In The News

Roger Jackson, John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion, Emeritus, was recently interviewed for the “Vajrayana Online” component of Tergar International’s Buddhist education program. He also gave a talk titled, “The Indian Roots of Mahamudra” for Ocean, an online community of students of the late Tibetan Buddhist master, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Elizabeth McKinsey, Maxine H. and Winston R. Wallin Professor of American Studies and English, Emerita, recently served on the re-accreditation team for the Middle States Commission of Higher Education visiting Gettysburg College, where she was one of seven representatives from seven different liberal arts colleges; she was focused particularly on their Standard III, Design and Delivery of the Student Learning Experience.

Louis Newman, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus, gave a presentation to the Faculty Advisory Council of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, which includes Amy Carr ’89 , on “Teaching Our Students to Think Critically.” He also gave two online workshops on related topics to the faculty of the Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.

Becky Boling, Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. Professor of Spanish and the Liberal Arts, Emerita, and Doug Green, Interim Co-Poets Laureate of Northfield (2023-2024), gave an address,
“Living Language: Why Poetry Now?” at the Rotary Club of Northfield on February 1, 2024.

Louis Newman, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus, published an op-ed in Newsweek on how colleges could be responding to the current war in the Middle East, and the related turmoil on many campuses, as an opportunity to reinforce the value of a liberal arts education. He also published a piece in Business Insider on factors that parents and students should consider when choosing a college.

Roger Jackson, John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion, Emeritus, recently lectured via Zoom on “Saraha and Sahaja” to the Ocean Sangha, a community of students of the late Tibetan master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Becky Boling, Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. Professor of Spanish and the Liberal Arts, Emerita, and Interim Co-Poet Laureate of Northfield, published “Weight of Farewell,” Oct 2023, p. 10, in the final installment of Visual Verse: An Anthology of Words and Art, Vol. 10. Chapter 12. At Content Bookstore, on November 9th, for the League of Minnesota Poets’ Agates: IndyBookStore Tour, Boling read her poem, “childhoods,” published in this year’s Agates. At the League of Minnesota Poets’ Fall Conference, November 3-5, Boling’s poems were recognized or placed in 5 award categories: one poem “amanecer/dawning,” written in Spanish and translated into English by Boling, won first prize in the category, “Lost in Translation.” Willows Wept Review Issue 31 (winter 2024) published two of her poems, “What’s Left After All Else Is Gone” and “farsighted.” On December 7th Boling read “Wisps of Black Smoke” and “At the Poetry Conference” to celebrate the publication of Issue 7 of Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor, in which both poems appear.

Louis Newman, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus, was interviewed on the podcast Shift: College Admissions in a Changing World with Tyler York for an episode titled, “What students don’t know going into college that they need to know to succeed academically.”

Roger Paas, William H. Laird Professor of German and the Liberal Arts, emeritus, has recently published a three-volume catalog of a major collection of books he assembled over the past four decades: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Related Materials (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2023).

Louis Newman, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, emeritus, gave a workshop on teaching students to think critically at the national conference of Breakthrough Collaborative, a college access organization that serves first-gen, low-income students, on October 24 in Minneapolis.

Roger Jackson, John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion, Emeritus, recently offered a half-day Zoom workshop titled, “Saraha: Poet of Gnostic Bliss” for students of the Jewel Heart Buddhist Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Becky Boling, Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. Professor of Spanish and the Liberal Arts, Emerita, and Interim Co-Poet Laureate of Northfield, has published a poem, “River Towns,” in Lost Lake Folk Opera, Vol 8, Fall 2023, pp. 72-75. Along with Doug Green and Larry Gavin, Boling was interviewed by Pamela Thompson regarding a coming poetry event, Poets at the Depot, October 7 from 2-4pm. The article appeared in the September 28th issue of The Northfield News.