Ideation Magazine: Fall 2007

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Ideation magazine features research and scholarship at the College of William and Mary and is published semiannually. Editor: Joseph M. McClain. Contact: .

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But Cindy and Steve have, and they brought back a story and some pictures so that you can read about William and Mary’s study-abroad program in Cádiz, Spain.

Sarah Beck (left) and Adriane Lepore go online from a seat in the Plaza de Mina. In many of the plazas of Cádiz, the wifi signal is almost as strong as the sun.

You feel the music, taste it, see it, smell it. Skirts twirl and flash like the jumble of colors in a kaleidoscope’s eye.

Guru Ghosh of the Reves Center

Guru Ghosh arrived at the College in 2000 to become director of global education at the Wendy and Emery Reves Center for International Studies.

Student playwright Michael Johnson runs through a number from <i>Tragedy! (A Musical Comedy)</i> under the watchful eye of Daniel Wolfe.

When Michael Johnson talked to his composition professor about taking what is widely regarded as Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy and turning it into a musical comedy, he wasn’t expecting the response he got. She told him it was a great idea.

Maximum grip aperture while reaching, measured by position sensors, is a reliable indicator of how large a subject judges an object to be.

Optical illusions are everywhere. You see them in the comics sections in newspapers and in little books full of odd facts and trivia. The caption is usually a question: Which of the two lines is longer? Do you see faces…or a vase? Do you see a young woman or an old hag?

Under the supervision of Lord Botetourt, a crew of student archaeologists has spent the summers searching for evidence of formal gardens that centuries ago graced the front of the Wren Building. This summer, they found some of what they were seeking.

Digging up the past isn’t a favored pastime for most. But this summer a number of William and Mary undergraduates did just that, and they relished it.

Project archaeologist Elizabeth Monroe uses a digital compass to line up the next spot on the team’s shovel test grid.

“I’m intentionally going to be a little vague,” warns Joe Jones, director of William and Mary’s Center for Archaeological Research, as he sits down to discuss the center’s latest project.

Neuroscience major Liz Budrionis is working with Sharon Zuber to produce a documentary video on Dan Cristol’s research on mercury in birds along the Shenandoah River.

Every other Monday, behind closed doors, a group of people huddle over a platter of sandwiches in Millington Hall to discuss and refine their plans to disperse mercury throughout the College of William and Mary.

Laurie Koloski wanted to begin an initiative “that would make faculty want to stay at William and Mary.”

As soon as Laurie Koloski became director of the Reves Center in August of 2006, she began thinking. “Faculty are doing amazing things here, but I found from my own experience in the history department that it’s often very difficult to find out what people outside your own department are doing,” she said.

The Global Film s-GIG has hit the ground running, scheduling its first film program for mid-February at Williamsburg’s Kimball Theatre.

The Omohundro Institute’s conference in Ghana examined Britain’s 1807 decision to outlaw the slave trade. The conference included visits to historic sites along the “slave coast,” such as Cape Coast Castle.

Scholars from around the globe gathered this summer in Ghana to discuss the history of efforts to end the Atlantic slave trade.

Georgia Irby-Massie demonstrates how close Eratosthenes came to calculating the circumference of the earth using measurements from a pair of sundials, one on the Tropic of Cancer and another in Alexandria. His measurement was accurate to within 15 percent

The bathtub scene made the cut...but just barely.

William and Mary economists Robert Archibald (left) and David Feldman believe they have a better way of determining college graduation rates, but aren’t ready to replace the U.S. News college rankings.

It’s not so much comparing apples to oranges. It’s more like comparing apples to pizza, airplanes and kangaroos.

Juliet from <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, Virginia Shakespeare Festival 2007. “I’m big on detail. Everyone says that you need to design the costume for the audience in the back rows of the theatre, but how about the people up close, in the front row?

“The audience doesn’t leave singing the costumes.” It’s a bit of advice Patricia Wesp has carried from her undergraduate days at William and Mary. But Wesp, associate professor of theatre and veteran costume designer, knows how to make a costume sing. Or laugh.

Tric Wesp needs a ladder to navigate the upper reaches of the Costume Shop’s stockroom.

The Costume Shop in Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall looks like the result of an experiment that spliced genes from Hogwarts Academy, your grandmother’s basement, an Elizabethan fabric store and one of the world’s classier sweatshops.

Sally Price: Esthetics versus ethnography.

What possibly could be controversial about an art museum in Paris? You have no idea.

Two graduate students in William and Mary’s biology program received external grants totaling $42,900 to continue their work on environmentally sensitive projects.

Professor Greenia wearing the Cross of Isabel the Catholic. Courtesy of Greenia.

A professor at the College of William and Mary known for his work in medieval studies and on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage received Spain's highest cultural achievement distinction for foreign nationals on Oct. 11.

The memorial. Courtesy NPS.

Professor Michael Blakey’s work as lead scientist at the New York African Burial Ground led to the designation of the site as a national monument. A memorial at the site was dedicated Oct. 5.

The College of William and Mary has entered the vanguard of undergraduate computational mathematics instruction, fueled by a multiyear $800,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

John Swaddle with a pair of finches.

Loud levels of white noise have been shown to disrupt monogamous bonds between zebra finches. In a series of on-going experiments, William and Mary biologists are testing the connection between environmental noise and bird behavior.

New construction of ISC Phase I (left) is still very much hard-hat territory. ISC Phase II will be a gutted and refurbished Rogers Hall (right).

We’ve passed the halfway point in the three-year construction process of Phase I and II of William and Mary’s Integrated Science Center and progress is on track to meet the first important deadline—spring break.

©2008 · Arts & Sciences at The College of William and Mary