VoluME liii
iSSuE ii
thurSday, fEbruary 9, 2012
www.bEntlEyVanguard.CoM
Remembering Professor Yvonne Jeannine Yaw
“The heart to conceive, the understanding to direct and the hands to execute” By Lacey Nemergut nEwS Editor
Yvonne Yaw, beloved teacher, colleague, and friend of the Bentley community, passed away at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Tuesday, January 31 at age 75 after a courageous fight with pneumonia and heart complications. President Gloria Larson addressed the Bentley community late Tuesday afternoon to inform those she had touched of her peaceful passing. Yaw was born on August 16, 1936 in Columbus, Ohio. She graduated from Wellesley College in the class of 1957 as a Durant Scholar. She then continued with her education as one of the first two women to receive a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University. Following her impressive schooling, Yaw accepted a career at Bentley University, where she would
become an integral part of the community for the next 30 years teaching English, drama and creative writing. “Yvonne was a loved and respected colleague, scholar, teacher, mentor and friend, and we are so fortunate to have had her as a part of the Bentley community for so long,” said Larson to the com-
munity. “Her department chairs and students heralded her as a popular and innovative professor whose classes were interactive and creative, helping to bring to life her courses in drama, literature, fiction writing, Shakespeare, gender issues and images of women and men in literature.
Professor Yaw’s senior yearbook photo (left) and a more recent photo (right).
Courtesy of yvonneyaw.blogspot.com and the English and Media Studies department
Lurch forward, correct your math skills now
Professor Carter, founder of Lurch.
By Ali Farooqi Vanguard Staff
Professor Nathan Carter of Bentley University is in the final stages of designing a free, math software, Lurch to help students correct their math. Professor Carter has been working on bringing about Lurch for the past 10 years, with the help of his former
5 PAX
POPULI Students tutor international students via Skype
Courtesy of bentley.edu
Professor, Ken Monks at the University of Scranton. Professor Carter is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Bentley University, and has been teaching since the Fall of 2004. He conceived the idea for Lurch during his undergraduate studies in Professor Monks’ class. Professor Monks “wanted everything to be done
7 9
While at Bentley, Yaw led the Gender Issues Council, while teaching Bentley’s first women in literature courses. She later continued to teach a popular Contemporary Women Dramatists course which included student-produced plays and insight into feminist theory. She also facilitated Bentley’s relation-
very particularly and all the steps laid out, which for the specific stuff he was teaching, was really helpful to know what was going on instead of thinking you had done it right when you really hadn’t. Carter said, “I started to think, well gee, could a computer help me check my work here. Then he [Professor Monks] and I started to talk about not only would it be useful in that class, but in other classes. We started to think about what math classes you could build this for and what you would need to do.” “Lurch is a word processor that you can type mathematics into,” said Carter. Moreover, he said ,“Whenever you have something you want the software to pay attention to like in a mathematical equation, [you] highlight and say this is meaningful - pay attention to this. Then it would look at all of the little pieces of math you had put in See CARTER, Page 6
ship with the Patrina Foundation, an organization that supports women’s studies initiatives. “I am comforted by the emails I have received from Yvonne’s former students who are eager to express their admiration for her,” said Wiley C. Davi, the English and Media Studies Department Chair. “Students describe her as someone who loved being in the classroom, who cared about them, and who influenced them significantly.” Another colleague in her department, Pierce Butler, described her with words from a 13 th century poet, Jelaluddin Rumi: Keep walking, though there’s no path. Don’t try to see into the distance: that’s not for human beings. Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move within. See YAW, Page 3
Shortages of books at the Bentley bookstore By Greg Donahue Vanguard Staff
Shortages of books at the Bentley Bookstore have left a number of students wondering when their orders will be coming in. Coming into the spring semester, some students were forced to attend the first days of classes without their books. Such delays left students curious as to what the problem was. Regional Manager for B & N College, Teresa Cury, shared her thoughts on the cause of the shortage, “In most situations, it was human error. The missing titles were not ordered in a timely manner.” Cury added in the bookstore’s defense, “We responded immediately to identify which classes and faculty were impacted.” To benefit the students left without books, Cury and her colleagues “worked with the faculty to keep them updated on their required course mate-
ZUCKERBERG
rial and when it would be available in the bookstore” to prevent any more stress for the affected students. To fix the problem, Cury mentioned, “Once the titles were identified we worked with the publishers, other store locations, and our home office partners to expedite shipping and ensure the majority of the books were on the shelf within 1-2 business days.” While this fixed most of the book shortages, sophomore Lissie Martin was faced with a much worse delay, “There was a problem with my lit class where we did not get one of our books in until two weeks into the semester.” In regards to ordering books unavailable at the bookstore, sophomores Ally Dorman and Abby Mixer shared their alternatives, “Amazon all the way” and “Bigwords.com,” respectively. See BOOKS, Page 6
15 USTA
Soon to be america’s largest tax payer
OPEN
VALENTINE’S DAY
the williams sisters win big
need some fun ideas?
Police Log 2 Green Tip 2 Cartoon 4 Voices 8 & 9 Horoscopes 12 Falcon of The Week 16