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Related Link: IUPUI home pageBy Will Fay
Raima Larter is a child of the West, raised in Idaho Falls and a graduate of Montana State University. IU's top-ranked chemistry program brought her to Indiana for her doctoral degree and ultimately to IUPUI, where she has taught for 16 years.
A pure blend of humanist and scientist, Larter was just named associate dean of general education at IUPUI, a new position that seeks to bring uniformity and interdependence to the undergraduate curriculum -- no small task at a university as young as IUPUI, she said. "I see it in the context of building a community of learning at IUPUI . . . it's mostly about faculty development and curriculum development in teams, not isolated from each other, so we can articulate our general education requirements to our students."
At the same time, Larter continues her research in chaos theory, an esoteric field she was on to long before it became popularized in the popular media by books such as Jurassic Park and Lost World, by Michael Crichton.
Q: What is the major direction in your research?
A: I've always been interested in chaos theory. I've worked in that field since before it was called chaos theory.
I was interested in it from the point of view about how living things became chaotic. Chaos is stable and has its own order, but it's not predictable.
Most of my research career has been dedicated to that in science and medicine, but recently I've been extending it into the field of humanities‹the big questions, like "What is life?"
Q: What did you think of the description of chaos theory in the book and the film 'Jurassic Park?'
A: It was totally wrong. It misses the whole point of what is interesting in chaos theory. The point Jurassic Park was making was that if a butterfly flaps its wings, then something terrible can come of that, like a hurricane. But hurricanes are part of nature, and nature is very stable. There is a bigger order that holds it all together. A butterfly can flap is wings and something terrible or wonderful may happen. You never know.
Q: What is your most fulfilling professional achievement?
A: The discovery that I love to teach.
I didn't expect to find myself in love with my students. But that is how it feels. That really is the most fulfilling aspect of my work.
Q: What are you reading now?
A: A Life in School, by Jane Tompkins, who I heard speak at a conference in August called "Teaching from Within." She's a very famous English literature professor who has upset the academic world a lot by questioning along the lines of whether we value the inner lives of our students and ourselves. Can we teach students if we don't value them as whole human beings?
Q: What teacher influenced you most?
A: My high school English teacher, Mrs. Kimbro. She taught me how to keep a journal, which really has developed this inner life. So I've become a writer because of that. She valued all of our inner lives, and that was a new experience for me.
Q: What is your favorite chemical?
A: Water. Water is every chemist's favorite chemical -- water is so simple in structure, but it is the basis of life. I used to have another favorite one, peroxidase enzyme -- it's extracted from horseradish -- but I studied it for 16 years and I am sick to death of it.