The alumni newsletter of Antioch College Fall 2004
The alumni newsletter of Antioch College Fall 2004
Irwin M. Abrams is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Antioch University and Professor of History Emeritus at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is a world authority on the history of the Nobel Peace Prize, about which he has published widely, lectured at universities here and abroad, contributed to encyclopedias, been interviewed on television and radio and consulted on television documentaries.
His book, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates, selected by the American Library Association as one of “the outstanding reference works of 1989,” was revised and published in 2001 by Watson Publishing International as the Centennial Edition of the prize. He published the authorized edition of the Nobel Peace Lectures 1971-1995 (World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, New Jersey, London) in three volumes and is working on the volume for 1996-2000. He wrote the articles on the peace prize in The Nobel Prize Annual for the years 1988-97 (IMG Publishing, N.Y.). In 2000 he published an updated edition of his anthology The Words of Peace, with the foreword by President Jimmy Carter (Newmarket Press, N.Y.. 3rd edition 2002)). In 2003 he co-edited the anthology, The Iraq War and Its Consequences: Thoughts of Nobel Peace Laureates and Eminent Scholars (World Scientific, Singapore, New Jersey, London).
Born in San Francisco, he graduated from Stanford University with great distinction and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received the MA and PhD degrees from Harvard University. An early pioneer peace historian, his doctoral dissertation on the 19th century peace movement shared Harvard's Sumner Prize.
A Quaker, during World War II he left his teaching position in the Department of History at Stanford University to serve for four years with the American Friends Service Committee along with many others in the relief and reconstruction work which earned the Committee the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947.
Joining the faculty of Antioch College in 1947, he established the Department of History and taught European history and International Studies there for over three decades. A theorist and practitioner of international education, he helped organize Antioch Education Abroad, was Coordinator of International Programs for the Great Lakes Colleges Association and served as president of the International Society for Educational, Cultural and Scientific Interchanges.
His Fulbright was at the University of Cologne. He has organized educational programs in both western and eastern Europe and consulted with the U.S. Departments of State and Education. He served on the editorial board of the Antioch Review and was chairman of the board of managers of the Quaker monthly, Friends Journal.
In 1997 the trustees of Antioch University, on the “recommendation of the faculty of Antioch College,” awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000 the Peace History Society and the Peace History Commission of the International Peace Research Association gave him recognition "for distinguished lifetime service in the research and popularization of the cause of peace in History." In 2003 the Antioch College Alumni Association presented him with the Arthur Morgan Award for his “long and continued exemplary service for the Antioch College community the education community, and the global community.”
In January 2004, at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Washington, D.C., he was honored with a Peace Research panel on “Irwin Abrams and the Evolution of a Field,” for which he presented the paper, “Memoirs of a Peace Historian.” In April he presented a paper at the Colloquy Elie Ducommun in Geneva.
He was married to the late Freda Morrill Abrams and has lived in Yellow Springs since 1947. In 2003-2004 Irwin co-chaired the Sesquicentennial Committee at Antioch College where he helped to plan and implement nearly a dozen events to celebrate Antioch College’s 150 years.
Barbara Davis, Associate Professor of European History, spent a month in Europe. Although the primary goal was continuing with her research of sixteenth-century confraternities in Toulouse, France, she also did some museum hopping in London, traveled to Ravenna, and Florence, and then back again to Toulouse. It was a good trip with a lot seen and learned.
Erin Davis, Assistant Professor of Sociology, and Christine Smith, Assistant Professor of Psychology, presented preliminary work, “A Comparative Study of Feminist Meanings, Identities, and Activism”, at the Great Lakes College Association Women’s Studies Conference at Kenyon in April of 2004. Also at the Great Lakes College Association Women’s Studies Conference, Erin moderated and participated in a collaborative session: “Grrrlz to Womyn: A Workshop on Successful Feminist Mentoring” with Amy Killoran, Visiting Assistant Librarian for Public & Instructional Services, and with Vange Heiliger and Suzanne Smailes from Wittenberg.
Erin traveled and studied in China this summer as part of a East West Center Summer Institute: “China’s Contending Metropolitan Regions: Hong Kong and Shanghai Field Study.” After the seminar ended, she traveled on her own to Xi'an and Beijing.
(Read More Faculty News)
Kristen Muir ’05, Antioch College Community Manager, was hired as Community Manager in 2004 and is enjoying the establishment of her first home off-campus in five years. She recently adopted two special needs kitties and had her car hit by a bison at a highly problematic safari park in Virginia. She also experienced the joy of being the bride’s maid in a friend’s wedding.
Kristen just completed her senior project, a collection of poetry titled Waiting for Everything We Cannot Name. The book was self-published with help from the Belinda McGuire Grant.
Jennifer Bennett, Bookstore Director, received a scholarship that helped her to attend the Tin House Writers’ Workshop in Portland, Oregon in July of 2004, where she studied with Abigail Thomas.
“What motivates you?” I ask, the last question I pose to students who are applying to the Antioch Literacy Corps (ALC) program. The answers to this question highlight the enthusiasm and extraordinary nature of today’s Antioch students. Students express “wanting to grow,” “wanting to learn from kids,” being “excited to have the chance to travel and have new experiences,” “to be around children who come from a more familiar culture,” “to do the kind of work I want to do for life,” and also “to be healthy.” Numerous students have expressed their need to be around children to balance out the intensity of being surrounded by their peers on campus, to remind them of the simple things in life, and to keep them honest. “ When I work with kids, I’m often put into situations that I’ve never been in and don’t really know what to do. I think I figured out that the best thing to do is to be real, stay calm, and tell the truth. Children these days are already fed enough lies,” a student told me.