National Exposure

The office of DePauw professor Dr. Matt Hertenstein, right, turned into a studio for a time on Wednesday afternoon, as he was interviewed for NBC's Today regarding his research on smiles and divorce. The crew in Hertenstein's office is composed of (from left) freelance cinematographer Greg Williams and freelance producer Ted Elbert. As published in the journal Motivation and Emotion, a team of researchers that included Hertenstein, an alumna and two DePauw students found that individuals who displayed big smiles in their college yearbook photos had lower rates of divorce than those who didn't smile as much. The item first appeared Tuesday in British media outlets and is now being carried by news organizations worldwide, including United Press International and Yahoo!. The coverage the piece had already received had Hertenstein's inbox inundated with e-mails Wednesday morning -- some favorable, some not-so-favorable. "It's interesting to get these emails and decide which ones I'm going to respond to," Hertenstein said. The Today piece was scheduled to appear on Thursday morning's program.