Alumni: Be on the lookout for great information from the Alumni Association this spring. News will include
For the second year, Parents Association volunteers will be on board to answer questions at the Admitted Student Day information fairs in Elliott Hall. These outreach efforts provide a warm welcome to new Keene State families and share KSC pride. Many parents of new students have said that it’s reassuring to have a network of parents willing to share their experience throughout the college journey.
This is one of the most beautiful times on campus, so mark your calendars now! This is the weekend that makes parents wish they could be KSC students—it has you in mind! We’ll fill the time with great activities for students and families alike. Take in the Friday night entertainment, the Saturday morning programs with campus leadership (including a chat with President Giles-Gee), the KSCPA annual meeting, afternoon athletic events and other fun, and the Saturday night party. Parent/Family Weekend really gives you a chance to immerse yourself in campus life. Many of the events sell out, so watch your mail in August and register early!
The Chamber Singers of Keene comprises great voices and support from the local community, and KSC is an important part of that mix. Assistant Professor of Music Sandra Howard is the director, and Assistant Professor of Music Heather Gilligan composed one of the pieces they will perform next month. Holocaust and Genocide Studies Professor Paul Vincent is a featured bass soloist, and staff member Owen Davis is a featured tenor soloist.
The Chamber Singers will present “Rising Spring,” their last performance for the 2011–2012 concert season on Saturday, April 14, 2012, at 4 p.m. at St. James Episcopal Church (44 West Street, Keene). The concert will feature Bach cantata BWV 67 “Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ,” and will include a world premiere of Dr. Gilligan’s “A Prayer in Spring.” Tickets for this event are $12 and can be purchased from CSK members or at the door. For more information, visit the Chamber Singers of Keene web page, or send them an email.
The Chamber Singers of Keene will be traveling to Einbeck, Germany this summer as part of the Keene Partner City project—now, there’s a real community outreach!
Some of you must have walked past this many times.
If you think you know where this is, please write your answer on a piece of paper and slip it inside an 1854 Ticknor & Fields edition of Walden, or Life in the Woods and mail it to Newsline, Alumni Center, 229 Main St., Keene, NH 03435. Or use the “comments” link, below.
Like many students at KSC, junior Jaime Del Pizzo is a film major. But she’s a film major with significant hearing loss. You’d think that would be a serious impediment to film study, but not in Jaime’s case. She uses assistive technology, hearing aids, and an FM system, and sometimes relies on note takers to help her in her classes. The Office of Disability Services also sends an email to each of her professors every semester requesting that films and video materials be captioned, so that Jaime will have access those educational materials.
“Her biggest strength is cinematography,” noted Jeremy Kingwill, a film production teaching assistant interviewed in a video about Jaime. “Being such a visual person, she instinctively knows where to get the best shot … her color pattern is off the chart.”
She’s also an avid snowboarder and has just returned from a semester of study in New Zealand. To learn more about Jamie and how she does it all, check out the article she wrote for About.com’s Assistive Technology page on “Technology for Deaf & HoH College Students.”
Professor and Cohen Chair for Holocaust and Genocide Studies James Waller has been invited to attend a dinner at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, on April 18, honoring Aung San Suu Kyi. The Memorial Museum will grant Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy work in her native Burma, with the Elie Wiesel Award, the Museum’s highest honor.
“I am particularly thrilled to have the opportunity to be present for Aung San Suu Kyi’s award,” Dr. Waller explained. “I think that what is happening in Myanmar/Burma is forcing us to rethink genocide prevention in some fundamental (and very encouraging) ways. Last year at this time, I was telling audiences that Burma was the most likely country in the world to engage in genocide. It really stood on the precipice of mass atrocity, and my standard line was ‘the only surprise is that genocide hasn’t happened yet in Burma,’ because every other risk factor was well in place. Now, just months later, free, democratic elections are on the horizon. It’s really amazing—this most encouraging lesson in genocide prevention is that it’s never too late. As long as a country hasn’t yet reached that falling off point, there’s still hope.”
Dr. Waller is also invited to participate as a featured speaker in the Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance luncheon on April 19. Broadcast journalist Marvin Kalb, and Shankhar Vedantum, author of The Hidden Brain, will moderate the luncheon program, which will focus on understanding how the Holocaust was made possible by everyday people. Dr. Waller’s research for his book, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford), will be particularly relevant to the discussion.
About 10 years ago, while he was developing a course at University of Illinois Chicago, Michael Antonucci, associate professor of English and American studies, stumbled upon an old and dusty copy of Frank J. Basloe’s I Grew Up With Basketball: Twenty Years of Barnstorming with Cage Greats of Yesterday, then long out of print. Basloe (1887–1966) was born in Hungary and immigrated as a child with his family to the United States in the late 19th century.
“It’s a great American coming-of-age tale in which a Jewish immigrant becomes (in his words) ‘a toned American’ through the new game called basketball,” explained Dr. Antonucci. “From this perspective, the text gives scholars and students a great snapshot of the US in the early 20th century. Trains, cities, towns, games, work, and the hustle are present throughout the text.” Realizing that the book had real value for his work in American studies at KSC, Dr. Antonucci tried using a pdf copy of I Grew Up With Basketball as a text it in his class. Obviously, that was far from an ideal solution, so he proposed that the University of Nebraska Press reprint the book, for which he wrote a new introduction.
Continue reading Prof. Antonucci Resurrects Basketball History
Wasn’t it just a month ago that we told you about Anthony Bishop ’94, the art director for the new NBC game show Who’s Still Standing? By the time that story ran, Anthony was already moving onto bigger things. He was also the art director for Madonna’s stunning halftime show at Superbowl LXVI, as well as for the Pregame and Tailgate Party featuring Lenny Kravitz and the Fray.
“Just what does the art director do?” you might ask (like I did).
“It is my responsibility to carry out the production designer’s vision by way of renderings and technical drafting that communicate the design to the artist, the client, the team, and the vendors who fabricate all the pieces of the puzzle,” Anthony explained. “I also have to manage the vendors, often via phone, as they build the design because changes from the client continue to trickle in until we get on camera. Next there is the onsite scope, the ‘load in,” where I oversee all the pieces of the puzzle and coordinate communication between each vendor as we all work together in what is typically a 10-day process from delivery to show day. However, the Superbowl was a four-week process, since a football stadium is not our typical venue. Ultimately, I oversee the production’s overall artistic look on camera and am responsible for problem solving when something we designed doesn’t work.”
Continue reading Anthony Bishop ’94 Art Directs Superbowl Halftime Show
New Hampshire has a serious problem with prescription drug abuse, though few people realize it. It causes more deaths than traffic accidents in the state, and our rate of pain-medication abuse among 18- to 25-year olds is the second-highest in the country. It’s a big factor in the rise in such crimes as illicit sales and theft.
Keene State students, in partnership with Monadnock Voices for Prevention, conducted a semester-long research project to study the problem in this part of the state and come up with some solutions. The information the students gathered, and their recommendations, not only informed strategies for the Monadnock region, but they also impacted Governor Lynch’s statewide plan to address prescription drug abuse, which was released in January (Call to Action: Responding to New Hampshire’s Prescription Drug Abuse Epidemic).
Continue reading Students Gather Critical Data on Prescription Drug Abuse
Though winter wasn’t particularly cooperative for the Campus’ recent Winterfest weekend, spirits were high in the Alumni Center’s Centennial Hall for the Alumni Athletic Hall of Fame ceremonies on Feb. 4th. The new Class of 2012 includes Raymond “Lippy” De Rocher ’64 (baseball), Debbie Higgins ’76 (basketball), Wilson Perez ’03 (cross country/track), Michelle Mason ’05 (soccer and lacrosse) and Meghan McLoughlin ’05 (softball).
Four KSC Theatre and Dance Design students recently presented their work at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival and received great feedback from a panel of professional experts, who praised their designs. Alexandra Vendt, lighting designer for Agnes of God; Gary Beisaw, props designer for The Rocky Horror Show; and Michael Portrie, sound designer for The Rocky Horror Show, were nominated as finalist.
Gary Beisaw won the S.P.A.M. Award for excellence in stage properties for his design for The Rocky Horror Show.
Alexandra Vendt won the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas Award for excellence in design-technology for her lighting design for Agnes of God.
Riley Ahern is one of 36 semifinalists (out of 240 students) at the KCACTF.
Help them get the recognition they deserve: Nominate them for the 2012 Distinguished Teacher Award.
Each year the KSC Alumni Association recognizes an outstanding faculty member, based upon the following criteria: excellence in classroom teaching, encouragement of independent thinking, rapport with students in and out of the classroom, and effective student advising. If you know a faculty member here who fits that bill, send in a nomination. For more information, and a nomination form, visit the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teacher page.
Hurry, the deadline is 4 p.m., March 9, 2012!
KSC President Helen Giles-Gee, is featured on the front page of national Campus Compact’s newsletter, Compact Current. The article outlines Dr. Giles-Gee’s priorities of economic development, preparing students for global citizenship, and developing a new fiscal model of sustainability.
The New Hampshire Humanities Council has awarded a $1,870 grant to KSC journalism lecturer Roger Martin for his project, “Adam’s Vision, Book XI, Paradise Lost.” To make John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, more accessible to the modern public, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, and on Thursday, April 5, Keene State College will host a dual event beginning with a panel discussion recorded live for broadcast and open to public discussion. Humanists Eugene McCarthy, Rodger Martin, and Michael Wakefield (also a lecturer in journalism and a composer/musician), will discuss with a Keene State Television host what makes Book XI of Paradise Lost meaningful for a contemporary audience and what makes this book different from the other eleven books in the epic.
The panel will be digitally recorded so that DVDs of the event can be distributed to public-access TV stations in N.H. and Mass.