CURAH congratulates three undergraduates who have received the 2020 Trimmer Travel Award: Martha Grace Whiteman, Chloe Landis, and Samantha Fain.
Martha Grace Whiteman, Winthrop University
Martha Grace Whiteman
Martha is a senior Art History Major at Winthrop University. While attending Winthrop, she worked as an Undergraduate Gallery Assistant at the Winthrop Galleries. This position sparked her interest in museum studies, prompting her to pursue several internships in her time at Winthrop. Most notably, Martha Grace has interned twice with the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington, DC. During the Summer of 2018, she also worked as an arts counselor for the Smithsonian’s All Access Digital Arts Camp, an educational program specifically designed for teens with cognitive disabilities to experience the world of art in a way applicable to their needs. These experiences have prompted Martha Grace to pursue a graduate degree in Museum Education after her graduation in May.
Chloe Landis, UCLA
Chloe Landis
Chloe is a senior transfer student at the University of California, Los Angeles with a double major in Art History and Egyptology. A Departmental Scholar in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, she is simultaneously pursuing a master’s degree in Egyptology, with an emphasis on Egyptian art. Her area of study focuses on depictions of pharaoh Ramesses III and his royal women. Landis highlights the lived experiences of these women within the asymmetrical ancient Egyptian society. Her research won the 2019 UCLA Dean’s Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Research. Outside of the classroom, Chloe works as a Student Educator at the Hammer Museum, merging her passions for art and education.
Samantha Fain, Franklin College
Samantha Fain
Samantha is a creative writing major at Franklin College. Sam’s poetry has been published in publications such as the Indianapolis Review and SWWIM. “The poet’s role in the world is to help build empathy and build a new perspective for other people to understand,” she says. Samantha’s mentor at Franklin is Callista Buchen, assistant professor of English.
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The good news is that employers definitely value the skills your college education is supposed to provide. The bad news is that most employers now doubt that college graduates actually have those skills. Fortunately, your undergraduate research scholarship or creative activity gives you an opportunity to prove what you know. The key is to concentrate on your broad skillset, not the content of your project. A company hiring you for public relations or marketing may not express interest in your discoveries in Civil War diaries, for example. They will express interest in all of the abilities you have gained as a result. Here are some tips on how to make your undergraduate research experience a part of your job search.
Written communication
Strong skills in written communication rank #1 on the NACE survey of what employers want across all jobs. That’s great news because we’re all great writers in the arts and humanities, right? Your major on your resume will precede you. Don’t be surprised if employers praise you for being a good writer, even without much evidence.
But what employers really value is the “communication” part of “written communication.” In your materials, be sure to describe the written document, report, or presentation your research resulted in with an eye to how it conveys complex information to its audience. If your project required you to write a proposal, you may be able to refer to that too, especially since it is essentially grant writing, a highly valued skill. In your interview, you can talk about how your written communication was essential in order to get an important point across.
Critical thinking & analysis
Analytical and problem solving skills also rank highly on the NACE survey. Employers hire applicants who can demonstrate who can get, understand, and use different kinds of knowledge in order to solve new problems in inventive ways. Critical thinking is fundamentally creative, a hallmark of undergraduate research in the arts and humanities. Since this is an intangible skill, you might think it’s hard to show, but employers will respond well if you talk about how you overcame specific challenges in your scholarship or creative activity. In fact, overcoming challenges is a common topic for questions in interviews. How did your research expand your knowledge and skill-set so that you could produce something new?
Applying knowledge to real-world problems
The best problem-solving of all happens when you apply your academic knowledge to real world problems. Thinking about your project this way can also help you articulate your work for employers who, after all, are not usually experts in the area you studied. Employers want to hear actual examples, so be as specific as possible about your project. Consider the impact of your work, beyond the immediate results: are you bringing to light an unknown text which will allow others to understand a moment in literary history in a new way? Are you filling in a gap in the historical record? Are you making the world a more beautiful place? Don’t undercut your persuasiveness through vagueness (“Usually,” “most of the time,” et al.) and needless hedges (“I believe,” “I think”).
Working effectively on teams
Many undergraduate research projects involve students working over several years. Often, this means students of varying interests and skills work toward a common goal. Employers want to hire applicants who have experience contributing to a team objective, and who can fill many different roles. Emphasize the specific and varying ways you contributed to the success of your research project.
In the interview, be prepared to talk about a specific example in mind. Ideally this is one in which you have led a successful project. Be ready to describe what you did, what happened, and how it was successful. Every good story needs a key moment: organize your narrative around the single most important thing you did!
Ethical decision-making
Integrity, resilience, accountability, and ethical behavior: often employers group these traits under the heading “professionalism.” As you describe your research experience, consider these questions: was there information you needed to keep confidential? Did you need to understand and follow legal and ethical standards for the use of copyrighted or proprietary information? Did you organize your efforts responsibly for the benefit of your co-workers?
In the interview, you might be asked to describe a specific time when you had to handle a tough problem. You can use your answer to demonstrate your attention to and experience with ethical decision-making.
Oral communication
Employers want to know that you can present complex information in a clear, understandable way, especially to non-expert audiences. If you have ever presented your work either on campus or at a conference you have great evidence of your communication skills. In your written materials for a job application, be sure to describe both sides of your undergraduate research. Explain both production and dissemination of knowledge–in language appropriate to the opportunity.
Your working relationship with your faculty mentor is also directly relevant to the communication you will have with a supervisor at your new place of work. In preparation, think about how you might answer the following interview question: “If you had to communicate with a faculty supervisor/research manager, how did you keep them informed, ask for guidance, and otherwise ensure the success of the project?”
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It isn’t often when undergraduates are granted the opportunity to connect family heritage and independent student research while bringing awareness to underrepresented fields. Sofia D’Amico, an art history major with a concentration in Asian art at Fordham University has been given this very opportunity in her project studying the work of artist Tiffany Chung. CURAH recently interviewed Sofia to learn more about her project.
CURAH: What was the nature of your project?
SD: My research focuses on the work of contemporary Vietnamese-American artist Tiffany Chung, especially her cartographic works which study global migration, displacement, conflict, and urban development, and their relation to history and cultural memory. Chung was born in Danang, Vietnam in 1969 and became part of the post-1975 Vietnamese Exodus of refugees to the United States, following the communist siege of South Vietnam. She currently lives and works inHouston, Texas. Her maps, rendered in attractive pastels and jewel-tones, invite viewers to question information often taken for granted, like historical memory, as tied to place, and the accuracy of conventional systems of knowledge.
I explored her work in three different spaces in 2018: a group exhibition at Asia Society Houston titled New Cartographies, which explored maps as an artistic medium, her solo-booth of work at Miami Art Basel, and her major solo-exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum: Vietnam, Past is Prologue. I considered what her works achieve in these shows, as well as her transnational artistic identity as a Vietnamese refugee, and how her life experiences have oriented her work towards an international, historical focus. I investigated such questions as, Does Chung’s work transcend nationality? What are some of the obstacles that artists from Southeast Asia encounter in establishing relevance to US audiences? And at the same time, how does Chung’s work depart from precedent and tradition? As a Vietnamese refugee is Chung expected to create work about the Vietnam War? How do Americans understand the Vietnamese, apart from the war and its cultural exports? Is it reductive to attach the label of Vietnamese-American artist to Chung when she works hard to be international in her perspective?
Sofia D’Amico, Fordham University
CURAH: What were the easiest and hardest things about the work you did?
SD: Of course, Southeast Asian art history is a developing discipline, and my research on Tiffany Chung necessitated that I conduct my own art historical study. But even in the 20th century, many Southeast Asian countries have undergone tremendous hardships. And the reverberations of European colonial legacy (stemming as far back as the 1500s) are still felt in the study of Southeast Asian art history: most writing on Vietnamese art history, for instance, has been done in French and from the perspective of European colonizers––which can of course be problematic.
Since the establishment of an independent Vietnamese state in 1945, little money has been disbursed for such cultural projects. Besides listing painters in official registries of artists, little effort has been made to maintain archives of artworks or art movements in Vietnam; certainly, as compared to western countries or even the monolith cultures of East Asia like China and Japan. But because Vietnamese art history records are rarified, there is a greater need to interview living artists than to consult written documents. I’m excited to explore this going forward.
In short, the hardest part of the research project is really its most interesting feature: that is, understanding the multiplicity of Southeast Asian art, learning about it largely independently, and communicating my findings in a way that is accurate, respectful, and sensitive to those it relates most to. Especially as an undergraduate, it’s intimidating to put research findings and original ideas out there in the global sphere. But it is also incredibly exciting to become informed in topics you were once simply curious about, which I think was the easiest part of the work. Having a connection to the work and being passionate about the topic made it easy and enjoyable to search for resources and interview specialists. I think the nature of Southeast Asian artists being understudied made it all the more encouraging to dive in.
Tiffany Chung, courtesy of the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York
CURAH: What kinds of things did you learn?
SD: Because my research interest was prompted in part by my own heritage, I was able to use my family history as a springboard for learning about Southeast Asian art. My mother is a Vietnamese immigrant, and, incidentally, grew up in the same city and around the same time as Tiffany Chung. I didn’t learn much about Southeast Asia and Vietnam in school (apart from the war), so as I grew up, I would ask my mom about Vietnam. But her experience as a refugee made her understandably sensitive to some topics. I grew up, like most people, knowing little about Southeast Asia and thinking that artistically it had little to offer the world. Despite majoring in art history and concentrating in Asian art, I knew virtually nothing about the art of Vietnam.
With encouragement from my professor of art history and mentor, Dr. Asato Ikeda, as well as support from my school, Fordham University, I started doing independent research. And I couldn’t believe what I had missed out on! I interned at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in Chelsea, New York––the only art gallery in the country dedicated to contemporary Southeast Asian artists. Rollins and his gallery taught me how fascinating Southeast Asian culture and history really are, as the confluence of South Asian, Indian and Hindu influences, and East Asian Confucian, Daoist, and Chan Buddhist society. And, as such, Southeast Asian and diasporic artists create work that is wholly unique in perspective, context, and content. There is so much to both say and write on the subject.
CURAH: Did you make any discoveries along the way?
SD: I definitely made discoveries which encouraged me to keep going! As simple as it is, one thing I discovered as I went deeper into my project, was how much work and research still needs to be done in this field, and similar fields to it. There is so much interesting phenomena––some tragic, some triumphant––that evade contemporary consciousness.
I began my work by focusing on one contemporary Vietnamese-American artist, but ended up branching into Vietnamese art history, clearly under-researched. From there I learned about contemporary Vietnamese history, like the Japanese occupation of Vietnam and artists who were half-Vietnamese and half-Japanese, creating art about their families’ experiences: pieces of history I had no idea about. When I found out about this occupation, I was able to bring it forward to my mother, who opened up about our family’s interactions with Japanese soldiers. This research ultimately helped me, in my study of art, as well as personally, in understanding complicated and difficult parts of history.
From here, another important discovery for me was the possibility of doing research in a way that parallels the artists’ practices that I am interested in: by sharing microhistories, individual narratives, and family experiences, and exploring what a radical act that can be.
While researching Tiffany Chung, I witnessed a four-channel video installation titled The Specter of Ancestors Becoming (2019) by artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen, which chronicles the descendants of Senegalese French colonial soldiers once stationed in Vietnam tirailleurs Sénégalais — and features stories written by three members of a Vietnamese community in Senegal. One portion of the video observed the tense confrontation between a half-Vietnamese half-Senegalese boy with his Senegalese soldier father, who whisked him away from Saigon at a young age and never allowed him to know his Vietnamese mother. This piece allowed viewers like me to connect with a small community and especially with individual families’ experiences, as they were affected by war and colonialism. I thought it was radical and moving to have this focus on smaller units of research like individual communities, people, and events. I’d like to carry this awareness of microhistory forward with me throughout future research in my academic career.
Tiffany Chung, courtesy of the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York
CURAH: How has the project helped you in your career goals?
SD: It is due to this project that I have found my art historical focus and ongoing research interest in making more familiar, to myself and others, the peripheralized stories of Southeast Asian artists within Asian art and the world’s art histories more broadly. It has helped me realize that I would like to be a part of a larger movement academically, whether that is Southeast Asian art historians, researchers of Asian diaspora, or scholars of socially-engaged contemporary art.
It’s also made more clear the need for further diversification of US art spaces. Visual culture and art act as some of the most powerful ways people understand each other transnationally. I would love to see the development of more robust Southeast Asian curatorial programming in museums and galleries in the future, and I hope to help contribute to it someday. And it’s encouraging to see institutions like Fordham actively supporting these art historical projects. The voices of emerging undergraduate researchers are wanted and our work is important on so many levels.
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The undergraduate journal Young Scholars in Writing is accepting submissions for its 18th volume. The deadline is April 8, 2020. This volume is seeking articles, responses to previous YSW articles, methodological reflections, and spotlights on first-year writing research. (More information can be found here.) Young Scholars in Writing is an international peer-reviewed journal and publishes work by undergraduates of all majors. The journal focuses on the subjects of rhetoric, writing, writers, discourse, language, etc. YSW uses a 2-step submission process. First, authors need to submit their abstracts. Then they will receive instructions on the manuscript submission.
Summer undergraduate research in the humanities can be a great opportunity for students who might be interested in graduate work. Many colleges have programs that pair students with faculty mentors; these experiences often begin work toward a major, capstone experience.
Carthage College, in Kenosha, WI, has such a program, the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience, or SURE. Each summer, between 25 and 50 students from across campus spend ten weeks on campus in collaboration with a faculty member on a new or developing line of inquiry. This summer, rising senior Caleb Hays (English/Public Relations) worked with English Professor Maria Carrig on Samuel Beckett, the Irish writer; CURAH recently got to hear a bit about it.
CURAH: Tell us about your project.
CH: My project centers on the renowned Irish writer Samuel Beckett. Mostly known for his theatre works such as Waiting for Godot, Beckett is also responsible for some wonderfully strange prose works. I had to produce a critical essay that would add something new to the conversation surrounding Beckett studies, a task much more difficult than it sounds. Beckett is an insanely popular author, and in searching through the hundreds of books and essays on his work one gets the feeling that everything to be written about him has already been written.
Yet, in my searching I started to get the feeling that the studies revolving around the author were largely about his theatre work, and painted Beckett as a pessimistic writer. I felt the latter was inherently false. The little I’d read of Beckett did have a certain weightiness to its content, but it was also extremely funny. I set out to uncover the underlying optimism in Beckett’s work by focusing on his trilogy of prose works, specifically his novel Malone Dies.
I worked for ten weeks with Professor Carrig as my supervisor, reading and discussing everything Beckett. Understanding this project would transfer over to my senior thesis, I concentrated on consuming as much material as possible. I read many of his plays and prose works, including many critical theorists and essayists pertinent to the subject. My paper took on a post-structuralist ideology in nature, focusing on the meta-fictional techniques used in Malone Dies and the multiple strata of narration concealed within the text. Ultimately, I came to view Malone Dies as being about the desire to reach a beginning, rather than an ending.
Caleb Hays, Carthage College ’20, English/Public Relations
CURAH: What drew you to Samuel Beckett?
CH: I discovered Samuel Beckett’s work through a creative writing professor of mine, who mentioned to me in passing that I may enjoy some of his work. I was searching for a subject to complete my thesis on, so I read the first Beckett novel I could get my hands on: Watt. The novel was so unlike anything I had ever read, and I was hooked from the very start. I began to read more of his work, eventually coming to Malone Dies, finding myself so immersed in the work’s strangeness that I knew I had no other choice but to write about it. I have always loved modern, experimental writing that tests the limits of what fiction is capable of, so it was a perfect match.
CURAH: What were the easiest and hardest things about the work you were doing? Any surprises?
CH: The easiest part of my project was the reading. I read a lot of material through the course of the ten weeks, and I loved every minute. I was fortunate enough to receive a stipend for the work, so I spent my days doing nothing but reading and trying to make sense of some dense texts—which was a dream come true for any English major. The hardest part, while still enjoyable, was the actual creation of the paper. I had pages and pages of notes, but attempting to condense them and form a linear argument became quite difficult with the amount of material.
As far as surprises go, I suppose the biggest was how fulfilling the work was—I’ve never taken part in a project of this scope, so naturally I was nervous in the beginning. As the ten weeks progressed I realized how gratifying academic research of this level can be in its capacity to introduce new avenues of thinking.
CURAH: How has your understanding of Beckett grown?
CH: I’d like to say that my understanding of Beckett has grown a great deal, but I’m not sure that such a thing is possible. I have a greater respect for the depth of his work and the techniques he uses in his writing—but as a whole his writing is just as strange and otherworldly as when I first read it. In part, this is the beautiful thing about Beckett; reading his work is an experience, one that seems to change with time.
CURAH: How has the work informed your plans about the rest of college and beyond?
CH: The work I did this summer with Professor Carrig has made me seriously consider a career in academia. As of now my future is still uncertain, but the search for the appropriate graduate program is on the horizon. The project has given me a great deal, including the realization that being a student of literature is something I’ll continue doing for the rest of my life, regardless of career path.
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If you’re lucky, your own campus will have wonderful paid summer opportunities to work on scholarly or creative projects. Nothing beats working with a faculty mentor who will follow you through your college career. But these opportunities might not be available, or you might like to cast your net wider. There are a number of regional and national summer research opportunities in the arts and humanities. Thanks to the work of our Councilors, CURAH now maintains a sortable database of summer research opportunities in the Arts and Humanities. We foreground the basic information that many websites keep in the fine print like application deadlines and whether or not the program comes with a salary or stipend.
We’ve included only options that seem to us to fit CUR’s description of undergraduate research: mentored, original, and leading to disseminated outcomes. Some of these experiences may be called “internships,” but we’ve eliminated anything that is just a job. If you need to write a proposal to apply for anything, consider CURAH’s excellent advice on writing a proposal. Application deadlines come thick and fast from December through February, so don’t dawdle.
We’re adding new opportunities constantly. If you know of a summer opportunity for undergraduates in your field, please let us know.
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Johns Hopkins University’s first annual Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium will be on April 3rd and 4th, 2020 at the main campus in Baltimore. The application portal is open now; the deadline for abstracts is January 24. If you need help, please consult our guide to writing an abstract.
Organizers hope to have 400 participants in the first year and will also be offering a select number of travel grants to help students afford participation (CURAH also has travel awards for students). Students working in all humanities fields are welcome. You can learn more (including details about travel arrangements, costs, etc.) at the conference site.
Timothy (TJ) Scherer, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University ’22, is majoring in Computer Engineering at the University’s Daytona Beach campus. In November 2018, he became the student web designer for Dr. Debra Bourdeau’s Hogarth Online website and entered the world of digital humanities, something he never expected as a student at an aviation-focused university. Scherer modernized the site over the past year and has begun adding content this academic year.
Bourdeau is Chair of English, Humanities and Communication for ERAU’s Worldwide campus. She received an internal grant to revitalize the project, which had remained relatively unchanged since 2004. Because Dr. Bourdeau lives in the Atlanta area, project meetings occur by Skype; she and TJ have had to learn to work virtually.
CURAH recently caught up with TJ to ask how the project is going.
CURAH: Tell us about your project. What has been your role?
TJ: The Hogarth Online project was started with the goal of creating a more widely accessible resource for William Hogarth’s works. More often than not, commentary on Hogarth’s works is highly detailed and not welcoming to newcomers. This project is aimed at those who want to learn about William Hogarth but lack the expertise many existing resources assume. From home to classroom, I hope that this project will serve as a resource to students and professors alike. To accomplish this, I have compiled commentary and observations to help explain the individual elements of each artwork in a sophisticated yet simple manner. I want to provide the necessary background information to enrich people’s understanding of Hogarth.
My role in this project is to modernize the original website, improving the aesthetics and functionality using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This mostly consists of reorganizing the large amount of content using more recent web development techniques, along with adding in new content as the project grows. My greatest focus in this project has been adding as much functionality as I can to make the website a valuable classroom resource, providing different ways to view both the artworks and the associated commentary so that it can easily adapt to lesson plans and the technology in the classroom. From personal experience, this tends to be a frustrating issue for many students, and I believe that I have been successful in mitigating it.
CURAH: What have been the greatest challenges in the work you are doing?
TJ: Going into this project, my experience with HTML and CSS was fairly limited, and beginning to build the infrastructure for a website requires a significant amount of knowledge to maintain an organized structure that can be expanded upon in the future. It took a lot of research and practice to fully understand the best ways to structure the code, but once the foundation was in place, I had lots of room for experimentation to find the best layout for the site.
Once I had determined a general layout, I had to address the problem of organizing and displaying a large amount of content . After some research and experimentation using HTML and CSS, I decided that it would not be enough. Further research suggested that JavaScript had the answer to my problem, but I had never used it before. Using guides and example snippets of code, I was able to gain enough understanding of JavaScript to create a solution.
Beyond these technical challenges, I encountered some small difficulty in transferring the content because I was new to Hogarth. I was very fortunate to have Dr. Bourdeau available whenever I needed. Every time we talked she taught me a little more about Hogarth and his historical background.
CURAH: What have you learned (about Hogarth, digital humanities or yourself)?
TJ: Over the duration of this project, I have learned several things.
Engraving on a metal plate is a very interesting process, and the result is quite stunning. It absolutely amazes me how much effort has to go into each plate. The planning and the amount of detail involved is quite inspirational.
There is a surprising lack of documentation of Hogarth’s works. It took a decent amount of time to locate high resolution images of each of Hogarth’s plates that are included in the project.
I far prefer tasks that require research and creative thinking to achieve a goal. I enjoyed solving the problems I encountered while modernizing the website much more than I enjoyed transferring all of its contents to the new website.
CURAH: What has surprised you about this project?
The most surprising part of this project is the sheer amount of effort needed to produce this website. There are so many resources out there with similar levels of detail and content that it becomes easy to take them for granted. I can’t count the number of times a website’s design has frustrated me as a user, but being on the other end of the interaction is very eye-opening. From obtaining grants to compiling information, there is so much that goes into preparing to take on such a project, and even more to actually execute it. I was surprised to realize that it takes all of this effort just to make a single website, and it has given me a greater appreciation for each website I visit.
CURAH: How do you think this project will help you in your career or future studies?
The technical skills that I have developed from this project are probably the most notable way in which this project has already benefited me and will continue to in the future. By improving my understanding of the languages required to take on this project, I am simultaneously improving my skills in other programming languages. Further, the effort I put in to develop these skills has shown very good results, and now I think I will be more willing to put the same level of effort into future endeavors. Beyond this, the experience in communication and collaboration with Dr. Bourdeau is something I anticipate being very useful in the future, and that I am very thankful for.
Hogarth Online, before its revitalizationThe revitalized Hogarth OnlineThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Please consider applying to become a CUR Councilor for the Arts & Humanities Division. The deadline to nominate yourself is Friday, November 15, 2019 (at 11:50 p.m. EST). The form is short and easy, but it does ask you to reflect on your work and your interest in undergraduate research. So set aside a few minutes and consider joining our team. To encourage you, CURAH editors consulted Pace University’s Maria Iacullo-Bird, our outgoing Chair and last year’s Volunteer-of-the-Year winner.
CURAH: Several of your CUR colleagues have described you as a “transformative Arts & Humanities Chair.” What were your key goals as chair of the division?
Maria: One key goal as Arts and Humanities (A&H) Division Chair was to build a solid operational structure for the division to enhance communication and community among both A&H councilors and the larger arts and humanities membership. Critical to this purpose was the establishment of conference-call meetings twice a semester that were supported by email updates, and the start of a digital website blog. My second major goal was to strengthen the visibility and voice of the arts and humanities within CUR and beyond. The website blog would be become essential for this purpose and additional areas of focus would be councilor recruitment to advance the strategic pillars of diversity and inclusion, the promotion of division travel awards, more A&H-targeted programming, and ongoing advocacy efforts. A notable example of expanded A&H programming occurred at CUR Dialogues through A&H-themed plenary sessions and advocacy keynotes that included A&H perspectives. Dialogues also offered several sessions featuring NEH and NEA program officers who specifically addressed undergraduate research in the context of arts and humanities funding opportunities.
My advocacy work began as the A&H Division representative to the CUR Advocacy Committee, and continued in my role as chair. I made annual visits to Capitol Hill representing CUR and my home institution Pace University to inform members of Congress and federal officials about the importance of undergraduate research and related educational initiatives through the lens of the arts and humanities. I am very gratified that during my term as chair a strong, dynamic, and activist reputation emerged for the A&H Division through sustained collaborative work with fellow A&H Councilors, the CUR Executive Officer and the CUR National Office staff.
CUR Councilor Maria-Iacullo Bird
CURAH: What did you enjoy most about your work as chair?
Maria: It has been a joy to get to know colleagues better in the division and to represent them and our fields in a range of activities that underscored the value of undergraduate research for the arts and humanities! I enjoyed being an active chair who through the national presence of CUR made the most of opportunities through advocacy and formal speaking presentations to offer a positive voice for the arts and humanities. I derived the greatest satisfaction when acting on my passionate belief in the fundamental importance of the arts and humanities, their relevance for the twenty-first century workplace, and for the transformative impact of undergraduate research.
Majoring in arts and humanities disciplines develops creativity, strong oral and written communication, and critical, analytic skills. These are highly transferable and valued across employment sectors. As teachers and researchers in the arts and humanities, we must work individually and together to promote a positive narrative to counter the negative pronouncements concerning the arts and humanities that are prevalent today. Given the current manipulation of truth, specious reasoning, and the absence of historical knowledge in the public sphere, we need the arts and humanities more than ever to make sense of current events and hopefully to make a better world domestically and globally.
CURAH: You received the Volunteer of the Year award recently; that reflects far more than simply serving as Division Chair. What do you consider your most important contributions to the work of CUR?
MariaI was deeply honored to receive the CUR Volunteer of the Year Award at the 2019 Annual Business Meeting. The last year of my three-year term as division chair culminated in my most intense and extensive year of CUR service activity. During my last year 2018-2019, in addition to the ongoing administrative and operational work of the division, I inaugurated two major awards — the Arts and Humanities Mentor Award and the Trimmer Travel Award; served on a major CUR search committee; made repeated trips to Washington, D.C. to continue my advocacy work on both sides of the aisle in Congress and with the National Humanities Alliance and Americans for the Arts; served as a juror and award presenter at the 2019 Second World Congress on Undergraduate Research in Oldenburg, Germany; and transitioned to my newly elected position as a member of the CUR Executive Board.
CURAH: What might you say to encourage colleagues who are thinking about joining CUR or even serving as councilor?
Maria: Without hesitation I would urge them to become a CUR member and to consider how to become more involved by running to serve as a councilor. Joining CUR has been one of the best decisions I have made in my professional life! Membership in CUR makes available to me a great range of resources to inform and advance undergraduate research and also has expanded my network of colleagues and friends. Typically, we all belong to organizations directly related to our fields but participation in CUR offers a unique opportunity to get to know faculty and administrators from many disciplines as well as within one’s own academic specialty. It is wonderful to have colleagues across the country and even internationally who share a commitment to undergraduate research and can partner on projects to benefit teaching, mentoring, and research.
Serving as a councilor offered professional development opportunities that have been meaningful to me in reach and impact. My leadership abilities have been enhanced through my work as chair and now as a member of the CUR Executive Board and these achievements are recognized by Pace University where I contribute to the advancement of undergraduate research.
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Sometimes undergraduates have an advantage over more senior scholars: pursuing two majors can make them more radically interdisciplinary and more open to unconventional combinations. Olivia Brock, Utah State University ’21, is a double major in mathematics/statistics and art history, interests that combined in her recent project on the astrolabe, that most beautiful tool of late medieval mathematical and astronomical thought. Olivia recently spoke with CURAH about her work.
CURAH: Tell us about your project.
Olivia: My project is designed to answer a question: how can interdisciplinary conversations between humanities and STEM fields be facilitated through the examination of material/visual culture? In particular, I am answering this question by studying the astrolabe, a medieval scientific instrument that puts into question the historical categorization of objects. As an object that is scientific, artistic, religious (and I’ll even add pseudo-scientific), the astrolabe presents a slew of interpretive challenges. I am examining the ways historians of visual and material culture have categorized these objects, and how their categories can limit our ability to fully understand astrolabes as the unique, specific, and complex objects that they are.
In addition, I hope to create an interdisciplinary dialogue that allows artists, scientists, scholars, and others to interact with intellectual ideas that may not be familiar. Ideally, through the dissemination of these ideas in writing and presentation, I can help the widest disciplinary audience connect with a single object and learn about new fields or ideas.
Olivia Brock, Utah State University
This particular goal is really important to me. As both a math/stats and art history student, I get a lot of questions about why I decided to do both majors, and comments regarding how disparate these fields are. Though these fields are quite different, and a traditional undergraduate education in either makes the bifurcation even more prominent, I have found that there are a lot of ways that these fields complement each other. It just takes a conscious effort to find these connections. This is why I’m so excited about this project: it allows me to pursue the connections I’ve found in a ways that go beyond traditional art history or math classes.
CURAH: What are the easiest and hardest things about the work you’re doing?
Olivia: There are a few bumps that I’ve run into over the course of this project that have really stood out to me. First, methodology. I work as a writing tutor in the Science Writing Center here at USU, and a big part of my job is helping students with their “Methods” sections. These are strict, orderly, pre-determined methodologies that make predicting the course of scientific research much more feasible. For me, as a scientifically-minded person, the more subjective methodological approach to my art historical research has been difficult to adapt to. I can’t create a step-by-step guide to my research as one might for a lab experiment.
The next bump I ran into was while working to develop an overall thesis for my project. How do I come up with an original and interesting claim, while at the same time ensuring that I can ground my ideas with established literature and evidence? The balance between originality and credibility has been difficult for me to maintain. Fortunately, in Dr. Alexa Sand I have a great and experienced mentor who has really helped me achieve this balance.
I’m not sure there’s been anything I’d specify as being “easy” for me. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. But I love the work and subject matter, and that makes it easier for me to stay excited and motivated about this project.
CURAH: What kinds of things have you learned? (about astrolabes, about scholarship, or about yourself)
Olivia: I learned
that even the most basic object can have a plethora of intangible functions and relationships that become apparent when you look at the object in a different light.
that the astrolabe is just a single example of the arts and sciences working in tandem: there are so many interesting multidisciplinary interactions that can be found over the course of history. They just require someone to look for them.
that scholarship is hard, but it’s worth it. The knowledge that I can take an idea and pursue it as far as it can be pursued is incredibly rewarding.
that I may love sharing my ideas a little more than I love pursuing them. I’ve really enjoyed this process, but my favorite parts, so far, have been the times when I’ve gotten to interact with my research community and share my ideas and knowledge with other curious students.
CURAH: Have you made any discoveries along the way?
Olivia: I didn’t make anything that I would call a “discovery.” However, I never had the expectation of major discovery. My goal for the project is to pursue an idea that is personally important to me and important to the academic community at Utah State. I’m not trying to answer any major questions or problems but rather working to create discussion among my peers.
Because of this goal, however, I have helped some other students make small discoveries. Many students “discovered” the astrolabe for the very first time upon our conversations. Others may have discovered that there are a number of connections between the humanities and STEM that they may not have been aware of before. And others may have even discovered that there is a place in the research realm for even the most bizarre or disparate of interests. I also made personal discoveries about myself and my interests that will undoubtably change the course of my academic and professional career.
CURAH: How do you imagine the project will help you in your career goals?
Olivia: I must admit that my career goals are a bit unclear right now. However, through this project, I have become much more open to pursuing academic scholarship, at least through graduate school, and maybe into a career. This project also taught me that I love talking and writing about science in a non-scientific way, which has sparked ideas about potential careers in scientific communication or scientific journalism.
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The Arts and Humanities Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research
