We didn’t go to Caesarea yesterday. We didn’t really go anywhere. Some of the students had a tour of the Akko Baha’i Temple and Gardens, but mostly we were just here. They didn’t want us to leave the city. So we didn’t. Some caught up on homework, some slept, some read, some strolled around the old city.
What is it like in Israel right now? I can’t speak for anywhere but here, I only know first hand about Akko. Yesterday I walked to a falafel stand owned by Arabs who were probably fasting for Ramadan. I ordered a falafel and had my Hebrew corrected by a young man with a smile. We ate on the patio, outside. Arab citizens of Akko are observing Ramadan and breaking their fasts at sundown at Iftar. Yesterday was Shabbat, the sabbath and families were strolling around town. Their biggest concern was finding water because it was very warm.
The bus was late yesterday. When it did arrive, the driver was a bit upset. A woman in a lefthand turning lane had suddenly gone straight rather than turn and he had had to slam on the brakes. There was a little damage to the driver’s side of the bus, but nothing much. They exchanged insurance info and he asked what happened. She said the GPS told her to go straight. Israel or the U.S. some things are the same.
We started digging yesterday. Pulling up lots of pottery. Not surprising as a second name of Tel Akko is Tel of Sherds. The place is just covered with them and they are mixed in with all the dirt. I’ve been hauling buckets and screening dirt. A two-handled screen atop a wheelbarrow gets shaken to remove all the loose dirt. Then the diggers sort through what is left for pottery, animal bone, shells, iron slag and perhaps something cool. What could be cool? Loom weights – little ceramic globs with holes in them that are used in weaving, iron projectile points, highly polished and painted Greek pottery, a carved ivory figure would all be cool and all have been found on the Tel so far, but not in the screens.
What do I find? Broken pieces of pottery ranging in size from less than half an inch to hand sized. Shells ranging from tiny snail shells to large, 2-inch, scallop shells to spiny dye murex shells. These are the ones that the “royal purple dye” comes from. And more sherds. Sometimes little pieces of Greek looking pottery, sometimes a handle, but so far, nothing of much note. But I have faith. Everything eventually ends up in the screens. Something really cool will pop up, appear, emerge.
Yesterday was unusual in another way. After dinner, one of the staff, Nick Pumphrey, Claremont Graduate University, successfully defended his dissertation. His advisor is here and the defense took place via Skype. So a new Ph.D. takes his place in the Academy today. He doesn’t look any different than yesterday, but his wife looks much happier.
Well, here I am in Israel again, at Tel Akko. I wasn’t able to join the Total Archaeology at Tel Akko Project last year, so I was very interested in seeing what changed and what didn’t. We are once again staying at the Israel Nautical Academy, a boarding school for students wishing to either enter the navy or join the merchant marine. The school is mostly empty in the summer, so we fill most of two dorms. There are more of us this year than ever before — lots of students, returning students, staff and faculty. Total Archaeology at Tel Akko is a joint project of Penn State and Haifa University with Anne Killebrew, associate professor of classics and ancient Mediterranean studies, Jewish studies and anthropology, Penn State, and Michal Artzey, professor emeritus, coastal and underwater archaeology, Haifa University.
Students in the Total Archaeology Project at Tel Akko listen while Nick Pumphrey of Trinity College explains basic tool use.Nick Pumphrey of Trinity College explains basic tool use.
Students come from all over, but groups come from Penn State, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Trinity College and the Claremont Colleges Consortium. Right now we are just beginning to get over jet lag. Continue reading There and Back Again→
In most cultures, when the queen dies, the next closest relative takes the throne, but then in human royalty, the fate of all reproduction does not rest on the new queen (or king). Among Indian jumping ants, when the queen dies, the females compete and the winner changes hormonally and physically and becomes a Gamergate. She supplies all the fertile eggs for the brood.
Those are the academic disciplines that launched the last seven Penn State presidents on their careers in higher education. To be sure, each had transitioned to administration before taking the reigns as the University’s chief executive. But each also has left his mark as a researcher.
I started thinking about the President as Researcher when I read a biographical sketch of Eric Barron, who recently took office as Penn State’s 18th president. Barron first came to the University in 1986 as director of the Earth System Science Center. Earlier, he had been a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado and subsequent to leaving Penn State, he served for two years as NCAR’s director. He’s authored more than 125 peer-reviewed papers in geology, oceanography, and climate issues.
So what about other six presidents?
Barron’s immediate predecessor, Rod Erickson (2011-14), is a bit of a hybrid when it comes to scholarly research. He came to Penn State in 1977 as a geographer, the discipline in which he holds a Ph.D. But his interest in economic geography and regional economic development led to his appointment as professor of both geography and business administration in 1984. In the Smeal College of Business, he directed the Center for Regional Business Analysis and was associate director of the Division of Research. His interdisciplinary approach to research served him well as Penn State’s Vice President for Research from 1997 to 1999.
Graham Spanier (1995-2011), a family sociologist and demographer, is the author of more than a hundred scholarly publications, including 10 books. He also is the founding editor of the Journal of Family Issues, a peer-reviewed research publication.
Spanier was preceded by a biologist, Joab Thomas (1990-95). Hard to believe, but he’s the only Penn State president to have a fossilized pollen named for him. He completed his dissertation at Harvard on that pollen, now named “joabthomasii,” and his research work there and later at the University of Alabama won him international distinction as a specialist in the family Cyrillaceae.
Bryce Jordan (1983-90) is an accomplished flutist and holds a doctorate in musicology from the University of North Carolina. In the 1960s, he directed graduate studies in music at the University of Maryland, before moving into administration at other universities.
Penn State had a plant pathologist-president in John Oswald (1970-83). As a member of the faculty at the University of California Berkeley in the 1950s, his published research included such subjects as fungus root rots, plant viral diseases (particularly of cereals and potatoes) and the fundamentals of the serology of plant viruses. In 1951 he discovered the Barley Yellow Dwarf, since recognized as one of the world’s principal cereal diseases. He became chairman of the department of plant pathology at Berkeley, and then followed an administrative path for the remainder of his career.
Eric Walker (1956-70) was a Harvard-educated electrical engineer and during World War II directed that institution’s Underwater Sound Lab, where researchers helped to develop sonar. Walker moved the lab (renamed the Ordnance Research Lab) to Penn State after the war but retained its focus on national defense-related research, particularly problems related to sounds made by the propellers of torpedoes and submarines. The facility later became the Applied Research Lab and broadened its work to non-defense fields. Meanwhile Walker became dean of engineering and in 1956 was all set to become Penn State’s very first vice president for research — a post created by then-President Milton Eisenhower — when Eisenhower abruptly resigned to become an adviser to his brother, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. Penn State’s Trustees then named Walker president, largely at Milton’s strong recommendation.
The Penn State presidents prior to Walker were an eclectic mix of teachers, administrators, even full-time clergy. Having strong research credentials was not expected of college presidents in the long ago. Only one stands out as a legitimate scholarly researcher: Evan Pugh, the University’s founding president (1859-64).
The spirit of researcher-President Evan Pugh lives on in the lobby of Old Main. Image: Patrick Mansell
Pugh, a chemist, held a Ph.D. from Germany’s University of Goettingen. He won international recognition for resolving a debate then raging among European scientists: did plants absorb nitrogen from the air, or from the soil? Pugh proved it was from the soil. In doing so, he became “the father of the modern fertilizer industry,” as Roger Williams (executive director of the Penn State Alumni Association and a Pugh scholar extraordinaire) likes to say. Cynics might argue that the title aptly fits a college president.
Certainly fitting was Penn State’s decision in 1960 to establish the Evan Pugh Professorships, given to faculty who, among other qualities, have earned high distinction as researchers. The Pugh Professorships are the highest honor the University bestows on its faculty; only 68 have been awarded.
Pulling up lots of pottery. Not surprising as a second name of Tel Akko is Tel of Sherds. The place is just covered with them and they are mixed in with all the dirt. I’ve been hauling buckets and screening dirt. A two-handled screen atop a wheelbarrow gets shaken to remove all the loose dirt. Then the diggers sort through what is left for pottery, animal bone, shells, iron slag and perhaps something cool. What could be cool? Loom weights – little ceramic globs with holes in them that are used in weaving, iron projectile points, highly polished and painted Greek pottery, a carved ivory figure would all be cool and all have been found on the Tel so far, but not in the screens.
