Columbia Reinvigorates Minority Recruitment and Retention Push:
Sheila Carter Named Executive Director of Office of Multicultural Affairs
Declining minority enrollment and falling retention numbers are national crises in higher education. Founded with a mission of open access and opportunity in higher education, and a commitment to reflecting the diversity of contemporary America, Columbia College Chicago is concerned with reversing this trend.
To this end, the college has announced several initiatives to bolster its success in recruiting and retaining minority students:
> The addition of over 200 additional low-income scholarships, totaling more
than $1,000,000 for the 2006-7 academic year.
> Creation of a $100,000 fund, managed by the Office of Multicultural Affairs,
to support academic departments' multicultural efforts.
> A significant expansion of resources and staffing within Multicultural Affairs.
> Planning to significantly expand the Multicultural Student Space.
> The creation of a GLBT (Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender) Student
Resource Center.
> The formation of a vibrant Black Faculty and Staff Organization.
Sheila Carter, who has been serving the college for more than 10 years - most recently as director of student activities, has been named executive director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
The newly created position is intended to guide the college community's implementation of the recommendations in the college's recently published report, 'Toward a Conscious College-wide Effort to Better Recruit and Retain Minority Students.'
Carter will work in concert with Latino Cultural Affairs, African American Cultural Affairs, Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender Concerns and the upcoming Office of Asian Cultural Affairs not only to enhance recruitment but also to better meet the needs and concerns of current minority students.
Carter's philosophy of education is to encourage and support students as they seek to attain comprehensive and stimulating learning experiences in various fields of study. She also believes every student should have the opportunity to be productive in society, and to experience the empowerment of being the architects of their own success. She looks forward to her new position where she will implement programs that support the college's recruitment and retention efforts.
A native of Chicago, Carter received a B.A. in Telecommunications from Arizona State University, and is currently in the final phase of completing a Master of Arts degree program in Higher Education Administration from Chicago State University. Beyond Columbia, Sheila is a vocalist who sings professionally with a local R & B band, High Velocity, and also as a solo artist. She performs a variety of musical genres including gospel, R&B, pop and jazz.
Columbia's New Website Receiving Rave Reviews
Everyone around Columbia College Chicago shares a passion for arts and culture and a commitment to democratic higher education. One other idea around which they have always found common ground is that the college's website was a far cry from reflecting the institution's reputation as a cutting edge arts and communications college.
On Tuesday, July 18, after more than a year of work, Columbia launched its new and improved website. The new design, consistent with the school's award winning visual identity program, features vastly improved navigability, an enhanced internal search engine, and an upgraded events calendar.
"We've also added substantial new content - about 300 pages worth," says Mark Lloyd, assistant vice president for marketing and communications. "The new homepage lets us showcase work of our students, faculty, and staff, and highlights key news and events from across campus."
The renovation has been managed by a Web Implementation Group (WIG) that includes representatives from Marketing and Communications; the college Webmaster's Office, led by Matt McClintock; Information Technology headed by Bernadette McMahon; Instructional Technology led by Rebecca Courington; Creative & Printing Services, headed by Mary Johnson; and the Provost's Cabinet, represented by James MacDonald.
The WIG received counsel from a Web Advisory Group (WAG) that included more than three dozen faculty, staff, and student representatives. WIG and WAG members met periodically for 18 months during the implementation process.
Groups of departmental webmasters will be scheduled for training on the new content management system through the rest of the summer and throughout the fall semester. 'We want all sites kept consistent and current and continue to allow for creative contributions at the unit level,' says Lloyd. "We also continue to seek out interesting stories and profiles to add to the rotating homepage feature, as well as offering the opportunity for our community of talented artists to present their work."
Over the next 12 months, the WIG will be working to enhance interactivity, to implement streaming capacity, and to ensure the site's overall consistency in design and content. There will also be further useability testing of the site with key audiences.
Theater's Gigi Buffington to Study with Master Voice Coach
Gigi Buffington, actress and voice instructor in Columbia's Theater Department, has just completed filming Galileo's Grave for writer/director Clayton Brown. Buffington, who played the lead role in this IFP/Chicago Production Fund winner also starred in Amie Siegel's docudrama Empathy (2004).
Now she's poised for her next big adventure.
A former modern dancer, Buffington now specializes in voice and is quite the mover and shaker in that world. However, she wants to know more, deepen her knowledge and experience. So she applied to a new Master's program in Voice Training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and was one of only three students accepted in the program.
She will leave the U.S. this fall to spend two years working in close association with the world-renowned Patsy Rodenburg, who has coached some of the greats including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Ian McKellen and Ian Holm.
Says Buffington, "I have used Patsy Rodenburg's texts (widely considered to be the ultimate texts on voice work) for teaching Voice in my own classes at Columbia. Now I will have this incredibly rare opportunity to work directly with, and be mentored by, Ms. Rodenburg. I look forward to bringing my new knowledge and skills back to the theater students at Columbia."
2006 Grads Represent Columbia at National Festival
In 2005, supported by a Fulbright Award and a sabbatical grant from Columbia College Chicago, choreographer and Columbia dance teacher Jan Erkert toured communal bathhouses on a quest for artistic inspiration. What grew out of this search was her dance work Hole in the Bucket, in which a white woman and a black woman dance the exploration and growth of a relationship across racial and cultural boundaries.
Hole in the Bucket, developed in collaboration with Columbia students Hettie Barnhill and Cara Sabin, was one of 48 works competing at the North Central Region/North American College Dance Festival in March. It was one of three works performed at the national festival in Washington DC. in May. In all, 29 works from schools throughout the U.S. were performed at this national showcase.
'In a very real sense, the Kennedy Center performance is a celebration of Columbia's commitment to open access and diversity,' says Erkert. 'Cara, while an athlete, had no formal dance training before entering Columbia. She would not have been accepted into a dance program at one of the 'elite institutions.' Columbia provided opportunity and she has more than lived up to her promise. Hettie had serious training, but because of a very challenging economic position could not have gone to college without substantial assistance from scholarships. Both of them have been dedicated, driven and inspired. And, now they've culminated their Columbia experience by performing at the Kennedy Center!'
'The piece is very close to my heart,' says Hettie. 'I feel very connected to Hole in the Bucket because it was created through Cara and me with our input and emotions. I experience something new about myself every time we perform it. Working with Jan is an amazing experience that pushes me off one edge on to another. I was so honored and thrilled to be a part of this process and this performance in Washington.'
In addition to an audience of their peers from the college and university dance community, Hettie and Cara performed before dance makers of international status, who attend the festival to scope out new talent.
Not that either of the young women graduated at loose ends.
Cara Sabin, whose goals encompass a career in both performance and teaching, has already been tapped by Chicago's critically acclaimed The Seldoms and begins dancing with them this summer. The petite 22-year-old native of Rochelle, Illinois (population 7,500) followed her brother to Columbia because she was familiar with the school's values of diversity and artistic expression. 'I knew that this urban environment, that was so foreign to me, was a place that fostered artists and encouraged individuals to find and express who they are despite where they came from,' she says. 'The diversity in people who became my friends and peers gave me an education outside of the classroom that I could not have gotten anywhere else. The people here have forever changed how I view myself and the world around me. My four years at Columbia have not only prepared me for my career, but have given me an appreciation and respect for individuality.'
Receiving her BFA in the Teaching of Dance from Columbia this spring was only half the academic story for Cara. With a strong belief in the power of dance to change lives, Cara passionately wants to teach in the Chicago Public Schools. To that end she attended National Lewis University concurrently with her program at Columbia in order to complete requirements for her Illinois State teaching certificate.
Cara's experience as a small-town high-school track star from an economically comfortable family served as a stark counterpoint to the experiences of artistic partner Hettie Barnhill as they wove their personal stories and improvisations with Jan Erkert's set choreography as the trio developed Hole in the Bucket.
Hettie Barnhill, an African-American woman reminiscent of the young Judith Jamison, grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois. Despite struggling as a single mother since Hettie was only six, her mom encouraged Hettie's inborn calling to be a dancer and choreographer. Hettie started dancing at age three and began approaching it seriously when she began taking class the Center of Contemporary Art (COCA) in St. Louis and later attended Central Visual Performing Arts High School, experiences that she considers the beginning of her professional career. 'I was also a St. Louis Muni Opera kid,' says the 21 year old. 'Coming from East St. Louis, I was taught that there are no free handouts. My family, friends, church and schools helped mold me into who I am today. I thank God for making it this far but it's only the beginning.'
For Hettie, Columbia was a last-minute choice. She made it into a highly selective university program, but there was a financial issue and Columbia came through with financial assistance. 'Columbia was the right place for me at the right time. I have been able to earn a degree doing what I love to do and fulfilling my childhood goals. Columbia gave me the space, time and opportunity for my art and all I had to do was seize it. This was also my first serious exposure to modern dance choreography and technique. I knew immediately that I was made for modern dance.'
Some other folks who probably have a good eye for spotting talent also think she is made for modern dance. Hettie, who received her BA in dance on May 14, has been invited to train in Alvin Ailey's professional program and to take company classes with Bill T. Jones. 'I'm looking forward to making the big move to New York and auditioning for the dance companies that stood out to me these last four years at the Dance Center,' she explains. 'These companies are both physically strong in their dance execution but also create conceptually meaningful work. I love dance with purpose and want to express that in my work, exploring the problems of society, struggles of the every day, issues of race gender, class and sexuality.'
Jan Erkert is a dance artist, author, leader and builder in contemporary dance. As Artistic Director of Jan Erkert & Dancers from 1979-2000, Ms. Erkert created over 60 works for an ensemble of dancers critically acclaimed for their mature artistry. Ms. Erkert's work has been seen throughout the United States as well as in Germany, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Uruguay and Israel. The recipient of considerable national recognition, Ms. Erkert and the company have been honored with numerous awards including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council, a CalArts Alpert Award nomination, a Fulbright Award and seven Ruth Page Awards for choreography and performance. She is currently a professor at The Dance Center of Columbia College in Chicago, where she received the prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award in 1999. She was recently invited to represent Columbia College Chicago as a nominee for the U.S. Professor of the Year sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. As an engineer of the body and celebrated artist, she provides a link between artmaking and dance training. Her book, Harnessing the Wind: The Art of Teaching Modern Dance, released by Human Kinetics in 2003, provides a new and vital resource for the field of dance. She is known internationally and throughout the United States as a master teacher and performer; inspiring people with her intense, honest approach.
Renowned Chicago Historian To Lead School of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dominic A. Pacyga, Ph.D. has been named Acting Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Columbia College Chicago. He assumed his post on June 15, succeeding Dean Cheryl Johnson-Odim, who left her post at Columbia to become Provost at Dominican University. Pacyga will serve as Acting Dean for the 2006-7 academic year.
Pacyga has taught at Columbia since 1984. He was the 1999 winner of the college's Excellence in Teaching award and has served as Acting Chairperson of the Liberal Education Department.
He first became affiliated with Columbia College in 1981 when he served as Associate Director of the Southeast Chicago Historical Project, a major public history program that resulted in an archive containing over 5,000 photographs, artifacts, and other collections, now housed in the James P. Fitzgibbons Museum in Chicago. The project also resulted in a major exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, a PBS film, "Wrapped in Steel," and a book of historical photographs Chicago's Southeast Side (co-authored with Rod Sellers).
Prior to receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1981, Pacyga had published Chicago: A Historical Guide to the Neighborhoods (co-authored with Glen Holt). His other books include Chicago: City of Neighborhoods (co-authored with Ellen Skerrett), which received an award from the Catholic Press Association, and Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the South Side, 1880-1922, which received the Halecki Award from the Polish American Historical Association. Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago was reissued by the University of Chicago Press in November 2003.
He has also published numerous journal articles, book chapters, reviews and encyclopedia articles and presented more than thirty papers at scholarly conferences in the United States, Poland and Canada. He has been actively involved in public history projects, most recently serving as guest curator of a major exhibit, "The Chicago Bungalow" which ran from October 18, 2001 to January 15, 2002 at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The exhibit resulted in a companion volume, The Chicago Bungalow (co-edited with Charles Shanabruch).
"My work in public history has taken me beyond academia to work with various labor, neighborhood, youth and social service agencies," notes Pacyga, a life-long Chicagoan. "I firmly believe that it is important for professors to be involved in the larger society, and that history and the humanities have important roles to play in a democracy.
"To this end I remain active in various professional organizations. Currently I serve on the Board of Directors of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and the Urban History Society. I have been a reviewer for various journals and academic presses, and I sat on the editorial board of the Journal of Urban History from 1995 to 1998. I also served as the Chair of the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board/State Archives Advisory Board."
Pacyga has also been a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. In the spring of 2005 he was a Visiting Scholar at Campion Hall, Oxford University. He is currently working on Chicago: An Urban Biography, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.
"Dominic is an extremely popular teacher, an accomplished scholar and has demonstrated great ability as an administrator," says Provost Steven Kapelke. "He is a dedicated and engaged citizen of the college. I'm delighted that he has agreed to take on this very important assignment and am profoundly confident that he will provide strong, humane leadership during the next year."
Columbia will be conducting a national search for a new Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The Liberace Foundation and Columbia College Chicago have awarded merit-based scholarships to six of the college's outstanding theater students. This is the third year the Foundation has supported Columbia students.
Competing in a field of their peers, these aspiring theater professionals, were judged to represent 'the highest degree of excellence in their particular area of the theater' by a jury comprised faculty from their department.
Two of the students ' Meghan Murphy and Lindsay Naas ' are receiving the award for their second year, having been named Liberace Scholars in 2005. Ebony Campbell, Leslie Adelina Bradshaw, Eric Turner and Daisica Smith join them this year as all six carry the honorific of Liberace Scholars. The students, who hail from varied backgrounds, are concentrating in three areas of theater arts.
The two continuing Liberace Scholars are both pursuing majors in acting.
Meghan Murphy grew up in Lansing, Illinois and entered Columbia as a freshman after her graduation from Thornton Fractional South High School in 2002. She has been very busy over the past year working in both Columbia College and professional productions. At Columbia, she appeared in the mainstage production of The Cripple of Inishmaan as well as appearing in a student film, Coop's Night In. This past winter, Meghan worked as an ensemble member and understudy in Mary Zimmerman's production of Pericles at the Goodman Theatre and appeared in And This Was Free, an educational theater piece for the Maxwell Street Coalition.
Lindsay Naas, who came to Columbia in 2003 from her hometown of Chesterfield, Missouri, continues to pursue a double major in American Sign Language and Theater. Over the past year, this singer-actress contributed her talents to Columbia's productions of Into the Woods, Company and Ragtime. She also had the thrill of performing for Dame Julie Andrews when the legendary star visited Columbia. Lindsay has recently signed on as a company member and publicity manager for Blue Moon Studio Theater and this winter she'll be appearing as Gertie in American Theater Company's production of Oklahoma.
Leslie Adelina Bradshaw is the first Liberace Scholar at Columbia to be pursuing a degree in playwriting. The 21-year-old native of Garland, Texas transferred to Columbia after beginning her college career at Loyola University Chicago where she was a political science major. Leslie had been active in theater activities in her suburban Dallas high school and one theatrical design class at Loyola reignited her love of the stage; Columbia's artistic environment drew her to the south loop school to start her sophomore year. Her writing projects have been produced in the Theater department's New Plays Festival and performed in a staged reading at Story Week, the Fiction Writing department's annual literary festival. She's also designed costumes for a Columbia project and worked in arts administration as the Theater department's box office manager.
Ebony Campbell has set her sights on a directing career in both the theater and film. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, she was actively involved in theater when she attended the Performing Arts program at DuPont Manual Magnet High School, graduating in 2003 with a major in theater. Choosing Columbia for its diversity and the opportunity to dive right into her creative endeavors, she's made the most of her time at the college. Ebony has both directed and acted in projects for the Film department and is assistant directing for Chuck Smith for his Columbia production of August Wilson's Two Trains Running this fall. She has also worked at the professional level, assistant directing Next Theatre's production of Fabulation or The Re-education of Undine, which has been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award.
The other directing major, Eric Turner, came to Columbia from Concord, California by way of Springfield, Illinois. Active in his high school drama club as an actor, director and writer, Eric moved to Springfield following his 2002 graduation and spent a couple of years working in community theater. At Columbia he has directed, assistant directed or stage managed six plays to date, including works as diverse as Edward Albee's The American Dream and She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith. Eric has also worked with theater department chair Sheldon Patinkin, assisting the Chicago legend with his production of The Sunset Limited at Steppenwolf Garage.
Memphis-born actress and singer Daisica Smith began her college theater career at University of Tenessee, Knoxville following her 2004 graduation from Ridgeway High School. At Ridgeway, she served as President and Vice President of the International Honors Thespian Society and won numerous awards for her acting accomplishments. Daisica made the change to Columbia in order to pursue her full range of creative interests including fine and computer art, as the school encourages artistic exploration across disciplines. As an actress she's already racked up two major productions at Columbia ' Ragtime and A Streetcar Named Desire, and looks forward to lending her talents to a range of roles and projects over the next few years.
The mission of the Liberace Foundation is to help talented students pursue careers in the performing and creative arts through scholarship assistance. Since 1976, The Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts has awarded more than 4.5 million dollars in scholarship grants to over 100 universities, schools and organizations including The Julliard School, Northwestern University, Oberlin and UCLA. For more information visit www.liberace.org.
Hollywood Producer Andy Hill to Head New Music Composition for the Screen
Graduate Degree
'The Screen' does not merely refer to the big and silver one anymore, but includes television, videos, websites and digital games. 'Composition' moves in a trajectory from traditional orchestration to sound design utilizing a dizzying array of electronic, digital and ambient elements. An artist in today's society must integrate the business aspects of their craft along with creativity and technical prowess to succeed and endure.
Columbia College Chicago's Music Department chairman Dick Dunscomb took all of these trends and imperatives into account when developing the curriculum for the college's new Master of Fine Arts in Music Composition for the Screen degree.
'The program taps into the combined knowledge and technical resources of our production oriented programs ' Music; Film and Video; Television; Audio Arts and Acoustics; Theater; Arts, Entertainment and Media Management and our new Video Game Design major,' explains Dunscomb. 'It will offer the complete interdisciplinary education students need to be successful in the multi-faceted music scoring industry.'
In development for two years, Dunscomb and Provost Steven Kapelke worked with an interdisciplinary team of educators: Leonard Lehrer, dean of Columbia's school of fine and performing arts; Keith Cleveland, dean of graduate administration; Michael Niederman, chair of the Columbia television department; Bruce Sheridan, chair of the film and video department; Douglas Jones, chair of the Audio Arts and Acoustics department; Gustavo Leone, coordinator of Columbia's undergraduate music composition program; and Chicago composer Cliff Colnot. The team surveyed other composing programs across the country as well as industry needs and expectations. What they found is that only one other school offers a comparable graduate program. 'We wanted to ensure that students coming out of our program are at the top of their form and have the theoretical, critical and creative education, plus the technical training necessary to work in their chosen field,' says Dunscomb.
The highly selective admissions process is open to candidates who hold undergraduate degrees in music, sound design, music composition and a range of other artistic disciplines. In part because Columbia boasts the largest film and video school in the world, Dunscomb and Kapelke feel strongly that this focused MFA will prove very popular. In fact, the composition program's culminating experience is participation in the college's nationally recognized Semester in LA in which students spend a term working with industry professionals in Columbia's facility on the CBS Studio lot.
'Semester in LA has proven to be the key point-of-entry for many of our film, television and screenwriting graduates,' explains Kapelke. 'We are the only school with a facility on a studio lot. This is where so many of our students land the internships and establish the networks that translate into jobs. We have hundreds of alumni and other Columbia stakeholders working in the arts and entertainment industry in Los Angeles who are available to mentor their next generation of colleagues.'
To this end, the college has recently named Andrew Warren Hill as Director of the Music Composition for the Screen program. Hill comes to Columbia with a wealth of experience as a music producer, composer, writer and teacher.
Hill is best known among his Hollywood peers for his association with Disney's many Academy Award winning musicals, beginning in 1989 with The Little Mermaid and continuing uninterrupted through Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Dick Tracy, Pocahontas and The Lion King.
'It was a wonderful time to be there,' says Hill, 'a superb team under [head of Music] Chris Montan, and a great string of films, and the peak experience for me was brokering the marriage of Elton John's original songs for The Lion King to the pop African sensibilities of Hans Zimmer and Lebo Morake and helping to deliver Disney's biggest and first truly global hit.'
After his departure from Disney Studios in 1996, Hill continued to work for Disney as an independent music supervisor and producer on such projects as James and the Giant Peach, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, Annie (with Chicago director Rob Marshall) and the current Disneytoons series Princess Stories. He also supervised music for Fox, MGM, Warner Brothers and Sony. In 2000, he won a Grammy for Producer/Best Musical Album for Children for his work on Sony's Elmo in Grouchland.
At Columbia College Chicago, Hill will develop and guide curriculum, establish and maintain industry contacts and teach classes. Hill comes to the college equipped with a significant level of 'institutional knowledge'. Since 1999 he has been teaching music composition for film in the college's Semester in L.A. program and, back in the early 1980s, he even put in a stint for Columbia's Department of Film and Video as Production Manager and instructor of Music for Filmmakers. Hill will come to the windy city in March.
Hill holds a BFA in Film/Music from the Tisch School of the Arts and has done graduate studies in orchestration and composition at UCLA. Following graduation from Tisch, Hill spent seven years on the road as a touring musician with a series of bands including Chicago's TigerTiger. Hill's musicianship led to requests from a number of Columbia College filmmakers for original scores. This in turn sent him to LA to 'seek his fortune' in the field of film music.
A true Columbia College-style renaissance man, Hill is also a writer. He is the author of Enoch's Portal (Champion Press 2002), a spiritual thriller and winner of a best new sci-fi award from the Independent Publishers Association. Portal was optioned by Paramount Pictures for film development under director Alex Proyas (I, Robot). He assisted Dr. Mani Bhaumik, co-inventor of the excimer laser, in the preparation of his spiritual memoir, Code Name God (Crossroads 2005). Hill's feature screenplay, Telsa, is under option to In The Bedroom producer Brad Yonover.
'I'd like for this program to be a model,' says Hill of the new MFA, 'and I know that Dick Dunscomb and Dr. Carter [Columbia's president] share that goal. Filmmakers and other creators of visual media are desperate for composers who understand drama, and I believe we can develop them at Columbia. In fact, I'm not sure there's another school in the country that could to this as well. I'm tremendously grateful for the support that people like Bruce Sheridan, Mike Niederman and Doug Jones have lent this vision.'
Department Chair Dick Dunscomb notes that 'Andy is eminently qualified for this position. He has the energy, enthusiasm, professionalism, talent and industry connections that we need for our program. In many ways Andy's course (in the Semester in LA program) was the pilot for the entire MFA Music Composition for the Screen degree. He is a master of both the arts and business side of the program and entirely comprehends the need for deep learning on both the theory and practice side of the equation. We are not about training starving artists at Columbia, our intent is always to educate working and successful artists.'
To obtain additional information about Columbia's MFA in Music Composition for the Screen call 312-344-6149.