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January 27th, 2019
On July 20, 1969, the world watched as Neil Armstrong took humankind’s first steps on the moon.
This giant leap instantly became the defining moment in space history. There were now American footprints on the moon, fulfilling the late President John F. Kennedy’s promise to do so by the end of the decade.
NASA’s accomplishment is all the more incredible in light of the tragedy that occurred just two-and-half years prior, when on January 27, 1967, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives in a fire during a launch pad test of the Apollo 1 spacecraft. The nation was in shock and NASA was forced to confront the mistakes that led to the avoidable deaths of its own astronauts.
In its haste to reach the moon by the end of the decade, NASA had pushed the flawed Apollo 1 craft to its limits. Though it was too late for the Apollo 1 astronauts, NASA ultimately realized that there was much that needed to be changed if they were to make it to the moon.
“One of the cruel ironies, the central paradox of the Space Race, was that a launch pad fire actually saved the Apollo program,” notes George Leopold, Gus Grissom’s biographer. “The reason was the evidence of what had been overlooked in Grissom’s ship—the faulty wiring, the leaking coolant, the lack of flame-retardant materials in the spacecraft, the clumsy, inward-opening hatch, and most important of all, NASA’s misguided engineering decision to use pure oxygen under pressure on the launch pad—all of it was there for the investigators to sift through.”
Tragedy struck, but NASA learned from it, and the groundwork was laid to successfully put humankind on the moon.
Armstrong was empowered to take that first giant leap on the surface of the moon because of those who did so before him on Earth, including Grissom, White, and Chaffee who took calculated risks to fulfill Kennedy’s promise.
NASA did not make it to the moon despite the failure of the mission; rather, NASA achieved their goal because of the contributions and the sacrifices of these astronauts, and the doors they opened for future giant leaps
As Purdue University celebrates 150 Years of Giant Leaps with its sesquicentennial celebration in 2019; as the world recognizes the fiftieth anniversary of Armstrong’s first steps on the moon in July of this year; we cast the spotlight, today, on the crew of Apollo 1 and in particular Purdue alumnus astronauts Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee, whose giant leaps and ultimate sacrifice moved humankind forward, to the moon and beyond.
The information in this post came from Grissom’s biography, Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom, Revised and Expanded and a previous Q&A with the author, George Leopold.
Filed under: UncategorizedDecember 21st, 2018
2018 was a great year at Purdue University Press, highlighted by a full slate of scholarly and trade books, as well as several journals that were released during our Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter seasons.
In May of 2018 we welcomed Clarence Maybee as a new series editor for the Purdue Information Literacy Handbooks, and in November we welcomed Justin Race as the new Director of Purdue University Press.
As we move forward into 2019 stay engaged with us and subscribe to our email newsletter to get the latest on books and promotions. We also encourage you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, especially to make sure you catch our upcoming “New Year, New Book, New You” sale!
To get a comprehensive list of what came out this year, click on #PUPYearinReview in the tweet below, check out our catalogs listed at the end of this post, or visit www.press.purdue.edu.
Throughout the month of December, we'll be going back through 2018 month by month to recap what we were up to. To follow along, keep up with #PUPYearinReview! First up is January…
— Purdue University Press (@PurduePress) December 6, 2018
Thank you for keeping in touch with the Press, Happy New Year and we’ll see you in 2019!
Filed under: Uncategorized
November 27th, 2018
To prepare for the release of the 36.3 issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Purdue University Press interviewed contributor Jay Michaelson about religion, writing, and more.
Michaelson is an affiliated assistant professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, where his work focuses on the intersection of queer studies and Jewish theology. His scholarly publications include “Queering Kabbalistic Gender Dimorphism,” “Hating Law for Christian Reasons: The Religious Roots of American Anti-lawyerism,” and “Chaos, Law, and God: The Religious Meanings of Homosexuality.” His books include Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Trumpeter, 2009) and God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon, 2011). A book based on his doctoral dissertation, Jacob Frank: From Jewish Antinomianism to Esoteric Myth, is presently under review. He holds a PhD in Jewish thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a JD from Yale Law School, and nondenominational rabbinic ordination.
Michaelson’s article “Queering Martin Buber: Harry Hay’s Erotic Dialogical?” appears in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, volume 36, issue 3.
“In certain gay subcultures, Harry Hay’s philosophy is well-known and actively practiced, and yet there’s very little awareness there of its close relationship to Buber’s. At first, I was interested in possible influences; as the research went on, this morphed into an interest in phenomenological affinities and differences, and how the two thinkers could complement one another.”
“As an “alt-ac” with a long-term visiting position at Chicago Theological Seminary but a primary career outside the academy, there’s a certain freedom in being able to write scholarly articles on a wide variety of subjects, and I certainly make use of that. In addition, I’m interested in bridging discourses between “high” philosophers such as Buber and outsider thinkers like Hay. I’m not sure Hay is (or deserves to be) taken seriously by proper philosophy scholars, and yet there’s something quite interesting in his eroticizing of the dialogical that I think is worthy of analysis.”
“It depends on the work. In the case of this article, I was interested in trying to assess, based on the textual evidence, how these similar but divergent dialogical philosophies might be experienced in practice, rather than solely on the page. I think that’s informed by my work in the contemplative world. At the same time, I’m extremely wary of imposing any of my own experiences onto the subjects at hand.”
“I feel like I’ve written a book on that subject.… I think for many people, myself included, the Buddha Dharma provides a less theologically freighted set of contemplative practices that can enrich a Jewish communal and ritual life. The questions Buddhism asks about suffering and the end of suffering are complementary to those Judaism asks about justice and relationship to the Divine. I see them as having different conversations.”
“In terms of the work, I think there’s a constant awareness of the justice impacts of any idea under consideration, including those in this article. For example, for all of Hay’s genius, the problem of essentialism, which I discuss in the article, is particularly glaring in the context of nationalism, ethnocentrism, and threats to democracy. As soon as one group of people declares itself intrinsically different from and better than another, we’re in trouble.”
“Certainly this particular article reflects my own identity as queer person on the one hand, and on the other as an American Jew who encountered popularizations of Buber at an early, formative age.”
“I’d be happy simply to introduce mainstream Jewish studies scholars to considering the sex-negative and implicitly queer-negative elements in various forms of philosophical discourse. There have been some excellent encounters recently between queer/LGBTQ studies and Jewish studies, and I’d be thrilled for this to be another of them.”
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies is a triannual publication that produces original, peer-reviewed scholarly articles, issues on special topics, book forums, review essays, and the occasional forum on Contemporary Critical Jewish Studies. Shofar reaches an international readership with an impressive range of reliably robust offerings primarily in modern history, literature, culture, and the arts. Shofar’s special issues have covered a wide range of timely subjects, including Diaspora and exile in modern Jewish culture, the transcultural generation in Israeli literature, race and Jews in America, and Holocaust and genocide cinema. To learn more about or subscribe to Shofar, visit: www.shofarjournal.org.
Filed under: UncategorizedSeptember 14th, 2018
A revised and expanded paperback edition of Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Time of Gus Grissom by George Leopold will be released on September 15th. In preparation for the release, the press interviewed Leopold to find out more behind his inspiration in writing the book, some thoughts on the book’s subject, and more.
Q: What inspired you to write a book? How did you come across Gus Grissom as a subject?
Leopold: The standard narrative of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union is divided into two parts: before and after what came to be known simply as The Fire, the catastrophe that killed Gus Grissom and his Apollo 1 crew. After NASA recovered, the contributions of Gus Grissom were mostly forgotten—misremembered, really, when Tom Wolfe published The Right Stuff. Wolfe’s depiction of Grissom in his book and especially in the film version is a cartoon character. Wolfe got it wrong.
This struck me and many others as unjust. I determined to correct the record by writing a biography of Gus Grissom that places his life and career in the context of history of manned spaceflight.
I resolved to write his biography while standing before Gus Grissom’s grave in a lonely section of Arlington National Cemetery.
It only me took seven years.
Q: You have mentioned in previous interviews that you feel Grissom is underappreciated. Given his importance to early space exploration, how do you feel this happened?
Leopold: Part of its was Grissom’s unwillingness to toot his own horn. Gus always said the pre-flight press conferences were harder than the actual space missions. Another factor was the serendipitous nature of the early Project Mercury crew assignments. Most remember Alan Shepard’s first flight and John Glenn’s orbital flight. Grissom was remembered mostly for losing his first spacecraft.
And there was little reward or notoriety outside of his own peer group for the long hours at the factory doing the tedious testing required to get the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft into orbit. Grissom was engineering test pilot by training. All he really wanted to do was to go faster and higher—all the way to the moon and back. He cared not a whit about personal prestige, but he worked tirelessly to ensure the United States was first on the moon. Without Grissom’s contributions, I’m convinced we would not have made it by the end of the 1960s as we so declared.
Q: What do you imagine the space program would look like today if the Apollo 1 mission had been a success?
Leopold: It’s hard to say. Space exploration is a deadly business. If the Apollo 1 fire had not occurred on the launch pad, an accident in space would have been worse because investigators would know next to nothing about the precise cause(s). One of the cruel ironies, the central paradox of the Space Race, was that a launch pad fire actually saved the Apollo program. The reason was the evidence of what had been overlooked in Grissom’s ship—the faulty wiring, the leaking coolant, the lack of flame-retardant materials in the spacecraft, the clumsy inward opening hatch and, most important of all, NASA’s misguided engineering decision to use pure oxygen under pressure on the launch pad—all of it was there for the investigators to sift through.
To its credit, NASA rose from the ashes and built a great machine that took 24 humans to the moon.
Q: What are some things you believe the average person would be most surprised to know about the early age of space exploration?
Leopold: What a risky enterprise this was and the price the astronauts’ families paid. That, and the fact that Grissom and the early astronauts were test pilots who did not fly by the seat of their pants. They accepted risks, but they always sought to minimize them and come back alive. Gus Grissom is widely quoted as saying the rewards outweighed the risks (I never did track down the precise origin of Grissom’s iconic “worth the risk” quote, but he did say something close to this.) Hence, my thesis is that Grissom calculated those risks, dangers that every astronaut had to accept, and determined to proceed.
That decision cost him and his Apollo crew their lives, and shattered their families.
Q: What were some of the changes made for the new edition of the book? What makes it worthwhile for the person who has already read the original?
Leopold: For starters, the new Afterword describes how NASA finally provided a measure of closure for the Grissom, White, and Chaffee families. It’s an account of the 50th anniversary observance of the Apollo 1 fire. Gus Grissom’s brother Lowell did me the honor of an invitation to attend the ceremonies at Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA at long last did right by the crew, mounting a permanent Apollo 1 exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center that includes the scorched hatches. The NASA exhibit also includes photos of Gus Grissom first published in Calculated Risk.
I and others have long argued that some part of the spacecraft should be displayed in a dignified way to remind future generations of the sacrifices of the early astronauts. NASA did just that. The exhibit was long overdue.
Further, we believe the updated version is more readable, and benefited from the kind of crowdsourcing that occurs when a book on an important subject is published. A scholarly peer review process, enabled by social media, identified a few areas for improvement. The result, we firmly believe, is the authoritative account of Gus Grissom’s life and career.
Q: You have spent countless hours researching and interviewing for this book. What is your favorite story that didn’t make it in?
Leopold: Not left out, merely overlooked until recently. When the Apollo 1 crew assignment was announced during a press conference in Houston in March 1966, a reporter asked about the protocol for deciding which two astronauts on each three-man crew would land and walk on the lunar surface during later Apollo missions. A NASA manager started in with a long technical answer.
Grissom listened for a moment, smiled and jumped in—getting right to the point: “If it was this crew, it would be me and somebody else!”
Q: Do you think that Grissom’s reputation has improved? Are there steps you would like to see taken to ensure his place in space history?
Leopold: I’d venture to say Gus Grissom is beloved, especially by those who knew him and understood his competence, dedication, and willingness to work and sacrifice. Those contributions to manned space exploration are certainly more appreciated now than, say, the late 1970s and early 1980s when The Right Stuff narrative held sway. The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire, for which the release of this biography was timed, also contributed to greater appreciation of Grissom’s central role.
My subject would undoubtedly be amused by all the fuss….
I am currently working with a group seeking to place a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the Apollo 1 crew. Gus Grissom and his crew mate and fellow Purdue alumnus Roger Chaffee are buried at Arlington. Surprisingly, there is no monument there commemorating the crew’s sacrifice—as there are for the astronauts lost in the two Space Shuttle accidents. The Apollo 1 memorial at Arlington National Cemetery was authorized by Congress, and we hope to have one in place during a future NASA Day of Remembrance for the Apollo 1 and shuttle crews.
Q: If you could ask Gus Grissom himself one question, what would it be?
Leopold: I would ask about his state of mind in the last weeks of his life, which must have been hell. He knew he had a faulty spacecraft on his hands, but he and the others figured they could fix it as they had done before. In that respect, Gus Grissom was a fatalist.
George Leopold is a veteran technology journalist and science writer who has covered the nexus between technology and policy for over thirty years. Leopold has written extensively about U.S. manned spaceflight, including the Apollo and space shuttle programs. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the New Scientist, and a variety of other science and technology publications. He resides in Reston, Virginia. Follow him on Twitter!
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Filed under: general
September 12th, 2018
Purdue University Press announces 12 new books for the Fall/Winter 2018-19 season. These new books, slated for publication from September 2018 through February 2019, feature works in the subject areas of flight and space, library and information sciences, business and leadership, veterinary studies, global languages and literature, literary criticism, Jewish studies, and European history.
Part of this slate of new scholarly and popular books is the release of the revised and expanded paperback edition of Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom. A book on the life of the famed Purdue astronaut that The Wall Street Journal described as “thrillingly told, taking the readers into the cosmos with Grissom, conveying the sense of wonder and danger that accompanied these early voyages.”
To find out more about these forthcoming books download the seasonal catalog or go to www.press.purdue.edu.
Purdue University Press is the scholarly publishing arm of the University and is a unit within the Purdue University Libraries. Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, the Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including aeronautics and astronautics, business, technology, engineering education, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. The Press is also a partner for university faculty and staff, centers, and departments, wishing to disseminate the results of their research.
Filed under: general, press_release, scholcommSeptember 6th, 2018
In celebration of #ReadABookDay, Purdue University Press asked around the office to see what our team have been reading. We hope you enjoy their responses, and that you’re inspired to let us know what what you’re reading, let us know on Twitter and Facebook!
Liza Hagerman, Assistant Production Editor
I’m currently reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. It’s super long, but I’m finding it easy to get lost in the beautiful writing and intimate stories of the characters. I finally picked it up after several recommendations from friends who were incredibly moved by it—it’s intense, in a good way.
Katherine Purple, Interim Co-Director and Editorial, Design, and Production Manager
I just finished Difficult Women, by Roxanne Gay, which was a Secret Santa gift from December (it only took me eight months to finish — no fault of the author’s!), and before that it was David Sedaris’s Calypso. Now I’m focused on finishing another book I was reading concurrently, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, by Michelle McNamara, a thrilling account of her research into the Golden State Killer. Next on my list is to revisit Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is one of my favorite books in the world, and which I try to re-read every so often. Normally, however, my job keeps me so busy reading professionally that I often prefer long-form journalism to full books read for pleasure, and my go-to site is www.longform.org. Not a day goes by that I can’t find something enticing to read on that curated site.
Kelley Kimm, Senior Production Editor
I’m starting to read But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”? by the University of Chicago Press editorial staff. The title of the first chapter is “It’s not so much an issue of correctness as of ickiness.” That’s what attracted me.
Matthew Mudd, Marketing & Outreach Specialist
I’ve just started Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It was a gift from my sister and I’m very thankful, as I’m really enjoying it and probably would not have picked it out otherwise. Also, I always have a sports book in progress and right now it’s Basketball (and Other Things) by Shea Serrano, which takes a takes a look at the game of basketball through questions like “Who is the Greatest Dunker of All Time?” and “What is allowed and not allowed in a game of pickup basketball?”, so it’s been a great read. Finally, I’m reading through the Harry Potter series for the first time (late to the party, I know), and just got to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’m finding I appreciate the extra character development and narrative that the movies could not quite provide!
Marcy Wilhelm-South, Digital Repository Specialist
I’m reading Feedback and A Wrinkle in Time (and a few other books but I’ll restrict myself to two 🙂 ). “Feedback” is in a series I’ve read before but is the story of the first novel in that series told from a different perspective; because I loved that original book so much, I wanted to see what the new take was. What has been interesting has been seeing some small details included that seem to reflect on the changes that have happened in the world since that first book’s original publication. “A Wrinkle in Time” is just one of those kids’ classics that I’ve never read, and so my stepdaughter has become my excuse to visit it along with other children’s literature I was never exposed to back then – we are reading this one together. This is also how I’m introducing her to the concept of reading a book before you see the movie.
Nina Collins, Scholarly Publishing Specialist
I’m currently reading, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar (2017). I guess I just like being immersed in history. I recently bought an old sewing machine; and, I’ve been skimming The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sewing. As all my grandmothers have passed away (and it’s been a very long time since they taught me how to sew), this is a valuable resource. I like the clever chapter titles, like chapter 10, “Win One for the Zipper”.
Susan Wegener, Acquisitions Assistant
I just finished reading The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It has one of the quirkiest, most brilliant, and sympathetic main characters I’ve ever read, and the story is like a Victorian novel combined with spy fiction. It is over 500 pages and I read it in two days!
Chris Brannan, Graphic Designer
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick imagines an alternate timeline where Japan and Germany have split control of the United States, and continue to fight for world domination. It is a story of mystery and intrigue in business and daily life living under totalitarian rule, and the glimmer of hope found in the myth of the man in the high castle.
Alexandra Hoff, Assistant Production Editor
I’m currently listening to the audio book version of The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, which is about two executive assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company who are competing for the same job promotion. With a captivating story and brilliant, hilarious writing, this book easily takes a spot in my top-five list of favorite books of all time.
Bryan Shaffer, Interim Co-Directer, Sales & Marketing Manager
I just finished Catch Every Ball: How to Handle Life’s Pitches by Johnny Bench, arguably the best catcher to ever suit up in a Major League Baseball uniform. An easy read, yet gave some insight into how a normal kid can triumph over adversity and reach his goals and dreams. Another book I recently read was The Cathedral Builder: A Biography of J. Irwin Miller. This book hit home for me because J.I. Miller was an icon from my hometown of Columbus, Indiana. Because of him, that small Southern Indiana town is now rated in the top ten globally in architecture and is home to Cummins Engine, a global powerhouse in diesel engines. Finally, I just bought and look forward to starting Scholarly Communication: What Everyone Needs to Know by Rick Anderson.
What are you reading? Looking for something new for #ReadABookDay? Use discount code PURDUE20 for 20% off any book from our website and #ReadUP.
Filed under: UncategorizedAugust 8th, 2018
This blog post is written by Jonathan Bloch, son of Chana Bloch. The 36.2 (Summer 2018) issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies is a tribute issue for writer, poet, teacher, and mother: Chana Bloch (1940-2017). In the words of the special issue editors, Rachel Tzvia Back and Dara Barnat, “We gather together in the pages of this special issue for Chana Bloch to sing of her a funeral plainsong of profound appreciation, of enduring love, of great sorrow at her leaving.” This special issue includes essays and poems from her students, loved ones, and friends. We are especially excited and grateful for the final two pieces in the issue, an artwork contributed by Jonathan Bloch and a never before published poem by Chana Bloch which was discovered by Bloch’s sons after her passing.
Most people who know my mother know her through her words. I know her the same way – because Ima and me talked constantly. We would sit at the kitchen table and talk, one thing
leading to another, in conversations that meandered for hours, for the joy of it. But then she died. Now, I am left holding my end of the conversation, which we never finished. I will never be able to tell her how my life has changed. She will never see my daughters grow up. We will never sit at the kitchen table again.
But she gave me words. It’s because of her that words have flavor for me; that words have meaning for me. And I think that all the words between us were our connection, but also a barrier. She was always saying, “you know, isn’t it amazing that so-and-so, and I’m so happy that this, and isn’t it a wonderful surprise that that” – it was lovely, but also kind of exhausting. But I think I understand why she did that. She grew up in a difficult family, and had to maintain a constant note of joviality on top of the anxiety.
But this reflexive habit of hers matured, over time, into a deeper ability – to laugh; to deal with pain, even to find joy in dealing with it; to find poetry in dealing with it; to make use of it. She made much use of pain. The quality she admired in Mark O’Brien1 – his ability to choose his attitude even in unimaginably difficult circumstances – had become a core attribute of her self.
That attribute – the ability to cope with difficulty – is primarily a practical one, and my mother’s overriding tendency was to be practical. I think, though, that she secretly wanted something else in her life, a kind of sensuality, which she never got enough of. At her core there was innocence and joy, which, in a less harsh world, would have been met with sensuality. It’s probably one of the reasons why she wrote poetry. That, and also because she was a dauntingly brilliant human being with a profoundly artistic soul.
Another ideal she cherished, for herself and in her poetry, was clarity. When I was a child, Ima wrote the word ‘clarity’ in black marker on an index card and taped it to the wall above her typewriter, where she would see it when she looked up from writing. I remember seeing that index card with the word clarity, in fading marker, hanging there for many years. I think that clarity was her lifeline, to the end. On her deathbed, two days before she died, she opened her eyes suddenly and asked, “Do I still have my head?” I asked, “Ima, do you mean do you still have your wits about you”? And she nodded. And I said, “Yes, Ima, that fact that you asked that, means that you definitely still have your head”. Even at the point of death, that clarity – do I still have my head – was still her concern.
And when she had to go, she left us. I think not when she was ready – but at a certain point she had to accept it, and then she became ready. And she accomplished the last thing she wanted to do in her life: to choose when, and where, and how she would die. It was her wish to come home from the hospital, to lie in her study overlooking the garden, with her family around her. At the end, she found the strength to give up her strength.
I know she would have been happy living on for many more years – writing, working, traveling, watching her grandchildren grow up. I feel that Ima got interrupted in the springtime of a life that was glorious with creation, and wisdom, and humor and love. She never really became an old person; she was full of youth, the life force, till the end. After all she had gone through, she still had such lightness of spirit. And so she remains forever young.
1Mark O’Brien was a poet who spent his entire adult life in an iron lung.
Filed under: UncategorizedJune 29th, 2018
Purdue University Press is pleased to announce that the Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning (IJPBL) has engaged a new co-editor, Xun Ge, to serve the publication alongside journal co-editor Krista Glazewski, associate professor of instructional systems technology at Indiana University.
IJPBL publishes relevant, interesting, and challenging articles of research, analysis, or promising practice related to all aspects of implementing problem-based learning (PBL) in K–12 and post-secondary classrooms.
Dr. Ge is a professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology with the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Oklahoma. She teaches courses related to cognition and instruction as well as instructional design and development for various open learning environments, including problem-based/project-based learning, multimedia learning, game-based learning, and virtual learning communities. Dr. Ge’s primary research interest involves scaffolding students’ complex and ill-structured problem solving and self-regulated learning through designing instructional scaffolds and cognitive tools in problem-based learning environments. Her recent scholarly inquiry also shows an attempt to extend her work beyond cognition and metacognition to include motivation and epistemic beliefs. Dr. Ge has conducted extensive research in STEAM education in various educational settings, from K–12 to higher education, and she has collaborated with researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines around the world.
“Dr. Ge is an established and well-recognized leader and scholar in a wide range of areas. We are lucky to have her lend her expertise and leadership to IJPBL,” said Dr. Glazewski.
The journal is published twice annually in open access format. To read or submit to the journal, visit the website.
Filed under: UncategorizedMay 10th, 2018
In order to celebrate National Pet Week we reached out to the editors of our book series, New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond, to ask them a few short questions about the series and their own pets. Both series editors are at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University. Alan Beck, ScD is director of the Center of the Human-Animal Bond and the Dorothy N. McAllister Professor of Animal Ecology; and Marguerite (Maggie) E. O’Haire, PhD is an assistant professor of human-animal interaction in the Department of Comparative Pathobiology.
O’Haire: I have 2 dogs – Milo and Chloe. My dogs are both rescues. We recently did the dog DNA testing and Milo is a Beagle/Jack Russel Terrier mix and Chloe is an American Foxhound. Milo is almost 4 years old and Chloe is almost 14 years old.
Beck: I now have two dogs, Lili (brown & white) and Luci (black & white); both rescue mutts. Two photos of Lili at two different ages.
O’Haire: I have always been fascinated by how and why people interact with animals. I am motivated to bring strong science to an area that has often been underappreciated by the scientific community.
Beck: Growing up in crowded Brooklyn, we had no pets, indeed very few people did. I would walk to the dumps to watch birds and rats. As a graduate student I studied the stray dogs of Baltimore and became fascinated with how people interacted with pets; the interactions changed the behavior and even the health of both the people and pets. I changed my focus of study and soon after moving to Indiana, I joined the ranks of dog owner.
O’Haire: The New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond series is a great venue to translate human-animal bond science into everyday language to reach a broader audience. We love receiving new submissions and look forward to continuing to help bright and innovative scholars share their work through the Purdue University Press.
Beck: The New Directions series begins to capture the many aspects of our relationship with animals, not always what you would like, but all part of the mutual world shared by people and their animals. Of great value, the series allows insights to major facets not always studied but still very important.
The New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond series is published by Purdue University Press in collaboration with Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. It expands our knowledge of the interrelationships between people, animals, and their environment. Manuscripts are welcomed on all aspects of human-animal interaction and welfare, including therapy applications, public policy, and the application of humane ethics in managing our living resources.
The staff at the Purdue University Press loves our pets, too! Check out some pictures that we featured last month on National Pet Day!
Filed under: general
April 30th, 2018
You can find him at the Alamosa, Colorado library during story time; people always feel comfortable around him; he loves helping children become better readers…can you guess who he is? Moose, the reading therapy dog! Moose is a registered therapy dog who has been providing animal assisted interventions in his community since 2011. One of his success stories is Nicole Martinez’s daughter, Emma, who overcame her aversion to reading since working with Moose.
Nicole’s eleven-year-old daughter, Emma, hated reading. Nicole knew she had to do something to change this kind of behavior. Reading is required to understand most other topics in school and she didn’t want her daughter to get behind. When Nicole heard about Moose from a flyer at the local library, she jumped on the opportunity to help her daughter. Moose was well-known for his “reading reputation” due to his success in the largest therapy animal program in the country, Pet Partners. This led Nicole to sign up for a session at the library for Emma to read with Moose.
“We had no challenges with Moose,” Nicole stated. “Emma hated to read…it was like pulling teeth with this girl to make her sit and read for even 30 minutes, until she started reading with Moose.”
Knowing how much Emma loves animals, Nicole was optimistic that her daughter would find success reading to Moose. Nicole noticed a change in her daughter’s attitude toward reading after spending time with Moose. Moose’s calming presence helped Emma feel comfortable and confident through every book she read.
Nicole took Emma to the library twice a month to read with Moose. Each session lasted about 30 minutes. Nicole noted how Emma could spend all day with Moose, but there were other children in time slots. After witnessing Emma’s confidence levels soar, Nicole began bringing her youngest daughter, Kiera, to read with Moose too.
Post working with Moose, Emma’s reading level has greatly improved. Emma gained confidence to read out loud to anyone and reads without being asked. Emma is currently in the sixth grade and reading at a ninth grade level. Nicole praised, “This experience has been one of our best. It made my youngest daughter start wanting to read, and Emma has excelled tremendously all because of Moose!”
Taking your child to read to a therapy dog might seem intimidating at first, but Nicole’s experience with her daughters proves that there is nothing to worry about…especially when there is an adorable dog waiting to listen. With the help of a therapy dog, the challenge to get your child or student to read will no longer be a hassle.
To learn more about Moose’s real-life story and journey as a therapy dog, visit Purdue University Press’ website to read the summary and other book information about Moose! The Reading Dog by Laura Bruneau and Beverly Timmons.
Note: This guest post written by Macey Warren, account associate with Boiler Communication the student-run public relations firm in the Brian Lamb School of Communication in Purdue University’s College of Liberal Arts. To see a media kit produced by the entire Boiler Communication team as part of their spring 2018 semester projects click here.
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