“At the beginning of the program, I was unsure about what I wanted to do after graduation. Being immersed in full time research for the summer gave me a taste of one option available to me once I’ve completed my undergraduate education, and I’ve found that I am really passionate about this type of work.” -- Angela's Berardinelli

Math Professor Leah Berman’s Summer Fellows research was discrete geometry -- the geometry of objects that have pieces or corners or edges, hence, discrete pieces. “Compare, for example, the surface of a sphere and the surface of a cube,” says Berman. “The sphere is smooth, while the cube has sharp corners. The cube is studied in discrete geometry (it is a special kind of polyhedron), but the sphere and other smooth objects such as the torus, or doughnut shape, are studied in differential geometry.” Berman worked with two students, Angela Berardinelli and Nadine Burtt. Both studied different aspects of a class of configurations called celestial 4-configurations. “Celestial 4-configurations are a very highly symmetric class of 4-configurations, and are probably the most well understood class of 4-configurations,” says Berman. “But there is still a lot that we don't understand about them!” Angela's Berardinelli programmed a computer to produce an accurate list of data of which celestial 4-configurations exist. “I’m writing computer code to sift through numeric symbols that represent geometric figures,” says Berardinelli. “The specific figures I’m working with are points and lines in the plane called configurations, and each point has exactly four lines going through it and each line has exactly four points on it. The points are arranged in concentric circles and the numeric symbols. I’m working to determine where the lines are placed on the points. I'm trying to find patterns in the symbols based on the number of points in the circles.”

The most exciting thing about academic research, says Berardinelli, is the idea of exploration. “It’s easy to go through day-to-day life with a feeling that it’s all been said and done before, but there is so much that we don’t know. Especially in a field as old as mathematics, a lot of people assume that there is no progress to be made, but there are so many open questions for which no one has an answer. My research question is extremely interesting to me because it’s a simple concept to understand, it’s easy to work with visually, but it is also complex, intricate, detail-oriented, and completely unknown. This project is a great opportunity to blend my strong background in algorithmic computer science thinking and pure mathematics.

Another, less poetic, motivation for taking on this Summer Fellows project was to get a feel for what real research was like. At the beginning of the program, I was unsure about what I wanted to do after graduation. Being immersed in full time research for the summer gave me a taste of one option available to me once I’ve completed my undergraduate education, and I’ve found that I am really passionate about this type of work." Nadine Burtt experimented with certain subclasses of celestial 4-configurations to determine hidden structure: in particular, some celestial 4-configurations may be 'superimposed' to form a configuration of points and lines with six points on every line and four lines through every point ((4,6)-configurations). “I liked the accessibility of my project,” said Burtt. “Often, when someone starts talking about math, the brain has a tendency to turn off and stop listening after the first sentence. Everything that I’ve been doing, however, lends itself to the visual nature of geometry. You don’t merely talk about configurations. You draw them. Then, suddenly, everything makes sense.”

Abbie Cichowski is fascinated by the therapeutic power of self-narrative, storytelling and performance. After her theater class listened to a podcast of prison inmates rehearsing to perform Shakespeare’s Macbeth, she was moved to create a personal narrative and performance piece documenting a complex personal relationship.

Her Summer Fellows project, Breaking the Silence: A Father-Daughter Examination at the Crossroads of Performance Studies, Personal Narrative, and Autoethnography, integrates scholarly inquiry and personal reflection. With Media and Communications Studies faculty Dr. Louise Woodstock as her primary advisor, as well as theater faculty Dr. Beverly Redman, secondary mentor, the inter-disciplinary creative project draws upon knowledge gained from both Cichowski’s Theater, and Media and Communication Studies majors.

Abbie plans to expand the research for an Honors Project next semester, and is interested in becoming involved in a project Dr. Redman is undertaking at Graterford Prison during the spring semester. “I hope this will allow me to turn my research into practice,” she said

Elizabeth Cannon, a rising Ursinus senior, from Garrison, N.Y., was inspired studying in Cape Town through the CIEE Cape Town Service-Learning program, and by her participation in the Debate for Democracy Project Pericles conference in New York, to study how Ursinus can better incorporate the idea of “participatory citizenship.” Her project will inventory the state of civic engagement at Ursinus, create a web-based “living” document, and make it easier for civic-minded students at Ursinus, and hopefully encourage more of them. Elizabeth, who designed her own major, social ecology, says that she wants to emphasize social awareness and participatory democracy for students who want to take on more active roles than already do.

Roger Lee, a rising Ursinus College senior from Philadelphia, is looking at the artistic collaborative process between visual artists and choreographers. Lee, a visual artist and dancer himself, will focus on partnerships such as Merce Cunningham/Robert Rauschenberg and Martha Graham/Isamu Noguchi, and look at others such as Ming Shen Ku and Bebe Miller. He plans to create his own new work serving as set and costume designer, choreographer and dancer.

Roger says that since age five he has taken art classes, and by age 12, was choreographing his own works. He is excited to pursue these passions this summer.

They are among 80 Ursinus College students on campus as Summer Fellows, doing research to assess the role of natural habitat in the conservation of insect pests; trace the footsteps of Thomas Hardy in D. H. Lawrence novels; compare dance education in suburban and urban schools; work with single walled carbon nanotubes; learn the effect on audiences of Brecht’s performance techniques, and explore topics in every academic discipline.

Thirteen years ago, undergraduate research became the priority summer activity during summers on campus. Summer Fellows work one-on- one with a faculty member in a more focused environment than during the busy academic year. In lieu of a paying job, students receive a stipend. Additionally, Ursinus offers a stipend to faculty mentors, provides housing and offers Fellows some meals, program and activities.

Students began their work June 1 -- although some began earlier in special 10-week projects with outside grant funding (from National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health). All students present summaries of their completed research in a public presentation July 24.

President John Strassburger, a longtime proponent of undergraduate research, calls the college’s commitment even stronger, “because of the high quality of work we have seen coming from the students. Our former Summer Fellows point to the critical thinking skills they acquired as Fellows as contributing to their success after graduation, and the benefits of continuing their summer research as honors projects, or having a body of work to present at regional or national conferences.”

Some of the projects which were approved in a competitive process include:

“Affirming the Legend of Pericles;” “Assessing the Role of Natural Habitat in the Conservation of Insect Predators and the Biological Control of Alfalfa Pests;” “Bridging the Gap, The Economy on Canvas;” “The Change from Assimilation to Sustainability of an Immigrant Community;” “The Attachment of Acyclavir to Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes;” “The Reality of Illusion, Brecht’s Performance Techniques and Their Effects on his Audiences;” “Why the America Prison System is Ineffective in Issuing Treatment for Inmates;” and “Tracking the Migration of Neural Stem Cells in the Spinal Cord of Regenerated Tails of Plethodon cinereus.”

Students in Professor Patrick Hurley’s environmental studies class learned about the practice of habitat diversity and “urban foraging” by visiting two of New York’s most famous parks, both designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Central Park in Manhattan were the sites for students to explore dimensions of the urban forest, and learn about the practice of finding wild edibles from within the urban forest, including plants growing in parks and associated with street trees. The group also visited a local community garden, Garden of the Union, in Brooklyn.

The tour guide for the exploration was Leda Meredith, locavore activist and author of “Botany, Ballet, and Dinner from Scratch.” Says Professor Hurley: “Students learned about the diversity of plants (and their uses) that can be collected from these urban environments; the formal and informal rules that govern gathering; and issues surrounding management, ownership, and risks from pollution.”

In addition to the author, they were joined by representatives from the New York Research Station of the U.S. Forest (USFS) and research geographer Dr. Marla Emery from the USFS Northern Research Station, who is a specialist in gathering and non-timber forest products.

As Kayla Federline '10 sat alongside Florence’s Arno River sketching the Ponte Vecchio, she was struck by the place she now held in history. “It was amazing to sit there and draw at the same site where hundreds and hundreds of artists had drawn before me,” says Federline, a junior who is pursuing a double major in Art History and Business and Economics.

“In Italy, people are very accepting of the young artist,” says Federline. She admits being a little surprised when locals asked to buy her charcoal sketches of the medieval bridge. She returned in November from the Ursinus in Florence program. The semester immersed in the art and culture of Italy was inspiring.

“You have a preconceived notion of exactly what it will be like and then you go and all the notions are turned on your head,” she says. The aura of the country and the interdisciplinary aspect of the program had the most impact. Venice and Rome were favorites as well as an invaluable Uffizi Pass which allowed for unlimited tours of all of Florence’s museums. “I could see The David four times a week. After a while, the guards knew me.”

An internship in the Research and Development Department at The Philadelphia Museum of Art this summer enhanced her experience abroad. It also solidified her career plans.

“Art has always been my passion,” says Federline, who was raised in Chambersburg, Pa. During her junior year of high school she received the coveted Lenfest Scholarship which provided funding to attend the college of her choice. The scholarship helped her to acquire the Philadelphia Museum of Art internship.

“At a school like Ursinus, the classes are small and the professors really know you and listen. The internship showed me that the double major does have a place in the real world. It was the ideal situation. I want to pursue something of that caliber when I graduate. Working in an art museum would be perfect,” says Federline, who is junior class treasurer and president of Art Advocacy on campus.

The internship gave her invaluable experience with the finance and fundraising arm of museum work, says Federline, who works on campus at The Berman Museum.

At the Philadelphia Art Museum, she focused much of her time helping to organize events and researching spreadsheets and endowments to present to potential donors. “But one day I got pulled off my job, went along to a press conference at The Rodin Museum. Here I was in the riding in the car with all these important people. And the funny thing was they were really interested in hearing about the work that I was doing at the Museum.”

Editor’s Note: Ursinus in Florence is a chance for Ursinus students to spend a term studying in Florence, Italy. Students take the normal course load, and may choose among a variety of courses, some of which are taught by local instructors (e.g., Conversational Italian) and others by Ursinus faculty who have accompanied the group to Florence. Typically two Ursinus faculty accompany the group. The program is coordinated and locally supervised by CAPA (Center for Academic Programs Abroad). CAPA is an international service organization based in the United States which has local centers in areas such as Europe, and Australia

Elizabeth Cannon, class of 2010, made a huge leap last summer. At 19, she only had traveled to Canada and the Bahamas and always with her family. But as part of the service learning program sponsored by the Counsel for International Education Exchange, Cannon left for Africa. Alone. Flying from London to South Africa, she was eager for the adventure that would provide learning beyond the classroom. “I wanted to go somewhere that tested my limits,” says Cannon, 20, about why she chose Cape Town. “I wanted to see a country that was an emerging democracy and research how that impacted its people.”

Cannon arrived in July and was matched with a group of 7th grade girls at the Manenberg Primary School. She hoped to develop a program that empowered girls through sports. “It was very different from the normal study abroad experience,’’ says Cannon, who designed her own major at Ursinus. That major, Social Ecology, describes and investigates the relationship between humans and their environment specifically examining the universal and persistent behavioral, environmental and social problems that society faces.

“Service learning gave me an opportunity to use skills and knowledge in real-life situations,” says Cannon, who lived for a time with a host family in Langa, the oldest black township in South Africa and home to Nelson Mandela’s primary school. “CIEE promoted learning through active participation . We were able to design our own programs based on our interests,” says Cannon, a UC lacrosse player. But plans change. The young girls didn’t warm to the sports program, so Cannon had to be flexible and switch gears.

“I realized I needed to make a change that combined empowerment objectives with learning objectives,” says Cannon, who was raised in New York’s Hudson Valley. She worked on activities and games that linked self reflection, self discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills and knowledge. The girls responded and were doubly thrilled when Cannon made use of a largely abandoned computer lab and taught them Power Point and other computer skills. CIEE also provided for reflection weekends. These times offered the group a chance to discuss their work while soaking in the country’s wildlife and scenic beauty. A close encounter with a herd of water buffalo is one memory that won’t soon fade, she says. When she returned to UC campus in November, Cannon already was thinking about the Peace Corp or a Fellowship program in Africa. “It really fostered a sense of caring for others and a sense of our responsibility to become agents of change,” says Cannon. “My experience allowed me to become fully immersed in the culture and diversity that South Africa offers. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.”

Kelsey Threatte, senior Politics and International Relations major at Ursinus, spent the Spring Semester 2008 studying at American University in Cairo Egypt. With just one year of of modern standard Arabic under her belt, she was able to absorb enough colloquial Egyptian Arabic to immerse herself in her surroundings.  Below, she recounts some of her experiences.

For me, study abroad was about abandoning the tourist mindset:  I feel out of place wandering to browse the cheap plastic pyramids and busts of Cleopatra. Even the tourist side of Khan al-Khalili, the large historic bazaar in Cairo, is only entered with gritted teeth and a bitter taste in my mouth. Anna misreen. I am Egyptian. When people ask where I am from I tell them I live in Doqqi- a lower working class section of Cairo.


After this I am called sister, daughter, and Egyptian. After entering the realm of resident and a step closer to the Egyptian people away from that harsh barrier between tourist and local, browsing the stacks of fake papyrus was reverting back to a place I was no longer a part of.


I guess that’s what study abroad is about though. No longer only a part of the American mindset, but given a small glimpse into being outside the realm of everything you have taken for granted to live with a people who are on a level so different from your own. I hesitate to say different here though because the experience is not about finding differences, anyone with eyes and a quick mind to weigh and judge can see the differences between people, but it is about moving past that to the deeper acknowledgment of that which makes us the same that is truly what matters.


Speaking with the shopkeepers, learning about their dreams and ambitions, being invited for tea with them, discussing their work, our studies, and their family--all of this is lost when you seek to buy just to provide your friends and family with another item soon to be in the garage sale after it’s lost its charm.


I discovered in Egypt the Beautiful in the Everyday:

Sometimes when the exceptional and unfamiliar slips into the realm of the ordinary it becomes more special and beautiful than it was before. When that which was once slightly shocking and fascinating, capturing our imaginations and perhaps making us feel ill at ease, shifts to become commonplace, even routine, it obtains a new indefinable magic. Every little detail becomes special, every little trivial aspect is filled with meaning, every little moment and movement is beautiful.

The call of the Muezzin from the loudspeakers of the minarets. At first it was beautiful because it was different, but then it was even more beautiful because it wasn’t anymore. The taste of fool, a flavorless fava bean stew in plain pita. The smell of ripe guava on the street corners. Driving over the Nile everyday to get to and from class. And those things that you may have overlooked before, those things that may have been common…they become beautiful too.


I learned not to dwell on the negative:  With many study abroad students, I watched hearts harden and minds seethe over those daily occurrences that we as outsiders do not understand or simply do not approve of, and it filled me with a deep sadness. Such anger is understandable as outsiders in a new environment and as people with drastically different backgrounds and conceptions of what is normal. It is difficult dancing that fine line between where we should practice cultural relativism and what is universally unacceptable.


Although I believe in seeing the similarities between peoples, it is undeniable that there were some differences that I did not meet with open arms. The radically different view of women and the incessant cat-calling were for some unbearable. Suddenly, I who had always thought myself a conservative dresser was seen as extremely inappropriate. Suddenly, I could not sit in the front seat of a cab, I could not talk to men as I normally would, and I could not go out alone. Also being American brought with it certain assumptions and reactions from those I was with. Although I did find myself in some tricky situations I did not fail to see each situation in the larger context. For the most part I was met with open hearts and warm conversation and a few bad encounters can’t take that away.


My study abroad gave me a New Home: I have never lived in a city, but by the end of my four months had begun to really think of Cairo as my home. On the night before I left a couple other UCers and myself went into Khan al-Khalili for some last minute exploring. After we were given consolation clementines for being asked to leave al-Azhar mosque, a man walked us around the Egyptian side of the Khan where we bumped into people we knew. One of the men was so full of love and light. He was older, and only five minutes after our meeting he asked me to call him "baba" (dad) and said that he would make sure we would be taken care of. He was one of the kindest grandfatherly figures I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and the fact that I could casually run into someone I considered a trustworthy person and friend in the middle of a city of 17 million truly makes my heart ache for that city and makes me feel like I truly had a place in it.


It’s something deeply profound and completely trivial. It’s hard to explain. There was a new truth that I never really knew before. My truth may be naïve, perhaps ideal, but it is truth none-the-less. I don’t understand many things in this world and I can’t say I’m completely aware of the big as well as the small important aspects of politics, society, the economy or what-have-you, but knowing and understanding all those intricacies is not the point.


I went for myself with no point at all. I had no destination in mind, no objective to be met, nothing of real importance to report. All I did was take every day as I was given it and live it. Beginning, middle, end: that’s not how life really works.

There are beginnings where there should be ends and endings where there should be beginnings. There’s good, bad, beautiful, and ugly seen everywhere in every situation. Just change your perspective and you’ll see it. Cairo let me change the angle I was observing from. I could say it wasn’t necessary for me to go halfway around the world to do this, but it was. New perspectives, new realities, new understandings, and a new and deep knowing that I know nearly nothing.


Routine and complacency is a comforting drug that I wished to escape from. Death to habit and the motions. I wanted to find out who I was outside of the path worn in the ground from my room in Musser to my classes in Bomberger Hall. Outside the tried and unchanging drive from my small town of Lovettsville, Virginia to Collegeville.


As a politics major and someone interested in the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt seemed the logical choice.

Everything I had learned in school suddenly was given context and came alive. No longer simply words in a textbook or discussion in a classroom.


For example, despite my deep love of the Arabic language I did not fully understand its music and reality until I heard it on the streets and in everyday conversation. And in my politics classes we discuss words like "authoritarianism" with ease, but I never felt its weight until I found myself in Syria, where every five feet a poster of Bashar Al-Assad were posted and the only anti-government words I heard were spoken in hushed tones in a small café in the middle of the night. Or the very real tension with Israel, as I crossed the border seeing kids my age and younger with Uzzis, or the fact that at checkpoints within Israel every Arab was subjected to an intense and demeaning racial profiling. I mean, when I speak of this new understanding and appreciation for reality, one of my greatest moments was when I saw Mubarak at a soccer game. This mythic caricature in my mind that I had fashioned from history books and political journals was suddenly within eyeshot. And it made me realize how what we learn in college is only a piece of the story. We need to take what we learn and apply it to the world around us and see it in the broader context of reality.


I consider myself extremely fortunate to have this amazing opportunity because of Ursinus’s independent study abroad program. Now with all my new experiences in my heart and this new knowledge and understanding in my mind, I will be graduating in December and looking to make my way in the “real” world. The question becomes: where do I go from here? Well, the real answer is I don’t know. But I feel confident and secure enough in myself from my education at Ursinus and the opportunities such as Study abroad that Ursinus has given me that I know I can face any challenges that the future holds.

After graduating in December, Kelsey hopes to continue her world explorations by interning or volunteering for an international non-profit, or by winning a fellowship or grant.

Three recent Ursinus grads are Fulbright Scholars in Japan, New Zealand and Singapore.  more

COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. -- Joshua Solomon of Flanders, N.J.  and Ivy McDaniels of Laurel Run, Pa., have been selected as 2008 Fulbright Scholars.  Both are members of the class of 2008.  Meanwhile, a 2003 graduate, Daniel Reimold, has won a Fulbright to Singapore while completing his Ph.D. at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Solomon and McDaniels both graduated from Ursinus last May with distinguished honors, Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.  Solomon's award has take him to Japan, while McDaniels' has brought her to New Zealand. 

Solomon is spending the year studying in Hokkaido, Japan after spending the summer brushing up on Japanese at Middlebury College. His Fulbright project involves both university study and participant-observation style ethnographic research within the Tsugaru Shamisen community. The Tsugaru Shamisen is a version of a three stringed Japanese lute, like a banjo, which evolved in the northern part of  Japan. Solomon, an East Asian Studies major with minors in music and Japanese, wrote his Distinguished Honors research paper on this community. While at Ursinus, he played in the Ursinus Concert Band and Ursinus Jazz Band, and participated in the community’s Liberty Brass ensemble.

McDaniels is studying the work and life of one of New Zealand's  best known authors, Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) at Victoria University, Wellington.  Her project will be entitled "'No Anchor:' Katherine Mansfield’s Search for Identity as a Modern Colonial." While at Victoria University, McDaniels will have access to the Mansfield manuscript collection at the National Library of New Zealand, which holds the world's most extensive and significant holding of Mansfield's writings.