News

WORCESTER, Mass. – Kris Holloway will deliver the annual Katherine A. Henry ’86 Memorial Lecture titled “Lessons from a Midwife in Mali” on April 18 at 4 p.m. in Hogan Suites B/C at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk, free and open to the public, will be followed by a book signing.

Holloway is the author of Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali (Waveland Press, 2006), a critically-acclaimed memoir recalling the two years she spent as an impressionable Peace Corps volunteer in the remote village of Nampossela in Mali, West Africa from 1989 to 1991. The Boston Globe editorial board named the book one of its favorites in a year-end list last year.

Holloway is development associate for the National Priorities Project in Northampton, a non-profit organization that promotes social and economic justice. She has worked with numerous non-profits and educational institutions including the Western Massachusetts Center for Healthy Communities and the Greenbelt Movement International. She holds a master’s in public health from the University of Michigan where she focused her research on maternal and child health.

The lecture series, which is focused on women’s health issues, was endowed by Katherine Henry’s parents, in memory of their daughter who died in 1997. The talk is co-sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies and the premedical/predental program.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Dr. Tricia Striano, who earned a degree in psychology from the College of the Holy Cross in 1995, will give a talk as part of a psychology colloquium titled “Social Cognition in the First Year,” on April 3 at 4 p.m. in Rehm Library. The talk is free and open to the public.

Striano is researching social cognition in infants between birth and 12 months, trying to understand how they detect and process emotions, especially those that play a role in interpersonal interactions. Part of her research involves examining the neural systems that are involved in processing affective states, including brain systems that might be associated with atypical patterns of development such as autism.

Striano received her Ph.D. from Emory University, was head of the career development group on cultural ontogenesis at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and is now head of the research team for neurocognition and development at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and at Leipzig University’s Centre for Advanced Studies.

In 2004, Striano was awarded the prestigious Sofja Kovalevskaja Prize, an award of $1.2 million, by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany “to young scientists and scholars from abroad with outstanding research records.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – Stanley M. Burstein, professor emeritus of ancient history at California State University at Los Angeles, will give a talk titled “When Greek Was an African Language” on March 21 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 402 of the Hogan Campus Center at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

Burstein is a widely recognized expert on ancient Greek history, especially concerning the period after Alexander the Great and the interaction of Greek culture with the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean region, including Egypt and neighboring regions.

The lecture is sponsored by the classics department.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Raymond A. Winbush, Ph.D., director for the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University will give a talk titled “Do We Really Want to Talk About Race?” on March 28 at 4 p.m. in Hogan Suites B/C at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

There will be a panel of five persons from the Holy Cross community — Dr. Allison Bryant Ludden, assistant professor of psychology; Diana Cruz, assistant professor of English; Wendy Huang, psychologist in the College’s Counseling Center; Carissa Lawrence ’07; Melvin Kelley IV ’07; and Nikia Kelley ’03 — who will serve as respondents to Winbush’s presentation and the screening of a seven-minute version of the video “A Girl Like Me.”

Winbush is the author of numerous articles on the “politics” of Afrocentricity and the resistance it encounters among scholars who wish to maintain existing intellectual paradigms. He is the author of The Warrior Method: A Program for Rearing Healthy Black Boys (Amistad Press, 2001) and editor of Should America Pay? The Raging Debate on Reparations (Amistad,  2007).

The event is sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Education.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross junior Steven Hickey has been selected by the College’s Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies as the 2007 spring semester’s Maurizio Vannicelli Washington Semester Away program award. He will present his thesis, “An ‘F’ for Determining Accountability: Problem Definition and the No Child Left Behind Act,” on April 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross.

While in Washington, D.C., Hickey interned in the Office of Senator Barack Obama. He worked with Obama’s legislative assistant for education, conducting policy research in the area of public education. He was also responsible for carrying out a number of other duties, including composing correspondence in response to constituent opinions, concerns, and requests; leading tours of the U.S. Capitol Building; writing memos; attending briefings; drafting press releases; and assisting with meetings. In addition, he assisted with advance work for Obama’s speech on energy independence at Georgetown University.

Hickey’s talk will focus on the concept of problem definition in public policy and the specific deficiencies with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

“I will talk about how a specific social construction of school accountability — that I argue is flawed — led to the implementation of a flawed law whose provisions cannot be met,” said Hickey. “I argue that No Child Left Behind’s adequate yearly progress standards for improvement, which require that all students in all states demonstrate proficiency in both math and reading by 2014, are unattainable and serve to undermine the law’s intent by causing states and local school districts to implicitly lower their standards.”

Hickey advocates a redefinition of school accountability that takes into account individual abilities and starting levels. He recommends that the No Child Left Behind Act be amended to utilize student growth models, based on the Florida A+ plan, as a more accurate measure of student accountability.

Hickey, from Ipswich, is a political science major in the College Honors Program. At Holy Cross, he has been an active participant in the Student Government Association, where he has served as chief of staff. He is currently assistant chief of staff for the SGA and a resident assistant in Mulledy Hall. After graduation, he plans to pursue a career in public service in the field of public policy, with an emphasis on domestic policy in Washington, D.C. He is also considering law school after gaining some work experience. In the immediate future, he hopes to get involved in Obama’s presidential campaign.

The Vannicelli Prize is awarded each semester in honor of the late Holy Cross political science professor and Washington Semester director, Maurizio Vannicelli, for the best research paper produced in the Washington Semester Away program. The recipient of the prize is accorded the opportunity to give a public lecture at the College on his or her thesis. In addition, the recipient receives a bound copy of the thesis and is presented the book award during commencement exercises.

Initiative dovetails with other planning efforts underway in South Worcester, along Southbridge Street corridor

WORCESTER, Mass. – The College of the Holy Cross has convened a community advisory committee of local residents, students, and College staff to explore the feasibility of a mixed-use retail/office/commercial development on the College-owned four-acre site at Southbridge and College streets.

A developer has been involved in the initial discussions about the project, and will be present when the committee holds its first meeting, within the next week.

“At this preliminary stage, we are very interested in the reactions and suggestions from constituents who are closest to the site,” said Rev. Michael McFarland, S.J., president of Holy Cross. “Our goal is to develop an area that will be effectively integrated with the neighborhood, and will be a true benefit both to our students and to those who live and work nearby. In addition, as city, state, and federal officials consider the possibilities of the Southbridge Street corridor as an enhanced gateway to Worcester, we believe this development can be a strategic part of that vision.”

The initiative builds upon the comprehensive College Hill Neighborhood Development plan that the City of Worcester, Holy Cross, and neighborhood groups developed in 2004-05. It also is informed by the planning work underway through the South Worcester Master Plan and the Southbridge Street Corridor Plan, the latter cosponsored by the City of Worcester and U.S. Rep. James McGovern (D-Worcester).

The area to be developed abuts College and Caro streets, and continues for about 650 feet along Southbridge Street. It is the site of a former Howard Johnson’s Hotel, which was purchased by Holy Cross in 1997, and demolished in early 1998. While the land is owned by the College, the development of the properties is expected to generate additional property tax revenues for the City.

The College has asked the developer to begin work on a plan that would complement the campus and the College Hill neighborhood, and provide services to students, staff, and local residents. Traffic and parking patterns, building density, zoning changes, and environmental impact will also be examined closely with the City of Worcester in this preliminary planning stage.

Fr. McFarland also noted that the plan is fully in the spirit of Worcester’s UniverCity Partnership, which encourages collaboration among private businesses, municipal government and the city’s colleges. “We were pleased that our work two years ago with City Hall and the Worcester Tornadoes brought professional baseball to Worcester,” he said. “Today, with so many transformative and exciting changes taking place in this section of the City — from the Route 146/Blackstone Canal project to major construction and renovation at the other end of Southbridge Street including the Hanover Center for the Performing Arts — we are proud to be an active partner in Worcester’s development.”

Commenting on the plans, City Councilor Barbara Haller, who represents the College Hill and South Worcester neighborhoods, said: “I am delighted that Holy Cross understands our linked futures when it comes to the development of this critical parcel of land. I pledge my engagement in the inclusive process outlined and look to an outcome that moves both the College and the neighborhood forward.”

The planning stage will take approximately 90 days, and will result in a detailed analysis and site plan. Possible tenants for the complex could include one or two main “anchor” establishments, restaurants or coffee shops, an inn, retail shops and offices.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Ellen Ryder 508-793-2419 eryder@holycross.edu

WORCESTER, Mass. – With their 56-48 win over American University on Wednesday night, the Holy Cross women’s basketball team won its 11th Patriot League title and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. First year student Bethany O’Dell tallied 20 points while classmate Briana McFadden and senior Kaitlin Foley added 14 points each to lead the Crusaders past American. It was the first time that the two teams met in a Patriot League Championship game in the 16-year history of the League.

This will be the 12th NCAA tournament appearance for the Crusaders. Ten of those appearances were under current head coach Bill Gibbons. Holy Cross will find out Monday who they will face in the first round of the NCAA Tournament when the selections are aired live on ESPN at 8 p.m.

Related information:

* goholycross.com: Women’s Basketball Takes Patriot League Title
* ESPN: Holy Cross Claims Patriot League Title (watch video on right)

WORCESTER, Mass. – Paul Riley, a senior economics major from Malden, received an honorable mention, with a $250 cash prize, in an international essay contest titled “The Benefits of a Free Market Economy.” The contest, which drew more than 100 entries, was sponsored by the Association of Private Enterprise Education.

By conducting an economic analysis of environmental policy to answer the topic “Can Free Markets Protect the Environment?”, Riley showed how a lack of free market systems underlies most environmental problems. The submission grew out of a paper Riley wrote last fall for his Law and Economics class taught by David Schap, professor of economics.

The essay was judged on the clarity of writing, the quality of thinking it reflected, and the extent to which it recognized or incorporated relevant ideas suggested by supporting articles available on APEE’s Web site.

Riley is planning on pursuing a career in finance and using his economics and finance background within a professional sports organization.

He served as a research assistant last summer for Victor Matheson, assistant professor of economics, where he researched college sports economics issues, including writing an economics paper on the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament titled “Is there a Major Conference Bias in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament?” that will be submitted for potential publication.

Riley has been a four-year member of the Club Hockey team, and is serving as captain this year.

The Association of Private Enterprise Education, in Chattanooga, Tenn., was created by educators and business people committed to furthering economic understanding.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross is sponsoring a number of lectures by noted experts in the next month. The talks, which are free and open to the public, will take place in Rehm Library in Smith Hall on the campus.

March 12 at 7:30 p.m. — Rev. James Corkery, S.J., a theologian at the Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology in Ireland and one of last year’s International Visiting Jesuit Fellows, returns to Holy Cross for a lecture on the Communion of Saints.

March 13 at 7:30 p.m. — Rev. Paolo Gamberini, S.J., professor of theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of “San Luigi” in Naples, Italy, will give a talk titled “Was Jesus in Auschwitz? Talking of God Beyond Barbed Wire.” Gamberini is also the Delegate for the Diocese of Naples for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue; and Southern European Assistant for Interreligious Dialogue for the Society of Jesus. The event is part of the Deitchman Family Lectures in Religion and Modernity, which explores the place of religious and spiritual life in a world that is sometimes at odds with faith, other times in search of it, and always at work reshaping it.

March 15 at 7:30 p.m. — Rev. Oliver Rafferty, S.J., a historian from the British Jesuit Province and one of this year’s International Visiting Jesuit Fellows, will examine the attitude of the institutional church toward violence in the conflicts over independence in Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries.

March 19 at 4 p.m. — John Schmalzbauer, associate professor of religious studies and Blanche Gorman Strong Chair in Protestant Studies at Missouri State University, will give a talk titled “The Return of Religion in American Higher Education.”

March 22 at 7:30 p.m. — Christine Bochen, professor of religious studies and William H. Shannon Chair in Catholic Studies at Nazareth College, will give a talk titled “Thomas Merton’s Letters: What Do They Teach Us About the Monk?”

March 26 at 4 p.m. — Thomas Fitzpatrick, S.J., director of the Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, will moderate a discussion titled “From Revenge to Reconciliation: An Israeli and a Palestinian Find Hope After the Violent Deaths of Family Members.” The participants are Nella Cassouto, an Israeli woman who lost her husband in the Israeli Air Force, and Ali Abu Awwad, a Palestinian from Hebron who lost his brother. They are members of an organization called Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace. They are organized on the conviction that the grief of an Israeli mother upon the death of her son is no different from the grief of a Palestinian mother at the death of her son. Through this shared grief, Israelis and Palestinians have come together to console and support one another and to seek peace.

March 27 at 4 p.m. — Virginia Raguin, professor of visual arts, and Sarah Stanbury, associate professor of English, will give a talk as part of the Faculty Book Discussion series on Women’s Space: Patronage, Place, and Gender in the Medieval Church (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), on which they served as editors. The two Holy Cross professors collaborated with six other scholars to produce a cross-disciplinary study of gendered spaces in the Middle Ages. Raguin and Stanbury both give different perceptions on architectural space and donor representations for the widely-read text The Book of Margery Kempe. Other essays explore theater, burial customs, the power of donations, clerical exclusion of women from sacred spaces and women’s strategies for inclusion, and gendered representation in binary coding of right for male and left for female.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Mark E. Lincicome, associate professor of history at Holy Cross, has been named the new director of the study abroad program at the College. The announcement was made today by Timothy Austin, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College.

Lincicome succeeds Maurice A. Geracht, who is stepping down after 17 years of distinguished service to the program. Geracht will continue in his position in the English department as Stephen J. Prior Professor of Humanities.

Lincicome, a resident of Holden, Mass., holds an A.B. in history from Bowdoin College and a Ph.D. in East Asian languages and civilizations from the University of Chicago. He joined Holy Cross in 1991, after a three-year term as associate director of the Asian studies program at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to that, he had held several positions in which he gained valuable experience in international education: from 1985 to 1988, he was executive director of the Japan America Society of Chicago, while he also held teaching positions in Japan on several occasions during the 1970s and 1980s.

He has served the College in a number of capacities, most notably as chair of the history department for four years. Committees to which he has been elected include the Committee on Tenure and Promotion and the Academic Standing Committee. He was also coordinator of the College’s Asian studies program in 2000-2001.

Lincicome’s published work includes the book, Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 1995), and a number of articles in peer reviewed journals. He is currently on sabbatical leave for which he received both a Fulbright Scholar Fellowship and a Japan Foundation Short-Term Research Fellowship.

The study abroad program at Holy Cross is noted for its commitment to integrating students as completely as possible into the educational system and social culture of the host country. The study abroad program directly enrolls students in internationally renowned academic institutions and provides the kind of academic guidance, counseling, language and tutorial support systems, and living conditions that will foster their educational experience.

Lincicome will assume his duties on July 1.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Christopher A. Dustin, associate professor and chair of philosophy, will give this year’s Richard Rodino Lecture on the Aims of the Liberal Arts on March 20 at 4 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk, titled “ ‘All the Branches and None of the Roots’: On the Sources of a Liberal Education, ” is free and open to the public.

The title and theme of this lecture are inspired by an exchange between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. For years after his graduation, Thoreau had little good to say about his own undergraduate education at Harvard. When Emerson once remarked that, after all, Harvard did teach all the branches of learning, Thoreau replied, “yes, indeed, all the branches and none of the roots.” Following Thoreau, Dustin suggests that a truly “liberal” education must not only cover the various branches of learning, but must also penetrate to the roots that give them life. By exploring this metaphor of branches and roots, Dustin hopes to reflect on what academics at Holy Cross mean when talking about “critical examination of fundamental religious and philosophical questions” as “integral” to the life of the mind. In Thoreau’s sense, such questions point not to a set of methodological foundations, or core disciplines, but to a source that animates all of our disciplines — that is, a sense of wonder that is inspired by life itself.

A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1991 and chair of the department since 2000, Dustin earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University, where he completed a dissertation on “Ethics and the Possibility of Objectivity.” He received the College’s Distinguished Teacher Award in 2004. Next academic year, Dustin begins a three-year term as director of the First-Year Program.

Interested in ancient philosophy, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of art and architecture, he teaches several introductory and intermediate philosophy courses, as well as advanced seminars on Plato, Aristotle, Heidegger and Thoreau.

Dustin has published and lectured widely on a variety of topics, including objectivity in ethics and aesthetics, the role of emotions in Aristotle’s ethical thought, poetry and education in Plato, freedom and reason in architectural modernism, and classical architecture and tragedy. He is the co-author, with visual arts professor Joanna E. Ziegler, of Practicing Mortality: Art, Philosophy, and Contemplative Seeing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

The annual Rodino Lecture series is devoted to the memory of Richard Rodino, formerly of the English department at Holy Cross. He played a central role in launching the College’s First-Year Program. It is sponsored by the Office of the Dean and the First-Year Program.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Organist James David Christie will perform the sixth of eight concerts commemorating the 300th anniversary of the death of the great 17th-century North German organist-composer Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707). As part of the Holy Cross Chapel Artists Series, “The Buxtehude Tercentenary at Holy Cross” is being performed on the late 17th-century North German inspired Taylor & Boody organ throughout the 2006-2007 concert season.

The concert, free and open to the public, will be on March 18 at 3 p.m. in the College’s Saint Joseph Memorial Chapel. The chapel is handicapped accessible.

Christie is the distinguished artist in residence and College organist at Holy Cross. In addition, he serves as organist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was the first American to ever win a first prize at the Bruges (Belgium) International Organ Competition and was the first person in the history of the competition to ever win both the Prize of the Jury and the Prize of the Audience. Professor Christie has served on more international organ competition juries than any American organist. He has toured the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia giving concerts, master classes and seminars at major music festivals. He has recorded for 12 different labels and is heard regularly on radio broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Europe.

The program follows:

Praeludium in C, BuxWV 136

Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BuxWV 178
Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren, BuxWV 212

Praeludium in e, BuxWV 152

Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, BuxWV 186
Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich, BuxWV 202

Praeludium in g, BuxWV 163

Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren (3 verses), BuxWV 213

Toccata in G, BuxWV 164

Ach Gott und Herr (2 verses), BuxWV 177

Praeludium in F, BuxWV 145

Fugue in B-flat, BuxWV 176

Toccata in F, BuxWV 157