College of Letters & Science
IN FOCUS
April 2020, Vol. 10, No.4
COVID-19 in Milwaukee UWM public history students are documenting Milwaukee’s experience with the coronavirus, one community post at a time. Page 4.
Photo submitted by Kristine K.
For UWM updates on the COVID-19 pandemic, visit uwm.edu/coronavirus.
UWM professor reco
Contents Feature Stories Psychology prof named Regent Scholar History students build COVID-19 archive Sociology prof explores online privacy Student studies social media and food Undergrad researcher is social media maven AtmoSci alum studies hurricane prediction Progressive Era presidents and women
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Columns In the Media Alumni Accomplishments Laurels and Accolades People in Print Department Spotlight Published College the
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UWM neuroscientist Karyn Frick has been honored by UW System as one of three 2020 Regent Scholar recipients. The honor recognizes Frick’s extraordinary efforts in support of undergraduate research, innovation and entrepreneurship. “Our UW System faculty and students are doing amazing research,” UW System President Ray Cross said. “It is important to recognize this vital work and celebrate the individuals who spearhead these innovations.” Frick and members of her research team are exploring ways to prevent the memory loss that results from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, particularly in women, and the work has led to a startup company called Estrigenix Therapeutics Inc. “This is significant recognition and a wonderful statement about the value and impact of Dr. Frick’s work,” UWM Chancellor Mark Mone said. “This is a well-deserved honor for her important research and educational contributions.” The Regent Scholar program was introduced in 2014 and is designed to stimulate faculty-student collaborative research. Frick works closely in her lab with undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to move the research forward. “I am extremely honored to receive one of this year’s UW Regent Scholar awards,” said Frick, a professor of psychology in the College of Letters & Science. “This award will not only provide valuable research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in my lab, but will allow my company to collect vital data that we hope will lead to new therapies for preventing and/or reducing memory decline in Alzheimer’s patients.” Memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease strike women three times more often than men as they age, a result linked to a decline in estrogen hormones during menopause. But estrogen replacement comes with harmful side effects, like increased risk of heart disease and breast cancer. Frick has a pharmacological answer: Instead of avoiding estrogens, try removing the components responsible for the adverse effects.
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Frick’s work has linked estrogens to the specific chemical processes known to create memories in both women and men. She and her collaborators have created an estrogen-like molecule shown to protect memory in a mouse model of post-menopausal dementia. That’s led to their startup company, Estrigenix Therapeutics Inc., which, with support from UWM’s Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery, is developing drugs that affect the hormone and its complicated processes.
ognized as UW System Regent Scholar
UWM neuroscientist Karyn Frick has been researching ways to prevent the memory loss that results from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, particularly in women. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Estrogens act by binding to two dominant receptors, alpha and beta. Binding to the alpha receptor causes most of the adverse effects from estrogen replacement therapy in menopausal women. Estrigenix’s lead compound works by modifying the most potent form of estrogen so that it binds only to the beta receptor. “There are multiple forms of estrogens in hormone replacement,” Frick said. “Some are beneficial for brain health, and some aren’t. Our molecule is a smaller version of the most potent form of estrogen, called estradiol, which is particularly diminished in menopause.” Estrogens enhance male memory, too. Testosterone is converted to estrogens in men’s bodies for that purpose. Frick aims to pin down how the modified estrogen molecule acts in the brain to produce improved memory in both sexes. Frick, who is a co-founder of Estrigenix with Concordia University Wisconsin’s Daniel Sem and Marquette University’s William Donaldson, says making the jump from longtime laboratory scientist to business person seemed daunting at first. But she soon learned to
understand the language of business – and how to simplify the language that scientists use. She also realized that I-Corps entrepreneurial training had something in common with science. “You use the information from interviews with potential customers to refine your business idea,” Frick said. “You take that data and make some decisions about whether there’s a viable path forward for the startup. It was interesting to see how that happened in a data-driven way.” One lesson the team learned during the training process was that women and their doctors were more concerned with mood changes and hot flashes during menopause than the threat of memory loss at more advanced ages. That’s opened a new research path for the Estrigenix team, so Frick and her students are back in the lab to see if the compound can be effective at reducing these other troubling menopause symptoms. By Laura Otto and Howie Magner College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 3
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Public history profess A flag flies in Waukesha proclaiming to passers-by that “We will get through this.” Young girls a house apart play dolls by yelling out their second-story windows to each other. A hospital food service worker soaks her gloves in hand sanitizer to make temporary disinfecting wipes. Chris Cantwell is capturing it all. “Put up in front of Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s on N Lake Dr. in support of the essential workers that risk their lives everyday helping fight COVID-19.” Submitted by Mollie Thompson.
Cantwell, an assistant professor of history at UWM, is the creator of the COVID-19 MKE archive, an online repository that documents, in real time, how Milwaukee is experiencing the coronavirus pandemic. He’s compiled submissions from residents all around the metro Milwaukee area that give glimpses into a life in quarantine. There are over 140 posts and counting. A community and student collaboration The COVID-19 MKE archive was born partly from historians’ best practices and partly from necessity. “This is actually established practice within the historical profession,” Cantwell said. “Any time something particularly dramatic happens or there’s an anniversary that comes up, museums will open their doors and say, give us material that will help us remember this moment 50, 60, 100 years from now.”
“My mom is 62 and immunocompromised. She’s helping make masks for local hospitals so I ran and picked up some fabric for her...it was on the doorknob...would love for her to come in.” Submitted by Robina.
For instance, he noted, historians collected images of the roadside memorials that sprang up after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. George Mason University launched a digital archive in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks and received materials from around the world. Likewise, as news spread of increasingly dire situations across the United States, Cantwell decided to document Milwaukee’s own response to the pandemic. He worked with the UWM Libraries – including Ann Hanlon, the library’s director of digital initiatives, and Jie Chen, a digital collections application specialist who handles the site’s server space – to launch the website and begin collecting submissions in the form of blog posts, videos, photographs, audio clips, and social media posts.
“Local Metro Market has shelves depleted from the Coronavirus scare.” Submitted by Tanya Lovendahl.
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emic in real time
sor documents coronavirus in Milwaukee But this archive is also a way for Cantwell to salvage his semester. Cantwell helps run UWM’s public history program, and like all UWM faculty, in March, he had to shift his courses online for the remainder of the semester to prevent further spread of the virus. While that keeps his students safe, it also disrupts their course work. Each semester, he usually asks his graduate students to do a deep dive into the history of a local Milwaukee place of worship. “As the news began to unfold, it became clear very quickly that that project wasn’t going to be possible or sustainable. All of the places of worship they were working with started closing,” Cantwell said. “But I started thinking, the challenges of this moment were also an opportunity.” As the semester progresses, the students will instead be responsible for guiding and curating the archive. They will also be asked to gather oral histories from community members to add to the site. “I’m going to work collaboratively with my students to identify what communities we should talk to. What kinds of sources should we be looking to that are reflective of this moment?” Cantwell said. “I want to let them decide who they can work with, who they have access to at this moment, and who they think is important.” Continued on page 6
Sisterly love When the quarantine is over, Chris Cantwell hopes that oral historians will ask people a very personal question: When was the first time you cried during the pandemic? For Cantwell, that time came when he was sorting through COVID-19 MKE archive submissions and happened on a photo taken by a suburban mother of two sleeping sisters – one 16 years old and the other just 3 months old. “(The mother is) working from home, and she doesn’t know how she would be able to deal with it if not for the fact that her daughter is home watching the infant while she’s trying to work. They were up early one morning while she was trying to work, and the two kids fell asleep and she took a picture,” Cantwell said. “I saw it, and it hit me. The enormity of the moment hit me; the children’s innocence hit me. I was running fulltilt at that time and I hadn’t had a chance to process everything that was going on. I wouldn’t say it was my favorite item, but it’s certainly the one that impacted me most.” College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 5
COVID-19 MKE History in real time History is usually written with a bird’s-eye view of the past. Documenting history as it happens is a challenge because there’s no telling what material will end up being significant. “In some sense, I don’t know what’s important; I want people to tell me,” Cantwell said. “On the other hand, I know what’s important is to save the stuff that’s going to disappear quickly (like Facebook or Twitter posts).” There’s an argument, too, that documenting history as it happens is the job of newspapers and journalists. Major news outlets across the country have covered the political and economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic extensively, while smaller, community newspapers and television stations have focused on local responses. But, Cantwell said, this archive houses the things that can’t make it into a newspaper. Media outlets are limited by the amount of space and time they have available to print or broadcast stories, so journalists devote themselves to analyzing and interpreting the important facts.
Tournaments Iced Sometimes, you have just have to laugh – especially because kids have a great sense of humor. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared a public health emergency for the state on March 12. It was the day before several youth hockey tournaments in the state, which were immediately cancelled. “There’s a tradition where … when kids make it to state, teammates make signs for each other to put on their front door that read, ‘Good luck at State!’ You then stand by your sign and take a picture for Facebook,” Cantwell explained. Cantwell’s friend had a son who was one of the kids hoping to take the ice before the tournaments were called off. “This kid, Colin – he’s standing there next to his sign like, ‘Welp, I’m not going to State!’ I thought that was hilarious,” Cantwell said.
This photo was submitted by James Hegarty. The “Sisterly Love” photo on the previous page was submitted by Christian Matson-Alvirez. 6 • IN FOCUS • April, 2020
“Our mission is more to aggregate and curate than it is to interpret,” Cantwell said. “Journalists are trying to find the signal in the noise, and we just want to capture the noise. We provide the space for everything that falls on the journalists’ cutting room floor.” How Milwaukee can help Anybody willing to share their experiences about weathering the coronavirus pandemic in Milwaukee can contribute to the archive. Cantwell said he is hoping people will take some time to contribute stories to the site that detail their personal experiences with social distancing. He would also like to include accounts from grocery store clerks and other essential employees, educators who are working to teach their students remotely, and medical workers – though he acknowledges those folks are probably a little busy at the moment. “I think we have enough pictures of empty shelves,” he added. “We’ve cornered the market on empty toilet paper and bread shelves.” If the community has any suggestions to improve the site, people can contact Cantwell and his students through the Contact Tab to share their ideas. By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
UWM associate professor of sociology Celeste Campos-Castillo researches how Latinx youth handle online privacy.
Latinx youth guard privacy on social media Latinx youth are much more guarded about their private life on social media than youth of other demographics, according to research by Celeste Campos-Castillo, an associate professor of sociology in the College of Letters & Science. They post less about family life and also show discretion about finances and immigration status. “You’re just not supposed to post about your family,” says Campos-Castillo, and the mandate encompasses many different reasons. Often, it’s just a matter of believing that family matters are nobody else’s business, but there are also concerns about how sharing specific information would affect their friends’ perceptions. One youth told Campos-Castillo that she didn’t want to post about her parents’ workplace because people would be able to infer her social class. Campos-Castillo interviewed 43 Latinx high schoolers, nearly evenly split by gender, involved with a summer 2019 college-prep program at Milwaukee’s United Community Center. Many of the teens lived in predominantly Latinx areas but attended predominantly white schools. This difference in home and school life, Campos-Castillo says, spawns conscious decisions on what to post. Campos-Castillo notes that some Latinx youth were conflicted when it came to politically related social media posts. “They would talk about how they never felt comfortable expressing their true political beliefs on social media because they didn’t have mainstream beliefs.” Beliefs which, the teens explained, were conservatively aligned with their culture’s expectations. Latinx teens did show many similarities with other teens, however, including a keen concern for their friends and a reluctance to turn to parents for help. Campos-Castillo plans to continue the line of research by interviewing Latinx parents or caregivers in the summer of 2020. Her research is funded by a $120,000 grant from the Technology and Adolescent Mental Wellness program at UW-Madison. By Silvia Acevedo, University Relations To learn more about Campost-Castillo’s research and to meet the undergraduate researcher assisting on this project, visit Page 9. College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 7
#Health #Food #Social M Psychology student studies how social media impacts healthy (or not) diets Search #food on Instagram and you’ll find yourself browsing through over 377 million mouth-watering results of everything from salad to pizza to gourmet macaroni to decadent chocolate desserts.
“We also found that for women, there was a relationship between how healthy they perceived a food to be and how likely they were to eat it. But for men, there was no relationship.”
Delve a little deeper and you’ll find a trove of recipes and nutrition information accompanying the posts. Fitness bloggers swear by the smoothie recipe they’ve perfected while others on “health journeys” share the secrets of lowcalorie desserts and healthy 15-minute dinners. It’s enough to make your head spin and your stomach growl. Alese Nelson decided to give it all a closer look. “We were interested in studying how the internet plays a role in what we eat, how we perceive the food that we’re eating, and health overall,” she said. “If you go online, it takes very little to see that there are tons of recipes being posted and a lot of health advice being offered, and not necessarily from people who are qualified to be offering that advice. But people are taking it and it’s having an impact.” Nelson is working toward her doctoral degree in psychology at UWM. Her recent research explores how accurately people judge the healthiness of food depending on whether that food has been posted to social media or not. Are people more likely to judge a food as healthy if they see it on a menu in real life or in a post on Instagram? To test that, Nelson designed an online survey that asked people to rate food as “healthy,” “neutral,” or “unhealthy.” The respondents were shown pictures of food in different contexts – some posted to social media, some not – and asked to rate both the health of the food and how likely they were to eat it. The results were a bit surprising. “For that part of the study, we did not find significant differences in terms of how people rated the food, whether or not it’s posted on social media,” Nelson said. Instead, “Where we did find differences was in how men and women were rating foods. In ratings of how healthy the foods were, men rated unhealthy foods as healthier than women did.
Alese Nelson
There are limits to the study. Nelson’s respondents were drawn mainly from college students, so the audience skewed toward a younger, more social media-savvy crowd. But the results do suggest some differences in the way men and women use social media, Nelson said.
“We did find that women use Instagram more than men do. There are different expectations on men and women in terms of health and overall fitness and weight,” she noted. “Women face more obesity-related stigma than men do. Overall, I think women are more focused on health and more is expected of them.” Trying to eat healthy foods is a worthy goal. Nelson worries, though, that relying on social media recipes and health advice could have a negative impact – especially if people can’t accurately judge how healthy a food is. “I think most posters have the best intentions with putting health information out there and sharing what works best for them. But most of them are not qualified to be giving that information,” Nelson said. “They’re regular people sharing what they ate in a day, or maybe they work for a Continued on page 10
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Media #Privacy #Teens First year student brings fresh take to social media privacy research If it seems like teenagers these days are glued to their phones, you’d be right.
Why Latinx youth? “When you’re doing research, adolescents are a very underrepresented group,” Bishop noted. “The Latinx community is one of the least-represented communities in research. (Campos-Castillo) thought it would be good to focus on Latinx teens specifically just to have that demographic start to be covered more.”
But, adds Andrea Bishop, it’s a mistake to think that means teens are unengaged. In fact, while they’re talking with their friends on social media, they’re also looking out for each others’ wellbeing. “Social media is still a way for people to talk to each other. It’s fast as anything. Most people’s interactions happen on social media,” she said.
The interview covered teens’ backgrounds and asked them about their own social media use and that of their friends. Each interview also asked questions surrounding important issues like suicide, self-harm, bullying, or problems with parents or teachers. “Some specific questions would ask, ‘If you saw a friend was posting about signs of an eating disorder, how would you react to that? Would you be A) not worried; B) worried but you wouldn’t tell an adult or teacher; or C) worried and you would tell an adult or teacher?’” Bishop said. “That second one, where you’re worried but wouldn’t tell an adult or teacher, is a gray area. That’s where we’re focusing.” Andrea Bishop
She’s in a unique position to know; Bishop is both a researcher studying social media and one of those teens with a phone in her hand. A freshman majoring in political science at UWM, Bishop is working with associate professor of sociology Celeste CamposCastillo to study how Latinx teens in Milwaukee handle their friends’ online privacy. “We’re trying to figure out the privacy norms nowadays on social media, how adolescents go about managing mental health, and how they help their friends with those issues,” Bishop said. “Eventually, we’re trying to create a ‘guidebook’ for teachers, principals, parents, and guardians to show them the average teenager’s thought process concerning social media.” A breakdown of privacy To conduct their research, Bishop and Campos-Castillo recorded interviews with 40 Latinx teenagers drawn from a Spanish-speaking community center in Milwaukee.
Bishop and Campos-Castillo are now analyzing responses to see how teens handle their friends’ privacy. So far, Bishop says, whether they choose to tell an adult about a friend’s problems seems to correspond with the severity of the issue. “For the severe issues … like self-harm, like suicidal thoughts and actions, they rate themselves completely worried and would tell (an adult). So there’s a good bit of people who want their friends to get help,” Bishop said. “Some kids, for some issues, used word the ‘snitch.’ So, we’re trying to find the line, the unspoken rule of what gets reported and what doesn’t. Where does everyone draw that line?” A social media research maven As a young researcher, Bishop brings her own set of skills. She’s able to explain to her older colleagues what social media platforms are currently popular (Snapchat is in; Facebook is out) and how people her age typically treat their online privacy. Continued on page 10 College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 9
Food on social media
AtmoSci alum w
Continued from page 8
company that is promoting health products. “I wanted to understand who is posting this information, and if people are following the advice. Ultimately, the goal is to find a way to reduce the amount of bad information that people are paying attention to, and to see if we can find a way to use social media to get people following legitimate health advice.” So, the next time you’re scrolling through Instagram or Facebook and happen across a new recipe, have fun cooking – just make sure you double-check how healthy the food actually is. And then, of course, share a photo of the results.
When meteorologists along the coast start predicting hurricanes later this year, they’ll be relying on data from a UWM alum working almost 2,000 miles away. Christopher Rozoff is a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. He and a team of scientists are studying some of the deadliest natural disasters to strike the United States. Their question: How you can tell which hurricanes will be mild and which ones will become the next Katrina?
By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
“I’m specifically interested in improving the prediction of hurricane intensity, which has proven to be a difficult problem,” Rozoff said.
Privacy on social media
An eye on the weather
Continued from page 9
She’s stepped into that role beyond her UWM research as well; Bishop sits on the Youth Advisory Board for the Technology and Mental Wellness research group, a group of UW System faculty interested in researching the role technology, including social media, plays in youth mental health. Bishop, the oldest board member, meets with other teens who hear researchers’ study proposals and offer feedback based on their own experiences. “It’s been really fun,” Bishop said. “It’s a way to get a younger influence into proper research. High schoolers don’t get the opportunity to work with 40-year-old researchers, usually.” Usually, but once again, Bishop bucks the trend. She began undergraduate research before she was even an undergraduate. UWM’s UR@UWM summer program invites exceptional students accepted to the university, including Bishop, to work with faculty mentors on a research project the summer before they begin college. Bishop worked with Campos-Castillo and continued when she matriculated this past fall. Bishop says her experiences have been wonderful, and have made her think about her own social media use. “I think that social media is like a double-sided coin,” she said. “One side is so positive and loving. You can make friends and meet incredible people. But there’s that other side, where if you fall into those negative Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook groups, you can spiral and fall into depression. “Everything still happens in real life; it’s not a horrible thing to put the phone down.” By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science 10 • IN FOCUS • April, 2020
Rozoff has been a weather geek since he was a kid. That love of storm-watching and identifying clouds carried into his college career when he entered UWM and majored in atmospheric sciences and mathematics. He remembers being surprised by just how exciting and informative his classes were. “The atmospheric science program had really top-notch professors and the classes really prepared me well,” he said. “When I got to graduate school at Colorado State University, I felt ahead of the curve.” After graduate school, he took a postdoc position at UW-Madison where he collaborated with scientists across the country for research projects that eventually helped him land a position with NCAR. The National Center for Atmospheric Research is a multidisciplinary lab that has a finger in almost every weather-related pie. From climate to solar dynamics to theoretical meteorology, scientists at NCAR collaborate with universities and researchers around the world on topics that will help society better understand our atmosphere. “It’s just a very exciting place,” Rozoff said. “The best aspect of my job is being able to go to work and learn something new every day. Some days are headaches where you just run into debugging computer codes and other dead ends, but even that’s rewarding because turning roadblocks into puzzles to solve often leads to new successes and rewards.”
works to improve hurricane forecasts
Atmospheric Science alum Christopher Rozoff (right) prepares to fly into the center of Category 3 Hurricane Irene in 2011. The flight reached 10,000 feet above a turbulent sea. Flying with Rozoff is Matthew Sitkowski, an executive weather producer now at the Weather Channel. Photo courtesy of Christopher Rozoff.
Lately, Rozoff spends his time using machine learning to improve upon operational numerical weather predictions of hurricane intensity. He and his colleagues examine old forecasts and compare them to what actually happened during a given hurricane event. Then they feed that data into machine learning algorithms to produce forecasts that have less errors than the baseline operational models. “We can use that information with machine learning techniques to improve hurricane threat predictions,” Rozoff said. “With those techniques, we can better predict hurricane tracks and where they may make landfall, to understand the size of a storm, and to estimate other aspects, such as rainfall.” An eye on the storm There several factors that contribute to the birth of a hurricane and how intense it will be. Hurricanes are driven by both large- and
small-scale weather patterns that are seemingly random and often imperfectly observed. Those include individual thunderstorms within the hurricane core, the ocean, and the turbulence in the lower levels of the atmosphere. Some studies have suggested that climate change and rising global temperatures will lead to an increase in the number of severe hurricanes, but Rozoff said even that information is uncertain.
One thing is certain: A warmer atmosphere is capable of holding more water vapor, so while hurricanes may not increase in intensity or frequency by huge numbers due to climate change, areas hit by these storms will almost certainly receive more rainfall than they did in the past, leading to flooding. Each hurricane season is another chance to test his work. Rozoff hopes the data he generates will be able to help forecasters better predict hurricanes and their intensity so that they can keep communities safe.
“There are a lot of negative factors that get increased too, with climate change,” he said. “For example, the Atlantic Ocean may experience higher vertical wind shear, which is a measure of the change of wind with height, an adverse “That’s the overall hope for sure,” factor for hurricane intensity. A warmer he added. “To be able to apply ocean, of course, provides more fuel the tools that we’ve developed to for the storm. But then again, in the improve the prediction is really Pacific Ocean, there’s some evidence fulfilling.” that with climate change, the upper By Sarah Vickery, College of part of the atmosphere will become Letters & Science warmer as well. That could mean more atmospheric stability, which decreases hurricane intensity.” College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 11
Women in the (White) house: Communicat rhetoric and womanhood Stay home. Keep the house. Make babies. America needs you.
My chapter looks at the rhetoric of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Taft, and Benjamin Harrison.
It sounds sexist now, but according to Leslie Harris, a UWM associate professor of communication, that was the standard message that Progressiveera presidents delivered to American women – when they bothered to address women at all.
Of course, women couldn’t vote nationally. There were still cultural expectations that women got married and became mothers. At the same time, the country was changing dramatically. Women, especially of different races and classes, were working outside the home. Even though these expectations of traditional motherhood continued, many women didn’t do that because they couldn’t. They needed to work or they needed to be doing other things outside of the home.
What did life look like for women at the time?
The suffrage movement was also happening throughout this time period … but it did not have a lot of momentum during a good part of the Progressive Era.
Leslie Harris
Harris recently contributed a chapter to Reading the Presidency: Advances in Presidential Rhetoric (2019, eds. S. J. Heidt and M. E. Stuckey) detailing how presidents at the turn of the 20th century used their rhetoric to reinforce women’s roles. She sat down to talk about her research, how rhetoric has changed in the last 100 years, and how it hasn’t.
Why didn’t presidents mention women at all? Was the attitude “women can’t vote; why do we need to talk about them?” I think it was more, women are really important to the nation, but they’re important in the role that they do. Their role is to raise future citizens and take care of the home, and keep the familial home a welcoming place for men who are outside the home. The home became a pillar on which the entire nation was built. Women were really important, but they were important if they did the right thing.
What does your chapter cover?
What did these presidents say when they actually mentioned women?
In that chapter, I am looking at presidential rhetoric focused on the Progressive era and asking, how do we make sense of women’s absence from presidential rhetoric during this time period?
There were a few examples where women are represented really clearly. Theodore Roosevelt is a good example of this. He publicly argued that we need to prevent what he called ‘race suicide.’
And women were very much absent. They were occasionally represented (in speeches), but it was quite rare. I use ‘home’ as a way of thinking about women’s representation and role in civic society as it’s represented by the presidency, and I make the argument that there’s a special relationship between the literal, familial home and the national home. That relationship orders the way women are understood in public life, because their role as citizens is to nurture the familial home to enable success in the national home.
His concern was that white women – the right type of women, for him – were not having enough children and were not invested in the home, and instead there were too many immigrants who were having children.
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This time period also saw the passage of the Slave Trafficking Act, also known as the Mann Act. This one was signed by Taft. There was a fear that white women were being stolen from their safe country homes to be trafficked and forced into prostitution.
tion professor examines presidential That’s just one example of how presidents, when they addressed women … gave a call to the nation to protect women. If women aren’t protected, they aren’t able to do their job of having babies.
I suspect that part of it is that we still have cultural expectations of what a good woman is. Those cultural expectations don’t map cleanly onto our expectation of what the presidency is.
Today, these attitudes strike us as horribly sexist. How did women at the time respond to this rhetoric?
You do see that play out in national politics. At least 20 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, Republican women running for office were drawing on traditional tropes of womanhood. It would be common to see a woman in the Republican party – Sarah Palin is a great example – acting in that public role through the lens of motherhood in order to justify their role in public life.
This was normal. It’s not that presidents are doing anything unusual; instead, they reflected the norms of their culture, and through those speeches, they are able to reinforce those cultural norms. There’s actually evidence that a lot of women just adored Theodore Roosevelt because he exalted women’s role. A lot of women felt that he was privileging their importance to the nation. They felt “seen.”
What do you hope people learn from your chapter? Even when presidents are not talking about women, it’s important to look at what’s underneath the language and how that implicates race and gender in complicated ways.
Obviously presidential From top left, clockwise: Progressive Era presidents Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Benjamin rhetoric has changed Harrison, and Woodrow Wilson. in the last hundred years, as we see now There are plenty of examples of presidents who wouldn’t with women running for office, but do you see any mention women at all, but when they’re talking about “the similarities between then and now? home,” they’re definitely talking about race, gender, and national identity in ways that are supposed to prescribe Of course, there are still remnants of rhetoric from the th th how people are to exist in our public spaces. 19 and 20 century that we see continuing today. I’m not aware of male candidates being asked what’s going I think the important thing is to recognize that race and to happen to their kids while they’re being politicians, gender are present, even when they appear to be absent. for example. These cultural expectations around gender roles don’t change overnight and it’s been 100 years By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science since women have gotten suffrage, but we’ve never had a woman as president, and we still have a lot of expectations around womanhood, home, and the role women have in family life.
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 13
In the Media and Around the Community One way to fight the opioid crisis may be to create nonaddictive painkillers. That’s the goal of Jim Cook and researcher Daniel Knutson (both Chemistry and Biochemistry), WUWM reported. https://bit.ly/2PHMrWw
Joel Berkowitz (Jewish Studies) had glowing words to praise Shay Pilnik, the executive director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center, in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. From “Days of Our Lives” to “All my Children,” Elana Levine (English) discussed how soap operas have influenced popular culture through the years on WUWM (https://bit.ly/2VTUqnw). Her new book on the subject of soap operas was discussed on DaytimeConfidential. com. (https://bit.ly/3aORZ9M) Coronavirus may impact the smooth proceeding of the 2020 Census, but as they did in years’ past when confronted by other epidemics or natural disasters, Census counters will adjust, Margo Anderson (emerita History) told MSN News. (https://bit.ly/3aFsMyB) She also answered questions about the impact of COVID-19 on the Census on WUWM (https://bit.ly/2U4RsLu) and talked about the history and future of door-to-door visits from Censustakers on Clevland.com (https://bit.ly/2vDoVn1). The move to temporarily suspend field operations of Census-takers in March due to pandemic concerns was “unprecedented,” she told The New York Times (https://nyti.ms/2J0k02j). Finally, Anderson shared why some populations may fear to be counted in the Census on NPR’s Codeswitch program. (https://n.pr/3aLqdeX) Joseph Walzer (History) discussed the future of The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, an online repository of all things related to Milwaukee history curated by members of the UWM History Department, in Urban Milwaukee (https://bit.ly/2TQPqgD) and on CBS 58 News (https://bit.ly/2USdz74) and TMJ4 (https://bit.ly/341di6c).
14 • IN FOCUS • April, 2020
Richard Edwards (’17, PhD Anthropology) presented “Archaeology of Lake Mills” for the Lake Mills Aztalan Historical Society in March. https://bit.ly/3cMHKEK Wisconsin’s aging population accounts for its decline in ratio of employed people to working-age population, Kundan Kishor (Economics) told the Post Crescent. (https://bit.ly/2J2He8b) He also noted on Fox6 News that while the $2 trillion dollar stimulus package approved by Congress to help the nation whether the COVID-19 quarantine is a good short term boost, it won’t be stimulating for long. (https://bit.ly/2UJrTP6) While sexism did drive down Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s poll numbers, Kathy Dolan (Political Science) speculated in U.S. News and World Report that voters’ desperation to oust president Donald Trump also contributed to her losses in primaries and caucuses. https://bit.ly/2vGA5HH Toxic masculinity is proving to be, well, toxic, to men as they age, according to a new study co-authored by Celeste Campos-Castillo (Sociology) that was publicized on Phys.org. https://bit.ly/39JGMrd Kimberly Blaeser (English) was named among Wisconsin’s 38 most influential Native Americans in a series published by Madison365.org. https://bit. ly/2THiHeX
There were several obstacles facing Wisconsin State Supreme Court candidate Jill Karofsky, including depressed voter turnout, Sara Benesh (Political Science) said in an Associated Press article that was reprinted around the country, including in U.S. News and World Report. https://bit.ly/3aLzEuL The airline industry has never contended with a disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic, James Peoples (Economics) told The Cheddar. https://bit.ly/39cT4HD People like to back a winner, Paru Shah (Political Science) told Wispolitics.com in an article analyzing how Wisconsin’s minority vote will affect the primary election. https://bit.ly/2WPsDF0
Expect unemployment numbers to rise as companies lay off workers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Scott Adams (Economics) said in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article. https://bit.ly/33KpBU9
Alumni Accomplishments
Society can learn an important lesson from the nation’s COVID-19 response when it comes to climate change: Act quickly and early. Paul Roebber (Atmospheric Science) shared that message on WUWM. https://bit.
Adam Dillon (’02, BA French and Economics) joined DSI/Dynamatic, a manufacturer of Eddy current drives, brakes, and controls, as an inside sales account manager. Dillon has worked in manufacturing sales support for 15 year. https://bit.ly/2TPolKN
Due to the spread of COVID-19, UWM shifted most all of its courses online to keep students and the community safe. Alan Wiseman (Physics) and Suzanne Boyd (Mathematical Sciences) explained the process on WUWM. https://bit.ly/2wRa6xI
Darrell Mottley-Newton (’76, BA English and ’81, MA Mass Communication) was named the provost and vice president of academic affairs at Winona State University in Minnesota. He was previously associate vice chancellor of academic affairs and dean of graduate studies at UWEau Claire.
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While the country grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, Chia Youyee Vang (History) said in the Shepherd Express that the Hmong population of Wisconsin is worried about another issue entirely: The threat of deportation. https://bit.ly/3aOjAZa Marius Schmidt (Physics) used an Xray laser to capture pictures of plant proteins on an atomic level to prove that plants respond to light almost instantaneously, Mirage News reported. https://bit.ly/2WVFDsO Cosmopolitan quoted data from Noelle Chesley (Sociology) explaining why Millennial men may be more comfortable with the idea of being “house husbands.” https://bit.ly/2xMH8zg
Were these two flies – ahem – expressing their affection when they became trapped in amber, or did one happen upon the other already trapped? Victoria McCoy (Geosciences) speculated on the possibilities surrounding the ancient fossilization of two flies in articles published in The New York Times (https://nyti.ms/3aKrm6B) and on Gizmodo.com (https://bit.ly/2wldOzu).
Rachel Buff (History) told WUWM that the nation has seen an uptick in anti-Asian racism, due to fears surrounding the coronavirus. https://bit.ly/2yCDatl Thomas Holbrook (Political Science) speculated on the possible repercussions of delaying the Democratic National Convention, scheduled to be held in Milwaukee in July and now postponed until August, in Milwaukee Magazine. https://bit.ly/39KcnIr
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Nick Williams (’03, BA Darrell Mottley-Newton Psychology) joined ServingIntel in Milwaukee as a Business Development Manager. He brings 15 years of sales experience to the company, which provides point-of-sale and enterprise technology for hospitality businesses. https://bit.ly/3dwoRX1 Gary Blinkiewicz (’88, BS Geosciences) was hired as an environmental project manager with Wightman, an architecture, design, and survey consulting firm in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is a licensed geologist with 26 years of experience in soil, groundwater, and vapor investigation and remediation. https://bit.ly/2QLZ3N1 James Flores (’17, BA American Indian Studies), a member of the Oneida Nation, took the internet by storm when he performed a social distancing powwow dance meant to drive out the negativity and bad feelings brought to Milwaukee by the coronavirus. He was featured on Heavy.com. https://bit.ly/3bGhUB7
Jacqueline Erdman (’16, James Flores MA Art History) was named the executive director of Above & Beyond Children’s Museum in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She was previously the executive director of the Sheboygan Theater Company. https://bit.ly/2xMHJRw
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 15
Laurels and Accolades Winson Chu (History) was appointed to the Academic Council of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University for a three-year term. The Foundation is among the most active outreach organizations in this field and organizes the biannual Lessons and Legacies Conference, the premier international meeting for scholars of the Holocaust. A. Aneesh (Sociology) received a 2020-2021 Berggruen Institute Fellowship to pursue work related to the institute’s focus on “Great Transformations.” Aneesh is one of just 10 fellows selected each year to “support inquiries that bring multicultural and interdisciplinary knowledge to questions of governance, philosophy and culture, and global restructuring.” https://bit.ly/2IDO5o9
Kyrie Sellnow and Sarah Beamish (both Psychology) also received Honorable Mentions from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
A. Aneesh
Doctoral student Kate Webb (Psychology) was selected to attend the 70th annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this summer. The gathering invites young scientists to meet about 70 Nobel Laureates for interdisciplinary exchanges. https://www.lindau-nobel.org/ Yael Gal-Ben Yitschak (Jewish Studies) was awarded the 2020 Levy Family CJL Jewish Educator of the Year Award by the Coalition for Jewish Learning. She was honored at a ceremony at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in March. https://bit.ly/2wHEKJo
Tim O’Brien (Sociology) was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for his research entitled, “The Legal, Political, and Social Filtering of Expert Witnesses into Court.” He also won a sub-award from the Templeton Foundation (via Rice University) with his long-term collaborator, Shiri Noy. Graduate student Kathryne David Gargano (English) won the Intro Journals Project for her piece titled, “there’s a parcel in your pocket it carries your abduction” published in the Tahoma Review. The award is sponsored by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). https://bit.ly/2wUmSLI
16 • IN FOCUS • April, 2020
Undergraduate student Giorgio Sarro (Atmospheric Science) was awarded Honorable Mention status from two prestigious fellowship programs: NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the National Academies’ Ford Fellowship program. These are competitive programs open to graduating seniors and enrolled graduate students. Sarro was one of only 10 awardees (four winners, six Honorable Mention) in the Climate and Large-Scale Atmospheric Dynamics category.
The student-run Media Milwaukee publication garnered a number of accolades in the 2019 Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation awards: • First Place; Breaking News Reporting; Jodie Filenius, Marla Smith, Kaitlyn Herzog; Professor Accused of Assaulting Student at UWM • First Place; Public Affairs Reporting; Staff; We Are Still Here • First Place; Feature Story; Ian Bergersen, Adam Kelnofer, Eduardo Garcia; The Huffhines Brothers • First Place; Freedom of Information Award; Kaitlyn Herzog, Marla Smith; Professor Accused of Sexually Assaulting a Student on Campus • First Place; Feature Photography; Elizabeth Sloan; Lost in Paradise • First Place; Use of Multimedia; Staff; We Are Still Here • Second Place; In-Depth Story; Staff; Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting • Second Place; News Photography; Jodie Filenius; Professor Confronted at Courthouse • Second Place; Use of Multimedia; Staff; Reclamation on the Ridge • Third Place; Use of Multimedia; Staff; Nearly OneThird of UW-Milwaukee Students Vape. Are They in Danger? • Third Place; Website; Staff;
Kathryne David Gargano
• Honorable Mention; Editorial Writing; Ali Shana; Names Should Have Been Released in Police Shooting
People in Print Manuel Fernandez-Götz and Bettina Arnold (Anthropology). 2020. Internal conflict in Iron Age Europe: methodological challenges and possible scenarios. World Archaeology. Online. https://bit.ly/2x9oLo7
Bettina Arnold (Anthropology). 2020. Review of Wendling, H., Augstein, M., Fries-Knoblach, J., Ludwig, K., Schumann, R., Tappert, C., Trebsche, P., und Wiethold, J. (Hrsg.): Übergangswelten – Todesriten: Forschungen zur Bestattungskultur der europäischen Eisenzeit (Beiträge zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte Mitteleuropas 86). Langenweissbach: Beier & Beran. 2018. (vol. 43). Archäologische Informationen. Viktorija Bilic (Translation & Interpreting Studies). 2020. The Online Computer-Assisted Translation Classroom. Translation & Interpreting - The International Journal for Translation and Interpreting Research, Vol. 12(No. 1), 127-141.
https://bit.ly/2JEpXm7
Sergey Kravtsov (Atmospheric Science). 2020. Dynamics and predictability of hemispheric-scale multidecadal climate variability in an observationally constrained mechanistic model. Journal of Climate. Online. https://bit.ly/3dW6knm
Blain Neufeld (Philosophy). 2020. Political Liberalism, Autonomy, and Sergey Kratsov Education. In Andrew Peterson, Garth Stahl, Hannah Soong (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education. Palgrave Macmillan. https://bit.ly/34oXk65
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Benjamin Campbell (Anthropology). 2020. DHEAS Viktorija Bilic & Human Development: An Evolutionary Perspective. Frontiers in Paediatric Endocrinology, 11, 101. https://bit.ly/2V3Bm49 Celeste Campos-Castillo (Sociology), stef m. shuster, Sarah M. Groh, and Denise L. Anthony. 2020. Warning: Hegemonic Masculinity May Not Matter as Much as You Think for Confidant Patterns among Older Men. Sex Roles. Online. https://bit.ly/34oTWbn Uk Heo (Political Science). 2020. Asia in 2019: RCEP, the US-China Trade War, Protests in Hong Kong, and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis. Asian Survey/ University of California Press, 60(1), 1-7. https://bit.ly/3aMOLnU John Heywood (Economics), Z. Wang, and G. Ye. 2020. Product Market Competition and Employer Provided Training in Germany. Industrial and Corporate Change, 29(2), 533 - 556. John Heywood (Economics), Z. Wang, and G. Ye. 2020. Optimal Mixed Ownership: A Contract View. Economics of Transitions and Institutional Change, 28(1), 45 - 68.
Julia Griselda Cerón Bretón, Rosa Maria Cerón Bretón, Stephanie Martínez Morales, John Kahl (Atmospheric Science), and other co-authors. 2020. Health Risk Assessment of the Levels of BTEX in Ambient Air of One Urban Site Located in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico During two Climatic Seasons. Atmosphere, 11(165), 22.
Michael R. Stoneman, Gabriel Biener, and Valerica Raicu (Physics). 2020. Reply to: Spatial heterogeneity in molecular brightness. 3(17): 276-278. Nature methods. Online. https://go.nature.com/2UIC9IG Joel Rast (Urban Studies). 2020. How Policy Paradigms Change: Lessons from Chicago’s Urban Renewal Program. In Richardson Dilworth and Timothy P. R. Weaver (Ed.), How Ideas Shape Urban Political Development. University of Pennsylvania Press. https://bit.ly/2Rene6R
S. E. Norval and Sarah Riforgiate (Communication). 2020. “They saved my life!”: Exploring alternative communication frameworks for mental health. In L. Lippert, R. Hall, A. Miller-Ott & D.C. Davis (Ed.), Health: History, concepts, & perspectives (pp. 81-100). New York, NY: Lexington. https://bit.ly/2JIL9HK Gladys Mitchell-Walthour (African & African Diaspora Studies). 2020. Afro-Brazilian Women YouTubers’ Use of African-American Media Representations to Promote Social Justice in Brazil. Journal of African American Studies, 24: 149-163. https://bit.ly/2RuIMN1 Cary Costello (Sociology). 2020. Beyond Binary Sex and Gender Ideology. In Natalie Boreo and Kate Manson (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Body and Embodiment. New York: Oxford University Press. https://bit.ly/39KmZHd
John Heywood
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 17
Spotlight on African & African Diaspora Studies Professor emeritus Patrick BellegardeSmith delivered a public lecture at the Embassy of the Republic of Haiti in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 27, 2020. In the photo to the left, Bellegarde-Smith sits with retired Haitian ambassador Fritz Cineas, current ambassador Herve Denis, and Counselor Attache Politic Dr. Weibert Arthus, the Manatee. Unseen to the side is former ambassador LouisHarold Joseph.
Former student Gregory Henschel, the Manatee, former student Franck Daphnis, and his spouse, Elisa McLeod.
Associate professor Gladys MitchellWalthour received a Fulbright Scholar award to conduct research in Brazil. She also received the National Conference of Black Political Scientists’ “Fannie Lou Hamer Outstanding Community Service Award” for engagement and service in the local community and African Diaspora. Mitchell-Walthour is pictured with Dr. Dianne Pinderhughes, who is a former National Conference of Black Political Scientist (NCOBPS) President and Professor at the University of Notre Dame.
