This summer Professor Annie Menzel and I researched disparities in infant mortality between Black and White child bearers using the lenses of epigenetics and biopolitics as our primary frameworks of analysis. This project began as an expansion of professor Menzel’s dissertation The Political Life of Black Infant Mortality and grew into a wide-reaching research project to further explore the political and theoretical implications of epigenetic lab work, as well as public health campaigns that specifically address birth rate disparities. Many of the aforementioned public health campaigns target the individual health choices and opportunities of mainly Black, pregnant child bearers to attempt to narrow birth rate disparities. Our project attempts to explain these disparities within the context of changes in the epigenome that occur due to the stress of racism over a Black child bearers’ life course. Moreover, our project aimed to explain a need to move discourse away from blaming these infant mortality disparities on the individualized actions of Black child bearers by showing the overwhelming effects of racism’s stress on the body.

One of the CDC’s campaigns that we critique in our project

Beginning the summer by contacting labs, reading methods papers, and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the somewhat discrete science of epigenetics, I spent the bulk of the summer connecting this ‘hard science’ research to the ‘social science’ framework professor Menzel and I used to conduct our research. This biopolitical framework primarily credited to the philosopher Michel Foucault, allowed us to contextualize the Black infant mortality in the transgenerational legacies of chattel slavery and begin to create a genealogy of the disparities in infant mortality that we address in our work.

Using epigenetic research to examine the effects of racism can lead toward the danger of readers thinking we are attempting to prove, or even assume, any biological truth to the concept of ‘race’. To the contrary, my ‘take-away’ from our research is that epigenetics allow us to see the impact of racism in the body without dangerously and falsely suggesting any inherent racial difference. Professor Menzel and I are excited to turn this extensive research into a conference paper that we will present to the American Political Science Association during their annual conference in early September. Thank you!

Indirect costs for charities are the costs that are not directly related to their specific projects, including administration, personnel, facilities etc. They are necessary costs for the operation of charities, yet it is popular for donors to demand low indirect cost ratio for the money they donate. This summer I worked with Professor Benjamin Ho on a research project about the factors that influence charities’ indirect costs and indirect cost restrictions government imposes when it issues new grants to charities.

Working from a model set up by Baran, we tested three interesting propositions of the model using data provided by Charity Navigator. The first proposition states that if a charity receives more grants from the government, its indirect cost ratio will be lower. However, the regression results suggest the contrary (r = 0.773). The percentage of government grants and indirect cost ratio are positively correlated , as shown below. This is possible because if the government likes a charity, it is likely to grant more funds to the charity, and at the same time, allow more money to be spent on administration and facilities to help the organization grow. The correlation coefficient is influenced by levels of government grants and categories that charities belong to.

The second proposition states that when people care more about the charity, the indirect cost ratio is higher. We quantify how much people care about the charity using the number of page views of the charity on Charity Navigator. The regression result suggests that page view and indirect cost ratio are positively correlated (r = 0.0149), which is consistent with the model. To attract more attention from the public, the charity might spend more on building up public image, therefore it has higher indirect costs.

The last proposition states that when people care more about the charity, government is willing to set higher indirect cost restriction on the charity. In order to let the most-cared charities grow, government might allow the charities to spend more on their own development. Two findings from a GAO (Government Accountability Office) report are consistent with the proposition. The related statistics are summarized in the table below.

The GAO report first suggests that universities in the Northeast area have higher indirect costs restriction, while our data set shows that those universities get more attention from people than the others (p-value of 0.007). The second finding from the GAO report suggests that universities with higher research volume have higher indirect cost restrictions, and our data shows that people care more about universities with higher research volume.

In this project, my major role was to clean up data and perform analysis using STATA to test the propositions. I also spent time researching relevant data that were not included in the data set and could not be directly obtained from online databases. To carry the project forward, in the coming semesters, I am going to further test the results we found this summer, and form explanations for the patterns we see.

This summer, I worked with Professor Christine Howlett on researching treble choir repertoire, developing curriculums to teach said repertoire and music theory/vocal musicianship to young musicians, and studying choir management software solutions.  I also had the opportunity to travel to two conferences at Yale University and Westminster Choir College to learn more about the ways choral music can transform lives.  The capstone experience of my summer was co-conducting and teaching at the Cappella Festiva Treble Choir Summer Choral Festival, a one week music program for singers ages 10-18.

Assembling a library of new treble choir repertoire was my first task.  When researching choral music, one must be diligent in ensuring that they are choosing pieces that are interesting, varied in terms of genre, time period, accompaniment, tonality, tempo, etc., and accessible for the ensemble that is being programmed for (four vocal parts vs. two, for example).  I logged many hours on the web and had great resources from music websites such as JWPepper and Graphite Publishing.  Below are some of our newfound favorite pieces (many of which we programmed for the aforementioned Summer Choral Festival):

A small sampling of our favorites from treble choir repertoire research.

Having lots of new music to program and perform is crucial to staying relevant and successful in music.  But, equally important is having a solid curriculum in place to teach the musicianship skills that are vital to achievement with the music.  I compiled many methods that music educators employ in their pedagogies.  Professor Howlett and I then chose the strategies that we felt would affect most immediate change in young singers and created a curriculum centered around them to be used in the Summer Choral Festival.  The strategies that we chose included the use of body percussion (to help singers internalize rhythm and pulse), solfège scales and syllables, or “do re mi fa sol la ti do” as many know it (helps improve accuracy of pitch and tuning; part of the “Kodály Method”), and teaching rounds and canons (quickly develops independence of parts and aural skills necessary for accurate rhythm and harmony).

Guide to solfège hand symbols in Kodály Method of music pedagogy.

The administrative tasks that a conductor must perform are fundamental in directing a successful choral ensemble.  Professor Howlett and I researched multiple online choral management softwares that provide a portable platform for choral administration.  They included Groupanizer, Chorus Connection, and HarmonySite.  These platforms are extremely complex and powerful, so we spent quite a bit of time analyzing and studying their functionality.  We compared their handling of event planning and organization, membership management, invoicing options, learning file upload capabilities, communication systems, and even visual representations with riser placements of singers at concerts (which has a large impact in the overall sound).

Landing page of our favorite choir management platform that we researched, HarmonySite.

In June, I traveled to Yale University to attend a conference featuring a symposium titled “Choirs Transforming Lives.” Hosted by the Yale International Choral Festival and the Connecticut American Choral Directors’ Association, the symposium featured many notable guest panelists that spoke about their experiences and successes in various choral music fields.  One of the panelists was a music therapist who shared her methods of musical pedagogy in the context of young people with special needs.  Another was a music scholar who spoke about the implications of choral music in political and socioeconomic contexts and the ways in which society is making use of the dissemination and teaching of song.  I also traveled to Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ to attend a workshop in choral conducting.  I was introduced to even more excellent repertoire and theory techniques and learned how vital the conductor’s pedagogy and methods are in the success of the ensemble.

Fellow music students and educators attending the conference at Westminster Choir College.

I had the privilege of being a part of an incredible practical application experience during the final week of my Ford project.  I used all the knowledge that I obtained from summer research to conduct and teach music theory/vocal musicianship at the Cappella Festiva Treble Choir Summer Choral Festival.  Along with Professor Howlett, I worked with a talented and driven group of 27 young musicians over the week and saw immediate and inspiring change right before my eyes.  The students went from a group of strangers on Day 1 to a bonded and sonorous choir with incredible artistry by the final concert at Vassar on Day 6.  I had never worked with an ensemble in the age range of 10-18 nor one with only treble voices.  But with the research and preparation I had conducted in the weeks prior, I was able to adapt to the singers and provide them with a fulfilling and fun experience both in and outside of rehearsals.

Summer Choral Festival banner group project.

Nick Ruggeri ’18 (me) teaching vocal musicianship.

Daily choral rehearsals – Professor Howlett teaching a new piece.

A group of campers posing with me at the final concert.

There are many facets of choral music that work together behind the scenes of the ensemble that sings beautifully at their performance.  Careful consideration of all of them is what makes the music happen on stage.  Being a part of a choir is being a part of something bigger than oneself – and that is magic.

Nick Ruggeri ’18

In the introduction to elite New Englander Christiana Holmes Tillson’s account of her experiences in Illinois in the early 1870s, historical novelist Emerson Hough challenges the conventional paragon of Western expansion characterized by “the long-haired, fringed-legging man riding a raw-boned pony.”[1] Instead, Hough identifies “the gaunt and sad-faced woman sitting on the front seat of the wagon” as the “chief figure of the American West.”[2] He goes on to challenge our collective memory of the Western woman in her sunbonnet and profoundly asks, “Who has written her story? Who has painted her picture?”[3]

Hough’s critical questions perceptively frame my role in Professor Rebecca Edwards’s ongoing research on the significance of women’s fertility and reproduction in U.S. electoral politics, territorial expansion, and conquest. For four weeks this summer I researched Western narratives and diaries to better understand the ways in which men and women conceived of frontier motherhood and to paint a collective portrait of these frontier mothers from their own perspectives. I also assisted Professor Edwards in compiling and analyzing U.S. Census data and large families’ genealogical records to identify trends and patterns in family size, literacy rates, and other pertinent information.

Census and Genealogical Records: Professor Edwards and I combed through the 1900 U.S. Census and compiled data on mothers in various Southwestern counties. Our main focus was compiling information on families in a Southern frontier county to gain a better understanding of the size, make-up, and social status of this specific subset of Southwestern families. The trends that we identified illuminate the drastically differential experiences that mothers at the time could have had depending on a variety of factors, including age, race, literacy, and class. The existence of women who bore over ten children was not all that uncommon, yet the child survival rates at this time were abysmal, particularly for African-American children. For example, the average child survival rate of African-American mothers born before 1845 was only 39%, while the average child survival rate for white mothers who bore fourteen children in their lifetime was closer to 64%. As evidenced in women’s narratives, the phenomenon of extremely large families and shockingly high birth rates corresponded with a relatively high child mortality rate; although almost every woman’s diary from the time is replete with mentions of family members and friends giving birth, passages dedicated to the untimely deaths of these children are almost as frequent.

Women’s Narratives: As the Census and genealogical data demonstrate, women in the early to mid-nineteenth century, particularly Southern women, routinely married at a very young age and were thus able to start their childbearing careers quite early on. Early marriages were a common theme in women’s reminisces and diaries, yet not all women accepted this social custom. Elvina Apperson Fellows, born in Missouri in 1837, married a forty-four year old man named Julius Thomas in 1851 soon after she arrived in Oregon at the behest of her mother. She was just fourteen years old at the time. As Fellows describes, “What could a girl of 14 do to protect herself from a man of 44, particularly if he drank most of the time, as my husband did?”[4] Sarah Haynsworth Gayle, a mother of six who moved to Alabama in the early 19^th century, expressed similar sentiments on such early marriages. She vehemently opposed the marriages of young teenage girls and described how “Old Dr. Merriwether has taken a third wife, having buried his last about eight months ago – he is seventy seven & she seventeen… There is something really shocking in the idea; something wrong too, for a good virtuous girl would have encountered poverty in its most hidious [sic] form, rather than have made the sacrifice so repugnant to nature and to reason.”[5] In addition to the controversial topic of teenage marriage, Gayle’s journal is preoccupied with the social visits of friends and family members. Gayle was subsumed in a network of mothers who provided advice and assistance in the details of bearing and raising children, as well as consoling figures when these children died in infancy.

John Molstad and his wife Petronelle Rosedahl Molstad moved from Norway to Dakota Territory in the late 1800s. Petronelle had already birthed five children in Norway and went on to birth six more after arriving in pioneer territory, all of whom helped maintain the family’s 160 acres of land. Ten of the Molstad children are pictured above with their parents. Source: www.marisaannebenson.com/petramolstad.html.

Because many women married at such a young age, the size of frontier families often grew to be quite large in a relatively short period of time. In collecting the Census and genealogical data, it was not uncommon to come across women who had birthed over six, eight, or ten children. In Chicot County, Arkansas, we identified twenty-seven women, all African-American, who bore sixteen or more children, including two who were mothers of twenty and one who bore twenty-three.

Christina Holmes Tillson, an elite New Englander who moved with her husband to Illinois, described the difficulties of raising even a few children on the frontier. She frequently described how fatigued she was at raising her handful of children without any help. The particular difficulties and conditions of frontier life certainly took its toll on pioneer mothers.

This devastating toll that motherhood could have on women of the frontier generation was perhaps no more evident than in the story of Henriette “Jette” Bruns, a native German who immigrated to Upper Louisiana with her family in 1835. Jette birthed eleven children in her lifetime, yet five died in childhood. Jette’s life in America was extremely challenging and disheartening. These sentiments are perhaps best summed up in Jette’s declaration that “it is no fun to represent cook, nursemaid, and housewife in one person.”[6] These difficulties that frontier women experienced in their attempts at inhabiting so many roles and managing the myriad of responsibilities that accompany childcare were often exacerbated by the frequent occurrences of various maladies and diseases. In 1841, one of Jette’s older children, Bruns, returned from a trip to St. Louis with dysentery. Jette described how “In a few days all of our children were sick. Hermann survived the illness, but the little ones! Johanna died on the 13^th of September, Max on the 19^th of September, and the babe in arms, little Rudolph, followed on the 2d [sic] of October. With all of them the last words and the dying glance was ‘Mother!’”[7] Jette’s three youngest children therefore died within three weeks of each other. The youngest, Rudolph, was not even a year old. In light of these devastating events, Jette wrote to her brother that he “would be disappointed in me, and you would have only sad memories when I had left you again. There is none of the youthful freshness left, but instead a stiff, sad, indifferent figure, without manners, without interests, with aged features, a mouth without teeth.”[8] Jette’s story, although quite extreme, encapsulates the complex of difficulties, disappointments, and hardships that frontier women often faced.

[1] Milo Milton Quaife, introduction to A Woman’s Story of Pioneer Illinois, by Christiana Holmes Tillson (Chicago: The Lakeside Press), xvi.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Fred Lockley, Conversations with Pioneer Women, ed. by Mike Helm (Eugene: Rainy Day Press, 1981), 65.

[5] The Journal of Sarah Haynsworth Gayle, 1827-1835: A Substitute for Social Intercourse, ed. By Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins and Ruth Smith Truss (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2013), 47-48.

[6] Hold Dear, As Always: Jette, A German Immigrant Life in Letters, ed. By Adolf E. Schroeder and Carla Schulz-Geisberg (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1988), 79.

[7] Ibid, 111.

[8] Ibid. 157.