With Good Reason

Dickens Turns 200 (2012) by With Good Reason

A new book, Stars for Freedom, by historian Emilie Raymond (Virginia Commonwealth University) tells the little-known story of how black actors and entertainers in Hollywood contributed their money, connections, and fame to aid the civil rights movement. Plus: D.W. Griffith’s Civil War epic Birth of a Nation is notorious for its racist scenes. Avi Santo (Old Dominion University) has organized the writing and shooting of the ambitious short film Our Nation, which tells the story of a young African American teenager’s response to the film in Norfolk, Virginia in 1915.

Later in the show: Julian Bond, who passed away on August 15th, was at the cutting edge of social change since he was a college student leading sit-in demonstrations in Atlanta in 1960. The civil rights leader faced jail for his activism and helped create the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. He spent 20 years as a Georgia lawmaker and was also a writer, college lecturer, and former chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In a 2004 interview, Bond, whose grandfather was born into slavery, talks candidly about race in America 50 years after the Brown v. Board decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

All of the fish in the acidic, black water of Brazil’s Rio Negro have super sharp teeth. Pieter deHart (Virginia Military Institute) is out to discover what organisms are at the base of the food web where everything seems to be a carnivore. Plus: Over the past 50 years, the Amazon rainforest has lost nearly 20% of its forest cover. Thomas Lovejoy (George Mason University) coined the term “biodiversity” in the 1970s, and has spent the last fifty years studying the effects of fragmentation on wildlife in the Amazon. And: Laura Mentore (University of Mary Washington) studies the Waiwai community in Guyana, and accidentally discovered the path of a special songbird from the rainforest to New York City.

Later in the show: For coastal cities around the world, surf tourism brings huge revenue, but it can also bring conflict. Lindsay Usher (Old Dominion University) studies the rough waves that are sometimes made between locals and surf tourists. And: It’s no surprise that dogs make friends at the dog park, but it turns out people do too. Ed Gomez (Old Dominion University) says that dog parks build community and cut back on crime. Plus: After starting an antique photo collection, Ann-Janine Morey (James Madison University) discovered that old photos of people with their pets can teach us a lot about class.

Drink Local (August 8, 2015)

In recent years, a culture has grown up around brewing beer locally and at home. Hunter Smith and Levi Duncan of Champion Brewery met in a brewing course at Piedmont Virginia Community College, where they now both teach. They say local breweries like Champion can help foster community. Plus: In early America, just about everyone drank beer—even for breakfast. We go with Susan Kern (College of William and Mary) to the site of a brew house that once existed on the campus of one of the nation’s oldest colleges. And: We all know of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, but few of us have heard of Robert Morris, who was also a founding father. Ryan Smith (Virginia Commonwealth University), in a new book, tells the tale of this wealthy financier of the Revolution who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but ended up in financial ruin and public disgrace.

Later in the show: There is an extreme shortage of nurses in “bush” Alaska, a stunningly beautiful part of the world only reachable by plane or barge. Maria DeValpine (James Madison University) spent three years learning why nurses elect to stay in this challenging environment on the edge of the earth. And: Courses that include service learning projects can have a profound effect on college students. While teaching at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, James Curiel (Norfolk State University) had his students, who were predominately from the wealthiest Egyptian families, work with impoverished families who made their living by recycling the rubbish they collected. The lessons learned were invaluable.

When Shenandoah National Park was built, hundreds of families were forced off their land. Margaret Marangione (Blue Ridge Community College) says new information has emerged suggesting that some of them were sent to state colonies and sterilized. Plus: Veterans of the Revolutionary War collected the nation’s first pensions for wounded soldiers. But Benjamin Irvin says claiming a pension was difficult and threatened the pride of many veterans. And: Aging baby boomers are beginning to influence the funeral industry. Rhonda Pleasants (John Tyler Community College) says more are now opting for “green” burials and more personalized funerals that reflect the hobbies and passions of the person who died.

Later in the show: Too many young people imagine old age as a time when we become no longer useful or interested in the world around us. But Terry Lee (Christopher Newport University) has been challenging these kinds of ageist stereotypes. He’s spent hours behind a camera, documenting the lives of elders and their caregivers. And he says older people have an important job to do. Also featured: As we age, we all experience changes in our brains that make our memories less sharp than they used to be. But some older people actually have a condition called Mild Cognitive Impairment, or MCI, which is different from Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Rosemary Blieszner (Virginia Tech) was instrumental in a study that looked at how patients and their family members cope with MCI.

Grandparents Who Parent by With Good Reason

Grandparents Who Parent by With Good Reason

Cochineal, a parasitic insect native to Mexico, is the source of a vibrant red dye called carmine, which Spain’s Conquistadors encountered for the first time in 1519. We talk with Amy Butler Greenfield, author of A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire, about the history of this highly sought-after commodity that eluded pirates, scientists, and kings. Plus: When restoring priceless works of art, conservators often want to know the origins of the paint. Chemist Kristen Wustholz (College of William & Mary) works with art curators to trace the molecular “fingerprints” of rare paint pigments and has produced a technique that allows precise chemical analysis from a single near-microscopic particle excised from the painting. And: Nuclear physicist Gail Dodge (Old Dominion University) has taken a leading role in atom-smashing experiments. Dodge, who won an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, is also devoted to growing the number of women in a field that is still dominated by men.

Later in the show: In 2009, fewer than 2% of physical science degrees—like physics and chemistry—went to African-Americans. Considering African-Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population, these numbers are shockingly low. And they’re getting even lower. In the second episode of our ongoing series about STEM education, we ask: what does a scientist look like? Short, tall, black, brown, male or female? We talk to four young scientists about their outreach project at William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science. We also hear about what might be keeping American girls out of laboratories, and Laura Puaca (Christopher Newport University) explains the WWII history of Edna the Engineer.

Cochineal, a parasitic insect native to Mexico, is the source of a vibrant red dye called carmine, which Spain’s Conquistadors encountered for the first time in 1519. We talk with Amy Butler Greenfield, author of A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire, about the history of this highly sought-after commodity that eluded pirates, scientists, and kings. Plus: When restoring priceless works of art, conservators often want to know the origins of the paint. Chemist Kristen Wustholz (College of William & Mary) works with art curators to trace the molecular “fingerprints” of rare paint pigments and has produced a technique that allows precise chemical analysis from a single near-microscopic particle excised from the painting. And: Nuclear physicist Gail Dodge (Old Dominion University) has taken a leading role in atom-smashing experiments. Dodge, who won an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, is also devoted to growing the number of women in a field that is still dominated by men.

Later in the show: In 2009, fewer than 2% of physical science degrees—like physics and chemistry—went to African-Americans. Considering African-Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population, these numbers are shockingly low. And they’re getting even lower. In the second episode of our ongoing series about STEM education, we ask: what does a scientist look like? Short, tall, black, brown, male or female? We talk to four young scientists about their outreach project at William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science. We also hear about what might be keeping American girls out of laboratories, and Laura Puaca (Christopher Newport University) explains the WWII history of Edna the Engineer.

In the late 19th century, German medical practices were considered to be the best in the world. But by the start of World War II, a number of German physicians were directly involved in the mass killings of the Holocaust. Theodore Reiff (Christopher Newport University) looks at the subversion of German doctors in the Nazi era. Also featured: The movie The Great Escape dramatizes the experience of American and European prisoners of war in Germany during World War II. But little known is that there were more than 400,000 German prisoners of war in 700 camps across America. Charles Ford (Norfolk State University) and Jeffrey Littlejohn (Sam Houston State University) look at the 4,000 German prisoners in Huntsville, Texas and efforts to “de-Nazify” them.

Later in the show: More than 20 years after Germans tore down the Berlin Wall, they are still negotiating how to deal with the stigmas of a formerly divided country. Jason James (University of Mary Washington) says there are still divisions within German culture—between the “good” former West Germans and the “bad” former East Germans—and both sides struggle with a problematic past that includes Nazi and Fascist associations that persist, even in a united country. Also featured: In the years leading up to World War I, Germany joined other world powers in colonizing parts of Africa. Christian Davis (James Madison University) says there’s a relationship between the racial subjugation that occurred in Germany’s African colonies and the rise of an anti-Semitic movement back home—a movement that would later form the ideological core of Nazism.