News

WORCESTER, Mass. – On September 1, Professor Robert Garvey of the physics department will assume the role of science coordinator at Holy Cross. He brings a number of talents and a wealth of experience to the position. As science coordinator, Garvey will be responsible for coordinating the partnership programs in science and mathematics between the Worcester Public Schools and Holy Cross.

In addition, he will continue to develop and support research programs for Holy Cross students and work closely with the grants office on a number of projects. A Loyola College (Baltimore, Md.) undergraduate, Garvey completed his M.S. in electrical engineering in 1968 and his Ph.D. in physics in 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 creative 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 of a five-year, Sherman-Fairchild grant to co-develop the successful “Physics of Everyday Life” course. A member of the Ad Hoc Committee that developed Holy Cross’ First Year Program, Garvey served as the program’s first director for two years.

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

Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England. Founded in 1843 by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the College is a highly selective, four-year, undergraduate liberal arts institution and ranks among the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges.

WORCESTER, Mass. – “Odyssey 2004: A Preview of your Holy Cross Journey,” a two-week orientation program for ALANA (African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American) and international students, will take place August 13-25 at Holy Cross.

This interdisciplinary program will introduce first-year students to Holy Cross’ academic environment with mini-classes and short writing assignments; familiarize students with the College’s computer systems and the World Wide Web; and orient students to the campus, Worcester and Boston.

Highlights of Odyssey 2004 include: participation in Worcester’s Latino Festival, whale watching off Boston Harbor, participation in a volunteer project in Worcester and dinners with professors and administrators at their homes.

For most ALANA students, however, it is the bonds of friendship built among fellow students, faculty and administrators that is the most integral part of the orientation. Current students who participated in the Odyssey program refer to their “Odyssey family” as a strong group that is always willing to help one another academically and personally.

According to Esther Levine, assistant dean and international scholar and student advisor, “At Holy Cross, our dream is that students will make early personal connections with faculty and administrators – connections that will help ensure the fullest possible educational experience.  Odyssey 2004 enables this dream to come true.”

Holy Cross makes this program available to students at no cost.

Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England. Founded in 1843 by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the College is a highly selective, four-year, undergraduate liberal arts institution and ranks among the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges.

WORCESTER, Mass. – On August 5, the College of the Holy Cross will commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the death of Bishop James Augustine Healy, a graduate of the class of 1849. He was the first African American to become a Roman Catholic bishop.

James Healy was born on April 6, 1830 on a cotton plantation in Georgia to an Irish immigrant and a mixed-race domestic slave. James and his siblings were sent North to Holy Cross since their “illegitimate lineage” forbade them from attending school in their home state.

James and his brother Hugh were in the first graduating class of 1849, of which James was valedictorian; their brother Patrick graduated the next year. Younger brothers, Sherwood and Michael, also attended Holy Cross. Patrick Healy went on to become the first African American recipient of a Ph.D. Ordained a Jesuit priest, Patrick served as Georgetown University’s president from 1873 to 1881 – the first African American president of a predominantly white university. Holy Cross’ founder, Bishop Benedict J. Fenwick, S.J., was a Georgetown alumnus who previously served two terms as the university’s president.

James attended the Sulpican Seminary in Paris, France, and, in 1854, was ordained at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Upon his return to the United States, Fr. James Healy served as an assistant priest and pastor in Boston for several years, earning respect in spite of the existing tensions between blacks and Irish Catholics.

In 1875, he was named bishop of Portland, Maine – the first-ever African American bishop. In the 25 years he served as bishop, Healy established 60 new churches, 68 missions, 18 convents and 18 schools throughout Maine, and lobbied for sovereignty for Native American tribes and an end to child labor.

Known for his work among the poor, he refused to live in the bishop’s mansion, living instead at the Cathedral rectory. Healy declined to be buried in the Cathedral vault with the other bishops, opting instead to be buried in South Portland’s Calvary Cemetery under a Celtic cross headstone. Shortly before his death in 1900, he was appointed assistant to the Royal Throne, a high honor within the Roman Catholic Church.

On discussions of racial issues, Bishop Healy once said, “We are of that Church where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, slave nor freeman, but Christ is all and in all.”

It was in his honor that Holy Cross established the Bishop Healy Committee in 1979.
The committee works to assist the Admissions Office in recruiting and retaining a diverse population of students at Holy Cross. Their purpose is to “discover and implement means of alumni participation in efforts to foster interracial understanding, interaction and friendship within the Holy Cross community.”

Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England. Founded in 1843 by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the College is a highly selective, four-year, undergraduate liberal arts institution and ranks among the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges.

WORCESTER, Mass. – George J. White, a 1939 graduate, is donating $400,000 to the College of the Holy Cross, which when added to his $625,000 gift in 1994, brings his total lifetime giving to more than $1 million.  His generosity earns him membership in the “Cornerstone Society,” a select group of individuals who have each given in excess of $1 million to Holy Cross.

In recognition of his most recent gift, the College will name the religious studies conference room in Smith Hall (now under construction) in honor of George J. White.

White and his wife, Eileen, are residents of Holden.  He is a charter member of the President’s Council and a lifetime member of the Benefactor’s Circle.  Both George and Eileen White are active participants in the 1843 Society (a group of alumni who support the College through their estate plans).

White, a Certified Public Accountant who practiced public accounting for 42 years, has lent his fiscal acumen to Holy Cross over the years as a member of numerous committees.  He received a Master of Business Administration degree from Boston University in 1941.  He taught accounting at Holy Cross in 1977.

“George J. White is a remarkably loyal and generous Holy Cross alumnus who continues to do so much for his beloved alma mater,” says Frank Vellaccio, acting president of the College. “George’s gifts will make a lasting and most positive impact on Holy Cross – today and in the years to come.”

White has been actively involved with the Holy Cross Club of Worcester since his graduation and served many terms on the Club’s board of directors.  In addition, he has been a class agent for more than 40 years and, since 1989, has served as the chairman of his class.  In 1998, White received the In Hoc Signo Award, the General Alumni Association’s highest honor.

Six years ago, in another gesture of loyalty and generosity, White established a student scholarship, The George J. White Memorial Scholarship Fund, enabling qualified students from Worcester to attend Holy Cross.

WORCESTER, Mass. – On June 29, Professor Bruce I. Miller of the music department at Holy Cross will be co-presenting a paper at the 11th International Conference on 19th-Century Music at Royal Holloway, University of London.  He and his colleague, Helga J. Perry, a Gilbert & Sullivan scholar from England, will be disclosing a discovery in the Gilbert & Sullivan canon.

This significant find is of the first trace of music for the previously lost “De Belville Song” in the operetta Iolanthe, one that has been sought after by scholars and will be of great interest to Gilbert & Sullivan fans.  Previously, on April 15, 1999, Miller and Perry announced the discovery of a lost duet in H.M.S. Pinafore, the ballad “Reflect, My Child.”

In addition, on August 5, Miller will be present at the UCLA Film Preservation Festival for the first public screening of a restored subject for which he provided the sound track.  The subject is the promotional trailer for “The Rogue Song,” a 1930 two-tone Technicolor movie for which most of the film has been lost.

Miller found the missing sound track at a record auction in 1989.  This discovery is significant in that it enabled the restoration of this trailer, which contains footage of both opera star Lawrence Tibbett and comedians Laurel & Hardy that has been lost for 70 years.

The film is listed by the American Film Institute on its “Ten Most Wanted” list of lost films.  Until this recent discovery, only three minutes of film element had been known to survive. Robert Gitt of UCLA has made the restoration.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Participants of the International J. S. Bach Organ Academy will perform a concert on the famed Taylor and Boody Organ on Thursday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at Holy Cross.

The program will include works by Georg Boehm, Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach.

The concert will feature eight organ virtuosi from France, Switzerland, Russia, Canada and the United States.  Members of the International J. S. Bach Organ Academy were selected by application and audition and include some of the world’s leading young artists.

Holy Cross’ award-winning Taylor and Boody Organ, a 52-foot high, 10-ton instrument designed in the tradition of 16th and 17th century Dutch and north German organs, was built in a two-year period by a team of craftsmen led by George K. Taylor and John Boody.  It was dedicated in March 1985.

Admission to the concert is free and open to the public.

WORCESTER, Mass. – On August 1, Professor Mary E. Morton of the biology department will assume the role of associate dean at Holy Cross.  She brings a number of talents and a wealth of experience to the associate dean position.  A 1983 graduate of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, Morton completed her Ph.D. in biochemistry at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, N.H., in 1988.

Before coming to Holy Cross, she worked as a research associate at Dartmouth and held an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in molecular neurobiology at the University of Washington.  Morton, who joined the faculty at Holy Cross in 1991 as a Charles A. Dana Faculty Fellow in the department of biology, was promoted to associate professor in 1997.  A gifted teacher/scholar, Morton has taught a range of courses and worked with many students in directed research.  She has an impressive list of publications and has realized considerable success in earning grants for College programs.

A resident of Worcester, Morton has also served on a number of key College committees, including the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, Graduate Studies, the Committee on Faculty Affairs, the Curriculum Committee and the Committee on Tenure and Promotion.  Most recently, she has been serving as the College’s science coordinator.  This work has brought her into close contact with the Worcester Public Schools, leading her to work closely with the grants office on a number of projects.

The Office of the Dean of the College at Holy Cross is responsible for all matters relating to the faculty, curriculum and academic affairs.  The office is involved in activities ranging from hiring and promotion to strategic planning.  The deans also sponsor a number of speakers, events and faculty development opportunities.

Morton takes over from the current associate dean, Mark Freeman, who is stepping down after five years in the position.  Freeman will take a year’s sabbatical and return to teaching in the psychology department.

Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England.  Founded in 1843 by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the College is a highly selective, four-year, undergraduate liberal arts institution and ranks among the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Park B. Smith, a 1954 graduate of Holy Cross, together with his wife, Carol, are donating $10 million to the College for the construction of a major, new building.  The gift, the largest in the history of Holy Cross, was announced today during a groundbreaking ceremony for the building.  “College Hall,” as the building is currently known, will be named Carol and Park B. Smith Hall.

Smith Hall will house The Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture, as well as the philosophy and religious studies departments, the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies, information technology services, and academic student services such as the registrar’s office.  The building will also provide critical interior and exterior space for social interaction and dialogue among students and faculty.  Construction begins this month with a completion date in the summer of 2001.

Smith’s gift to Holy Cross is a reflection of his belief in the school and its potential. “Carol’s and my goal is to make Holy Cross one of the most desirable colleges in the nation,” Smith says.

“Holy Cross is unique, special in many ways. The Jesuits, professors and administration are dedicated to their calling, to the students, and to their profession. They address both the spiritual and intellectual growth of the students,” he says.

Smith adds that his gift reflects in part the Jesuit credo – “men and women for others.”  Citing the benefits he gained from the discipline at Holy Cross, Smith hopes the new building will be instrumental in producing tomorrow’s Christian leadership. “We all know in our hearts there’s no finer liberal arts education in America,” says Smith.

“Park and Carol’s gift is monumental to Holy Cross in several vital ways,” says Frank Vellaccio, acting president of Holy Cross.  “Their tremendous generosity allows us to adhere to Graham Gund’s original architectural design, creating a magnificent, signature building at the center of our campus,” Vellaccio continues.

“Not only is this the largest ever donation to Holy Cross, it is our first eight-figure gift,” states Vellaccio.  “Park and Carol’s immense generosity shows the impact that a principal gift can have on our beloved college.”

In 1997, the Smiths contributed $1.5 million to Holy Cross for the construction of the Carol and Park B. Smith Wellness Center, a state-of-the-art fitness and training facility that is a two-level addition to the Hart Recreation Center.

Smith is the owner of Park B. Smith, Ltd., with corporate offices located in New York.  As a leading importer and wholesaler of home fashion products, his company emphasizes the creation of a safer global environment and education for the consumer regarding environmentally safe products for the home.  Manufacturing plants for the company are located in India and they employ more than 35,000 weavers, dyers and sewers.

Major department store chains in all 50 states carry Eco-ordinates, the exclusive environmentally-aware home products of Park B. Smith, Ltd.  These all-cotton, naturally dyed items include bedding, window treatments, area and accent rugs, placemats and other kitchen accessories.  The products are also widely distributed in Europe, Puerto Rico, South America and Canada.

Smith is also a connoisseur and avid collector of fine wines.  In 1999 he and his partners opened a restaurant in New York City that features 1,450 different selections of wine, the largest collection ever presented in a restaurant.  In a groundbreaking move, the business placed its wine list on the Internet.  Diners are able to call ahead so the wine staff can decant a selected wine prior to the guests’ arrival.

The New York Times published a three-star review on the restaurant, Veritas, a mere three months after its opening.  Veritas is also a finalist in the national James Beard Award for the best new restaurant in the entire country for 1999.  The final decision is due in May.

By his generosity to Holy Cross Smith is also hoping to trigger support among other alumni.
“Our fervent hope is that our gift will raise the bar and encourage alumni to do more than they ever have to date,” he emphasizes.

Giving back to the school that gave him so much is top priority for Park Smith.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross students (in the Class of 2000) who are members of the Honors Program will present their theses in a conference at the College on Wednesday, May 4 and Thursday, May 5.  The programs begin at 9 a.m. both days and will take place in the Hogan Campus Center.

Among the topics to be presented: How Well Do We Need to Understand Evil?; Diplomacy in the Ancient Olympics; Cuban Baseball Politics: Our Shared National Pastime as a Cultural Means Towards Political Ends; Meditations Through Song; Traversing Forbidden Boundaries: Crossing the Line Into Gypsy Worlds; and more.

Highly qualified students are invited to apply for the Honors Program during the second semester of their sophomore year.  Admission to the Honors Program is limited to about 30 students from the third-year class and the same number from the fourth-year class.

The Honors Program requirements include two interdisciplinary seminars, which are open only to Honors students.  Independent research and oral discussion are emphasized in the seminars. In addition to the seminars, all students on campus participate in the Honors Colloquia, a series of interdisciplinary discussions organized by the director of the program.

The highlight of the program is reserved for the senior honors student: each fourth-year student devotes one quarter of his or her time to a research project of his or her choosing, usually in the student’s major field, under the guidance of appropriate faculty members.  The results of the students’ research are published in-house and presented in this public forum at the end of the academic year.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross students with overdue library books and other materials can “pay up” and, at the same time, help needy individuals in Worcester.

The Holy Cross libraries are sponsoring an innovative “Food for Fines” campaign through April 22.  Students who contribute a non-perishable food or personal care item will have $1.00 in library fines forgiven.  There is no limit to the number of items than can be donated.  All food donations are welcome, even if fines are not owed.

The food will be donated to the St. Paul’s Parish Outreach Program in Worcester.  Last year, the first time the program was offered, more than 800 pounds of food was collected for St. Paul’s.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Preservation Worcester is beneficiary of the substantial volunteer time and energy of 12 Holy Cross students.  The students catalogued all of Preservation Worcester’s print library and entered the catalogue onto a computer data base.  They also made the National Register property survey forms much more accessible, among other projects.

The students are members Holy Cross Art History Professor Virginia Raguin’s “Structures of Faith” class.  Raguin, a renowned stained glass expert, directed the students’ undertaking in which each student contributed 24 hours of time this semester.

On Thursday, May 4th, the two organizations will join forces to celebrate this gift of time as well as a gift of approximately 30 richly documented surveys of area churches that Raguin’s students have completed over time.  Included are Roman Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, Greek Orthodox, Congregational and Baptist churches
as well as Jewish Synagogues. Preservation Worcester docents will use the surveys when they give tours throughout the city.

The students also will be hanging an exhibit of devotional prints, many from Raguin’s own collection, in Preservation Worcester’s Conference Room.  The exhibit entitled, “Mementos of Faith,” will be open for viewing until the end of August.

Master of Ceremonies at the celebration will be Preservation Worcester President Paul Braney and his wife, Mary Braney, the Head Librarian at Knox Trail Junior High School in Spencer.  Mary’s father, Holy Cross Librarian Emeritus and current Curator of Rare Books, James M. Mahoney, will be guest of honor.  Members from the churches surveyed are also being invited.

“We are thrilled to have had such a wonderful group of people bring our library up to date,” says Jim Igoe, Preservation Worcester Executive Director.  “These dedicated students have added a lot and the church surveys will be in a place where they will be used and appreciated. We hope this relationship with Professor Raguin and her students continues to grow.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – The rock band, Better than Ezra, will headline this year’s Spring Weekend Concert at Holy Cross on Monday, May 1, 2000. The concert, which begins at 8 p.m. in the Hart Center, will feature a guest performance from Dispatch. Tickets are on sale in the College’s bookstore-$10 for students and $15 for guests; they can also be purchased at Strawberries Music and Video Stores for $15 beginning on April 14, 2000. Signed to Elektra Entertainment in 1995, Better than Ezra is best known for its single “Good,” featured on the 1994 platinum plus album Deluxe. The band’s sound-roots driven, guitar-edged rock-has also been captured on two of its subsequent albums, Friction, Baby (1996) and the more recent, How Does Your Garden Grow? (1998). The New Orleans-based band features Kevin Griffin on vocals and guitar; Tom Drummond on bass; and Travis McNabb on drums.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Thomas Kselman, a professor in the history department at the University of Notre Dame, will give a lecture entitled “Vichy France and the Jews: French Catholics and the Holocaust,” on Monday, April 17 at 4 p.m. in Room 401 of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public. Kselman, the author of Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth-Century France and Death and the Afterlife in Nineteenth-Century France, was a recipient of the John Gilmary Shea Prize of the American Catholic Historical Association. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. The lecture is sponsored by the Kraft-Hiatt Chair. The Chair promotes Jewish-Christian dialogue at Holy Cross, part of a unique joint program in comparative religion at Holy Cross and Brandeis University. It is endowed through gifts to the two schools from Worcester philanthropist Jacob Hiatt and his daughter and son-in-law, Myra and Robert Kraft. The lecture is also sponsored by the Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies and the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Nearly 400 Holy Cross students, alumni and staff will take part in the second annual “Holy Cross Cares Day” on Saturday, April 8.  Showing their appreciation for the Worcester community, participants will spend the day performing service-oriented activities, such as: painting at several Worcester Public Schools, raking vacant lots and putting up fences.

The day begins at 9:30 a.m., with a breakfast and send-off from representatives of the Holy Cross administration.  Buses will transport the participants to numerous sites around the city.  Participants will work all day and return to Holy Cross around 4:30 p.m.  The day will culminate with a barbecue and a performance by a campus student band.

Among the sites slated to be part of Holy Cross Cares Day are: the Performing Arts School of Worcester, Girls Inc. of Worcester, Hitchcock Road Coalition, The Mustard Seed, Saints Francis & Therese Catholic Worker, Oak Hill CDC, Shepherd’s Place, HIV/TIDES, Worcester East Middle School, Chandler Elementary Community School, Columbus Park School, Doherty High School, Elm Park Community School, Multiple Intelligences School at Dartmouth Street, and North High School.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Beginning this week, 15 Holy Cross students will give up eating all solid food and drink only natural fruit juices as a means of drawing attention to the allegations of atrocities committed by the graduates of the US Army’s School of the Americas and the plight of the poor and the oppressed in Latin America.  The fast, sponsored by the Pax Christi chapter at the College, is scheduled to continue for 13 days (April 6 – 19).

An additional group of at least 15 students will participate in a “relay” fast.  Each person will fast for a day or two, coordinating their efforts with others to assure that during each day, there will be at least one or two people fasting.

The students will be observed by trained medical personnel throughout the fast.

Students will be holding nightly prayer vigils for people who have suffered at the hands of the graduates of the School of the Americas. “Graduates of this ‘school’ have perpetrated some of the most horrific acts of genocide and oppression in recent decades,” says Thomas Pavlovich, a sophomore at Holy Cross.

“Included in the long list of the deceased, killed at the behest of these graduates, are Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, nine-hundred civilians in the El Mozote massacre, and six Jesuit priests, their maid and her daughter in El Salvador,” continued Pavlovich.  “Most importantly though, this juice fast will be a means for us to call attention to the horrors perpetrated upon the poor by the graduates of the School of the Americas.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – Harry C. Boyte, co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota, will discuss “The Crisis in American Democracy: The Role of Higher Education,” in a lecture at Holy Cross on Monday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m., in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center.  The talk is free and open to the public.

For the last 10 years, Boyte has directed action research projects at the Center for Democracy and Citizenship aimed at developing practical strategies and a framework for citizen engagement.  His goal is to find what actually works to re-engage citizens with public life.

Boyte is the co-author of Building America: The Democratic Promise of Public Work (Temple, 1996), which draws on the last 10 years of the Center’s work to advance an original theory about public work and the commonwealth tradition of democracy.   He is the author of six previous books on American democracy, citizenship and community organizing.

In addition to his work at the Center, Boyte is a senior fellow at the Humphrey Institute; a graduate faculty member of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota; and a senior advisor to the National Commission on Civic Renewal and the “State of the Union”  public television series.  In the 1960s Boyte worked for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., serving as a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the civil rights movement.

This lecture is sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies at Holy Cross.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Children in Worcester are invited to participate in an Easter egg hunt at Holy Cross on Saturday, April 8 at 9 a.m.   The free event will take place on the lawn in front of the Hart Center.

The fun is being sponsored by the Holy Cross Community Alliance –  a group formed to collaborate with College Hill neighbors on issues concerning College/student/neighbor relations.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Chitra, a new opera/dance by Holy Cross professors Shirish Korde (chair, music department) and Lynn Kremer (chair, theatre department), will premiere at Holy Cross on April 15th in the Fenwick Theatre.  It also will be performed on April 29th at the Tsai Center in Boston.  Curtain time for both performances is 8:00 p.m.

Korde, a composer of Indian descent, is celebrated for synthesizing music of diverse cultures. Kremer is a stage director who has lived and traveled extensively in Indonesia.  Together they have created a new form borrowing from Western and Eastern cultures.  Chitra marks their seventh collaboration.

Balinese dancer I Nyoman Catra performs with Boston-based Bharat Natyam dancer Tara Ahmed, virtuoso singer Elizabeth Keusch, tabla player Samir Chatterjee, sitar player Peter Row, and Boston Musica Viva in Chitra.  In this richly textured musical fantasy, composer Korde draws on Indian Ragas, tabla drumming, and dance rhythms of India, as well as Balinese vocal styles.  Kremer’s concept and direction are inspired by the dance and theatre traditions of South and Southeast Asia.  The performers will be joined onstage by traditional Balinese shadow puppets she commissioned for this original fusion of dance, drama and opera.

Chitra is based on an episode from the Hindu epic The Mahabharata as interpreted by the great Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore.  Chitra, the daughter of the King of Manipur, is brought up as a boy.  Proud of her manly prowess, she falls in love with the demi-god Arjuna with unexpected results.

For ticket information at Holy Cross call 508/793-3490.  Tickets at the Tsai Center are available through Boston Musica Viva at 617/354-6910.  $17 General Admission, $13 Seniors and WGBH Members, and $8 students.  The Tsai Center is wheelchair accessible.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Lawrence Langer, professor emeritus at Simmons College and winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, will speak at Holy Cross on Wednesday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center.  Langer’s lecture is entitled “The Chosen People and the People Chosen: Jewish Promise and Jewish Loss in the Paintings of Samuel Bak.”  The lecture is free and open to the public.

The former J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the Research Institute of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Langer has also been a Koerner Research Fellow for the study of the Holocaust at the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Yarnton in Oxford, England.

Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory earned Langer the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism and was named one of the 10 best books of 1991 by the editors of The New York Times.  He is also the author of The Game Continues: Chess in the Art of Samuel Bak; Preempting the Holocaust; The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination; The Age of Atrocity: Death in Modern Literature; Versions of Survival: The Holocaust and Human Spirit; Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays; Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology; and Landscapes of Jewish Experience: Paintings by Samuel Bak.

The Religion and Modernity Lecture Series is sponsored by the Dean’s Office.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Iris Chin Ponte, a member of the Holy Cross Class of 2000 from Belmont, Mass., has been awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to pursue an independent research project while traveling outside the United States.

The selection committee chose 60 winners from more than 1,000 students who applied.  The students were chosen from 40 of the nation’s finest liberal arts colleges and small universities.

Watson Fellows receive $22,000 to support 12 months of independent study outside the territorial United States.  Ponte, a psychology major (with a concentration in Asian Studies), will spend the year investigating educational practices in preschools  in the United Kingdom, Taiwan, and Japan.

She tested her approach, which involves videotaping students in the classroom setting, during a semester in Beijing as part of the College’s Study Abroad Program.  When she returned she analyzed the videotapes in comparison with ones prepared during visits to preschools in Worcester.  This effort was part of her thesis for the Holy Cross Honors Program, an exploration  of culturally-related differences in early childhood education.  Her videographic skills were honed during a summer internship at  the Children’s Television Workshop, and her warm and enthusiastic personality sets her subjects, adult and child alike,  immediately at ease.

Thanks to her experience in Beijing and contact with Chinese relatives, Ponte now speaks and writes Chinese, an important factor in working in Taiwan.  She intends to study Japanese intensively before departing.  By the end of the adventure she will  have assembled an unparalleled collection of video footage, while testing her own resources and initiative in a unique and  life-changing series of challenges.

The Watson Fellowship Program was begun in 1968 by the children of Thomas J. Watson, Sr., the founder of IBM Corporation, and his wife, Jeannette K. Watson, to honor their parents’ longstanding interest in education and world affairs.

The program identifies prospective leaders and allows them to develop their independence and to become world citizens. Watson Fellows span academic majors from physics to fine arts, and 23% of them are minorities.