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Hello, World!

   From Rehan Rasool on June 18th, 2013

Welcome to my LEEP Pioneer blog! For the next few months, this will contain information, updates and stories about my LEEP Project and about my life in general. Let me introduce myself. My name is Rehan Rasool and I am from Pakistan. I am currently a junior at Clark University and I am double majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. I believe that the fast-growing Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Clark has been underrepresented and I am proud to represent it through this blog. Two years ago, as a result of my hard work in Pakistan at Roots School System, I got into Clark University on a full-tuition scholarship for four years. Since then, I have been having an amazing time here. In addition to having a good academic record at Clark and being on the First Honors Dean’s List in all my semesters, I have been actively involved in the community. I was a Resident Adviser in Bullock Hall last year and will be performing my duties in Maywood Hall next year. I am the Vice Chair of Clark ACM Student Chapter and the Secretary of Club Soccer.  I am also a tutor of  [ More ...]

Getting to know the chickens!

   From Kira Foley on June 18th, 2013

So it turns out that raising chickens can be both fulfilling and exhausting. There is much to learn about the over-fifty different breeds of chickens! Chickens are closely related to pheasants and are scientifically referred to be the term Phasianidae. Different breeds of chickens require different types of living environments, levels of human attention, and types of feed. They have unique personalities and egg laying abilities. Chicken breeds are usually split into two categories: “broiler-type chickens” or “meat-birds” who grow fast and require a lot of protein rich feed and “pet or layer-type chickens” who require less feed and more social attention. The chickens I am raising are layer-type chickens who will serve as egg-layers but will also be quite socialized (although this can depend on the breed). Our daily tasks as keepers of backyard chickens include: Making sure chicks always have fresh, clean water and plenty of feed Keeping tabs on their environment. This means checking the temperature, ensuring there is proper ventilation, and  [ More ...]

A Window of Opportunity

   From Gus on June 18th, 2013

Hello, my name is Gus Meissner and I am a rising senior here at Clark. The purpose of this blog is to share my summertime journey as the community outreach intern for the Clark Community Thrift Store (CCTS). I also intend to talk about some of the amazing people behind the scenes at the CCTS and what they are doing to ensure that the store continues develop as an important asset for the surrounding community. Being an innovation and entrepreneurship student at Clark, I carry a deep passion for sustainability and improving the world around me. Thanks to my background, I already feel that I am a good fit for the job and am extremely excited about being involved with this fantastic organization. Having started my internship during the first week of June, I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with both my CCTS mentors and colleagues on the thrift store’s summer management team. Although I plan to talk more about these unique change makers later, I will briefly share who they are now: The LEEP Mentor Dream Team Jenny Isler- Jenny is the Campus Sustainability Coordinator at Clark  [ More ...]

Timelapse

   From Andrew Doig on June 18th, 2013

It has been awhile since I have posted anything here! In that spirit, here is a link to a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJszR4MxNzE&feature=youtu.be) of some of the work I have been doing the past three days. It shows the Photoshopping required to animate still photographs we use to thank our sponsors. Are you still curious about what is going to happen with the Lovecraft festival? So am I! There just hasn’t been enough time to work on the script, and and August approaches I become more and more worried that I might drop the hot potato I threw into my own hands. We will have to see if I can reach my goal of having the script completed before the week is out. Do you have a Lovecraft related idea for our festival? Do you know of an artist who draws creepy things, or do you? Would you like to participate in this project? shoot me an email at videointern@waterfire.org if so!

Experiments, experiments, experiments

   From Lauren on June 17th, 2013

This last week has been a flurry of experiments. Professor Meyer’s experience with live imaging is limited, so I’ve been conducting a variety of logistical experiments to figure out ideal imaging conditions. For instance, I’ve been trying to find the best conditions for incubating the embryos in the fluorescent Hoechst dye. The better the dye is absorbed by the cells during incubation, the brighter and clearer the fluorescent images will be. Since we’ve been experiencing difficulties with the dye fading too rapidly (making multi-hour movies impossible), I’ve also been trying to find the conditions under which the dye will last the longest. Better absorption and longer fluorescent will enable us to take longer, more informative movies. Thus far, I’ve experimented with exposure time, incubation temperature, and cell permeability. Early last week, I conducted a simple multivariate incubation experiment. Embryos were collected and placed in six separate dishes. Three dishes were incubated in the Hoechst solution at 16C (~61F), while the other three dishes were incubated at room  [ More ...]

Astigmatisms!

   From Andrew Doig on June 17th, 2013

I love this thing. Never before has anyone been able to manipulate our records of history so quickly and effectively. But what to do about the astigmatisms? And where can I find a man who draws giant unthinkable squid gods?

College Shower

   From Brenna Merrill on June 14th, 2013

Hey again! Did you think I forgot about you? No worries, I didn’t. I just live in an apartment without internet and sometimes I forget Clark-far isn’t really that far and I should just walk my legs on over to the AC. Anyway. My time at Girls Inc is divided in two between working in development (think grant writing and fundraising) and communication & volunteers (think marketing and public programs). In a few short weeks I will also help with summer programs. Graduation cap boxes! Filled with a survival kit. Each girl’s college was displayed on front. There were two future Clarkies! Because of this split, I have spent a day and a half for the past four weeks working on last night’s College Shower. This is an event many Girls Inc organizations have for their graduating seniors, and through the generosity of the University of Phoenix Boston Campus the Worcester affiliate has been able to put on for a second year in a row. The idea behind the event is to celebrate young women who have excelled and are making the life transition to college in a similar manner  [ More ...]

Behind the Scenes at WaterFire June 8, 2013

   From Andrew Doig on June 14th, 2013

Ever wonder what magic happens behind the scenes at a WaterFire event? Watch and find out how we set up the event tents for our events!

Hadwen Arboretum # 5

   From Samuel Mix on June 13th, 2013

May 29, 2013 Two interesting things happened since the last time I posted. One of my “high-hanging fruit” email contacts got back to me. A librarian from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society sent me the link to achieve.org where they have started to upload a lot of their old records. The link the librarian sent me brought me to a list of annual records, each with the meetings, lectures, and the obituary for that year. Attached is an image of a cover page from one such document. I looked at the years 1901–1903, as those were the years Hadwen was president. As president he gave brief speeches at the start of each year. I also looked at the 1907 issue, the year he passed away. The society’s obituary about him was smaller than the one in The Worcester Magazine, but it referenced a lecture Hadwen gave in 1900, which I later found and read. Beside the section of his will that directly applies to Clark, this is the first time that I have seen Hadwen communicating through his own words. At the following link you can see them too. http://archive.org/search.php?query=%28collection%3Amasshorticulturalsociety%20OR%20mediatype%3Amasshorticulturalsociety%29%20AND%20-mediatype%3Acollection&sort=-reviewdate   The  [ More ...]

Hadwen Arboretum #4

   From Samuel Mix on June 12th, 2013

5/20/2013 I recently got my workspace from Jenny Isler, a nicely sized office in the physical plant building. I had a lot of paper to store and organize from the archive. I spent the last few days looking for more specific information about Obadiah Hadwen. Low-hanging fruit versus high-hanging fruit is a concept that I learned this semester that has become very useful for me in prioritizing what I have to do. Low-hanging fruits are considered easy activities that yield quick results. High-hanging fruits are more difficulty activities that may take a while to pay off. For this research part of my project, the low-hanging fruits are basic internet searches, what I was already given via Jenny or HASTREES, and Clark resources (Clark’s various libraries). Clark’s archives and rare book collection are a perfect examples of low-hanging fruits. They were easy to access and provided me with an enormous amount of information. Early on I was given a copy of Hadwen’s obituary, which was also a low-hanging fruit. The last example of low-hanging fruit that I found was from the Guy Burnham Map  [ More ...]

Featured Articles

LEEP Pioneers Authors

Sara Baker-Flynn '14

Sara Bker-Flynn

Major: Psychology and Education

LEEP Project: The Barred Owl Retreat-Chicken/Egg Production

Description: I will be working with the Barred Owl Retreat to raise chickens, learn about egg production and how it contributes to being a more sustainable local consumer.



Sam Bishop '14

Sam Bishop

Major: Psychology

Description:I am a junior here at Clark majoring in psychology and philosophy, in the hopes of one day becoming a child psychologist. I believe in the healing powers of creativity, nature, and uninhibited expression and these trajectories have largely led me to being a part of planning the upcoming event on April 5th: REVERB. I have learned a lot about creativity in psychology and daily life throughout my time working in the classroom on my capstone seminar: Creativity, Collaboration and Human Development, from which REVERB was created. I am looking forward to sharing what I have learned in this class, updates on how the event is progressing, and our plans for REVERB’s future.

LEEP Course: Creativity, Collaboration, and Human Development

Professor: Seana Moran, Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology

Course Description: Creativity is central to what makes us human. This capstone seminar explores what creativity is, its collaborative nature, and what role it plays in individual, societal and cultural development over time. We will use a Vygotskian and dynamic systems perspective to contextualize the ways creativity has been studied and to explore how creativity stimulates the purposeful generation of ideas and products in the arts, sciences, technology, business, and social institutions. We will examine theory and research as well as case studies to discuss the individual and collaborative experiences, opportunities, challenges, contexts, and effects of creativity.



Kulani Panapitiya Dias '13

Major: Psychology and English

LEEP Project: Justifying Atrocities: Moral Disengagement, In-Group Glorification & Essentialism in Post-War Sri Lanka.

Description: I am currently conducting research into moral disengagement, in-group glorification and essentialism in post-war Sri Lanka for my double-honors thesis in Psychology & English. I interview and survey Sinhalese and Tamil individuals in this post-war setting and am interested in investigating the means by which ethnic/racial groups such as these justify the moral transgressions that their in-group may commit in times of conflict.



Andrew Doig '14

Andrew Doig

Major: English

LEEP Project: “WaterFire Videography and Media Internship”

Description: Working directly with the Associate Media Producer, this intership will involve assisting in video production, post-production and marketing projects for the 2013 WaterFire season. Projects and tasks might include capturing significant occurrences during WaterFire lightings, assisting in various marketing projects utilizing video captured during the season, editing and post-production work on material for both internal and external sources, working with and organizing the WaterFire Media Library, and assisting in the program and project development.



Sean Paul Fitzgerald '14

Sean-Ppaul Fitzgerald

Major: Spanish and Management

LEEP Project: Communications and Development Internship with the American Red Cross

Description: I will focus on stewarding, researching and renewing corporate donors who have given episodic-related donations to the Red Cross. I also will help to find ways to creatively engage corporate employees in Red Cross projects such as community resiliency.



Lauren Koppel '14

Lauren Koppel

Major: Psychology and Biology

LEEP Project: Annelid Neurobiology Research Lab

Description: Utilizing fluorescent labeling in combination with live imaging technology, I will be observing the development of the central nervous system in embryos of the annelid Capitella teleta with the aim of answering the question: Do annelids have neural stem cells?



Rachael Martin '13

Rachael Martin

Major: Biology

Description: I am an undergraduate biology major at Clark University (Class of 2013). Currently I am beginning research for my 5th year Master’s project, characterizing basidiomycete endophytes of Rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis). During the winter of 2010 I worked on genome annotation of white rot Agaricomycetes as part of a group of undergraduates under the direction of Dimitris Floudas. This experience lead to other research opportunities in the Hibbett lab, including maintaining cultures for a bioremediation experiment, and learning molecular techniques by generating Boletaceae sequences with Mitchell Nuhn from the Chromapes group and Boletellus.

LEEP Course: Tree Thinking

Professor: David Hibbett, Warren Litsky ”45 Endowed Chair; Professor, Department of Biology

Course Description: This course is designed for students who are interested in either molecular or evolutionary biology. Topics to be discussed include evolution of genes and genomes, methods used to estimate evolutionary relationships using molecular data, and applications of molecular data to general problems in biology. The course will include lectures, student-led discussions, laboratory projects using computer-based applications and presentations of these projects.



Brenna Merrill '14

Brenna Merrill_am

Major: Political Science Major, and Urban Development and Social Change Concentration,

LEEP Project: Girls Inc Intern: A LEEP Project & Lois and Robert Green Internship Initiative

Description: I am working with a team of staff, volunteers, and interns in creating empowerment programs for girls throughout Worcester county. This involves aiding in summer camp activities, planning marketing initiatives, and undertaking steps for fund development.



Samuel Mix '14

Sam Mix

Major: Environmental Science and Policy

LEEP Project: Adding Strategic Value for Clark’s Hadwen Arboretum

Description: Hadwen Arboretum is a Clark resource with great potential. Benign neglect over the years has damaged the it’s condition. As a member of HASTREES, Clark’s student group that “speaks for the trees”, I know Clark can do better in maintaining the Arboretum if it’s value to Clark and the community is better appreciated. For this project I intend to research the history of Clark’s Hadwen Arboretum and Obidiah Hadwen, research best practices for institutional green spaces, identify and campus and community stakeholders, understand perceptions of value (including cost scenarios) and use what I have learned to write up a strategic plan to build value for the arboretum.



Rebecca Raphaelson '14

Rebecca Raphaelson

Major: Management

LEEP Project: The Veterans Project/ Back to School Safety Initiative (B2SSI)

Description: I will be creating and implementing a plan that aids in troop transitions, increases campus security and creates jobs all using resources we already have.



Hannah Reich '15

Hannah Reich_small

Major: Environmental Science

LEEP Project: Monitoring and Restoration of Stream-Riparian Systems in Massachusetts

Description: My research will focus on the globally endangered freshwater pearl mussel in streams in north central Massachusetts, macroinvertebrate diversity and stream health in the Otter River system, and riparian zone restoration on the lower Housatonic River.



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