Nine faculty members at Fairfield University receive Humanities Institute grants | Press Releases

Nine members of the Fairfield University faculty have been awarded grants for research or to develop new courses by the Humanities Institute at Fairfield University. The institute was established by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and matching funds from parents, alumni and friends in order to sponsor lectures, research and curriculum development.

With the support of a grant, Dr. Marcie Patton, assistant professor of politics, will start a course in the spring of 1998 on African politics that will hold special interest for students studying International Studies and Black Studies and will stress sub-Sahara Africa. As a result of the grant, she will develop a course that will incorporate anthropology, history, literature, economics and sociology.

Brian Torff, instructor in visual and performing arts and a well-known jazz musician, will develop a new course entitled "The Music of Black Americans." He noted that although many think of African American music as jazz, blues and gospel, there were also significant achievements in classical music, opera, Civil War music, slave songs, spirituals, religious music, and music for dance.

John Mendelsohn, adjunct professor in visual and performing arts, has received a grant to develop a course called "Time Arts," starting in the spring of 1998. Students will examine three contemporary disciplines: performance, video and computer art. In the same department, Dr. Katherine Schwab, an associate professor, received a grant to study and photograph art and archaeology in India for material to be incorporated in two new courses "Introduction to the Art History of Asia, Africa and the Americas" and "Arts of India, China and Japan."

Richard Shillea, co-chairman of the music division of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, and Dr. Orin Grossman, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, were awarded a joint grant for an ongoing music recital series that is open to the public and is set up cabaret style so music lovers can relax and have lunch while listening to opera, jazz and other forms of music.

Three other grants were awarded to Dr. Dietrich Earnhart of the Economics Department to study environmental economics; Dr. Anne Manton of the School of Nursing to study emergency care for non-elderly adults; and Dr. Alice McIntyre, Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions, for research on violence in urban communities at the turn of the century.