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

Even when he was manager (until earlier this year) of the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall, Neil Schwartzman was well known around Concordia as a ferocious opponent of spam, or unwanted e-mail, and he has helped IITS clean out the university’s in-boxes. He’s still doing it, according to a Gazette column by alumnus Andy Riga. In fact, the peppery Schwartzman is embroiled in an online spat with a spammer that has been reported in Wired News, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Slashdot and Newsbytes. Schwartzman’s own site has had 2.4 million hits over 20 days, Riga reported, and one surfer even wrote a one-act play about it, called Spamlet.

Daniel Salée (SCPA) was among those interviewed by The Gazette about Bill C-36, Canada’s anti-terrorism law. Philip Authier quoted him as saying he was surprised at the ease with which Canadians flushed away their own rights. “There is a lot of blindness owing to Sept. 11. People say it can hurt us but it will not affect us because we are not terrorists. People don’t see themselves that way.”

Mike Gasher (Journalism) and Bill Buxton (Communication Studies) fired off a letter to The Gazette protesting Southam’s imposition of national editorials on the local paper. David Gobby (Rector’s Cabinet) had a protest letter on the same page, on Dec. 8. Gasher was the studio guest on CBC’s Radio Noon, which received blistering phone calls from listeners about this issue, and Enn Raudsepp, chair of Journalism, was on CBC’s The National, taking the owners of Southam to task for their heavy-handedness.

Lillian Robinson, principal of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, was one of those invited to comment on a CBC Radio Noon phone-in on the subject of gay marriage.

Marc Lalonde (Religion) was interviewed by CBC Radio as part of an item about empty churches in Montreal. He said that the trend away from conventional Christian observance is likely to continue.

Mick Carney (Management) continues to be a leading expert on the volatile airline industry, and has been widely interviewed in recent weeks.

Henry Habib, emeritus professor of political science, was interviewed on the CTV national news about the fragility of the West’s alliance with Pakistan.

Lawrence Kryzanowski (Finance) was interviewed on CBC Newsworld’s business report about Rona hardware’s plans for expansion.

Rosemarie Schade (History) was asked by CFCF Pulse News to comment on Indigo Books owner Heather Reisman’s decision not to sell Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Frederick Krantz, history professor and vice-principal of the Liberal Arts College, wrote an essay published in The Gazette on Dec. 17 in which he discussed the forces of “nihilistic violence” ranged against the state of Israel and the United States. Among other things, he said, “Despite his support from the social-democratic left in Europe (itself a sad tale of political and moral hypocrisy), [Yasser] Arafat, too, is a fascist.”

Colleen Bronson, coordinator of the career centre at the John Molson School of Business, was quoted in Stephanie Whittaker’s Saturday column in The Gazette on the subject of career journals, a move she recommends to ambitious students.

Mike Gasher (Journalism) was quoted in an article by The Gazette’s Mark Abley on Dec. 13 about the “cops-and-robbers” flavour of some current war coverage. Gasher said that journalism students are encouraged “put a human face” on news stories, but U.S. coverage has been simplistic. “It’s not as if killing bin Laden would solve anything, let alone resolve terrorism.” Journalism chair Enn Raudsepp added that the stark good-vs.-evil approach serves President George Bush’s right-wing agenda by making a dubious leader seem strong.

The Glengarry News reports that Bill Gilsdorf (Communication Studies, retired) and his wife Susan Joiner are going to Thailand to work as volunteers. “We’ve gotten so much,” Gilsdorf told the community newspaper. “Now we want to give back.” They will travel for six months, starting with Japan, then to China, and then northern Thailand. They will visit, and possibly work in, a drug rehabilitation center and an orphanage, and then tour Eastern Europe and Central Europe.

Joan Acland and François-Marc Gagnon (Art History) were interviewed on CBC Radio’s Home Run on December 14 about the first book published by Concordia’s Institute for Canadian Art History. Called First Nations Artists in Canada, it is a biographical and bibliographical guide for scholars, covering the years 1960 to 1989.