The College of Humanities & Social Sciences hosted the third, annual Constitution Day Celebration on Monday, September 17, 2007. The theme was "Remembering the Little Rock Crisis,” and events included a keynote speaker, focus groups and roundtable presentations. The audience included ASU students, faculty, and staff as well as selected high school students and the general public.

Judge Wendell Griffin of the Arkansas Court of Appeals and a member of the American, National and Arkansas Bar Associations delivered the plenary address. His remarks were titled "Reflections on Ethical Challenges Surrounding the American Constitution.” The plenary address was immediately followed by a roundtable discussion titled, "Brown v. Board of Education and the Road to Little Rock.”

The roundtable panel, which included faculty from both the Departments of Political Science and History, engaged faculty as well as students in discussions about the court decisions leading up to Brown, and the political response in Arkansas as well as in the South. Other events included two focus groups, "Hoxie the First Stand,” a film documenting the decisions by the Hoxie, Arkansas, School Board to integrate the Hoxie public schools in 1955, and "What Do We Know,” a fun and interactive session looking at what potential voters know (and sometimes don't know) about the democratic system in action.

Constitution Day is a federal observance that marks the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. This year, the official holiday fell on September 17th and recognized the 220th anniversary of the signing of the document.

September 24th marked the celebration of the third annual Freshman Mixer. This year's events were held in the Centennial Hall of the Student Union, and were sponsored by the College of Humanities & Social Sciences, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Office of Diversity Initiatives, and the Student Government Association.

The Freshman Mixer is an annual celebration which serves to empower and motivate first year students to not only graduate, but also to get involved in campus life. The Mixer also teaches students the importance of learning, networking and safety during their college experience.

This year's program participants included Morgan Pippin (SGA President), Dr. Gloria J. Gibson (Dean of the College of Humanities & Social Sciences), Amber Long Martin (ASU Counseling Center), Jerrod O. Lockhart (Assistant Dean of students), as well as a variety of other speakers and students leaders. Events included, “What's Your Salary,” where students explored salaries based on one's potential career, “Drug and Alcohol Awareness,” “Campus Involvement,” and Gender Empowerment.” Eight one-hundred dollar book scholarships were awarded to students along with numerous door prizes.

The Mixer concluded with a certificate and pledge ceremony.


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After competing for the first time at the Southwestern Regional Championships in Savannah, Georgia, the ASU Moot Court has qualified for national competition. Enjoying what can only be considered a tremendously successful outing merely weeks after it was founded, the ASU pairing of Friedric Tarkington and Abram Skarda received an at large bid to attend the ACMA National Championships, held this year at Drake University School of Law in Des Moines, Iowa.

A moot court competition is based upon the presentation of a fictitious case to an appellate court. Pairs of students argue using the rules of the United States Supreme Court. They are required to argue for one side in one round and the opposite side in the next. Moot court simulations teach students to conduct legal research, write a legal argument and then present that argument to a court while being questioned by judges. Usually, law schools students, state court judges and practicing lawyers serve as undergraduate moot court judges.

The competition will consist of a field of 64 teams from all regions of the country including universities such as the University of Louisville, Lyon College, the College of Wooster, the College of the Holy Cross, Texas A&M, University of North Texas, College of New Jersey, SUNY-Albany and California State University at Fullerton.

“I am extremely proud of our team,” said ASU Moot Court coach, Assistant Professor Hans Hacker . “They earned the respect of the teams from other universities. This team worked harder, longer, and smarter than any other I have ever coached.”

The team received funding and support from the Department of Political Science, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Office of Academic Affairs and Research.

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Dr. David W. Blight A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom

Dr. David W. Blight delivered the annual Greenfield Lecture Series October 25, 2007 in the Student Union Auditorium. He discussed the subject of his latest book which concerns the emancipation narratives of Wallace Turnage and John Washington.  With the publication date recently released, we are fortunate to have Dr. Blight here to speak about “ A Slave No More ” in advance of the official book tour.

David W. Blight grew up in Flint, Michigan, and taught high school for seven years before attending the University of Wisconsin, Madison to study for a doctorate in American history.  His academic career has included stints at Harvard, North Central College in Naperville, IL, and Amherst College in Amherst, MA.  He is currently the Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University where he also serves as director of the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.

Dr. Blight has written a number of works, each of which addresses how slavery and the bloody war to end it shaped the country's history and identity. His most famous book is Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001), which earned a number of prizes including the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Lincoln Prize, three awards from the Organization of American Historians, and the Bancroft Prize.  This book presents a new way of understanding the nation's collective response to the war, arguing that, in the interest of reunion, the country ignored the racist underpinnings of the war, thereby leaving a legacy of racial conflict.  Among Dr. Blight's other works are Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory (2004) and Frederick Douglass's Civil War (1989.).  He is also a contributor to A People and a Nation, a widely used college history textbook.

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences hosted its third annual Crime Scene Investigation (CSI: Forensic Science Camp) in June 2007 with two sessions; session I was held June 18-22, and session II, June 25-29. The camp allowed high school participants to learn about collecting and interpreting evidence using hands-on experience dealing with mock crime scenes and evidence. Thirty-five students attended the camp this summer with participants from Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Delaware, Texas, Michigan, and Mississippi. The students worked on a wide variety of activities, including analyzing evidence, simulating an autopsy, and completing paperwork in order to discover what a practicing criminologist does in the field.

Participants were divided into three groups: investigators, a biological team and a physical evidence team. Investigators were assigned the task of working with witnesses and suspects; the physical evidence team identified hair and fingerprint samples; and the biological team analyzed blood samples and other chemical samples. This year's scenario involved finding a “deceased female” body on the shore near the ASU Pavilion. The challenge for the students was to determine where and how she was killed, and to interpret the scenario and evidence in order to solve the crime. The goal of the camp is to help students better understand the process of crime scene investigation and forensic science.

Photo gallery


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Gregory Hansen, English & History
"The Winter Harvest"
February 18, at 2pm, in W 217b
This presentation is a screening of a documentary about the operations of the Bear Creek Ice Company. The video combines historical film footage of the 1920s with oral history interviews to depict the process of cutting ice from northeastern Pennsylvania lakes The video demonstrates how ice was then shipped across the eastern seaboard to supply natural ice prior to the widespread use of electric refrigeration. The presentation will discuss the industry's growth and demise during the 1940s.

Mike Luster, English & Philosophy
"The Arkansas Folklife Program"
March 5, at 2pm, in W 217b
Luster will talk about the work of the Arkansas Folklife Program.

Thurel George (With Patrick Williams, Assistant Professor of Sociology)
"Hardcore Dance: A Ritual"
March 24, at 2pm, in W 217b
George and Williams discuss their research on hardcore dancing and what it means to the people who do it.

Joseph Key, Assistant Professor of History
"Joutel's Journey across Arkansas in 1687"
April 16, at 2pm, in W 217b
In 1687, Henri Joutel, one of the survivor's of La Salle's last expedition, and six companions traveled across Arkansas. His journal reveals the landscape of southern Arkansas, Indian communities, and the cultural frontier Frenchmen had to cross.

Dr. Gregory Hansen, English & History
"From 'Flop- Eared Mule' to 'Annie Seaman's Waltz': Connecting a Fiddler's Repertoire to Social History"
September 25, at 2pm, in W 217b

Dr. Hansen will examine how an old-time fiddler's choice of genres and his repertoire of tunes can be read as resources that connect individual experience with wider patterns of social history.



Marjorie Hunter, Ph.D. Candidate Heritage Studies
"Apron Strings Attached: Dust Bowl Obligations"
October 11, at 3pm, in W 217b

Marjorie Hunter discusses three different women's memoirs of the Dust Bowl.



Dr. Clyde Milner, Director and Professor, Heritage Studies, and Dr. Carol O'Connor, Professor and Associate Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences
"A Big Western Life: The Challenging Biography of Granville Stuart”
October 18, at 3:30pm, in W 206

Drs. Milner and O'Connor are making the final revisions of their jointly written biography. They spent nine months as visiting scholars at Yale in 2006-07 writing a full draft of a book on Granville Stuart that will be published by Oxford University Press will publish.



Erik Gilbert, Professor of History
The Dhow as Cultural Icon"
October 30, at 2pm, in W 217b

Dr. Gilbert examines of the process that transformed dhows (the traditional sailing ships of the western Indian Ocean) from the hated symbols of the slave trade to romanticized icons of cultural heritage.

Thurel George (with Patrick Williams)
"Hardcore Dance: A Ritual"
November 29, at 3:30 pm in IEC 251

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