Wire:
news from the Columbia community
College-Sponsored Scholarship Funds to Increase by Nearly 50 Percent
Responding to the need for creative solutions to increased financial pressures on college students and their families, the Columbia College Chicago board of trustees has approved several initiatives designed to assist current and prospective students as they continue to pursue a college education during these tough economic times. “Our first priority is keeping our current students in school and assisting them in practical ways that will help them graduate with a minimum of long-term debt,” said President Warrick L. Carter. “We also must continue to be able to bring new students to Columbia, providing them with increased financial assistance as they pursue their educational and career goals.”
Currently, Columbia provides about $7.5 million in scholarships to 1,700 students. Beginning with the fall 2009 term, the college will increase its scholarship funds by $4 million, or 46 percent. About 2,300 scholarships will be available for both continuing and new students, and will be heavily geared to students with demonstrated need.
An innovative scholarship fund-raising initiative has also been announced. Scholarship Columbia is a $1 million challenge grant to raise unrestricted scholarship dollars for continuing students with demonstrated need and merit. Primarily targeting Columbia alumni as donors to the fund, the college will provide a two-to-one match on alumni gifts up to $25,000, and will match alumni gifts above $25,000 and nonalumni gifts on a one-to-one basis. All matches are based on new and increased giving received before June 15, 2009. An anonymous donor has given a launch gift of $100,000 to jump-start Scholarship Columbia. For more information visit colum.edu/donate.
Studs to Students: “Take the dough and use it well”
Columbia College has created the annual Studs Terkel Scholarships, totaling $750,000, to benefit Chicago Public School students who seek to pursue careers in civic-minded communications. “Studs Terkel was the living embodiment of all that is best about Chicago,” said President Warrick L. Carter in announcing the scholarship program.
“I have received a lot of honors in my many years on this planet. This is the best,” said Terkel two weeks before his death in October 2008. “There are so many stories that still need to be told, so many truths that need to be aired, so many wrongs that need to be righted. I say to these kids: Be curious, be strong. Take the dough and use it well.”
Columbia will designate 125 Studs Terkel Scholarships and subsequently will seek to increase the number of awards through development of a Studs Terkel Scholarship Board. The scholarships are in addition to the prestigious annual Studs Terkel Scholarship of $1,500, given each spring to a single promising communications student by the Community Media Workshop.
Seven Faculty Members Win IAC fellowships
Illinois Artist Fellowships are awarded annually to Illinois artists of exceptional talent in recognition of their outstanding work within their field. Finalist Awards are awarded to recognize and encourage additional individuals who demonstrate considerable talent. This year, 38 Illinois artists were awarded $7,000 fellowships, out of a total of 921 applicants. Eleven finalists received $700 awards. Of the 38 Illinois Arts Council Fellows for 2009, seven are Columbia faculty members: Kelli Connell (Photography), Sarah Faust (Photography), Myra Greene (Photography), Jason Lazarus (Photography), Paul Nudd (Art and Design), Michael K. Paxton (Art and Design), and Tony Trigilio (English). Anna Shteynshleyger (Photography) and Marilyn Propp (Art and Design) were among the 11 finalists.
Image: Small Island #1, 2009, by Michael K. Paxton.
Comments (0)2009 Distinguished Faculty Fellows Announced
Provost Steve Kapelke has announced this year’s appointments for Distinguished College Teacher, Artist, and Scholar. Beau Beaudoin, Joe Meno, and Tony Trigilio will serve in these positions for the 2009–10 and 2010–11 academic years.
Distinguished College Teacher: Beau Beaudoin, Television
Beau Beaudoin was recently named the 2008 Illinois Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. She has presented papers and facilitated workshops at a variety of national conferences, and was responsible for the development of the college’s Culture, Race, and Media course, which now enrolls more than 30 sections each semester. Television department chair Michael Niederman notes, “Beau personifies the criteria” of a Distinguished College Teacher.
Distinguished College Artist: Joe Meno, Fiction Writing
Fiction writing department chair Randy Albers says Joe Meno “is the hardest-working writer I know.” Meno has written, in a relatively short time, six books issued by notable publishers. He has received the Nelson Algren Award, the Midland Authors Award for Fiction, and three Illinois Arts Council awards. He has also published many short stories in such prestigious journals as Tri-Quarterly and Mid-America Review and is the author of eight plays. The quality and diversity of Meno’s work exemplify the very best of our faculty’s creative endeavors.
Distinguished College Scholar: Tony Trigilio, English
A scholar and poet, Tony Trigilio continues to be one of the most productive members of the college’s faculty. The author of Strange Prophesies Anew: Rereading Apocalypse in Blake, H.D. and Ginsberg, Trigilio is one of the nation’s foremost scholars on Beat literature, and the organizer of the Beat Generation Symposium at Columbia College Chicago in the fall of 2008. His recent Allen Ginsberg’s Buddhist Poetics has been hailed as a significant contribution to the body of Ginsberg criticism. His scholarly and creative interests are broad; he coedited Visions and Divisions: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930 (Rutgers, 2008). Trigilio is currently working on two scholarly projects: one on Diane DiPrima’s spiritual poetics, and an edited volume of fragments of the poems of Beat writer Elise Cowen.
Comments (0)Successful Founders Lectures Series to Conclude with Richard Florida April 30
This year’s Founders Lectures series, a new approach to Columbia’s long-standing Conversations in the Arts series, got off to a strong start in October as activist Jonathan Kozol spoke of the educational apartheid that exists within our public schools. Many in the audience of several hundred students, faculty, and guests described his heartfelt lecture as extraordinarily memorable and important to them and their work in education.
Sir Ken Robinson followed in December with an entertaining and provocative lecture about the importance of creativity as a central organizing concept in education. In January, playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith offered a fascinating examination of issues of diversity.
Each of these public intellectuals explores, in his or her work, issues that are central to Columbia’s mission. On April 30, this year’s series concludes with a lecture by Richard Florida, the noted urban studies theorist who writes about the creative economy and its importance to our nation’s future. Underscoring the timeliness of this message was Florida’s cover story for the March issue of the Atlantic, “How the Crash Will Reshape America.” At Columbia, Florida will discuss the importance of the intersection of colleges, arts and culture, and the arts and media industries to Chicago’s future economic vitality. President Warrick L. Carter will introduce Florida and discuss Columbia’s position as a powerhouse and creative incubator within this nexus.
Comments (0)Journalism Department Joins Semester in L.A.
Actors, producers, directors, filmmakers, and television writers all know that Los Angeles is the place to be to launch their careers. But as long as Hollywood has been a center for film and television, so too have journalists been covering and participating in the industry. Now Columbia’s journalism department is joining in this excitement through the college’s Semester in L.A. program.
Journalism students in the program will take four classes, five days a week for the first five weeks. The rest of the time they are “encouraged but not required to do an internship,” said Nancy Day, chair of the journalism department, who noted she has been working to get students from her department in the program since 2003. Day said there will be opportunities in “everything having to do with journalism,” from daily news to magazines like Entertainment Weekly and People. Some of the top professionals in L.A. journalism will be teaching in the program, including Andrew Wallenstein, deputy editor for the Hollywood Reporter, and Nina Zacuto, a recently retired producer for NBC Universal.
The new journalism program is “another way to take advantage of the connections we have in L.A. and give Columbia students a leg up on the competition,” said Jon Katzman, director of the Semester in L.A. program. Semester in L.A. began with a producing concentration and has grown to include 12 areas of study ranging from production design and television comedy to music composition.
Comments (0)New Campus Spaces
The Office of Campus Environment and the Office of Student Affairs have been busy lately, building out and moving into attractive, functional new spaces. The college recently added two newly renovated, student-centered spaces to our campus map, at 618 South Michigan Avenue and 916 South Wabash Avenue.
At 618 South Michigan Avenue (the former Spertus building), the Learning Studio combines the Writing Center, Science and Math Learning Center, New Student Placement, Conaway Achievement Project, and Supplemental Instruction. In the new Office of Multicultural Affairs, the fourth floor is home to one large multicultural lounge and the offices of African American Cultural Affairs, Asian /Asian American Cultural Affairs, International Student Affairs, LGBTQ Office of Culture and Community, and Latino Cultural Affairs. The new Technology Commons is also in this building.
At 916 South Wabash Avenue, Student Organizations provides a permanent home for the Student Government Association, Residence Hall Association, Student Organizations Council, the Renegades, and the Student Programming Board, with plenty of space for the rest of Columbia’s 60 student organizations to meet.
$2 Million-plus in Grant Support for Columbia Centers and Departments
Several Columbia College departments and centers have received significant corporate and foundation grant awards in recent months. Some of the largest grants, and the projects they support, are outlined below.
CCAP (Center for Community Arts Partnerships): $1.1 million (over four years) from the United States Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, under the Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant Program. This initiative—Translations: Multi-Directional Learning in the Arts, Literacy and Math—will expand CCAP’s Arts Integration Mentorship program by adding a new focus on math literacy.
CCAP: $25,490 from After School Matters to support Resounding Stories 3.0, an after-school program at ACT Charter School through CCAP’s Community Schools initiative, which explores arts and learning through project-based or arts-integrated experiences. Resounding Stories 3.0 helps prepare students for careers in the arts and media.
CCAP: $10,240 from the Illinois Arts Council, in support of Urban Missions, CCAP’s flagship program. The process of building reciprocal partnerships developed by Urban Missions brings together Columbia faculty and community-based arts organizations to develop sustainable arts programming for Columbia College students and Chicago youth.
Journalism: $250,000 (over two years) from the McCormick Foundation in support of the Columbia LINKS program. This program provides high-quality journalism training to Chicago teachers and teenagers, making LINKS a hub for teen journalism in the city, including connection with professional media.
Early Childhood Education: $600,000 (over two years) from the McCormick Foundation to conduct a collaborative project with the City of Chicago Department of Youth Services to provide a professional development program for staff in 15 early childhood education agencies in Chicago.
The Chicago Jazz Ensemble: $50,000 from the MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince Charitable Trust for general operating expenses.
The Sherwood Conservatory: $50,000 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for general operating expenses.
The Dance Center: $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to support artist fees, production expenses, marketing, and direct administrative costs for a series of three 2009–10 science, technology, and dance projects.
