News

WORCESTER, Mass. – Michael R. Finneran, executive director of the Austine School for the Deaf in Brattleboro, Vt., will deliver a lecture on Saturday, Dec. 9, at 10 a.m. in the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross. Finneran’s lecture, entitled, “How Will Deaf/HH Children Succeed with Our Present Educational System,” is free and open to the public.

The lecture is sponsored by the Bay State Chapter of the Gallaudet University Alumni Association, the Gallaudet University Regional Center, the Massachusetts State Association of the Deaf, and the College of the Holy Cross. An interpreter will be provided.

Finneran was born Deaf in New York City. He graduated from Gallaudet University and achieved a master’s degree in special education and one in administration and supervision from California State University. Finneran worked 24 years at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, Calif., in various capacities of teacher, principal and dean of students.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Leading African-American poet and author Toi Derricotte will be reading at Holy Cross on Wednesday, Nov. 29, at 4:30 p.m. in the Browsing Room of Dinand Library.

Co-founder of Cave Canem, a workshop for African-American writers, Derricotte has published four collections of poetry, including “Natural Birth” and “Captivity.” Her most recent collection, “Tender,” received the Paterson Poetry Prize for 1998.

Her memoir, “The Black Notebooks,” is a critically acclaimed book about race in America. It has won the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award in Non-Fiction, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction from the Cleveland Foundation, judged by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Stephen Jay Gould, and Joyce Carol Oates. It was a New York Times Notable Book for 1997.

Derricotte is an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh, and has taught in the graduate creative writing programs at New York University, George Mason University, Old Dominion University and Mills College.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross will be displaying the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt on Wednesday, Nov. 29, from 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center. Sponsored by Wellness Programming and SHAPE (Sexual Health Awareness Peer Educators), the event is free and open to the public.

The Quilt is made up of 44,000 3-by-6-foot memorial panels, each one commemorating the life of someone who has died of AIDS. Holy Cross will have on display 80 individual panels that have been sewn together by friends, lovers and family members of AIDS victims.

Founded in 1987, the Quilt exists to raise awareness to the problem of AIDS. The NAMES Project Foundation collects panels created by people worldwide. The Quilt was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and is the largest community art project in the world.

The Quilt display is the major event for AIDS Awareness Week at Holy Cross, which is a buildup to World AIDS Day on December 1.

WORCESTER, Mass. – John Feinstein, best-selling author of “The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division 1 Basketball,” a book about Patriot League basketball, will be at Holy Cross on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at the men’s basketball home opener. He will be available for book signing before the game and at half time. The basketball game, versus Dartmouth College, will begin at 7 p.m. in the Hart Center.

The Holy Cross men’s basketball team takes center stage in “The Last Amateurs,” which chronicles the 1999-2000 season through the eyes of the student-athletes. Feinstein’s focus in the book is the refreshing aspect of the Patriot League—with its strict emphasis on academics first, hardwood second—as opposed to the high-stakes basketball world of other Division 1 leagues.

The book is currently on display at the College Bookstore and will be available at the game for purchase.

Feinstein is a commentator on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters” and a columnist for both the Washington Post and Golf Magazine. He is the author of a number of best-selling sports books including, “A Season on the Brink,” ‘The Majors” and “A Good Walk Spoiled.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross physics professor Robert H. Garvey today was named U.S. Professor of the Year for 2000 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

Four national winners were selected, representing the following categories: outstanding baccalaureate college professor (Garvey), outstanding community college professor, outstanding master’s university and college professor, and outstanding research and doctoral university professor. Each is recognized for their extraordinary dedication to teaching, commitment to students and innovative instructional methods.

Created in 1981, the U.S. Professors of the Year Program is the only national awards program that recognizes college and university professors for their teaching. This year nearly 500 faculty members were nominated by colleges and universities across the country. The Carnegie Foundation awards a $5,000 cash prize to each of the national winners.

Bob Garvey, an associate professor, has taught at Holy Cross since 1977. In addition to his work with Holy Cross students, he is the College’s science coordinator, responsible for coordinating the partnership programs in science and mathematics with the Worcester Public Schools (WPS).

A graduate of Loyola College in Baltimore, Md. (1966), Garvey completed his M.S. in electrical engineering (1970) and his Ph.D. in physics (1974) at the Pennsylvania State University. Before joining the Holy Cross faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor, Garvey worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Florida. He was promoted to associate professor of physics in 1984.

A renowned teacher and scholar, Garvey has developed courses for non-science majors as well as a range of courses for physics majors. He is co-author, with Janine Shertzer, chair of the physics department, of a Sherman-Fairchild grant that developed the successful “Physics of Everyday Life” course. A member of the committee that created Holy Cross’ First Year Program, Garvey served as the program’s first director for two years.

“The way Professor Garvey enabled us to find connections between quantum physics, literature, religion and life still astounds me today,” says Jaime L. Grande (Holy Cross Class of 1999) about the First Year Program seminar. She is now an aspiring teacher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“His lectures in class, his thoughtful comments on our journal entries and papers, and his constant presence and companionship all illustrated an immense dedication to the liberal arts, to learning outside the classroom, and to motivating and caring for students,” Grande continues.

Garvey is also a dedicated participant in Holy Cross’ programs in science with the Worcester schools. He teaches in the Youth Exploring Science (Y.E.S.) program, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Science Workshop for WPS science and math teachers and co-developed a weather program for 400 sixth-grade students that he team teaches each May.

“He’s unafraid to question the traditional approach in his search for a better way to teach,” says his colleague Janine Shertzer, chair of the Holy Cross physics department. “His creativity and originality is matched by a seemingly endless supply of enthusiasm and energy.”

A resident of Shrewbury, Garvey and his wife, Beverly, are parents of five children.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross will host a performance of “La Leçon,” by the French playwright Eugene Ionesco. The play will be performed by the French theatre troupe, La Compagnie Claude Beauclair, on Friday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center. The event is $3 for Holy Cross students and $5 general admission. A reception will follow the performance and refreshments will be served.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross students plan to raise awareness to the problems of hunger and homelessness during the College’s annual week of events, sponsored by the Student Coalition on Homelessness and Hunger (SCOHAH), a 120-member organization run through the Chaplains’ Office. National Hunger and Homelessness Week runs from Monday, Nov. 13 – Friday, Nov. 17.

Wednesday, Nov. 15, is the Homeless Solidarity Sleepout. Open to all Holy Cross students, participants will arrive at the lawn of the Hogan Campus Center at 10 p.m. to sleep in only sleeping bags, blankets and cardboard boxes that will be provided by SCOHAH. This event is designed to promote solidarity with those individuals less fortunate than the students. A representative from Worcester’s Catholic Worker House will lead a discussion about why 750,000 Americans are homeless each night. Participants will leave the lawn at 8 a.m. the next morning.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The flag presentation ceremony with U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) and the Holy Cross Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps Unit has been postponed due to changes in the Congressman’s schedule.

The event was scheduled to take place on Nov. 14 at 3:30 p.m. in the ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.

Additional information will be forthcoming when the event is re-scheduled.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Shareen Blair Brysac, a producer, writer and director, will deliver a lecture on Monday, Nov. 20, at 4 p.m. in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center. Brysac will speak on her book, “Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the ‘Red Orchestra’: The Life and Death of an American Woman in Nazi Germany.” Sponsored by the German department and the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies, this lecture is free and open to the public.

Brysac will lecture on the true story of Mildred Fish-Harnack, who, in joining the German resistance, became the only American woman executed for treason during World War II on personal orders from Hitler. She spent nine years resisting the Nazi regime and was guillotined in Berlin in 1943.

As a member of the resistance group, the “Red Orchestra,” Fish-Harnack assisted in the escape of German Jews and political dissidents, while she documented Nazi atrocities on the Eastern Front and for years provided vital economic and military intelligence to both Washington and Moscow.

Brysac is a former producer for CBS News, responsible for the documentaries, “1968,” “American Dream, American Nightmare” and “The Cowboy, the Craftsman, and the Ballerina.” She is the recipient of several Emmys, a Dupont Citation, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Writers Guild Award and medals from New York and Chicago film festivals. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation and Lear’s Magazines.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Jay Mohr, comedian and actor, will perform a stand-up comedy routine at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 19, in the Fieldhouse at Holy Cross. Tickets are on sale in the College’s bookstore–$5 for members of the Holy Cross community, $8 for members of the Worcester Consortium and $10 for the general public.

Mohr began his career as a comedian performing stand-up comedy at colleges, comedy clubs and such television forums as “Evening at the Improv.” He first gained national attention while a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” from 1993 to 1995, and became known for his impersonations of such people as Sean Penn and Christopher Walken. Mohr has had voice appearances on the programs, “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.”

He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his performance on “Saturday Night Live,” and won an Espy Award in 1994 for his work on MTV’s “Lip Service.” Mohr has appeared in such recent movies as, “Pay it Forward,” “Go” and “Picture Perfect.” He is best known for his role as a rival sports agent to Tom Cruise’s “Jerry Maguire” in the 1996 hit film.

WORCESTER, Mass. – U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) will present a complete set of state flags to the Holy Cross Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps Unit at a ceremony on Nov. 14 at 3:30 p.m. in the ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross. McGovern is scheduled to address the battalion of midshipmen during the ceremony.

The Committee for the Joseph T. O’Callahan NROTC Fund purchased the flags to be used at various functions including the commissioning ceremony held on graduation day, the president’s review and the Navy and Marine Corps birthday ball. McGovern was instrumental in helping the committee obtain the flags.

The Holy Cross NROTC unit was established in 1941; it is believed that Holy Cross is the only national liberal arts college to continue to host a Navy unit.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Jacqueline Jones Royster, a scholar of the non-fiction writing and public speaking of African American women, will deliver a lecture and slide presentation on Monday, Nov. 20, at 4 p.m. in the Dinand Library Faculty Lounge. Royster’s lecture, entitled “frican American Women Literacy and Social Action,”is free and open to the public.

Royster is an English professor at Ohio State University and a past president of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the premier national organization of college-level expository writing teachers. She is an expert on turn-of-the-century anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells, and has published a collection of her work.

In her book, “races of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women,” Royster analyzes the ways and means whereby nineteenth-century African American women acquired advanced literacy skills against heavy odds and used their verbal talents on behalf of their community. She will lecture on some of the material covered in this book, and present a slide show from her extensive collection of period photographs.

The event is sponsored by the English department, the women’s studies concentration and the African American studies concentration.

WORCESTER, Mass. – There will be a number of musical events during the months of November and December at Holy Cross. All concerts are free and open to the public.

The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. – The Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra will perform a concert in the Brooks Concert Hall.

Thursday, Nov. 16, at 8 p.m. – The Holy Cross Chamber Singers will perform a concert in the Brooks Concert Hall.

Friday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m. – World-renowned artist Desak Made Suarti Laksmi will direct a gamelan “Gita Sari” concert of Balinese music and dance in the Brooks Concert Hall.

Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 8 p.m. – The Holy Cross Jazz Ensemble will perform a concert in the Ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center.

Wednesday, Dec. 6, at 8 p.m. – The Holy Cross College Choir will perform its annual “Festival of Lessons and Carols” in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.