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June 7th, 2022
We talked to Jill P. May and Robert E. May, the authors of Spearheading Environmental Change: The Legacy of Indiana Congressman Floyd J. Fithian, about their approach to biography, what they learned while writing, and why the life of Floyd J. Fithian is relevant to readers today.
Q: Could you describe your book? How is this book different than a typical biography?
Bob: Spearheading Environmental Change: The Legacy of Indiana Congressman Floyd J. Fithian embeds late-twentieth-century U.S. environmental controversies and policy within a biographical framework. Although one can read this book for the life and public career of one of Indiana’s most canny politicians during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, one can also read it to explore the environmental disputes roiling the nation and especially the Midwest during the period Fithian was in the public eye — pesticides, excessive federal dam construction, growing the nation’s national parks, reining in big oil and nuclear energy, and the like. Uniquely perhaps (we know of no other biography of a prominent politician that works quite like this one), Spearheading Environmental Change highlights environmental policy and legislation, bookending Fithian’s life story around core chapters devoted exclusively to environmental concerns. This allows in-depth concentration on individual controversies rather than simply inserting information here and there as one might find in a more conventionally organized biography.
Most especially, we wanted, as Purdue University colleagues of Fithian’s who lived in northern Indiana for over forty years, to uncover the story of how he dealt as a Democratic four-term congressman representing a red district with three environmentally charged issues that greatly impacted the people he represented —issues that swirled while we resided in Lafayette, where Purdue is situated. We hoped to position Floyd and his congressional district within the overall narrative of U.S. environmental history, so that readers would not only learn about a highly talented politician’s record, but also get a sense of the flow of environmental progress and retrogression nationally in a fraught period of our history.
Jill: Floyd’s ability to continually win in a conservative Indiana congressional district as a moderate to liberal thinking Democrat not once but four times also inspired us to begin considering writing a biography. We were curious to find out how he won so many times, why he finally ended his political career. We wanted to look at the ways Floyd succeeded in Indiana, and we hoped to find out how his personal beliefs and values as well as his strong Christian upbringing, military service record and teaching at Purdue University helped shape his political career. We were intrigued by Floyd’s decision to forego a secure, tenured teaching and research position at one of America’s finest institutions of higher learning for the unpredictable and often highly stressful life of a professional politician. What drove him?
Q: What is the goal of your book? What motivated you to write it?
Bob: Really, Jill deserves entire credit for initiating this project, so I’ll let her speak for herself on this one. I will say that once she got me on board by sharing the rich materials she had seen in the Purdue archives both in terms of Floyd’s political career and told me about the fascinating environmental issues he grappled with, I got excited about working on the book with her. After all, Floyd had been my colleague on the Purdue faculty for years and someone who I greatly liked and admired (even though he made me grimace each time he exposed me to his crushing handshake!), and I’ve been worried about environmental degradation most of my life. It didn’t hurt in terms of motivation that I had visited the Hill with his congressional aide during pesticide committee hearings during his congressional tenure and been fascinated with what I had observed, or that I had attended some of his campaign events with Jill.
Jill: Our primary goal was to bring attention to the vast importance that Congress has and can have in shaping our country’s future. Although we ended up concentrating on the environmental change that has come to the Great Lakes area, we did not initially see this as our focus. Floyd had been involved in a myriad of legislative concerns and he was an expert in Russian/U.S. relations from his PhD studies. We wanted to explore how congressional members involve themselves in issues that concern their constituents, especially since their reelection depends upon their district’s concerns.
Q: You were personally acquainted with Floyd Fithian and his family. How do you think a personal relationship with the subject affects the process and result of writing his biography?
Bob: That’s an interesting question. Jill and I sought for objectivity in our writing about Floyd’s life and career, and readers will find criticism within our narrative of Floyd’s decisions and policies in cases where we believed criticism is merited. But I’ll concede that we approached our subject matter with positive predispositions. From everything we knew about Floyd from our acquaintance with him, he was an ethical politician who fought for values and policies that we mostly endorsed. Therefore, it was a labor of love in a sense to bring his story to others. Knowing Floyd’s family, moreover, gave us a leg up in the sense that we could call, phone, write or email them when we were confused about details in his personal life. And his wife Marjorie and his eldest daughter Cindy were extremely generous in sharing family photographs, many of which are reproduced in the book.
Jill: I had worked on Floyd’s first campaign for Congress in 1972, and Warren Stickle was Bob’s best friend in the Purdue history department. He and his wife Marilyn remained some of our closest friends even after they moved. I have a good many fond and zany memories that involve Warren — it was his exuberance that first caused him to catch our attention, his ability to see the positive side of every incident. So, when I learned in 2016 that the Indiana bicentennial commemoration organizers planned to have a torch carried through the individual counties by past and present leaders, I nominated Floyd even though he was no longer alive. I believed he was one of the few Democratic national leaders who had significantly altered Indiana’s political landscape, and I felt his contributions should be recognized. I went to the Purdue University Libraries and read everything easily unearthed about Floyd. When I stumbled onto the information that the Purdue University Archives and Special Collections held his congressional records and read that they held important information on the conservation movement, I was intrigued. I wanted to use the archival materials to see what was there. Simply put, I had found a mystery that involved a personal acquaintance, and I wanted to follow the trail. But quite simply, I was not really considering our past relationships with the Fithians and the Stickles when I talked Bob into the project. I wanted to play detective, to go with whatever we found out.
Q: You previously wrote another book (Howard Pyle: Imagining an American School of Art, University of Illinois Press) together. What was different about this experience? What was similar?
Bob: Jill has this habit of enticing me into projects way out of my comfort zone. Both projects compelled me to try to absorb and master subjects that I neither taught during my classroom career nor read heavily in previously. As a person who mostly taught and researched about America’s nineteenth-century story (especially the history of the South, the Civil War, and American territorial expansion), it was challenging for me, especially in the early stages of both projects, to get into the stuff of twentieth century art history, environmentalism, and politics. Both times, too, we had to work through our different perspectives on the process of organizing and writing the project. The fields of history and literature, which we separately embody, don’t always line up in concert on these things. In both cases, we partly argued and compromised our way to the finish line.
But there were obvious differences, too. For instance, our research for the Howard Pyle book was more incremental. In Fithian’s case, because of his generous donation of papers to the Purdue archives, we had a huge bulk of material to work with from the get-go. In the Pyle project, our research was much more a case of discovering materials here and there, and it involved far more out-of-state travel.
Jill: I think that’s a great answer! Lots of good sharing and sharp arguments! I’ll leave it at that, except to say I had written a good deal about Pyle as a writer and illustrator before we began and I was familiar with his work, so in some ways it was an easier project than Floyd was for me.
Q: What lessons or events from the life of Floyd Fithian strike you as being most relevant to readers today? Why? In what way?
Bob: One of the things that I think struck us the most from studying Floyd’s career is how excruciatingly difficult the congressional legislating process is, that issues drag on from session to session often with no likelihood of being resolved in the immediate future, if ever. This is certainly true within the environmental field, with the very issues that absorbed Floyd’s attention like nuclear power, pollution, dam deterioration and decertification, oil versus solar power, and the like, resisting conclusive resolution to this day. Even a seemingly containable issue, like growing the boundaries of a national park, might have ramifications for many years requiring new legislation. We talk a lot about congressional gridlock today; and while partisan gridlock might have been less defined during Floyd’s time on the Hill, it was often just as difficult to get legislation through because of the powers vested in committee chairs and members’ seniority.
We also learned that even in the 1970s and 1980s when Floyd served, congressmen were plagued just like today with the need to prioritize fundraising and campaigning over their legislative duties. Floyd regularly called for reforms in these areas.
Jill: For me, the most important issue is that nothing has really been solved yet concerning our environment. For instance, we have found that although Floyd is especially remembered for his legislative efforts to increase the size of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Park during his first congressional term, much of that expansion left issues that would affect him throughout his tenure in Congress. And they continue to be unresolved. There are still conflicts between NIPSCO and environmental groups concerning the coal ash ponds at the Michigan City Generating Station. The industrialization of the area has never been completely resolved. Linked to that — for me — is the overriding issue of good political representation for any area’s constituents. We keep watching the political parties as they gerrymander districts for power, often so that the very strong politicians who work for change can be replaced with less ethical party advocates.
Q: Is there anything that shocked or surprised you while working on this project?
Bob: Jill and I have always been inveterate newspaper/news magazine readers, so I can’t say that I was totally taken aback at any one thing we encountered in our research, but I must say I was stunned by the tactics of one local environmentalist, Connie Wick, in fighting the project of building a reservoir in the Lafayette area, not far from the Purdue campus. I had heard about her husband Joe, I think, more than about Connie, prior to undertaking this book. But Connie Wick must be one of the most colorful characters I’ve ever encountered in my research, and her interactions with Floyd, including taking a pig to one of her protests, should inspire activists everywhere. We have quite a bit about Connie Wick in our book, but she would be well worth a book in her own right.
Jill: And I was really pleasantly surprised to see how much of the environmental change that Floyd accomplished was aided by women, groups like Save the Dunes Council, and the national organizations of the Izaak Walton League, the Audubon Society, and the Sierra Club. Bravo to my newfound heroes!
Finally, I have to add that in all of our interviews with people who knew and worked with Floyd, we heard nothing but praise and strong commendation. We both are especially proud to have spent our time researching an intelligent man who turned out to be every bit as good as we thought he might be — perhaps even better than we knew before we embarked on this project. In the end, the puzzle pieces concerning Floyd’s departure from the academy revealed a man more genuinely motivated to serve his Indiana constituents while protecting the land in his district then to pursuing academic work concerning Russian and U.S. trade efforts.
You can get 30% off Spearheading Environmental Change and any other Purdue University Press book by ordering from our website and using the code PURDUE30 at checkout.
Filed under: PurduePressMay 6th, 2022
To celebrate National Space Day, Purdue University Press is featuring books on NASA, astronauts, and spaceflight.
The Sky Above: An Astronaut’s Memoir of Adventure, Persistence, and Faith
Looking up at the stars at the age of ten, John Casper dreamed of being a space explorer. The Sky Above tells how persistence and determination led to flying in space, after serving the nation as a combat fighter pilot and test pilot. Despite life-threatening experiences and failures, his spiritual faith was pivotal in overcoming life’s challenges. Through vivid storytelling, the reader rides alongside the author in the cockpit, feeling the fear of enemy antiaircraft fire and the pressure of high g-forces during combat maneuvering. His insider accounts of four Space Shuttle missions vividly describe exhilarating launches, the magical experience of weightlessness, and the magnificent beauty of Earth from hundreds of miles above.
John Houbolt: The Unsung Hero of the Apollo Moon Landings
It was a small group of engineers led by John C. Houbolt who came up with the plan that propelled human beings to the moon and back—not only safely, but faster, cheaper, and more reliably. Houbolt and his colleagues called it “lunar orbit rendezvous,” or “LOR.” At first the LOR idea was ignored, then it was criticized, and then finally dismissed by many senior NASA officials.
Nevertheless, the group, under Houbolt’s leadership, continued to press the LOR idea, arguing that it was the only way to get men to the moon and back by President Kennedy’s deadline. Houbolt persisted, risking his career in the face of overwhelming opposition. This is the story of how John Houbolt convinced NASA to adopt the plan that made history.
Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA’s Record-Setting Frequent Flyer
From the age of ten, looking up at the stars, Jerry Ross knew that he wanted to journey into space. This autobiography tells the story of how he came not only to achieve that goal, but to become the most-launched astronaut in history, as well as a NASA veteran whose career spanned the entire US Space Shuttle program.
Becoming A Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA’s Record-Setting Frequent Flyer
This nonfiction picture book is a children’s version of NASA astronaut Jerry L. Ross’s autobiography, Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA’s Record-Setting Frequent Flyer, designed for ages 7–12. Told in friendly first-person narration, it represents how Ross followed his dream from rural 1950s northern Indiana to Purdue University and then outer space.
Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom
Unlike other American astronauts, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom never had the chance to publish his memoirs—save for an account of his role in the Gemini program—before the tragic launch pad fire on January 27, 1967, which took his life and those of Edward White and Roger Chaffee. The international prestige of winning the Moon Race cannot be understated, and Grissom played a pivotal and enduring role in securing that legacy for the United States. Indeed, Grissom was first and foremost a Cold Warrior, a member of the first group of Mercury astronauts whose goal it was to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. Drawing on extensive interviews with fellow astronauts, NASA engineers, family members, and friends of Gus Grissom, George Leopold delivers a comprehensive survey of Grissom’s life that places his career in the context of the Cold War and the history of human spaceflight. Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom adds significantly to our understanding of that tumultuous period in American history.
Featuring over seventy images from the heroic age of space exploration, Through Astronaut Eyes presents the story of how human daring along with technological ingenuity allowed people to see the Earth and stars as they never had before.
Photographs from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs tell powerful and compelling stories that continue to have cultural resonance to this day, not just for what they revealed about the spaceflight experience, but also as products of a larger visual rhetoric of exploration.
Piercing the Horizon: The Story of Visionary NASA Chief Tom Paine
Thomas O. Paine served as NASA’s third administrator, leading the space agency through the first historic missions that sent astronauts on voyages away from Earth. On his watch, seven Apollo flights orbited our planet and five reached our moon. From those missions came the first of twelve men to walk on the moon.
As robotic missions begin leaving the earth, Tsiao invites the reader to take another look at the plans that Paine articulated regarding how America could have had humans on Mars by the year 2000 as the first step to the exploration of deep space. Piercing the Horizon provides provocative context to current conversations on the case for reaching Mars, settling our solar system, and continuing the exploration of space.
Wings of Their Dreams: Purdue in Flight, Second Edition
Throughout 100-plus years of flight, Purdue University has propelled unique contributions from pioneer educators, aviators, and engineers who flew balloons into the stratosphere, barnstormed the countryside, helped break the sound barrier, and left footprints in lunar soil. Wings of Their Dreams follows the flight plans and footsteps of aviation’s pioneers and trailblazers across the twentieth century, a path from Kitty Hawk to the Sea of Tranquility and beyond. The book reminds readers that the first and last men to land on the moon first trekked across the West Lafayette, Indiana, campus on their journeys into the heavens and history. This is the story of an aeronautic odyssey of imagination, science, engineering, technology, adventure, courage, danger, and promise. It is the story of the human spirit taking flight, entwined with Purdue’s legacy in aviation’s history.
Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind
In the years between the historic first moon landing by Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, and his death at age 82 on August 25, 2012, Neil Armstrong received hundreds of thousands of cards and letters from all over the world, congratulating him, praising him, requesting pictures and autographs, and asking him what must have seemed to him to be limitless—and occasionally intrusive—questions.
Today, the preponderance of those letters—some 75,000 of them—are preserved in the archives at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind publishes a careful sampling of these letters—roughly 400—reflecting the various kinds of correspondence that Armstrong received along with representative samples of his replies. Selected and edited by James R. Hansen, Armstrong’s authorized biographer and author of the New York Times best seller First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, this collection sheds light on Armstrong’s enduring impact and offers an intimate glimpse into the cultural meanings of human spaceflight. Readers will explore what the thousands of letters to Neil Armstrong meant not only to those who wrote them, but as a snapshot of one of humankind’s greatest achievements in the twentieth century. They will see how societies and cultures projected their own meanings onto one of the world’s great heroes and iconic figures.
A Reluctant Icon: Letters to Neil Armstrong
Artfully curated by James R. Hansen, A Reluctant Icon: Letters to Neil Armstrong is a companion volume to Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind, collecting hundreds more letters Armstrong received after first stepping on the moon until his death in 2012. Providing context and commentary, Hansen has assembled the letters by the following themes: religion and belief; anger, disappointment, and disillusionment; quacks, conspiracy theorists, and ufologists; fellow astronauts and the world of flight; the corporate world; celebrities, stars, and notables; and last messages. Taken together, both collections provide fascinating insights into the world of an iconic hero who took that first giant leap onto lunar soil willingly and thereby stepped into the public eye with reluctance. Space enthusiasts, historians, and lovers of all things related to flight will not want to miss this book.
You can get 30% off all Purdue University Press titles by entering the code PURDUE30 at checkout on our website.
Filed under: PurduePressMay 6th, 2022
To celebrate Purdue’s 153rd anniversary and the graduation of the class of 2022, Purdue University Press will be having a 50% off sale on all Purdue related books from May 6-May 20. All you need to do to is enter code 21PURDUE50 when ordering from our website to redeem the discount. You can find the full list of eligible books below.
The most recent additions to our collection of books on Purdue include the two most comprehensive histories of the university to date. In Ever True: 150 Years of Giant Leaps at Purdue University author John Norberg deftly covers 150 years of Purdue history, a task he equates to trying to fill a thimble with water pouring out of a fire hydrant. The book is filled with stories of the faculty, alumni, and leaders that make up Purdue’s distinguished history. In Purdue at 150: A Visual History of Student Life authors and archivists David M. Hovde, Adriana Harmeyer, Neal Harmeyer, and Sammie L. Morris pored over decades of student papers, scrapbooks, yearbooks, letters, newspapers, historical photographs and memorabilia to create a stunning pictorial history of Purdue.
The list also includes selections on Purdue’s history in space & flight, many from our series Purdue Studies in Aeronautics & Astronautics. You can find biographies on some of Purdue’s most distinguished alumnus flyers like John Casper, Jerry Ross, and Gus Grissom, as well as two collections of letters to Neil Armstrong curated by his official biographer James R. Hansen, sourced from a collection of Neil Armstrong’s papers housed in the Purdue University Archives and Special Collections.
The rest of the books in the sale cover a wide swath of all things Purdue, from five legendary women deans with a secret bond to the popcorn king himself. Whether you are a current student, alumni, or even a Boilermaker enthusiast this sale will have the perfect choice for you. All books on this list make a wonderful gift for the Purdue Class of 2022 as well. Hail Purdue and read up!
EVER TRUE: 150 YEARS OF GIANT LEAPS AT PURDUE UNIVERSITY BY JOHN NORBERG
PURDUE AT 150: A VISUAL HISTORY OF STUDENT LIFE BY DAVID M. HOVDE, ADRIANA HARMEYER, NEAL HARMEYER, AND SAMMIE L. MORRIS
DEAR NEIL ARMSTRONG: LETTERS TO THE FIRST MAN FROM ALL MANKIND EDITED BY JAMES R. HANSEN
A RELUCTANT ICON: LETTERS TO NEIL ARMSTRONG EDITED BY JAMES R. HANSEN
WINGS OF THEIR DREAMS: PURDUE IN FLIGHT, SECOND EDITION BY JOHN NORBERG
CALCULATED RISK: THE SUPERSONIC LIFE AND TIMES OF GUS GRISSOM BY GEORGE LEOPOLD
SPACEWALKER: MY JOURNEY IN SPACE AND FAITH AS NASA’S RECORD-SETTING FREQUENT FLYER BY JERRY ROSS AND JOHN NORBERG
BECOMING A SPACEWALKER: MY JOURNEY TO THE STARS BY JERRY L. ROSS AND SUSAN G. GUNDERSON
THE DEANS’ BIBLE: FIVE PURDUE WOMEN AND THEIR QUEST FOR EQUALITY BY ANGIE KLINK
DIVIDED PATHS, COMMON GROUND: THE STORY OF MARY MATTHEWS AND LELLA GADDIS, PIONEERING PURDUE WOMEN WHO INTRODUCED SCIENCE INTO THE HOME BY ANGIE KLINK
SLOW BALL CARTOONIST: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF INDIANA NATIVE AND PULITZER PRIZE WINNER JOHN T. MCCUTCHEON OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE BY TONY GAREL-FRANTZEN
FOR THE GOOD OF THE FARMER: A BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN HARRISON SKINNER, DEAN OF PURDUE AGRICULTURE BY FREDERICK WHITFORD
JUST CALL ME ORVILLE: THE STORY OF ORVILLE REDENBACHER BY ROBERT W. TOPPING
ROSS-ADE: THEIR PURDUE STORIES, STADIUM, AND LEGACIES BY ROBERT C. KRIEBEL
UNCLE: MY JOURNEY WITH JOHN PURDUE BY IRENA MCCAMMON SCOTT
THE QUEEN OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE: A BIOGRAPHY OF VIRGINIA CLAYPOOL MEREDITH BY FREDERICK WHITFORD, ANDREW G. MARTIN, AND PHYLLIS MATTHEIS
THE GRAND OLD MAN OF PURDUE UNIVERSITY AND INDIANA AGRICULTURE: THE BIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM CARROLL LATTA BY FREDERICK WHITFORD AND ANDREW G. MARTIN
MIDAS OF THE WABASH: A BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN PURDUE BY ROBERT C. KRIEBEL
LETTERS OF GEORGE ADE EDITED BY TERENCE TOBIN
EDWARD CHARLES ELLIOTT, EDUCATOR BY FRANK K. BURRIN
THE HOVDE YEARS: A BIOGRAPHY OF FREDERICK L. HOVDE BY ROBERT W. TOPPING
RICHARD OWEN: SCOTLAND 1810, INDIANA 1890 BY VICTOR LINCOLN ALBJERG
MY AMIABLE UNCLE: RECOLLECTIONS OF BOOTH TARKINGTON BY SUSANAH MAYBERRY
THE DEAN: A BIOGRAPHY OF A. A. POTTER BY ROBERT B. ECKLES
A PURDUE ICON: CREATION, LIFE, AND LEGACY EDITED BY JAMES L. MULLINS
A UNIVERSITY OF TRADITION: THE SPIRIT OF PURDUE, SECOND EDITION BY PURDUE REAMER CLUB
FORCE FOR CHANGE: THE CLASS OF 1950 BY JOHN NORBERG
HEARTBEAT OF THE UNIVERSITY: 125 YEARS OF PURDUE BANDS BY JOHN NORBERG
THE SKY ABOVE: AN ASTRONAUT’S MEMOIR OF ADVENTURE, PERSISTENCE, AND FAITH BY COL. JOHN CASPER, USAF (Retired)
Filed under: PurduePressApril 27th, 2022
Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies assistant professor and principal investigator Dr. Chao Cai has received a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site grant totalling $402,971 for his project “REU Site: Purdue Undergraduate Research Experiences for Plant Biology and Data Science (PURE-PD)” in conjunction with Co-PI Dr. Natalia Dudareva, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and director of the Center for Plant Biology (CPB) in the College of Agriculture. This award will support the plant biology, data science, and research training of ten students from under-represented backgrounds for ten weeks during the summers of 2022–2024.
PURE-PD traces its roots to 2019, when Dr. Cai was invited by Dr. Clint Chapple, then-director of the CPB, and Dr. Jody Banks to consult on the idea of establishing the CPB as a new REU site. Dr. Cai’s training as a plant biologist, and his affiliation with Purdue Libraries, known for its excellent research and pedagogy support, made him an ideal choice for a new and innovative collaboration. “With my experiences working with big biological datasets and teaching research data management, I proposed a data science-focused theme for the REU site,” said Dr. Cai. “Data skills are crucial for 21st century researchers, as well as important, transferable skills for nearly every professional career our students may pursue.”
As the group brainstormed how to build the proposal and program, Dr. Cai realized that Libraries’ support for research, and undergraduate student research experiences, is unmatched, and that it would be critical for the successful development of a summer research program. “Information literacy, data literacy, and scholarly communications form the foundation for efficient research practices, and this is where Purdue Libraries excels.” Dr. Cai said. “Thus, I volunteered to take the lead in designing the program and writing the proposal. We went through a couple rounds of revisions with some awesome suggestions from reviewers. Finally, we were selected for funding in 2022, and our first cohort of undergraduate researchers will arrive on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus in May.”
Through diverse research projects and hands-on training, the program will increase the participation of students in STEM disciplines and prepare them for careers in plant biology and data science. Thirty students in total, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities or from under-represented groups, will be trained and tracked after the program ends in order to determine their career path outcomes.
Of his goals for the project, Dr. Cai said “Because our REU program targets students from institutions with limited research resources and from underrepresented backgrounds, I hope it will give them an exciting opportunity to participate in the remarkable research projects conducted in the CPB, inspire them to continue doing research, and that the skills we teach them will have a positive impact on their future careers.”
The PURE-PD REU program is one of the first programs of its kind led by an academic research library. “I’m very excited about this opportunity to explore how to maximize the integration of library instructions and activities in summer undergraduate research programs,” Dr. Cai said, “and possibly set up an example for other academic research libraries to take the lead on similar programming opportunities.”
Recruitment for the ten-week 2022 summer season has already begun. More information about the program and application process for students can be found at https://ag.purdue.edu/cpb/intern/.
About Chao Cai: Dr. Cai is an assistant professor and Plant Sciences Information Specialist in Libraries and School of Information Studies. He acts as the Libraries liaison to departments within the College of Agriculture, as well as the Institute for Plant Sciences. Dr. Cai holds a PhD in plant biology, and is actively involved in the research and instruction of bioinformatics, information literacy, and data literacy. He may be reached at caic@purdue.edu.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, press_releaseApril 26th, 2022
Parrish Library’s Featured Database will give you a very brief introduction to the basic features of one of our specialized subscription databases. This time we’re featuring Web of Science brought to you by Clarivate Analytics.
Web of Science provides access to the world’s leading scholarly literature in the science, social sciences, arts, and humanities and examine proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions.
The List of Business Databases is the alphabetical list of the databases specially selected for those in a business program of study. Access the databases off-campus with your Purdue Career Account.
Click Getting Started with Web of Science to see the basics of using this database.
Some other resources you might want to explore are:
Featured Database comes to you from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics. If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact parrlib@purdue.edu. Also let us know if you know of a colleague who would benefit from this, or future Featured Databases.
Since usage statistics are an important barometer when databases are up for renewal, tell us your favorite database, and we will gladly promote it. Send an email to parrlib@purdue.edu.
Filed under: database, general, MGMTApril 22nd, 2022
To celebrate Earth Day, Purdue University Press is featuring books on weather, climate, environmental issues, and the energy crisis. Read through the list below, or check out our books on Gardening, Botany, and Horticulture.
Largely remembered for his participation in the Democratic reform wave that took over Congress in 1975 post-Watergate (the so-called Class of ’74) and as an advocate for Hoosier farmers, Fithian has been overlooked for his role as a force to be reckoned with on the House floor when it came to the nation’s environmental challenges. Fithian was a highly ethical, pragmatic reformer bent on preserving his country’s natural resources. Spearheading Environmental Change gives covers Fithian’s positions on ecologically sensitive issues such as pesticides, noise pollution, fossil fuels, and nuclear power and Fithian the credit he deserves as an environmental warrior on the national stage.
Despite being perhaps the foremost British meteorologist of the twentieth century, Reginald Sutcliffe has been understudied and underappreciated. His impact continues to this day every time you check the weather forecast. This book makes the case that three important advances guided the development of modern dynamic meteorology, which led directly to the astounding progress in weather forecasting—and that Sutcliffe was the pioneer in all three of these foundational developments: the application of the quasi-geostrophic simplification to the equations governing atmospheric behavior, adoption of pressure as the vertical coordinate in analysis, and development of a diagnostic equation for vertical air motions. Shining a light on Sutcliffe’s life and work will, hopefully, inspire a renewed appreciation for the human dimension in scientific progress and the rich legacy bequeathed to societies wise enough to fully embrace investments in education and basic research. As climate change continues to grow more dire, modern extensions of Sutcliffe’s innovations increasingly offer some of the best tools we have for peering into the long-term future of our environment.
This book is about the ethical principles and concepts relating to the environment: nature, resources and the planet. Issues addressed include the intrinsic value of nonhuman species, obligations to future generations, and the aesthetic needs of humanity. Both universal responsibilities and their application are investigated while international responsibilities to the planet are considered in the context of some of the most alarming future scenarios: limited access to water, the changing global climate, population explosion, the destruction of ecosystems, and even the extinction of humanity.
In this accessibly-written volume, central issues in global energy are discussed through interdisciplinary dialogue between experts from both North America and Europe.
Covering more than the conventional “food-only” role of the agriculture, the international contributors to Agriculture, Human Security, and Global Peace detail how the solution to agricultural problems can lead to the general socioeconomic and political development of impoverished countries.
The move towards sustainable energy production and use is one the most challenging and profound changes currently taking place in the world’s established and emerging economies. Energy and Innovation: Structural Change and Policy Implications presents a series of informative case studies from Norway, the United Kingdom, Poland, the United States, Russia, Japan, and China that demonstrate how the pace of sustainable energy production differs by country.
You can get 30% off all Purdue University Press titles by entering the code PURDUE30 at checkout on our website.
Filed under: PurduePressApril 12th, 2022
In this interview, we talk with author, Purdue alumnus, and astronaut Colonel John H. Casper, (USAF, Ret.) about his forthcoming autobiography, The Sky Above: An Astronaut’s Memoir of Adventure, Persistence, and Faith.
Q: Could you give a brief description of your book?
The Sky Above tells how persistence and determination led me to fly in space, after serving the nation as a combat fighter pilot and test pilot. Despite life-threatening experiences and failures, my spiritual faith was pivotal in overcoming life’s challenges.
Throughout flying stories told in “pilot lingo,” I invite the reader to ride alongside me in the cockpit, feeling the fear of enemy antiaircraft fire and the squeeze of high g-forces during combat maneuvering in jet fighters. I describe exhilarating Space Shuttle launches, the magical experience of weightlessness, and the magnificent beauty of Earth from hundreds of miles above.
Q: What is the goal of your book? What motivated you to write it?
The goal of my book is to tell readers my life story, which is a true adventure of overcoming adversity through dedication, perseverance, passion, and enduring faith to make a lifelong dream and vision a reality. I hope those trying to reach their dreams, whatever they are, will find inspiration; those unsure or challenged in their faith, encouragement.
Q: Military Service is a tradition in your family. You describe a “service before self” family mentality toward your dad’s service as a pilot. Was this mentality impacted by your family’s faith? Conversely, do you think this mentality affected the way you view(ed) and practice(ed) your faith?
Yes, I believe there is a link between my faith and military service, because both ask a person to “serve” something greater than oneself. Christian faith asks you to love God with all your mind, body, and spirit, and to love your neighbor—those around you—as you love yourself. Those in military or government service are serving our country by defending and upholding our foundational values and traditions. Both faith and the military emphasize the idea of serving others, rather than self-centeredness.
While growing up, I watched my grandparents and parents help others as an extension of their faith, and I witnessed their service to our country in both peace and wartime. They didn’t brag about it; they were merely helping those in need or helping our country defeat those who would destroy our way of life. I’m grateful for the strong example they set for me.
Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring astronauts?
My advice to anyone with a dream or vision is to work hard and not be discouraged if you don’t succeed the first time. For most of us, following our passion or dream takes determined, persistent effort over a period of time to reach the goal.
Those who want to be astronauts will need to study hard and perform well in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. NASA also selects a small number of medical doctors in each incoming group. It’s best that you study subjects and work in career areas that interest you or that you have a passion for. Then, if you don’t become an astronaut, you’ll be working in a career field you enjoy.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on what the future of NASA and American space missions might look like? What would you most like to see explored? What challenges do you think NASA and aspiring astronauts will face along the way?
Future missions to the International Space Station, or ISS, will continue as humankind learns how to live and work in space. ISS is a microgravity laboratory with a multi-nation crew (15 nations cooperate) orbiting Earth at 250 miles altitude. The space vehicle weighs nearly one million pounds, has been continuously crewed since 2000, and has conducted over 3000 experiments and technology demonstrations. Because ISS is also valuable as a primary testbed for future deep-space exploration to the Moon and Mars, NASA plans to operate it at least until 2031.
Artemis is NASA’s Moon landing program to learn how to live on other worlds. This time, the goal is to stay by establishing a true outpost on the lunar surface. The first Artemis mission will fly no earlier than June 2022, using the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. The mission will be un-crewed to test the rocket and crew vehicle on a 3-week voyage beyond the Moon and back to Earth. Artemis 2 is planned about a year later with a crew of four NASA astronauts on a similar 21-day mission to check out the human support systems in deep space. A lunar-orbiting habitat called Gateway is being built to sustain our ability to explore the lunar surface.
The next step is Mars: NASA’s goal is to land humans on Mars before the end of this century. The commercial company SpaceX also plans to fly humans to Mars. A human mission to Mars is hard because Mars is much, much farther away than the Moon—Mars is 35 to 250 million miles distant from Earth, depending on the two planets’ orbital positions. At their closest point, a trip to Mars takes about nine months with current rocket technology. A round trip could theoretically be completed in 21 months, with three months on the surface to wait for favorable alignment of Earth and Mars orbits before returning.
Future astronauts will face challenges similar to the ones they face today on the International Space Station—reduced or zero gravity, confinement in a relatively small space, isolation and separation from family and friends on Earth, and risk of damage to their spacecraft from micrometeorites. Radiation is the number one threat for deep space missions: ISS is in a low Earth orbit and shielded from most solar radiation by the higher Van Allen belts. However, crews on Moon or Mars missions will be outside that protection and exposed to greater solar radiation and occasional solar flares. Deep space crewed vehicles will require additional radiation shielding to keep the crew healthy.
Q: Is there anything that shocked or surprised you while working on this project?
I was surprised by the amount of time and effort it took me to research, write, and edit even my own memoir, where I knew the storyline! I had written many technical papers before, but crafting a story that interests and inspires readers is another level of creativity and complexity. Someone advised me that producing the first draft was about 50% of the writing process and I found that to be true—editing, condensing, choosing which stories to tell and which to delete, all took enormous amounts of additional time. Choosing a publisher and negotiating a contract required a completely different expertise and I had to learn that skill.
Q: Any comments for the future readers of your book?
If you like to read adventure stories, especially true ones, where the character overcomes odds to reach a goal, you will enjoy this book. If you would like to know more about flying airplanes and flying in space, this book is for you. If you’re looking for a story about spiritual faith helping someone overcome obstacles in life, my story might interest and inspire you.
Thank you to Col. Casper for answering our questions!
You can get 30% off The Sky Above and other Purdue University Press books by ordering from our website and using the discount code PURDUE30.
Filed under: PurduePress
April 9th, 2022
Libraries is proud to support the upcoming Asian American and Asian Resource and Cultural Center (AAARCC) Spring Reading Program and Speaker Series. This event will be held on Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 from 5:00–6:30 p.m. in STEW 314 and will feature a joint reading and conversation of Brian Leung’s All I Should Not Tell and Kaveh Akbar’s Pilgrim Bell.
Brian Leung, author of 2022’s All I Should Not Tell, Ivy vs. Dogg:With a Cast of Thousands!, World FamousLove Acts, Lost Men, and Take Me Home, is a past recipient of the Lambda Literary Outstanding Mid-Career Prize. Other honors include the Asian American Literary Award, Willa Award, and the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. Brian’s fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Story, Ocean State Review, Numero Cinq, Crazyhorse, Grain, Gulf Coast, Kinesis, The Barcelona Review, Mid-American Review, Salt Hill, Gulf Stream, River City, Runes, The Bellingham Review, Hyphen, Velocity, The Connecticut Review, Blithe House Quarterly, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Crowd. He is the current Director of Creative Writing at Purdue University.
Kaveh Akbar’s poems appear in The New Yorker, Paris Review, The New York Times, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two books of poetry: Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021) and Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James 2017) and the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse. Born in Tehran, Iran, Kaveh teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph and Warren Wilson college. He serves as Poetry Editor for The Nation.
More information about the event can be found HERE.
Contact the AAARC at aaarcc@purdue.edu if you have additional questions.
Filed under: events, faculty_staff, generalApril 5th, 2022
Taking effect on April 1, 2022, Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies has entered into an Unlimited Publishing Agreement with the Public Library of Science (PLOS). This agreement expands our current PLOS open access publishing partnership to provide unlimited publishing in all PLOS journals without incurring fees.
This new agreement happened as a result of collective bargaining through a partnership of the Center for Research Libraries, and NorthEast Research Libraries. Authors at Purdue University-West Lafayette, Purdue Fort Wayne, and Purdue Northeast are included in the agreement, which offers unlimited, no-fee publishing for Purdue corresponding authors in 12 PLOS journals: PLOS Biology, PLOS Climate, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Digital Health, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Global Public Health, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS ONE, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, and PLOS Water.
This is a great opportunity for Purdue authors to increase discovery and accessibility of their scholarship, and another strong step in Libraries’ goal to create more equitable, sustainable publishing options for Purdue authors, and in turn, to foster more equitable access to their research. Information about the new PLOS agreement has been added Libraries’ Open Access Publishing Partnerships libguide.
Purdue authors wishing to express interest or ask questions, please reach out to Nina Collins, Libraries’ scholarly publishing specialist, at nkcollin@purdue.edu.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, Open_Access, press_release, scholcomm, servicesMarch 24th, 2022
Humanities, Social Science and Education Library’s Featured Database will give you a brief introduction to the basic features of one of our specialized subscription databases. This time we’re featuring Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 database, brought to you by Alexander Street.
Link: https://guides.lib.purdue.edu/db/wasm
Access the databases off-campus with your Purdue login and password.
Focus: This database documents the multiplicity of American women’s reform activities from the colonial period into the 20th century. The collection currently includes more 100 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by over 2,000 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.
Tutorial: Click here see the basics of using the Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 database.
Why you should know this database: It features primary document projects that cover a broad range of topics. These include books, pamphlets, and related materials to provide scholars with in-depth access to the published histories and records of women’s reform organizations throughout the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. There is also an extensive Dictionary of Social Movements, and a Chronology of Women’s History.
Quick tip: If you look to the top left above the once you have opened an article, you will see a button called cite. If you click on this, it will bring you into another page. Over to the left, you can select the format that you need. Once you have selected a format, the citation will appear. Always double check citations. Occasionally, there may be errors.
Related Resources:
Other databases you might want to explore are:
Women’s Studies Archive: https://guides.lib.purdue.edu/db/wmns
Gale OneFile: Gender Studies: https://guides.lib.purdue.edu/db/gppgb
Filed under: general, HSSE, HSSE Featured Databases, HSSEB, Uncategorized