News

WORCESTER, Mass. – The theatre department at Holy Cross has launched a revolutionary Shakespearean Web site, created in collaboration with English and theatre professors from around the country, under the supervision of Associate Professor Edward Isser, a member of the Holy Cross theatre department.

This prototype site (http://www.holycross.edu/shakespeare) is the first-ever Shakespearean teaching resource on the Internet to combine text, video, audio, and graphics to create an intuitive, interactive, and fun-filled learning environment for secondary school and college students.

Isser began to work on this project three years ago after participating as a fellow in a humanities institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.  This fellowship, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, brought together 16 English and theater professors from around the country to develop new methodologies for teaching Shakespeare through performance techniques and technology.

The Interactive Shakespeare Project went online unofficially six weeks ago with its first project, Measure for Measure.  This play was chosen because it has emerged in recent years as one of Shakespeare’s most popular and readily accessible works.  In 2000, a study guide for All’s Well That Ends Well will be added.

“An initiative like this could only be pursued at a place like Holy Cross.  At a big university, good ideas and promising ventures get lost in the shuffle, get sent to endless committees, or put back at the end of the line.  At Holy Cross, there is a kind of intimacy, energy and institutional excitement about deserving projects that allows and encourages such work,” says Isser.

Later in 1999, an interactive Globe Theatre, developed by Associate Professor William Rynders of Holy Cross, will be posted.  Using VRML technology, the Virtual Globe will allow complete freedom of movement, enabling users to explore the outside and inside of the structure.  Using the program, visitors will be able to stop at different locations as well as to direct a virtual play, revolutionizing the teaching of literature and theatre.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross has selected nine students to participate on three teams, the maximum allowed, in the 1999 Mathematical Contest in Modeling, which will take place Feb. 5-8.

Taking part in the competition are upperclassmen Thomas Boyle, Michael Elkas, and Kevin O’Brien; second-year students James Bernat, James Caccese, Kevin Germino, Andrew Gontarz, and Elizabeth Lynch; and Gabrielle Deifik, a member of the Class of 2002.

The competition, which is an international event open to college and high school students, has been held for the past 14 years.  Sponsored by the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications, with major funding provided by the National Security Agency, the contest is an opportunity for students to compete in a team setting using applied mathematics to solve real world problems.

Participants must dedicate the entire weekend to the competition.  At 12:01 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 5, each team receives an envelope with the contest questions.  They remain at Holy Cross for the weekend and have until 5 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 8 to produce a polished, typed solution paper.  The sponsors of the competition must receive the finished project by Feb. 12, after which the winners are chosen.

This is the first time in several years that Holy Cross has entered teams in the competition.

WORCESTER, Mass. – During February, Holy Cross has planned a number of events to celebrate Black History Month.  All are free and open to the public.

The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. – Professor Randolph Potts, a member of the psychology department, will give a lecture entitled “Black Identity and Ota Benga’s Cage: The Psychology of the African American Experience” in Room 406 of the Hogan Campus Center.

Sunday, Feb. 7 at 7 and 10 p.m. – Rev. Kenric Prescott, an ordained Baptist minister and pastor of Union Baptist Church in Hartford, Conn., will preach at both evening Masses in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.  At the 7 p.m. Mass, he will be joined by the Gospel Choir from his parish.  Rev. Prescott is a member of the Holy Cross Class of 1973.

Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m. – Dr. Manthia Diawara will give a lecture on “Exile and Homecoming: Aesthetics of Departure, Arrival and Return” in Room 116 of Edith Stein Hall.

Friday, Feb. 12 at 9 p.m. – WIL, a stand-up comedian who has performed at many colleges and universities around the country as well as at the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village, New York, will perform in Crossroads in the basement of the Hogan Campus Center.

Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. – Shindana Cooper, a skilled storyteller and poet who has worked to raise awareness in the African and African-American communities, will perform in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center.

Thursday, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m. – The three-person play, “Points of Arrival: A Jean Donovan Journey,” will be performed in the Fenwick Theater in O’Kane Hall.  This show is sponsored by the Peace and Conflict Studies and the Chaplains’ Office.

Thursday, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m. – Well-known Panamanian jazz artist Danilo Perez will give a lecture and performance in the Rev. John E. Brooks Music Center.

Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 4 p.m. – Maude Herd, the National President of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), will give a lecture entitled “The Impact of Welfare Reform on Communities of Color” in Suite B of the Hogan Campus Center.  This is a part of the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies (CISS) lecture series.

Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. – Professor Dianne Stewart, a member of the Religious Studies Department, will give a lecture on “Black Theology and the Black Religious Experience” in Room 409 of the Hogan Campus Center.

Friday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. – The Black and Gold Dinner and Fashion Show, sponsored by the Black Student Union, will take place in the Ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center.

Sunday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. – A gospel concert, sponsored by the Holy Cross Gospel Ensemble, will take place in the Ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Alternate College Theater (ACT) at Holy Cross will present its annual spring musical, Little Shop of Horrors, on Feb. 4-7, at 8 p.m.  There will also be matinees on Feb. 6-7, at 2 p.m.  All performances are in the Fenwick Theater in O’Kane Hall on the Holy Cross campus.

Written and composed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, and based on Roger Corman’s 1960 movie, the musical is directed by Holy Cross junior, Mark Noonan and choreographed by senior Jessica Parker.  Musical direction is by students Kitty O’Hare and Stephen Williams.

The play, set in the 1960s, takes place at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists, where botanist Seymour Krelborn has discovered a new type of plant life.  As this plant, named “Audrey II,” grows so does his fame and fortune.  Unfortunately, the plant has a bizarre and horrific culinary taste, which leads to the inevitable conflict.

Tickets are $7 for members of the Holy Cross community and $10 for general admission.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Sabor Latino, one of the most popular Latin bands in New England, will perform at Holy Cross on Friday, Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Hogan Campus Center.

Their sound is contemporary and features passionate vocals, strong percussion, and pulsating keyboards.  They play the current and popular Latin rhythms, including the Dominican Republic’s Merengue and Bachata, Puerto Rico’s Salsa, and Colombia’s Cumbia and Ballenato.  Their repertoire contains current and classic Latin covers, as well as their own original compositions.

Sabor Latino is led by Argentinean Nestor Yanani, on keyboards.  Carmen Aguirre, from Colombia, is the vocalist.  Miguel Pizarro, from Puerto Rico, and Pedro Calderon, from the Dominican Republic, are on percussion.

WORCESTER, Mass. – A Garden of Psalms: Photographs and Words, an exhibition by Harold Feinstein, will run from Tuesday, Jan. 26 to Feb. 28, in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at Holy Cross.  There will be an opening reception on Jan. 26, from 4:30-6 p.m. in the gallery, located in O’Kane Hall.

Feinstein will talk about his work in the gallery on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 12 p.m.  Admission to all events is free and open to the public.

“A Garden of Psalms” is a series of digital images of flowers and other plant forms accompanied by brief “songs.”  These color prints (variously Kodak Pegasus, IRIS and Epson prints) are startling in their intensity and, at the same time, deeply meditative.  They offer the viewer a sharply focused distallation of the complexity of the natural world with all its variety, rationality and accident.

Famous as a photographer of New York City street life, he is perhaps best known for his photographs of Coney Island taken over the course of five decades.  Other black and white portfolios include photographs from the Korean War as well as landscapes.  The subjects of his color work range from the natural forms of flowers and seashells to the created form of architecture and the sculpture of Auguste Rodin.

His work has been widely exhibited and published.  Recent exhibitions include Metropolis – City of Light at New York’s Municipal Art Society in 1995 and A Coney Island of the Heart at the International Center of Photography in 1990.  His photo essays have been published in a number of major periodicals, including Life, Audubon, and Connoisseur.  By the time he was 19, his work had been purchased by Edward Steichen for the permanent collection of many international institutions.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Sights and Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement, a multi-media presentation, will be shown on Wed. Jan. 20 at 4 p.m., in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at Holy Cross.  This event is in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his work with the Civil Rights Movement.

Written and produced by Junius W. Williams, Esq., the exhibition includes dramatic readings and slides.  The Freedom Songs, spirituals of slaves that later became an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement, will also be featured.

“It is in the music, in conjunction with authentic slides of people and events of the Movement, that enables the viewer and listener of ‘Celebration’ to become a part of the panorama of the history as it unfolds.  It enables you to feel the people, the hopes and aspirations, and the drama that was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s,” says Williams.

The Sights and Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement is presented in association with Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

WORCESTER, Mass. – James David Christie, Michael Collver, and Dana Maiben will perform in a concert entitled “Splendors of the Italian Baroque” on Sunday, Jan. 31, in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at Holy Cross, at 3 p.m.

Christie is the Distinguished Artist-in-Residence and College organist at Holy Cross.  Winner of both first prize and prize of the audience at the Brugge International Organ Competition, he is the artistic director of the Ensemble Abendmusik, a period instrument orchestra and chorus specializing in the performance of 16th, 17th, and 18th century music.

Collver, who is considered to be one of the finest cornetto players in the United States, was a founding member of Project Ars Nova, in which he sang countertenor as well as performed on the cornetto.  He recently participated in the Ensemble Abendmusik’s recording of the 1623 Jesuit opera, The Apotheosis.

Maiben, a Baroque violinist, is on faculty at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass.  She has toured all through Europe and North America with Concerto Castello, Musik for the Generall Peace, and the Boston Camerata.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The annual Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan Lecture on Religion and Public Affairs will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

This year’s speaker is Rev. Roy Bourgeois, M.M., an outspoken critic of the United States’ foreign policy in Central America for the past 15 years and the 1997 recipient of the Pax Christi USA’s Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award.

Bourgeois is the founder of the School of the Americas Watch, an office that does research on the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Ga., and informs the public and media about the implications of this training on the poor of Latin America.

After four religious sisters were raped and murdered by Salvadoran soldiers he moved to El Salvador, becoming a translator for a television crew, and later began working with a leftist guerilla group.

Following the assassination of six Jesuit priests in 1989, Bourgeois learned that a number of the Salvadoran soldiers responsible for the crime were graduates of the School of the Americas.  He has since spent nearly four years in a federal prison for nonviolent protests against the School of the Americas.

After graduating from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Bourgeois was a Naval Officer for four years.  He spent two years at sea, a year at a NATO station in Europe, and one year in Vietnam, where he was awarded a Purple Heart for his service.  He entered the Maryknoll Missionary Order and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1972.  He has been nominated for Academy Awards for each of his documentary films, “Gods of Metal” and “School of Assassins.”

Bourgeois’ remarks will constitute the annual Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan Lecture, named in honor of the late Bishop of Worcester, a member of the Holy Cross Class of 1928, who was known for his lifelong dedication to peace, social justice and ecumenism.

The series was started in 1991 in an effort to build a relationship between the diocese and Holy Cross on social justice and peace issues.  It is sponsored by the College’s Peace and Conflict Studies Program and the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Holy Cross Chamber Singers will perform on Thursday, Dec. 10, at 2:30 p.m., in the main reading room of Dinand Library.

This “invasion of the library” is an unannounced concert designed to surprise students during the study week leading up to final exams.  The tradition, which includes a number of holiday classics, has been in existence since Christmas, 1981.

The Holy Cross Chamber Singers are conducted by Bruce I. Miller, a member of the music department.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Iris Chin Ponte, a junior at Holy Cross, has been selected as one of just 18 scholarship winners nationwide for the CBS Foundation Scholarship Program.  The award carries with it a $2,500 scholarship.

The CBS Foundation Scholarship Program was designed to recognize and assist minority men and women who are interested in pursuing careers in broadcast communications in the areas of production, broadcast journalism, programming or technical operations.

Ponte, of Belmont, Mass., is a psychology major/Chinese minor.  She is active on a number of boards and committees, the founder of Holy Cross Television, a member of the varsity crew team and the female a cappella group, The Delilahs.

In January, she will travel to Beijing, China, where she will study for a semester.  She is planning to use the money she receives from the scholarship to purchase a laptop computer and a digital camera.

A member of the College’s Honors Program, Ponte chose to do her thesis on a comparative study of children in pre-schools in China and the United States.  She decided on this topic after reading Joseph J. Tobin’s Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China, and the United States (Yale University Press, 1991) and realizing that research had not been done since the late 1980s.

Last summer she was an intern at Children’s Television Workshop in New York, where she worked for Sesame Street Research in both the office and the field.  There, she was able to integrate her knowledge of psychology with her love of children.

While graduation is still a year away, Ponte says that she would like to continue to work in the media, creating educational children’s programs for either Children’s Television Workshop or Nickelodeon.

Founded in 1953, the CBS Foundation embodies the ideals of CBS and its history as one of the leading producers and distributors of entertainment and information programming.  Since its inception in 1991, this program has provided more than $645,000 in scholarships for 344 students.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Holy Cross music department will host a December concert series in the Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., Concert Hall.  The only exception is the Dec. 9 concert, which will take place in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.  Admission is free and all events are open to the public.

The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, Dec. 2 – The Holy Cross Brass Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra will perform at 8 p.m.

Friday, Dec. 4 – The student/faculty recital will take place at 8 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 6 – The Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble will perform at 3 p.m.  For free tickets call 508/793-2296 before Dec. 3.

Monday, Dec. 7 – There will be a piano recital by the students of music professor, Chris Hanshaw, at 4 p.m.

Tuesday, Dec. 8 – Professor Nym Cooke of the Holy Cross music department will present “A Holiday Sing of Often Overlooked Christmas Repertoire” at 4 p.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 9 – The Holy Cross Concert Choir will perform the annual Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols at 8 p.m., in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.

Thursday, Dec. 10 – Robert Schultz, a member of the Class of 1999 will give a piano recital, at 4 p.m.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Out Loud II, a public reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, will take place on Thursday, Dec. 3, from 9 a.m-6:30 p.m., at Holy Cross in the first-floor Lobby of the Hogan Campus Center.

Students and faculty will participate in the innovative program, reading 10-minute sections of the critically acclaimed novel.  Participants will be sponsored for each minute they read.  Proceeds raised from this program will finance future issues of the literary journal published by Sigma Tau Delta.

The first Out Loud program, which was held in October, featured a reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross students involved in the New England Welfare Reform Initiative (NEWRI) will present their research and activism in a program entitled “Walking the Talk on Welfare and Poverty: Holy Cross Students in Action” on Tuesday, Dec. 2, from 12-2 p.m., in the Hogan Campus Center.

With funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the 11 dioceses of New England, NEWRI was formed to change the prospects for poor families and children.  NEWRI is housed at Holy Cross and supported by the College.  The project involves public education at the parish level and direct work within the community.  It also includes an advocacy program for public policies that will work to bring decent jobs and a living wage to those who have been receiving funds through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (formerly AFDC).

As a part of the College’s support for NEWRI, during the fall semester courses have been offered in the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies (CISS) and Religious Studies.  Students are working on welfare reform issues, both inside and outside of the classroom.  The program on Dec. 2 will be the culmination of their research and activities during this semester.

The students’ presentations will be offered in two panels.

The first, “Direct Service: Addressing the Needs of Poor Families and Children,” will be moderated by Professor Mary Hobgood of the Religious Studies Department.  Panelists include: Kristin Hopman ’01 on her work with the NEWRI Office; Ryan Hurley ’99 and Megan Fox ’99 on their work with the Central Mass. Housing Alliance; Carina Nybo ’00, Kathy Cosgrove ’99 and Lauren Erelli ’99 on their work with the Today’s Child Program at the Department of Transitional Assistance; and Nicole Crifo ’99 on her work with women welfare recipients who are victims of domestic violence.

The second panel, “Social Change: Education and Advocacy on Welfare Reform Issues,” will be moderated by Professor Betty Reid Mandell, a visiting faculty member at Holy Cross.  The panelists are: Libby Reichard ’99 on a parish-based education project, “Voices for Justice;” Gretel Gerhardt ’01 on her work with Neighbor to Neighbor; Kimberly Jackson ’00 on her advocacy work with welfare recipients through the Women’s Alliance; and Rachel Miller ’00 on her work with Working Massachusetts, a labor/welfare coalition which addresses contingent work issues.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The annual juried student art exhibition will run from Dec. 7-18, in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery in O’Kane Hall at Holy Cross.

The show will feature works in all media, created by Holy Cross students, and will be judged by Sarah Walker, a painter and a member of the Clark University visual arts faculty.  An opening reception will be held in the gallery on Monday, Dec. 7, from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

The exhibition is free and open to the public.  The Cantor Art Gallery is open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

WORCESTER, Mass. – A conference involving approximately 250 college student leaders from across the state will be held at Holy Cross on Saturday, Nov. 21, from 8:30 a.m. until 4:40 p.m., in the Hogan Campus Center.

The 3rd annual Student Network Conference, co-sponsored by Holy Cross and the Massachusetts Campus Compact (MACC), is entitled “Beyond Boundaries: Students Uniting Through Service.”

The conference will allow students to share innovative strategies and explore new ideas in the area of community service.  In addition to a keynote address by Aaron Lieberman, founder of Jumpstart, a nonprofit organization that engages young people in service to their communities, numerous workshops will be offered by representatives from colleges and universities around the state.  Robert Lewis, Jr. of City Year will also address the conference and a resource fair will be a major attraction.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Alternate College Theater at Holy Cross will perform Picasso at the Lapin Agile on Dec. 3-6, at 8 p.m., in the Fenwick Theater in O’Kane Hall.  There will also be matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 5 and 6, at 2 p.m.

Written by Steve Martin and directed by Holy Cross senior, Patrick Schleisman, Picasso at the Lapin Agile is the winner of the 1996 Outer Critics’ Circle Awards for “Best Play” and “Best Playwright.”

The play is set in 1904 in a Bohemian bistro in Paris, the Lapin Agile, where a hypothetical meeting occurs between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, while both in their early 20’s.  This imaginary encounter took place one year before Einstein published The Special Theory of Relativity and three years before Picasso painted “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon.”

Tickets are $6 for members of the Holy Cross community and $8 for general admission.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Actor and director Nick Weber will present the works of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., in a program entitled “Earth, Sweet Earth,” on Thursday, Nov. 19, at 8 p.m., in The Pit (O’Kane Hall, Room 37) at Holy Cross.  The program is free and open to the public.

The performance will highlight Hopkins’ intense concern for nature, our union with it and our responsibility for it.

Weber holds a master’s degree in theater arts from San Francisco State University, and a master’s degree in sacred theology from Santa Clara University.  In 1967, he founded the Council Players of San José, Calif., which produced the long popular Royal Lichenstein Circus until 1993.

Hopkins, an English poet, is considered to be one of the most influential Victorian writers.  Although his work was not published in collected form until 1918, it has influenced many leading 20th-century poets.

The event is co-sponsored by the English Department, the Dean’s Office, the William H.P. Jenks Chair, Peace and Conflict Studies, and the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Frederick J. Murphy,  professor of religious studies at Holy Cross, and a resident of Holden, has recently published his fourth book.  It is entitled Fallen is Babylon: The Revelation to John (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998).  It features a substantive commentary on the Book of Revelation in the New Testament.

A previous publication by Murphy earned first prize in the national Alpha Sigma Nu Book Awards, for books published by scholars affiliated with Jesuit schools.

Murphy has been a faculty member at Holy Cross since 1983.  He earned bachelor’s (in mathematics) and master’s (study of religion) degrees and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian origins at Harvard, and also studied at Weston School of Theology and the University of London.

A native of Worcester, Murphy grew up on a street just behind Holy Cross and attended Sacred Heart School on Cambridge Street and St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury.

WORCESTER, Mass. – A noted African theologian, Fabien Eboussi, will give a lecture entitled “Christianity and African Religions: A Dialogue” at Holy Cross on Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 7 p.m. in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center.

Eboussi, a W.E.B. DuBois Fellow at Harvard University’s DuBois Institute, is a professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of Yaoundé in Cameroon and president of the Pan-African Research Group for Social and Economic Development (GERDDES), Cameroon Section.

He has a long history of civil rights activism in Cameroon and has worked on the Global Coalition for Africa.  A former member of the Jesuit order, he is the author of a number of books and essays, including Christianity Without Fetishes: An African Critique and Recapture of Christianity, which was published in English in 1984.

Admission is free and open to the public.