Archive - Feb 2007

     On Thursday, March 15 at 8 p.m., the Wagner College Coffeehouse will play host to an evening of women’s poetry in honor of Women’s History Month. The program, entitled “Reading Women, Writing Women,” will feature poet Nancy Mercado. The activity is free and open to the public.
     Mercado is the author of “It Concerns the Madness” (Long Shot Productions, 2000) and the upcoming “Rooms for the Living: New York Poems.” For 11 years, she served as an editor of Long Shot, a literary magazine. Mercado is currently an assistant professor at Boricua College in New York City.

Graduate School Information Session for Undergraduates
When: February 28^th at 4:00pm

Where: Union 201.

Come learn more about Wagner College’s graduate programs in the fields of Accounting, Physician Assistant, Business Administration, Education, Microbiology and Nursing. All majors are welcome to come. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the Division of Graduate Studies at (718) 390-3106, or by email at graduate@wagner.edu. We hope to see you there!

Marilyn Kiss at the 2007 ODK Faculty Colloquium

      Marilyn Kiss, an associate professor of languages at Wagner College, was honored Thursday afternoon, Feb. 22, at Omicron Delta Kappa’s 11th annual Faculty Colloquium. Kiss was cited for her excellence both as a teacher and as director of Wagner’s Study Abroad program.
    Irena DeMario, Wagner’s current ODK president, and Valerie O'Donnell, ODK member and Spanish Honor Society member, introduced Prof. Kiss and presented her with an ODK National Appreciation Certificate at Thursday’s colloquium.

     STATEN ISLAND, Feb. 21 — On Monday, March 5, at 3 p.m., author Hosu Kim will lecture on the adoption of Korean babies. The lecture will be held in Wagner College’s Main Hall, Room 22.
     Kim, herself a Korean national, has studied the way the adoption of Korean babies is seen when viewed from either end of the transaction, said Wagner College sociology professor Jean Halley.
     “In the U.S., Korean adoption is perceived as an ‘everybody wins’ arrangement — good for baby, birth mother and adoptive parents,” Halley said. “In Korea, however, women are sometimes pressured to surrender their children when they don’t really want to, for a variety of reasons.

     Historian Anna-Lisa Cox will be talking about her book, “A Stronger Kinship: One Town’s Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith,” on Tuesday, Feb. 27, at 2:30 p.m. in Wagner College’s Spiro Hall Rm. 2. The public is invited to attend.
     Cox’s book tells the story of Covert, Michigan, a rural Midwestern town with a long history of racial integration. Cox, a scholar-in-residence at the Newberry Library in Chicago, describes Covert’s founding in 1860 “as a mixed-race community that defied the social conventions of the time,” writes Vanessa Bush in Booklist, “electing blacks to powerful political positions and providing a haven for economic development for achievers of all races.”

     Françoise Lucbert will deliver a lecture, “Roger de la Fresnaye: Cubism and Tradition,” on Thursday, Feb. 22, at 4:30 p.m. in Wagner College’s Spiro Hall Rm. 4. The public is invited. Lucbert is a professor of art history at the Université du Maine in Le Mans, France. Her essay on de la Fresnaye appeared in the exhibition catalogue for a showing of the artist’s work at the Musee du Mans, Roger de la Fresnaye: Cubisme et tradition (2005).
     Roger de la Fresnaye (1885-1925) was a French cubist and fauvist painter. A member of the Section d’Or group from 1912 to 1914, his work displays an interest in a naturalistic vein of Cubism. Braque and Picasso influenced him, but his work has a more decorative feel and his colors are reminiscent of Delaunay. His most famous work, “The Conquest of Air,” is a scene of himself and his brother in an open-air atmosphere with a balloon in the background. After serving in the First World War, La Fresnaye’s health diminished and he was no longer able to create long-term paintings.

     STATEN ISLAND — Miranda Shaw will be lecturing on “Passionate Enlightenment: Female Buddhas and Sacred Sexuality in Tantric Buddhism” on Thursday, March 8, at 7 pm. in Wagner College’s Spiro Hall Rm. 2.
     Shaw, who earned her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University, is an associate professor of religion at the University of Richmond (Virginia).
     Shaw has two acclaimed books on Tantric Buddhism, both published by the Princeton University Press. The publisher’s catalogue describes the thrust of Shaw’s message like this:
     “The crowning cultural achievement of medieval India, Tantric Buddhism is known in the West primarily for the sexual practices of its adherents, who strive to transform erotic passion into spiritual ecstasy. Historians of religion have long held that the enlightenment thus attempted was for men only, and that women in the movement were at best marginal and subordinated and at worst degraded and exploited. Miranda Shaw argues to the contrary, presenting extensive new evidence of the outspoken and independent female founders of the Tantric movement and their creative role in shaping its distinctive vision of gender relations and sacred sexuality.”
     Shaw’s first book, “Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism,” was published in 1994. It won the 1994 James Henry Breasted Prize of the American Historical Association and the 1994 Tricycle Prize for Excellence in Buddhist Scholarship.
     Shaw’s latest book, “Buddhist Goddesses of India,” was published in October.
     For more information about Wagner College, visit us on the Web at www.wagner.edu.

    STATEN ISLAND — A week-long series of events at Wagner College, from Feb. 28 through March 7, will bring together students and community members to focus on two of the area’s largest immigrant communities and proposed changes in America’s immigration policy under the Bush administration.
    “This will be a ‘border-crossing’ experience for our students,” said Wagner history professor Lori Weintrob, one of the event organizers. “They will not only cross the border between the college and the surrounding community; they will cross the ‘border of privilege’ between affluent Grymes Hill and Staten Island’s immigrant communities.”
    The week’s activities will be co-sponsored by Wagner College, Project Pericles, El Centro de Hospitalidad, the African Refuge Center and the Mosaic Coalition, to bring to light the contributions and challenges of these fast-growing, ethnically diverse communities on Staten Island and in New York City.

    The Wagner College Theater Department proudly announces a new musical composition competition in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Stanley Drama Awards. The winning piece will be performed at the Stanley Drama Awards ceremony at the Lambs Club, 3 West 51st Street, Manhattan, on April 16, and excerpts from the piece may be used on the Stanley Awards Web site for the year following.
    Rules for the competition are as follows:
    Written scores with accompanying midi files should be submitted to Mrs. Shirley Bock, Wagner College Music Department, Campus Hall 107, no later than 4 p.m. on March 16, 2007.
    The competition is open to Wagner College community members and alumni, regardless of age.
    Works should be arranged for three instruments or less.  (A piano will be available at the Stanley Award program. The eventual make-up of the ensemble performing the premiere may depend on the availability of musicians.)
    The work should be of no more than four minutes duration.
    The work may be in any musical style, but it must be written out in a common notational system.
    Works should be submitted under a pseudonym (score and midi file), with an attached envelope also labeled with the pseudonym. The real name and contact information of the contestant should be sealed inside the envelope. (Midi file on a floppy disc or travel drive)
    The winner will be will be presented with a special certificate, and the new work will be premiered at the Stanley Drama Awards program on April 16.
    The winner must agree to the use of his/her music by the Stanley Awards on its Web site during the year following the premiere of the work.
    The work must be newly composed and not have been performed previously.
    The panel of judges will judge the works on their musical quality, originality, and  appropriateness to an occasion and ceremony of this type.
    The panel of judges will include faculty from the Music and Theater departments, a student and two judges from outside the college community.
    Professional musicians will premiere the work, and the composer will have the opportunity to attend at least one rehearsal and offer guidance and suggestions.
    It is the intention of the founders of this contest that it become an annual event.