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With a specially
commissioned performance by Artists-in-Residence The Second Hand, Harpur
College will launch its 50th Anniversary at Reunion 2000. Join Dean Polachek,
alumni, faculty, staff and Harpur College friends on Friday, May 5, for
an evening of high jinks and family fun. And the best part? It's Harpur's
gift to you!
Together since 1987, Andy Horowitz, Paul Gordon and Greg O'Brien met up as students at Binghamton University. Appearing as The Second Hand, this trio collaborates with tremendous ease, creating a unique blend of theater, dance, comedy and acrobatics, which appeals to children and adults alike. They have appeared on and off-Broadway and on the "David Letterman Show." The Second Hand has also performed internationally in Ireland, England, Austria, Holland, Chile, Japan, Germany and Russia. The commissioned piece, designed specifically to celebrate Harpur's 50th, promises to be fun, creative and very unique. Alumni should refer to their Reunion 2000 brochure for instructions on how to order tickets. For more information, see http://alumni.binghamton.edu/reunion.htm.
Harpur College faculty, staff and emeriti may request up to four complimentary tickets. Call (607) 777-4446 or email harprsvp@binghamton.edu to reserve your tickets. Please provide your name, department, daytime phone number and the number of tickets requested. Harpur College emeriti will be receiving an invitation in the mail with a return coupon in a self-addressed envelope. Tickets will be made available on a first-come, first-serve basis, and all Harpur College requests must be received by April 28.
Tickets will also be made available to the campus community on April 24. Watch Dateline for news on how to order tickets. All remaining tickets will then be sent over to the Anderson Center on May 1 for open distribution, which will include community friends.
Curtain up for the Harpur College 50th Anniversary is 8:15 p.m. in the Anderson Center Concert Theater. A special Anniversary cake and punch will be served at intermission.
Wanna share your memories? Whether you graduated last year or 50 years ago, we're looking for your favorite anecdote or memory of Harpur College for our 50th Anniversary website scrapbook. Contact Gail Glover at (607) 777-4098 or gglover@binghamton.edu with your best Harpur story.
PSSST! Want a sneak preview of the Harpur College 50th Anniversary logo?
Hundreds of Harpur
College brochures and mementos were given away, posters were hung and balloons
were blown up. Not to mention the hours of pre-planning which included coordinating
faculty participation and refreshments. All in a day's work if you happen
to be organizing Harpur College's presentation for Freshman Open Houses.
And the reward? "This is much more than we ever expected," from
Dr. Kiviat and his daughter, Eva Kiviat, who made the trip up from Long
Island to participate in the event.
With a schedule of events ranging from presentations to lunch in the residential halls, Harpur College, along with the other BU schools, recently played host to an army of accepted students and their families. Many took the opportunity to tour the grounds and facilities. One parent even used the walkabout to check in with current students. "Sometimes that's the only real way to check things out," said Mrs. Mary Ellen Beierholm from Poughkeepsie. "We got great reviews from all the students we stopped to talk to." Mrs. Beierholm and her daughter, Amy, were on a two-day tour of SUNY campuses and had just visited SUNY-Buffalo the day before. "In comparing schools, we found that the campus here was good and the residential areas adequate," said Amy. "But the academic reputation that this University has is unmatched. We're impressed!"
Would-be students and their families were also able to chat with faculty and staff to find out about undergraduate courses and programs. Professor Maria-Teresa Romero, representing the Psychology Department and Psychobiology Program, was kept quite busy, fielding questions on topics ranging from internships to future careers. "Having an Open House is an important feedback mechanism for faculty," said Romero. "It allows us to learn what undergraduates are expecting and also to gauge the type of information that should reach this population before they apply to college. As for the parents, it is important to meet some of the possible instructors of their children."
Alumni in California came out in full force to recent Alumni events -- a performance on April 8 by the world-renowned Harpur College Artists-in-Residence The Second Hand and a Law Alumni reception held on April 10.
"One of my greatest pleasure as Dean is meeting with our alumni across the country," said Dean Solomon Polachek. "And these two events were no exception. It is always interesting to hear of the professional and personal successes of our alumni. Both events were very well attended and we look forward to coming back, bringing a little piece of Harpur College and BU with us."
Over 100 Alumni and Harpur College friends joined Dean Polachek and the Binghamton University Alumni Association for an evening of family entertainment by The Second Hand on Saturday, April 8, at Pepperdine University. A reception before the performance in the Sculpture Garden of the Weisman Museum of Art provided a relaxing setting for catching up with old friends.
The second assembly of California alumni took place on Monday, April 10, when the current president of the BU Alumni Association, Martin F. Triano '76, along with Dean Polachek, the Harpur College Law Alumni Council and the BU Alumni Association, hosted a law alumni reception.
According
to director Michael Kohler, knowledge of Homer or Shakespeare is as good
a preparation as any familiarity with Snoop Doggy Dog or Queen Latifah to
understand and enjoy Polaroid Stories. In the final production of
the Theater Department's 1999-2000 season, hot young Asian American playwright
Naomi Iizuka turns Ovid's poem Metamorphosis on its head by resetting
this tale of gods and immortals amid pimps, pushers and runaways.
Set in the rhythm and language of the hip/hop and rap culture, Polaroid Stories integrates film, contemporary music, sound collage and video to create a complex, many-voiced theatrical experience. "Students lobbied very hard for this production," said Kohler. "And the reasons they gave to support this play are similar to my own. This is a work that emerges out of the experience of young people: young people very different than many of our students, but close enough so that the work is relevant, even urgent, to myself and our students."
Using a driving, lively sound design, the show is filled with original student music, some recorded and some live. To add an edgy and spontaneous flavor to the performance, much of the recorded sound will be mixed live. "Certainly, some will be more familiar than others with the styles of music," said Kohler. "But to many students, the music -- acid house, hip-hop and electronic ambient music -- will be unfamiliar and exciting. Although this might intimidate some potential audience members, I believe the play is very accessible and will communicate to many sorts of people on a number of levels, irrespective of age and musical taste."
Billed as an adult show, the language of Polaroid Stories is violent and at times vulgar. Kohler urges that if children are brought to the theater, their guardians should be prepared to speak with them about what they might hear and see. "Although the style and subject matter is a departure from other plays that the Theater Department has staged in the past, it is one that all of us felt important to make," said Kohler. "I hope that our performance will pose certain vital, fundamental questions of human experience in a manner that is irresolvable or only slowly resolvable. This, of course, is a very traditional way of understanding the point of artistic representation."
Playwright Naomi Iizuka graduated from Yale and the MFA Playwriting program at the University of California at San Diego. Polaroid Stories was originally commissioned by New York's En Garde Arts and produced as part of the 1997 Humana Festival of New Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The play received the 1998 PEN Center West Award for Drama. Iizuka's other plays include Skin; Scheherazade; Marlowe's Eye and Carthage. Her work has been produced at SoHo Rep, the Dallas Theatre Center, the Annex and Printer's Devil in Seattle and San Francisco's Campo Santo. Iizuka is the recipient of a Jerome Fellowship, a McKnight Advancement Grant and, most recently, Princeton University's Hodder Fellowship. She is one of ten recipients of the 1999 Whiting Writers' Awards.
Polaroid Stories will be performed on April 28, 29, 30, and May 3 and 4 and through Reunion weekend (May 5, 6, and 7) in Studio A in the Fine Arts Building. Sunday performances (April 30 and May 7) will begin at 2 p.m. All other performances will begin at 8:15 p.m. Call (607) 777-ARTS to reserve seats.
Visit the Theatre Department's website at http://theatre.binghamton.edu
Planning on coming to Reunion? Join Psychobiology alumni, faculty and current students for a dinner date on May 5 at the Vestal Steakhouse.
Plan on gathering at the Vestal Steakhouse at 5:30 p.m. for a dinner get-together that is expected to go to 7 p.m. (or later, if the mood strikes). If you have questions about the menu or prices at the Vestal Steakhouse, please contact the Psychobiology Program at (607) 777-4100 or via e-mail at psybio@binghamton.edu. Please RSVP by phone or e-mail by Friday, April 21.
As a pre-dinner treat, visit the Psi Chi Research Fair to be held in Science 4, Room 224, on May 5 from 1:30-3:30 p.m.
The role of public museums and their responsibilities will be discussed at upcoming Art History Department and VizCult-hosted events. Leading the discussions will be guest speaker Dr. Kent Lydecker, Associate Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
On Thursday, April 27, Dr Lydecker will present his thoughts on "Art Museums And Their Public at the Dawn of the 21st Century." His presentation will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the University Art Museum and is open to all members of the University community.
On Friday, April 28, at 10 a.m. in FA 218, Dr. Lydecker will also lead a roundtable discussion on his own scholarly research. The focus will be on the Medici family and art patronage in the Renaissance as part of the VizCult Workshop. All interested faculty and students are cordially invited to attend.
"These events speak both to current public debates and increasing interests among our graduate and undergraduate students in the impact of museums on our visual culture," said John Tagg, Chair of the Art History Department. "No one is better placed to open up the issues than Kent Lydecker of the Metropolitan Museum."
For many
women in the workplace, the daily challenges aren't just the ones that cross
their desks. It's about balancing their family and work life. It's often
about wage disparities. And unfortunately, it is also sometimes about age
discrimination and sexual harassment. Using the recent Women's Studies Symposium,
Gender and Work Space(s) as a forum, over a dozen guest speakers
reviewed these issues and a host of other related topics. The result was
a lively two-day exchange of research and debate, which Dara Silberstein,
the Executive Director of the Women's Studies program, hopes to document
as a record of the event and present in journal form as a resource for this
multi-faceted issue.
Held annually, the Symposium hosted by the Women's Studies program provides a forum for feminist academics and leaders to network, share resources and collaborate on research. "I think what makes this year's symposium particularly unique was that we were able to draw speakers from such a variety of backgrounds and disciplines," said Silberstein. "Symposium participants had the opportunity to share papers, ideas, and issues with those from different disciplines which I think made for an open and honest intellectual exchange."
Silberstein hopes that papers presented at the conference will be published in a special issue journal or anthology.
This year, the Symposium also acted as a recognition vehicle for two newly created Women's Studies awards -- the Ray Glass Memorial Peace and Society Fund Awards. Awarded annually, the awards are given to an undergraduate and a graduate student for papers written on the general theme of Peace, Justice and Gender. Winner of the undergraduate award was Jennifer Piorkowski for an essay titled "Brechtian Aesthetics: Possibilities of Coming to Terms with the (Nazi) Past in Monk's and Spielberg's Films". The essay offers a discussion of two so-called Holocaust films; Egon Monk's A Day in a German Concentration Camp and Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. The award for the best graduate student essay went to Dianna Taylor. Titled "Toward A Feminist Politics of Transformation", the essay argues for the importance of the voices of the new social movements and against attempts to unify the left under a narrow agenda that is focused only on economic justice. "This year's winners carry extra weight in that they are the first-ever recipients of the Ray Glass awards," said Silberstein. "And we hope that the presentation of the awards will continue to be a integral part of future Symposia, allowing us to have a special venue to honor and recognize the recipients."
To find out more about the Women's Studies Program or to view the full list of topics discussed at the most recent Symposium, visit http://wstudies.binghamton.edu/
"An out-of-the-blue surprise " is how Dr. Ray Romancyzk, director of the Institute for Child Development (ICD), describes the latest addition to the growing number of plaques and awards he has in his office. Presented to him by the New York Families for Autistic Children (NYFAC), the award recognizes Romacyzk for his outstanding contribution to the understanding and treatment of autism. It even came with a bonus -- a Proclamation from the City of New York -- congratulating Romanczyk on receiving the NYFAC award and honoring him for 25 years of dedicated service to the children and families affected by autism.
Romancyzk's nomination for the NYFAC award sprang from a series of conferences, workshops and talks he delivered to a variety of organizations over the past year and a half. Although the material and information presented was not interrelated, the groups and organizations addressed were -- they were all members of NYFAC. So when the time came to select a recipient for the organization's annual "Significant Contributions to the Field Award", Romancyzk's name just kept coming up.
"I think one of the most interesting things about this particular award is that it illustrates that our work here on campus affects a much larger community than just that of the Southern Tier," said Romancyzk. "Articles we publish in journals and the like tend to transcend the border of our immediate location. But this was different -- it was not the printed word but the work itself that was recognized. And the most gratifying was that it came from the parents."
Founded in 1988, NYFAC is a group of parents and a network of organizations drawn together to promote the use of applied behavior analysis for the education of children with autism. They provide services to parents, siblings, and family members of those affected by developmental disabilities and serve as a database for the latest educational and professional information, data, and teaching techniques in the field.
Alfonso C. Stabile, Council Member, 32nd District, Queens, who has been a longtime supporter and political advocate for NYFAC, made the bonus part of the award -- the City of New York Proclamation. "I think the fact that Councilman Stabile has been connected with NYFAC for such a long time really made this Proclamation more significant," said Romanczyk. "It wasn't just another one of his 'official duties' -- he is very involved in the organization and the work that they are doing."
The award was presented at a fundraiser dinner for a NYFAC member group, and although Romancyzk was unable to attend, an appreciative crowd of 200 parents and professionals gave him a standing ovation in absentia.
Now that the applause has died down, Romancyzk is currently focusing on his next project. He is wrapping up work on a grant from the NY State Department of Health to provide early identification training material for professionals in county Health Departments across New York. And he is also looking forward to moving into the ICD's new home on campus -- a 16,000 square foot facility -- later this year.
Visit the ICD website to take a sneak-peek at the new ICD complex at http://icd.binghamton.edu.
Last updated 4/16/00. Written by Gail Glover, Harpur College Public Relations Specialist.