of Psychology

Title: Personality Dynamics and Development Erik Noftle

Abstract: In this talk, I describe two research efforts I completed during my sabbatical, which have to do with personality dynamics and personality development. Personality captures important, enduring psychological characteristics of a person, which are relatively consistent across situations and time, such as the traits of Extraversion or Conscientiousness. Personality dynamics concerns how personality functions: how it fluctuates across the short term, from moments to weeks. Personality development concerns how personality matures: how it changes across the long term, from years to decades. In one project, I examined how situation experience and trait-relevant behavior fluctuated within a representative span of daily life across three adult age groups: young adults, middle-aged adults, and retired adults. Results suggest that some fascinating changes in personality processes take place across the adult lifespan. In the other project, I tracked college students across the entirety of college and investigated how their personality traits affected–and were affected by—different aspects of adjustment to college. Results suggest that not only does personality predict how students are later faring when it comes to academics or their social lives, but also that how students are faring predicts their future personality traits. In sum, these findings contribute to a growing consensus that instead of personality being something about a person that’s pretty much fixed once one is a young adult, personality is, in fact, an aspect of a person that continues to be sensitive and responsive to the environment and dynamic across much of the lifespan.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there. Also, remember to note the move to Thursday afternoons this semester.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators

Faculty Colloquium: Andrew Schwartz

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Please join us on Thursday, February 27th, at 4:10 p.m. in the Carnegie Building for our sixth Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Wm. Andrew Schwartz, Executive Director, Center for Process Studies
Assistant Professor of Process and Comparative Theology at the Claremont School of Theology Andrew Schwartz

Title: Putting Philosophy to Work: A Relational Worldview for the Common Good

Abstract: Change your thinking; change the world. Philosophy has gotten a bad rap. As an academic discipline, it is mocked as irrelevant to modern society. But bias against philosophy doesn’t mean we don’t have one. We all have a basic worldview. This is as true for whole civilizations as for individuals, a point driven home daily as the dire consequences of the Western worldview—the most urgent being climate change—are now inescapable. But if Western philosophy has brought us to this razor’s edge, would another one be any better?

In this faculty colloquium, professor Wm. Andrew Schwartz will introduce the fundamentals of process philosophy and explore some implications for rethinking science, theology, ecology, and education.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there.

Note: There will also be a special TGIF reception following the lecture that will be open to faculty from all schools. This is the second TGIF event this semester with Colloquium speakers from across the University. These opportunities for cross-university gathering and conversation are sponsored by the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators

Quiet and Collaborative Spaces in the Library

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By Gary Klein gklein@willamette.edu

Ever since computer terminals replaced the traditional library card catalog (row after row of wooden drawers filled to the gills with 3×5 inch card stock printed with small type fonts), the way people used libraries started changing. Over time, those changing patterns have become more apparent, such as with the accelerated use of online materials and the sounds of social conversations among students.

Willamette University’s Mark O. Hatfield Library has undergone a number of physical changes since its doors first opened in 1986. The old-style library card catalog drawers and associated furniture were eliminated as part of the library’s transition into the current building. Willamette’s MBA program began to implement small group projects in the mid-1990s that required meeting spaces conducive to small groups of three to five students. The Hatfield Library’s architectural design included study rooms on the second floor to handle groups of that size range. Those small group study rooms quickly became very popular with Atkinson students.

In the dawn of the 21st century, increasing numbers of undergraduate students were required by their professors to tackle group projects. The steady expansion of undergraduate students assigned to group projects made a big impact on the supply and demand of the library’s group study space.

The growing need to adjust the library’s allocation of space to accommodate group projects surfaced in various surveys, as well as comment cards and unsolicited correspondence from students. But there seemed to be very few solutions that would be either quick to implement or low cost to finance.

While employees of the Hatfield Library were sifting through potential pathways to alleviate the growing demand for group study space, many undergraduate and MBA students improvised and came up with their own solutions. They moved tables and chairs close together to create their own temporary collaborative work areas. At the same time, students had been raising additional concerns about the physical limitations of the library’s facilities and furnishings.

While facing a competition for dollars, student safety in high trafficked areas gained priority. Simple modifications could be made at a lower cost than what it would take to build group study rooms. The library’s staff decided to create seating arrangements that mirrored the way students had been organizing furnishings into group study clusters. And the library created two sets of dual-purpose walls that increased opportunities to exhibit artwork or public announcements, while also serving to minimize sounds from noisy but critical equipment (printers and photocopiers).

Instead of struggling to realign tables and chairs daily into their original layout, the Hatfield Library’s staff established an area on the first floor for a “table forest” that students clearly preferred for group needs. Additional improvements included refinished study tables, reupholstered chairs, and additional electrical outlets throughout the building. Library staff also instituted policy changes and new signage to make it clear that the second floor was designated as “quiet study space,” while students were encouraged to treat the first floor as their place for “collaboration and group projects.”

If you are looking for the quietest spots within the Hatfield Library, then use the study rooms on the eastern side of the library on both floors. They can comfortably hold up to two people, with doors that can close out most ambient noise. These study rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

The next quietest location are the study carrels located in the center of the second floor. There are many wooden study carrels distributed across both floors of the library that are designed for individual use. Most of these study carrels offer electrical outlets and incorporate sound-absorbing materials to help maintain a quiet atmosphere.

If you need to work with a desktop computer, the Hatfield Library has several computers available on each floor. All of these computers offer large screens and carry the same array of academic-oriented software, including Microsoft Office, ChemDraw, Python, SPSS and Systat.

The Hatfield Library also offers two audiovisual rooms on the second floor and a video recording room on the first floor. These rooms have extra sound-absorbing materials; keys can be checked out at the circulation desk for up to four hours of room use.

If comfortable seating is important to you, then you might want to look for the soft upholstered chairs that are on opposite sides of the library, located either by the windows facing the millstream, or the windows facing the parking lot.

Feel free to share your thoughts, concerns, suggestions for improving our facilities with us, so we can make this a better place for all students at Willamette University. Please email your comments and suggestions to: library@willamette.edu

Faculty Colloquium: Mike Chasar

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Please join us on Thursday, February 20th, at 4:10 p.m. in Ford Hall 204 for our fifth Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Mike Chasar, Associate Professor of English Mike Chasar

Title: Don’t Stop Believin’: The Poetry of Pop Music

Abstract: When you listen to or sing along with your favorite pop songs—Guns ‘N Roses, Beyoncé, Journey, Ke$ha, Whitney Houston—do you ever imagine that all of their stylized Ohs and Oooohs are something other than emotive overflows or opportunities for singers to display their vocal prowess? Indeed, those very “nonsense” sounds—so frequently overlooked that they are often omitted from liner notes and song transcriptions—are in fact the key to recognizing not only the poetry of pop music but also how it connects to two thousand years’-worth of verse stretching back to ancient Greece. Part dance party, part informal discussion, and maybe part sing-along, today’s presentation will shed new light on how some of the music you love or love to hate makes you one of the largest poetry audiences in history.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there. Also, remember to note the move to Thursday afternoons this semester.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators

Rick Bartow Papers Open for Research

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By Jenny Gehringer
PNAA Processing Archivist

Rick Bartow was a prolific Native American artist and blues and rock musician who lived and worked primarily in Newport, Oregon. He was a member of the Mad River Band of Wiyot Indians, an indigenous tribe of northern California, and maintained close ties with the Siletz tribe. The Rick Bartow papers are open for research as part of the Pacific Northwest Artists Archive of the Willamette University Archives and Special Collections. This collection documents Bartow’s life and art career from 1955 to 2016. It contains gallery exhibition fliers, CDs and posters for Bartow’s bands, clothing and glasses, an extensive collection of Bartow’s art supplies and tools, personal correspondence with family, friends, and other artists including D. E. May, Tom Cramer, and John Bevan Ford, photographs, and various books and magazines that represent Bartow’s personal library.

Rick Bartow and son in art studioBartow’s art career began with exhibitions at galleries in Newport, Oregon. In 1985 he was selected for a solo exhibition at Jamison/Thomas Gallery in Portland, Oregon. He exhibited at Jamison’s galleries in Portland and New York until Jamison’s death in 1995. Bartow was then represented by Charles Froelick of Froelick Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Bartow’s work can be found in museum collections throughout the United States including the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York; the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts; the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana; the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC; the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon; the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona; the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon; and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. Bartow’s 35-year career as an artist was celebrated through the retrospective exhibition “Things You Know But Cannot Explain,” which traveled through various museums in the United States from 2015 to 2019.

Bartow’s art was often influenced by his traumatic military service experiences during the Vietnam War. He worked in a variety of media and created small and large scale art. His 26-foot tall carving The Cedar Mill Pole was displayed in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden at the White House in 1997. Bartow’s pair of 20-foot tall cedar sculptures We Were Always Here was commissioned by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Dedicated on September 21, 2012, the sculptures are on display on the northwest corner of the museum overlooking the National Mall, across from the Washington Monument.

For more information about this amazing collection, please see the finding aid. The Rick Bartow papers were processed thanks to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant Willamette University received to increase accessibility to the Pacific Northwest Artists Archive.

John Oberdorf ArcheoSpaces Exhibit

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ArcheoSpaces Exhibit

Works by John Oberdorf

The exhibition ArcheoSpaces — Organized at the Hatfield Library in collaboration with the Salem Art Association at the Bush Barn Art Center — displays a series of drawings, sketches and studies as well as an oil painting created by Salem-based artist, John Oberdorf, in the last five decades.

A graduate of Oregon State University with a degree in Art and a minor in Anthropology, John Oberdorf began his career by making illustrations — in a style that echoed closely the visual vocabulary of Frank Frazetta — for publishers, such as Ace Books, and other magazines specialized in sci-fi stories in 1970s. His imagination, however, was not fulfilled by those enterprises, given the restrictive nature of this typology of visual narratives, in which images are subordinated to the particular story the artist was working on.

Soon enough, John Oberdorf noticed that his capacity of elaborating “Worlds of the possible” — to quote the artist’s own words — reached a point of creative saturation. From that moment on, his career will take a decisive turn and more toward the elaboration of autonomous iconographies, exploring the ambiguity of natural shapes and the mystery of cultural traces in order to stimulate the viewer’s curiosity. In these conceived images, elements such as rocks and helmets symbolically evoke the ceaseless, unpredictable dialogue between Nature and History, Time, Loss and Memory.

Curator: Ricardo De Mambro Santos (Chair, Department of Art History)

Assistant Curator: Jordan DeGelia (Art History major, 2020)

Additional details at: https://willamette.edu/cla/arth/oberdorf-archeospaces/index.html

This exhibit has been partly sponsored by the Verda Karen McCracken Young Art Exhibition Funds of the Department of Art History at Willamette University. Select photos below are of the exhibit at the Hatfield Library.

 

Faculty Colloquium: Kyle Stephenson

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Please join us on Thursday, February 13th, at 4:10 p.m. in Ford Hall 102 for our fourth Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Kyle Stephenson, Assistant Professor of Psychology Kyle Stephenson

Title: Better Sex Through Science: Building and Testing an Online Program to Treat Sexual Dysfunction

Abstract: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) – distressing and long-lasting impairments in sexual desire, arousal, orgasm, or pain – affects 15-30% of women worldwide. FSD is associated with poorer relational satisfaction, mental health, and overall quality of life, making it essential to create, test, and disseminate effective treatments. Research has suggested that Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness-Based Therapy (MBT) are effective in treating FSD when provided face-to-face by professional sex therapists. However, only a small portion of women who could benefit are receiving these treatments. Access is limited by many factors including embarrassment, cost, and lack of available expertise. Web-based interventions hold the promise of addressing many of these barriers, vastly expanding access to traditionally underserved populations. Over the past four years, our research team has constructed eSense: an online platform housing self-guided, evidence-based therapy for FSD. Three feasibility studies have suggested that eSense is a clear, usable, and potentially efficacious program to address FSD. This talk will include information on the nature and causes of FSD, a description of evidence-based sex therapies, an overview of eSense with example therapeutic activities, and a summary of results from feasibility studies.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there. Also, remember to note the move to Thursday afternoons this semester.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators

Love Your Library

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We all know that Valentine’s Day is in February but did you know that February is also Library Lovers’ Month?  That’s right, the entire month is dedicated to celebrating the place that so many of us hold near and dear to our heart—the library.  This magical place is devoted to reading, organizing, finding, studying, preserving, and adoring books. Libraries also offer a place to work on group projects, access computers, and enjoy special exhibits.  They provide a quiet, safe space for reflection, comfortable seating for relaxing, and archives full of unique treasures.  And, of course, libraries offer intelligent, dedicated staff, who provide a variety of services including valuable research help!  Join us this month in celebrating all the great libraries out there—past, present and future!

A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.–Shelby Foote

Take a look at our WU Reads Reading Guide for a selection of library-related books available in our favorite library, the Mark O. Hatfield Library!

Faculty Colloquium: Haiyan Cheng

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Please join us on Thursday, February 6th, at 4:10 p.m. in Ford Hall 102 for our third Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Haiyan Cheng, Associate Professor of Computer Science Haiyan Cheng

Title: Computational and Data Science for All

Abstract: Computational science uses computer’s superpower and mathematical algorithms to solve large-scale scientific problems. Data science explores information from large quantity heterogeneous datasets to gain insights and build forecast models with statistical methods. Would it be great to combine strength from both worlds?

In this talk, I will give a brief introduction of computational science and data science, then showcase some of the research projects I was involved in computational and data science applied to air quality modeling, presidential elections, predictive policing, and DNA binding hotspot forecasting. In all these projects, mathematics and computer science play important roles, together with problem-solving skills and subject knowledge from various disciplines. Inspired by those projects, I developed and taught data science classes for both CLA and AGSM data certificate programs. In both classes, student teams worked on various projects, which demonstrate that computational and data science projects are intrinsically collaborative, and are indeed relevant to all.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there. Also, remember to note the move to Thursday afternoons this semester.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators

Faculty Colloquium: Cecily McCaffrey

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Please join us on Thursday, January 30th, at 4:10 p.m. in the Carnegie Building for our second Faculty Colloquium of this semester.

Presenter: Cecily McCaffrey, Associate Professor of History

Title: “Reimagining the Old Forests of Central China: From History to Botany and Back Again.” Chinese Forest

Abstract: In the 18th century, Qing dynasty elites depicted the old forests (laolin 老林) of central China as troublesome places, a refuge of rebels and bandits. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, British and American “plant hunters” ventured into these same spaces searching for specimens of endemic species. Today the mountainous region hosts national forests and nature parks: the Shennongjia National Nature Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Centre of biodiversity. This paper attempts to forge a composite image of the old forests by overlapping and layering observations from a variety of sources including local histories, travel writing, photographs, and reports of botanical expeditions. The objectives of this project are two-fold: first, to use latter-day sources to inform an understanding of place in historical terms; second, to consider the ways in which historical constructions of place intersect with contemporary formulations.

Students are welcome and coffee and treats will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there.

Note: There will also be a special TGIF reception following the lecture that will be open to faculty from all schools. This is the first TGIF event this semester with Colloquium speakers from across the University. These opportunities for cross-university gathering and conversation are sponsored by the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President.

Bill Kelm and Stephen Patterson
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators

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