Experiment Says Neutrinos Obey Speed Limit After All

Photograph by Christophe Delaere. Some rights reserved.

Neutrinos do not travel faster than light, according to the first independent attempt to verify the results of an experiment from 2011 that found the subatomic particles breaking the speed limit of physics.

The new evidence, which comes from an experiment called ICARUS and was published March 15 to the pre-print server arXiv.org, clocked neutrinos at roughly the speed of light and no faster.

ICARUS is located in Gran Sasso, Italy, the same location as the OPERA experiment that found the faster-than-light neutrinos. Both experiments detected pulses of neutrinos being sent from CERN 731 kilometers away.

The team at OPERA in September released controversial findings showing that neutrinos had arrived at their detector 60 nanoseconds earlier than the speed of light would allow. At the time, they were skeptical but could not find any flaws in their experiment despite six months of checking. They asked the wider community for help.

The first major doubts were cast over the OPERA results in February, when the team found two potential sources of error in their equipment. The first was a bad connection from a fiber-optic cable that sends signals from a synchronizing GPS system into the master clock. This error would tend to speed up the timing of the neutrinos, giving results that were too fast.

However, the second source of error involved an internal oscillator that was not properly calibrated and would tend to make the results of the experiment slower than expected.

ICARUS's results are particularly compelling because, except for the detector itself, almost all of the equipment in the experiment are shared with OPERA. The two even shared the same beams of neutrinos; ICARUS is located in the same facility, mere meters away from its rival detector.

The OPERA team is still moving forward with plans to test its earlier results with more measurements of neutrino speeds this spring. ICARUS and two other experiments at Gran Sasso will also make additional measurements.

"Whatever the result, the OPERA experiment has behaved with perfect scientific integrity in opening their measurement to broad scrutiny and inviting independent measurements,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci in a press release. “This is how science works.”

Intelligent Kinetics: God of the Gases

This is a satirical description of an “alternative” to the Kinetic Molecular Theory of gases based on the definition of Intelligent Design given by the anti-evolution group The Discovery Institute. It's meant to demonstrate how a patina of scientific-sounding words can make the most ridiculous idea seem (almost) plausible.

Unlike evolutionary theory, Kinetic Molecular Theory and other well-established theories do not have active campaigns fighting to discredit their validity. Yet from a scientific standpoint, there is no difference: all theories are founded on mountains of evidence and serve as a framework for other discoveries. So, if Intelligent Design is a viable alternative to evolutionary theory, why not apply the same concept elsewhere?

Secular Bernoullians beware: your flimsy materialistic worldview is about to collapse under the weight of the evidence that an intelligent being is actually moving all those particles around!

What is Intelligent Kinetics?

"Intelligent kinetics (IK) refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in the behavior of molecules in a gas. The theory of intelligent kinetics holds that certain features of the containers and of gases are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as Brownian motion.

"Through the study and analysis of a container’s components, an IK theorist is able to determine whether various gaseous arrangements are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent kinetics, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the properties of gases produced when intelligent agents act. IK scientists then seek to find containers which have those same types of gaseous properties which we commonly know come from intelligence.

"Intelligent kinetics has applied these scientific methods to detect design in the velocities of molecules in a container, the complex and specified information content of gaseous particles, the perfectly elastic and perfectly spherical physical architecture of molecular collisions, and the rapid origin of kinetic activity in a container of gas when changes in pressure, volume, or temperature occur."

Q.E.D.

Tips on Arguing: Argument from Authority

If someone told you that alchemy must be a legitimate science because Isaac Newton practiced it, would you start trying to turn lead into gold?

Of course not. Yet that is exactly how the argument from authority works – by replacing logic and evidence with the name of a respected or powerful person.

Whenever your hear such a name used to back up an argument, you should immediately ask yourself two questions:

First, is the named person a relevant expert on the topic? Francis Crick is a legitimate authority on genetics. Oprah Winfrey is not. If, however, you are discussing media entrepreneurship, Winfrey's perspective could offer valuable insights.

Second, does the authority's position make sense? Although Isaac Newton had reasons to believe alchemy might be true in his day, the evidence has since led us to abandon transmutation for modern chemistry. It does not makes sense to practice alchemy based on Newton's stance on the matter.

The inherent caveat of any argument from authority is this: no matter how high on the totem pole a person may be, no matter how much expertise on a subject he or she may have, it is always possible to make mistakes. Even the brightest of us is still only human.

Whenever someone flashes a big name to boost an argument, always be suspicious. Names are only as good as the ideas behind them.

UNH Developing Plans to Firm Up Networking Access

A newly wired electrical substation. Photograph courtesy of Mark Klimek. Some rights reserved.

In August 2011, Tropical Storm Irene knocked out power to the University of New Haven's campus for days. In October, an unprecedented snowstorm knocked the university's Internet services out for the entire weekend.

Since then, the Office of Information Technology and the Facilities Department have both been developing plans to shore up the university's access to online services.

According to Director of Networking/Systems Operations Greg Bartholomew, UNH learned a valuable lesson from the one-two punch of 2011's storms.

“Just because you haven't had an outage for ten years doesn't mean you won't have one,” he says.

Bartholomew and Associate Vice President of OIT Vincent P. Mangiacapra are looking at a number of different solutions in case of another outage.

The best short-term solution, Mangiacapra says, is to put generator hookups into Echlin and Maxcy halls, the two main sources for the university's data networks.

Director of Facilities Louis Annino agrees. Right now, he says, the only extra source of power for the department is a type of battery-based backup called an Uninterruptible Power Supply, or UPS.

The primary purpose of a UPS, says Annino, is to make sure that a data center has “clean power” - that is, to protect the system from voltage dips.

“Voltage dips happen all the time,” he says. “You see it when the lights in a room dim for a second. It could just be a squirrel or a bird on the power lines, or a tree that touches them. If you filter your power through a UPS, though, you won't see those dips.”

The other function of a UPS is to generate power for enough time to allow a controlled shutdown of a data system if there is an extended loss of outside power. But the UPS can only do this on a scale of minutes - not the hours that an emergency generator can provide.

An emergency generator hookup installed on the exterior of Echlin Hall would give the OIT the ability to rent a generator and have it running within a few hours of an outage, says Annino. However, it would not do much for anyone who had lost power in a different building.

Another plan OIT hopes to implement over the coming months involves moving the web servers and other critical servers to a “safe harbor” in Springfield, Mass. Mangiacapra says the department would probably make the move in incremental steps.

“The first step would be to really plan out how network connectivity will happen in that location,” he says. “Once that's straightened out, we will move our web server there. That will ensure that everyone will still be able to access newhaven.edu as normal from outside the university even if there's a problem here.”

Next, he says, OIT would develop a plan to move a secondary Microsoft Exchange server to the site that will mirror the current on-campus server. “If we do have an issue here it will fail-over to that location for (staff) email,” he says.

After that, OIT would consider doing the same for Blackboard. Mangiacapra is not sure whether the move could include Tegrity, the multimedia platform, because it takes up so much storage space.

Bartholomew says that the maintenance costs after the move would likely only include a $400 monthly charge for electricity. Other costs would be negligible because the Massachusetts site is already used by the Connecticut EducationNetwork, a consortium to which UNH currently belongs.

“We're finalizing the hardware costs now for how much storage we would need to replicate what we have here,” he says.

Bartholomew thinks that the move could begin as early as May, after the equipment has been bought and tested. The process would continue through the summer.

Mangiacapra says that the plan has already been informally finalized, but that he still needs to bring to it to President Steven H. Kaplan and the other administrative officers for their final approval.

“I don't think there will be any opposition to it, because it's not very costly,” he adds.

The move, says Mangiacapra, is becoming especially important because of the growth of online classes as part of UNH's course offerings.

“Someone in another state, another country, another continent is maybe not going to know that we had a snowstorm,” he says.

The Facilities Department and OIT have also begun early discussions for a long-term project that would move the data centers to a centralized location on the main campus. It would be a costly and complicated move. But Annino says that it fits with a larger goal that he has of integrating the campus electrical grid.

The cut-off of power that Echlin experienced in October was a reflection of how UNH has been built up. It began with only two main buildings: Maxcy Hall and the Gate House. As each new building was erected, it was connected to outside power by a single, separate line.

“The buildings are by and large fed directly from the street,” with few exceptions, says Annino.

In the case of the October snowstorm, the separation of these lines meant that even though the rest of UNH's main campus still had power, Echlin remained in the dark. And as long as Echlin remained dark, the rest of the campus had no connectivity to online services.

Annino says he would like to include a dedicated data center in the design of a future building. He would also like to get an electrical substation for the campus and re-feed electricity across the campus, including the data systems, through that. A substation, he says, would take in power from two outside feeds.

“That way,” he says, “if you lose the feed from Campbell Avenue, the alternative feed could handle the load.”

Annino acknowledges that the large scale and cost of these projects means that they probably will take a number of years to implement. However, he says, they are becoming more and more important as UNH expands.

“This is a small but growing campus, and now we're pushing medium-sized,” he adds.

The "Hidden" Wellington Wang Collection

Many of the interesting stones donated over the past few years by collector Wellington Wang to UNH are packed away on shelves in a storage room in the library.

Photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

If you've ever walked into the MarvinK. Peterson Library at the University of New Haven, you've probably noticed a set of glass display cases with shelves of strange-looking rocks prominently displayed along one wall. If you've taken the time to look inside those cases, you probably know that the rocks are part of a collection donated to UNH by the famous Chinese collector Wellington Tu Wang.

What you may not have realized, though, is that UNH's Wellington Wang collection comprises many, many more pieces than the ones on display.

Some of the pieces are scattered throughout campus, on the desks of administrators and staff members. But the vast majority are tucked away in a locked storage room on the upper floor of the library. A number of them are still in boxes or bubble-wrap.

UNH actually has two collections from Wang, explains Director of University Special Events Jill Zamparo. The first, donated in 2009 when Wang was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from UNH, is called the “Scholar's Rocks” collection, and contains 115 stones that were originally from China, but were scattered around Europe and North America after Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

The other collection is made up of soapstone carvings ranging from the sixth century to the twentieth century. Soapstone, also known as steatite, is a metamorphic rock composed mainly of talc, making it easy to carve. Soapstone carvings from China's Fujian Province have been prized for well over a thousand years. That collection was donated to UNH in 2011.

Zamparo has become the de facto curator of the collections since the recent departure of former Seton Gallery director Kerry O'Grady. She keeps records of the collections, including a listing of where the various pieces are located.

After Wang gave the collections to UNH, Zamparo says she could not find places to put them all.

“I chose the ones to display in the library based on whether they would fit on the shelves,” she says, laughing. Many of the Scholar's Rocks were much too large. Indeed, one piece sitting in its box in the storage room is listed as being 66 centimeters - more than two feet - tall

Some administrators offered to keep pieces they liked from the collections in their own quarters. A portion ended up in President Steven H. Kaplan's office, where they line the shelves or sit on stands on the floor. A few, including a gigantic bloodstone, are located in Associate Vice President of the Institute of Forensic Science Henry C. Lee's office.

A few of the stones are in Zamparo's own office, arranged on a plate lined with faux lettuce to resemble a meal of meat and potatoes.

Zamparo says that she and Kaplan would like to eventually display the collections in multiple locations on campus, but they worry about the stones being mishandled, broken or stolen. They would have to install glass cases with locks first.

In the meantime, the pieces remain in the darkened storage room, waiting for the day when a new generation of people can once again enjoy their ancient and intricate beauty.

See selections from the "hidden" collection below!

Though Crucial, UNH Science Building Has a Long Way to Go

In this historic 1966 image, laboratory technician Russel Carver, was shown seated at his U.V. microscope, while in the background is a projection of a fluorescent-stained photomicrograph. Photograph courtesy of CDC.gov. Public domain image.

Steven H. Kaplan has thought the University of New Haven needed a building dedicated to the sciences since he first became president of the university in 2004.

Last month that goal came closer to reality when an anonymous donor gave the university $3 million toward the building.

As generous as the donation was, however, it was only a small step in a process that began several years ago and will likely take several more to complete.

Kaplan says the project is in part a response to a desperate need for space on campus.

“We can meet students' needs right now in the classroom, but we have very little space for students to do projects, to do research, and for faculty to do research. That's the real tight spot,” he says.

Right now, the chemistry and biology departments are spread out among the various buildings, with parts of them housed in Dodds, Buckman and Maxcy halls. That arrangement, says Kaplan, prevents the expansion of non-science departments, too.

“We just need more space, and the best way to accomplish that is to have one central place for science,” says.

Pauline Schwartz, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, says that even on a small campus like UNH's, the distance between the science departments causes inefficiencies in the use of space, equipment, resources and instruments. She also says it does not foster collaborative research between the departments.

Schwartz says that there are two major problems when it comes to space. “First, we are at our very limit for running lab courses during the week; it is absolutely essential to restrict the number of students in our lab classes for safety reasons,” she explains. “Second, we have limited space for conducting research. More faculty and students wish to engage in independent projects that require use of space and equipment that is not available when classes are in session.”

Even for routine classwork, there are problems with being divided between different buildings. For instance, Schwartz says, classrooms in Dodds or Kaplan do not have Periodic Tables that are easily accessible for classroom demonstrations.

When Kaplan presented his proposal to build a new science building about two years ago to the Board of Governors, the group of alumni and local leaders who oversee UNH's fiscal and governance policies, they agreed that with him on the need for such a project. Chair of the Board Sam Bergami, Jr., who is also president of the Milford-based precision manufacturing company Alinabal, says he sees broader reasons for embarking on the project.

“Science is at the root of everything we do, whether we realize or not,” he says. “It should be the intellectual hub of the college community, and everything else should come out of that.”

Bergami also notes that most of the better schools have their own buildings dedicated to the sciences.

He explains, however, that there is a lot of work that goes into such a project. First and foremost is the cost.

“It's a huge amount of money. To expect one or even a few benefactors to provide all of the funding is unrealistic,” he says.

Kaplan, who leads the fund-raising effort, estimates that he will need to raise anywhere between $30 million and $35 million in private gifts for the project. The university would then borrow another $10 million, putting the entire project in the $45 million range.

“That's the ideal amount,” he adds. “We'll do a science center no matter what.”

The anonymous donation that came at the end of January is the only money he has gotten so far. He says, however, that he is talking to three other potential donors who have expressed an interest in giving large sums toward the project, though he could not reveal their names.

“I am very optimistic that we will get the funding in the next year or two,” he says.

If the university is able to procure enough funding to meet its target, Kaplan says the proposed building would contain 40,000 to 50,000 square feet of space. Two spots on campus are currently being considered for the building: where South Campus Hall is, or next to the Tagliatela College of Engineering.

Other facets of the construction have yet to be determined. As more money is raised over the next few years, the university will hire an architectural firm to draft a design plan. At that point, Kaplan says, the Board of Governors would approve the design, the Facilities Department would get involved, and Kaplan would work closely with the science faculty to get their input on how their specific needs can be met by the new building.

Schwartz says she and her colleagues are excited to be involved in the project.

“Although plans have yet to be designed, we are very hopeful that our input will encourage space for faculty research and for core resources for new instruments,” she says.

Throughout the process, the Board of Governors would continue to receive regular progress reports on the project through its Physical Resources Committee, which is responsible at a high level for handling major construction projects on campus. Bergami says they would have little involvement in day-to-day operations, however.

Kaplan says that given the time it takes for fund-raising and gaining various approvals with the university and the city of West Haven, he hopes to break ground on the building in the next two to two-and-a-half years.

Once it's finished, though, Kaplan says UNH will be poised to expand its regional contribution to cutting-edge scientific pursuits.

“I expect science, the life sciences in particular, along with chemistry, to play a very large role at the university,” he says.

Synopsis: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

By Mike Brown

2010: Spiegel & Grau 

Mike Brown discovered Eris by comparing these and other successive images of the sky and tracing its movement across those images. The circled object is Eris, moving slowly across a fixed backdrop of stars over the course of three hours.

Image courtesy of PalomarObservatory/NASA.

Most of us grew up knowing that there were nine planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and distant, frigid Pluto.

But we were wrong.

Mike Brown explains how he discovered the tenth planet, Eris, and why his discovery led to an international identity crisis that ended with the kicking of Pluto out of the planetary club.

Brown says he didn’t set out to demote Pluto. In the 1990s, hundreds of small rocky objects were discovered out at the edge of the solar system. Collectively known as the KuiperBelt, they reminded astronomers that there were still major features of our own neighborhood that we hadn’t noticed.

The Kuiper Belt discoveries convinced Brown that there might be another planet lurking somewhere in the shadows of the stars. He knew that no systematic search had been conducted in over 70 years. Telescopes had grown much more precise since then; computers hadn’t even existed at the time.

“How could it be that if someone went and looked again for a new planet they wouldn’t find something that had been just beyond the reach of the telescopes in the 1930s?” Brown writes. “There had to be a tenth planet.”

Through the late 1990s and early 2000s, Brown devoted most of his time to proving himself correct. The journey he relates is one of contingency, surprise, and international intrigue.

Brown and his colleagues began a daunting survey of the sky. He quickly found that modern telescopes, most of which were designed to look at far-off stars and galaxies, were actually too precise for his task. So he took up residence with the largely unused Schmidt Telescope at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif. The machine was so underutilized that it still employed glass photographic plates to take pictures, as it had when it was constructed in the 1950s.

Yet the Schmidt Telescope’s primitive method ended up being key to the search for planets close to home. Unlike with digital cameras, the photographs wouldn’t lose resolution when taking pictures of large swaths of the sky. As Brown points out, “to see as much sky as you could see with the photographic plate you would need a five-hundred-megapixel digital camera. Even today that is a daunting number.”

Along the way, he discovered numerous bodies that changed astronomers’ understanding of the solar system. The first of these, dubbed Quaoar, was half the size of Pluto, but otherwise similar in its properties. Brown called it “a big icy nail in the coffin of Pluto.”

Soon thereafter, Brown came across another oddball that he eventually named Sedna, which was “unlike anything else in the known universe.” It never came close to any other planets; at its closest, it didn’t even touch the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. And for most of its orbit, Sedna was so far away that “the sun would be just an extrabright star in the sky.”

Yet Sedna was clearly not a comet, because comets have complex orbits that are influenced by passing near multiple stars. Sedna only circles the Sun today. Nevertheless, its wildly divergent path suggested that during our solar system’s earliest years the Sun had been one half of a pair of twin stars.

Although discoveries like these were exciting for Brown and his colleagues, they didn’t quite reach the threshold for claiming a new planet—something that was larger than Pluto.

Then came Eris (originally nicknamed Xena). At the time of its discovery, it was almost four times the distance from the Sun as Pluto. It took 557 years to complete one circuit around the Sun. And it was nearly twice the size of Pluto.

Brown already understood by this time that discovering something bigger than Pluto would cause questions to arise about the definition of a planet. Indeed, he writes about pondering this subject since before he began his quest. At one point, he asked a friend with a degree in philosophy, “What does a word mean when you say it?”

“‘Words mean what people think they mean,’ was his smoothly philosophical reply. ‘So when you say ‘planet’ it means what you are thinking when you say it.’”

From Brown’s personal quandary about what defines a planet, he came to conclude that Eris—and therefore Pluto—could not possibly qualify unless he also chose to include hundreds of other objects in the Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt.

In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union did something in response to Brown’s discovery that had never been done in a millennium of astronomy: it voted on a formal definition of the word “planet.”

Tensions ran high during the IAU’s meeting, with politics playing as much of a role as science. A pro-Pluto faction grew within the group that aimed to devise a definition that would keep the nine-planet system without seeming unscientific.

Brown, watching the proceedings from California with a bevy of reporters, kept explaining to them why he, who might become the only living discoverer of a planet if the IAU decided to vote a certain way, didn’t think Eris or Pluto belonged in the pantheon.

In the end, science won out. The eight planets were given their own formal category. Pluto was relegated to a new class of “dwarf planets,” along with Eris and a few other objects in the solar system.

Innocent Pluto, a bystander in the entire affair, was collateral damage in the crisis caused by Eris.

Since the IAU’s decision, Brown writes that he’s been accosted everywhere he goes, with people asking him, “What did Pluto ever do to you?”

Despite the harassment, and despite the fact that he will never find another thing he can call a planet, he says that he’s “thrilled that astronomers…chose to put a scientific definition behind what most people think they mean when they say the word planet. They don’t mean ‘everything the size of Pluto and larger,’ and they certainly don’t mean ‘everything round.’ Instead, when people say ‘planet,’ they mean, I believe, ‘one of a small number of large important things in our solar system.’”

New Challenges, Opportunities as UNH's International Student Population Grows

The International Services Office, adorned with objects from cultures around the world, is a reflection of the University of New Haven's growing cross-cultural student body.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

It took Fahad Almutairi 16 months to learn English well enough before he was ready to go to college in the United States.

Almutairi, a 20-year-old native of Saudi Arabia, wanted to earn a bachelor's degree in fire protection engineering. He looked at several colleges in the U.S. that offered the program, including the University of Maryland. He chose the University of New Haven, he said, because it was the best.

“Fire protection is popular in Saudi Arabia, but they have no schools with bachelor's [programs],” he said. “There are petroleum companies and oil companies there, so they need fire protection.”

Almutairi began at UNH in the fall 2011 semester. He said the college is perfect for international students, whether they are “African, Arabian or South American.”

Other international students apparently also feel that UNH is perfect for them. According to a report by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute of International Education, UNH had the fourth-highest number of international students in Connecticut in 2011, ranking it behind only the University of Bridgeport, Yale University, and the University of Connecticut.

The international student population at UNH reached 773 in 2011, accounting for more than 12 percent of the university's overall enrollment of 6,385 for the year. International students accounted for just over 10 percent of the total in 2010, or 602 out of 5,949 students enrolled.

The growth rate for international student populations at colleges in Connecticut was 9.4 percent for 2011, nearly double the nationwide growth rate of 5 percent, according to the IIE's report. Overall, there were 10,137 international students at colleges throughout the state.

Karima Jackson, the director of UNH's International Services Office, said that international students bring benefits that domestic students can't get any other way.

“They have something that the American students usually don't have – experience with studying abroad,” she said. “They also bring business and diversity. When we mix, it creates a more whole student.”

The IIE report also emphasizes the economic benefit that international students bring. In 2011 alone, estimated foreign student expenditures in Connecticut reached approximately $300 million. That money is not just spent in the universities. Students spend at local businesses on food, clothing, entertainment, and more.

Jackson only joined the ISO in September, but said she has noticed the increase in students from other countries over her short time there. She said it may be because of several factors, including the recruiting agencies that UNH uses and the trimester schedule that allows some students to graduate more quickly.

The most important factor, she said, are the high-quality programs that the university offers, such as electrical sciences, engineering and MBA.

The ISO's main goal is to help international students maintain the F1 visas they need to attend college in the U.S., but Jackson said they end up helping with all sorts of other issues. Students may need to get drivers licenses. They may have confusion about where to go for academic needs. They may want advice on navigating some uniquely American institution outside the university.

“The list can go on,” she said. “Every day, it's something new.”

One of the difficulties is that there are over a hundred countries for international students to come from, all with different cultural expectations and practices. For instance, Fahd Jadoon, a second-year graduate student in UNH's MBA program who works in the ISO, said that when he first moved to Minnesota from his home of Pakistan, he had trouble finding food that was kosher.

“There were not a lot of international restaurants in the area,” he said.

He later discovered that Minneapolis had a much more diverse offering of foods. He said he feels comfortable now living in the New Haven area, which has a similar wealth of diversity.

Jackson thinks that one of the biggest current challenges for the university is figuring out how to bridge gaps between the international students and their American counterparts. She said she has been working on several outreach efforts to bring different groups of students together, partly by involving other faculty and staff to encourage cultural exchange.

“They [international students] are not being acclimated to the university as well as they should be,” she said.

Jadoon, on the other hand, said that the teachers at UNH do a good job of fostering interaction between students. As an example, he pointed out that teachers will often assign groups of students to work together, rather than allowing them to choose their own groups and self-segregate.

Jackson also has high hopes. She said her office is preparing for more growth, and is looking forward to putting on the International Festival in April. The event will be a chance for groups from all over the world to share their cultures with other students.

Meanwhile, Almutarai says he is already happy to be making new friends. For him, being an international student at UNH is one of the most positive things he's done.

“It's a great experience that you can learn a new culture, learn a new language, and get a bachelor's,” he said.

People Without Cars

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

During the first week of February, reporters from the Connecticut Post wrote about their adventures as they tried to get from assignment to assignment without their cars, placing them at the mercy of the area’s disjointed public transportation system.

I sent the following letter to the editor, which the newspaper published, in response to their stories:

Hats off to the Connecticut Post reporters who spent this week attempting to get around without a car while sharing their observations.

If they had done this project last year, they would have encountered a glaring display of the preference our society gives to automobiles.

Several days after one of the heavy snowstorms, I tried walking down the Boston Post Road in Fairfield to the public library. At every juncture where the sidewalk met a parking lot or road, I encountered colossal mountains of snow, sometimes higher than myself.

These piles were not the product of lax shoveling. The snow had been piled directly into the path of pedestrians to make space for other people to drive and park.

I’m young and healthy, and managed to scale the slippery peaks with some effort. Had I been older or disabled in some fashion, however, I cannot imagine having gotten very far.

This experience wasn’t a fluke. Many bus stops and pathways all over the area are rarely cleared, even when the snow is merely ankle-deep.

It’s hard to avoid the impression that these practices send a clear message: if you’re too poor to own a car, cannot drive for some reason, or choose not to, then you don’t matter as much as the people who have vehicles.

That’s the wrong message for an age in which we need to learn the value of alternative modes of transportation – even if, as I am, you’re among those privileged enough to own a car.

Changes to Liquor Laws Unlikely to Impact UNH

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

A proposal by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to ease Connecticut's restrictions on alcohol sales would be unlikely to have much of an impact on campus life at UNH.

Currently, stores in the state cannot sell alcohol at all on Sundays or later than 9 p.m. on other days. Bars and restaurants must stop serving alcohol at 1 a.m.

If adopted by the state legislature, Malloy's proposed changes would allow stores to sell alcohol until 10 p.m. every day, including Sunday. Bars and restaurants would be allowed to continue serving alcohol until 2 a.m.

Connecticut is one of one of only two states in the U.S., along with Indiana, that does not allow off-premises sales of alcohol on Sundays. Georgia had a state ban on Sunday sales until last year.

Several UNH students are in favor of Malloy's proposed changes. “I've always found it incredibly backwards that alcohol isn't sold on a Sunday,” said UNH student Kathleen Sandin, who grew up in New Hampshire. “I don't drink personally, but to me, Sunday is just another day.”

For the people Sandin knows who do go out and drink, she didn't think much would change. “They usually are home by midnight anyways,” she said.

UNH Student Chris Griebert also favors the proposals. He referred to the current laws as “puritanical,” and said that the state should not be restricting activities that were both “safe and for adults.”

When asked if he thought the later hours at bars might lead students to drink when they should be resting or doing homework, he pointed out that “limiting access doesn't necessarily change peoples' habits.”

UNH policies allow students who are 21 or older to possess and consume alcohol in some areas of the campus. According to the student handbook, however, there are multiple restrictions. Students in residence halls and apartments cannot have alcohol if anyone else in the living space is below drinking age, unless they are assigned roommates. Open containers are not allowed in public areas. Drinking contests are prohibited, as are “common source” containers, such as kegs.

Alcohol is generally not allowed at on-campus and athletic events, though the handbook does allow exceptions at some events and provides guidelines for obtaining permission to serve alcohol.

In addition, students of any age are violating the university's conduct policy if they are found intoxicated.

UNH publishes an annual security report that includes information on alcohol violations. In 2010, the last year for which statistics are available, there were three liquor law arrests. All occurred in residential facilities. There were also 304 liquor law violations that were referred for disciplinary action. Of those violations, 275 occurred in residential facilities.

Westport Group to Hold Fourth Annual Darwin Day Dinner



A recent Darwin Day celebrant with old Charlie.
Photograph by Cary Shaw. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

 The Southern Connecticut Darwin Day Committee will hold its fourth celebration of science and humanity on Feb. 11 at the Inn at Longshore in Westport.

This year's Darwin Day Dinner will feature a talk by Rene Almeling, assistant professor of Sociology at Yale University. She will discuss her 2011 book, “Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm.”

The event will include a cocktail hour and a full course dinner. There will also be a science quiz during which each table will collaborate on the answers. The table with the highest score on the quiz will win prizes.

“I first learned about the celebration of Darwin Day when the organizers of the event called me to speak, and I think it is a wonderful way to promote science education,” Almeling said in an email interview.

Committee Treasurer John Levin said he feels quite fortunate to have Almeling speak at this year's event.

“Human reproduction has resonance with every person, and the processes are really changing,” he said.

The Darwin Day Dinner is held every year around the birthday of naturalist Charles Darwin, who is most famous for describing the process of biological evolution through natural selection. Darwin was born Feb. 12, 1809.

The first dinner was held in 2009 on what would have been his 200 birthday. Levin said he and several of his friends began organizing the dinners that year after learning that there were celebrations planned in other cities around the world, but none in Connecticut.

Since then, he said the event has grown moderately, drawing 133 people last year.

In previous years, the dinner took place on a Friday; this is the first year it will be held on a Saturday. Aside from that change, Levin said the event will be similar to the earlier ones.

“We think that we've had a winning formula, and as a consequence we have kept that same formula,” he said, adding that no one has had any major complaints or suggested any meaningful changes in past years.

Levin said that Darwin Day as an international phenomenon seems to be growing in subtle ways. He would like to see it eventually become as popular as more recognized holidays that have religious or national themes.

“There's nothing right now really devoted to enlightenment, science or rationality,” he added.

The Darwin Day Dinner is sponsored by The Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Fairfield County; The Wilton Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); the Unitarian Church in Westport; and the Norwalk Public Schools Science Department.

The deadline to register for the event is Feb. 3 The cost is $55 per person. Excess proceeds will be donated to the National Center for Science Education.

To learn more about the Darwin Day Dinner or to register, visit www.darwindayct.org.

Tips on Arguing: Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

The phrase “necessary and sufficient conditions” is one of those pieces of jargon that are used across a wide range of fields. It pops up in papers on science, philosophy, mathematics, and even social issues. Knowing what it means can save you a lot of undue confusion.

Although the terms “necessary and sufficient” are often used together, they are really two separate things: necessary conditions, and sufficient conditions. Each has a distinct function.

Necessary conditions are required for an effect to take place. However, they do not guarantee that the effect will occur. In logic, they can be phrased as “without x, there can be no y.”

For example, a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below is a necessary condition for snow, because anything warmer will result in rain. But a cold day doesn’t always bring snow. It could just as easily be cold and sunny.

Sufficient conditions, on the other hand, do guarantee that an effect will occur. They can be phrased as “if x, then y.”

With a sufficient condition, though, the same effect can also occur for some other reason.

If, for instance, the president signs a bill given to him by Congress (a sufficient condition), it automatically becomes a law (the effect).

However, it doesn’t have to happen that way. The president could veto the bill, and Congress could vote to override his veto. In that case, the bill still becomes a law, even though it wasn’t signed.

The difference between the two types of conditions may seem subtle, but the distinction has profound implications. In the situation of the bill, the president’s signature is not a necessary condition, because it can be overturned by another branch of government. Our entire system of “checks and balances” depends on these careful divisions of necessary conditions and sufficient conditions.

If you are trying to convince someone of your position in an argument, you usually want your conditions to be both necessary and sufficient. It is the strongest indication that two events are causally linked, because this kind of condition always leads to the effect, and the effect cannot happen without it.

The application of heat is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for cooking. You can’t cook without heat, and heating food guarantees that it will cook. Cooking is, in fact, defined as what happens to food when heat is applied to it. They always occur together.

If you take a little time to learn some common academic expressions, you’ll be more prepared when you inevitably encounter the seemingly impenetrable language of many documents.

Connecticut's Religiously Intolerant History, Pt. 2

Anglican Infiltration

A sign outside Christ Episcopal Church in Stratford touts the parish’s distinction as the first permanent foothold for the Anglicans in Connecticut. Early efforts to gain followers in the state were met with discrimination from residents and officials.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Part 1: Fairfield’s Last Witch Trial

The rise of Puritanism in England was from the beginning an attempt to reform the Church of England and disentangle it from the whims of the monarchy. Like Martin Luther’s protest against the Catholics in the 1500s, the Puritans felt that religious practices should be based primarily on the Bible; they sought to “purify” the church of bureaucracy and human fallibility.

To some extent, keeping the church pure required keeping it separate from government. Different groups of colonists disagreed over how exactly that should be accomplished.

The Rev. Thomas Hooker sparked one of those disagreements. He arrived in the thriving Massachusetts Bay Colony from Holland in 1633 after fleeing his native England, where he had been persecuted for his Puritan theology.

Hooker set up at what is today Cambridge, but quickly found himself at odds with the influential pastor John Cotton over rules determining suffrage. The church hierarchy in Massachusetts Bay first had to approve freemen through a thorough interrogation of their religious experiences before they could vote. Hooker thought that suffrage should be extended to all freemen.

Hooker took his congregation south, founding Hartford in 1636. He gave numerous political sermons, expressing his view that “the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people.”

Hooker’s sermons would become the basis for the Fundamental Orders, the 1639 document that established a framework for the colony’s government and has come to be recognized as one of the earliest constitutions in the world.

Just because there was an official distinction between church and state, however, did not mean that the two were separate. Indeed, the entire reason for keeping them apart was to avoid sullying the church.

The government’s role was still ultimately a religious one: to produce and enforce rules that shaped society so it best reflected Biblical dictates. Though no individual church was in charge of the colony, Congregationalism was the government-sanctioned religion, and legislation was devised to protect that purity.

Along with the rule punishing witchcraft by death, the twelve Biblically inspired laws establishing capital offenses that were put on record in Connecticut in 1642 included other punishments for religious transgressions. The first two on the list said:

- “If any man or woman shall have or worship any God, but the true God, he shall be put to death. Deut. xiii. 6. xvii. 21. Exodus xxii. 2.”

- “If any person in this colony shall blaspheme the name of God the Father, Son or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse in like manner, he shall be put to death. Levit. xxiv. 15, 16.”

According to Benjamin Trumbull’s 1898 “Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical,” lower courts around the colony had already been punishing unmarried adults who engaged in sexual relations or “wanton behavior” by fining the convicted parties, whipping them, or forcing them to marry. Trumbull writes that the General Court approved of these practices, “and authorised them [the lower courts], in future, to punish such delinquents by fines, by committing them to the house of correction, or by corporal punishment, at the discretion of the court.”

In practice, the attempt to keep Connecticut’s religious landscape pure could never fully succeed. Quakers almost immediately began settling in the area, forcing the colony to enact a number of laws during the 1600s to prevent the sect from gaining traction.

By the turn of the century, an even more worrisome development was taking shape just over the border in Rye, N.Y. An Anglican missionary group called The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was set up in 1701 to provide English colonists with greater access to Episcopalian churches and services. Rye was chosen as a strategic entry-point to Connecticut, where the group was especially interested in breaking the stranglehold that the Puritans had on religious life.

The Rev. George Muirson, who headed the Rye mission, took a trip in 1706 along the coast to the edge of the Housatonic River in Stratford, bringing along Col. Caleb Heathcote, an ardent Anglican living in Westchester. They reportedly baptized about 24 people for the church. Muirson and Heathcote were encouraged by this journey, and reported back to England that they expected to have success establishing new parishes in the communities.

They almost immediately ran into trouble, however. Heathcote derided Connecticut’s “odd kind of laws, to prevent any from dissenting from their church, and endeavor to keep the people in as much blindness and unacquaintedness with any other religion as possible….”

A year later, Muirson was invited by some of the people of Fairfield to preach there. He wrote after the trip that the people had been threatened with imprisonment and a fine of five pounds for coming to the sermon. He also noted that the Anglicans in Fairfield had been locked out of the meetinghouse to prevent them from holding services there, despite the fact that they had paid taxes for the building.

Progress came slowly. In Stratford, there were enough Anglicans to start their own church. In 1707, they elected a vestry, thus making them the first organized Episcopalian group in the colony. They asked Muirson to settle with them in the town, but he died before being able to respond.

For the next decade, Connecticut Anglicans languished. Missionaries continued to travel through the area, winning over converts. But there were no ordained ministers residing in the colony, and no physical spaces for Anglicans to meet.

In the meantime, the Puritans saw their vision for a religiously pure society unraveling. The Anglicans’ constant complaints to England concerned Connecticut officials for political reasons. They enjoyed the most autonomous government of all the colonies, having won near-independence through the charter that King Charles II had awarded them in 1662. But they also knew independence could be reversed; it had almost happened in the 1680s, when a brief attempt by English authorities to set up a “Dominion of New England” brought an appointed governor named Edmund Andros to Hartford to take over from the colonists, resulting in the famed “Charter Oak Incident.”

To relieve tensions with the crown, the General Assembly passed the Toleration Act of 1708, which ostensibly gave citizens the right to dissent from the Congregational church, as long as they continued to pay taxes for its support.

In practice, though, the Toleration Act resulted in little tolerance. In 1721, the General Assembly passed a slew of laws to enforce the standards of the Congregational church and prevent other religious groups from gaining further ground. Citizens would be fined if they did not attend an approved church on Sundays. They would be fined if they traveled on Sunday to or from anywhere other than an approved church. They would be fined if they attended any unapproved public gatherings, including unapproved church services. They would be fined for making any kind of disturbance (including loud talking) near a place of worship.

These and related statutes essentially placed minority churches under the authority of the Congregational churches, because these churches controlled local elections, record-keeping and other aspects of law enforcement.

Nevertheless, the tide was turning. In 1722, Connecticut got its first resident Anglican minister. Rev. George Pigot came to the colony, settling in Stratford and splitting his time between that town and Fairfield. Several colonists opened their homes to fellow Anglicans for Pigot’s sermons. The congregations continued to gain clout.

Despite the Tolerance Act, Pigot faced as much discrimination as Muirson and Heathcote had. In a letter to the Secretary of The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts dated Oct. 3, 1722, Pigot wrote:

“I now inform you Sir of what obstructions I met with in my ministry, & they are several, viz.: that of Lieut. Governor Nathan Gold, who is a most inveterate slanderer of our Church, charging her with popery, apostacy, & atheism,—who makes it his business to hinder the conversion of all whom he can, by threatening them with his authority—& who as a judge of the court here, disfranchises men merely for being Churchmen…they have boldly usurped to themselves, & insultingly imposed on the necks of others, the power of taxing & disciplining all persons whatsoever, for the grandeur & support of their self-created ministers.”

In the same letter, Pigot reported on the greatest success – and controversy – his sect had seen so far. The month before, he had been invited to New Haven by the rector at Yale College, Rev. Timothy Cutler. While there, Cutler and several other clergy members at the college declared that they had begun to doubt the validity of Congregational doctrine, and wanted to learn more about joining the Episcopacy.

It was the first time that members of the Puritan clergy had dared to defect. And what a defection! Cutler was one of the most prominent pastors in the colony, in the top position at Yale, the very institution built for the training of the colony’s Congregational ministers.

Later in October, Yale’s Board of Trustees voted to dismiss Cutler and his colleagues. The defectors didn’t mind – three intended to travel to England to receive ordination.

One of those men, the Guilford-born Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, would return from his trip overseas to Stratford in 1724, taking over for Pigot, who had moved on to Providence, R.I. On Christmas day of that year, the Stratford Anglicans got the gift they had waited so many years for: a wooden church that would come to be called Christ Episcopal Church was dedicated in the town, with Johnson as its resident priest. He led the parish for the next 39 years.

It would be another 60 years before the formal diocese would be set up in Hartford, and even longer before Congregationalism would lose its legal sway as the state-sanctioned religion. But one thing was for sure: the Anglicans were in Connecticut to stay.

- Part 3 (Coming Soon)

Connecticut’s Religiously Intolerant History, Pt. 1

Fairfield’s Last Witch Trial

A woodcut illustration from Joseph Glanvill’s “Saducismus Triumphatus or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions,” published posthumously in 1681 in London. The book purported to provide proof of witches’ magical powers, and attacked skeptics of these abilities. Glanvill’s text would become influential during the Salem Witch Trials a decade later.Public domain image.

When the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ranked states using data from its comprehensive 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, only 57 percent of respondents from Connecticut and Rhode Island reported that they believed in God with “absolute certainty,” placing it second-to-last in the country. The state placed similarly low in all other rankings.

Today’s religious landscape is almost the complete opposite of what it was in the 17th century, when Connecticut was the quintessentially theocratic state. The Calvinists who founded the colony steeped their everyday lives in religiosity, and saw the tools of government as extensions of their god-given duty to secure religious purity in society. The Congregationalist Church was for more than a century the state-sanctioned religious institution; all other belief systems, including other sects of Protestant Christianity, were officially disenfranchised and unofficially derided as atheistic abominations.

Life in a theocracy could be difficult for those outside of the state church’s good graces. Those who broke with the sanctioned practices of the official belief system would be ostracized by the community. They could find themselves unable to participate in civic life. They could even be prosecuted under those state and local statutes that enshrined religious intolerance.

The separation of church and state was incrementally accomplished over generations, often as a reaction to specific policies that had negatively impacted Connecticut’s own residents.

‘By the lawe of God of this colony thou deservest to dye’

The Calvinists, who were variously called “puritans” and “pilgrims” (a reference to John Bunyan’s allegorical moralist tale, “The Pilgrim’s Progress’), were products of a Europe that had been torn apart a century earlier by some of the bloodiest sectarian wars the world has ever seen. They sought to establish a society where they could practice their own brand of religious fundamentalism without interference.

They also believed in education. The most prominent among them were men versed in laws and letters. They built the earliest colleges in the colonies. They kept up with the scientific revolution in Europe and the emerging value it placed on empiricism and induction.

This led to some strange combinations of belief and skepticism. Connecticut’s citizens thought that Satan had direct influence in the world, and that witches had gained supernatural powers by creating pacts with the evil being.

Connecticut’s government was at the forefront of witch persecution. Numerous trials took place in the state during the 1600’s, including the first recorded execution for witchcraft in the U.S. in 1647.

A state law making witchcraft a capital offense that was passed in 1642 explicitly referenced passages from the Bible: “If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death. Exodus xxii. 18. Levit. xx. 22. Deut. xviii. 10, n.”

By the end of the 17th century, however, colonial jurisprudential culture had shifted, placing a greater emphasis on evidence that made witch trials increasingly difficult to prosecute.

In 1692 – the same year as the famous Salem witch trials – a new wave of witchcraft accusations from threatened the lives of several Fairfield County women.

The troubles began when Katherine Branch, a servant in the Stamford home of former selectman Daniel Wescot, started having epileptic-like “fits.” Wescot suspected Branch was possessed by witchcraft, and soon Branch began naming names: Elizabeth Clawson of Stamford. Mary and Hannah Harvey, Mary Staples, and Goody Miller, all of Fairfield. Finally, Mercy Disborough of Compo, now part of Westport. Several of the accused were known to have had rocky relationships with the Wescots.

The initial investigation called for a committee of five women to examine the accused for “devil’s marks.” These were marks supposedly placed on the witch’s body by Satan so that he could drink the witch’s blood. If a birthmark was considered suspicious, a pin would be stuck through it to see if it would bleed. If it didn’t, the woman might be a witch.

Clawson passed this first examination, but Disborough did not.

A special trial was set up on Sept. 14 in Fairfield. Bills of indictment against Clawson and Disborough were presented to a grand jury, while charges against the other women were dropped. Disborough’s indictment, transcribed by Secretary John Allyn, said she had “familiarity with satan the grand enemie of God & men & thes by his instigetion & help thou hast in a preternatutal way afflicted & don Harm to the bodyes & Estates of sundry of their Ma[jesties] subjects…for which by the lawe of God of this colony thou deservest to dye.”

Clawson and Disborough had both pleaded not guilty to the crime. To determine if they were actually witches, the jury needed more evidence. The accused women agreed to be tested by having their hands bound to their legs and being tossed into the water, the theory being that water would refuse to accept a witch. If they floated, it was evidence of guilt.

On Sept. 15, the two women were given the water test. According to Allyn’s notes, several witnesses testified that they both floated.

Meanwhile, a contingent of Clawson’s friends from Stamford rallied to her defense. Seventy-six people signed a letter vouching for Clawson’s good character.

The jury deliberated, but was unable to come to a conclusion in either case, and decided to send the case to the General Court in Hartford (then the state’s highest court).

The ministers of the court, who had plenty of experience with the prosecution of witches and were aware of the hysteria sweeping through Salem, were not convinced at all by the evidence. They returned their official opinion on Oct. 17 with four findings:

1. "The endeavor of conviction of witchcraft by swimming is unlawful and sinful, and therefore it cannot afford any evidence.”

2. "Unusual excrescences found upon their bodies ought not to be advanced as evidence against them without the approbation of some able physicians.”

3. "Respecting the evidence of the afflicted maid (the witness claimed to have been bewitched)…we cannot think her a sufficient witness; yet we think that her affliction being something strange, it well deserves a further inquiry.”

4. "As to the other strange accidents—as the dying of cattle, etc., we apprehend the applying of them to these women as matters of witchcraft to be upon very slender and uncertain grounds."

The General Court did not choose to question whether witches actually existed, but they did demand a higher standard of evidence than the trial in Fairfield had produced.

The group in Fairfield reconvened, and on Oct. 28, found Clawson innocent. Disborough, however, was convicted.

In the first half of 1693, petitioners on behalf of Disborough approached the General Court, calling the decision against her illegal. The Court appointed a commission consisting of Samuel Wyllys, William Pitkin, and Nathaniel Stanley to review the documents of the case.

The commission, reaffirming the General Court’s earlier skepticism, acquitted Disborough and decided that further witch trials should be avoided altogether. They cited the horror that had occurred in Massachusetts the year before, saying that the epidemic of litigations in Salem were “warning enof, those that wit make witchcraf t of such things wit make hanging work apace.”

No witches were convicted in Connecticut after that, though a few trials continued to take place until 1697. Many citizens still believed that witches walked among them, consorting with Satan and possessing children. The law against witchcraft was never repealed; instead, it was quietly expunged from later revisions of public acts.

Disborough escaped execution. She faded into relative obscurity, popping up only occasionally in public records from the early 1700’s. She had been subjected to dangerous and humiliating tests, put in jail and sentenced to death, but had narrowly managed to gain her freedom. In this early test of state-sanctioned religion, Connecticut had taken a small step toward reform.

Part 2: Anglican Infiltration

Part 3: (Coming soon)

Relics of Industry: The Rapidayton Gas Pump

This rusting Rapidayton gas pump stands in front of an unused building at the end of my street in Fairfield.

Rapidayton pumps were once common in the East and Midwest. They were produced by the Dayton Pump & Manufacturing Co. in Dayton, Ohio.

The company was started in 1908 by Frank M. Tait, a master of utilities throughout the first half of the 20th century. Inspired by his early interaction with Thomas Edison, Tait took over what would become the Dayton Power & Light Co. in 1905. At one time or another, Tait managed public utilities all over the U.S.

Rapidayton pumps ended after the company was changed in 1955 to the Tait Manufacturing Co. The assets of the Dayton Pump & Manufacturing Co. were used to create the Frank M. Tait Foundation, which sits today on North Main Street in Dayton.

The year that this pump was installed is unclear. There are only three digits available for the total purchase price, meaning the pump was built with the assumption that a full tank of gas would never cost more than $9.99.

Photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

IBM strategist advocates ‘new mindset’ for corporate communications

IBM Communications Strategist and former business journalist Steve Hamm talks to UNH gathered students in the Vlock Center for Convergent Media Dec. 7 about the new opportunities that global communications are opening for businesses and media. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Corporations are shifting away from talking about themselves toward sharing ideas with people around the world, IBM Communications Strategist Steve Hamm on Dec. 7 told a class of University of New Haven students in the Laurel Vlock Center for Convergent Media in Maxcy Hall.

Hamm spoke to communications majors taking a copy editing course taught by adjunct Professor of Communications Mike Bazinet about his view that both journalism and public relations in the U.S. are broken at a time when a flood of disorderly information has created a great need for writers’ narrative talents. He urged the students not to be pessimistic, saying that there are also more opportunities than ever for positive change in both fields.

“The landscape has been utterly transformed in just a matter of years,” he said. It’s shocking – just shocking.

Hamm should know. He worked in journalism for decades before joining IBM two years ago. He wrote for the Bristol Press in Bristol, Conn., the San Jose Mercury News, and Businessweek. He has written several books, most recently publishing a book honoring IBM’s centennial anniversary. He also writes for IBM’s “A Smarter Planet Blog.”

Hamm witnessed the decline of Businessweek firsthand, from being the top business publication in the world in the late 1990s to when it “essentially went out of business” in 2009. He said he changed roles because he knew that journalism was struggling and he wanted to work with a large organization where his writing would have more influence.

Hamm said, though, that there are also problems emerging in corporate communications, precisely because of its relationship to journalism.

“The old model was: you strategize around finding a journalist interested in telling your story, invest time to develop a relationship with them, understand the market, build stories, pitch them, and then they’d be published,” he said.

Increasingly, Hamm said, journalism has lost its emphasis on explanation and narrative. He said that stories on business news websites like Marketwatch.com are a jumble of sometimes-contradictory snippets without any kind of depth.

“In a world of tremendous complexity, we’ve got news in tiny bits,” he said.

One of the things that Hamm and his colleagues at IBM have been working on to overcome the collapse of in-depth reporting is to recreate deep conversations about ideas through newer media, such as social networking sites. To do that, corporations are expanding their focus of constituents as shareholders and customers to include governments, universities, other companies – and employees.

That is one of the aims behind “A Smarter Planet Blog” and its related Facebook page, “People for a Smarter Planet.” Both sites include discussion with writers and researchers who work for IBM, but also bring in perspectives from all over the world.

One recent innovation was to have “Smart Fridays,” during which people studying interesting phenomena explain their research through a series of posts on the Facebook page. In one recent series, a researcher showed that the height of high-heeled shoes fluctuates with the economy. In hard times, heels tend to get higher, while in prosperous times they get lower.

The conversation, while not specific to anything that IBM does, generated about 1.4 million hits in a few hours.

Hamm sees these types of crossover conversations as a positive step for corporate communications. “One thing corporations must do is say, ‘here’s our knowledge,’ and become a hub around networks to create a feedback loop of learning and influencing. These are the most valuable things in the world, where value can be created.”

Hamm said that no one, including IBM, has quite figured out how to take full advantage of the explosion of information technologies available. That is why it is vital for people from different walks of life to share ideas with one another and try new things.

“Communication is not the frosting on the cake. It is the cake now,” he said. “It is part of the core of what societies need to advance.”