Professor Tracey Holland, Jonan Kiang ’21, Sofia Rao ’22, International Studies

The basis of this Ford project was the four films from Professor Tracey Holland’s class, Hello Dear Enemy, specifically For Sama, Of Fathers and Sons, The Distant Barking of Dogs, and Colors of the Mountains. The first two of these are located in Aleppo and Northwest Syria respectively during the Syrian Civil War (2011-present), while the third is located in Hnutove near the frontline of the War in Donbass (2014-present), and the fourth in Montes de Maria region of Colombia during the Colombian Conflict (1964-present). Considering the emerging scholarship on children’s rights and agencies, our goal was to evaluate the topic of children’s agency beyond the current discourse of childhood by bringing in hermeneutical methods of analysis.

We began by researching the backgrounds of the films and drafting brief summaries of them. For a good while, we did not fully close in on our topic yet, but after researching dozens of readings and journal articles, we were able to narrow down and transform the vastness of information we were facing to a solid approach and argument. We knew that children were not simply incomplete adults and rather individuals who were agentic, but we needed to demonstrate that somehow. By the end of Week Five, we each probably watched each of the films between three to four times, and we marked more than 130 timestamps within these films that demonstrated children and their lived experiences in a way that contradicted the dominant childhood identity, i.e. innocent victims, and connected it to relevant literature.

Due to the complexity of the topic of children’s rights, our sources came to include a myriad of different fields: political theory, psychology, sociology, gender studies, geography, and international politics. All these would fit into the jigsaw puzzle of what childhood meant on top of and beyond constructed innocence and victimhood.

Professor Ah-Young Song & Yvonne Hunter ’21, Education Department

This summer, Professor Song and I built two courses for an American school in Kuwait, focusing on spatial justice, community engagement, and developing critical literacy skills to be used for a future research project with international youth. These courses were designed to to support the academic and personal development of the students to prepare them for college or post-secondary life in the USA. 

For our first curriculum, I researched five topics: public and private space, gendered space, architecture, digital space, and community care. Each topic became the guiding theme for each day of the program, tying together class activities ranging from reimagining the social rules of local sites to pinpointing possible accessibility improvements, and examining how the digital world leaks into reality. The spatial justice course culminates in a multimodal project, in which students report on a current issue in their community through a critical spatial lens.

Our second curriculum is designed to build upon the understandings constructed in the first year, and is centered around the practice of world-building. Each day focuses on a particular field—medicine, advertising, urban planning, journalism, and technology—and analyzes it from the creator and consumer perspective. Students are challenged to reimagine this field in their own fictitious world, which becomes progressively more developed throughout the program. The concluding project presents their world and the political and social forces at play within it.

 I also reviewed articles from Professor Song’s dissertation on a Brooklyn out-of-school literacy program, providing comments to prepare future manuscripts for journal submissions. I compiled supplementary articles relevant to each chapter from prominent education journals such as Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy and Review of Research in Education.

A slide from our Architecture lesson

A slide from our Gendered Spaces lesson

First half of the Spatial Justice curriculum

Yixiao (Carl) Cao ’22 and Professor Esteban Argudo (Economics Department)

This summer, I worked with Professor Argudo and Anish Kumthekar ’22 to assess the impact of the redistributive policies implemented in Ecuador under Rafael Correa’s Citizen Revolution (2009-2013). The main focus in the past two months is to collect and examine the data to get a comprehensive and quantitative understanding of the socio-economic progress in Ecuador during the period of interest. 

As the graph demonstrates, the sampling of each period varies. We’ve identified three major changes:

1. March and September surveys pre-2014 only cover urban areas, while post-2014 all the surveys include both urban and rural areas
2. The Galapagos Islands are included since 2014
3. There’s a major sampling expansion in 2014.

The first two could be dealt with easily through some cleaning, however, the third one is of major concern.

We used diff-in-diffs regressions to check if the sampling change (i.e. the “treatment”) has caused any variations in the demographic representation of the survey. We found the parallel control assumption to be held in pre-treatment periods for both income (ingrl) and age (p03) :

Then we ran the regression and found a significant coefficient (p-value = 0.033) on the interaction term. This suggests that the sampling expansion in 2014 is causing variations in the representation of the survey and has to be controlled for in our future analysis.

Besides the data analysis work, we also read papers about the HANK model and the Ecuadorian economy. This project helped me learn how to think about and approach research questions independently and critically, as well as gain valuable skills in R and Python programming. For the rest of the summer and next semester, we will continue to do formal analysis on the data, build the model, calibrate it with the data, and finally evaluate the impact of the economic policies.

(credit: Yixiao (Carl) Cao; from top left: Anish Kumthekar’22, Yixiao (Carl) Cao’22, Professor Esteban Argudo)

(credit: Yixiao (Carl) Cao; Carl and Anish working together on a debugging process)

Professor Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert and Kendal Simmons ‘23, Hispanic Studies Department

This summer I had the pleasure of working with Professor Paravisini-Gebert on the Oviedo Project. The goal of this project is to translate Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s Historia general y natural de las Indias or General and Natural History of the Indies. During the previous four semesters, students (including me) translated chapters that now need to be checked, edited, and then uploaded to the project’s website. My job this summer mainly focused on organizing those chapters, updating the website, and preparing for more chapters to be translated in the upcoming school year. I also got to try my hand at editing and I had the opportunity to take part in the overall decision-making process. 

The front page of the website.

One of the most rewarding parts of my job was looking for antique images and prints that accompanied each of the chapters I uploaded. By doing this, I learned about the flora, fauna, and political climate of colonial Latin America, right from primary sources. These images also give the Oviedo project a sense of both authenticity and creativity that I think perfectly reflects the personalities of the students who completed these translations.

With guidance and insight from Professor Paravisini-Gebert, I also learned about the translation process as a whole. For example, with so many chapters and so many students translating Oviedo’s work, certain steps need to be taken to maintain a sense of consistency. It raises questions like: How do we translate certain words? Do we leave them in Spanish to maintain authenticity and cultural significance? Or do we find an English equivalent that is more recognizable and easier for readers to digest? To answer these questions, we met several times with other members of the Oviedo team over Zoom, which allowed me to better understand the importance of everyone’s individual role in a project in such a large and complex project. 

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed working on the Oviedo Project under Professor Paravisini-Gebert. It is so exciting to see how much we were able to complete this summer and, even though there remains much to do this coming year, I cannot wait to see how it all unfolds!

Alice Aldoukhov ‘22, Daria Lochoshvili ‘22, and Professor Dara Greenwood, Psychology Department

This summer I worked under Professor Greenwood’s guidance to start compiling materials for a Media Psychology textbook that she will be writing. I worked alongside another student, Dasha Lochoshvili, and we decided that each of us will review a topic every two weeks so that at the end of the month we would have four topic areas covered between the two of us. I chose to focus on media violence and parasocial relationships with media characters.

I used the PsycInfo database for the majority of my research.

I began by doing some background reading on the theories in media psychology to have a better understanding of the foundations before delving into the current literature. Using databases like PsychInfo and Communication and Mass Media Complete, I searched for all the articles published over the past 5 years on my chosen topics. I then compiled a few dozen of the most relevant. I considered the patterns that emerged in the literature, and organized what I found into categories such as “video games” and “real world vs fictional violence” for media violence, and “emotional wellbeing” and “gender” for parasocial relationships. Then I wrote a literature review, outlining what I had learned through my research – from relevant theories, to summaries of the studies, to an overview of the popular methodologies. I also listed some suggestions for studies that could have “spotlight” features in the textbook. I repeated this process in the second half of the program with the literature on parasocial relationships with media characters. These literature reviews are meant to serve Professor Greenwood as she writes the textbook, and I hope to keep assisting her research in the future.

As part of my work, I got to follow my interests and read the most fascinating articles.

Since its outbreak in China at the end of 2019, the COVID-19 Pandemic has been more than a public health issue, but rather, a highly political one. For us, who witnessed the situation escalate and were involved in the pandemic, however remotely, this Ford Scholar project, led by Professor Fubing Su, is significant at both the academic and personal levels. Living with and through COVID-19, we aimed to analyze the pandemic as a case study to gain a deeper understanding of politics in today’s China.

(From left to right: Kaiqing Su, Yinguang Zhao, Photo by Yijia Hu)

The project is composed of three parts. In the first week, we read through and collected a wide range of primary sources and commentary articles on the coronavirus outbreak, prevention, and control in China. We organized them into different themes–such as media, propaganda, civil society, nationalism, memory, central-local government relations, etc. Based on the categorization, we then picked out key events and representational materials to demonstrate the diverse layers of Chinese politics. For example, Professor Su explored the realm of civil society in China through the actions taken by state-controlled GONGOs, partially autonomous NGOs, and individual volunteers; Yinguang studied the comments under Fang Fang and Dr. Li Wenliang’s Weibo–social media accounts of two of the most significant figures during the epidemic–to understand how Chinese people think about freedom of speech, government accountability, and patriotism; Kaiqing analyzed the differences between the official and grassroots timelines, contrasting the two kinds of “memories” constructed. Together, we hope to provide a more nuanced picture of the state, the government, and the people in contemporary China.

(A Screenshot of the Reader of Chinese Politics that We Created)

(A Screenshot of our GitHub Site)

Our individual research projects are ongoing ones, and this summer was a good starting point for us to recollect and reflect on the coronavirus outbreak in China. The virus might be gone someday, but the lessons from this “case study” will remain as open doors.

(Top left: Prof. Su, top right: Yinguang Zhao, lower middle: Kaiqing Su)

—-By Kaiqing Su ’21 and Yinguang Zhao ’23, July, 2020.

Reading outside in my hometown of San Miguel, Mexico

In a project that combined research and production, Professor Hacthoun and I worked over the summer on preparing class material focusing on literary self-portraits. Literary self-portraits are a tradition going back hundreds of years in Hispanic literature; authors introduce themselves to the readers, describing their physical, mental, or emotional qualities, often times a combination of the three. Perhaps the most iconic literary self-portrait is Miguel de Cervantes, who in his collection Novelas ejemplares described in words a portrait of himself.

An example of the informational sheets that accompany the self-portraits

It doesn’t start or stop with Cervantes. Following the same tradition, many authors throughout the ages and throughout the world wrote self-portraits of themselves. In the first part of the project, I collected as many self-portraits as I could, anything from poems about facial features to essays meditating on personality. After collecting a large number of them, Professor Hacthoun and I came together to discuss and select those that students could take advantage of the most.

We then wrote small commentaries for each, pointing out different author’s methods of self-representation and other such notes. I collected the self-portraits and commentaries into a document with information about the author, the context of the self-portraits, and a glossary to be published online for students to access.

At my work desk

Throughout the project I learned about a lot about human’s need to explain themselves to each other and to themselves, as well as various research skills. Literary self-portraits are a way of exploring one’s own identity and even, in a way, fashioning it. The research we conducted opened an avenue for teaching that not only includes tools like vocabulary, history, and syntax, but also a way for students to explore and fashion their own identities.

–Laila Bárcenas Meade, July 2020

Professor Nancy Bisaha (History Department), Professor Christopher Smart (Chemistry Department), and John Mahoney ‘22

This summer I worked with Professor Bisaha and Professor Smart to collect and review sources for their course Medieval Science and Technology. The interdisciplinary course explores how technologies and the intellectual antecedents of modern science developed in the period from 500 to 1500 CE, with a concentration on how those technologies and epistemologies influenced, and were influenced by, their socio-historical contexts. While the course focuses on Europe, my mentors asked me to expand the geographic scope of the course material to illuminate the cross-cultural origins of certain technologies and provide comparative examples of technological development in non-European societies. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the course, these sources had to be both accessible to students of disparate academic backgrounds and representative of various intellectual disciplines.

My primary task was researching and compiling an annotated bibliography. I expanded the source material on subjects, including gunpowder technology and medicine, which were already represented in the course, and collected sources on new subjects, like metallurgy. I also proposed combinations of readings for class modules as well as a lab module on the usage of astrolabes.  

While I thoroughly enjoyed the research, I struggled with two problems: an unfamiliarity with digital research and difficulty focusing my research. Both were eventually solved through consultations with my mentors and Vassar College librarians, who introduced me to new online resources and helped me concentrate my research. By the end of the program, I emerged with a new appreciation for the powers of online research, as well as a newfound excitement for interdisciplinary research. As a final cap to my Ford Scholarship, I am preparing a subject and readings for a class module that I will lead when the course is taught this spring.  

While I spent most of my time working sitting at this desk, my real workplace was online

I placed the sources that seemed most appropriate as class readings on a shared Moodle page

Other, more arcane sources were put into annotated bibliographies organized by subject

Professor Qi Ge and Alex Eisert ’22, Economics Department

This summer, I was privileged to work on a project examining competitive balance and vertical integration in sports with Professor Ge. Specifically, we looked into the relationship between major (MLB) and minor (MiLB) league baseball. Hailing from New York, I am a lifelong Yankees (MLB) fan, and growing up, I also frequented Hudson Valley Renegades’ (MiLB) games during my summers in Dutchess County.

Professor Ge and I hard at work over Zoom.

I donned a Renegades’ hat while holding up a picture of logos of the minor league teams with my favorite names.

A feeder or minor league is a lower-level, but still professional-grade entity that athletes usually participate in before moving to the highest level (or major league). The more that a sport’s minor leagues are tied to its major league, the more that major league can be said to have engaged in vertical integration; the minor leagues operate as a part of the supply chain for the majors. No such system is as expansive and complex, and perhaps as tightly integrated, like that of Organized Baseball.

My first task was to explore the relationship between MLB and MiLB throughout the years with a comprehensive literature review. 1921 marked the first year that MLB teams could have ownership stakes in minor league teams, and they immediately began buying up minor league teams as a place to put young ballplayers, signed for cheap, stashing them until they were ready for the major leagues.

My main task was to gather data on which MiLB teams have been MLB-owned, and on the performance of minor league teams throughout the years. We will ultimately use these datasets to look into the effects that MLB ownership has on league-wide competitive balance for the two highest levels of the minor leagues, AA and AAA.

We learned that, as of today, every AA and AAA team has at least some ties to a major league team, hence the one-to-one ratio.