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Show HUMANITIES DEPT. WELCOMES NEW DEAN COVEETi, COVER D BY C YNTHIA LUU s A WR ER ianne Harris has officially been named the new dean of the Humanities College. Currently the director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Harris has a background in landscape architecture and is an architectural historian. She is heavily involved with the development of humanities programs nationwide and is the founding director of Humanities Without Walls, a program that funds 15 humanities institutes in the Midwest. Heidi Camp, the assistant dean for advancement at the College of Humanities, said Harris joining the U will be a "breath of fresh air:' "She has a whole new perspective on things': Camp said. "The College is in very solid shape and ready to have someone take it up to that next lever Camp noted Harris has a different managing style that is focused on faculty advocacy, which Camp feels will help students in the long run. "She is very approachable and very engaging, and I think she's going to be very involved with students in a way we've not seen in the past': Camp said. "We're going to start seeing more creative innovation in the classroom to help students build that bridge from the passion that they have to practical applications in life:' Eric Hinderaker, a history professor and participant in the search process, said they chose Harris because they "were impressed with every aspect of her:' "Dianne Harris is somebody who will be able to provide good leadership as we think about new curriculum and new ways to resource undergraduate students': Hinderaker said. "This is someone who is well-positioned to build our achievements and who can lead our college forward in an energetic and imaginative way:' Robert Newman, the current dean, will be leaving on July 1 to take a position as director and president of the National Humanities Center. Newman has served as dean since 2001. "He's been a great leader. He's done a lot of innovation, and so there's a very strong legacy to build on': Hinderaker said. Sam Hawe, a junior in international studies, hopes that bringing in a new dean will help strengthen the Humanities College as a whole and create more inclusivity in the department. "I've seen a lot of humanities classes go down in quantity, particularly in the Middle Eastern programs and foreign language programs': Hawe said. "I'm hoping the new dean will be a beneficial force to reconstructing and expanding the smaller programs within the humanities college:' c.luu@chronicle.utah.edu @cynthia_luu BY CAROLINE MOREION STAFF WRITER THE LEFTOVERS INSPIRES THOSE FACING TRAGEDY n the spring of 2011, a man named Harold Camping made national news by predicting the exact date of the rapture: May 21, 2011. Camping was an evangelical preacher who taught that on May 21, the righteous would be raised to heaven while the sinners would suffer up to a year of disease and war. Clearly, he was wrong because we are all still here. Later that year, writer Tom Perrotta released a novel undoubtedly inspired by Camping's teachings. In Perrotta's The Leftovers, a third of the world's inhabitants mysteriously disappear, seemingly evaporated into thin air, in what could only be described as the rapture. However, what is so mystifying about this event, nicknamed the "Sudden Departure," is that not one single religious group disappears. Instead, both criminals and saints alike are among "The Departed': leaving people to question whether this event really was rapture. The Leftovers doesn't ever answer what really happened. The book takes place three years after the Sudden Departure. It follows each member of the Garvey family, all of whom live in the small town of Mapleton and have vastly different ways of reacting to the event. Kevin Garvey is the patriarch of the family and of the town, serving as mayor of Mapleton. RETIRING DEAN REFLECTS ON COMMUNITY SERVICE IN UTAH BY CAROLYN WEBBER 111ra■ ti with the loss of friends and family. Although what happened in Perrotta's novel is like something out of a "Twilight Zone" episode, it's easy to get lost in the world Perrotta has created. Each character possesses a depth that makes the reader sympathize with even the most detestable characters. In The Leftovers, Perrotta examines how both individuals and the world as a whole react to loss, especially in the face of an event that raises so many questions. His novel is less about the weird cults and crazy people that take the stage after a tragedy and more about both the direct and indirect ways tragedy can affect people. Perrotta argues that one still feels a sense of loss after a major disaster, no matter how many loved ones he or she lost. Perrotta's novel explores the devastation that follows a tragic event and the beauty that emerges from it as good people come forward to help others. Despite the seemingly bleak premise, Perrotta delivers an inspiring piece of writing in The Leftovers. c.moreton@chronicle.utah.edu @ChronyArts ,Z11— /STAFF WRITER fter 15 years, Jannah Mather, dean of the College of Social Work, will be leaving the U. Since 2000, Mather has brought important changes to the program, including raising money for an addition to the Wilford W. and Dorothy P. Goodwill Humanitarian Building completed in 2008. She also restarted the bachelors of social work after it was discontinued in the 1970s. Mary Jane Taylor, associate dean of the college, has worked with Mather for over 10 years and said what sets Mather apart is her "ability to find the best in all of her staff and faculty and help them achieve to their best capacity." A His wife, Laurie, joins a cult called the Guilty Remnant. Each member of this cult, masquerading as a religious group, has to wear all white, constantly smoke a cigarette and take a vow of silence. Not even when a member is alone is he or she allowed to speak. Traveling in pairs, the Guilty Remnant spend their time stalking non-members from a distance and staring at them, simply to get a reaction. Their ultimate goal is to recruit new members and wait for the apocalypse. The Guilty Remnant is not the only cult to form after the Sudden Departure. The older of the two Garvey children, a college dropout named Tom, follows a self-proclaimed prophet called Holy Wayne. Wayne claims to have a direct line of communication with God, who instructed him to practice polygamy by taking multiple child brides. According to Wayne, the son of God will come to Earth through one of his wives. Jill, the other Garvey child, has the hardest time dealing with the Sudden Departure because both her mother and her brother left her at an impressionable age. During high school, Jill turns to drugs and heavy drinking to cope Mather's accomplishments include international outreach, Taylor said. She helped facilitate the social work programs at the U's campus in Songdo, South Korea and has encouraged students and faculty to expand research fields in countries such as Mongolia and Mexico. The college has seen a major shift toward research in the past few years, and currently, social work professors are conducting studies in all continents except Antarctica. "There are more publications and more grants. It's changed its curriculum, so it has more clinical classes, which is what the students wanted," Mather said. The program has also expanded its commitment to community service, a change Mather helped implement. Even as dean, Mather emphasized staying involved with social work and teaching by example. "I consider myself a social worker first and an academic second," she said. "I think that has made life a lot easier on me in my leadership roles." Although Mather has seen ups and downs in the program, she noted that many students choose to study social work. Even though Mather has worked all over the country at different universities, she believes Utah is unique. "It has a culture of social services and giving and doing for the poor and those in 8 { THECHRONY I NEWS I OPINION I ARTS I SPORTS I MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2015 } need," she said. In the future, Mather hopes to see the U's College of Social Work improve its rankings nationwide. She said the school is currently ranked 16 out of 400 schools in the country. After a long career in social work, Mather will continue to teach an online class at the U as she spends the next years in Wisconsin and Florida to be with family. The new dean will not be chosen for a couple of years, but Hank Liese, associate professor of the college of social work, will serve as dean until that time. c.webber@chronicle.utah.edu @carolyn_webber Even hamsterswriteyletters to th'e editor. letters @ chronicle .utah .edu ••• Follow us on Twitter! w w w w T H E C H R ON Y - WW 11PRead more at CD yoahchrollic 9 |