Since 1998, Tracy Burkett has been opening students’ eyes to the complexities of the political process and its impact on society at large. We caught up with her to find out why she went into sociology, to see what advice she gives today’s students and to learn which sociologist she thinks we should all know.

How did you get interested in sociology? I signed up for a random class the last semester of my senior year of college just for the hours. It was a sociology course. The rest is history. When I see that professor at sociology conferences, I always remind her that her course sparked my interest.

Your dissertation looks at partnerships in the U.S. Senate. What was the big take-away? There was a precipitous decline in cooperation among senators starting in the early ’80s. Bipartisan cooperation and reciprocity decreased dramatically. Unfortunately, the gridlock we see in Congress today follows that trajectory very closely.

Which book has had the greatest impact on your career? There are so many, but C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite (1955) is probably the most important. Mills examined the way that power is exercised in the United States and provided a convincing alternative to pluralistic models of power.

On the flip side, what’s your favorite book? It’s hard to pick just one! I would rank Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 as one of my favorites. I just reread it during the 2012 election season, and it was as relevant as ever.

What’s cool about being a sociologist? I’m not sure that sociologist and cool belong in the same sentence. I think it’s cool to keep up with former majors who are happily employed in so many fields, including medicine, law, academics, business, social work and education.

What’s the most important lesson your students can learn in your political sociology course? The electoral process that the average citizen engages in is only a small part of the political process. Special interests, policy making and agenda setting are probably more important, but these are largely invisible. If students go away from my class appreciating something of these processes, I am happy.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach? While largely invisible to us, social forces impact us every day in every aspect of our lives. Even our most personal choices – what we name our children, what careers we choose, whom we marry, how we express our emotions – are shaped by our society and our positions in society. Sometimes I title this, “Why there are three Brittanys in this class.”

Best college advice? Read the syllabus. Go to class. Know your professors. Have fun (but not too much).

Biggest pet peeve when it comes to students? I can’t stand to get emails, “I missed class. Did we do anything?” Of course we did something!

What’s your favorite comfort food? I love Southern-style baked macaroni and cheese. It reminds me of meals at my grandmother’s table.

How would you describe your teaching style? It depends on the course, but I try to get students engaged in the learning process. An average class meeting will probably include some lecture, but also discussion and meaningful input from students.

If you could do any other job, what would it be? I worked for newspapers during and after college. On the whole, I think the media do a mediocre job translating and disseminating social science research to the masses, so perhaps I would try writing again.

How do you blow off steam? Reading, gardening, exercising, listening to music.

What’s the last album you’ve purchased? Babel by Mumford & Sons.

What’s one class that every college student should take? Intro to Sociology, of course! The sociological perspective allows one to understand the connections and dynamics between individuals, groups and society. This is useful no matter what your major or interests.

What’s your next big research topic? I’m switching gears a bit. While I was directing the minor in environmental studies, a group of students pulled me into the urban garden and sustainable agriculture scene. I’m now looking at the relationship of community gardening and agricultural networks with community well-being.

What’s the most interesting thing in your office? I have a shelf of toys and art supplies. My daughters are frequent visitors to my office, and I try to keep them busy. My college students often pull out the toys (especially the Legos) while we’re chatting.

Who’s one sociologist everyone should know? Maybe I should mention one of the classic sociological thinkers like Emile Durkheim or Max Weber, but since I’m answering this close to MLK Day, I’m going to go with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. As an undergraduate, King majored in sociology. I think the sociological perspective comes through loud and clear in his writing and speeches.

What’s been your best moment as a professor at the College? Getting to assist in awarding my youngest brother, Scott, his degree during spring graduation on Mother’s Day 2002. We started here the same semester, I as an assistant professor and he as a freshman.

Charleston isn’t just manners, magnolias and mansions. It’s not just hospitality, hoopskirts and horse-drawn carriages. Once you get past the grits and the gardens, the sweet tea and the cobblestone streets, it’s way more than meets the eye.

Except that it’s exactly what meets the eye.

“It’s the stuff that’s hidden in plain sight – the history that’s right there in the street names, the river names, the churches, everywhere,” says Simon Lewis, English professor and associate director of the College’s Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) program. “For so long, when people talked about the South, they weren’t talking about everybody in the South – they were leaving out a large population of who we are, a large portion of our history. But that’s changing. We’re telling a more inclusive history than ever before.

“Memory is on the move in South Carolina,” continues Lewis, who dubs himself the “intellectual impresario” of The Jubilee Project 2013, a spinoff of the CLAW program’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. “This is an attempt to make people think of the South in a more inclusive way and give everybody credit for his or her part in our history.”

The Jubilee Project celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of public education in South Carolina as well as other key events in 1863 (e.g., the Gettysburg Address and the attack on Ft. Wagner in Charleston Harbor) and 1963 (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the admittance of African American students into Clemson University, USC and Charleston County public schools). The celebration began on New Year’s Eve 2012, with African American churches all over the city ringing bells after the Emancipation Proclamation was read in their annual Watchnight services.

“It’s this simple idea of ringing in freedom,” explains Lewis. “Not only do you have this idea that the new year brings new hope and that we’re going to be better this year – it goes back to both January 1, 1808 [when slave importation into the U.S. was banned], and January 1, 1863: this sense of, ‘Come midnight, we’re free!’

“It goes along with the grand American theme of liberty, this theme of freedom for all, which is probably the most important consequence of the Civil War,” he continues. “It will be a critical commemoration. You can’t celebrate our achievements without looking at the messiness – what actually went on. But I think at this time we can commemorate with a sense of pride – with some confidence that we have made the achievement of liberty.”

With an exhibition at the Gibbes Museum of Art, presentations at the Southern American Studies Association and a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, The Jubilee Project is a collaboration among many South Carolina organizations and agencies.

“A single stick is easily snapped, but bundle a bunch of sticks together, and you have something a whole lot stronger,” says Lewis. “So, together, we’re getting that collective impact.”

The goal is that it will nudge the perception of Charleston’s history into a more accurate, more inclusive context.

“When you think about it, Charleston is the most African of all United States cities. New Orleans and Detroit might argue with that, but I’d argue they are more African American. Charleston is more African,” says Lewis, who was born in England and raised in South Africa. “It’s time we break up people’s preconceived notions about our history so that we can start to get out of the old impasses that have held us back for so long. It’s time we be honest – and to celebrate – about what Charleston really is.”

The memory may be more than half a century old, but the emotion it conjures remains strong. Wandering into a Greenville, S.C., liquor store, a young Alex Sanders had the meeting of a lifetime with its famous proprietor: retired baseball great Shoeless Joe Jackson. Then again, perhaps it was in the nearby Bolt Drug Store that the introduction really took place. It’s hard to remember the details after all these years, admits Sanders, who served as president of the College from 1992 to 2001 and remains a professor of political science. Memories, you see, have a tough time forming in the minds of starstruck little boys who have the good fortune to meet a World Series champ.

Two years ago, Sanders published a story about that meeting during the annual Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. It’s one of five essays that Sanders has written for the event (other compositions include “The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule” and “How Baseball United America After the Civil War”). But Sanders’ story about meeting Jackson, which also elaborates on Sanders’ childhood memories of two other famous baseball players from South Carolina, has gone on to a second act. This past year, his story was turned into a half-hour documentary by three College of Charleston staff members: videographer Tim Fennell, multimedia artist Dave Brown and audio-visual expert Brooks Quinn.

In November, Cards Against a Wall: Memories of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Van Lingle Mungo and Bobo Newsom aired on South Carolina Educational Television, and this spring it’s slated to show at several film festivals. The documentary’s title is a reference to a card trick Sanders witnessed when meeting Jackson, and the film explores the legacies of these three great, colorful, old-time ballplayers from different regions of South Carolina.

Alex Sanders with CofC film crew

“This, to me, was Field of Dreams meets Forrest Gump,” says Fennell, who directed and co-produced the film. “It’s baseball history, but every time the film takes a turn, the ballplayers influence Alex Sanders or others from that time period.”

Cards Against a Wall blends archival footage with reenactments shot in black and white with a vintage Leica Super 8 camera that the filmmakers happened to find on a shelf, collecting dust. The transition between new and old footage is so seamless, and the re-creations so compelling, that many viewers don’t realize that much of the footage in the film is actually new. That’s thanks in part to the use of digital filters Brown created to “age” the new footage, as well as rented costumes that included the baseball uniforms used in the Hollywood movie Eight Men Out (which, coincidentally, is about the scandal-tainted 1919 Chicago White Sox team of which Jackson was a member).

Beyond enumerating the men’s athletic accomplishments, Cards Against a Wall explores the ballplayers’ lives beyond the baseball diamond, including Jackson’s post-career interaction with fellow slugging great Ty Cobb, Newsom’s eccentricities and Mungo’s career as a movie theater operator. Most of all, it showcases that these ballplayers cannot simply be summed up by box scores and that their influence goes far beyond the bleachers, even shaping the childhood of a little boy who was once bold enough to sneak into a liquor store.

Theatre professor and actor Evan Parry on set for Sanders’ film

A College Affair

Cards Against a Wall features the talents of many members of the CofC community, including Heather Brewer ’11, who with Tim Fennell adapted Alex Sanders’ short story into a screenplay; professors Frank Cossa, Jon Hale and Evan Parry, who acted in the film; theatre professor Janine McCabe ’98 and costume shop manager Michael Wiernicki ’06, who served as wardrobe consultants; and Rick Zender, the curator of the John Rivers Communication Museum, who loaned historic props.

If you’ve ever considered buying a Brita water filter, professors Wendy Cory and Vijay Vulava will help push you into a purchase.

The pair has spent the last few years studying our waterways – and, in turn, our drinking water, which are filled with trace amounts of pharmaceuticals. Every time you turn on the tap, they say, you’re getting small amounts of drugs in your drinking glass. A water filter can help solve this problem, but it’s not fixing the source of the problem. What’s worse is that we as a society don’t have a very good idea of the depth of the pollution and its effect on the population. That’s where Cory and Vulava intend to help.

For the past four years, Cory, a chemistry professor, and Vulava, a geology professor, have been examining the presence of pharmaceuticals in our water. Unused medicine is disposed of improperly, for example, or humans excrete unmetabolized pharmaceutical traces into wastewater that is treated and then pumped into rivers. However it gets there, the pharmaceuticals undergo changes as they travel through different water environments. It’s these changes that Cory is exploring. Quite simply, she wants to know what the pharmaceuticals become when exposed to different variables, like sunlight or salt.

As her colleague Vulava explains, “They can break down into something nastier than the original chemical, or something benign; we don’t know.”

Vulava, then, explores the fate of these altered chemicals. Some stay in the water, while others find their way to the soil or are absorbed in the fat of fish. Unfortunately, many of these destinations are just way stations on a greater journey into humans. Because humans are at the top of the food chain, we ingest many things previously ingested by other organisms. What’s more, communities like Charleston are at the bottom of a watershed, meaning they are gutters for pharmaceuticals (many of which are known as disruptors to organisms’ endocrine systems) and other water pollutants.

Ultra-high–pressure liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer

Initial funding for Cory and Vulava’s studies were provided by the College, and this investment was critical for the professors’ recent award of more than $500,000 from the National Science Foundation to continue their studies over the next three years and to purchase expensive equipment, such as an ultra-high–pressure liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer. The grant also allows for the employment of 18 student researchers over three years, beginning this summer. Students will work with either Cory or Vulava in the lab to study samples of pharmaceutical-tainted water that are influenced by a single variable at a time. By isolating these known variables (as opposed to using field samples, which contain a multitude of unknown variables), Cory and Vulava seek to obtain a better understanding of the transformations and destinations of pharmaceuticals in our waterways.

Critical to their experimentation is the help of the students who will perform essential research. And that experience working on an NSF–sponsored project is a boon to students seeking admission and scholarships to prestigious graduate study programs.

“Doing this kind of research gets their foot in the door to all sorts of things once they graduate,” says Cory, adding that, oftentimes, students extend their summer research into the academic year through independent study programs. They then accompany the professors on trips to conferences, where they present their results and get a taste of what it’s like to be in the company of scientists. Just as important, the students also help tackle a public health problem that remains murky and demands increased investigation.

And so, as Vulava and Cory say, until we understand everything about the pharmaceuticals in our drinking supply and aquatic environment, it doesn’t hurt to filter your drinking water.

Chemistry professor Wendy Cory

Drug Detective

Before tracking the presence of drugs in our drinking water, Wendy Cory helped track illegal drugs around Charleston. The chemistry professor, along with students Phillip Mabe ’12 and Rainey Patterson ’11, worked with forensic chemist Nikki Mitchell ’99 at the Charleston Police Department to devise a test that more easily identifies the active ingredients found in prescription medicines like Viagra, Levitra and Cialis. These drugs, which are intended to treat male sexual dysfunction, are often illegally obtained and abused, sometimes in combination with other illegal drugs, such as Ecstasy.

Identifying such drugs in the laboratory is normally a complicated endeavor, made difficult by how little of the illegal substance is often recovered as evidence, as well as the fact that any lab results must stand up in court and be able to be reproduced by independent labs. To remedy this, Cory and her team developed a new, more user-friendly method of identifying the active ingredients in the prescription medicines.

“This collaboration was a very positive experience for the police laboratory,” says Mitchell. “With this new method we’re able to conclusively identify these substances and provide officers with more information for their investigation.”

Some students find self-confidence at college. Some find that special someone to grow old with. Some find their life’s calling, their purpose, their direction. Thea Kozakis and Laura Stevens found a planet.

The planet’s name is Derek, or, to be technical about it, kappa Andromedae b. It exists 170 light years away from Earth, within our galaxy, and is part of the Andromeda constellation. Derek, one of about 850 planets that have been discovered outside our solar system, is more than 100 times the size of Earth, full of hydrogen, and, says Stevens, “big and hot and kind of gross” – much like an extra large Jupiter.

Kozakis and Stevens, both seniors, discovered the planet while conducting research for astronomy professor Joe Carson, who himself was part of a team of researchers that discovered a planet-like object circling star GJ 758 in 2009. This feat – which Time magazine named one of the top 10 scientific discoveries of that year – was remarkable because Carson and his colleagues obtained a direct image of their discovery. The bulk of new planets is detected indirectly through telescopes, such as by seeing how a nearby star dims when the planet passes before it.

CofC students Lauren Stevens and Thea Kozakis

Like Carson, Kozakis and Stevens obtained a direct image of their newly found planet through a Subaru telescope at an observatory atop the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island. For the past two years the pair analyzed about 30 stars they thought most likely to have orbiting planets. Because there is much demand from scientists for use of the telescope in Hawaii, Kozakis and Stevens would ask Carson to submit a few targets every two months to the telescope administrators and then wait patiently to receive a set of 50 to 100 images of the stars. The duo would then manipulate the images with software, reducing the glare from the bright stars with the hope of revealing a planet.

Most attempts yielded no result, but one day last semester, voila! Kozakis and Stevens realized they had something.

“Look, I think I found a planet,” Kozakis said to her boyfriend when he stopped by the lab to pick her up for lunch.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m hungry.”

At home for Thanksgiving, Kozakis got mixed reactions about the discovery, with some of her Greek-American relatives congratulating her, and others more concerned about the fact that she hasn’t yet married. Her parents, at least, are very proud of her. Her mother has told everyone she knows, though her father says he has come to expect such accomplishments from her.

Stevens, for her part, has gained some celebrity status in Charleston, being recognized around town following publicity about her discovery.

Physics and astronomy professor Joe Carson

Additionally, Canadian brewer Howe Sound has honored Stevens and Kozakis by naming its grapefruit-tinged “Super Jupiter” India pale ale after the newly discovered planet. Apparently, the brewery was looking to make a beer that was “out of this world,” if not also our solar system.

The students give thanks to their mentor, Carson, who Kozakis describes as “a really good adviser” and “accepting of our mistakes. He’s really nice and really approachable.”

Carson returns the compliment, and credits his students for their inspiring and steadfast work. He knows of no other undergraduates who have found a planet, and is proud to say they made such a breakthrough on their own.

“There’s only one case,” Carson says, “and that’s them. It’s neat they were able to be the engine of the discovery and not just a side part. It’s a very big deal.”

That’s high praise coming from Carson, who tells his student researchers that he doesn’t expect them to match peers at universities like Harvard and Princeton, but to best them. In this case they certainly did, and Carson says the discovery is akin to opening Pandora’s box, as there are so many new scientific questions to explore regarding the planet, including what kind of life it could support.

People, says Carson, can underestimate undergraduates and the contributions that young adults are capable of making to the world of science. Kozakis and Stevens, he notes, have demonstrated that hard work and intelligence can make up for inexperience. That said, even Carson finds their work astounding.

“I certainly wasn’t doing that when I was their age,” he laughs.

They are two sides of the same coin. The yin and the yang. The very archetype of symbiosis. And, now more than ever, they depend on one another for survival.

Yet, as clearly related as they might be, the public and the environment have long been approached as unrelated academic disciplines: policy vs. science, social vs. systematic, people vs. nature, flexible vs. precise. But all that is changing.

With its Environmental Studies and Public Administration Dual Degree Program, the College’s Graduate School isn’t just acknowledging the intricacy of human-environment interactions – that people affect the environment and environmental changes affect people – but it’s responding to the growing number of public and nonprofit organizations addressing today’s sustainability and environmental issues.

The program prepares students for environmental-policy careers in the public sector, allowing them to earn both a Master of Environmental Studies (M.E.S.) and a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) in just 56 credit hours of inter-disciplinary courses.

As long as the two fields have been intertwined, the cross-section of science and policy is something new for most students, who are coming from either a science background or a policy background, but not both.

Lowell Atkinson ’12 (M.E.S./M.P.A.)

“I think it’s a little bit more challenging for anyone coming in from a strict policy background, but they can survive,” says Lowell Atkinson (M.E.S./M.P.A.) ’12, who studied political science as an undergraduate. “I almost quit one course, Energy Production and Resource Management. I just had so little confidence in anything mathematical or technical like that. But I stuck with it, and it ended up being my favorite course. It challenged me a good bit. But it was very rewarding.”

Already in the College’s M.P.A. program, Atkinson joined the dual-degree program because he’d become interested in the environmental side of his job at the Charleston County Building Inspections Department, where he was working under an EPA-funded grant that raised awareness about Charleston’s air and water quality.

“It just seemed like the perfect fit – and a great way to further my interest in environmental policies,” he says.

Liz Symon ’05 (M.E.S./M.P.A. ’12) had a similar experience, only she was coming from the opposite perspective. As an undergraduate at the College, she’d studied marine biology with a concentration in environmental studies, and had already begun the M.E.S. program when she decided to commit to the dual-degree program.

“In the beginning, I thought I was going to concentrate more on the science side of things,” she says. “All it took was that first class, and I definitely shifted more into the policy side. I liked that there was the flexibility to choose your focus. For me, it was the best of both worlds.”

Liz Symon ’05 (M.E.S./M.P.A. ’12); photograph by Katrina Jackson

Both she and Atkinson are confident that employers will see it that way, too.

“Job opportunities aren’t that robust now,” says Atkinson, a program associate for the S.C. Association of Community Development Corporations, “but when it rebounds, they’re going to be looking for people with this kind of background.”

“I feel like I can apply to a wider array of jobs because I have the ability to go into an environmental organization and take a more executive position. I can basically do any of the jobs I want to do,” agrees Symon, who is currently looking for work with natural resource/environmental education organizations. “Ultimately, I want to know I’m making a difference for the greater good, especially with renewable energy. I want to help advance the practice of it through education and outreach.”

And, while Symon is going from a background in marine biology to a future in education and outreach, Atkinson is refocusing his own background in policy – now with a clear goal of protecting both the public and the environment.

“In whatever job I take, my mission will be to enhance community resilience and decrease social vulnerability through ecological protection and restoration,” he says. “Basically, I want people to understand the connectivity between ecology and society.”

And that connection is what the program is all about.

Alix Generous isn’t a fan of small talk. She doesn’t have the patience to dillydally on the periphery of conversation. She wants real information – something she can sink her teeth into, something she can really learn from. She’s incessantly craving ingenuity and insight – and she demands her discussions deliver.

Yeah, talking to a genius can be a little intimidating. But, if her peers can’t always keep up, the sophomore finally found her match in the 14,000 United Nations delegates from 193 countries at last October’s U.N. Conference on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, India.

“I had several rewarding encounters with a host of delegates during the five days I was there,” says Generous, who was the only undergraduate invited to present research at the conference. “I love understanding how people work, so it was interesting for me to learn how the U.N. delegates’ minds work in terms of negotiating their own interests against the interests of others.”

It was her own interest in pharmacology and neuroscience that sparked the idea behind her paper last summer when she and 11 other students were in Bali, Indonesia, for a three-week coral reef–research expedition led by biology professor Phil Dustan. It was during her downtime, which she often spent perusing pharmacology and neuroscience journals, that she learned about quorum sensing – a process by which cells communicate with each other – and started thinking that, by recreating that process, damage to coral reefs could be prevented. It was a thought. A pretty good one, she concluded.

“If we go back to science and listen to it, really pay attention, the answers are all there,” she says. “It all makes sense.”

So, when her brother emailed her about a contest for biological diversity research in July, she jumped on it. One week later she submitted her paper, “Environmental Threats on the Symbiotic Relationship of Coral Reefs and Quorum Sensing,” to the SustainUS 2012 Citizen Science paper competition. It was a week well spent. Sure, other students spent it reveling in the dizzying idleness that comes with the freedoms of summer – but Generous was learning. She couldn’t be happier.

Well, at least not until the next time she opted out of her friends’ celebrations. It was later that summer and she was visiting friends in Greensboro, N.C. When they left their house for a party, Generous stayed behind – simply not in the mood for crowds. That’s when she received the email: Her paper had won first place for undergraduate research in the Citizen Science paper competition. Not only was she invited to the U.N. conference, but her paper would be published in Columbia University’s Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development.

It was her turn to celebrate. She may have been alone in her friends’ Greensboro home, but that didn’t keep her from doing a little dance.

“To me, it proves that you don’t need some kind of expert help or something. You can do what you want to do all on your own. It taught me that it doesn’t matter what age you are, you can still make an impact in the world,” says the Potomac, Md., native, whose father was wary when she called him with the news. She laughs, “He thought it was a scam!”

It is quite incredible: Sophomore student reads some pharmacology and neuroscience journals for fun and thinks to apply a relatively new process to the coral reefs she sees while snorkeling in Bali; then, just for something to do, writes a paper in a week’s time and doesn’t even consult a mentor or professor before submitting it to a nationwide competition. She wins, is on her way to present her findings to the U.N. two months later and is suddenly reshaping how the scientific community thinks of protecting coral reefs.

And this isn’t even her area of interest.

“Actually, I’ve been interested in neuropsychopharmacology ever since middle school, and my passion is helping people, particularly people who have mental illness,” says Generous, a molecular biology major who hopes to triple major in psychology and neuroscience, as well. “I am particularly fascinated by bipolar disorder and its neurological foundations. There are a lot of people in my life that have bipolar disorder. They are the smartest people I know, and I think the stigma that they live with is unfair. It’s my passion to alleviate that stigma and help cure the problem, too.”

Generous herself knows about the stigmas of living with a psychological condition: She was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome as a child, though she doesn’t have the lack of empathy that many equate with the condition. Quite the opposite, actually.

“I can read people too well and pick up on things that most people don’t see. This sense of empathy has deepened my understanding of the kind of pain and turmoil that people with mental illness feel and how their cognitive processes work,” says Generous, who looks at Asperger’s as a gift. “I plan to utilize this strength and intelligence to help find a way to alleviate the kind of suffering that mentally ill people go through and find ways to help them contribute good things to this world.”

After college, she plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. dual program in neuro-psychopharmacology with the goal of establishing a molecular foundation for treating bipolar disorder. In the meantime, she’s arranging a TEDx event at the College about rethinking mental diversity, and she’s also writing an eco-collective grant to help educate college students about environmental issues.

Somehow she finds time to take on these pet projects while working in the neuroscience department at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she has been studying the perception of neuropathic pain for over a year, and while hosting her own show, “Brains and Fluff: Making Science Sexy,” on the College’s radio station.

“I think the radio show really created something of value for the student body,” says Generous, explaining that the show focuses on neuroscience and features interviews with scientists – a process that she enjoys in and of itself. “I love that, when you’re interviewing, you get down to business.”

Indeed, Generous likes to get down to business – and she’s done so at the College: jumping immediately into a variety of activities, including working for the Robert Ivey Ballet and writing a blog about science for the online student newspaper.

“I have been able to build a really colorful and loving life here,” she says. “I’ve made many wonderful friends and mentors, and have found a lot of intellectual inspiration through my professors and through my own pursuit of knowledge.”

And the College is no less inspired by Generous, her unmatched intelligence, incredible initiative and extraordinary resourcefulness – not to mention compassion, drive and determination.

“Everyone has something to share. It’s all about learning what that something is,” says Generous. “You just have to listen to what people have to say.”

Unless, of course, they’re just talking about the weather.

In November 2002, dozens of surfers paddled out into the Florida waves to honor Joe Milligan, who had died in a terrorist bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, a month earlier. Milligan was a daredevil and surf enthusiast of the highest order, and, as the ocean full of bobbing surfers proved, a man never wanting for friends. He died while celebrating his recent graduation from Bond University in Australia, which followed three years at the College (where he often surfed at Folly Beach).

This past fall, 10 years after Milligan’s death, his family and friends organized another paddle-out at the Milligan family beach house in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. They gathered to remember a son, a brother and a buddy who seemed to have a thousand best friends spread across the globe. They remembered an adventurer who fell in love with Australia while studying there, and who was fond of telling his loved ones his personal motto: “It’s OK to work hard – as long as you play harder.”

Beyond these gatherings, Milligan’s family and friends sought to honor him through the establishment of the Joe Milligan Scholarship, which helps College students study abroad in Milligan’s favorite place, Australia. Since its creation, at least half a dozen students have been helped while studying Down Under, with most of the students using the chance to go beyond the classroom and explore much of the continent. Among them is senior Molly Love, who studied at the University of Wollongong, south of Sydney, in spring 2012.

“To say I had an amazing time abroad is a serious understatement. It was the experience of a lifetime,” says Love, who channeled Milligan’s intrepid spirit by bungee jumping, camping in the Outback and diving at the Great Barrier Reef. “The scholarship money was a huge help and opened doors to many opportunities I never thought were possible. The bonds I made while abroad are untouchable.”

Love particularly enjoyed being immersed in a number of business classes with Australian students. As an art minor, she also reveled in a course on Aboriginal arts and society. That education helped her more deeply appreciate the Aboriginal cave art she saw in the Australian Outback. Other unforgettable sights included monstrous crocodiles and termite mounds and the wildlife in the Great Barrier Reef, including clownfish, sea anemones and turtles.

“One of my favorite things, however, were the giant clams,” Love recalls. “They were colored with magnificent purples and blues and were absolutely ginormous.”

Sytske Hillenius ’12 used the Milligan Scholarship to travel to the University of Melbourne in 2010 and studied music, specifically the Baroque violin, conducting, music therapy and ethnomusicology. Hillenius, who is an accomplished violinist and fiddler, enjoyed the experience so much she returned to the University of Melbourne as a 2012 Fulbright postgraduate scholar and is now studying for a master’s in ethnomusicology, with her thesis focusing on bush dance music in Tasmania and the influence of Celtic folk music and traditions. As part of her research, Hillenius spent a summer living in Tasmania. She also made time in Australia to take many extended trips with a mountaineering club.

“I fell in love with the country,” Hillenius says.

These kinds of discoveries are exactly what the Milligan family and their friends had hoped would occur when they endowed the scholarship in Joe’s name. Joe Milligan was enchanted with Australia, and the Milligan family had always preached the importance of taking lessons from other cultures. Thus, the Milligan Scholarship encourages travel and promotes cross-cultural understanding.

“It helps students understand the globe is bigger than their backyard,” says Joe’s mother, Julie Milligan. “The more exposure you have to things, the more learning that occurs.”

Before his death, Joe Milligan experienced some of the best surfing of his life in Bali. Writing home to friends about the thrill of the waves, he could hardly capture his excitement in words: “Surfed out there two nights in a row on a full moon, just me and this classic Aussie kid. Overhead sets and just perfect moon-lit pits that spit you out into rippable walls. The morning sessions have been on too, not too crowded and just perfect. Mental sessions boys – they rank pretty highly.”

A short time later, he described one of the rides of his life: “The one freak barrel I mentioned was on the biggest and most lined up day of the trip, and everyone saw it ’cause I was out on the back and I free-fell so gnarly and barely pulled up into the beast, but only one guy saw me come out, this classic ripper Aussie guy that was toward the end of the point. He was freakin’ – he called it the barrel of the day by far, if not the barrel of the whole swell. No one would have believed that I came out if he didn’t see it ’cause I was so deep.”

A few days later Milligan was dead, one of 202 people from 22 countries killed by a string of bombings in Bali that were carried out by Islamic extremists. Though Milligan loved to surf, he had recently told his parents he was beginning to focus on other pursuits in life, including career options. They were excited to see his passion for adventure begin to merge with the responsibilities of life after college. Then he was gone. No more excited emails. No more phone calls.

In their place, however, have come enthusiastic letters from students like Love and Hillenius, who are grateful for the chance to see and study in Milligan’s favorite place. George and Julie Milligan are happy that their son’s spirit carries on through the adventures and education of each new College student that travels to Australia. Allowing more students to live and learn like Joe, they believe, is a great way to keep their son’s memory alive.

“There’s nothing Joe would have liked better,” Julie Milligan says, “than for other College students to ‘get out there and soak it all up!’”

During one Saturday afternoon in January, more than 300 people arrived at Addlestone Library to celebrate the latest offering from James Rigney Jr., a literary legend better known by his nom de plume Robert Jordan.

Harriet McDougal, Rigney’s widow, was on hand to promote the final book in Rigney’s Wheel of Time series, Memory of Light. Accompanying her was Brandon Sanderson, the author handpicked by McDougal to finish Memory of Light, which was only partially complete upon Rigney’s death in 2007.

Harriet McDougal, widow and editor of James Rigney (a.k.a. Robert Jordan)

So intense is the fandom of Wheel of Time, which has been translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 44 million copies worldwide, that those 300 people would have likely shown up if it was Rigney’s last grocery list that was being unveiled. For these fans, a bonus was in store; the library’s Special Collections used the book signing event to display one of its newest acquisitions: the Rigney Collection. Among the collection’s highlights are dozens of edited manuscripts, promotional material for Rigney’s books, photographs, videos, correspondence, graphic novels and the author’s old Apple computer with more than 4,000 pages of notes. As processing archivist Josh Minor details on the Special Collections blog The True Source, the collection even includes swords, spears, daggers and battleaxes inspired from the fantasy series.

It goes without saying, then, that the Rigney Collection, which was donated by McDougal, doesn’t have quite the same feel as most of the historic documents housed on the third floor of the library. That’s just fine with Special Collections, whose staff was ecstatic to receive a gift concerning one of the city’s most successful authors.

“We’re having a hard time containing our excitement,” says Harlan Greene ’74, Special Collections senior manuscript and reference archivist. “Archives kind of have the fusty musty thing going on. We think the Rigney Collection will bring in some different people.”

Beyond the Wheel of Time series, Rigney used pseudonyms to write many other books, including a number of titles within the Conan the Barbarian series and a historical fiction trilogy set in Charleston at the turn of the 19th century: The Fallon Blood, The Fallon Pride and The Fallon Legacy. But it was when The Eye of the World, the first book in the Wheel of Time series, was published in 1990 that Rigney became famous and began earning comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien.

The collection McDougal donated includes an early draft of The Eye of the World as well as a typescript of the book that contains her editing marks.

The couple met on professional terms before becoming romantic, and she remained his editor after their marriage. McDougal hopes that fans of her late husband can visit the Rigney Collection to learn about his writing process and delve deeper into his work.

“I wanted the papers to be in the College community,” says McDougal. “Once the collection is processed, researchers, students and fans will have an insider’s look into one of the legendary epic fantasy series.”

There’s new life at Dixie Plantation: 75,000 new lives, to be exact.

Thanks to a donation from ArborGen – a Ridgeville, S.C., seedling supplier – the longleaf pine seedlings were planted across 144 acres of the College’s 881-acre property on the Stono River and Intracoastal Waterway. A gift supporting the comprehensive plan to restore Dixie to its original condition as a “conservationist’s classroom,” the seedlings also help re-establish the longleaf pine forests that stretched across the Southeastern coastal plain before clear-cutting practices all but depleted them by 1920. There is renewed interest in restoring these longleaf ecosystems throughout their natural range – in part because they are rich in biodiversity, providing habitat and food sources for many animals and birds, including the now-endangered, longleaf-dependent red-cockaded woodpecker.

And so it seems it doesn’t end with our seedlings: There’s much more new life to be found at Dixie Plantation.