Concordia faculty, staff and alumni/æ pop up in the media more often than you might think!

A photo of Jerry Tomberlin, dean of the John Molson School of Business, appeared in the National Post Business Magazine’s special issue on business education, on April 2. The master’s in investment management program was featured, and the JMSB’s master’s of business administration program was ranked sixth in Canada in a poll taken by the magazine, behind the University of Toronto, Queen’s, Western, York and McGill.

Nelofer Pazira is both the author and focus of the cover story in the current issue of Elm Street magazine. Pazira, who immigrated from Afghanistan with her family in the aftermath of the conflict with the Soviets, is completing a master’s degree in sociology at Concordia. She has had a whirlwind year as the result of the film Kandahar, which she conceived and starred in. In Elm Street, she describes the real-life drama that lay behind the film.

Rhona Richman Kenneally (Design Art) and Michael Longford (Design Art) were interviewed recently by Katherine Gombay on CBC Radio’s Art Talks. Their discussion focused on initiatives by graphic designers currently engaged in integrating social and political concerns into their daily practice. The interview arose out of an international symposium hosted by their department last October.

Jason Hughes, Allison Deer and Lilia Goldfarb were featured recently in the careers and education column in the Saturday Gazette. They are all members of the first graduating class in the graduate diploma in community economic development, offered through Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs. Hughes runs La Maison Verte, a co-op store in NDG that sells environmental products. Deer works as a liaison aboriginal communities with the Canadian Executive Service Organization. Goldfarb is a consultant with the Quebec Community Table, which promotes community organizations.

An article in The Gazette by Donald McKenzie was carried by the Canadian Press in a number of papers across the country. It quoted Bryan Barbieri (Marketing) on a poll done by Leger that shows about one-third of Canadians are losing interest in professional sports. “People are concerned about salaries,” he said. They’re becoming turned off, and are comparing multi-million-dollar athletes’ salaries to priority issues such as health and education.

An article in both the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and the Mail Star featured Graham Metson (Studio Arts), who had a show of his paintings there in February. In it, he talks about going to the U.S. from his native London, and parking his Rolls Royce in front of The Factory, making the scene with people like Andy Warhol. A keen jive practitioner, Metson still dances at home with his wife, a photographer and lawyer. He revisited his British wartime childhood through artworks that were shown this month in the Ellen Art Gallery. (See CTR, Apr. 11.)

The positive views on Harry Potter of Rev. Raymond Lafontaine (Campus Ministry) were quoted in a Toronto Star article about various sects’ reactions to the popular series of books.

The Gazette published an article on Thomas D’Arcy McGee, member of parliament and victim of assassination April 7, 1868, by some fellow Irish Catholics, the Fenians, who considered him a sellout to the British. The story mentioned an excellent article in the latest issue of the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies on McGee, and published a great photo of Archivist Nancy Marrelli and Michael Kenneally, editor of the Journal. They are looking at McGee’s walking stick, which is the property of Concordia.

Barbara Woodside (Psychology/CSBN) was interviewed on CBC’s Home Run during “Brain Week.”

Maria Peluso (Political Science) was interviewed on Global TV (CKMI) by alumnus Tim Sargent on political patronage. She said that in our system, it’s appropriate to reward loyal supporters and party organizers, but only provided that those so rewarded are competent and reasonable. Julius Caesar was good at it, she said, and so were Pierre Trudeau, Robert Bourassa, and Bill Davies, former premier of Ontario. The worst in Canadian history were Maurice Duplessis and Mayor Drapeau, Peluso said, and former federal works minister Alfonso Gagliano isn’t looking too good, either.

Nabil Bissada (Environmental Health/Safety) was on Global TV news in March, as part of an environmental series on acid rain, PCBs, and air pollution. He talked about the Technoparc, built on old airport land on the Bonaventure highway between Victoria and Champlain bridges, whose PCB-contaminated soil is now leaching into to the St. Laurence River. However, Bissada pointed out, new regulations will remove the PCBs from all service equipment by the year 2010, and by 2015, all PCBs should be eliminated.

Fred Krantz, Harvey Shulman and Geoffrey Fidler made it into the April 19 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education (U.S.). The Chronicle’s “critic at large,” Carlo Romano, covered the recent core curriculum conference hosted by Concordia’s Liberal Arts College. He also quoted Melissa Castro, president of the Liberal Arts Society for Students, who praised the LAC in glowing terms.