The International Film Festival at Ursinus College will present six films during the fall semester. All films will be shown at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Auditorium.  The films are subtitled in English, and each film is followed by light refreshments and conversation.

The Festival begins on Sept. 2 with the Chinese film Still Life (2006), directed by Jia Zhang Ke.  The Three Gorges hydro project on the Yangtze River forces countless families from Fengjie to relocate to other cities.  The town’s oldest section is torn down and submerged forever, taking with it 2000 years of local history. Sanming and Shen return to the area seeking people who were once a part of their lives, but soon they find they must decide what is worth salvaging and what must be let go.

 The Arabic film A Perfect Day (2005), directed by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, will be shown on Sept. 22.  A haunting drama about loss and reconciliation, A Perfect Day illustrates a day in the life of a Lebanese woman and her son who have been permanently scarred by fifteen years of Civil War (1975-1990).  They confront life in Beirut after the war, where ghosts of the past linger among the hip nightclubs and gridlocked traffic.

The Japanese film Bashing (2005), directed by Masahiro Kobayashi, will be shown on Oct. 13.  Loosely based on true events, it is the story of Yuko, a volunteer aid worker in Iraq, who was kidnapped and held hostage. After her miraculous release, she returns to Japan and endures humiliation and harassment from her coworkers, boyfriend, and strangers on the street.
 
The Spanish film Broken Embraces (2009), directed by Pedro Almodóvar, is scheduled for Oct. 27.  Set in the present day, a blind screenwriter, Mateo Blanco, a.k.a. Harry Caine, reminisces about his favorite leading lady to his assistant, Diego.

The French film The Class (2008), directed by Laurent Cantet, will be screened on Nov. 4.  At a tough inner-city school in Paris, a teacher challenges his students over issues both academic and personal, with each side getting an education they will never forget.

Metropolis (1927), the German classic directed by Franz Lang, will bring the festival to a close on Dec. 8.  It is the future, and humans are divided into two groups: the thinkers who make plans (but don’t know how anything works) and the workers who achieve goals (but don’t have the vision). One man from the thinkers dares visit the underground where the workers toil and is astonished by what he sees.

For more information, please contact Colette Trout at ctrout@ursinus.edu or 610.409.3000, ext. 3432. - BA

The Princeton Review has cited Ursinus as one the 50 “Best Value” private colleges, and, in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, has for the first time included Ursinus College in The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges.

The Best Value list, which features 100 schools -- 50 public and 50 private colleges and universities -- was featured on the websites of The Princeton Review and USA TODAY, which partnered to present the lists. Ursinus is one of three schools on the list located in Pennsylvania, with Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr colleges.

In its profile of Ursinus on USA Today’s website, The Princeton Review editors commend the school for its student experiences. “Ursinus College has roots of reform that have translated into a college experience that makes serious changes in a student’s life,” according to the write-up. “Ursinus participated in the national Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices), and has received high laurels for its transformational experience. The First Year Experience includes excellent first-year advising by faculty, first-year clustering in guaranteed housing, a laptop, and the Common Intellectual Experience where first-year students read, write, and learn in small seminar-style classes.”

The Princeton Review also notes Ursinus’s commitment to environmental responsibility by including it in its Guide to 286 Green Colleges.

The “green guide” cites colleges and universities which  have demonstrated an “above average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives.” The guide is online and can be downloaded at www.princetonreview.com/greenguide and www.usgbc.org/campus.

According to the guide, Ursinus College “has made important strides in campus practices like recycling and waste diversion, and eco-friendly food purchasing. More advanced sustainability projects like a composting system and converting used cooking oil to biodiesel fuel are currently in the works. Several sustainability-related campus endeavors began as student projects and are sustained by student volunteers, like an organic garden and a constructed wetland ecosystem.”

The Best 373 Colleges: 2011 edition, published in August, notes that Ursinus is a “transformative experience.” And: “If you embrace liberal arts education, this is the institution to be at.”

For the third year in a row, Ursinus was designated an Up and Coming college by U.S. News & World Report. Ursinus is second in the National Liberal Arts list for 2011.

In this category, college administrators surveyed for the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings were asked to nominate colleges they think have made the most promising and innovative changes in the areas of academics, faculty, student life, campus, or facilities.  Ursinus was Number 2 on the liberal arts list.

Ursinus was also on the list for Schools with a Strong Commitment to Teaching, ranking Number 25 on that list, tied with Centennial cohort Haverford College. Eighty-six colleges and universities were cited by college administrators asked to identify up to 10 schools where the faculty has an unusual commitment to undergraduate teaching.
U.S. News ranks Ursinus overall in the top tier of 187 National Liberal Arts Colleges at Number 71.

The Fiske 2011 guide also praises Ursinus, noting its selectivity. It states, “At Ursinus, you can truly make a name for yourself.” The Fisk guide notes that “Professors draw praise for their skills in the classroom;” and “Ursinus is on the rise.”

The Yale Daily News Guide, which is popular with prospective students, says that the College is “known for the close realtionaships between faculty and students,” developed from the first days of The Common Intellectual Experience, the required freshman course. “This liberal studies seminar epitomizes the value that the staff at Ursinus puts on the development of conversational skills and well-roundedness of its students.”  It cites “activities galore” and mentions everything from The Grizzly to the scuba club.  Finally, it calls Ursinus “a place where tradition and history matter.” -- WG

During one of the hottest summers on record, Nate Simasek 2012 trudged through open fields at a local alfalfa farm. He was studying the impact of a lime-green colored insect, only 1/8 of an inch in size. The leafhopper eats by injecting its saliva into plants, which interferes with the growth of the plant. Though small, potato leafhoppers can ravage crops.

Simasek, Biology major and a Summer Fellow, was focused on finding alternative pest management strategies to reduce pesticide use. He worked with Professor Cory Straub and fellow student Regan Dohm to study the effects of polyculture (growing multiple plant types together) and predator presence on the potato leafhopper (PLH). They will present the results of their research in Pittsburgh at the Ecological Society of America conference next week.

Their research has potential to have an impact reaching far beyond Ursinus.

“One of the more interesting aspects of our project is its application outside of ecology,” says Dohm 2012. “The Potato leafhopper leads to millions of dollars in damages to alfalfa each year, which is particularly disruptive since alfalfa is Pennsylvania's second-most important crop. Our research could provide evidence for a pesticide-free solution to this problem, saving money and improving health. It's a tall order to fill in the remaining two years, but even if we set the groundwork for students to come.”

Simasek, who is from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, says Summer Fellows made it possible to devote eight weeks to a research project. “It is not an opportunity that is available to many people,” he says. “It was a learning experience regarding how the research world works.”

Though Summer Fellows lasts only two months, Simasek and Dohm will pick up where they left off and continue this research in the fall. “Ursinus builds a community that not only allows student research, but also provides the support to take the next step.”

Seven member of the Class of 2011 were inducted into membership in Ursinus College’s Tau of Pennsylvania Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in May.  Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most widely known academic honor society.

Generally conferred upon graduating seniors, the honor is extended to select liberal arts and sciences undergraduates who meet requirements that include semester hours completed, grade-point average and the number and variety of courses taken outside the student’s major.

Among those inducted were Carina Murphy Brown, a biology major; Calla Elizabeth Mattox, a Spanish and history major; Melissa Bethanne Pankake, an English and classics major; Megan Nicole Sattazahn, a business & economics and anthropology/sociology major, and Zachary John Traino, a history major.  -- BA

 Celebrating a milestone 20th year, The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College is opening its collection to the community with the addition of a new, visible storage wing. A distinctive glass façade and its rooftop sculpture terrace foster renewed interaction between art and the community, and allow immediate accessibility of the permanent collection.

Two exhibitions and a major symposium on museums and their role in the community, will mark the wing’s opening and the Museum’s 20-year anniversary.  (Pictured, Dr. Amy Meyers, see Sympoisum, below).

The 4,200 square-foot Henry W. and June Pfeiffer Wing caps a $4 million expansion and renovation project designed by the Philadelphia architectural firm Towers & Miller. The addition provides storage and lecture space, a works on paper study area and new galleries including the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation Sculpture Terrace. The visibility of the Museum’s permanent collection is enhanced through the addition of state-of-the-art open storage vitrines. Before the wing, there were more than 3,000 paintings, drawings, sculpture and cultural artifacts in the Berman permanent collection which had to be housed in basement storage.

“The new Pfeiffer Wing, an imaginative, welcoming space that is open, transparent, dynamic and light, echoes the philosophical foundation of the museum’s mission to capture and engage a diverse audience,” according to Director Lisa Hanover. “The magnificent wing, inside and out, truly makes the Museum a national model for academic art museums,” she said. “Our goal was that the collection would be visible beyond the walls of the museum.”

The historic stone building was originally constructed in 1921 as the Alumni Memorial Library and was later used as a student union. The Museum was dedicated in 1989, when the late Philip and Muriel Berman, business leaders and philanthropists, found a home for their extraordinary collections of contemporary sculpture, American paintings, works on paper and folk art, joining an existing collection of 18th and 19th Century American and European paintings. Twenty years later, the Museum houses more than 4,000 notable works of art and attracts more than 35,000 visitors annually. The new Henry W. and June Pfeiffer Wing is named for longtime Trustee and museum supporter Henry ‘Hank’ Pfeiffer, Class of 1948, and his late wife, June.

Two exhibitions will mark the anniversary and new wing opening:

All My Places: Landscapes, Portraits & Whimsy – The Art of Karl J. Kuerner, will open Sept. 1 and continue until Dec. 15 in the Main Gallery. An artist reception will be held Sept. 26 from 2 to 4 p.m.

Kuerner’s compositions celebrate the rich tradition of the Brandywine Region. The Kuerner Farm and its inhabitants are captured in every season and the work are poignant analogies for the ebb and flow of life’s events. Kuerner was born in 1957 in Chadds Ford, Pa. in 1957 and he watched Andrew Wyeth paint some of his greatest works at his grandparent’s farm.  His artistic talent was recognized and nurtured by Carolyn Wyeth, sister of Andrew Wyeth and a renowned artist in her own right.  Under her tutelage, he discovered an art form that would provide him with the avenue with which he could add to the rich heritage of the Brandywine Valley.  His work has been exhibited overseas in Nigeria, Belgium, and Togo in connection with the Art in Embassies program, and exhibited in the state capitol in Harrisburg in 2006.  His first book, All in a Day’s Work-from Heritage to Artist, was published in 2008.  His work has been featured in many other publications such as The Mother of All Arts by Gene Logdan, Artist’s Speaking for Themselves—the Artist of Chester County by Daphne Landis, and The Land of Truth and Phantasy by Richard McLellan. 

Take Me Out to the Ball Game: Legacies of Baseball from the Alan Novak Collection, will be on view Sept. 16 through Dec. 15 in the Upper Gallery. An opening reception is planned Oct. 1, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Novak’s collection of original works of art and material culture related to the game of baseball is focused and based on the historic and important figures of the game.  He began his collection primarily with memorabilia related to the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees, and has since expanded his interests to the Philadelphia Athletics and to the context of major accomplishments by athletes such as Satchel Page, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Thurman Munson, Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, and many others. This exhibition will include original paintings by Dick Perez, Tom Moser, Stephen Holland and Gerry Dvorak.  Several original works by Arthur Miller, will be included. Complementing the paintings will be a diverse and significant collection of unique baseball memorabilia including 19th century Harper’s and Leslie’s woodcuts, T-3’s (Tobacco Cards) and silks, a 1927 Yankees signed ball, Joe DiMaggio’s 1937 Player of the Year Award, Thurman Munson trophies, a split bat from the 1941 All Star Game, signed by the respective teams from the National and American Leagues, a bat attributed to Lou Gehrig, and 1869 Red Stockings etching. The National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, based in Cooperstown, New York, will also be lending significant objects and memorabilia from its permanent collection. Novak, a 1971 graduate of Ursinus College, is an attorney with Conrad O’Brien, West Chester, Pa.

A major symposium, 20th Anniversary Celebration Symposium: Drawn By Art: Expanding the Reach of the Berman Museum of Art, is planned for Oct. 30, Olin Auditorium, 1 to 4 p.m., with a reception, 4 to 6 p.m. There is a $25 registration fee (free for Ursinus faculty, staff and students).

Amy Meyers, Director, Yale University Center for British Art, who will receive an honorary degree from Ursinus College, will be a keynote speaker. The symposium will address the themes of architecture and renovation and its impact on contemplative spaces; how physical space supports academic, educational and programmatic goals; and how the role of the museum has changed in communities. -- W.G.

At a last campus meeting with President Strassburger June 10, two members of the Ursinus staff were announced as the first winners of the new Flora A. Tortorelli Staff Service Award. Lori Scharneck, secretary to the Biology Department, and Michael Degler, special events supervisor for Facilities Services, were the first winners of an annual honor which carries a $1,000 award. The award, endowed by Chemistry Professor Victor Tortorelli, and his wife Kathy, is named for Professor Tortorelli’s mother, an hourly wage employee at a public grammar school.

“You are the glue that holds the college together,” said President Strassburger, in announcing the award. “You ability to connect with students, your ability to work as a team, and your ability to stay late ad get the job done” is what makes the staff so important at Ursinus. He called the staff “partners in student achievement,” and noted that the entire staff was praised in the recent Middle States reaccreditation report. “I am delighted to have you as part of the team,” he said.

Moe than 60 staff members were nominated, and an anonymous committee under the direction of Kelley Williams oversaw the process. Because of  the volume of nominees, two winners were designated for this year. Winners must have more than 10 years of service on the  Ursinus staff. 

(Pictured from left : Mike Degler, ProfessorTortorelli, his wife Kathy, Lori Scharneck, and President Emeritus Strassburger)  

It makes sense that most media attention has focused on the environmental impact of the BP oil spill on marine life, especially on the coastal ecosystems, says Dr. Joseph Prospero 1956, Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. But the dangers from the petroleum outflow could extend beyond the sea and land, he says.
 
As an atmospheric chemist, Prospero studies the aerosol chemistry of the marine atmosphere and the biogeochemical effects of the long range atmospheric transport of materials from the continents to the ocean environment. “The oil spill could conceivably have an impact on air quality and possibly on human health,” says Prospero, who graduated from Ursinus with a degree in chemistry.

 “A large fraction of the oil mass is comprised of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). At the ocean surface, the VOCs rapidly evaporate when heated by the sun. Some of the compounds in the VOC fraction can have an impact on human health, for example benzene which makes up about 1 percent of the oil mass.  The EPA and other researchers has been actively monitoring for total VOCs, benzene and other potentially harmful compounds.  The EPA web site that reports on oil-spill related studies states that as of June 14th the air quality levels for ozone and particulates are  normal on the Gulf coastline for this time of year.”

According to Prospero, people along the coastline have reported smelling pollutants typically associated with petroleum products. “Some of these chemicals may cause short-lived effects like headache, eye, nose and throat irritation, or nausea,” he says. “Humans can smell some of these chemicals at levels well below those that would cause short-term health problems. However, the EPA reports that levels appear to be too low to be a threat to human health. One reason for the relatively low concentrations is probably related to the fact that most of the VOCs are emitted to the atmosphere relatively close to the spill site.

Prospero says that as winds transport these emissions to coastal regions, atmospheric processes will dilute VOC concentrations by mixing the polluted air with clean air. -- K.C.

Recent graduate Zina Habib was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to travel to Jordan to study early intervention methods for children with an autism spectrum disorder.

The second student from the Ursinus Class of 2010 to have been awarded a Fulbright, she will look into the current research and methods being used in Jordan, and determine what types of early intervention services are available for these children and their parents, and how these services are being delivered.

“By going to Jordan,” she says, “I will gain a better understanding of this disorder in a developing country where the services are fairly new, and will get to see the progression of these interventions.” She will conduct her research in Amman. 

As an intern at a program for children with autism in Upper Darby, while she was an Ursinus student, Habib learned and used the Applied Behavior Analysis method (ABA). ABA consists of an initial assessment of a child’s learning abilities, and community, social, self care, motor, play and leisure skills. With positive reinforcement of accepted and constructive behaviors as the goal, data is assessed to show behavior modification progression.

She will also explore other early intervention services such as workshops on social and communication skills and standard therapies such as speech, occupational, family therapy and play therapy. Autism spectrum disorders are neurological disorders that affect individuals in the areas of social interaction, communication, and sensory processing.

Autism therapies are relatively new in Jordan, Zina explains. “It will be an interesting comparison to the U.S., one that will provide me ample opportunity to research,” she says. The first independent special school to accommodate the latest teaching of therapeutic methods in Jordan was established in 2004.

Habib, who is from Philadelphia, will be working with a prominent physician in Jordan who collaborates with therapists, audiologists, nutritionists and special education specialists to diagnose and treat children with autism. She also plans to work directly with children and their families, and says she will get the opportunity to build friendships and connections that go beyond the walls of the clinics. “I care deeply about Jordan and about the children and families that are affected by autism spectrum disorders. From this experience, I will be gaining a unique cultural and research opportunity and at the same time I will help in benefitting the families and clinics with new ideas and techniques.”

Habib, who was born in Jordan and lived there until age 8, is proficient in Arabic. She graduated May 15 as a Biology major and Religious Studies minor from Ursinus College, where she was leader of the Arabic Language Club and Muslim Student Association, as well as a Resident Advisor, Director of Up 'til Dawn, a member of the Teagle Grant student team and Survivorship Chair for Relay for Life. -- W.G.

Amber Lee Spurka graduated from Ursinus College with a bachelor of arts degree in Spanish, cum laude, with minors in psychology and elementary education, departmental honors in Spanish and K-12 teaching certification during commencement exercises on Saturday, May 15, on the college campus. More than 340 students received bachelor’s degrees.

At Commencement, she received The Spanish Award, given by the Modern Language Department to honor an outstanding student in Spanish.

Spurka was awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, and she will teach English in Spain during the academic year 2010-2011.  She will complete her Fulbright fellowship in a K-12 school in Valencia, Spain. She first became familiar with the country as a student studying in the Ursinus in Madrid program, and completed honors research in Spanish with Professor Xochitl Shuru. While in high school, she had been an exchange student in Costa Rica. “It changed my whole life,” said Spurka, who has visited her host family annually. “I’d rather speak Spanish than English.”

Spurka was a Resident Advisor for first year students, an Ursinus College Ambassador, president of the Campus Activities Board, an Admission Office Tour Guide, and a Spanish tutor. Also at Ursinus, she was a program leader in the ESL (English as a Second Language) program that instructed the Spanish-speaking custodial staff in English, and she supervised a group of 20 peer tutors.

She completed the TEFL/TESOL teaching certification program in Cusco, Peru.  She was an Ursinus Summer Fellow and a student teacher in the Spring-Ford School District.

During her time in Madrid, she had an International Language Assistantship at Colegio Santa Maria de La Hispanidad, where she taught English language and conversation classes to Spanish students at the elementary and high school levels. She also assisted in a Spanish immersion classroom to help young immigrants to Spain.

Smooth Cartographies: Toward a Collective Becoming, will open June 1 in the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art Front Gallery, and run through Aug. 1.

 Due to technical difficulties at the Museum, we were unfortunately obliged to cancel artist Greg Scranton's July 14 gallery talk, but we hope you will be able to join us for the rescheduled talk by the artist and a closing reception to celebrate his work:

SATURDAY, JULY 31 from 3:00-4:30.

The talk will take place in the Front Gallery of the Berman Museum from 3:30-4:30. Light refreshments will be served. We look forward to seeing you there!

The artist, Greg Scranton, is a digital media artist working with locative technologies such as global positioning system (GPS), radio frequency identification (RFID) and other mobile platforms. His works take many forms including video, sound, print and interactive installation. He often seeks to challenge the original intended usage of the technologies themselves and aims to inspire new creative possibilities for their implementation and deployment.

He is an Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Ursinus College. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus, known for its diverse collection and innovative educational programming, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; and  noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and college holidays.  The Museum is accessible to the physically disabled, and admission is free. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Exhibitions and programs are funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For group tour information, call 610-409-3500.

Image Caption: Greg Scranton, ROUT(e)INE – Philadelphia

N40º4’24.348”,W75º27’44.028”

N39ºW75º19’39.396”

24”x24” (60.96cmx60.96cm) Archival Inkjet Print 2010

The Art Gene: The Hutton Family Legacy, opens June 13 at The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College. The exhibition features family members Hugh M. Hutton, Dorothy Wackerman Hutton, Elizabeth Hutton MacDonald and Susan Hutton DeAngelis. It runs through Aug. 8 in the museum’s Upper Galley.

The public is welcome to attend an opening reception in honor of the Hutton Family and The Philadelphia Sketch Club Legacy of Artists on June 20, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Hugh Hutton was an editorial cartoonist for The Philadelphia Inquirer for over 35 years. His wife, daughter and other family members are accomplished artists and their works, drawn from the extensive collection of Elizabeth Hutton MacDonald, will be presented. Three generations of the family have been actively involved as members of the Philadelphia Sketch Club, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus, known for its diverse collection and innovative educational programming, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; and  noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and college holidays.  The Museum is accessible to the physically disabled, and admission is free. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Exhibitions and programs are funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For group tour information, call 610-409-3500.

Ursinus College celebrated its 137th Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 15 at 10 a.m. on the lawn in front of the campus. Some 340 students received Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degrees, and 26 students received Bachelor of Business Administration degrees. 

Andrew Delbanco, the Julian Clarence Levi Professor Chair in the Humanities and the Director of the American Studies Program at Columbia University received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters after he spoke on the distinctive character of liberal arts colleges, and why they are essential for democracy. He also reminded students to give back to Ursinus, for the education they received.

Delbanco (pictured at right) is the author of Melville: His World and Work (2005), which won the Lionel Trilling Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in biography. He is the author of The Death of Satan (1995), Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now (1997), and The Real American Dream (1999), which were all named notable books by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. The Puritan Ordeal (1989) won the Lionel Trilling Award. His essays regularly appear in the New York Review of Books, and other publications. The Harvard-educated scholar is also the editor of The Portable Abraham Lincoln (1992).

President John Strassburger also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. Students wore small red bowties to honor their President, who is known for his penchant for bowties. Dr. Strassburger, who retires June 30, received appreciative standing ovations.

Professor of Politics Paul Stern echoed Dr. Delbanco in his citation: “John Strassburger had a revolutionary idea.  He believed that Ursinus should be the liberal arts college it claims to be.  In the realization of this idea he has exhibited rare virtues of mind and heart.  With wisdom, he has discerned the true meaning of liberal education.  With courage, he has acted on that vision.  Both virtues were required to achieve his goal.  . . . Against stiff social currents, he was determined that Ursinus would prosper only by becoming its best self.  He thus built this college into a home for that thoughtful reflection and for the pursuit of truth, a place where all students, of diverse means, can experience the satisfactions of a genuine liberal education.”

Student speaker Aakash Shah referred to a time when he worked in a clinic in India, and saw poverty firsthand. He told his classmates that with the education they received, they would better understand the world’s problems, and be more likely to find solutions.

The Baccalaureate speaker, Hollis Watkins, received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. President and co-founder of Southern Echo, a leadership development and education organization, he is a longtime civil rights activist,. He was one of the participants in an historic sit-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter in McComb, Miss. He is the founder of the Civil Rights Veterans of Mississippi. Dr. Watkins led the Baccalaureate service attendees in stirring song.. 

Three faculty members received awards.

Tina Wailgum 1977, Associate Professor Exercise and Sports Science, received The H. Lloyd Jones Award. Established in honor of H. Lloyd Jones Jr., professor of English from 1947 to 1988, it is awarded to a faculty member for distinguished advising and mentoring.

Jonathan Marks, Associate Professor of Politics, received The Laughlin Professional Achievement Award. Endowed by Henry P. Laughlin M.D. 1938 it is given to a faculty member who has made significant contribution to scholarship. He is the author of  In Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Sheryl Goodman, Associate Professor of Media and Communications Studies, received The Lindback Award. It is given at Ursinus College for Distinguished Teaching. -- W.G.

Ursinus College students can now recycle their trash at the end of the semester, rather than create mountains of waste in campus dumpsters.
 
One person’s trash could be another’s treasure, as the Environmental Studies Program kicks off Move- Out 2010 to collect, recycle or donate end of year trash, much of which is re-usable, and some of which requires special disposal practices.
 
Starting May 7, students can bring the following to cardboard boxes that will be placed in campus dorms and collected periodically:

Electronics/cell phones; furniture; clothing in bags, books, shoes, unopened toiletries, printers, canned goods, plates, utensils, cups, batteries, cardboard and Styrofoam.
 
Centralized collection tents will be open for drop off -- and for browsing --from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 8 to 9:30 p.m. daily. There will be tents by Reimert, near Paisley between North and BPS, behind Olevian and 444 Main St.
 
The sustainable move-out project evolved from a class, Waste as a Resource, taught by Associate Professor Leah Joseph. Explains student Julia Bull: “In past years, we have seen trash piling up at the dumpsters during finals and  countless amounts of items in those piles can be recycled or reused, so we thought we would do something about it. We think this is an extremely important matter,” she says. “Ursinus has put forth a major effort in making green initiatives around campus.”
 
Kyle Rush, campus sustainability coordinator who is responsible for overseeing the collection, points out that the project also has “the free market approach, if students, or anyone on campus, needs can use what someone else disposed of.” Liberty Thrift shops will pick up the goods.
 
In addition to the regular collection, Resident Assistants will act as liaisons with students, and e-mail student coordinators when the boxes are full.  In addition to Rush, Joseph and Bull, project initiators also include students Carly Freedman, Thomas Jablonowski and Elan Avinoam. The students have worked on this a stewardship project in their Environmental Studies class, and have worked with Facilities and Residence Life Offices. -- W.G.
 

Holly Gaines, Associate Professor of Music and John French, William F. Heefner Chair of Music, will give a recital at The Church of the Holy Trinity May 19 at 12:30 p.m.  Both are faculty at Ursinus College.

The duo will perform at the Brown Bag Lunch Series at the Rittenhouse Square church. Joining Drs. French and Gaines will be Carolyn Ellman on cello, with works by Astor Piazolla, Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Frideric Handel and Christopher Scinto.

Ursinus College will celebrate its 137th Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 15 at 10 a.m. on the lawn in front of the campus. The Baccalaureate Service will be in Bomberger Chapel on Friday, May 14 at 5 p.m., followed by a reception in Olin Plaza.

Andrew Delbanco, the Julian Clarence Levi Professor Chair in the Humanities and the Director of the American Studies Program at Columbia University will be the Commencement Speaker and will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1973, and his doctorate in 1980. He began teaching at Columbia University shortly thereafter and was promoted to full professor in 1987. Professor Delbanco is the author of Melville: His World and Work (2005), won the Lionel Trilling Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in biography.

The valedictorians are Abbie R. Cichowski of Sellersville, Pa., and Amanda Joy Moyer of Pocono Lake, Pa.  The salutatorian is Aakash Kaushik Shah of Hackensack, N.J.

Approximately 340 Ursinus students earning bachelor’s degrees will graduate in an outdoor tent on the front lawn of the campus. The community is welcome to attend. Tickets are not necessary, but seating is on a ‘first come’ basis. During the two-hour commencement ceremony, traffic on Main Street in front of the College, will be detoured. The road will reopen when the ceremony concludes.

Delblanco is also the author of The Death of Satan (1995), Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now (1997), and The Real American Dream (1999), which were all named notable books by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. The Puritan Ordeal (1989) won the Lionel Trilling Award. His essays regularly appear in the New York Review of Books, and other publications.

The Baccalaureate speaker will be Hollis Watkins, president and co-founder of Southern Echo, a leadership development and education organization, that provides training and technical assistance to individuals and organizations throughout the South in the areas of politics, education, environmental programs, economic development, and law. A longtime civil rights activist, he was one of the participants in an historic sit-in at Wool¬worth’s lunch counter in McComb, Miss. He is the founder of the Civil Rights Veterans of Mississippi. He will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

President John Strassburger will also receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at Commencement. Having served as President of the College for 15 years, he has announced he is stepping down June 30, and will hold the title President Emeritus. Commencement Home> 

Business and civic leader John E.F. (Jef) Corson of Plymouth Meeting will become the interim president of Ursinus College when President John Strassburger steps down June 30 after 15 years as President. Corson currently serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Montgomery Hospital Medical Center in Norristown, and is Vice Chair of the Ursinus College Board of Trustees.

A committee charged with recommending a candidate for interim president unanimously recommended Corson to become interim President July 1. His service will continue until the next President of Ursinus College is inaugurated. A Presidential Search Committee chaired by Ursinus Trustee Robert Barchi, President of Jefferson Medical College, will recommend a candidate for President. President Strassburger, who announced on Feb. 11 that he asked to step down for personal and health reasons, will serve as President Emeritus, continuing his role as a national leader and advocate for liberal education.

“I am thrilled that Mr. Corson has agreed to accept this vital position,” said Spencer Foreman M.D.  of White Plains, N.Y., Chair of the Ursinus Board of Trustees. “He is uniquely qualified by his experience with business and non-profit organizations and his long history of active engagement with virtually every aspect of the operation of the College.  We are fortunate, too, that he already is so well known by the campus community and enjoys the friendship and respect of faculty, staff and students.”

Mr. Corson is President of the Corson Foundation and the Corson Investment Co., a group of family partnerships and a consulting firm. He also serves as a Principal and Board member of Abbott & Cobb, Inc., a vegetable seed company headquartered in Trevose, Pa. He previously held positions as Vice President of C.E.S. Associates, an independent specialty oil wholesaler and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of G & W.H. Corson Inc. until the company was sold to IU International, and he became Vice President of Operations.

In addition to serving as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Montgomery Hospital, he serves on the Boards of the Montgomery Foundation and The Montgomery County Lands Trust. He formerly served as a Trustee at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Boards of Progress Bank, The First National Bank of Atlanta, Carl A. Posse & Co., The Pennsylvania State Board of Examiners of Public Accounts, The Valley Forge Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Montgomery County Community College Foundation, the Superior Tube Scholarship Foundation and Central Montgomery County Mental Health/Mental Retardation Administration.

Corson is a graduate of Williams College and has served Ursinus as a Trustee since 1983.
He has served the Board as its secretary, treasurer and vice chair, as well as chair of key committees including Finance, Development, and Building and Grounds. In 1970 the College’s administration building was named in honor of his parents, Philip L. and Helen P. Corson. Mr. Corson and his wife, Carol, are the parents of an Ursinus graduate, Flynn, Class of 2004, in addition to children Samantha, Sean, Mary-Catherine, Chelsea and Johnna. The Corsons have four grandchildren. -- W.G.

The Princeton Review, in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, has for the first time included Ursinus College in The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges.”

This guidebook cites colleges and universities which  have demonstrated an “above average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives.”

The guide is online and can be downloaded at www.princetonreview.com/greenguide and www.usgbc.org/campus.

According to the guide, Ursinus College “has made important strides in campus practices like recycling and waste diversion, and eco-friendly food purchasing. More advanced sustainability projects like a composting system and converting used cooking oil to biodiesel fuel are currently in the works. Several sustainability-related campus endeavors began as student projects and are sustained by student volunteers, like an organic garden and a constructed wetland ecosystem.”

The Princeton Review notes that projects at Ursinus involve students and their professors working together on research.

 “Research has shown that students and their parents are becoming more and more interested I learning about and attending universities and colleges that practice, teach and support environment responsibility,” says Robert Franek, senior vice president and publisher at The Princeton Review.

At Ursinus, students can major or minor in Environmental Studies. Students and faculty work together in Sustain UC, to raise awareness and to take on projects such as a major campus recycling effort and working with the College’s dining services to purchase environmentally-friendly materials, use produce from the organic garden and initiate a composting program. Students work within the community with The Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy and  can choose to live in a special interest house for environmental advocacy.

Since the establishment of the Environmental Studies Program, Ursinus Environmental Studies majors have received several national scholarships and fellowships, including the Morris K. Udall Undergraduate Scholarship (awarded five times), the Environmental Protection Agency Greater Research Opportunities Fellowships for Undergraduate Environmental Study, as well as the Hollings Award through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Princeton Review selected its schools included in the Guide based on the Green Rating schools received in summer 2009 in its annual guidebook. -- W.G.

(pictured: Environmental Studies students, faculty, and staff planting a green roof on The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College)

The Ursinus Wind Ensemble will present a concert on Saturday, May l, at 7:30 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater.  The concert is free, open to the public, and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Holly Gaines, associate professor of music, will conduct a program that will feature a mix of contemporary and traditional pieces for wind band. Samuel Hazo’s Arabesque, which explores Middle Eastern scales and modes, and Ryan Main’s Clash, a minimalist piece, were both composed in 2009. Traditional pieces on the program are Holst’s First Suite in E Flat and Robert Russell Bennett’s Suite of Old American Dances.

Completing the program will be Edward Elgar’s Sursum Corda and a Duke Ellington medley. The program’s intermission will feature a wind decet, comprised of ensemble members, playing Franz Schubert’s Little Symphony for Winds.

The annual exhibition of the work of Ursinus studio art majors in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and photography runs through Saturday, May 15 in the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art. At the same time, work by students participating in a studio art course will be on display in Ritter Art Studio.

After opening receptions April 28, the following students received awards in recognition of their talents:

WINNIFRED CUTLER PURCHASE AWARD  
 Selected by Berman Museum of Art
Liora Kuttler “3 Kinds of Gold”
Liora Kuttler “5 Kinds of Red”
Deanna Hayes “Sampler”

POPULAR CHOICE AWARD – BOOK --Deanna Hayes
 Selected by audience

JAVA’S BREWIN AWARD ---Andrew Murray
 Selected by Bob Barretta, President

AWARD  FOR PAINTING ---Cathy Hauk “Still Life”
 Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR PAINTING  ----Katie Simmon “ Red One”
 Selected by Juror

BOOK AWARD FOR PAINTING---Katie Simmon—“Monstrosity”
 Selected by Juror

BOOK AWARD FOR PAINTING--- Justin Cunard “A Way Home”
 Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR PRINTMAKING  ---Mami Matsui “Kabuki”
 Selected by Juror

BOOK AWARD FOR PRINTMAKING --Rebecca Lineman---“Lady Liberty”
 Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY ---Samuel Stahler
 Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY —Bethani Zeller
 Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR RISK-TAKING IN PHOTOGRAPHY ---Liora Kuttler
 Selected by Juror

BOOK AWARD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY---Rebecca Lineman
 Selected by Juror

BOOK AWARD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY---Judith Peterson
 Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR SCULPTURE/INSTALLATION ---Jasmine Ellis
 “I Write Therefore I am”
 Selected by Juror

BOOK AWARD FOR SCULPTURE/INSTALLATION---Catharine Elias “Snap Shot”
 Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR DRAWING ---Justin Cunard “Self Portrait 06”
  Selected by Juror

AWARD FOR DRAWING ---Deanna Hayes “Tomatoes, Caged”
  Selected by Juror

BOOK AWARD FOR DRAWING-- Jasmine Ellis “9 Points & Remaining Evidence”
 Selected by Juror

PETER DRUCKENMILLER AWARD FOR PAINTING
Nora Noland   “Venice”
 Selected by Peter Druckenmiller

PETER DRUCKENMILLER AWARD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY --Catherine Elias  “At Peace* (Collection)
 Selected by Peter Druckenmiller

BEADLE MARPLE ART AWARD FOR CREATIVITY 
 Selected by Museum Director
Liora Kuttler “Exploring Hidden Worlds: Glitter Garden”

RINDE AWARD FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS 
 Selected by the Rinde family
Samuel Stahler “Welcome to the Machine”

PURCHASE PRIZES: MYRIN LIBRARY
 Selected by Charlie Jamison

Katie Simmon “Year of the Flower”

Katie Simmon “Year of the Flower”  Purple, Green, and Brown

Bethani Zeller  “Contra” 

Artist Siona Benjamin: a painter originally from Bombay, now living in the U.S., will present an artist’s talk and slide show of her work Tuesday, April 20th, at 7 p.m. in Olin Hall, Room 102.

Siona Benjamin’s work reflects her background of being brought up Jewish in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim India. In her paintings she combines the imagery of her past with the role she plays in America today, making a mosaic inspired by both Indian miniature paintings and Jewish and Christian illuminated manuscripts. More work is on her web site,  www.artsiona.com

This event is sponsored by Ursinus Hillel and the Office of Multicultural Affairs

Pioneer in positive psychology Dr. Martin Seligman will speak at Ursinus College, April 20 at 7 p.m. in Bomberger Auditorium on the Main Street campus. The title of his talk is “The Search for Well-Being.”

Dr. Seligman is the Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology and Director of the Positive Psychology Center at University of Pennsylvania.

Positive psychology focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions. Dr. Seligman was featured in a Time Magazine cover story in 2005 titled, “The New Science of Happiness.” In September 2009, he received the British Academy’s Wiley Prize, honoring his lifetime achievement. The citation calls Seligman “one of the world’s leading psychologists.” And in 2002, a study in the Review of General Psychology named Seligman among the 50 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century. 

He is the author of more than 20 books and 200 articles on motivation and personality. Among his better-known works are Learned Optimism (Knopf, 1991), What You Can Change & What You Can't (Knopf, 1993), The Optimistic Child (Houghton Mifflin, 1995), Helplessness (Freeman, 1975, 1993) and Abnormal Psychology (Norton, 1982, 1988, 1995, with David Rosenhan).

His most recent book is the best-selling, Authentic Happiness (Free Press, 2002). He is the recipient of two Distinguished Scientific Contribution awards from the American Psychological Association, the Laurel Award of the American Association for Applied Psychology and Prevention, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. He holds an honorary Ph.D. from Uppsala, Sweden and Doctor of Humane Letters from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.

Dr. Seligman received both the American Psychological Society's William James Fellow Award (for contribution to basic science) and the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (for the application of psychological knowledge). For 14 years, he was the Director of the Clinical Training Program of the Psychology Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Seligman was named a "Distinguished Practitioner" by the National Academies of Practice, and in 1995 received the Pennsylvania Psychological Association's award for “Distinguished Contributions to Science and Practice." He is a past-president of the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Seligman served as the leading consultant to Consumer Reports for their pioneering article, which documented the effectiveness of long-term psychotherapy. He is scientific director of Foresight, Inc., a testing company, which predicts success in various walks of life.

Matthew Glandorf will present a Heefner Organ Recital on Sunday, April 25, at 4 p.m. in Bomberger Auditorium on the Ursinus College campus.  The event is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Glandorf has an active career as a conductor, composer, church musician and educator. He is organist and choirmaster at St. Mark’s Church, Philadelphia, artistic director of the Bach Festival of Philadelphia, and an instructor in music history and ear training at The Curtis Institute of Music.

Glandorf was raised in Germany, where he received early instruction at the organ at the Bremen Cathedral with Wolfgang Baumgratz. At 16, he entered The Curtis Institute of Music as a student of John Weaver and Ford Lallerstedt.  He pursued graduate studies with McNeil Robinson at the Manhattan School of Music.
  
As an organist he is noted for his gifts in the art of improvisation. He has played several recitals throughout the United States as well as in England and Germany, including Rochester Cathedral, the Cathedral of Bremen, the Wanamaker Grand Court organ and the new organ in Verizon Hall. He has several recordings to his credit as organist and accompanist.

Poet Catie Rosemurgy will present a poetry reading at Ursinus College on Tuesday, April 27, at 7 p.m. in Unity House. The event is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Rosemurgy’s poetry collection, My Favorite Apocalypse, was published by Graywolf Press in 2001, and that year, she received a Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Female Writers. More recently, her work has appeared in the anthologies Isn’ It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Young American Poets, and Poetry 30, a collection of work by American poets in their thirties.   

Dr. Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor Emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the Davis Visiting Professor at Ursinus College, will speak twice at Ursinus College this week, April 12 and April 15, both at 4:30 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall, on the Ursinus campus.

Schorsch is a 1957 graduate of the liberal arts school in suburban Philadelphia.His topic April 12, coinciding with Yom Hashoa, is “Germany Confronts Its Past.” His topic April 15 will be “The Convergence of Islamic and Jewish Studies in the Nineteenth Century,” a talk rescheduled from February due to weather conditions.

 Since retiring in 2006 from the seminary Dr. Schorsch, who holds the title, Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Professor of Jewish History, is at work on a biography of Moritz Steinschneider and more generally, scholarship on the interdisciplinary nature of Oriental studies in the 19th century.

His book, Canon Without Closure (March 2007, Aviv Press), is a wide-ranging collection of Torah commentaries written during his tenure as Chancellor. In 2004, he published a two-volume collection of the articles and essays he wrote while Chancellor, Polarities in Balance, and in 1995, he published The Sacred Cluster: The Core Values of Conservative Judaism.

Rabbi Schorsch’s  longtime support of the Middle East peace process was capped by an invitation from President Clinton to service with the official presidential delegation and to witness the peace treaty signing between Jordaand Israel in October 1994.

Dr. Schorsch was ordained by JTSA in 1962 and holds master’s degrees from JTSA and Columbia University. He was awarded a Ph. D. in Jewish history by Columbia in 1969. He has received honorary degrees, among them, from the Russian State University – the first time in that country’s history that such an honor was given to a Jewish scholar.

The Davis Visiting Professorship of Judeo-Christian Values was established by Nancy Davis in honor of her late husband Thomas, and was last held by Harvard’s Owen Gingerich, professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science.

The Ursinus College Choir will perform Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana on Sunday, April 18, at 4 p.m. in Bomberger Auditorium. The event is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Professor John French, holder of the Heefner Chair of Music, will conduct.  Soloists will be Rebecca Siler, soprano; Robert O’Neil, tenor and Reginald Pindell, bass. The performance will be accompanied by Ursinus organist Alan Morrison, pianist Linda Henderson and the University of Delaware Percussion Ensemble, directed by Harvey Price.

The April performance of the Ursinus College Dance Company has an exciting component for the dancers and audience: Legendary jazz dance choreographer Danny Buraczeski is on campus to work with the students, and with dance professor Cathy Young to restage his designated American Dance Masterpiece, Swing Concerto, as part of a competitive National Endowment for the Arts grant obtained by the Ursinus Dance Department.

The performance will be April 22 through 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater.  Tickets are $5 general admission, $2 for students and seniors citizens. For information and reservations, please call 610-409-3795.

The concert also will feature new works by guest artists Melissa Chisena, ballet, and Marilyn and Sekou Sylla, African Dance, in addition to works by faculty Chris Aiken and Cathy Young.

 “Last spring Ursinus was awarded $10,000 from the American Masterpieces: Dance-College Component, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with Dance/USA, for the restaging of Swing Concerto by premier concert jazz dance choreographer Danny Buraczeski. Swing Concerto is a 1993 piece for nine dancers by Buraczeski. Now on the faculty at Southern Methodist University, Buraczeksi,, after a career on Broadway, formed the company JAZZDANCE by Danny Buraczeski, which has performed all over the United States and internationally.
Swing Concerto blends musical traditions, from Klezmer to big-band swing to Eastern European folk dance and the Lindy hop, what has been called a metaphor for the American immigration experience.

The residency is also a reunion of sorts.  Young, assistant Professor of Dance and co-director of the Dance Program at Ursinus was an assistant for Buraczeski as a dancer in Minneapolis, and danced in the original performances of the piece. She has said that in reconstructing the piece, she hopes students will also learn the place of swing dancing in American culture.

 Ursinus College's 5th annual overnight Relay for Life will be held on April 9 to10 from 3 p.m. to 9 a.m. and benefits the American Cancer Society.

Last year, Ursinus College had 49 teams and raised $45,500. The current year's goals have increased to 55 teams and $55,000. The theme is Birthday Celebrations, advocating less cancer, and more birthdays.

Ursinus College's theme is Marga-relay-ville. Celebrations this year include a Survivor Ceremony and Survivor Walk and a luminaria ceremony. The Survivor Ceremony recognizes individuals from the community, Ursinus College, and family members of students who have battled cancer.The luminaria ceremony is a candlelight vigil to remember those who have died because of the disease and those to honor those still fighting it.

Members of the community are welcome at the events. Walking begins at 5 with the Survivor Walk. The luminaria ceremony begins at 9 p.m.

Any questions about the event can be directed to the Ursinus UCARE Office (Ursinus Center for Advocacy, Responsibility and Engagement at 610-409-3000, ext. 3093.

The Ursinus Jazz Ensemble will present a concert on Saturday, April 10, at 7:30  p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater. The concert is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are needed.  

Holly Gaines, assistant professor of music, will conduct a program that will feature modern jazz pieces, including Hanna and Barbera’s Theme from the Flintstones, Bob Mintzer’s Brotherhood, and Sonny Rollins’ St. Thomas, as well as traditional jazz pieces by Ellington and Irving Berlin. Vocalist Carly Freedman will offer two jazz standards, The Nearness of You and Fly Me to the Moon. The ensemble’s trombone section will be featured on a funk tune called Bone Collection.

Ursinus College announces that it joins the many select colleges which have adopted an ‘SAT-optional’ policy. After careful study, and approval by a faculty committee, Ursinus will not require standardized testing for the class entering in 2011.

Vice President for Enrollment Richard DiFeliciantonio said that the faculty committee discussed the fact that although the SAT is promoted as a predictor of college success, they considered the following points:

-- Office of Admission data shows that the best predictive model for academic success is high school grades and rigor of curriculum;

-- There is a strong positive correlation between SAT scores and family income, favoring students with the resources to take SAT preparation classes and to take the SAT multiple times;

-- Nearly 900 colleges and universities are SAT-optional, including Ursinus’s closest competitors;

--There is no national standard for uniform reporting of scores to national surveys and databases. Ursinus currently reports 85 percent of its scores, but some schools report about half.

“Given Ursinus's 130-year commitment to both an egalitarian culture and academic excellence, focusing on classroom performance is the right thing to do for Admissions,” said DiFeliciantonio, reporting the policy change.  “Objections to the test have been growing among academics for years, for many of the reasons we explored.”

 The new policy will replace the current policy, which is that students in the top 10 percent of high school classes, or with 3.5 GPA or better at schools which do not rank, have the choice of whether or not to submit standardized test scores.

The Office of Admission will continue to discuss whether to add further requirements to its criteria for applicants.

Ursinus standardized test policy deliberations are the subject of a March 22 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. See Ursinus in the News.

 This symposium will take place against the backdrop of a faculty- and student-curated exhibition at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum at Ursinus College, titled “DRAWING THE CURTAIN” (February 18 – April 18)

The symposium is scheduled for Saturday, April 10 from 2 to 5 p.m., in Olin Auditorium.

The purpose of this symposium is to provide a forum for an open discussion of the issues surrounding censorship, whether arts-based or not, and to consider the role of the academic campus and museum in the exploration of these issues.  Symposium panelists include H. Louis Sirkin, First Amendment and civil rights lawyer, who will deliver a keynote address; Cathy Byrd, Executive Director of the Maryland Art Place; and artist Andrew Orlowski.

Sirkin is one of the nation’s preeminent First Amendment and criminal defense attorneys. In over 40 years of practice, he has consistently defended the free speech and constitutional rights of individuals and businesses, including adult entertainment establishments, museums, artists, activists, and ordinary citizens.  He achieved national prominence in 1990 when he successfully defended Dennis Barrie, the director of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, against obscenity charges for displaying the artwork of Robert Mapplethorpe.

From 2001 to 2009, Byrd directed the Georgia State University Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design Gallery, Atlanta, where she conceived and organized contemporary art exhibitions with expansive educational and community programming. Notable among her curatorial projects was Potentially Harmful: The Art of American Censorship, a series of exhibitions and public symposia devoted to discussions of censorship in America.

Andrew Orloski currently resides and works in Lancaster, Pa. He will graduate from Millersville University this spring with a B.F.A in Sculpture and a minor in Philosophy. He plans to pursue art at the graduate and professional levels and hopes to one day teach at the college level.  He has experienced censorship of his work within the academy.

Holly Coulis, Ridley Howard, David Humphrey and Sarah Lasley, all active and distinguished artists whose work is exhibited both in the U.S. and abroad, will present their recent work in a panel discussion titled "Figuration in Contemporary Painting and Video”on  Thursday, April 1, at 4:30 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall, on the Ursinus campus.  The program is free and open to the public without tickets or reservations.

Holly Coulis makes portraits of fictional characters whose images are based on sources assembled from the collection of magazine clippings, found photographs, images of folk art and wallpaper patterns, as well as her memories and observations of people on the streets of Brooklyn, where she lives and works.  Even though these people’s existence is purely fictional, the portraits are filled with extraordinary empathy from the artist. Coulis has exhibited her work at LFL Gallery, New York City; Groeflin Maag Galerie, Basel; Cherry and Martin in Los Angeles and Greener Pastures Contemporary Art, Toronto.  For more information on her work, please visit www.cherryandmartin.com/artistDetail.php?id=10

Ridley Howard makes large scale psychologically-taut works that incorporate the vernacular of vastly different genres of painting, among them, high renaissance, pop art, and abstraction. The paintings invoke a sense of monumentality while still retaining a lingering intimacy. Ridley Howard’s work has been exhibited extensively in venues such as the Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tenn.; The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga.; Leo Koenig Gallery, New York City, and many others. He is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Ridley Howard lives and works in New York City. For information on his work, please visit www.leokoenig.com/artist/view/1511

David Humphrey is a painter and an art writer who has recently published a book “Blind Handshake” on image and language production.  He describes his paintings as “depictions of depictions.”  His work was exhibited in such venues as National Academy of Design, New York City; Solomon Projects, Atlanta; Sikkhema Jenkins Gallery, New York City, and many others.  He is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.  For images of his work, please visit http://www.sikkemajenkinsco.com/davidhumphrey.html

Sarah Lasley started her career by making paintings based on the observation of youth culture in her hometown of Louisville, Ky.  She made a switch to video art to include time as an essential component for the narrative in her work.  Her videos retain luscious painterly qualities and reference the grotesque suspense of David Lynch’s avant-garde films as well as narratives of teen television dramas such as “My So Called Life” and “The O.C.” For more information on her work, please visit www.vimeo.com/user361171

Following the collapse of the Soviet regime, religious practices were no longer prohibited. After being persecuted and discriminated against by the communist government, Soviet Jews could begin returning to their roots and be openly Jewish. Many Jews were rediscovering their heritage, which was dormant for years. While growing up in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, Ursinus senior Andrey Bilko has experienced a similar reawakening by finding out about his family’s Jewish past.

Through a grant from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, Bilko will get to explore the rich Jewish tradition of the post-Soviet world, which is making a strong and continuous resurgence, while reflecting on his own experiences. The Foundation offers a grant to seniors nominated by a select group of liberal arts institutions for one year of study outside the United States on a project of their choice. The 40 Watson Fellows were selected from 150 finalists and will receive $25,000 for twelve-months of travel and exploration abroad. In the Philadelphia area, Ursinus, Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore colleges have produced Watson scholars this year.
Bilko’s research and interests will take him to Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Kazakhstan and Russia to examine how the practice of Judaism is re-emerging after a period of harassment and persecution caused many to stop practicing in order to protect themselves and their families.

Bilko has experienced the Jewish revival in Ukraine first-hand, being able to attend religious services and a Jewish day school before moving to the United States with his parents. After moving to York, Pa. he and his parents were able to actively participate in a welcoming local Jewish community.

At Ursinus, Bilko has been proud of his Ukrainian and Jewish heritage and built strong relationships with students, professors and even alumni. He has been actively involved within the community, serving for AmeriCorps, participating in a multitude of clubs on campus, playing intramural sports, tutoring Ursinus students and students from the local schools in chemistry and math. “I realized I need to be engaged with other people, which is one of the reasons why I want to be a doctor.” Bilko, a chemistry major with a pre-medical track, has been doing scientific research beginning sophomore year and was an Ursinus Summer Fellow conducting research on the Mössbauer spectroscopy of iron-hydrogenase complexes, which led to his honors project. 

His Watson Fellowship will allow him time to engage with others. “I wish to learn from elderly Jews who lived through the Soviet regime what their lives were like, what kind of sacrifices they had to make, and what role the return of Judaism has played in their lives,” Bilko said. He will also hear from a younger generation and try to determine what makes some Jews return to Judaism after many years of not practicing, and why others still hide their identities.

The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Program was established in 1968 by the children of Thomas J. Watson, Sr., the founder of International Business Machines Corp., and his wife, Jeannette K. Watson. -- W.G.

Petra Tschakert, a speaker at the recent international climate change talks in Copenhagen, will present a lecture at Ursinus on Tuesday, March 30, at 4:30 p.m. in the Berman Museum of Art.  The program is free and open to the public, and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Tschakert is an assistant professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University.  Her research on human-environment interactions focuses specifically on environmental change, development, sustainability, knowledge, inequality, and marginalization.  In Copenhagen, she served on a panel on Ethical and Human Rights Implications of Adaptation Policy and presented her National Science Foundation-funded research on climate change adaption in Ghana and Tanzania.

Ursinus students who traveled through Mississippi for their spring break said touring sites related to their class, “Religion and Civil Rights” brought the coursework to life. The trip left students “emotionally overpowered,” says first-year student Danielle Callendar of Philadelphia, Pa.  “I think what was so overwhelming about the experience was how real the story of Emmett Till’s death became,” Callendar wrote in her blog. “I’ve read the words, seen the pictures, and heard the witnesses’ accounts, but actually seeing the barn where his murderers took him to beat him and standing outside of the store in Money, Miss., where he was accused of whistling to a white woman was completely different. I was standing there, everything was so physical and present. Experiencing that pushed me that much further within the reality of the Civil Rights Movement.”

In class, students study grassroots efforts that occurred during the1960s in Mississippi’s small towns. During that time local residents, such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore, James Meredith and Ed King were leaders in bringing about change, explained senior Greg Little of Bryans Road, Md., who went to Mississippi for his second year, this time as a teaching assistant.

“The trip really makes real the sacrifices that the great leaders who came before us had to make, the violence that they had to battle through, and the obstacles that they had to climb in order to being to change a culture predicated on violence and inequality,” he said.

Ursinus students left March 6 for Jackson, Miss., and the next morning attended a service led the Rev. Jerry Young, pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church, who was the Ursinus Baccalaureate speaker in 2008.  They met with U.S. Congressmen Bennie Thompson in Bolton, Miss., and The John M. Perkins Foundation, which has as its mission developing underprivileged youths and families. They visited the gravesite of civil rights champion Fannie Lou Hamer in Ruleville, Miss., met with the Mayor of Glendora, Miss, at the Emmett Till Museum, and visited the Bryant’s Store in Money, Miss., where a turn of events led to the vicious murder of  14-year-old Till.

Other highlights of the trip included meeting with Clarion-Ledger journalist Jerry Mitchell, who reports on racial injustices and with Jackson State University constitutional rights scholar Michelle Deardorff, who is a founder of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute on Citizenship and Democracy. Students were scheduled to meet with civil rights activist Hollis Watkins, who is the Ursinus Baccalaureate speaker this year, and with Leroy Clemons, President of the Philadelphia, Miss., NAACP, who visited Ursinus recently for the showing of the film, Neshoba. Students spent the last day doing community service in Carey, Miss.

Pictured: Students on last year's trip with Hollis Watkins, who will speak at the Ursinus Baccalaureate Service this year.

Jennifer Finney Boylan, the author of Remind Me To Murder You Later (1988); The Planets (1991); The Constellations (1994); and Getting In (1997), will speak at Ursinus on Thursday, March 18, at 7:30 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall.  The program is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are required.

Boylan will preview of her forthcoming young adult novel, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror and read from her previous works.  The forthcoming novel, her 11th, will be published by HarperCollins in May. Boylan joins the Ursinus faculty this fall as the Updike Hoyer Visiting Distinguished Writer.

Currently Boylan is the Director of Creative Writing at Colby College, Maine.  Her memoir, , published by Doubleday in 2003, was the first bestselling work by a transgendered American.  Until 2001, she published under the name James Boylan. 
A frequent contributor to major newspapers and magazines, Boylan is widely praised in publications such as The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday and Entertainment Weekly, for her characterizations of people faced with atypical dilemmas, caused by their own hands or by the spinning forces of life.  Her stories have appeared in Confrontation, Florida Review, Quarterly West, Western Humanities Review, Writer's Digest and Southwest Review. 

Prior to her career as a writer and educator, Boylan was the managing editor of American Bystander magazine, an editorial assistant at Viking/Penguin and a production editor of the fiction line at E.P. Dutton.  A native of Valley Forge, Pa., she grew up in nearby Delaware County. 

The Ursinus College Meistersingers will present a concert on Saturday, March 20, at 7:30 p.m. in Bomberger Auditorium.  The event is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Professor John French, holder of the Heefner Chair of Music, will conduct the Meistersingers in an all-American program featuring Randall Thompson’s Frostiana, seven pieces set to the poetry of Robert Frost.  The program will include the premiere of two movements from a Requiem by Walker Merritt, Class of 2010, of Sharon, Conn.  

Jennifer Worley, a professor of English, Women’s Studies and Lesbian/Gay Studies at City College of San Francisco, will present a lecture titled “Sex on Wheels History of Feminism” on Monday, March 22 at 5 p.m. in Musser Auditorium in Pfhaler Hall. 

While completing her graduate work, Worley helped organize the first labor union in the sex industry and later spearheaded the dancer-takeover of a club as a worker-owned cooperative. 
 Her Sex on Wheels project was a bicycle tour of San Francisco that led riders through a series of live, site-specific performances by costumed docents who gave five- to 10-minute performances as historical characters associated with each site.  Characters included prostitutes, strippers, hustlers, madams, fan-dancers, pornographers and gender illusionists, bringing to life history dating back to the 1840s.  The four-hour tour, including a picnic lunch with the “ghost” of a famous madam, was captured by a crew of filmmakers, also traveling on bicycles.

Worley’s spoken word performances have been featured on Outright Radio (Public Radio International), and she has lectured on sex work activism at UCSF Medical School, University of ashington, UC-Davis and Rutgers.

 Ursinus College has been named to the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement.

The Corporation for National and Community Service, which administers the annual Honor Roll award, recognized more than 700 colleges and universities for exemplary service to the communities it serves.

At Ursinus, more than one-half of the student body is involved in community service, and one quarter of the students spend more than 20 hours a week on community service activities.

Honorees for the award were chosen based on scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and other factors.

Community Service at Ursinus is coordinated through UCARE (Ursinus Center for Advocacy, Responsibility and Engagement). Some of the many community service opportunities at Ursinus include STAND (Students Taking Action Now), SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise)and Sustain UC and working with Habitat for Humanity on an alternative spring break. Ursinus students are engaged in food drives, blood drives, environmental clean-ups, tutoring in schools and prisons and working to end violence against women, and organizing campus fund-raisers for nearby shelters, the American Cancer Society through Relay for Life and various community projects. SERV, a team of students who are certified EMTs, provide a first-response team for emergency first aid on campus. A Best Buddies chapter actively works with developmentally disabled adults in the community, and a group of students tutor campus workers in English.

“We are honored to have such active students who develop a lot of these opportunities on their own,” said Christian Rice, a member of the faculty and Director of the Bonner Leaders and Pericles Programs. “We are proud to be recognized for these efforts.”

Bonner Leaders are especially engaged in ongoing service work, and have made a major impact on the campus, coordinating services programs and playing a critical role in UCARE, noted Rice.

(Pictured: Bonner Leaders during 2009 Alternative Spring Break)

Photographer Sarah Stolfa will present a Distinguished Artist Lecture at Ursinus College on Wednesday, March 17, at 7 p.m. in Olin 108.  The program is free and open to the public.

While Stolfa was a student at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, she tended bar at McGlinchey’s and began her career as a photographer by taking portraits of its colorful patrons.  She won The New York Times Photography Contest for college students, and several of her photographs were reproduced in The New York Times Magazine.  Her collection of portraits from McGlinchey’s became “The Regulars,” published by Artisan Books in June 2009.

Stolfa was included in the Second Woodmere Triennial of Contemporary Photography at the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, in 2006, and her work was exhibited at Gallery 339, Philadelphia, and Silverstein Photography, New York City, that same year.  She was included in “Women to Watch” at Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, and in “L’Autre” at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, in 2007.  She earned her MFA in Photography from Yale University in 2008.

Her numerous awards include the Noah Addis Photojournalism Award and an artist in residency at the Whitney Museum.  

The Philadelphia Passport Agency welcomes the Collegeville area community to submit an application for a U.S. Passport Book or Passport Card on the Ursinus College campus March17 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Olin Hall, Room 104.  No appointment is needed.
 Anyone traveling by land and sea outside of the United States is required to present a passport book/card, or other valid travel documents to enter or re-enter the United States.  Visit the web site <www.travel.state.gov> for complete information.
Persons are asked to bring the following:

A completed application – available on site or download it from  www.travel.state.gov.

Proof of citizenship – either a certified Birth Certificate (under age 16 must show parents’ names); your most recent passport; or  a Naturalization or Citizenship Certificate.

A current photo ID issued on Government authority such as a state-issued driver’s license; a government work ID, a Military ID, or a prior passport.

A clear photocopy of current drivers license or acceptable ID, with a copy showing front and back of the ID document.

Two-color Passport Photos taken within the last six months, 2” x 2” in size, front view with a plain light background.

Appropriate Fees (payment by check or money order): Age 16 or older - First time applicant: $100.00, or Passport Renewal:$75.00; under the age of 16:  $85.00. Children under the age of 16 must appear, in person, with both parents and present a birth certificate that lists the parent(s)’ names (Long Form Birth Certificate).  If one parent cannot be present, a notarized consent statement to the issuance of a passport made by the non-applying parent must be submitted with the passport application.

Alan Morrison, The Haas Charitable Trust Chair in Organ Studies at The Curtis Institute of Music and the Ursinus College Organist, will present a Heefner Organ Recital on Sunday, Feb. 28, at 4 p.m. in Bomberger Auditorium on the Ursinus College campus.  The event is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are needed.

The program will consist of Prelude & Fugue in B Minor by J.S. Bach, The Balboa Park Suite by Michael Burkhardt, Elegy by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Studentenlieder from Faust for Organ by Petr Eben and Fourth Symphonie, opus 32 by Louis Vierne.

Morrison is one of the most sought-after American concert organists, performing in Alice Tully, Jacoby, Verizon, Benaroya, and Spivey halls; Meyerson Symphony Center; Jack Singer Concert Hall; the Crystal Cathedral; National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.; and colleges, cathedrals, and churches throughout North America, Europe, and Brazil. He has been a featured artist for four national conventions of the American Guild of Organists. He has won first prize in both the Mader (Calif.) and Poister (N.Y.) National Organ Competitions, as well as the silver medal at the 1994 Calgary International Organ Festival.

Morrison’s numerous recordings are regularly featured on radio stations worldwide, and his television appearances include two episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as both organist and pianist. A graduate of Curtis (organ and piano accompaniment) and Juilliard (organ), he also teaches at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. 

Kaitlin Porter 2010 was awarded the prestigious PennAce JoAnne Day Student of the Year Award. She was selected for her work as an intern at the nonprofit Council of Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). Porter wrote and published three articles during her work at COHA. The papers included a summary of  Brazilian rainforest destruction that argued the value of the natural resources of the Amazon rainforest outweigh the reasons for deforestation. She also researched and wrote on the topic of stateless Haitians in the Dominican Republic which examined the dispute of citizenship of children of Haitian parents born in the Dominican Republic and the discrimination of Haitian migrant workers.

The PennAce Award is awarded annually to two Pennsylvania college students. An Ursinus student was also a recipient in 2006. The award is chosen by the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Employers, which serves as a network for internship/co-operative education, career planning and placement professionals, and supports educational strategies that integrate practical work experience with academic study.

“I learned a great deal while interning at the Council of Hemispheric Affairs (COHA),” says Porter, of Clarks Summit, Pa., who is fluent in Spanish. Publishing articles often results in criticism, she says, and she learned to improve from it during her internship. 

"It helped me to approach more experienced professionals for information while researching for a project and gain contact and network with other interns with similar interests and career goals,” says Porter, who wrote a third COHA paper on police and government conflicts with the Mapuche Indians in Chile as the Indians attempted to regain ancestral lands that they were evicted from in order to be used for logging, mining, and hydroelectric purposes.

“Another important lesson was the value of living and working on my own for a summer in Washington DC.,” says Porter.  “I feel more prepared for the future. Ursinus has given me a well rounded education, the wonderful faculty that put so much effort into helping me to have a successful college experience, the life-long friendships I have made here, and the confidence that I will be able to achieve my future goals.”

 Ursinus College’s Escape Velocity Dance Company will present an all-new show of works choreographed, performed and produced by Ursinus dance students at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 2, through Thursday, March 4, in the Kaleidoscope Studio Theater.  Tickets are $5 general admission and $2 for students and senior citizens. For information and reservations, please call 610.409. 3795.

The production is titled “Technicolor,” to be interpreted by Escape Velocity’s all-student choreographers, dancers and producers through a variety of dance forms.

Ursinus College Theater will present Arthur Miller’s The Crucible Feb. 24 through 27 at 7:30 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center’s Lenfest Theater. The performance will be directed by Beverly Redmond, assistant professor of theater and dance at Ursinus.  

Tickets are $5 for general admission and $2 for students and senior citizens.  Please call The Kaleidoscope Box Office, 610-409-3795, for more information and to reserve tickets.

The Crucible is a dramatization of the Salem witchcraft trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1690s.  Miller wrote the play in response to 1950’s McCarthyism, a paranoid hunt for Communist infiltrators.  Especially vulnerable were writers and entertainers who were “blacklisted,” making it impossible for them to work.

The Crucible received the 1953 Tony Award for “Best Play.”  In 1956, Playwright Miller himself was questioned by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities and convicted of "contempt of Congress" for failing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.

A record blizzard that dumped more snow on the area than ever before was no match for determined faculty, staff and students who turned ice into sculpture and trays into sleds.

Several professors went the extra mile to hold classes, including Greg Weight, of the English Department. “I indeed held my class on Satire at 10 after trudging in with donut holes to placate those who were disappointed by having class. We had a great hour discussing Alexander Pope's imitations of Horace's satires.”

Victor Tortorelli stayed over campus to teach organic chemistry Wednesday morning.  Staff from Dining Services and Campus Safety stayed in the residence halls or local hotels so they could work on campus.

“Our Facilities staff, Safety staff, and Dining Hall staff members are providing impeccable service to us all as we get through this major snowstorm.  They have sacrificed time with family and loved ones to be here for us," said Dean of Sudents Debbie Nolan in a message to campus. “We are proud to report that our dining staff has provided a full menu to students with just minor modifications in snack bar choice.” The entire Residence Life staff was on campus, and the switchboard was manned. Campus Safety provded uninterrupted service, with many officers working unusually long hours to cover for others who could not travel.

Facilities staff began heroic snow removal efforts at midnight Tuesday and worked.
Through the historic storm there was a sense of community. Since we converted to a trayless dining system this semester, our dining staff distributed a couple hundred trays to students for sledding.  

.Residence Life is sponsoring a snow sculpture contest. 

Author Dr. Gary Reiswig will read from his newly published memoir. The Thousand Mile Stare: One Family’s Journey through the Struggle and Science of Alzheimer’s at 7:30 p.m. March 2 during a program in Bomberger Auditorium on the Ursinus College campus. The event is free and open to the public.

 He will appear with Dr. Gerard Schellenberg of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who figures prominently in Reiswig’s book. The Reiswig family’s relationship with Dr. Schellenberg’s team led to breakthrough discoveries, such as a blood test to detect a gene that could cause early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The program promises to offer insight into the life ofa  family with a loved one suffering from the disease.

 In the book, published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, Reiswig chronicles his family’s mysterious behavior and history, their discovery of Alzheimer’s in the family, and their involvement with the medical community which led to the discovery of a key genetic marker.
Reiswig, who was born in the Texas panhandle, was ordained as a minister. He saw his grandfather and father exhibit the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. He left the ministry at 30, earned a Ph.D., worked as an educator and city planner in Pittsburgh and began writing. His novel, Water Boy, was published by Simon & Schuster. After his sister and brother died in their 50s from early onset Alzheimer’s disease, he began collecting information for The Thousand Mile Stare. The book, which  The book will be available for purchase at the lecture.

 For the past 18 years, Dr. Schellenberg has worked on the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease, starting with ground-breaking research on early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease followed by work on late-onset dementia which is where much of his current effort is focused. He is founder and head of the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium supported by the National Institute on Aging. He also worked on the genetics of aging and on the molecular genetics and other neurodegenerative disorders related to Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Schellenberg leads the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC), which is comprised of a group of investigators who are using genome-wide association analysis methods to identify Alzheimer’s disease. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Riverside in 1978. Dr. Schellenberg joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 2008 where he is presently a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. He has received numerous awards for his research.

Joe Szabo, an internationally-known editor, publisher and former political cartoonist in Europe and the United States, will speak at Ursinus College on Tuesday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall.  The event is free and open to the public.

The recipient of 13 international awards and honors, including an International Press Prize from Belgium and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Mexico, Szabo is best known for creating and publishing WittyWorld International Cartoon Magazine.  For more than a decade the magazine reported from 111 world-wide locations and was read in over a hundred countries. Currently, Szabo focuses on writing, public speaking and conducting a world-wide study for a book he is writing on the image of America.  He has presented his lecture “The Image of America” both internationally and in the United States. (Pictured: Sabo's "Rollerskate")

Originally from Europe, his numerous personal appearances have taken him to schools, universities, conferences and festivals in Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia where he has spoken on topics ranging from the image of America, as seen from abroad, to visual communication, cartooning and symbolism, life under communism, censorship and the power of images.  His presentations couple his sense of humor and the intriguing subject matter he has discovered while traveling through more than 60 countries.

The Francophone Film Festival at Ursinus College will present three films from French-speaking nations during the spring semester.  All films will be shown at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Auditorium.  The films are subtitled in English, and each film is followed by light refreshments and conversation.

The festival opens on Thursday, Feb. 11.  One of the two following films will be shown:
Two Lives Plus One (2007), directed by Idit Cebula.  Elaine Weiss uses her passion for writing to record her parents’ heritage and, in the process, repopulates a world lost to the Holocaust.
Villa Jasmin (2008), directed by Ferid Boughedir.  A search for his roots takes Henry to Tunisia where he learns how his French –Tunisian Jewish parents were affected by the 1940s Vichy Government.

On Monday, March 22, Bye Bye (1995), directed by Karim Didri will be screened.   
The French-born sons of North African immigrants learn important lessons about life and the nature of friendship and self-accountability.

On Monday, April 19, Madame Brouette (2002), directed by Moussa Sene Absa will be shown.  Divorced from an abusive husband, Mati tries love again with Naago.  He is murdered outside her home, and she is the prime suspect.

For more information, please contact Colette Trout at ctrout@ursinus.edu or 610.409.3000, ext. 2432.

The documentary film “Neshoba,” will be a featured event in a series of programs marking Black History Month at Ursinus College.  All Black History Month events are free and open to the public.

“Neshoba” (2008) will be screened on Thursday, Feb. 25, at 7 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall.  The film tells the story of a Mississippi town still divided about the meaning of justice, 40 years after the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, an event dramatized in the Oscar-winning film “Mississippi Burning.”  “Neshoba” takes up the story following the 2005 prosecution of one unrepentant klansman.  It’s candid interviews with the accused, the families of the victims and with black and white Neshoba county citizens explores whether healing and reconciliation are possible without telling the unvarnished truth.   

Other Black History Month events are:
Tuesday, Feb. 16, Poet Patricia Smith at 7 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall.  Smith’s latest book of poetry is Blood Dazzler, which centers on the victims of hurricane Katrina.

Wednesday, Feb. 17, “Black Women in Film” will be presented at noon in the College’s Unity House by Frances Gateward, Ursinus assistant professor of Media & Communications Studies and Film Studies.

 On Monday, Feb. 22, “Real Men are Feminists: The Role, Challenges and Power of Men Eradicating Sexism” will take place in Unity House.  Tchet Dorman, director of the Center for Social Justice and Multicultural Education at Temple University, will speak.

On Wednesday, Feb. 24, “Grassroots:  The African roots of an American Artform” has been postponed. 

On Sunday, Feb. 28,  Leroy Clemons, president of the Neshoba County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will speak at a Chapel Service at 10 a.m. in Bomberger Chapel.  Clemons is the co-founder and president of the Philadelphia Coalition (MS), a multi-racial task force formed in 2004 and charged with planning the public commemoration and memorial to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, the three civil rights workers who were slain in Neshoba County in 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Coalition helped unite a community to stand up and call for justice in the 40-year-old murder case, resulting in the first state conviction as well as passage of Senate Bill 2718, an act directing the Mississippi State Board of Education to make Civil Rights Education a mandatory part of the K-12 curriculum in every public school in Mississippi beginning in the fall of 2010.
 

Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor Emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and holder of the Davis Visiting Professorship of Judeo-christian Values at Ursinus College, will give the second of three public lectures Feb. 25 at 4:30 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall, on the Ursinus campus.

Dr. Schorsch, a 1957 graduate of the liberal arts school in suburban Philadelphia, will speak on “The convergence of Islamic and Jewish Studies in the Nineteenth Century.” He will offer the Davis Lecture on Judeo-Christian Values again on April 12.

Since retiring in 2006 from the seminary Dr. Schorsch, who holds the title, Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Professor of Jewish History, is at work on a biography of Moritz Steinschneider and more generally, scholarship on the interdisciplinary nature of Oriental studies in the 19th century.

His book, Canon Without Closure (March 2007, Aviv Press), is a wide-ranging collection of Torah commentaries written during his tenure as Chancellor. In 2004, he published a two-volume collection of the articles and essays he wrote while Chancellor, Polarities in Balance, and in 1995, he published The Sacred Cluster: The Core Values of Conservative Judaism.

Under his leadership, the Seminary  informed and elevated the lives of Jews through projects such as the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem; Project Judaica in Moscow, the Ramah camps and Schechter schools, and the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education.

Throughout his tenure, Dr. Schorsch pursued a deep commitment to advancing Conservative Judaism and religious equality for Jews in Israel. His longtime support of the peace process was capped by an invitation from President Clinton to service with the official presidential delegation and to witness the peace treaty signing between Jordan and Israel in October 1994.

Dr. Schorsch was ordained by JTSA in 1962 and holds master’s degrees from JTSA and Columbia University. He was awarded a Ph. D. in Jewish history by Columbia in 1969. He has received honorary degrees, among them, from the Russian State University – the first time in that country’s history that such an honor was given to a Jewish scholar.

The Davis Visiting Professorship of Judeo-Christian Values was established by Nancy Davis in honor of her late husband Thomas, and was last held by Harvard’s Owen Gingerich, professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science.

The exhibition "Drawing the Curtain" opens in The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art Feb. 18 and will run through April 18.

The act of censorship is complex, its definition elusive.  In "Drawing the Curtain," student and faculty co-curators will investigate case studies of censorship within a college museum exhibition that raises questions about the rights of viewers to make their own choices about the images and objects at which they look.  Should others be permitted to make such choices for us? Should our individual aesthetics, religious beliefs, or cultural comfort levels define or limit those choices for others?

"Drawing the Curtain" asks its viewers to put themselves in the position of exploring the fundamental nature of these questions by interacting with images and ideas that might in some circumstances lead to acts of censorship.  They are invited to "draw the curtain" and make their own decisions.

An opening reception is scheduled in the Upper Gallery Feb. 18, at 4:30 p.m., and will conclude with a "talkback" with the show's curators. Curators include students Jasmine Ellis 2010, Jacqui Bowen 2011, Kayla Federline 2010, Lindsay Knauer 2011, Liora Kuttler 2010 and Emily Smith 2011 (who is studying abroad and will not be able to join the talkback.) Faculty curators are Deborah Barkun, Assistant Professor of Art History, and Susan Shifrin Assistant Professor of Art History and Associate Director for Education at the Museum.

Two public symposia will take place on the Ursinus College campus in conjunction with this exhibition.  On April 10, a panel of speakers including artists at various stages of their careers and keynote speaker H. Louis Sirkin will participate in "Drawing the Curtain:” On Censorship, a public discussion of censorship-related issues and experiences.  Sirkin is one of the country's most respected and well-known First Amendment lawyers, whose clients have included - among others - Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler Magazine, and Dennis Barrie, the director of the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center who was charged with obscenity when his institution hosted a retrospective of works by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

The evening of April 9, Sirkin will serve as moderator for a student symposium that will give Ursinus students the opportunity to present completed work or work-in-progress on censorship-related topics across the disciplines.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus, known for its diverse collection and innovative educational programming, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; and  noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and College holidays.  The Museum is accessible to the physically disabled and admission is free. The Museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums.

Ursinus College notes with sadness the passing of J.D. Salinger, who Ursinus considers one of its celebrated alumni.

Salinger attended Ursinus for one semester in the fall of 1938. Yet, during that semester he made an impact on the campus, mostly as a sophisticated New Yorker, and a columnist for the Ursinus Weekly, which preceded the current student newspaper.

In 1998, The British Broadcasting Co. came to Ursinus to film parts of a documentary on Salinger to mark his 80th birthday (he was born Jan. 1, 1919). They spoke to a few alumni from Salinger’s time here. They learned his courses included English Lit, freshman biology and history, French III and some math. At that time his former hallmate, Richard Deitzler, Class of 1941, identified Salinger’s old room in Curtis Hall. In 2005, Ursinus announced a creative writing award, and allows the winner to live in Salinger’s old room.

Salinger’s column for the Ursinus Weekly was titled The Skipped Diploma: Musing of a Social Soph, the complete set of which is in Myrin Library archives. He also reviewed theater at Ursinus. One of the alumni interviewed recalled someone would walk across the stage with a sign, “Jerry Please Be Kind.”

“The girls were smitten immediately,” said the late Frances Theiroff Glassmoyer, class of 1940, to the BBC. “The boys were not so impressed. . . He avowed he’d write the great American novel. He was determined to write.”

Salinger seemed to look back fondly on his semester at Ursinus. A memoir written by his daughter Margaret discloses that her father admired the “lack of pretension” at Ursinus. Salinger wrote to the Ursinus registrar in March 1953, asking the college to send a catalogue to the babysitter for his children. He wrote, “I look back with a great deal of pleasure on my own days at Ursinus.” The letter can be seen in the Ursinus admissions office. -- W.G. (Photo from Ursinus College 1939 Ruby Yearbook. Salinger is pictured on the top row, far left, in a photo of the incoming 1938 freshman class.) 

Lust for Life, Director Vincente Minnelli’s celebrated film on the life of Vincent Van Gogh, will be shown at Ursinus on Monday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m. in Olin Auditorium.  Cultural theorist Scott Bukatman will introduce the film.  Bukatman is an associate professor of film and media studies, department of art and art history, Stanford University.

On Tuesday, Feb. 23, Bukatman will present a lecture on the film titled The Art of Entertainment, Brushstrokes in CinemaScope:  Vincente Minnelli’s Action Painting in Lust for Life.  The lecture will be held in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall at 4:30 p.m.  Both events are free and open to the public.

Bukatman’s numerous publications on filmmaking include the books Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction and Matters of Gravity: Special Effects & Supermen in the 20th Century, a monograph for the British Film Institute titled Blade Runner, on the making of the 1982 influential science-fiction film, and an essay on "Lust for Life" appearing in Vincente Minnelli: The Art of Entertainment, edited by Joseph McElhaney.

Poet Patricia Smith, whose numerous awards include the first-ever Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, will present a poetry reading at Ursinus College on Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall.  The event is free and open to the public. 

"Blood Dazzler,” Smith’s fifth book of poetry, chronicles the human, emotional and physical toll exacted by Hurricane Katrina.  It was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and named one of National Public Radio’s Top Books for that year.  It is also the subject of a new dance/theater collaboration of Smith and Urban Bush Women dancer Paloma McGregor.

A teacher and performance artist as well as an author and poet, Smith’s other books of poetry are Teahouse of the Almighty, Close to Death, Big Towns, Big Talk and Life According to Motown. Teahouse of the Almighty was a National Poetry Series selection in 2005.  She has also received a Carl Sandburg Literary Award and a Pushcart Prize.  A four-time national individual champion of Poetry Slam, Smith was featured in the nationally-released film “Slamnation,” and appeared on the award-winning HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.”

 How can we help sustain biodiversity as habitat destruction puts increasing pressures on wildlife populations? The book, “Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants” by Douglas Tallamy has sparked a national conversation about the link between healthy local ecosystems and human well-being, and how everyone can make a difference.

Tallamy will speak at Ursinus College Feb. 15 in Pfahler Hall Auditorium at 7 p.m.

The seminar, “Bringing Nature Home,” is based on his book, in which he writes about how gardening locally with native plants can be an effective method for conserving plants, butterflies, and the birds that feed on them. His book will be available for sale at Ursinus. The book describes the link between native plant species and native wildlife, and explains that when native plants disappear, insects disappear, impoverishing the food source for birds and other animals.

Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He has written more than 65 research articles and taught insect taxonomy, behavioral ecology and other subjects. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.

He holds the Silver Medal from the Garden Writer’s Association for his book. He enjoys photography, hiking in remote places with his wife, swimming, canoeing and teaching about the importance of life forms. He holds a Ph.D. in entomology from University of Maryland, a master’s degree in entomology from Rutgers, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Allegheny College.

Ursinus students have mobilized to raise money for the victims of the Haitian Earthquake Disaster. Bridget Resetco 2011 heads the group called UC UNICEF that advocates and raises money to support the United Nations Children’s Fund, which  happens to be leading the relief effort in Haiti right now.

“We’re  we’re working with other organizations because we feel like so many people from so many different groups are trying to work together to raise money,” says Resetco. “The Women’s Soccer team and Residence Life are also big supporters.”

Upcoming events include; Raffle and general donations on Wednesday/Thursday afternoons outside Wismer and Thursday night across campus. Pretzels will be sold either Thursday or Friday night around campus. The Hot-Dog program will be on February 6th in Reimert.

Students stressed these are just the preliminary plans for the next two weeks. “We are trying to put together something else for the end of February,” says Resetco.
 

Ursinus students returning to campus for spring semester this week were greeted with new lighting along Main Street.

The College installed 21 high-efficiency LED lights, matching lights already on campus, on Main Street between Ursinus’ Main entrance near fifth Ave., and Eighth Avenue.The lights were purchased by the College from local manufacturer, Spring City Lighting. With installation, the project cost was $85,000.

Andrew Feick, Facilities Director, points out that the new lighting is part of an overall program to increase safety, including PennDot’s dropping the Main Street speed limit to 30 mph, and plans for crosswalks across Main Street between Fifth and Ninth  avenues.

“The college’s commitment to the lighting project is part of a broader vision recommended by regional planners and supported by the College, to make the campus and the Borough welcoming to pedestrians,” added President John Strassburger.

Ursinus College is on track to celebrate a highly successful fundraising year, if calendar year-end totals are any indication. Realizing its best calendar-end fundraising total in several years, Ursinus raised more than $6 million by Dec. 31, 2009, surpassing every calendar year-end total since 2006. The total is more than 20 percent higher than last year’s total.

“We are optimistic that fiscal year end charitable gift totals will break recent records,” says Senior Vice President for Advancement Jill Leauber Marsteller 1978. If fundraising in the spring is as successful as it was in the fall, the fiscal year total would be beyond the $10.7 million raised in 2008-2009. That total also was the highest since 2006.

Several factors contributed to the recent success, Marsteller noted. “The staff continued to focus on priorities, and at Ursinus, relationships are always top of the list. We had the best Phonathon semester ever—nearly raising in the first semester what we did the entire year last year.” 

Staff changes and reorganization helped re-focus the fundraising effort, said President John Strassburger. “Our new senior vice president, Jill,  is one of the most successful, and  highly regarded higher education advancement professionals in the country, which I think is making a difference already,” he said. “We can see that in our numbers, but also in the leadership, and relationships among our reinvigorated constituents.”

This past fall also saw the promotion of a superb vote of confidence in Ursinus from the Middle States accreditation team, a significant bequest, and “indications that people are feeling positive and hopeful about the future generally and at their alma mater in particular,” said Marsteller.

The new Development team at Ursinus, which includes the combined Annual Giving and Alumni offices, explored some new options, including various communications and reminders, printed pieces and e-cards, combined with new tracking methods to gauge the success of various solicitation efforts.

“The impact of  any donation cannot be overstated,” said Marsteller. “All gifts help strengthen what makes experience for students.”

Ursinus College is one of The Princeton Review’s 50 “Best Value” private colleges for 2010.

The Best Value list which features 100 schools -- 50 public and 50 private colleges and universities -- is featured on the websites of The Princeton Review and USA TODAY, which partnered to present the lists. Of the 50 schools chosen in each category (public and private), the top 10 are ranked, and the remaining 40 are listed in alphabetical order and unranked.

The web sites are: http://www.princetonreview.com/best-value-colleges.aspx  and;
http://www.bestvaluecolleges.usatoday.com.

Ursinus is one of three schools on the list located in Pennsylvania, with Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr colleges. All three are members of the Centennial Conference in athletics.

In its profile of Ursinus on USA Today’s website, The Princeton Review editors commend the school for its student experiences. “Ursinus College has roots of reform that have translated into a college experience that makes serious changes in a student’s life,” according to the write-up. “Ursinus participated in the national Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices), and has received high laurels for its transformational experience. The First Year Experience includes excellent first-year advising by faculty, first-year clustering in guaranteed housing, a laptop, and the Common Intellectual Experience where first-year students read, write, and learn in small seminar-style classes.”

In a section titled, “Bang for your Buck,” the web site notes that nearly 85 percent of Ursinus students receive a form of financial assistance, including “an aggressive merit scholarship award program in addition to need-based aid, and it cites the Ursinus “close faculty-to-student ratio.”
“The school is especially proud of the fact that, because it does not run graduate programs, all instruction is carried out by professors.”

The Princeton Review selected the institutions as its "Best Value" choices for 2010 based on its surveys of administrators and students at more than 650 public and private colleges and universities. The selection criteria covered more than 30 factors in three areas:  academics, costs of attendance, and financial aid, using the most recently reported data from each institution for its 2008-09 academic year. Academic ratings were based on student surveys about such issues as professors' accessibility and class sizes, as well as institutional reports about student-faculty ratios and percent of classes taught by teaching assistants. The financial aid rating is based on a combination of school-reported data and student surveys. Tuition, room and board, and required fees, as well as book costs and other factors, are included in the financial measurement.

Princeton Review SVP/Publisher Robert Franek said he is pleased to “identify and commend” the 100 colleges that offer outstanding academics with generous financial aid. “We know many families and students have serious concerns about paying for college in these tough economic times,” said.  “Among the nearly 16,000 respondents to our 2009 ‘College Hopes and Worries Survey,’ of college applicants and parents, 85 percent said financial aid would be ‘very necessary’ for them this year.  However there are many first-rate institutions offering outstanding academics at a relatively low cost of attendance and/or generous financial aid, including some that may surprise applicants.”

The Pottstown Symphony returns to the Lenfest Theater at Ursinus College Sunday (Jan. 10) at 2 p.m.

Gary White will conduct the program, Masterworks I, which includes Bernstein’s Overture to Candide;  Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet, excerpts from Suites 1 and 2; and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major.

An experienced conductor and musician, White trained at the prestigious Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestral Musicians in Hancock, Maine, whose  alumni include legendary conductors Lorin Maazel, André Previn, and Sir Neville Marriner. He graduated from The New School of Music and has a master’s degree from Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music, where he studied conducting with Maestro Luis Biava and Professor Arthur Chodoroff. In 2008 Mr. White was inducted into Temple University’s “Gallery of Success.” A professional French horn player, he has performed with the Fairmount Brass Quartet; The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (Concerto Soloists); Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra; Pennsylvania Sinfonia; and the Harrisburg and Reading symphonies; as a substitute with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and is heard on numerous recordings. He is music director and conductor of Philadelphia Sinfonia.

Tickets for this concert are $35, $30 for seniors, $15 for students and are available for purchase online at the PSO website, www.pottstownsymphony.org. There is parking at the Ninth Avenue entrance to the college, off Main Street.

Award-winning Canadian environmental photographer Edward Burtynsky, who challenges us to reflect on the material manifestations of often devastating human interventions in the natural landscape, will exhibit his powerfully alluring images at The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College.

EDWARD BURTYNSKY: MIN(D)ING THE LANDSCAPE will open Jan. 22, and run through April 11, in the Main Gallery. An opening reception is scheduled for Jan. 28 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The Berman Museum of Art will host two public programs in conjunction with this exhibition of works from Burtynsky’s “Breaking Ground,” “Quarries,” “Urban Mines,” “Oil,” “Ships,” and “Australia” photographic series, as two scholars lend their expertise to providing cross-disciplinary context for the exhibition. 

Petra Tschakert, assistant professor of geography, Pennsylvania State University, will present a lecture March 30, at 4:30 p.m. in the Main Gallery. Her research focuses broadly on human-environment interactions and more specifically on environmental change, development, sustainability, knowledge, inequality and marginalization.

Christina Miller, assistant professor of art, Millersville University, and founding member of the non-profit artists collective Ethical Metalsmiths, will discuss contemporary artistic interventions and the adaptive re-use of materials to create works of art, April 8, at 4:30 p.m., in the Main Gallery.

Burtynksy’s biography notes that his imagery explores the intricate link between industry and nature, combining the raw elements of mining, quarrying, manufacturing, shipping, oil production and recycling into eloquent, highly expressive visions that find beauty and humanity in the most unlikely of places. Burtynsky himself writes that “[t]hese images are meant as metaphors [for] the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.”

Burtynsky’s photographs are included in collections of museums such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art New York, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus, known for its diverse collection and innovative educational programming, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; and  noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and College holidays.  The Museum is accessible to the physically disabled and admission is free. The Museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Exhibitions and programs are funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and annual support from Epps Advertising.

Caption: Edward Burtynksy, Nickel Tailings No. 34, Sudbury, Ontario 1996

Ursinus Professor of Biology Kathryn Goddard-Doms is moderating a forum on the impacts of and solutions for sea level rise on the Delaware River Estuary: “Sea Level Rise - Looking Forward and Planning Now, Impacts and Solutions for the Delaware River and Estuary” on Jan. 13, 9:30 a.m. to noon, at The John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in Philadelphia.

Dr. Goddard-Doms is Chair of the Ursinus Biology Department and on the Board of Directors of the Darby Creek Valley Association. The panel will feature speakers Carol R. Collier, executive director, Delaware River Basin Commission; Danielle Kreeger, science director, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary; Christopher Linn, senior environmental planner, Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission; and Maya K. van Rossum, The Delaware Riverkeeper. They will present on topics such as “Water Supply, Wastewater Treatment and Infrastructure;” “Development Impacts on the Tidal Wetlands;” “Climate Adaptation in the Delaware Estuary: Risks, Opportunities and Tough Choices;” and “The Concrete Ways that Global Climate Change Will Affect Our River and Region from Deepening the Delaware to Natural Gas Drilling to Artificial Turf.”

The program will be held in The Cusano Environmental Education Center at the Heinz Wildlife Refuge. Sponsoring Organizations include Union of Concerned Scientists, National Wildlife Federation; Clean Air Council; and National Audubon Society.

Persons who wish to attend should contact Anne Crowley, Union of Concerned Scientists consultant, anne.r.crowley@comcast.net , 610-640-3303 by noon, Jan. 12. 
  

Three Ursinus students joined 50 of the brightest young business minds in the country as they competed in November during the Early Leaders Case Competition at the Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester.

Ursinus student Brittany Killian 2011 of Sewell, N.J., was a member of the Second Place Team; and Ty Wetzel  2011 of Coopersburg, Pa., was a member of the Third Place Team. Stephanie Brodish 2011 of McAlisterville, Pa. was also selected to compete.
The competition brought together undergraduate students from 19 colleges and universities across the country to compete in a business case competition designed to simulate decisions faced by global business leaders. Selection was highly competitive.

The Simon Business School at the University of Rochester has a Direct Admission Partnership (DAP) relationship with Ursinus. UC students who wish to pursue their graduate business studies immediately following graduation can apply to the Simon School and receive certain considerations.

(Pictured, from Left: Brittany Killian, Ty Wetzel, Stephanie Brodish and advisor Carol Cirka, associate professor of Business and Economics)

View the video by John Berry of the newspaper, The Times Herald, of the Ursinus' Candlelight Vigil. Video>

Ursinus College offers a celebration of the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with programs spanning two weeks. The events are as follows:
Monday January 18
Noon Ecumenical service in Bomberger Hall.
6 p.m.  Candlelight Vigil with Barry Scott, creator of “A Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., on Olin Plaza, to Bomberer Auditorium. Sponsored by S.U.N., the Office of Multicultural  Services, College Activities Board, Leadership Development & Student Activities, UCARE and the UC Ambassador Program.
Tuesday January 19
8 p.m. Keynote Address, “After Innocence, Reflections on Imprisonment and Redemption:  An Evening with filmmaker Jessica Sanders,” Olin Auditorium,
Wednesday, January 20 - Freedom School
11 a.m.  “Music and the Movement – ‘60s Pop Culture and the Role it Played during the Civil Rights,” – taught by Assistant Dean Todd McKinney, Olin 102
1 p.m. “Forbidden Love: Miscegenation and American Film,” taught by Assistant Professor Desirée Garcia, Olin 103.
7 p.m.  Guest speaker Richard Hight, “The Shape of Your Character,” Black Box theater, The Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center.
Thursday January 21 – Freedom School
11 a.m.  “The Central Elements of King’s Theological Vision,” taught by the Rev. Christian Rice, Olin 101.
1 p.m. “Tuskegee: Race and the Ethics of Human Experimentation,” taught by Associate Professor Kelly Sorensen, Olin 103
7 p.m.  “Bettering the World, Bettering Yourself: The imperative of Service,” taught by Ryan Collins 2010, Olin 103.
Saturday January 23 - UCARE Event: Debating for Democracy at Widener University, Students should reserve in advance.
Tuesday January 26 - Freedom School
11 a.m.  “Whiteness and Authority,” taught by Assistant Professor Walter Greason, Olin 104.
7 p.m.  “Racial Invisibility in the U.S.,” taught by Shakeeta Parker 2010, Olin 103.
7 p.m.  “Which Box Do I Check?”- An informal discussion on mixed-race identity as we see it in educational and social structures, taught by Fernando Jones 2012, Olin 101.
Wednesday, Jan. 27 – Freedom School
11 a.m. “Black Identity in the U.S.” taught by Danielle Callendar 2013, Olin 102.
1 p.m. “Education as the ‘New Civil Right:’ Historical Perspectives on School Reform from the Civil Rights Era to Obama,” taught by Assistant Professor John Spencer, Olin 103.
Thursday Jan. 28:
7 p.m. “The Substance of Our Soul,” performance, Lenfest theater, The Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center.
Friday, January 29 - Freedom School
10 a.m. “Shaft is NOT a Blaxploitation Move: Black Film in the 1970s,” taught by Assistant Professor Frances Gateward, Olin 107.

For further information on events, contact  Desirée Garcia (dgarcia@ursinus.edu) or Walter Greason (wgreason@ursinus.edu).

A festive Winter Ball at the Berman Museum of Art raised more than $2,500 to combat violence against women. The student-run gala event also promoted the arts at Ursinus. The Dec. 12 event was  co-organized by Kristin Daly-Barnes 2011 and Kayla Federline 2010.

Daly-Barnes, of the organization V-Day, and Federline, representing the student group, Art Exhibitionists, collaborated with other Ursinus organizations such as STAR, Student Activities and UCARE in an effort to raise awareness of violence against women and promote the arts at Ursinus College.  The event was extremely successful: attendance reached the museum maximum of 250 guests.

“It was a great event and shows what UC students can do when they want to,” said Professor Joseph Melrose, Urisnus’ Ambassador-in Residence, who attended.

For the holiday-themed event, the Berman Museum was decorated in dark blue and silver.  Tall flower arrangements stood in the fireplaces, and decorated trees welcomed guests through the main doors.  Casino and prize tables were set up in the front gallery while the main gallery was reserved for dancing. Guests enjoyed light hors d’oeuvres and refreshing beverages throughout the evening.

Ursinus student performing groups entertained, including the UC Bearitones, Escape Velocity, accompanied by Matt Whitman, and Ethan Kuhn and Alex Niedmann with a medley of jazz arrangements.  DJ Nick Hanford of WVOU offered an assorted playlist of songs from the jazz, blues, and popular dance genres. 

This is the second year for the Berman Ball.  Last year’s event, developed from a Business and Economics management class,  benefited the Michele McLennan Scholarship Fund and honored the late business and economics professor.  Daly-Barnes and Federline hope to make the event a tradition at Ursinus. 

Julie Zdonek 2011, Director of the Bonner Leaders and Project Pericles Program Christian Rice, Assistant Dean of Student Life Todd McKinney and the museum and catering staffs also supported the event.

Said Professor Colette Trout of the Modern Languages Department, “In my 30 years at Ursinus, I haven’t seen a  student-sponsored charity event ( to promote awareness of violence against women nationally and internationally) so well attended. . . It was intelligently planned, elegant and entertaining. Activism at its best.

“And yes, women’s issues  matter and can mobilize our students of both sexes, and showcase, at the same time, how far along we have come in our appreciation of  the arts on campus. Thank you for a memorable evening. “

Ursinus College is hosting The Pottstown Symphony Orchestra Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater.

The Holiday Reveries concert will feature  traditional music of the holiday season. Guest Conductor will be William Schmearer III. The concert will feature soprano Kate Martin and tenor Joseph Hawkins.

The concert is free to the public, but the orchestra requests that tickets be obtained by calling 610-327-3614

Ursinus students, and faculty and staff and their families are all welcome to take part in the first Holiday Hunt, sponsored by the Collegeville Main Street Program Promotions Committee.

The Holiday Hunt is designed to attract people to local businesses to see what they have to offer, promote Collegeville and to arouse spirit for the season.

The Holiday Hunt begins Nov. 27 and ends on Dec. 18. It is similar to a scavenger hunt in that participants obtain entry forms from the first floor of the Ursinus Art House residence, the participating Main Street businesses, or at the Main Street office at 476 E. Main Street.  They then visit the Main Street merchants to find holiday-related articles. Participants note on the entry form where they found the items and when done, deposit the entry form into a box with their name and e-mail address to be considered for prizes.  The grand prize is valued at over $400.

For more information on the Collegeville Main Street Program or the Holiday Hunt contact Linda Flederbach, Main Street Manager, at 610-454-1050 or via e-mail at manager@collegevilledevelopment.org. Visit www.collegevilledevelopment.org for more information.

Ursinus’ Breakaway Student Productions will present Bertolt Brecht’s “The Good Woman of Szechuan,” Thursday, Dec. 3, through Saturday, Dec. 5, at 7:30 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center’s Studio Theater.  Admission is $2 for all.  Please call 610-409-3795 for reservations or more information.

Breakaway Student Productions are produced, directed, designed and performed by Ursinus students.  The selection of Brecht’s play is an outgrowth of the 2009 Ursinus College Summer Fellows research of Mark Smedberg, Class of 2010, who will direct the play’s cast of 18 students.   Smedberg’s research is titled “The Reality of Illusion:  Brecht’s Performance Techniques and Their Effect on His Audiences.”   His faculty mentor is Beverly Redman, assistant professor of theater and dance at Ursinus.

Breakway Student Productions is an organization devoted to theater.  Its goal is to develop a community that is fully committed to theater and live arts on campus. 

 The Ursinus College Choir will present its annual performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 5, in Bomberger Auditorium on the Collegeville campus.

John French, holder of the Heefner Chair of Music, will conduct, and featured soloists will include Leslie Johnson, soprano; Robert O’Neill, countertenor; Kenneth Garner, tenor; and Reginald Pindell, bass.

Admission is $15. For tickets, please contact Cathy Bogusky at (610) 409-3000, ext. 3583.

For three days Nov. 4 through 6, a team from Washington College is visiting the Ursinus campus as part of the Teagle project to assess and enhance diversity initiatives on campus.

Last year The Teagle Foundation of New York awarded a $300,000 grant to five liberal arts colleges, for a project to assess and enhance the impact of diversity initiatives on student engagement and student learning.

The collaborative includes Ursinus and Washington & Jefferson colleges, in Pennsylvania, and Goucher, McDaniel, and Washington colleges, in Maryland. The multi-year project will use campus teams to assess current diversity initiatives and make changes to integrate findings into the college curriculum and into the daily lives of the students. Application for the highly competitive grant was by invitation.

The site visit model allows a team from each campus to visit another campus each year, and also host a team from the collaborative, to better understand how students, faculty and staff experience the diversity initiatives on the campus. The teams are assessing how the stated mission on campus actually is lived.  From these visits, and the recommendations from them, each campus will determine what changes to implement on their campus. The answers will be used to propel campus-wide enhancements to the initiatives on each participating campus.

The Washington College visiting team schedule includes meeting with 11 focus groups. These include first year students; members of student organizations; Bridge program participants; juniors and seniors; tenured faculty; Resident Assistants, Athletics staff, tenure track faculty; student members of diversity organization; Student Life staff; and aculty who teach diversity/global courses.

They present their findings Friday to the UC Home Team. The assessment is ongoing.

Polymer expert  and “green” manufacturing pioneer Joseph M. DeSimone, a 1986 graduate of Ursinus College, will give the Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia Nov. 19. The lecture, titled Bridging Fields and Harnessing Diversity for the Sake of Innovation, will be at 6 p.m., with a 7 p.m. reception. It is free and open to the public. Registration, by Nov. 12, can be completed at www.chemheritage.org by clicking “Events.”The building is located at 315 Chestnut St., Philadelphia.

The Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture emphasizes the positive role that chemistry and related sciences play in our lives. DeSimone has pioneered solutions in green manufacturing and promising applications in gene therapy, drug delivery, and medical devices. He is the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the William R. Kenan Jr., Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina. He is also the co-principal investigator of the Carolina Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, funded by the National Cancer Institute.

DeSimone is the 2008 recipient of the Lemelson-MIT Prize for his groundbreaking ideas, including using polymers to develop technology for a stent which could eliminate the need for a permanent prosthetic.  He is also working on linking “green” chemistry to new cancer therapies, imaging techniques and other endeavors.  He has mentored countless students, and authored numerous articles.

 He was born in Norristown Pa., and is a graduate of Perkiomen Valley High School.  He chose Ursinus for its polymer chemistry course, and earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

The Ullyot Public Affairs lecture is presented by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia and Delaware Sections of the American Chemical Society, Department of Chemistry of the University of Pennsylvania, and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of the Sciences Philadelphia.

Davide Rondoni will read from his poetry Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. in Bomberger auditorium on campus. The event is free and open to the public. No reservations are necessary.

Rondoni is the author of a dozen books of poetry, several critical books, and is a translator of Baudelaire, with a regular presence on Italian television. He founded, and directs, the Center for Contemporary Poetry at the University of Bologna.

Considered a major voice in Italian poetry today, Rondoni will read alongside his translator, Gregory Pell, associate professor of Italian literature and language at Hofstra University. In addition to reading poems, they will answer questions about the translation process.

The Ursinus College Dance Company will present its fall concert, Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 19 through 21, at 7:30 p.m. in the Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater on the Collegeville campus.

Tickets are $5 for general admission and $2 for students and senior citizens.  For more information and reservations, please call 610-409-3795.

The program will feature new works by Chris Aiken, associate professor of dance at Ursinus; Duane Holland, assistant artistic director of Rennie Harris Puremovement;  Marianela Boan, Cuban choreographer, and excepts from Danny Buraczeski’s “Swing Concerto.” 

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has given Ursinus College $279,100 for faculty development initiatives that will support faculty in several stages of their careers.

The Faculty Career Enhancement grant will allow the creation of a Teaching and Learning Initiative for junior faculty, in addition to a series of grants and workshops designed to help mid-career faculty. The grant, which will run over three academic years, has as a third component a program to develop faculty leadership.

The Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI) will offer junior faculty constructive ways to strive for teaching excellence. Meredith Goldsmith, assistant professor of English, who helped obtain the grant with Professor of History Dallett Hemphill, explains that meetings and programs will help cultivate a culture of teaching and discussions of syllabus planning and  a web presence with a blog on teaching techniques. Many junior faculty are making a transition from assistantships to balancing multiple preparations and their own scholarly agendas; some are adapting to the environment of a small college after teaching at large research institutions; and some, especially those in small departments, assume service responsibilities in addition to teaching and research. Help will be offered in interpreting student evaluations, taping or visiting a class and in reacting to student feedback.

The second initiative would support faculty to initiate, finish and publish new scholarship after their dissertations. The faculty, intent on continuing student achievement, is also eager to produce and disseminate scholarly and creative works, which provide models for, and enrich student achievement. New projects require a period of background work, from study of the literature in a new field, to visits to research facilities, to preparation of proposals for external grants to supplement the sabbatical.  Supplemental Research Grants will support such work through a special summer grant or course release. Some grants will be available to support a semester free of teaching duties to allow a faculty member to finish a book. 

Over the last decade, Ursinus has become a changed institution. More than half of the faculty has been recruited in the last 10 years, and the interdisciplinary freshman course, The Common Intellectual Experience, is in its 10th year. As senior faculty adjust to a changing institution and as newly-tenured faculty join the ranks of department or program heads and committee chairs, they will be able to share best practices on leadership and governance at Ursinus and elsewhere. 

 The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College is the recipient of several works by the artist Ben Wilson (1913-2001), who is known for   his personal style of Abstract Expressionism.

 The gift of eight large oil paintings, two drawings, and a sketch   pad was made by the artist’s daughter, Joanne Jaffe, from the  Ben and Evelyn Wilson Foundation. It is one of 50 such gifts  Jaffe has made of her father’s paintings and the sculpture of her  mother, Evelyn Wilson, to museums and colleges and universities.

Wilson began his career in the 1930s, and was an artist for the Works Progress Administration, working in an expressionistic figurative style. His early paintings from the 1930s to the 1950s reflect the artist’s agonized response to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the psychological aftermath. In the late 1950s, as world conditions improved, his spirits lifted and his paintings became increasingly abstract and colorful. He remained faithful to his own, very personal style of Abstract Expressionism for the next forty years.

Wilson graduated from City College, now part of CUNY, in 1935. He also studied at the National Academy of Design, and the Academie Julien in Paris. He taught in his studios in Manhattan and Ridgefield, N.J., had 30 solo exhibitions and participated in dozens of group shows.

Berman Museum director Lisa Hanover has chosen, for the museum collection, paintings that reflect high points for Wilson’s 60-year career as a painter, including Lamentation, 1945, representing  his early figurative work. The other works cover a spectrum from the 1960s through the late 1980s.

Admiring Wilson’s inventiveness as a draftsman, Hanover also selected two lively drawings, and a sketch pad. “There’s no better way to see how an artist thinks than by looking at his sketchpad,” she said. “Wilson’s drawings, like his paintings, reveal a tremendous fertility of imagination. He was a real virtuoso.”

Assuming responsibility for her parents’ art estates in 2006, Jaffe first turned her attention to her mother’s sculptures and began making gifts from Evelyn Wilson’s extensive “Community of Women” series, small “table-top” ceramic sculptures depicting single figures, intimate groupings of women, and mothers and children. She contacted  museums, university art museums and galleries, and Women’s Studies programs, donating several hundred sculptures. The Berman Museum was the recipient, last fall, of a gift of five pieces from Evelyn Wilson’s “Community” series. Jaffe welcomes inquiries about her father’s paintings from universities and museums.  She can be contacted at jojaf@aol.com.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus, known for its diverse collection and innovative educational programming, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; and  noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and college holidays.  The Museum is accessible to the physically disabled and admission is free. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Exhibitions and programs are funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For group tour information, call 610-409-3500.

(Caption, above left: Flowering, 38x48 inches, oil on panel)

(Caption, above right: Fall of Ptolemy, 51x72 inches, oil on canvas)

The Ursinus Jazz Ensemble will present a concert on Saturday, Oct. 31, in The Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater at 4 p.m., earlier than traditionally scheduled.  The concert is free, open to the public, and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Holly Gaines, assistant professor of music, will conduct a program including swing, ballads, Latin and funk styles for big band.  Classic works by Miles Davis, Count Basie and Charles Mingus will be performed as well as modern compositions by Don Menza, Don Sebesky, Les Hooper and Victor Lopez. Vocalist Carly Freedman, Class of 2011, will be featured on works by Gershwin and Harry Warren.

 Ursinus College’s Escape Velocity Dance Company will present an all-new show of works choreographed, performed and produced by Ursinus dance students on  Thursday, Oct. 29, through Saturday, Oct. 31, in the Floy Lewis Bakes Center Dance Studio.  Shows are set for 6 and 8:30 p.m. on Thursday; 6 p.m. on Friday and 1 and 3 p.m. on Saturday. A $1 admission is charged for all shows.  For information and reservations, please e-mail evdt@ursinus.edu.

The production is titled “Timeless,” and Escape Velocity’s all-student choreographers, dancers and producers will interpret “time” through a variety of dance forms.

Photographer Alida Fish will present an Ursinus College Distinguished Artist lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m. in Olin Hall, Room 108, on the Ursinus campus.
 
Fish is known for her use of traditional, historical and digital processes in bringing her work to life.  A recent exhibition titled “Invented Worlds,” shown at the Delaware Art Museum, included  Ektacolor prints with hand-applied dyes and enamel, silver prints, and wet-plate collodion tintypes.

Fish is a professor of media arts at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts where she teaches classes in photography, film and animation.  She has exhibited her work internationally in more than 30 individual and 150 group exhibitions. She has won many prestigious awards, including an Individual Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994, a Visiting Artist Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome in 2004, and a Master’s Fellowship from the Delaware State Arts Council in 2008.

British organist Roger Sayer will present a Heefner Organ Recital on Sunday, Oct. 25, at 4 p.m. in Bomberger Auditorium on the Ursinus College campus.  The event is free, open to the public and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Currently organist of Rochester Cathedral (UK) and director of the Rochester Choral Society, Sayer began his musical career as a chorister in Portsmouth. He went on to study at the Royal College of Music under the late Nicholas Danby, winning all the major organ prizes. Between 1980 and 1984 he was organ student at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and in 1981 was appointed organist of Woodford Parish Church, where he built up a fine musical tradition.  Since graduating he has been constantly in demand as an organist and conductor.

Sayer makes regular visits to Scandinavia as well as giving numerous concerts in most parts of Europe and the USA. Recently these included performances in St Paul's Cathedral London in the Celebrity Series and Riverside Church in New York.  His concerts in many parts of the world have included the organ symphonies of Vierne and all the Organ Works of Durufle. In 2009, his performances have taken him to Iceland, Italy, France, Germany and U.S.A.  He accompanies many choirs including the world famous Tenebrae.

Sayer has made numerous highly acclaimed recordings both as an organist and conductor.  His third release in the Classic Selection series is due for release later this year.

Ursinus College students have organized a candidates’ forum to be held Oct. 14 in Olin Auditorium in F.W. Olin Hall, on campus, at 7 p.m.

Among the area candidates for various offices, participants expected include candidates running for Judge of Elections, and candidates running for Collegeville Borough Council.

The public is invited. The forum is being sponsored by SIFE, Students in Free Enterprise, aninternational, non-profit organization that looks to create an economic opportunity for others by doing community outreach projects that focus on market economics, financial literacy, success skills, entrepreneurship, business ethics, and environmental sustainability.  The Ursinus College Democrats, and Ursinus College Republicans are co-sponsoring the forum.

State Sen. John C. Rafferty and State Rep Mike Vereb are holding a town meeting for Ursinus students Oct. 22 at 6 p.m. in Olin 107.

The session will allow students, faculty and staff meet with the state legislators to discuss the issues facing Pennsylvania, and to have an open forum to interact with the elected officials.

Sen. Rafferty, a former state Deputy Attorney General, represents the residents of Pennsylvania's 44th Senatorial District, which includes parts of Berks, Chester and Montgomery counties.  He was re-elected for a second term with the Senate in November of 2006. His top legislative priorities include reducing the property tax burden, protecting our environment, reducing health care costs, providing quality care for senior citizens, fighting prescription drug abuse and insuring that our police and firefighters have the resources they need to do their jobs.

Sen. Rafferty serves as Chairman of the Senate Law & Justice Committee and is a member of Appropriations, Banking and Insurance, Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, Judiciary, and Transportation committees.  Prior to running for the Senate, Senator Rafferty served as an attorney in private practice, focusing on education, real estate, zoning and business and estates law.  As Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth from 1988 to 1991, he was responsible for the Criminal Law Division and Grand Jury Investigations.
Rep. Vereb was elected to represent the 150th Legislative District in November 2006. As a state lawmaker, he advocates working to achieve true property tax reform for all Pennsylvanians, preserving valuable open space and improving regional traffic planning.

Public service has long been a calling. He served as president of the West Norriton Board of Commissioners, where he worked to make government more responsive and accountable to the taxpayers by holding the line on taxes, preserving open space and supporting first responders.

The Montgomery County native served as a board member-at-large for the West Norriton Little League, a member of the Hancock Fire Company, a member of the Pastoral Council for Visitation BVM, a board member for Visitation BVM Children Youth Organization and an advisory board member for the Norristown Police Athletic League. He has 20 years of combined law enforcement and corporate security experience.

John Churchill, head of the national office of Phi Beta Kappa, will speak at an Ursinus College event celebrating the 10th Anniversary of its renowned Common Intellectual Experience.  The event will be held on Monday, Oct. 12, at 7 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater.  The event is free and open to the public.

Known as the "CIE" on campus, Ursinus’ Common Intellectual Experience provides a broad-based common experience to give first-year students the written and communications skills, and the scientific, cultural, and historical literacy that are fundamental to a liberally educated person.  CIE has been praised by Newsweek/Kaplan and the publishers of other respected college guides.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa and a former Rhodes Scholar, John Churchill provides leadership for the nation’s oldest academic honorary society and its mission to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences.   Churchill held the positions of professor of philosophy, Dean and Interim President at Hendrix College before becoming Assistant American Secretary to the Rhodes Scholarship Trust in 1972.  He has been active in selecting Rhodes Scholars since then.  His column “From the Desk of the Secretary” appears regularly in Phi Beta Kappa’s quarterly, The Key Reporter.

Leading Saudi Arabian authority Robert Lacey will speak at Ursinus College Thursday Oct. 15 at 4:30 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater. The historian and author of  the respected and celebrated The Kingdom: Arabia & The House of Sa'ud will deliver The Wright Lecture on Middle Eastern Affairs.

Lacey’s new book, a follow up to his 1981 study of Saudi Arabia, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia (Viking), will be released Oct. 19. Copies of the book will be available after the Ursinus lecture. In “Inside the Kingdom,” Lacey traces the history of U.S.-Saudi relations, from the partnership formed during the Persian Gulf War to its deterioration in the wake of 9/11. Tom Brokaw has called Inside the Kingdom:  “Dazzling—on every level.”

Lacey, a British journalist and bestselling author who has become one of the most sought-after resources on Saudi Arabia, recently partnered with NOW on PBS for a documentary titled “Rehab for Terrorists,” which explores Saudi Arabia’s controversial terrorist rehabilitation program. He is also an advisor on the upcoming IMAX Theatre film, Arabia 3D, which will open in 2010. He is the author of the bestselling books Majesty and Ford: The Men and the Machine, among others. In 1979, he moved with his family to Saudi Arabia for 18 months to research his new book, which was banned by the Saudis.

From the dramatic seizure of the Grand Mosque in Jeddah in 1979 to the deepening of U.S.-Saudi relations during the Persian Gulf War and the alienation and eventual rise to power of Saudi radicals like Osama bin Ladin, Inside the Kingdom presents a picture of a society trying to recover from the past. Lacey details the shifting winds of U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, from the Bush years to the Clinton administration to the establishment of a post-9/11 relationship. The book also focuses on the steps Saudi Arabia is taking to quell the rise of terrorism on its homeland.

The Walter Livingston Wright III Lectureship was established in 2006 by Walter Livingston Wright III, Ursinus Class of 1954, to provide enhanced opportunities for student and faculty enrichment in Middle Eastern affairs, past and present.

Two Ursinus College Music Department professors will offer a recital Sunday, Oct. 11, at 4 p.m. in Bomberger auditorium.

Saxophonist Holly Gaines and pianist John French, holder of the Heefner Chair of Music at Ursinus, will perform music by Handel, Robert Schumann, Pedro Iturralde, and Christopher Scinto.

The duo has given recitals in Philadelphia and throughout the region.

Dr. Gaines holds a music education degree from Quincy University and Western Illinois University and received her Ph.D. in saxophone performance from Ball State University. She has published articles and presented papers at conferences of the North American Saxophone Alliance, and has researched and written on early American women saxophonists.

Dr. French is the associate conductor of The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelpohia and  organist/choirmaster at The Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. He holds degrees from Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts, Westminster Choir College and University of Cincinnati.

The duo collaborated recently on a CD, Music of Kathryne E. Thompson, who was a musician in the 1920s.

The 2nd Annual Community Investment Conference, "It Takes a Village to Raise a Village," will be held at Ursinus on Oct. 20 in Olin Hall.  The conference, presented by SUN Consulting & Associates, will provide a forum where community and civic leaders, staff of non-profit organizations, members of businesses, and government agencies can exchange information, share ideas, form new relationships, and build strategic alliances.  Workshops and plenary sessions will offer practical tools that will enrich participants as well as the communities they serve.  Community members and students are welcome to register.  Information can be found at www.sunconsult.net. 

The internationally-recognized jazz dance choreographer and teacher Danny Buraczeski will offer a master class in jazz technique on Saturday, Oct. 10, at 10:30 a.m. in the Floy Lewis Bakes Center Dance Studio.  This advanced class is geared to students age 16 or older.  Please contact Carol Royce at 610-409-3000, ext. 2352, to reserve your space in the class before 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 9th. This event is  free and open to local residents.

Pictured: Original Swing Concerto

Last spring, the Ursinus Dance Department was awarded $10,000 from the American Masterpieces: Dance-College Component, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with Dance/USA, for the restaging of Swing Concerto , a 1993 piece for nine dancers, choreographed by Buraczeski. The American Masterpieces College Grant to reconstruct and perform a designated American dance masterpiece also includes support for master classes, as well as performances by Ursinus dance students. Swing Concerto is being restaged by Cathy Young of the Ursinus dance faculty, with Buraczeski. Excerpts from the piece will be performed by the Ursinus Dance Company Nov. 19 through Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m., in the Kaleidoscope Lenfest Theater. For information and reservations, call 610-409-3795.

After a career on Broadway, Buraczeski formed the company JAZZDANCE by Danny Buraczeski, which has performed all over the United States and internationally. He is now on the faculty at Southern Methodist University.  As a dancer in Minneapolis, Young was an assistant for Buraczeski, and danced in the original performances of the piece.”

The Philadelphia Water Color Society 109th Anniversary International Exhibition of Works on Paper will open in the Main Gallery of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College on Saturday, Oct. 3.   The exhibition will run through Dec. 18.

(Caption for image, left: Love Lies Bleeding, 30 x 22, Doris Davis-Glackin)  

Several special events have been scheduled in conjunction with the exhibition.  A Reception and Awards Ceremony will be held on Sunday, Oct. 18, from 2 to 4 p.m.  A Watercolor Demonstration by Andrew Kish III is set for Sunday, Nov. 1, from 1 to 3 p.m., and a Gallery Talk by Lisa Tremper Hanover, director of the Berman Museum, will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 4 p.m.

Juror of Selection, Stephen Quiller, AWS, NWS reviewed over 400 entries to create an installation of 80 works on paper.  Juror of Awards M. Stephen Doherty, has designated over $6,000 in prizes for outstanding achievement.  Internationally known, Quiller was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Berman Museum of Art in 1999 and is the author of five books focused on his approach to color and composition.  Doherty is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of American Artist, Watercolor, Drawing and Workshop magazines.  He is a painter in the Plein Air Tradition and has written dozens of magazine articles and several art books.  This exhibition marks the 5th collaboration between the Berman Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Water Color Society.

 The exhibition is the fifth collaboration between the Berman Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Water Color Society.  The exhibition and all special events are free and open to the public.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus, known for its diverse collection and innovative educational programming, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; and  noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and college holidays.  The Museum is accessible to the physically disabled and admission is free. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Exhibitions and programs are funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and annual support from Epps Advertising.

Ursinus College is pleased to welcome new Senior Vice President for Advancement Jill Leauber Marsteller 1978, who has more than 20 years of successful fundraising experience for major educational institutions in Pennsylvania.

Marsteller, an alumna of Ursinus College, joins the selective liberal arts college administration after serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, where she oversaw the successful completion of a $100 million fundraising effort and led several new and effective marketing and communications initiatives.

“I have been watching Jill’s growth as an advancement professional ever since she left Ursinus,” said President John Strassburger. “I was delighted to see an Ursinus alumna become one of the half-dozen most accomplished collegiate fundraisers and managers in the country. I am also pleased she has stayed in touch with us.  She knows us well and in finishing a consultancy here already is accelerating our forward progress.  Equally important, her passion for our approach to liberal education -- her enthusiasm for our unvarnished focus on fostering student achievement -- means she will be another powerful voice on our behalf with constituencies all around the country.  I could not be more pleased that she is returning to her alma mater at this vital time in the college’s history.”

Her most recent achievements in higher education include serving in 2007 as President of Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pa., and as Vice President of Institutional Advancement for eight years at Haverford College.  At Haverford, Marsteller contributed to the most dynamic period of programmatic growth in Haverford's history, leading a successful $200 million capital campaign, revamping many philanthropic programs and initiating the first comprehensive international efforts of the college.

As leader and chief strategist of Haverford’s most ambitious campaign in the college’s history, she led an effort that doubled annual giving, while significantly increasing alumni participation, and through philanthropy enabled the creation of three new integrated academic centers, including a Gold LEED-certified $28 million athletic facility; $25 million additional dollars for financial aid, and $10 million for new programs to address diversity and globalization issues. As a result, Haverford was recognized with a Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) award for the most improved fundraising programs. She was also responsible for developing new faculty initiatives, overseeing a branding initiative which enhanced visibility, energizing and increasing alumni activity and events and establishing the first comprehensive Parents’ Program at the college.

Marsteller also served as Vice President for University Advancement at Lehigh University, and in various positions at Lehigh from 1995 to 2000, where she led the transition team overseeing the introduction of Lehigh's 12th president; secured a $25 million gift to name the College of Engineering, the largest single gift in Lehigh's history; and oversaw the opening, fundraising and programming for the Zoellner Arts Center, now in its 12th year of operation.
She has been a consultant to various organizations and foundations including the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, The Haverford School, Haverford, Pa., The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, New York, N.Y., and Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, Ct.

She returns to Ursinus, where she began her advancement career in the Ursinus Development Office in the late 1980s and early 1990s, contributing to the successful outcomes of two major capital campaigns.  During that same period she served as an adjunct lecturer in the Ursinus English department.

Marsteller received her bachelor’s degree from Ursinus in 1978, graduating cum laude with honors in English. She received her master’s degree in English from Villanova University in 1980.

Her many community activities recently include membership in The Forum for Executive Women, Trustee and Development Committee Chair of  the Perkiomen School, and membership and leadership in a wide swath of professional advancement and higher education associations.

Karen Arenson, a journalist who worked as a reporter and editor at The New York Times from 1978 to 2008, will speak about her experiences in a lecture titled “Writers’ Lives:  Reporting and Editing at the New York Times” in Ursinus College’s Musser Auditorium, Pfahler Hall, on Sept. 23, at 4:45 p.m. 

Her visit is as a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges. The Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program has brought prominent artists, diplomats, journalists, business leaders, and other nonacademic professionals to campuses for week-long residencies of teaching and dialogue with students and faculty members, to create better understanding and new connections between the academic and non-academic worlds.

Arenson covered higher education, nonprofits, Wall Street, and the economy for  the New York Times. She majored in economics at M.I.T. and earned a masters degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She joined The Times as a financial reporter in 1978, after five years at Business Week magazine. She also served as editor of the Times’ Sunday Business Section and as deputy editor and acting editor of its Business/Financial section, before returning to reporting and focusing on higher education.

Prior to her education coverage, she gained an inside perspective on higher education as a member of the M.I.T. Corporation and its executive committee. She is a board member of the International Institute in Madrid and Massachusetts, and a mentor for the Hechinger Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. She currently serves on its visiting committee for the humanities and is conducting oral history interviews for the university.

The Ursinus College student literary magazine, The Lantern, will sponsor a poetry reading by Ursinus Visiting Professor of English Taije Silverman on Sept. 17 at 7 p.m., in The Kaleidoscope Studio (black box) Theater.

Silverman will read from her book of poems, Houses Are Fields, published by Louisiana State University Press in May 2009. The reading is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception and book signing. Books will also be available for purchase.

Taije Silverman’s debut collection chronicles her family’s devotion and dissolution through the death of her mother. Ranging in style from measured narratives to fragmented lyrics that convey the ambiguity of loss, these poems both arc into the past and question the possibility of the future, exploring the ways in which memory at once sustains and fails love. Ultimately the poems are elegies not only to one beloved mother, but to the large and diffusive presences of Keats, Mandelstam, a concentration camp near Prague, a coming-of-age on a Greek island, and the nearly traceless particles of neutrinos that--as with each detail toward which the poet lends her attention—become precious as the mother departs from her position at the center of the world. Furious, redemptive and deeply immediate, Houses are Fields is a beautifully moving first book.

Silverman’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Shenandoah, Ploughshares, Five Points, Massachusetts Review, and other journals. The recipient of the 2005–2007 Emory University Creative Writing Fellowship, as well as residencies from the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, she lives in Philadelphia.

For further information contact Robert Whitehead,  rowhitehead@ursinus.edu

Ursinus College Theater will present the classic horror tale, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,”  Oct. 7 through 10 at 7:30 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center’s Lenfest Theater. This production, directed by Domenick Scudera, associate professor of theater and dance at Ursinus, will feature the original 1887 script by T.R. Sullivan, which was recently rediscovered by a scholar whose lecture will coincide with the production.

Tickets are $5 for general admission and $2 for students and senior citizens.  Please call The Kaleidoscope Box Office, 610-409-3795, for more information and to reserve tickets.

The original script, approved by author Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote the book in 1886, was re-discovered by editor Martin Danahay, who will lecture Oct. 10 at 6:15 p.m. in The Kaleidoscope Black Box theater at Ursinus.

Danahay will be speaking on “Sex and Violence in ‘Jekyll and Hyde.’” He is the leading scholar of the fascinating history of the original stage production of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The script, explains Scudera, was commissioned by actor Richard Mansfield, an actor who was so convincing in the lead role(s) that he became a serious suspect in the Jack the Ripper murder case which coincided with the London production of the script.  Mansfield bridged the gap between the 19th century declamatory style of acting and the more modern style of psychological truthfulness, Scudera noted.

“I am thrilled that Dr. Danahay will be coming to Ursinus to give a talk about the original 1887 production of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” said Scudera. “Our production would not be possible without his scholarship; he has studied the play’s history and has published the original script in his book, "Jekyll and Hyde Dramatized."  Prior to this, the play had not been published. We think this may be the first production of the script in over 100 years. He has never seen the play on stage and is very excited to see the Ursinus production. He has graciously agreed to share his scholarship in his lecture.”

Danahay is a professor in the English department at Brock University in Canada and the author of Gender at Work in Victorian Culture: Literature, Art and Masculinity and A Community of One: Masculine Autobiography and Autonomy in Nineteenth Century Britain (SUNY Press, 1993) as well as a number of articles in Victorian literature and culture. He has edited the Broadview Press editions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1999) and The War of the Worlds (2003). Currently he is at work on a book tentatively titled Sex and Violence in Jekyll and Hyde: Divided Masculinity 1886-1999.

The Collegeville Main Street Program will have a table in the lobby featuring the work of Greenwald Florist.

A talk by Ursinus Associate Professor of English Matthew Kozusko opens the second Connoisseur Shakespeare Series, a lecture series presented by The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre.

The Connoisseur Shakespeare Series features five evening lectures, focusing on five different Shakespeare plays that include in-depth discussions led by Artistic Director Carmen Khan and renowned Shakespeare scholars as well as stage readings by actors. New this year, The Connoisseur Shakespeare Series will include two discussions on Shakespeare and film.

Kozusko’s talk at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 28 will consider how the play text of Twelfth Night marks the social and cultural distance separating Shakespeare's age from today, and how contemporary performances of the play manage to bridge that distance. Working with costumes, blocking, and approximations of Shakespeare's "original practice" staging methods, the audience can  imagine how selected scenes might have looked on Shakespeare's stage and contrast them with what they look like today.

Kozusko teaches Shakespeare and early modern literature at Ursinus. His research interests and publications are in theater history, Shakespeare in performance, and Shakespeare and appropriation.  He is co-founder of Bedlam Faction Theater Company in Austin, Texas.

All seminars are held at The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre at 2111 Sansom Street, Philadelphia. Tickets are $35 for each lecture and $20 for students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-496-8001. Other lecture topics can be found at www.phillyshakespeare.org.

Community members are welcome to audition for the Ursinus College Choir, under the direction of Professor John French, holder of the Heefner Chair of Music.

Rehearsals are every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., beginning Sept. 8. Concerts are Nov. 7, featuring Fauré’s Requiem and Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs; and also Dec. 5, the annual performance of Handel’s Messiah.

Interested singers can contact Dr. French at 610-409-3000 ext. 2227.

Author Brendan Deneen and artist Dean Haspiel will present “From Flash Gordon to Billy Dogma:  Collaboration in Graphic Novels” at Ursinus College on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 4:30 p.m. in the Berman Museum of Art, Main Gallery.  The event is free and open to the public.

Deneen is the author of Scatterbrain (2006-7), an original comic book mini-series described as “superhero noir.” He is writing and updating the classic sci-fi comic book, Flash Gordon, and releasing it through Ardden Entertainment, a publishing company he founded and co-directs.  He has worked for prestigious multimedia literary management and production companies such as Scott Rudin Productions and Miramax, where he represented graphic novelists and optioned their work for film and television sale.

Haspiel has drawn many superhero comic books for Marvel & DC Comics, a few semi-autobiographic novel collaborations for Vertigo, and helped pioneer webcomix with the invention of ACT-I-VATE.  He created BILLY DOGMA and STREET CODE, and is a member of DEEP6 Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

(Pictured: Paige Mcquillan; Sarah Brand and Julian Galette. These students created this display case (along with Trevor Zumpano who is not picture) to promote Myrin Library's new graphic novel collection and the upcoming presentation)

Photos from the 2009 Ursinus College Fringe Festival
The Tenth Annual Ursinus Fringe Festival gets underway Sept. 23, with performances on campus, and this year, an event in the Borough of Collegeville. Professional theater companies direct from the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, plus student and faculty performances, are included in this fun, unpredictable festival of creative and original theater performances under the guidance of Associate Professor of Theater Domenick Scudera.

All performances are free and open to the public. No reservations are necessary, and seating is on a first-come, first served basis. All events will take place in The Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center black box theater on the Ursinus campus unless otherwise noted.

Please call The Kaleidoscope box office (610.409.3795) for updated information on programs, times and locations.  (Pictured, Living Statue Brian McCann of Philadelphia)

The schedule is as follows:
Sept. 23, Noon: Panel Discussion: The Business of Show: Making a Living in the Performing Arts. Ursinus alumna Karin Swartz moderates this discussion about the realities of maintaining a career in the performing arts.  Panelists include Tobin Ost (Broadway/national scenic-costume designer), Renee Chambers (Broadway/touring actor-singer-dancer) and Eduardo Ramos (model/actor and Ursinus alumnus).

Sept. 24, 11:30 a.m. to noon on Wismer Plaza, Ursinus College, and 12:30 to 1 p.m. on the 300 block of Main Street, Collegeville, Pa. Brian McCann, Living Statue. Grab your cameras and have your picture taken with a living statue

Sept. 25, 7:30 p.m., Ursinus Improv! What happens when eight talented Ursinus students study theater improvisation in a week-long series of intensive workshops with improv leader, Bobbi Block (member of Philadelphia improv troupes Tongue & Groove, ComedySportz and LunchLady Doris)?  Come see the results for yourself when they improvise a performance before a live audience.

Sept. 25, 8:30 p.m., Tongue & Groove Spontaneous Theater. Direct from the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, inspired by true, anonymous secrets provided by the audience, this unique ensemble spontaneously creates a one-of-a-kind, serio-comic theater piece on the spot.

Sept. 25, 10:30 p.m., Ursinus Fringe Cabaret. Ursinus students perform works of dance, song, poetry, comedy, you-name-it. Unpredictable and entertaining.

Sept. 26, 7:30 p.m., Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium presents The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco. Direct from the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium was formed in 2006 to bring Theater of the Absurd to the Philadelphia area. With The Chairs, they will transform the Ursinus black box into “a lighthouse at the edge of a watery nighttime universe” for Ionesco’s classic farce celebrating life and laughter, inspired by silent films and vaudeville antics. 

 The International Film Festival at Ursinus College will present six films during the fall semester.  All films will be shown at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Auditorium, and light refreshments and conversation will follow.  All are subtitled in English.

The festival opens on Wednesday, Sept. 2, with a screening of Director Li Yang’s Blind Mountain (Chinese, 2007).  Set in rural China in the early 90s, Bai (Lu Huang), a pretty and enterprising college student, travels to a remote mountain village on an expedition to gather herbs.  The story becomes a true crime shocker when Bai’s fellow travelers sell her into slavery.

On Thursday, Sept. 24, Director Eran Riklis’ Lemon Tree (Arabic/Hebrew, 2008) will be shown.  Hiam Abbass portrays Salma Zidane, a widow who tends the family lemon grove along the Green Line dividing Palestine from the West Bank.  When the Israeli defense minister moves in next door, his security detail advises him to destroy the lemon grove, potential cover for terrorists, and Salma plans a fight.

On Thursday, Oct. 8, Director Masaki Kobayashi’s Hara Kiri (Japanese, 1962) will be featured.  When warrior clans are disbanded in peaceful 17th-century Japan, thousands of samurai are thrown out of work and into poverty.  Ritual suicide, or hara-kiri, is the honorable way out of this disgrace.  An elder warrior (Tatsuya Nakadai) seeks admittance to the house of a feudal lord to commit the act. There, he learns that his samurai son-in-law, who sought work at the house, was forced to commit traditional hara-kiri in an excruciating manner.  The details of the story unfold, setting in motion a tense showdown of revenge against the house.

On Wednesday, Oct. 28, Director Gregory Nava’s El Norte (Spanish, 1983) will be shown.   Hailed as "the first epic" of the independent American cinema, the film focuses on two young Mayan Indians--sister Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) and brother Enrique (David Villalpando)--whose lives are shattered by the Guatemalan civil war. They flee to Mexico with the ultimate goal of crossing into the United States--"El Norte"--where they hope for a new, secure life.

On Thursday, November 5, Director Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One (French, 2006) will be presented.  The film is based on Harlan Coben’s international best-selling thriller about pediatrician Alexandre Beck who still grieves the murder of his beloved wife Margot Beck eight years earlier. When two bodies are found near the scene of the crime, the police reopen the case, and Alex becomes a suspect again. Then an anonymous e-mail to Alex delivers shocking news and instructions to “Tell No One.”

On Thursday, Dec. 3, Director Fatih Akin’s Edge of Heaven (German, 2007) will complete the festival.  The critically-acclaimed director of HEAD-ON, Akin weaves overlapping tales of friendship and sexuality into a powerful narrative of universal love. Akin's piercing sense of the human condition and contemporary world events charge these hyperlinked stories into a multi-cultural powder keg.

 For more information on the International Film Festival, please contact Colette Trout at ctrout@ursinus.edu or 610.409.3000, ext. 2432.

Dr. Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor Emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, will hold the Davis Visiting Professorship at Ursinus College for the academic year 2009-2010. Schorsch, a 1957 graduate of the liberal arts school in suburban Philadelphia, will offer several programs to students as well as public lectures.

The first of three public lectures is titled "To Live With Dissonance," on Sept. 16 at 4:30 p.m. in Pfhaler Hall’s Musser Auditorium on the Ursinus campus.

At Ursinus, Dr. Schorsch will attend classes on religious studies and environmental studies, and meet with Hillel students at Ursinus. Prior to his public talk, Dr. Schorsch will be inducted into the Tau of Pennsylvania Chapter of  Phi Beta Kappa. Because a chapter of the national honor society did not exist on the campus when Dr. Schorsch was a student, the organization allows for induction of alumni who qualify.

Since retiring in 2006 from the seminary Schorsch, who holds the title, Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Professor of Jewish History, is at work on a biography of Moritz Steinschneider and more generally on the interdisciplinary nature of Oriental studies in the 19th century.

His book, Canon Without Closure (March 2007, Aviv Press), is a wide-ranging collection of Torah commentaries written during his tenure as Chancellor. In 2004, he published a two-volume collection of the articles and essays he wrote while Chancellor, Polarities in Balance, and in 1995, he published The Sacred Cluster: The Core Values of Conservative Judaism.

Under his leadership, JTSA informed and elevated the lives of Jews through projects such as the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem; Project Judaica in Moscow, the Ramah camps and Schechter schools, and the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at JTSA.

Throughout his tenure, Dr. Schorsch pursued a deep commitment to advancing Conservative Judaism and religious equality for Jews in Israel. His longtime support of the peace process was capped by an invitation from President Clinton to service with the official presidential delegation and to witness the peace treaty singing between Jordan and Israel in October 1994.

Dr. Schorsch was ordained by JTSA in 1962 and holds master’s degrees from JTSA and Columbia University. He was awarded a Ph. D. in Jewish history by Columbia in 1969. He has received honorary degrees, among them, from the Russian State University – the first time in that country’s history that such an honor was given to a Jewish scholar.

Additional lectures will be announced later in the year.The Davis Visiting Professorship of Judeo-Christian Studies was established by Nancy Davis in honor of her late husband Thomas, and was last held by Harvard’s Owen Gingerich, professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science.

A dialogue on liberal education to celebrate 10 years of Ursinus College’s Common Intellectual Experience first-year course will feature two highly regarded political philosophy scholars, Stephen G. Salkever, the Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr College, and Paul N. Franco, Professor of Government at Bowdoin College.

The program, Thinking About Liberal Education: The 10th Anniversary of the Ursinus Common Intellectual Experience, will be in The Kaleidoscope Lenfest Auditorium on the Ursinus campus, Sept. 13, at 4 p.m. The Jack Miller Center, for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History, based in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., is sponsoring the event.

The Common Intellectual Experience, Ursinus’ two-semester core program, introduces students to liberal education by immersing them in it.  First-year students and their professors explore answers to fundamental questions of human existence with the help of ancient and modern texts. The Common Intellectual Experience has been cited in national media and in a Harvard curricular review.On the occasion of its tenth anniversary we celebrate the course in a manner consistent with its goal.  Professors Stephen Salkever and Paul Franco,esteemed  thinkers about and practitioners of liberal education, will engage in a conversation about its prospects in the 21st century. 

Dr. Salkever has taught political philosophy at Bryn Mawr since 1969, with particular interests in Greek political philosophy, America political thought, contemporary political philosophy, constitutional and legal theory, and comparative philosophy (Western and Chinese). He is the author of Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Political Philosophy (Princeton University Press 1990), and articles on Plato, Hume, Rousseau, and on a variety of contemporary issues approached from perspectives derived from Greek philosophy. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought (Cambridge University Press 2009). He received his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Franco is a Professor of Government at Bowdoin College, also with a Ph. D. from the University of Chicago, with teaching responsibilities in the history of political philosophy and contemporary political theory.  Before coming to Bowdoin, he taught at the University of Chicago as a William Rainey Harper Fellow. He is the author of The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott (Yale University Press, 1990), Hegel’s Philosophy of Freedom (Yale University Press 1999), and most recently, Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction (Yale University Press, 2004).

Highly successful fundraising, academic scholarship and  community service activities  helped the The Delta Rho Chapter at Ursinus College win the Carroll K. Simons Outstanding Chapter award from the Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity. This award, for the 2008-2009 academic year,  is given to only the best well-rounded chapters that establish excellent records  in all Chapter operations. Ursinus competed against 47 colleges across the country.

The Ursinus chapter also received the Estes Finance Cup, awarded to the chapter that demonstrates the best financial management throughout the year, and the Chapter Newsletter Award, awarded to chapters whose publications are judged to be superior.
Delta Rho was the runner-up in the Philanthropy Award, awarded to chapters who excel in philanthropic activities. The chapter raised more than $9,000.

Ursinus Delta Rho President Michael Cafarchio explained that the Ursinus 20-man  chapter completed 785 total hours of community service last year.  These activities included  a free weekly tutoring session on campus, cleaning up Main St. through Adopt-a-Highway, Wismer on Wheels (delivering leftover food to charities), delivering the Grizzly student newspaper, helping with the 10,000 Villages sale sponsored by Hobson Hall, and many other activities  like swimming lessons, SERV duty and UC Ambassadors.

“Our philanthropy efforts include: raising money and participating in the MS Walk for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, holding two bike-a-thons to raise money for Relay for Life, and a Wing Bowl and campus-wide Assassins game with all proceeds going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society,” he said.

“In addition to these efforts, each member strives to uphold our values of scholarship and gentlemanly conduct.  Our chapter’s average GPA was 3.25 last year.” The chapter’s education program is based on personal and leadership development, philanthropy and community service.  Also, the chapter has dinner with a professor once a month to facilitate positive relations with the campus. 

All awards are evaluated and chosen through the International Fraternity’s standards program, Mitchell Chapter Standards, which evaluates chapters based on scholarship, membership development, financial management, community service and philanthropy, chapter management, and alumni/campus involvement. 

Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity was founded Aug. 16, 1850 at the University of Pennsylvania. The chapter’s web site is located at  www.pks.org.

Pictured: The Delta Rho Bike-a-thon