Jamie Monson, associate professor of history, has been selected as a research fellow with the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Berlin Institute for Advanced Study). In 2004-05, she will be spending the year studying historical demography in relation to HIV/AIDS transmission along the TAZARA railway corridor in Tanzania.

Kimberly Smith, assistant professor of political science, presented a paper titled “Becoming Native: The Concept of Place in Early African American Thought” at the Western Political Science Association annual meeting.

Stacy N. Beckwith, assistant professor of Hebrew, has been elected to a four-year term on the executive committee of the Modern Language Association’s Discussion Group on Sephardic Studies. Beckwith also presented a paper titled “The Absent Present: Spain’s Sephardic Self in Contemporary Peninsular Literature” at the international colloqium on Spain and the Sephardic Jews.

Mollie Freier and Heather Tompkins, reference and instruction librarians, have received a grant from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest to host a symposium on information literacy. Eric Hinsdale, library technology coordinator, and Andrea Nixon, associate director of academic computing, are Carleton’s leaders on a grant from the Midwest Information Technology Center (MITC) to fund a summer exchange of three student workers from both Carleton and DePauw University. This is the beginning of a student employment/intern program to build information and technology skills in a corps of Carleton students. Carolyn Sanford, head of reference and instruction and Ann Zawistoski, science librarian, are the project leaders of an MITC-funded effort among nine colleges to develop a Web-based assessment tool to measure first-year students’ information literacy.

Cameron Davidson, associate professor of geology, gave an invited talk titled “Deformation, metamorphism, and pluton emplacement at transpressive plate boundaries: Examples from the Bergell Alps and Southeast Alaska” at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

William North, assistant professor of history, has received a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society to pursue manuscript research for his investigation of clerical and monastic perceptions of the active and contemplative life in the 11th and 12th centuries.

Alfred Montero, assistant professor of political science, published a book, co-edited with David Samuels, associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. The book is titled “Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America” and is published by University of Notre Dame Press.

Kathleen M. Galotti, professor of psychology and cognitive studies, served as organizer and panel chair for a symposium titled “Individual Differences in Adolescent Decision-Making” at the Society for Research in Adolescence meeting. Galotti also presented a paper, coauthored with Elizabeth Ciner, associate dean of the college, Hope Altenbaumer ’99 and Heather (Wilde) Geerts ’01 titled “Making a ‘Major’ Decision: Individual Differences in Cognitive Performance and Affective Response.”

Haiping Yan, associate professor of drama and performance studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, will present a lecture titled “ ‘Sphere of Feelings’: Theatricality in Chinese Aesthetics and Beyond” at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 6 in Carleton’s Gould Library Athenaeum. The event is free and open to the public.

Alex Nathan, a Maori artist, will discuss his artwork at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 12 in Boliou Hall, Room 104, at Carleton College. The event is free and open to the public.