March 28, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — "Combine Brad Stevens (34 years old) and Shaka Smart (33 years old), and they still haven't lived as long as Jim Calhoun (68 years old), whose head-coaching career started in 1972 -- four years before Stevens was born and three years before Smart was born," writes CBS Sports.com's Gary Parrish in a look at this year's Final Four coaches. "When Calhoun won the 1999 NCAA tournament, Stevens was a point guard at DePauw and Smart was a point guard at Kenyon College. Stevens and Smart have been head coaches for six combined seasons. Meantime, [John] Calipari (52 years old) was the head coach at UMass for eight seasons and Memphis for nine seasons. In between, he spent four years in the NBA -- three as the head coach of the Nets and one as an assistant with the Sixers."

Parrish calls this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament "the most unlikely Final Four in history, and if Butler or VCU wins two more games, we'll also have the most unlikely national champion in history -- not to mention our first champion from outside of the conference power structure since UNLV won a title in 1990." (at right: Stevens and his players address Butler fans at 1:30 a.m. Sunday in Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, hours after defeating Florida in New Orleans to advance to the Final Four for a second consecutive year; courtesy: Indianapolis Star/Robert Scheer)

He picks Butler to win the national championship, noting the Bulldogs have "a brilliant coach (Stevens) and a roster of players willing to commit on both ends of the court to doing whatever must be done to achieve success. That the Bulldogs don't rattle is another important quality. They've trailed in the second half of three of their four games in this NCAA tournament. Never once did it seem to matter."

Butler plays Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday; the winner will advance to next Monday's national championship game.

Access Parrish's complete column here.

A 1999 graduate of DePauw University, Brad Stevens was an economics major and Management Fellow. In another article today, Sports Illustrated again notes the relationship between Stevens and his head coach at DePauw, Bill Fenlon, and the latter's paper, 'Up Three: To Foul Or Not To Foul.' In June, a half-hour program on FOX Sports Midwest focused on Stevens' success at Butler University and included comments from Fenlon. (at left: Stevens in his Tiger playing days)

On April 13, 2010, Stevens returned to his alma mater to deliver the Robert C. McDermond Lecture.

Also available is an online profile of Brad Stevens.

Also: Information on Wednesday's Event

March 28, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Wednesday night's exchange at DePauw University between the founder of Wikipedia and the author of a book questioning what technology is doing to our lives is certain to be provocative, and it can be seen anywhere in the world via the Internet.  The March 30 Ubben Lecture featuring Jimmy Wales and Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, will be webcast live at 7:30 p.m.  The program will remain viewable as an archived video for two weeks. (photo, l-r: Nicholas Carr and Jimmy Wales)

Access the webcast via this link.

The debate will also be carried live on DePauw's student radio station WGRE (91.5 FM or via this link).

Presented by the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series, the program -- "Wired... and Weary?" -- will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium, Green Center for the Performing Arts (605 S. College Avenue).  As with all Ubben Lectures, the event is presented free of admission charge and the public is invited.

The program will be part of a day-long, student-driven initiative in which undergraduates are encouraging one another to set aside devices for a day and consider how technology is affecting the way we think, communicate and live our lives.  Seniors Christine Walker (student body president) and David Dietz (executive vice president of DePauw student government) came up with the idea of a "tech-free day." The program that will bring Carr and Wales together at the end of the day will be the first of its kind in the nation.

Wednesday's event will mark the second-ever Ubben Debate.  The first, held September 11, 2009, brought Howard Dean and Karl Rove to the DePauw campus for a lively exchange which was witnessed by a capacity crowd.

Learn more in this announcement.  The Carr-Wales event was also featured in the March 15 Indianapolis Star.

March 28, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Terry R. Myers, associate professor of painting & drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and 1987 graduate of DePauw University, is editor of Painting. Published by MIT Press, the book is part of the "Documents of Contemporary Art" series and is co-published with Whitechapel Gallery.

"The ‘death of painting’ and its subsequent resurrection in transformed conditions is an oft-rehearsed leitmotif of the modernist era, yet from the postconceptual painting revival of the early 1980s to the present new perspectives have emerged that reopen the entire field, not only globally but historically beyond the past century," notes a synopsis of the book. "The diversity of meanings and practices signified by painting today can encompass the eclecticism associated with net-surfing and the philosophical naming as ‘painting’ of artworks that manifest no trace of paint. This is the first anthology to bring together key statements, dialogues and debates by artists and writers on art that have been building blocks of the latest era in painting’s history ... Artists surveyed include Glenn Brown, Vija Celmins, John Currin, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson, Bernard Frize, Katharina Grosse, Andreas Gursky, Peter Halley, Gary Hume, Jutta Koether, Paul McCarthy, Suzanne McCleland, Beatriz Milhazes, Takashi Murakami, Albert Oehlen, Lari Pittman, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Robert Ryman, David Salle, Chéri Samba, Jim Shaw, Jessica Stockholder, Philip Taaffe, Luc Tuymans, Jeff Wall and Sue Williams."

Myers is a Chicago and Los Angeles-based writer, educator and independent curator and a regular contributor to numerous international journals, including Art Review, Parkett, and Modern Painters. A double major in studio art and art history at DePauw, he previously authored the book Mary Heilmann: Save the Last Dance for Me.

Learn  more about Painting at Amazon.com.

March 29, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — "A new book maintains that by coming to understand ourselves, we have the ability to make a difference in the world not by chance, but by choice," begins an announcement of Unclipped Wings, the debut by Ramona Harvey, a disability advocate and 1999 graduate of DePauw University. The book "brings readers on a journey of self-discovery in a poignant book of poetry that aims to deliver the ultimately positive message that all people matter. Relatable and honest, the intimate collection of poetry addresses the ups and downs of life that everyone will inevitably experience, and offers readers a comfortable outlet for personal introspection."

According to the author, "In many ways, it acts like a mirror allowing people to see and understand themselves better. When people connect to it, they also learn they are not alone."

Harvey, who majored in psychology at DePauw, has addressed national conferences, including the World Congress on Disabilities, and is a member of the National Disability Sports Alliance and the disability rights activist organization ADAPT, as well as a lifetime volunteer of Easter Seals.

"People of all ability levels have value,"  she declares. "I have lived my entire life with a disability, which has given me a great deal of insight into the world around me. But my disability does not define me."

Read more here, and order Unclipped Wings at Amazon.com.

March 29, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — When it comes to wooing the ladies in a crowded room, an evolutionary biologist at DePauw University has found that tough guys trade their combat capability for mobility. Wade N. Hazel, Winona H. Welch Professor of Biology at DePauw, contributed to research which is published in Current Biology. 

The study, conducted at the University of Western Australia when Dr. Hazel visited there on sabbatical, focuses on a mite, Rhizoglyphus echinopus, that has two different types of male:  ‘fighters’, which turn one of their four pairs of legs into weapons that are used to kill their rivals; and ‘scramblers’, which possess a full complement of normal legs, and are incapable of harming each other. 

The researchers maintained populations of the mites in two different types of habitats for ten generations and then looked at how the two alternative male types had evolved over time.  Some populations lived in a ‘simple’ habitat, on a flat plain of plaster in Petri dishes, while others lived in a more three dimensionally ‘complex’ habitat in which the plaster was forested with upright drinking straws.  (at right: two male mites fighting over a female; image by Piotr Lukasik)

Although the fighter males may have the advantage of their thick spiked legs when it comes to fighting off rivals, the researchers found that they suffer in a complex environment because they are less mobile. Because the scrambler males are unencumbered by weaponized legs, they are more nimble and put this to their advantage in the complex habitats by more rapidly locating mates.

The international research team, which included investigators from three continents, found that after living for ten generations in the complex habitats the mites evolved to produce fewer fighters, with only the very largest males becoming fighters. 

It was Charles Darwin who in 1871 first proposed that evolution could account for the presence of weapons in male animals if the reproductive benefits of the weapons exceeded their cost.  The results of this study, which manipulated the cost to benefit ratio of the male weapons, provide strong experimental support for Darwin’s idea. (image at left shows the two male forms; the one on the top right with the enlarged third pair of legs is the fighter morph; by Jacek Radwan)

“What’s neat about our results is that we were able to construct habitats that altered the cost to benefit ratio for weapon production and then let evolution take its course,” says Professor Hazel.  “Evolutionary theory predicts that the decreased fitness of the fighters should lead to a decline in their frequency over evolutionary time; and this is what we saw in a surprising short period of time.”

He adds, “What happened was that the reduced mobility of fighter males in the three dimensionally complex habitats limited their access to females and reduced the benefits of having weapons.”

Joe Tomkins of the University of Western Australia, who led the study, notes, “Our results show how important the complexity of the environment can be to evolutionary outcomes, few studies have been able to manipulate this as we have done.” 

Access the text by clicking here.

March 29, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Dustin Ward, who served as offensive coordinator for the DePauw University football program the past four seasons, has been appointed offensive coordinator at Concord University in West Virginia. "When the former Illinois quarterback saw the Mountain Lions’ stats, he learned part of the story: 400 points and 5,480 total yards on offense last fall, and 365 points and 5,071 yards in 2009," notes a story in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph announcing Ward's appointment.

Of DePauw, Ward tells the newspaper, "It’s a very high academic school, a private school. Having to teach them was almost tougher, because they were so smart ... They wanted to know the answer for everything, basically, and that made me a better coach ... Over time, that was great as a coach."

Ward served as the Tigers' running backs coach during the 2004 season under head coach Bill Lynch and helped DePauw to an 8-2 finish. During that season the Tigers averaged over 250 rushing yards per contest and rushed for 25 touchdowns. He then became offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at St. Joseph's College in Indiana, then served as a recruiting assistant at Indiana University before returning to DePauw for the 2007 campaign.

The 2003 University of Illinois graduate earned four letters at quarterback for the Fighting Illini where he completed 54 percent of his passes for 1,946 yards and 12 touchdowns in 22 career games. He also was a two-time winner of the Chancellor's Award.

Access the article at the Daily Telegraph's website.

For comprehensive coverage of the DePauw football program, which has reached the NCAA Division III playoffs the past two seasons, visit the team's official online page.

March 29, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — As Brad Stevens prepares his Butler University basketball team for its second consecutive Final Four appearance this weekend, the 1999 DePauw University graduate ponders how much has changed since February 3, when his team lost its third straight game and fell to 14-9 on the season. At a session with reporters yesterday, "Stevens recalled the cartoon his coach at DePauw University, Bill Fenlon, sent to encourage him through the rough patch," notes today's Chicago Tribune. "It's an image of a dejected superhero sitting alone under a palm tree on a deserted island. The thought bubble read, 'Oh, yeah, I can fly.'" (top photo: Stevens holds court during a media session at Hinkle Fieldhouse Monday; Matt Detrich/Indianapolis Star)

Stevens, who has won more games in his first four years than any coach in Division I basketball history, states, "That was kind of the way we were. We had the ability but we were down. We weren't far from being good. It's easy to get caught up in the negatives, but they didn't. That is the most rewarding thing about this team."

This morning's Fort Wayne Journal Gazette also shares the anecdote of how Butler bounced back after the loss to Youngstown State. "The next day, Stevens received several encouraging calls, texts and other messages," writes LaMond Pope. "His favorite came from Bill Fenlon, his college coach at DePauw. Stevens said Fenlon sent an old cartoon from the New York Post, which featured a superhero sitting on an island. 'And then he pops his head up and says ‘oh yeah, I can fly,' ’ Stevens recalled Monday at Hinkle Fieldhouse. The Bulldogs have since taken flight. Butler (27-9) hasn’t lost since, a run of 13 consecutive victories that has landed it in the Final Four for the second straight year."

Meanwhile, today's Denver Post notes, "Two of the nation's hot young coaches, Final Four returnee Brad Stevens (age 34) of Butler and Virginia Commonwealth's Shaka Smart (age 33), certainly can relate to each other's career path. Both have Division III roots. Stevens played at DePauw University in Indiana, and Smart for Kenyon College in Ohio. Under NCAA rules, Division III schools do not offer athletic scholarships." Butler plays VCU Saturday, with the winner advancing to the national championship game.

Brad Stevens was an economics major and Management Fellow at DePauw. In an article yesterday, Sports Illustrated again noted the relationship between Stevens and Fenlon and the latter's paper, 'Up Three: To Foul Or Not To Foul.' In June, a half-hour program on Fox Sports Midwest focused on Stevens' success at Butler University and included comments from Fenlon.

On April 13, 2010, Stevens returned to his alma mater to deliver the Robert C. McDermond Lecture (photo shows Stevens with Gary Lemon, director of DePauw's Management Fellows program and professor of economics).

Also available is an online profile of Brad Stevens.

March 29, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. —Priscilla Pope-Levison, professor of theology and assistant director of women's studies at Seattle Pacific University and 1980 graduate of DePauw University, will be a featured speaker at a Thursday symposium presented by Trinity Western University's Gender Studies Institute.  Dr. Pope-Levison and her husband, John R. "Jack" Levison, professor of New Testament at Seattle Pacific, will deliver the keynote address at the Engendered Lives symposium.

"What do the Bible and feminism have to do with each other? Quite a lot, says two biblical scholars coming to speak at Trinity Western University," notes an article in the Advance of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. "Three waves of feminism, from the late 19th century to the present, have considered the Bible to be a critical text both for and against women's liberation. The Levisons, a theologian and a biblical scholar respectively, will briefly explore each wave's biblical interpretation" in their presentation, "The Bible and Feminism."

Priscilla Pope-Levison's books include Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists and Jesus in Global Contexts, a collaboration with her husband.

Read more at the newspaper's website.

March 29, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Two DePauw University alumnae who are news anchors at Lexington, Kentucky NBC affiliate WLEX-TV -- Kristen Pflum '04 and Nicole Pence '06 -- are nominated for "Best News Anchor" in the 2011 Kentucky Associated Press Awards.  The winners will be announced on May 21 during a ceremony at the Galt House in Louisville. (at left: Pflum; below right: Pence)

Pflum anchors the 4 p.m. newscast on WLEX and also serves as a general assignment reporter.  She came to the station from WISE-TV  in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She's received several awards including "Best Television News Reporter" from the Kentucky AP in 2006. In May 2005, Pflum was honored with a third place award for "Best News Reporting" in the Society of Professional Journalists' "Best of Indiana" competition for her work at DePauw's student-run television operation, D3TV.

Pence co-anchors the station's two-hour morning news broadcast.  She joined the NBC affiliate in August 2008 as a reporter and was named to the anchor post in March 2010. A 2010 nominee for a regional Emmy Award, she previously worked for Indiana's News Center in Fort Wayne, where she was a reporter and fill-in news anchor. In 2004, she was one of four DePauw students to share a national Society of Professional Journalists' "Mark of Excellence" award for "Best Radio Sports Reporting."

Read more at the station's website.

March 30, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Acclaimed poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg will visit the campus of DePauw University next Wednesday, April 6, to read from her latest collection, Heavenly Questions.  Her appearance, sponsored by the James and Marilou Kelly Writers Series, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Richard E. Peeler Art Center and is free and open to the public.

Schnackenberg has been awarded the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, and the Rome Prize in Creative Literature from the American Academy in Rome, as well as fellowships from the National Endowments for the Arts, The Radcliffe Institute, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Heavenly Questions is Schnackenberg's first new collection of poems since the critically acclaimed The Throne of Labdacus, which focused on the myth of Oedipus and the stories of ancient Greece. The new collection is "a set of six linked long poems inspired (the word must be carefully considered, in this context) by the illness and death of her husband, the philosopher Robert Nozick," according to Slate's Karl Kirchwey. "It is perhaps the most powerful elegy written in English by any poet in recent memory, and it is a triumphant consummation of Schnackenberg's own work. In it, a poet of wide learning and traditional poetic form has been hurt into outraged and incandescent song."

"Gjertrud Schnackenberg stands out among younger American poets for her ambition, in the best sense of the word," wrote Adam Kirsch in the New York Times Book Review. "Her verse is strong, dense and musical, anchored in the pentameter even when it veers into irregularity; behind it are formidable masters, Robert Lowell most notably, but also Yeats and Auden. Lowellian, too, is her desire to treat history as something more than a stage setting, to make it the medium of thought and feeling."

The New Republic's Glyn Maxwell opined, "The poetry of Gjertrud Schnackenberg has always seemed to be written white-on-black, not only because her lines have the tuned quality of work that has absorbed how sheer is the drop from white to black, from utterance to nothing, but also because the well-springs of her art seem connected at some profound level to the witnessing of light against dark or dark against light. These two factors are both the cause and the effect of the work's sustained dignity and strength ... Much of her best work, even in the poems that most obviously manifest such width and perspective, is in the exquisite accuracy with which she beholds details, as if the bright child did her true apprenticeship not in the beam of the study lamp, but in the glow of the dollhouse windows."

Jennifer Egan, whose A Visit From the Goon Squad was announced as the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction earlier this month, will visit DePauw on April 27.  Learn more here.

March 30, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Jinyu Liu, associate professor of classical studies at DePauw University, is the recipient of a New Directions Fellowship from The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The award will  fund innovative cross-cultural research on the impact of Greek and Roman classical works on the intellectual history of China.

New Directions Fellowships assist faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who were awarded doctorates within the last 5 to 15 years and wish to acquire systematic training outside their own disciplines.

Fellows receive the equivalent of one academic year's salary, two summers of additional support, and tuition and other reasonable costs associated with the fellows' training programs.  To permit flexibility in meeting individual scholars' needs, these funds may be expended over a period not to exceed three full academic years following the date of the award.

According to the Mellon Foundation, "Unlike other fellowship awards, this program does not aim to facilitate short-term outcomes, such as completion of a book. Rather, New Directions Fellowships are meant to be viewed as longer-term investments in scholars' intellectual range and productivity."

In 2009, Dr. Liu's book, Collegia Centonariorum: The Guilds of Textile Dealers in the Roman West, was released by Brill Publishing. 

Dr. Liu was awarded a 2006 David Stevenson Fellowship from the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC).

March 30, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — The Scott Chamber Players and Friends will visit the DePauw University School of Music next Tuesday, April 5, to present a free concert. Frequent performers at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Scott Chamber Players will present a Classical European repertoire featuring Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese composers.  The music begins at 7:30 p.m. in Thompson Recital Hall, located within the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts on DePauw's campus.

The Scott Chamber Players -- composed of violinist Lisa Scott, violist Beverly Scott, cellist Perry Scott, and pianist and harpsichordist Sylvia Patterson-Scott -- have presented more than fifty concerts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  Their performances have included works from the 16th- through the 21st-centuries involving numerous combinations of both early and modern instruments.  While focusing chiefly on the established classical repertoire, they have also programmed early music works, premiered compositions written in the last twenty years, and released a compact disc featuring the compositions of Glenn Gass and Jan Swafford.

Friends performing with the Scott Chamber Players on Tuesday's concert are violinist Dean Franke, cellist Craig Hetrick, and soprano Angelique Zuluaga. A non-inclusive list of composers featured on the program are: Tomás Luis de Victoria, Pau Rosés, Cataluña, Gaspar Sanz, Xabier Nebra, Juan Francés Irribarren, Enrique Fernández Arbós, Moritz Moszkowski, and Joaquin Turina.

For more information about this event and others at the Green Center for Performing Arts, click here.

March 30, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — "Today, DePauw University students were encouraged to log off the Internet and shut down their cellphones, all as part of an effort to raise awareness about the way technology functions in our lives," WRTV anchor Todd Connor announced during the ABC affiliate's 5:30 p.m. newscast this evening.  Connor introduced a story by Joanna Massee, who visited Roy O. West Library earlier in the day to see how DePauw students were responding to the call for a "device-free day."

"I don't think the ultimate goal is to have people throwing their blackberries off bridges or anything or get rid of their laptops forever," senior David Dietz tells the station, pointing out that the idea behind the day is to make people take time to engage in activities that don't involve texting, calling or surfing.  

Senior and student body president Christine Walker, who organized the day with Dietz, is also interviewed for the story.  Also seen are DePauw students Yashaswee Malla, Jennifer Behrens and Margaret Musgrave, as well as Professor Bob Steele, a 1969 graduate of the University.

Access a text report, which also has video embedded in it, at TheIndyChannel.com.

A portion of the segment is also available here: [Download Video: "Clip of WRTV Report" - 2613kb].

The Indianapolis Star previewed today's event in a March 15 column.

The capstone of the day will be a 7:30 p.m. debate between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.  Learn more about the program, which is being presented by the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series, by clicking here.

Also: Photo Gallery

March 30, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Increasingly, wherever people go, they can be reached by phone, get an e-mail or text message, and even search the Internet.  The ubiquity of devices and inundation of information in today's world has [Download Video: "Perpetual Distraction" - 2105kb] "a deep influence on the way we think," Nicholas Carr told an audience at DePauw University tonight.  "And what it's doing is essentially bringing us into a state of perpetual distraction." (l-r: Jimmy Wales and Nicholas Carr; [Download Video: "The Debaters Arrive" - 1320kb])

Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, debated Jimmy Wales, founder of the world's fifth most popular website, Wikipedia, in "Wired... and Weary?".  Presented by the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series, the program drew a crowd of about 900 people to Kresge Auditorium in DePauw's Green Center for the Performing Arts. 

Until about five years ago, people had to sit down at a computer to surf the Internet. It usually required them to go to a room where the device was located, they took care of business, then they moved away from the machine and got back to their lives. Today, Carr notes, smart phones and other portable, wireless devices mean we're always available, capable of being "pinged" at any time, 24/7.  He argues the increasing barrage of information is having a negative effect on our abilities to concentrate, contemplate and reflect.

"And we find this compelling as human beings because we love to gather new information, but it's important also to realize we may be losing cognitive skills, habits of mind that, at least in the past, have been considered absolutely essential to a rich intellectual life, a rich personality, and ultimately, even a rich culture," he noted.

Wales, founder of an international collaborative free content encyclopedia and one of the world's top business and technological visionaries, responded, [Download Video: "Points of Difference" - 6055kb] "The general thesis that he puts forward, that the Internet emphasizes certain cognitive skills and de-emphasizes others, is unquestionably true.  I think we differ primarily in our pessimism about that," he declared. "I don't think it's as bad a thing as he thinks it is, and I don't think it's happening as much as he fears it is."

According to Wales, "We can easily imagine an idealized age when people read long books and thought very hard about issues, but that idealized view doesn't necessarily match up with the reality.  The reality is that people who don't have good access to information, they may be thinking, 'Oh, I should get a library and get a book about that,' but did they really, do they really have time to do that?" When there's a news story from a faraway place, for example, "Thirty years ago you'd just say, 'Yeah, Armenia, hmm, OK.' Today, you'd go and look that up, you'd find out about Armenia, you'd read what's going on there, you'd get some context of knowledge so you can better understand the world around, the events around you. And that is 'The Shallows' -- that is a basic understanding of things that is not deep-deep -- but it's valuable, it's really, really important.  And it makes possible going deeper." (at right: Wales and Carr flank  moderator Dan Gurnon, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry)

The Wikipedia founder argued that with the Kindle app on his iPad he winds up being able to carry more books with him when he travels and winds up reading much more than he used to.  [Download Video: "Going Deeper with Devices" - 741kb] "Therefore the technology for me, in this instance, has enabled me to go deeper in that same kind of very old-fashioned, long form, very reflective study of some topic."

Carr is a longtime user of technology who quickly admits that computers have greatly aided his work as a writer.  But he pointed out that most web pages are viewed for 10 seconds or less, people at work have been known to glance at their inboxes 30-to-40 times per hour, and the average teen is sending and receiving 3,300 text messages, "which is about one every six minutes they're awake."  He told the crowd, [Download Video: "Interruption Machine" - 1522kb] "I think many of you, if you're very critical and very truthful about how you use technology, will admit that this is very much a distraction machine, an interruption machine, and very rarely anymore are you alone with your thoughts."

In Carr's view, the Internet is [Download Video: "More on Effects on the Mind" - 2714kb] "literally retraining our brains to want to think in one way -- which is a very fast-paced skimming and scanning method of grabbing lots of information very quickly -- but the 'Net is providing us with little or no opportunity, and little or no encouragement to think in a more attentive way -- to shield ourselves from distractions and interruptions and really focus on one thing." [BONUS CLIP: [Download Video: "Long-Term Implications on Culture & Society" - 2902kb]]

But Wales argues,  [Download Video: "Impact on the World" - 2933kb] "When we think about the impact of the Internet, generally, on the intellect of the world it's very difficult to see that, on net, it's a negative thing."  In the developing world, "people are getting access to information for the very first time" because of technology, he says, "amazing arrays and quantities for a very low cost.  And that change, we're just now at the very beginning of it in many, many places around the world. It is a fundamental and phenomenal change to people's lives that you go from having absolutely no information, no way to see through things, to having the entire world at your fingertips.  It's an astounding thing to contemplate."

Tonight's event marked the second-ever Ubben Debate.  The first, held September 11, 2009, brought Howard Dean and Karl Rove to the DePauw campus for a lively exchange.

The Carr-Wales session touched a number of issues, including criticisms by Carr in 2005 about the inaccuracy of Wikipedia entries (he says the site has made many improvements in its editorial controls), the power of Google in the Internet universe, and whether this week's move by the New York Times to charge regular users of its content could be the sustainable business model content creators have been seeking.

[Download Video: "Conversation & Ideas" - 1817kb] "I think many of the experiments that are going on right now in the newspaper world to charge for content are naive and hopelessly optimistic and they will give up on them," Wales asserted.  " I could be proven wrong on that, but I don't think there's a simple answer to this question. I don't think we're moving toward a world where everything online is going to be completely free or ad supported, nor do I think we're gonna lose this great, open, free world of conversation and ideas."

Carr believes, [Download Video: "Carr on Journalism's Survival" - 1602kb] "At some point this is going to stabilize and I don't think all newspapers -- print or online -- or going to disappear, and I don't think all journalists are going to disappear, but I'm very concerned that because we as a society seem to think this is something we should get for free, that ultimately we're going to have much fewer quality journalists working out there and as a result we're gonna be less informed as a populace." He added, "We've all been so seduced by the freedom of the Internet that we haven't really stuggled with the ultimate accounting that's going to come down the pike not too long from now.  We're gonna have to decide whether we want to sustain our culture at a very high level or if we just want free stuff."

Jimmy Wales is concerned about how layoffs in newsrooms are affecting what's being covered. [Download Video: "What's At Stake" - 2500kb] "The places that I worry about are not the large, grand issues of our time. I think we'll always have enough journalists to thoroughly cover what Barack Obama is doing, and, in fact, whenever I see a press conference and it looks like there's 50 or 100 journalists hanging on every word that Obama says, I think, this looks like a bad investment to me.  I think 10 of them would be plenty.  And the rest of them should be out doing some journalism, not just sitting in a press conference."  Wales says what's been hurt in recent years is coverage of small, local stories -- things like school board meetings, which are no longer covered in many communities. 

The two guests visited separately with students at afternoon forums, then held a joint news conference at The Inn at DePauw before dining with students, faculty and alumni at the home of DePauw President Brian W. Casey. The Ubben Lecture, which ended with a standing ovation, served as the capstone of a day-long, student-led initiative in which the campus was encouraged to spend the day without using the Internet, mobile devices, or other tools that connect people in electronic ways which do not require vocal communication or face-to-face human interaction.  Seniors Christine Walker (student body president) and David Dietz (executive vice president of DePauw student government) came up with the idea of a "tech-free day" and were interviewed by Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV in the morning. A small show of hands at the debate indicated very few people actually made it through the day with their gadgets remaining in the "off" position.

Established in 1986 through the generous support of 1958 DePauw graduates Timothy H. and Sharon Williams Ubben, the Ubben Lecture Series was designed to "bring the world to Greencastle."

The current academic year has featured Ubben Lectures by Lee Hamilton, veteran statesman and 1952 graduate of DePauw, on March 15;  Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, on December 8, 2010; and Rebecca Skloot, author of the bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, who visited campus September 9, 2010.

Other previous Ubben Lecturers have included Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Benazir Bhutto, Mike Krzyzewski, Barbara Bush, Spike Lee, Jason Reitman, Naomi Wolf, Peyton Manning, E.O. Wilson, John Major, Jesse Jackson, Eric Schlosser, Jane Pauley, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, Greg Mortenson, Todd Rundgren, Ross Perot, Julian Bond, Mitch Albom, ice cream entrepreneurs Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield, General Wesley Clark, Bob Woodward, Paul Rusesabagina, David Plouffe, Paul Volcker, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jim Lovell, Robert M. Gates, Ralph Nader, Harry Belafonte, Gloria Borger, General Colin Powell, Steven D. Levitt, Liz Murray, David McCullough, Ken Burns, Lynne Cheney, Richard Lugar, Sister Helen Prejean, Alan Simpson, Paul Tsongas, Gwen Ifill, Brian Mulroney, Carl Rowan, William Bennett, Allen Neuharth, Mary Frances Berry and Sam Donaldson, among others.  

To view a complete roster of Ubben Lecturers -- which includes links to video clips and news stories -- click here.

March 31, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Two alumni of DePauw University -- Ken Owen '82, executive director of media relations at DePauw, and Stan Jastrzebski '03, news director of NPR affiliate WFIU, in Bloomington, Indiana -- will be among the participants in the 2011 O'Bannon Institute for Community Service.  The event will take place next April 7-8 at Ivy Tech Community College - Bloomington with a theme of "Getting Back to Basics: Jobs, Education, and Community." The sessions will be highlighted by political strategists James Carville and Mary Matalin and Oscar-winning actor and activist Richard Dreyfuss.

Owen will lead a panel, "Making Jobs Number One," on Friday, April 8. Participating in the discussion will be: Jeremiah 'Jere' Boyle, managing director the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's economic development, community development and policy studies division; Lauren Damme, policy analyst for the New American Foundation; Steve Ferguson, chairman of the board of Cook Group, Inc.; and Greg Goodnight, mayor of Kokomo, Indiana.

Jastrzebski's panel on Friday afternoon will discuss "Making Hay in a Civil Way." He'll be joined by: Fred Cate, Distinguished Professor, C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law and director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law; Dan Maffei, former congressman and Distinguished Senior Fellow, Third Way; Leslie Stedman Weidenbener; Indiana Statehouse reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal; and Robert Vane, former  deputy chief of staff and communications director for Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and former communications director for Indiana Republican Party.

Now in its seventh year, the O'Bannon Institute brings focus to community service, service learning, and civic engagement.  The event honors the legacy of former Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannon, who passed away in 2003, to commemorate his years of public service, his dedication to education, and particularly his legacy of Indiana's community college system.

Learn more here.

Ken Owen returned to DePauw in 2001 after two decades in TV news. Along his responsibilities to raise the University's external visibility, he coordinates the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series and the annual Monon Bell telecast. His efforts to make pieces of DePauw's past more relevant and accessible include the recent restoration of a 1941 admission film, and he has created "Monon Memories" of every football game between DePauw and Wabash College for the Monon Bell since the rivalry began in 1890. The video vignettes were the subject of features in the Chronicle of Higher Education and during HDNet's telecast of the 115th Monon Bell Classic in November 2008. A communication major and Rector Scholar at DePauw, where he delivered broadcasts over WGRE, Owen has also taught journalism at Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis. He serves on the board of directors of the Indianapolis Public Relations Society and co-chairs the Annapolis Group communications committee. (photos: above left: Owen, right: Jastrzebski)

Stan Jastrzebski was named WFIU's news director in June 2008.  He came to the station from WGN in Chicago. He previously served as wire service editor at Network Indiana and is the winner of awards from the Associated Press, the Radio-Television News Director's Association, the Indiana Broadcasters Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. A communication major, Media Fellow and WGRE reporter while at DePauw, Jastrzebski also earned a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

March 31, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — "Major recommendations by a bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks remain unfulfilled nearly 10 years after the attacks, the commission chairmen told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday," begins a story distributed by McClatchy Newspapers today. "Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., and Republican former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean said that the federal government had made "considerable progress" in implementing several of the 9/11 commission's recommendations but that it had languished or failed to implement other key suggestions."

Hamilton, a 1952 graduate of DePauw University, told the Senate panel, "The terrorist threat will be with us far into the future, demanding that we be ever vigilant. We have done much, but there is much more to do."

Access the complete article at the website of North Carolina's Raleigh News & Observer.

A Democrat, Lee H. Hamilton served 34 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and also co-chaired the Iraq Study Group.  Currently he is co-chairman, with former White House National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, of the U.S. Department of Energy's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, and is director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

On March 15, Hamilton -- who has been called Lee Hamilton "Mr. Integrity" by Newsweek
-- presented a Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture at his alma mater.  A summary including video clips may be accessed here.

April 1, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Winners of the annual DePauw University School of Music Concerto Competition will perform on Sunday, April 10, in the Green Center for the Performing Arts, Kresge Auditorium. The 3 p.m. program, which is free and open to the public, will feature the DePauw University Orchestra under the baton of Orcenith Smith, director of orchestras.

Winners of the DePauw Concerto Competition are awarded the distinct opportunity to perform their repertoire in concert with a full orchestra. This year's winners are: Sarah Chamberlain (flute, student of Anne Reynolds); Elizabeth A. Orsborn and Jennifer Wilson (sopranos, students of Caroline Smith); Sam Crocker and Kathryn Pfaff (horns, students of Robert Danforth); Josiah Rushing (percussion, student of Amy Lynn Barber); Esther Shim (violin, student of Dan Rizner); and Claire Wilkinson (soprano, student of Pamela Coburn).

Thirty-six students competed in the preliminary round of the competition on February 24. Finalists proceeded to a round held two days later.  Seven winners were selected. Faculty members from the DePauw School of Music served as judges for the first round, and four judges from outside of the University were brought in to adjudicate the final round of the competition.

The program for the concert on April 10 includes:  Johann Stamitz's Flute Concerto in G Major; "Stizzoso, mio stizzoso" from La Serva Padrona by Giovanni Pergolesi; Leonard Bernstein's "Glitter and be Gay" from Candide; Concerto for Two Horns, C57 by Antonio Rosetti; Joseph Schwantner's Percussion Concerto; Violin Concerto by Peter Tchaikowsky; and two movements from Gustav Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn). 

"DePauw's annual Concerto Competition is a powerful project which challenges the young musician," shares Professor Orcenith Smith. "This year's winners performed repertoire from memory in both rounds of the competition, exemplifying poise and artistry.  With guidance and support by the individual’s teachers, the students' hard work culminates in a compelling energy drawn from this focused project.  The ensuing rehearsals with the Orchestra synthesize the composer's vision with the performer's energy, and the result is an exciting performance showcasing the musical talent of the students at DePauw University School of Music.  This year’s concert is going to be a thrilling event for everyone in the audience."

Founded in 1884, the DePauw University School of Music is one of the nation's oldest private institutions for post-secondary music instruction and the longest-running in Indiana. Learn more here.

April 2, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Katherine L. Farnsworth, assistant professor in the department of geoscience at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and 1993 graduate of DePauw University, is co-author of River Discharge to the Coastal Ocean: A Global Synthesis. A collaboration with John D. Milliman, Chancellor Professor of Marine Science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary, the book is published by Cambridge University Press.

"Rivers provide the primary link between land and sea," states a synopsis. "Utilizing the world's largest database, this book presents a detailed analysis and synthesis of the processes affecting fluvial discharge of water, sediment and dissolved solids. The ways in which climatic variation, episodic events, and anthropogenic activities -- past, present and future -- affect the quantity and quality of river discharge are discussed in the final two chapters ... River Discharge to the Coastal Ocean provides an invaluable resource for researchers, professionals and graduate students in hydrology, oceanography, geology, geomorphology and environmental policy."

Learn more at Amazon.com.

Katie Farnsworth majored in geography and computer science at DePauw, then went on to earn an M.S. and Ph.D. in marine geology from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science/College of William and Mary.  Her previous publications include “Effects of Climatic and Anthropogenic Change on Small Mountainous Rivers: The Salinas River Example,” which was published in Global and Planetary Change and was also co-authored by Dr. Milliman.

April 2, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — In his "Public Editor" column, the New York Times' Arthur S. Brisbane weighs an idea "that would help secure a tighter bond with its audience: publishing the Times' journalism policies in a searchable format and in a visible location on NYTimes.com. That would enable readers to see more clearly into the news operation." But, he writes, the proposal carries some potential downsides.

"Bob Steele, an expert in journalism ethics who advocates for strong standards and accountability, pointed out one of them. 'The risk,' he said, 'is that when you put your ethics standards and practices on the cyber-table, if you will, the heightened accessibility and the growing tendency of the public to throw brickbats will lead to a lot of headaches.' As the Times' fourth public editor, I can understand what Mr. Steele is saying and what the Times potentially has to fear. The Times is on the receiving end of an extraordinary volume of feedback, some of it very negative, from bloggers, television pundits and readers at large. The Times spends considerable resources to receive and respond to this input."

The column adds, "Mr. Steele, head of the Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University, argues that this is not a reason to shrink from the task."

"We have to accept that reality and the risk, says Dr. Steele, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism Ethics at DePauw. "Journalism shines the light of scrutiny on the powerful. We look at the power company, oil companies, hospitals, universities, government institutions and other corporations. It is hypocritical if we are not willing to be scrutinized by the public for the way we carry out our work. Part of that is being clear about what our standards and ethical principles are."

You'll find the full column, "Standards That Everyone Can See," at the newspaper's website (a paid subscription may be required).

A 1969 graduate of DePauw, Robert M. Steele was quoted in a Washington Post story two weeks ago. He chaired a task force that reviewed the ethics policy of NPR, as noted in this recent article.

April 2, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Butler University's men's basketball team, led by 1999 DePauw University graduate Brad Stevens, is advancing to the national NCAA Division I championship game after defeating Virginia Commonwealth University tonight, 70-62.  The Bulldogs (28-9) will face the winner of Kentucky-Connecticut on Monday night. (photo: Matt  Detrich/Indianapolis Star)

"They played terrific all the way through, and we were fortunate to pull that one out," Stevens said after the game. "We had guys make individual plays all the way through that were crucial."

An Associated Press recap notes, "The Bulldogs came within a bounce of winning it all last year only to see Gordon Hayward's last-ditch, half-court heave carom off the rim and watch Duke celebrate the title with a 61-59 win. That the Bulldogs are playing for the title again is maybe even more impressive than the first trip, having lost Hayward, their leading scorer and rebounder, to the NBA lottery. Butler also lost two other players who made significant contributions, Willie Veasley and Avery Jukes."

The full text is available at the website of the San Jose Mercury News.

Brad Stevens, who has been head coach at Butler for four years, was an economics major and Management Fellow at DePauw, where he played on the Tiger basketball team. In an article Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune noted the relationship between Stevens and his college coach, Bill Fenlon, and the day before Sports Illustrated again cited the latter's paper, 'Up Three: To Foul Or Not To Foul.' In June, a half-hour program on Fox Sports Midwest focused on Stevens' success at Butler University and included comments from Fenlon.

On April 13, 2010, Stevens returned to his alma mater to deliver the Robert C. McDermond Lecture (photo at right shows Stevens visiting with people on campus last spring).

Also available is an online profile of Brad Stevens.