News

James David Christie

The College of the Holy Cross will hold a Jesuit Heritage Concert of Baroque Music on Sunday, May 1 at 3 p.m. in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.  The concert, which is part of the Holy Cross Chapel Artists’ Series, is free and open to the public.  St. Joseph Memorial Chapel is handicap accessible.

The Holy Cross Schola Cantorum will perform with the Ensemble Abendmusik, one of Boston’s premier period instrument orchestras and vocal soloists, for a program of Baroque sacred works by Kapsberger, Vittoria, Carissimi, Charpentier, Byrd, Zelenka, and Zipoli, who wrote the songs for Jesuit churches throughout Europe and South America.  The ensembles will perform under the direction of James David Christie, distinguished artist-in-residence and director of Schola Cantorum at Holy Cross.

In addition, Jennifer McPherson, the Holy Cross organ scholar for the class of 2013, will perform organ works by the great Italian composer Rev. Domenico Zipoli, S.J., who worked in the Jesuit reductions of South America until his death. 

The Holy Cross Schola Cantorum is a chamber choir of 20 voices, and is one of the two chapel choirs at Holy Cross.  The choir specializes in singing Gregorian chants and the great choral masterpieces of the Roman Catholic Church. 

For more information about any of the performances in the Chapel Artists’ Series, please call the music department at (508) 793-2296, or visit the department’s website at: academics.holycross.edu/music

Hogwarts

The College of the Holy Cross will present “Hogwarts at Holy Cross: Snape’s Dungeon” on Sunday, May 1 from 6- 8 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom.  Designed for the children of Worcester, the event will feature hands-on chemistry experiments and a unique and interactive presentation by Holy Cross faculty and students. “Hogwarts at Holy Cross” is free, open to the public and appropriate for children in pre-K through grade eight.

In its 13th year, the Hogwarts event is organized by the Holy Cross Science Ambassadors with the goal of making science fun for children of all ages.  The theme of the May 1 event is “Snape’s Dungeon,” modeled after the “potions” classes offered at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter series. 

Holy Cross student and faculty presenters will be dressed in wizard attire and will be conducting ‘potions’ chemistry experiments that include objects changing color, fizzling, and sparking.  Children are encouraged to dress up for the evening of ‘magical’ science experimentation. 

The Science Ambassadors are a group of over 60 Holy Cross students who work with local children to develop an interest in the sciences. They put on science shows for children of all ages throughout the year, both at community schools and at Holy Cross. Hogwarts is the largest and most popular of the events.

Greece

The College of the Holy Cross will hold the 39th Classics Day on Thursday, April 14. The day features a series of events relating to the study of Roman culture, and is designed to familiarize students with the Holy Cross classics departments, its faculty, and current students.

This year nearly 600 students from 20 high schools all over New England have registered for the event.  Participating high schools include: Arlington Catholic High School, Boston College High School, Classical High School (Providence, R.I.), Doherty Memorial High School (Worcester), Holyoke High School, Hopkinton High School, Littleton High School, Newman High School (Boston), North Middlesex Regional High School (Townsend), Northbridge High School, Portsmouth Abbey (Portsmouth, R.I.), St. Bernard’s (Fitchburg), St. Sebastian’s School (Needham), and Wachusett Regional High School (Holden). 

The schedule of events is as follows:

• Registration
  9 – 9:30 a.m., Hogan 3rd Floor Lobby
• Welcoming Address
  9:30 – 9:45 a.m., Hogan Ballroom
• Upper and Lower Divisions Certamen
  10 – 11 a.m., rooms to be assigned
  This year there will be approximately 36 Lower Division Certamen teams and 27 Upper Division teams.  Certamen is Latin for “competition.” Student teams will compete College Bowl style, answering questions concerning Roman history, mythology, culture and the Latin language.
• Costume Contest
  10 – 11 a.m., Hogan Ballroom
  Students dress as any person, god, goddess, or object from Ancient Roman or Greek society and are judged on creativity, presentation, and knowledge of character.  There will be over 90 participants in the contest.
• Chariot Race
  11 – 11:30 a.m., Hart Center
  Student teams build their own chariots.  This year there will be approximately 25 teams, and each team consists of a rider and student “horses.”
• Lunch
  11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., Kimball Dining Hall
• Final Round Certamen
  12:30 – 1:30 p.m., Hogan Ballroom
• Awards  Presentation
  1:30 – 1:45 p.m., Hogan Ballroom

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Holy Cross departments of theatre and music present their famed Balinese gamelan orchestra, Gamelan Gita Sari, under the directorship of visiting fellow in Balinese performing arts, I Wayan Dibia, in concert on April 27 at 8 p.m. in the Brooks Concert Hall. These semi-annual concerts, free and open to the public, are routinely standing room only and provide for a thrilling evening of Balinese music and dance. Special guest artists will include Ni Made Wiratini, I Nyoman Spatanyana, Ida Ayu Ari Candrawati, Putu Bagus Krisna Saptanyana, Kadek Bayu Saptanyana, and Cynthia Laksawana.

Professor Dibia will be conducting his last concert here at Holy Cross, as his tenure as visiting fellow will end this summer.

Gamelan Gita Sari was founded in 1999. Gita Sari translates as “the essence of song.” The company is composed entirely of students and faculty from the College. The group performs on its Gong Kebyar gamelan, built for Holy Cross in 1998 by master Balinese craftsman Pande Made Sukerta. Following a blessing ceremony in Mengwitani, the gamelan was shipped to Massachusetts, where a second ceremony was conducted in July 1999. This coincided with Holy Cross being awarded a Henry Luce Foundation Grant to fund a Balinese scholar-artist-in-residence for four years.

Gamelan Gita Sari has performed at Brown University, at Wesleyan University, for the New Hampshire Humanities Council, and for the conference Continuities and Change: A Celebration of Balinese Music, Theatre and Dance at Holy Cross, as well as holding two concerts a year at Holy Cross. Members of the ensemble have played and danced at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bard College.

Professor Dibia is one of the world’s most distinguished performers, composers, and choreographers of Balinese music and dance. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA and has held a professorship in Balinese choreography at the prestigious National College of Indonesian Arts in Denpasar, Bali. He is the author of Kecak: The Balinese Vocal Change of Bali and the seminal text and guidebook, Balinese Dance, Drama, and Music. He is a member of the Bali Art Council and the Society of Indonesian Performing Arts. He has performed in a variety of international tours in Australia, Europe, and the United States.

For more information about the concert and Gamelan Gita Sari, contact Joe Mader at 508-793-3490.

Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J.

The New England Province of Jesuits will present the Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam Award (AMDG) to Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., president of the College of the Holy Cross from 1970-94, at the 11th annual Jesuit GALA on Tuesday, April 12 at 6:30 p.m. at the Marriott Copley Place, Boston.  The AMDG Award honors those who selflessly give of themselves for the greater glory of God. 

In addition to Fr. Brooks, Rev. Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., president of Fairfield University from 1979-2004, and Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J., president of Boston College from 1972-96, will also receive AMDG Awards at this year’s GALA.  Together, the three honorees have served the Society of Jesus as “outstanding educational leaders” for 75 years.  

The 11th annual Jesuit GALA raises funds to support the formation and care of Jesuits and the ministries and apostolic works of the Province.

Fr. Brooks joined the Holy Cross faculty in 1963 and was appointed vice president and dean of the College in 1968. Just two years later, he was named the 25th president of Holy Cross. During his tenure as president, Fr. Brooks oversaw the College’s transition to coeducation, an increase in the College’s endowment, 23 years of balanced budgets, and the development of Holy Cross into a nationally recognized liberal arts institution of the highest reputation. Fr. Brooks currently works in the Development Office.
 

About the New England Province of Jesuits:
The New England Province of the Society of Jesus consists of more than 300 Jesuits serving the Church in educational, pastoral and spiritual ministries throughout the six New England states.  Jesuits minister in parishes and as chaplains in prisons, hospitals, nursing homes and the military throughout New England and provide retreats and spiritual direction. Educational ministries include two middle schools, three high schools and three universities. In addition, the Province provides spiritual and educational formation for young Jesuits, and provides for the needs of senior Jesuits at Campion Center in Weston. To learn more about the New England Province, please visit www.sjnen.org and follow JesuitNE on Twitter. For more information on the Society of Jesus, the world’s largest religious order of priests and brothers, visit www.sjweb.info.

Dogs

According to a recent study by Abby Drake, Ph.D., a research assistant in the biology department at the College of the Holy Cross, the evolution of man’s best friend—the domestic dog—is unique to that of wolves.

For a long time, dogs were viewed as “juvenile” wolves, meaning a dog’s development did not advance as far as a wolf’s development, from an evolutionary standpoint, says Drake. This seemed to be reinforced by a dog’s playful demeanor and specific physical attributes, including floppy ears and dome-shaped heads.

However, Drake’s paper, published in the March/April 2011 issue of Evolution & Development, dispels this belief and, in fact, proves that dogs are not paedomorphic—they, as adults, do not resemble wolf pups—through a sophisticated three-dimensional comparison of dog and wolf skulls.

To accomplish this, Drake utilized a Microscribe 3-D digitizer, a fiber optic arm equipped with a stylus that recorded the three-dimensional coordinates (x, y and z) of 64 landmarks on the skulls of more than 600 adult dogs and 400 wolves, with the wolves ranging in age from pups to adults.

“I used it to capture a three-dimensional, ‘dot-to-dot’ image of each skull, which allowed me to quantify and describe its shape,” explains Drake.

The resulting computer-generated images were scaled to the same size, allowing Drake to examine the differences in the shapes of the skulls. Her analyses revealed that the skulls of adult dogs—with specific attention to such features as the face and braincase— do not morphologically resemble those of wolf pups, so dogs cannot be considered juvenile wolves.

“One of the main objectives of this study was to compare adult dogs to wolf pups. I made the three-dimensional data on their skulls the same size, so that the only difference between the skulls would be due to shape variation. As it turns out, they weren’t the same shape,” concludes Drake.

Drake, who received her doctorate in evolutionary biology in 2004 from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, specializes in geometric morphometrics (3-D shape analysis) and evolutionary biology with a focus on vertebrate skulls. Through her research she investigates the evolutionary and developmental processes that bring about biodiversity.

Last year, she published a study with Chris Klingenberg of the University of Manchester comparing the skull shapes of domestic dogs with those of different species across the order Carnivora, to which dogs belong with cats, bears, weasels, and even seals and walruses.

Notes for Editors:
A copy of the paper “Dispelling Dog Dogma: An Investigation of Heterochrony in Dogs Using 3-D Geometric Morphometric Analysis of Skull Shape” is available at: http://aves3d.org/shared/470agd.pdf

For more information, high resolution images, or an interview with Drake, please contact Kristine Maloney, director of national communications and media relations, at 508-793-2419 or kmmalone@holycross.edu.

Andrew Bacevich

Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of international relations and history at Boston University, will present the Alexander Carson Lecture in U.S. History at the College of the Holy Cross on Tuesday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Seelos Theater.  His talk, titled “Whose Army?,” will be based on his most recent book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War .  Following the lecture, which is free and open to the public, Bacevich will be available to sign copies of his book.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Bacevich received his Ph.D. in American diplomatic history from Princeton University.  Before joining the faculty at Boston University, he taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University. 

Bacevich is the author and editor of numerous books including: The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008); The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007); The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005);  and American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002).  His essays have been published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and The New Republic, and his op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times. 

In 2004, Bacevich was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.  He has held fellowships at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Council on Foreign Relations.  In addition to his teaching and research, Bacevich is a frequent contributor to NPR on matters concerning national security.

Four employees of the College of the Holy Cross have received 2010 Claire B. Burns Awards.   The awards program, now in its 15th year, was established and endowed in 1997 by Donal J. Burns ’49 in honor of his wife, Claire, an alumna of the Class of 1990, who passed away in November of 2010. The awards are presented annually to non-exempt employees of the College, currently working or retired, who in the fulfillment of their responsibilities have demonstrated, fostered, and promoted the spirit of family, which is a treasured characteristic of the Holy Cross Community.

The recipients, all from the Worcester area, were honored at a banquet on March 23.  They are:

John R. Gould, a resident of Holden, has worked in physical plant/ grounds motor pool for seven years.

Karen E. Hodgerney, a resident of Leicester, has worked for the associate dean for student development for nine years.

Evan K. Holmes, a resident of Oxford, has worked in dining services/Kimball for 32 years.

Nancy L. Smith, a resident of Worcester, has worked in dining services/Hogan and Kimball for 16 years.

As part of the Claire B. Burns Awards Program, Robert E. Robbio, a custodian in the physical plant/environmental services department, received The Rev. William J. O’Halloran, S.J., Award. A resident of Worcester, Robbio has worked at the College for 37 years.  The award he received was established to honor Fr. O’Halloran’s long years of service to the College, from 1963-2008; his closeness to non-exempt employees; and his contributions to the Claire B. Burns Employee Award Program. During his tenure with the College, Fr. O’Halloran served as chair of the psychology department, assistant chaplain, rector of the Jesuit Community, trustee, vice president of the College, and special assistant to the president.

In addition, 40 employees were recognized for perfect attendance over the past year, and 116 employees were recognized for years of service to the College.

On May 15, 11 employees who have worked at Holy Cross for 25 years or more will be honored at the College’s 25+ Years Awards Ceremony.

Sydney Lea

Award-winning poet, novelist, and non-fiction writer Sydney Lea will read from his poetry as part of the Visiting Writers Series at the College of the Holy Cross on Thursday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library.  The event, sponsored by the College’s Creative Writing Program, is free and open to the public.  

Lea has published nine volumes of poetry, including his most recent book, The Young of the Year, which came out from Four Way Books this spring. One of his earlier volumes, To the Bone: New and Selected Poems (1996), was co-winner of the Poets’ Prize. Another book of poems, Pursuit of a Wound (2000), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to his masterful narrative poems and lyrical descriptions of nature, Lea is the author of a novel, A Place in Mind (1989), and two books of nonfiction nature writing, Hunting the Whole Way Home (1994) and A Little Wildness: Some Notes on Rambling (2006).

The founding editor of the New England Review, Lea has edited several anthologies of poems, stories, and essays. He is also active in nature conservation and has been described as “a man in the woods with his head full of books, and a man in books with his head full of woods.”

Lea has taught at universities throughout New England, as well as in Europe, and his writing has been recognized with grants from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Rockefeller foundations. He is now completing his 10th volume of poetry, I Was Thinking of Beauty.

The 2011 Visiting Writers Series will conclude on Thursday, May 5 with a reading by Robert Cording, poet and professor of English and creative writing at Holy Cross, at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library.