UW News

April 13, 2011

Etc: Campus news & notes

Kenneth Pyle

Kenneth Pyle

JAPAN CHAMPION: The Japan-America Society of the State of Washington has named Professor Kenneth B. Pyle, the recipient of the 2011 Thomas S. Foley Award. This annual award is named in honor of the Washington State native who was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 1995 and U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1998 to 2001. This is the sixth year the award has been presented to the person or organization that best exemplifies Ambassador Foleys commitment to promoting improved understanding of cultural and economic issues between the people of Washington State and Japan.

Pyle is the Henry M. Jackson Professor of History and Asian Studies at the UW. He is founding president of The National Bureau of Asian Research, an independent non-partisan research institute to promote an informed and effective American policy toward Asia. Author and editor of numerous works on modern Japan, his most recent book is Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose. He also was founding editor of the Journal of Japanese Studies.

Laura Chrisman

Laura Chrisman

LEARNED: Laura Chrisman, Nancy K Ketcham Endowed Chair of English, has been awarded the prestigious American Council of Learned Societies research fellowship, for 2011-2012. This award is for her book project Black transnationalism:  the US and South Africa, 1900-1945. Chrisman joined the UW English department in 2005, as Nancy K Ketcham Professor, and in 2010 was promoted to the Nancy K Ketcham Endowed Chair. She works in the fields of postcolonial, African and black diaspora studies.

 

ROWING TO FAME: The story hasnt even been written yet, but if all goes well a chapter of the UWs history will be featured in a movie in about 2013. The Boys in the Boat is the story of the eight-man University of Washington rowing team that beat elite schools like Harvard and Yale to represent the U.S. in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. They defeated the powerhouse British and German teams to win the Gold Medal, much to the chagrin of Adolf Hitler. Local author Daniel James Brown is working on the book on which the film is to be based. Film rights have been purchased by the Weinstein Company (which made The Kings Speech) and Kenneth Branaugh has signed on to direct.

'Traumatic Injury in the Peep Population.'

"Traumatic Injury in the Peep Population."

PEEPS POSTER: Meanwhile, the Department of Surgery at Harborview Medical Center got creative and put up a winning display of Peeps for the second annual competition held by Mindy Stern, director of resident and fellow wellness in the office of the dean of Graduate Medical Education programs. The poster, titled Traumatic Injury in the Peep Population, reads like a sort of Peep-related research project. Stern said, “It was more than a diorama – its the kind of poster presentation that would be given at an international science conference. … It was so obvious this was the winning entry.”

Do you know someone who deserves kudos for an outstanding achievement, award, appointment or book publication?  If so, send that persons name, title and achievement to uwtoday@uw.edu.