World Artist Network Celebrates Jackson Pollock's 100th Birthday with Community Painting

One of the contributors on the World Artist Network's Community Pollock-style Painting, created Saturday by visitors to the Bridgeport Arts Fest.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Passersby splattered and dripped reds, yellows, blues and blacks onto a canvas laid out on State Street beside McLevy Green in Bridgeport Saturday afternoon. With each new flick of the wrist, the Jackson Pollock-style painting took on greater dimension.

The collaborators on this masterpiece, however, were not professional artists. They were visitors to the World Artist Network's booth at the Bridgeport Arts Fest.

The community painting project was the brainchild of WAN Director Valeria Garrido, who said she wanted a unique way to celebrate the centennial of the famous painter's birth in 1912.

Pollock was a pioneer of abstract expressionism in the middle of the twentieth century, and is best known for the seemingly paint-splashed pieces created during his “drip period.”

“People forget that Pollock was revolutionary in the 40's and 50's, including by making New York City, rather than Paris, the center of the art world,” said Garrido.

After adding their marks, those who contributed to the community painting were encouraged to add their names to a list of participants. Garrido said the list would be used to give credit to all the artists involved in the painting's creation.

WAN plans to show the painting, along with the contributors' credits, during the Bridgeport Art Trail in November. It may also be put out at other upcoming events.

WAN participated in the Bridgeport Arts Fest for the second year in a row, providing arts activities for children and adults as part of its “Artist for a Day” series of events. Also displayed were pieces of art for sale from around the world created by artists who are members of the nonprofit.

WAN's canopies along State Street.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Tips on Arguing: Inductive Reasoning

In ancient Greece, philosophers and thinkers invented a process for arriving at truths about the world that we know today as deduction. These processes relied on taking general statements about the world and applying various logical rules to them in order to answer particular questions.

Deduction was enormously useful, especially in mathematics. It is deductive reasoning that led to the Pythagorean theorem, a general statement that works with every right triangle you will ever encounter.

Deduction had weaknesses, however, because it could give you answers that did not fit your observations. That was what drove the seventeenth-century English philosopher Francis Bacon to popularize a new way of organizing thought: induction.

Inductive reasoning takes deduction and flips it around. Instead of inventing axioms and applying them to specific observations, induction worked by collecting numerous observations and then deriving general principles from the amassed observations.

By giving precedence to observations over theories, Bacon's empirical approach provided a springboard for a great leap forward in the study of the natural sciences. If you collected 100 observations and 99 of them could not be explained with your current theory, the theory would have to be changed.

The modern scientific method is dependent upon inductive reasoning. However, Bacon himself warned against equating the two. Induction is only half of science. Eventually, enough observations have been collected to develop a strong theory.

At that point, the theory becomes the standard for future observations, thus allowing us to once again use deduction. Our observation of a heavier-than-air jet does not lead us to conclude that gravity is being violated – we know that the plane is in fact operating according to the rules of gravity. We also assume those rules are consistent, or else we could never be sure if the next jet would get off the ground.

Induction is incredibly versatile, and it encourages a healthy skepticism about statements that can't be verified by facts. If used properly, this form of reasoning is one of the best ways to align your ideas and beliefs with empirical reality.

Important Books: Understanding Media

Marshall McLuhan holding a mirror in 1967.

Photograph by John Reeves through the Library and Archives Canada. Reference: 1980-194, PA-165118, MIKAN 4170003. Some rights reserved.

Marshall McLuhan changed the trajectory of media studies.

During the mid-twentieth century, McLuhan was a Professor of English literature at the University of Toronto. While there, he wrote a number of books that advanced several key concepts critical to modern theories of media, though some of his ideas would not become widely accepted until the spread and adoption of Internet technologies.

In 1964, McLuhan's seminal book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, would launch the professor into the international spotlight. A younger generation thirsty for radical new ideas would embrace his work as prophetic. The established media and academic cultures, however, were more critical of his work. Both would frequently misinterpret his writing.

The main thesis of Understanding Media was that media can be assessed independent of content – that the form a communications medium takes is what determines how it will be used. The first chapter, titled “The Medium is the Message,” opened with a summary of this process: “This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”

Concurrent with this theme was another, more prophetic notion: that humanity is in transition between two major periods: the print era and the electric age. McLuhan saw the ability of electricity to deliver instantaneous information as the beginning of a paradigm shift that would cause people to slough off the fragmentation and mechanization engendered by the printed word while reconnecting with their tribal roots in a wider “global village” (a term McLuhan coined).

The second half of McLuhan's book tackled individual forms of media and their different impacts on life and culture. He pointed out, for instance, that literary-minded people who are accustomed to linear arguments and cohesive storytelling misunderstand the press, which, he noted, has tended “not to the book form, but to the mosaic or participational form...not a detached 'point of view,' but participation in process.”

In addition to books, television, and other formats that are traditionally thought of as media, McLuhan included chapters on cars, clocks, and electric light.

Ironically, Understanding Media can be difficult to understand, with passages that are at times dense and esoteric. Rather than approach the field in a systematic fashion, McLuhan often embedded his ideas in analogies and anecdotes. As Lewis H. Lapham describes in his introduction to the 1994 MIT Press edition, “quite a few of the notions to which he [McLuhan] off-handedly refers in the early pages, as if everybody already knew what he meant, he doesn't bother to explain until the later pages, often by way of an afterthought or an aside.”

Predictions about the coming electric age were one of the most controversial aspects of Understanding Media. McLuhan, who identified himself as a product of the literary world, nevertheless insisted that that the power of print would soon be overtaken by fundamentally different electric technologies.

Some predictions came true, such as his suggestion that televisions would become common in the classroom and shift the emphasis of education to reflect new expectations about becoming involved with processes, rather than simply learning about them. Other prognostications were slightly off the mark, such as the assertion that the car would be replaced by “electrical successors” within ten years.

McLuhan's predictions for the electric age were unpalatable to some for at least two major reasons. First of all, the dominant media and academic institutions of the time had built their legacies through print media, which McLuhan seemed to claim were doomed.

The second reason for skepticism is more understandable: many of the changes he foresaw were as yet barely imaginable. The first desktop computer was a decade away, and commercial Internet Service Providers wouldn't appear for more than twenty years. Cell phones, video games and Facebook were the stuff of science fiction.

Despite McLuhan's initial fame, much of his work lost traction during the 1970's. It would not be until a generation later that his books would get a fresh look – and now, with a burgeoning online culture, would make a lot more sense.

In fact, McLuhan's once-radical insight into how the forms of media shape our lives is a widely accepted, much-discussed topic today, and is obvious to anyone who has witnessed the changes wrought by Microsoft, Apple or Google. McLuhan, it turns out, truly was ahead of his time.

Connecticut Tourism Initiative Should Learn from Mystic's Model

The Joseph Conrad. Built in 1882 in Denmark as a ship for training seamen, it was later used for the same purpose by Australia and the United States.

When Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's $27 million tourism branding campaign for Connecticut launched earlier this year, the town of Mystic featured prominently.

One of the posters created by the campaign shows a beluga whale “kissing” a young girl, accompanied by the caption “Still Mystical.” On ctvisit.com, a map of Connecticut's regions lists the entire eastern half of the state – encompassing three counties, two of which are landlocked – as “Mystic Country.”

It's not surprising that the state would capitalize on Mystic. Even in the days when previous Gov. M. Jodi Rell infamously reduced the tourism budget to a dollar and Connecticut “disappeared” from Discover New England's tourismmap, Mystic remained a shining beacon, drawing thousands of visitors to the aquarium and seaport each year.

Although attitudes about tourism have begun to change, Mystic remains one of the few places in the state with a developed industry. The Offices of Culture and Tourism (the wing of the Department of Economic & Community Development responsible for breathing new life into the tourist industry) can learn a lot from Mystic's model.

The Mystic River Bascule Bridge, built in 1922, crosses the water at the heart of downtown. During the warmer seasons, the bridge opens on the fortieth of every hour during the day. A whistle is blown that can be heard up and down the river.

The Steamboat Inn, located on Water Street, has rooms that look directly out over the Mystic River.

Spanky the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) lounges in the water at the Mystic Aquarium.

Part of Mystic Aquarium's mission includes educating people about the ocean. This display of adult dogfish (Scyliorhinus canicula) and their eggs allows visitors to see the live embryos at various stages of development.

Spotted jellies (Matigias papua), which are native to the Pacific Ocean, swirl in loops around their tank at the Mystic Aquarium.

The “blubber room” on the Charles W. Morgan, the oldest American marine vessel and the last American wooden whaling ship. Visitors to Mystic Seaport can board the ship, which is currently undergoing further revitalization.

Blueprints of the Charles W. Morgan.

The S.S. Sabino, a 104-year-old wooden, coal-fired steamboat, readies with a load of passengers for a cruise down Mystic River.

The kitchen inside the fishing schooner L.A. Dunton, first launched in 1921.

A cannon aboard the Joseph Conrad.

All photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Stone Marks Mystic's Prehistory

This boulder in Mystic, Conn. was dropped by ice sheets that covered the state during the last glacial period.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

We just happened to be heading in the direction of the erratic.

My wife, Valeria, and I were driving to Mystic, Conn. for the weekend to celebrate our third anniversary. I had suggested the destination because I knew that Mystic was one of the few spots in the state that understood how to create a successful tourism industry while retaining its New England charm.

As we traced the coastline eastward in the waning June afternoon, we listened to Friday's episode of WhereWe Live, a radio talk show about Connecticut based out of WNPR in Hartford. Host John Dankosky was talking with experts about the area's geology.

He brought photographer Frtiz Hoffmann on. Hoffmann had traveled the country taking pictures of big rocks for a story that appeared in the March issue of National Geographic.

These weren't just any big rocks, though – they had been plopped down by the last group of glaciers to cover much of the United States during the most recent Ice Age, which ended around 13,000 years ago.

Hoffmann's pictures were of erratics – huge boulders that looked like they had dropped into their environment from the sky. The most famous of these are probably the rocks in Central Park.

When the ice sheets slid southward to cover the continent, they scooped up tremendous masses of earth. As the ice receded, it left that material behind.

“You have a beautiful picture of one (erratic) at the edge of a parking lot in Mystic, Connecticut,” we heard Dankosky say.

From that point, I was determined to track the boulder down.

That evening, we arrived at the Steamboat Inn on Water Street. The inn hugs the dock that lines the Mystic River and leads to the town's drawbridge. As we checked in, I asked about the rock in the parking lot.

“Oh, I think I read something about that,” the woman said. “I don't know where the rock is, but I remember the picture showed the rock next to a Salvation Army bin.”

Once we were settled in our room, I cracked open the laptop and searched for the National Geographic article. Sure enough, the rock was on the periphery of a parking lot. The Salvation Army bin was there, too. So was an employee of the mystery store, who was pushing a caravan of shopping carts across the foreground of the shot.

I decided to search for Salvation Army donation locations. No luck. The website only listed donation centers.

I did a Google search for “boulder erratic mystic, ct,” and found an article on the local Patch.com website about the National Geographic feature. Another photo of the rock. The caption said it could be found at the Big Y. I found the Big Y on a map of Mystic.

The following afternoon, Valeria and I took a detour from the traditional tourist destinations to visit the boulder.

It was truly gigantic. The National Geographic article had called it a leaverite, as in “leav 'er right there,” a nickname given for boulders deemed by construction workers as too cumbersome to bother moving. Indeed, a gap had been left in the chain-link fence surrounding the property to accommodate the erratic.

It was perhaps the most rewarding moment of the trip. Tourist destinations like Olde Mistick Village and Mystic Seaport capitalize on our desire to connect with the past that has shaped our present. Yet contained within this random rock largely ignored by passersby was a deeper history than any of the tourists who flock to Mystic ever get to see.

Every stone has a story. You just have to know where to look.

Me standing in front of the erratic.

Photograph by Valeria Garrido-Bisceglia.

Cynicism in Donovan Scandal Premature

Christopher G. Donovan, Speaker of the Connecticut. House of Representatives, on the opening day of the 2009 legislative session. Members of Donovan's campaign to replace Fifth District Congressman Chris Murphy have come under scrutiny by federal officials for allegedly concealing the sources of donations.

Photograph courtesy of Toasterb. Some rights reserved.

The allegations against House Speaker Chris Donovan's campaign finance director, Robert Braddock, Jr., and an unknown number of co-conspirators are serious indeed. But any cynical dismissal of Donovan (or politics more generally) as corrupt is premature.

Donovan has reacted appropriately so far. He fired key players in the controversy and is cooperating with federal authorities. His first public statement was slow in coming, but hit the right notes. He hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing, and has said he didn't know that anyone might be trying to funnel illegal contributions to his campaign.

That denial is credible. Donovan's personal role in the scandal appears to be tangential. Braddock was a new face in Connecticut. And Donovan is well-known as a crusader against the very types of influence-peddling now being rooted out at the Capitol. Unless the federal investigation turns up evidence that contradicts his statements, we must take him at his word.

This doesn't mean that Donovan is off the hook. He has already accepted responsibility for signing off on campaign hires, including Braddock. Going forward, he will need to be honest and forthright with investigators and voters as the probe continues. And he will need to redouble scrutiny of his own staff to make sure he is not plagued by scandals in the future.

In the meantime, it's prudent to wait for all of the facts to come out before making any judgments.

We shouldn't be surprised that corruption exists – that's why we have campaign finance laws in the first place. If anything, the discovery of these illegal contributions is proof that vigilance and enforcement can keep corruption from overtaking the system.

A version of this commentary was also published in the Connecticut Post.

Rain Doesn't Stop Venus Transit Watchers

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Despite intermittent rain, astronomy buffs and curious families gathered outside Bridgeport's Discovery Museum Tuesday to catch a first-hand glimpse of Venus as it crossed the face of the sun. Around 7 p.m., the sun broke through the clouds long enough for everyone to look through the telescopes set up in front of the entrance to the museum.

The next transit of Venus will not occur until 2117.

Goose Couple

A pair of Canada geese swim in the waters of Ash Creek in Fairfield in search of food 

at high tide on Thursday.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Fairfield Sanctuary: An Immersion in Local Wildlife

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

 Southwestern Connecticut may be known as one the most developed regions of the state, but it is still home to numerous enclaves for nature fans to explore.

The Roy and Margot Larsen Wildlife Sanctuary in Fairfield, Conn., is one such spot. The sanctuary, which is managed by the Connecticut Audubon Society consists of over six miles of trails on 152 acres of land. Hikers can encounter several types of habitat, including marshes, meadows, and ponds.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Around sunset in the spring, green frogs (Rana Clamitans) and bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana)line the edges of the ponds, croaking amorous songs to one another. The frogs hide in the shallow greenery for protection, only their heads protruding from the water.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Along the trail, plaques help visitors identify some of the plants that grow in the sanctuary, including red maple, witch hazel, and skunk cabbage. This tree trunk formerly belonged to a white pine that was approximately 100 years old, according to the plaque nearby. It was felled by lightning.

Thousands of birds take advantage of the trees and bodies of water. Some live there year-round; others stop over during migrations. This bird perched on a branch by Farm Pond to feather itself before taking off again.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

According to the USDA Forest Service, Norway Spruce (Picea abies) is native to Europe, but has become naturalized in some parts of the U.S., including Connecticut. It is best known for its role as the Christmas tree. The secondary branches of a mature spruce, such as this one, become droopy. They can grow to between 100 and 200 feet in height.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Birds may not be able to see one another through dense leaf-cover, so they often rely on sound to connect over long distances. In this clip, two birds engage in call-and-response.

A Long Time to Wait on Death Penalty

"The Genius of Connecticut" inside the Capitol building in Hartford. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

This month, the Connecticut legislature voted to repeal the state's death penalty. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has indicated he will sign the legislation when it reaches his desk.

I wrote the following letter, published by the Connecticut Post and the Stamford Advocate, in response to the historic repeal:

“Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?”

That was the question Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria asked in his groundbreaking 1764 essay, “On Crimes and Punishments,” which called for reforms to Europe's criminal justice system at a time when arbitrary sentences and torture were common. His work carries more weight than ever in Connecticut today.

Beccaria argued that the punishment of crimes should not pander to passions; rather, punishments should be based on rational principles. His treatise was key in shaping the U.S. Constitution and legal system.

In the essay, Beccaria made one of the first systematic arguments against the death penalty, writing that “the laws, which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase it by examples of barbarity.”

Beccaria recognized that capital punishment doesn't deter crime. He also pointed out that the wretchedness of a life in prison is a much harsher punishment, since a man could steel himself against a single moment of death and, by turning to religion, even look forward to “eternal happiness upon the easy terms of repentance.”

That's exactly what Michael Ross, the last person to be executed in Connecticut, did when he joined a Roman Catholic monastic community in West Redding and waived his right to appeal, opting instead for relief in death.

It took 250 years, but in a few days Connecticut will finally catch up with the Enlightenment.

Commencements Carry Long Histories Forward

The commencement ceremonies program from 1930, when UNH was known as New Haven College.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

The university commencement ceremony is a truly ancient tradition.

According to April L. Harris's “Academic Ceremonies: A Handbook of Traditions and Protocol,” the first commencements were held in Paris and Bologna in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. At that time, Harris writes, universities were training grounds run by local guilds and trade associations. After a student had mastered a craft, “the new master of arts was permitted by his superiors to commence teaching the craft, thus the term 'commencement.'”

Modern commencement ceremonies retain some of the vestiges of ancient traditions in the symbolic colors of the hoods and robes, the delivery of speeches, and other basic components. Despite their age, however, there are few agreed-upon rules for how to conduct a commencement. Every commencement is a unique blend that reflects an institution's own history, beliefs, and circumstances.

Past commencements at the University of New Haven tell a great deal about the university's genesis. When it opened as the New Haven Y.M.C.A. Junior College in 1920, UNH was a second-chance institution aimed at providing job skills for veterans of World War I. The college consisted of three departments: the School of Commerce and Finance, the School of Engineering, and the Preparatory School.

In addition to being experience-oriented, the college was progressive, admitting women for the first time during the 1922-23 school year. According to a historyof UNH written in 1995 by Joseph B. Chepaitis as part of the university's 75-year anniversary, the first commencement, held on June 24, 1924, served as a chance for the 13 graduates to display this forward-leaning attitude.

“The graduating class displayed their spirit at graduation,” he writes. “The male members stepped aside to allow the only woman in the class, Bella Cohen, to be the first to graduate.”

In its early years, UNH struggled to maintain its mission of service to the community. The Great Depression and other factors placed the fledgling college on uncertain ground, and limited the number of students who enrolled. In 1930, a full ten years after its inception, the graduating class still only consisted of 16 people, two of whom were women.

The program from that day's ceremonies is the earliest one available today in the UNH archives. Despite being over 80 years old, though, the format of the ceremony would be familiar to anyone who has attended a modern commencement.

A string quintet played “Pomp and Circumstance” during the opening processional. There was an invocation followed by a commencement address. The candidates for degrees were presented that year by Ellis C. Maxcy, who was head of the Commerce and Engineering Departments at the time. Next, New Haven College Director John Brodhead conferred the degrees. Finally, the group recessed as the quintet played the “Coronation March.”

In 1930, the only note of protocol listed in the program stated, “The audience will remain seated until the procession has left the auditorium.”

Not much has changed since 1930. When asked what protocols today's students need to know, Director of University Special Events Jill Zamparo echoes the recommendation from a century ago.

“Students shouldn't get up and leave until the ceremony is over,” she says.

Some things about commencement have changed significantly since UNH was founded. One significant milestone occurred in 1958, when New Haven College (UNH's name at the time) received provisional authority from Connecticut's General Assembly to award bachelor of science degrees in business and engineering.

By the time the college received accreditation for its baccalaureate programs in 1966, the number of students receiving four-year degrees outnumbered those receiving two-year degrees by two to one. At that year's commencement, 186 business and engineering students got their bachelors degrees, while 92 received an associates degree.

As UNH expanded into its current size and shape, it also adapted its commencement ceremonies to incorporate more ancient traditions. A pair of maces conveyed by the marshals leading academic processions were donated in 1976 by former Chairman of the UNH Board of Governors Norman I. Botwinik. The maces, which reside under glass in the university library for most of the year, were designed after those used by fifteenth century academies in London, according to the UNH commencement pageantry guide.

Maces are used to symbolize authority, according to the guide. They became a symbol of power during the Middle Ages in Europe because they could break plate armor that was impervious to the sword.

A second ancient symbol was given in 1995 by the University of New Haven Alumni Association and incorporated into the ceremonies: the collar of authority. The collar is worn by the president of a university and contains symbols significant to that institution. In UNH's case, the collar contains a pendant with the university seal, as well as eight links with symbols representing UNH's foundation and historical connection to Yale University and the Y.M.C.A.

Other changes are bound to occur over time, as well. Zamparo says that she is finding that policies are needed to handle all kinds of minutia, such as who can and cannot wear honor cords. She expects a set of written policies to be in place by 2013.

Yet the traditions from which Zamparo is drawing her ideas for new practices are sometimes profoundly old. Books like Harris's “Handbook of Traditions and Protocol” are guiding guide the development of these practices. What emerges will be another adaptation of ancient traditions to meet modern needs.

Tips on Arguing: Admit When You're Wrong

-->

We’d all like to win our arguments. We’d all like to believe that our positions are the “right” ones. We’d all like to have the facts on our side.

           

But life isn’t that simple. Circumstances change. New facts are discovered, and sometimes they challenge even the staunchest of beliefs. “Truth” rarely remains unchanged over the long run. To be able to argue effectively, you have to be prepared to be wrong.

           

That’s easier said than done, though. Even if you recognize on an intellectual level that your statements and beliefs are subject to change, actually admitting and acting upon it can have some unpalatable consequences: embarrassment; suspicion from others; loss of one’s job; legal action.

           

In the long term, however, refusing to admit a mistake or clinging to an outdated notion is a losing gambit.

           

Consider the Toyota recall debacle that began in late 2009. It was revealed that Toyota had been neglecting safety concerns in several of its models long before it recalled any cars. The public backlash was devastating. Within two weeks, research by Kelley Blue Book estimated that “27 percent of those who said they were considering a Toyota prior to the recall now say they no longer are considering the brand for their next vehicle purchase.” Of those disillusioned car buyers, about half said they weren’t sure if they would consider buying a Toyota after the company’s problems were resolved.

           

It was a huge hit for Toyota, which still had to recall over 6.5 million vehicles and temporarily shut down several North American plants.

           

The damage to Toyota’s brand – and the deaths caused by its negligence – could have been minimized if the executives had been willing to recognize their errors. The company didn’t escape the negative consequences of public apology, either. Embarrassment, mistrust, and legal penalties were all amplified by Toyota’s inaction.

           

It can be hard to be open about your failings. It can be hard to abandon your established beliefs, especially if they’re central to your life or work. Eventually, though, it’s always much harder not to admit when you're wrong.

HCC and UNH Partner for First Transfer Tour

The main campus at the University of New Haven. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

A group of 22 students from Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport got a first-hand look Friday at the University of New Haven experience.

The students, accompanied by HCC Counselor Marilyn Wehr, boarded a bus at 10 a.m. and made the half-hour trip to West Haven, where they were shepherded to the second floor of Bartels Hall for a presentation about UNH by Nikki Cardillo, assistant director for transfer admissions at UNH, who led the tour.

Aided with slides, Cardillo gave an overview of the programs and facilities available at UNH. She explained the transfer process, including the scholarships available to transfer students and the dates by which they would need to apply in order to qualify for financial aid or housing.

Cardillo also spent time talking about some of the successful people who have graduated from UNH, such as David Beckerman, who founded the Starter athletic apparel company in New Haven in 1971.

Most of the students were learning about UNH well before they were ready to finish at HCC. When Cardillo asked how many of the students were interested in transferring for the Fall 2012 semester, four raised their hands.

The students posed tough questions for Cardillo at the end of her presentation. Several asked about part-time enrollment, which had not been covered in the presentation. According to HCC's Institutional Research Office, 4,248 out of 6,132 of the college's students this semester are enrolled part-time, accounting for over two-thirds of the student population.

One student asked Cardillo if she could estimate UNH's ability to place students in jobs. Cardillo said it was difficult to tell.

“Some students go on to Master's programs. Others get jobs that are not in their specific majors,” she pointed out.

After the presentation, the students were given meal cards so they could buy lunch in the cafeteria, where they were joined by professors who talked to them about academic life at UNH.

Several students had already formed positive impressions of UNH before arriving on campus. Rob Nerkowski, a computer sciences major at HCC, had heard about the computer engineering program at UNH from a friend who attends the College of Engineering.

Nerkowski said that everyone he had met on campus seemed kind and had said 'hi' to him.

“There's nothing I didn't like,” he said.

HCC Criminal Justice major Alex Antuna, Jr., said that he was excited to see the Henry C. Lee Institute.

“I wanted to come today because this is one of the best schools for criminal justice and forensics,” he said.

Antuna was a little intimidated by the idea that he would be living on campus by himself, however, saying he had “living on your own anxiety.”

Carolina DeLeón, another criminal justice major at HCC, was not at all intimidated. She said that she was looking for a small campus with nice people, adding that she wanted to go somewhere with the same feeling of community that she enjoyed at HCC.

She was, however, reserving judgment until she had heard more about UNH's part-time programs. She said she has a 14-year-old son, and would not be able to manage a full-time course load.

Wehr said this was the first time HCC and UNH had worked together on such a tour. She and Cardillo worked together to coordinate the trip because they felt that HCC and UNH are near one another and have numerous programs in common, including criminal justice and accounting.

Cardillo said that, since starting as an admissions coordinator in the summer of 2011 she has made it a goal to build closer relationships with Connecticut's community colleges, as well as some in New York and Massachusetts.

“I think that having students come visit, and having our counselors visit their schools multiple times per month gives that personal touch on which UNH prides itself,” she said.

           

Cardillo said she is currently planning a trip for engineering students from Naugatuck Vallley Community College in Waterbury to visit the Tagliatela College of Engineering.

Groundhog Goes to Work

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

There is a fenced-in gulley where I work that runs parallel to the parking spaces. This morning, I heard a shuffling noise on one side of my car. I turned the corner and came face-to-face with a groundhog who gave me a curious look and scurried down the embankment.

While the groundhog attempted to bury itself in the brush, I retrieved my camera and crouched to take a picture from afar. By the time I had adjusted the zoom, however, the furry interloper apparently changed its mind about hanging around. Instead, it began heading along the bottom of the gully back toward me.

I thought I was going to lose the shot entirely. Then, just as the groundhog got to the area in front of my car, it rose up on its hind legs and stared me directly in the lens – just long enough for this portrait.

I did not have the chance to ask the groundhog if it was there to apply for a job.

Donation to WNHU Spurs Renovation of Studios

Renovations have begun on WNHU's future talk studio. With the former music library moved, the room will allow enough space for roundtable-style shows and other more elaborate productions.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

The University of New Haven's award-winning radio station will soon be getting an upgrade.

WNHU 88.7 FM has received a $6,000 donation to renovate its studios from Barrett Outdoor Communications, a West Haven-based outdoor advertising company.

Barrett Outdoor Communications owner John Barrett donated the funds after his son, Patrick, became involved with the station, says WNHU General Manager Bryan Lane.

“There's currently only one room for producing,” says Lane. “His (Barrett's) son was getting shut out a lot.”

The station, which is housed in the basement of Maxcy Hall, sold off the bulk of its physical music library several years ago, after digitizing some of its collection. When Lane was hired in January 2009, there were about 20,000 CDs and 5,000 vinyl albums. Most weren't being used anymore, and there was no reason to keep more than a few thousand around.

Reducing the size of the library opened more space to expand other activities. “The only problem was that we didn't have the funds,” says Lane.

Lane says the elder Barrett came to him with the offer after learning about his son's experiences. They began discussing what could be done with the configuration of the studios if the money was available.

With the donation, the station will be able to turn the room that formerly housed the library into a full-fledged talk studio, complete with a table and multiple microphones for guests. What is left of the music library is being relocated to a walk-in closet down the hall.

Other moves will also take place. The Charger Stream studio, for instance, will be taking residence in Lane's own office, which he says is too large for his needs.

The renovations are likely to last throughout the summer.

There are other changes that Lane would like to see for the station over the next few years. His biggest goal is to train more students to take on more production and management responsibilities at the studio.

“This is the fourth crew that I'm employing,” he says. “We're getting closer and closer to having the students run things.”

Aside from simply learning how to do more on their own, Lane says that putting students in charge will give them more opportunities to interact with the wider community.

“There's a perception that WNHU is a community station,” he says, “because we have so many people from outside the university here.”

Fun in the Sun

A flock of seagulls takes advantage of the warm spring weather Thursday by frolicking in the low tide mud flats of Ash Creek in Fairfield, Conn.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

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.