News

WORCESTER, Mass. – Tom Brokaw, the anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw,” will address the President’s Council at Holy Cross on Saturday, October 16, 1999, at approximately 9:30 p.m.

Brokaw has been the sole anchor of the nightly news program since 1983, and has anchored several other prime-time news programs for NBC.  He is the recipient of numerous awards for his reporting.

In December 1998, Brokaw wrote his first book, a number one bestseller, The Greatest Generation, an account of the generation of Americans born in the 1920s.  He writes of their coming of age during the Great Depression, their service in World War II and their building of America.  The book was also the subject of an NBC News documentary special that aired in January 1999.

Brokaw joined NBC in 1966, reporting from California and anchoring at KNBC, the affiliate in Los Angeles.  From 1973 to 1976 he was the network’s White House correspondent, and from 1976 to 1981 he anchored NBC News’ “Today Show.”  He has covered every presidential election since 1968.  He began his career in journalism after graduating from the University of South Dakota in 1962.

The President’s Council is comprised of major donors to the College.  The dinner is held each year to thank these individuals for their support of Holy Cross.  More than 700 guests are expected for this year’s event.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, will give a lecture entitled “Manliness and the Western Tradition” on Monday, Oct. 18 at 4 p.m. in Room 320 of the Hogan Campus Center.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

Mansfield, a member of the faculty at Harvard University since 1962, is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of political philosophy.  He translated Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, Discourses on Livy, and Florentine Histories as well as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has held both Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowships.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Teachers as Scholars, a collaborative project among Holy Cross, the Worcester Public Schools and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, will be held on Oct. 8 and Nov. 5 at Holy Cross.

“Voices of Diversity in American Literature,” the pilot project offered this fall, includes two seminars led by members of the Holy Cross faculty; it will be offered to 24 middle and high school teachers in the Worcester Public Schools Burncoat Quadrant.

“Voices of Diversity” will allow participants to meet other teachers in the Worcester Public Schools and members of the Holy Cross faculty as well as participate in seminars that have been designed for teachers in a school system with an increasingly diverse student population.

On Oct. 8, Bertram D. Ashe, an assistant professor in the English department at Holy Cross, will lead the seminar African American Voices: Doing the White Boy Shuffle.  Carolyn Howe, an associate professor in the sociology department at Holy Cross, will lead Listening to Voices of Latinos on Nov. 8.

“Most professional development opportunities for teachers who teach in the public schools center around methodology, curriculum development and teaching techniques that occur in one-to-two hour time blocks,” says David Lizotte, director of the teacher certification program at Holy Cross.  “The Teachers as Scholars project seeks to provide an opportunity for teachers to study, discuss and reflect upon scholarly issues in a seminar setting with a college professor for a whole day.  It seeks to provide an enriching academic experience.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Forgotten Language Tour, a national tour of prominent
nature writers and poets, will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 5-6, at Holy Cross.
Merging social justice ideals with concerns for local ecological issues, The Forgotten Language Tour has visited more than 30 states in eight years, giving readings and panel discussions, meeting with students, faculty, and local environmental activists, and hiking in the surrounding area.

Sponsored by a number of offices at Holy Cross, Clark University Environmental School, Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Regional Environmental Council, and the Orion Society, all events are free and open to the public.

The schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, Oct. 5:

9 a.m.-A visit to the community gardens, Hadwen Park, Green Hill Park and the Coal Mine Brook Trout Restoration Project with local activists.  Meet at 8:45 a.m., at the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.

1 p.m.-A panel discussion, “The End of Nature?” will be held in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.

2:30 p.m.-A panel discussion, “Living in Hope,” will be held in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.

4:30 p.m.-A hike around the West Boylston reservoir will be conducted.

7:30 p.m.-Readings by Bill McKibben, Janisse Ray, and Charles Siebert will be held in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.  McKibben, who lives in the Adirondacks, is the author of The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information, Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth, and Maybe One: A Case for Smaller Families.  His nonfiction works have been published in a number of magazines, including The New Yorker and Doubletake.  Ray, a naturalist and environmental activist, has published her work in Wild Earth, Orion Magazine, Florida Naturalist and Georgia Wildlife.  The author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, she is a nature commentator on the Peach State Public Radio Network.  Siebert, the author of Wickerby: An Urban Pastoral, has published articles, essays and poems in The New Yorker, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Esquire, and Outside.

Wednesday, Oct. 6:

2 p.m.-A hike in Broad Meadow Brook Nature Preserve with naturalist Gail Howe.  Meet at 1:45 p.m., in the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.

7:30 p.m.-Readings by Freeman House, Sandra Alcosser and Richard Nelson will be held in Suites B and C in the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.  House, a former commercial fisherman, is the co-founder of the Mattole Watershed Salmon Group in northern California.  He is the author of Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species, considered to be an essential handbook for West Coast environmentalists.  Alcosser, a poet and professor at San Diego State University, directed Central Park’s “Poems in the Park” program.  Her first collection of poems, A Fish to Feed All Hunger, won the Associated Writing Programs Award Series and her most recent book, Except by Nature, received the Academy of American Poets’ James Laughlin Award and the Larry Levis Poet Prize.  Nelson, an anthropologist who lives in Sitka, Alaska, is the author of several books, including Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest, Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in North America, and The Island Within, which won the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Emma Tahmiziàn, a pianist, will give her first concert at Holy Cross on Thursday, Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. in the Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., Concert Hall.  The program, which will include J.S. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy; selected etudes by Debussy, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Chopin, and Ligeti; and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, is free and open to the public.

Tahmiziàn, who joined the music department at Holy Cross as an assistant professor this fall, received her master’s of music from The Juilliard School.  A first-prize winner in the Robert Schumann International Competition at the age of 19, she has also won prizes in other international competitions, including the Van Cliburn, Leeds, Tchaikovsky, Montreal, Bach, Smetana, and Pro Musicis.

Recent recital appearances include Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Jordan Hall, The Smithsonian Institute, and the Los Angeles County Art Museum.  She has recorded for Balkanton, Koch International, Premier Recordings, and New World Records.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Svetozar Stojanovic, a professor in the philosophy department at the University of Belgrade, will give a lecture entitled “Serbia, Kosovo, and the NATO World Order” on Wednesday, Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center.  Co-sponsored by Peace and Conflict Studies and the philosophy department, the lecture is free and open to the public.

Stojanovic, professor and director of Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and distinguished guest fellow of the Center for International Inquiry, Buffalo, N.Y., has been a visiting professor at numerous universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and India.  He has been elected as a lifelong member of the International Institute for Philosophy, Paris, and Clare Hall College, Cambridge, England.

He is the author of approximately 130 journal articles and six books, including The Fall of Yugoslavia: Why Communism Failed.  He was also editor-in-chief of Praxis International.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross will host its third annual Literary Octoberfest, a weeklong celebration of writing during the week of Oct. 18, with readings each night at 7 p.m. in the Browsing Room of the Dinand Library.  Sponsored by the Jenks Chair, English department, and the Office of the President, all readings are free and open to the public.

The schedule is as follows:

Oct. 18-Linda McCarriston, author of Eva-Mary and Talking Soft, will give a reading.  This event is co-sponsored by Women’s Studies.

Oct. 19-Rosanna Warren, author of Stained Glass and Each Leaf Shines Separate, will give a reading.  Winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize and the Lavan Younger Poets Prize, she is an associate professor of English and modern foreign languages and an associate university professor of education at Boston University.

Oct. 20-Edmund Keeley, author of School for Pagan Lovers, A Wilderness Called Peace, and Inventing Paradise, will give a reading.  He is also the author of many books of translations, including Six Poets of Modern Greece and The Essential Cavafy.

Oct. 21-Peter Johnson, Christopher Jane Corkery and Greg Glazner will give readings.  Johnson, author of Pretty Happy! and editor of The Prose Poem: An International Journal, is a professor in the English department at Providence College.  Corkery, a lecturer in the English department at Holy Cross, is the author of Blessing.  Glazner, an associate professor of humanities and co-director of the creative writing program at the College of Santa Fe, is the author of The Man in the Iron Chair and Singularity and the winner of the Walt Whitman Award.

Oct. 22-Aleš Debeljak and Kevin Bowen will give readings.  Debeljak, author of Anxious Moments, The City and the Child, and Twilight of the Idols: Recollections of a Lost Yugoslavia, is on the faculty at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.  Bowen, author of Playing Basketball with the Vietcong and editor of Mountain River: Vietnamese Poetry from the Wars, 1948-1993, is the director of the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

WORCESTER, Mass. – “Bridges,” a day of service for first-year students at Holy Cross, will take place on Saturday, Oct. 2 from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at several Worcester Public Schools. Part of the three-tiered orientation program, first-year students have already participated in both the summer (“Gateways”) and fall orientation programs. “Bridges,” one component of the extended orientation program, will offer first-year students the opportunity to work within the Worcester community by raking, cleaning, and painting at the Worcester Public Schools. The theme of the orientation program this year is “live the mission.” “Bridges” will introduce students to the Jesuit concept, “men and women for others,” by reminding them to make real the words of former Superior General Rev. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. “The ‘Gateways’ summer and fall orientation programs transitioned first-year students into the Holy Cross community,” says Christa Carrick, coordinator of “Bridges” and a member of the Class of 2002 at Holy Cross. “‘Bridges’ will provide first-year students with another opportunity to meet other members of their Class, but more importantly will introduce them to the College’s commitment to service outside the gates of Holy Cross in the greater Worcester community.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – Mary C. Boys, the Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary, N.Y., will give a lecture entitled “The New Testament and the Jews: A New Lens on Problematic Texts,” on Thursday, Sept. 30 at 4 p.m. in Room 401 of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.  Part of the Religion and Modernity Lecture Series sponsored by the Dean of the College, the lecture is free and open to the public.

Boys, who joined the faculty at Union Theological Seminary in 1994, spent 17 years at Boston College.  She is also an adjunct member of the faculties of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and of Teachers College, Columbia University.  She received her master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia University-Union Theological Seminary and has done advanced study at the Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research in Jerusalem, Israel.

She is the author of three books, Biblical Interpretation in Religious Education (1980), Educating in Faith: Maps and Visions (1989), and Jewish-Christian Dialogue: One Woman’s Experience (1997).  Boys is also editor of Ministry and Education in Conversation (1981) and Education for Citizenship and Discipleship (1989).  A fourth book, Has God Only One Blessing: Judaism as a Source of Christian Understanding, is forthcoming.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Naval War College in Newport, R.I., will dedicate memorial flagpoles in honor of the thousands of Holy Cross men and women who have served as officers in the Navy or Marine Corps.  The ceremony will take place at the Naval War College on September 27 at 2 p.m., as part of the dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony for McCarty Little Hall.

The memorial to Holy Cross alumni consists of 60 foot nautical flagpoles and surround.  It was funded with $30,000 contributed by the late Edward J. Brennan (Holy Cross class of 1952), James E. Hayes (Holy Cross class of 1952) and James T. Larkin (Holy Cross class of 1953).  Brennan and Hayes served in the Navy; Larkin was in the Marine Corps.

The Holy Cross NROTC color guard will participate in the ceremony, along with College officials and alumni.  Holy Cross counts among its alumni three Medal of Honor winners who served in either the Navy or Marine Corps.

WORCESTER, Mass. – “One Woman’s Sarajevo,” a multimedia lecture and presentation centered on the problems in Bosnia, will take place Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.

The evening will include presentations by:

Phil Alden Robinson, director of Sneakers and Field of Dreams, will show his ABC Nightline documentary, One Woman’s Sarajevo.

Ferida Durakovic, a Bosnian poet, will give a reading from her new book, Heart of Darkness. Born in Olovo, Bosnia, she is the author of several books of poetry, including Masked Ball, The Eyes That Keep Watching Me, A Little Night Lamp, and Look, Someone Has Moved from a Beautiful Neighborhood Where Roses Die. She has also published two children’s books: Another Fairy Tale About a Rose and Miki’s Alphabet. Her poetry has been translated into English, Greek, Slovenian, Turkish, German and Finnish. She is the winner of the Hellman-Hammet Grant for Free Expression and of the 1999 Vasyl Stus Freedom-to-Write Award from P.E.N. New England.

Christopher Merrill, William H. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters and a member of the English department at Holy Cross, will read from his new book, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars.

Sponsored by the Jenks Chair, English department, Peace and Conflict Studies, International Studies – Russian/Eastern European Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Office of the President, the event is free and open to the public.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Robert Parkins, an organist, will perform the music of Spanish Baroque masters and J.S. Bach on Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.

Parkins, a professor in the music department and university organist at Duke University, received his Ph.D. from Yale University.  A Fulbright grant recipient, he studied with Anton Heiller in Vienna, Austria and has recorded extensively.

The concert, the first of the season, is free and open to the public.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Rev. Anthony J. Kuzniewski, S.J., a professor in the history department and rector of the Jesuit Community at Holy Cross, has recently published Thy Honored Name: A History of the College of the Holy Cross, 1843-1994 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999).

Based on extensive research in original sources and featuring extensive illustrations, the book traces the story of the College from its beginnings as a pet project of Bishop Benedict Fenwick, S.J., the second bishop of Boston, to its contemporary standing as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation.

A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1974, Fr. Kuzniewski is a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis.  He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.  He is also the author of Faith and Fatherland: The Polish Church War in Wisconsin, 1896-1918 (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

WORCESTER, Mass. – “Odyssey 2003: 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 from Aug. 15-27 at Holy Cross. This interdisciplinary program will introduce 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; orient students to the campus, Worcester, and Boston; and introduce students to members of their class, faculty, and administration. Funded by a grant from the AT&T Foundation in an academic partnership with Holy Cross, this program is available to students at no cost.

WORCESTER, Mass. – David M. Hummon, a professor in the sociology department at Holy Cross, has recently published his first children’s book, Animal Acrostics(Nevada City, CA: Dawn Publications, 1999).

Created for children ages eight and older, the book showcases a variety of animals in five different habitats of the world through light, fanciful verse and colorful drawings by illustrator Michael Maydak. Following the format of an acrostic, Hummon has carefully selected and arranged words into a series of cleverly crafted poems that capture an aspect of each animal’s nature, behavior or environment. The first letters of each line of verse, when combined, form the animal’s name.

A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1980, Hummon is a graduate of Columbia College in New York City. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. Hummon resides in Holden with his wife and two children.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Three organ concerts will be held as a part of the Holy Cross/Boston Conservatory Organ Masterclasses, a weeklong program held from June 21-26 for 30 of the finest young organ players in the world from the United States, China, England, Korea, Japan, Denmark and Canada.  Admission to all concerts is free and open to the public.

The schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, June 22 at 8:30 p.m. – Patricia Snyder will give a concert at the Pakachoag Church, in Auburn, featuring the church’s new Dobson mechanical action pipe organ.  Synder, who earned her doctor of musical arts degree from Yale University, is the director of music at the Pakachoag Church.

Friday, June 25 at 8:30 p.m. – The participants in the Holy Cross/Boston Conservatory Organ Masterclasses will give a concert featuring works by French, Dutch and German Baroque composers on the 1985 Taylor & Boody organ in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at Holy Cross.

Saturday, June 26 at 8:30 p.m. – Members of the Alain Society of America and the participants in the Masterclasses will give a concert exclusively devoted to the music of Jehan Alain (1911-1940) on the Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Worcester.  Alain was the brother of Marie-Claire Alain, a world-renowned concert organist and one of the featured artist-teachers at the Holy Cross/Boston Conservatory Organ Masterclasses.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Earlier this week, ground was broken at Holy Cross beginning the renovation of O’Neil Hall and the construction of an addition to the complex.

The project entails the complete renovation of the 33,700 square foot O’Neil Hall, home of the biology department, and the construction of a 12,000 square foot wing on the building. The ambitious goal is to complete the renovation by the end of August and to open the new addition by December. The project is slated to cost $9.4 million.  Perini Building Company is handling the project for Holy Cross.

Over the past twenty years, the biology department has expanded in terms of its faculty and the complexity of its curriculum. New areas of specialization, such as molecular biology and environmental biology, are now well-established parts of the curriculum.  Biology faculty are active researchers as well as dedicated teachers, and have increased their use of and need for laboratory facilities.  Professors actively engage students in their research, working side-by-side with them in the laboratory.  The expanded size, specialization and activity of the biology department led to increased demands for space.

“While the instrumentation in O’Neil Hall is excellent, the building itself has become outdated,” says Professor George Hoffmann, department chair.  “The renovation and expansion of O’Neil Hall means that the next generation of biology students will enjoy a classroom and laboratory environment that more effectively supports the learning process and easily incorporates new technology.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – Eight members of the Holy Cross faculty will present papers at the multidisciplinary and international conference known as “Word and Image.”  This year’s theme is “Self-representation in literature and the visual arts,” and will be held from June 24-26 at the University of Paris 7-Denis Diderot.

The conference, which is organized by the English departments at Holy Cross, the University of Paris 7-Denis Diderot and the University of Bourgogne at Dijon, is sponsored by the prestigious British Council.

As in the past, a selection of conference papers will be published in the international journals Word and Image and Interfaces.  In 2001, the Conference will be held at Holy Cross.  This will mark the first time that “Word and Image” meets in the United States.

The members of the Holy Cross faculty participating in the conference are:
Maurice A. Géracht, the Stephen J. Prior Professor of Humanities in the English department, is one of the co-organizers of this year’s conference.  Géracht has been involved with the Word and Image Conferences since its inception in 1986, and serves on the governing board.

John H. Dorenkamp, a professor emeritus in the English department, will present “The Brazen World of Pietro Aretino.”

Mark Freeman, a professor in the psychology department and associate dean of the College, will present “Worded Images, Imaged Words: Helen Keller and the Poetics of Self-Representation.”

James M. Kee, an associate professor in the English department, will present “Addressing the ‘Cold Pastoral:’ Word, Image, and the Drama of Romantic Selfhood in Keats’ ‘Ode on A Grecian Urn.’

B. Eugene McCarthy, a professor in the English department, will present “Thomas Gray and the Art of Visual Description.”

Jim Miracky, S.J., an assistant professor in the English department, will present “Pursuing (a) Fantasy: Cinematic Renditions of E.M. Forester’s Queered Realism.”

Virginia C. Raguin, a professor in the visual arts department, will present “The Self Through Jesus: Bonding with the Image.”

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, an associate professor in the English department, will present “To See or Not to See: Depicting Forbidden Sights in ‘Bluebeard.’

Helen M. Whall, an associate professor in the English department, will present “Coitus Interpreted: Aretino Reads Raimondi” (Whall presented a paper on Hamlet at the 1992 conference in Nice).

WORCESTER, Mass. – Erin M. Sullivan of Worcester will receive a full tuition scholarship next fall when she enters as a first-year student at Holy Cross.  She was chosen by the Holy Cross Admissions Committee to receive the Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Scholarship, which was established in 1941.  In 1996, the scholarship was redirected and made a full scholarship, annually renewable for each recipient.

She is the daughter of David and Fayne Sullivan of May Street in Worcester.  A senior at St. Peter Marian High School, Sullivan is the oldest of seven children in a family that has a set of triplets and a set of twins.  She has been involved with Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) and Girls, Inc.  Sullivan has also participated in drama productions and was a member of the swim team.

The Ellis Scholarship is named in honor of the late owner and publisher of the Worcester Telegram and the Evening Gazette and his wife.  Ellis owned the newspapers from 1919 to 1925, and combined the two papers for the first time.  At the time of his death in 1934, he was vice president and part owner of the Chicago Daily News and the president of the New England Fibre Blanket Company.  The Ellis family estate created the scholarships in 1941 to acknowledge outstanding academic work and extracurricular involvement of a student residing in the city of Worcester.  The $2.5 million scholarship endowment has provided partial scholarships to several Worcester students each year.  Since the 1996-97 academic year, the scholarship has fully covered tuition.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Marland Buckner will give a lecture entitled “Is There a Politics to the New Black Aesthetic?” on Friday, April 30, at 4 p.m., in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross.

Buckner is a former senior policy advisor to Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) and former senior analyst for social policy at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Sponsored by the African American Studies Program and the Political Science Department, the lecture is free and open to the public.