Names in the News

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

Congratulations to Stephanie Russ (Studio Arts), who won third place in the Great Canadian Printmaking Competition, financed by Ernst and Young. She had her entry, Confluence Series 2, a monotype screenprint with digital imagery and drawing, published as part of a big two-page centre spread in the National Post on May 23. Russ told an interviewer that what has always interested her is "movement in nature." The judges were impressed by the fact that although the piece is "technically superb," it's "not heavy or ponderous."

Brenda Rowe (Simone de Beauvoir Institute) was interviewed by alumna Shelley Pomerance on CBC Radio's All in a Weekend. Rowe talked feelingly about her roots in North Carolina, and her deep convictions about the importance of self-esteem and determination.

Christopher Jackson (Dean, Fine Arts) was interviewed by Catherine Gombay on Art Talks (CBC Radio One, 5 p.m. Saturdays) about some unusual music in the repertoire of his Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal -- religious music written in Latin America as early as the 1600s.

Stanley Chase, a PhD candidate in Art Education, is the director of LOVE (Leave Out Violence), a successful photojournalism project for youth at risk. Coverage of a LOVE project at Kanehsatake will be broadcast on CBC Newsworld and The National Magazine. The program also features Ellen Gabriel (BFA 1990), who has been a regular speaker in Art Education and other departments.

A photo of CSU president Rob Green standing with a grin in a Concordia men's room has popped up in newspapers from coast to coast. It accompanied an article about the contentious Zoom display advertising that first appeared in The Gazette and was picked up by the Canadian Press news service. Last week it was reported that Vice-Rector Services Michael Di Grappa, receptive to complaints about the ubiquitous ads, has not renewed the university's contract with Zoom.

An interesting article in Ici Montréal about the high incidence of respiratory maladies and allergies in the world's richest countries quoted Nabil Bissada (Environmental Health and Safety) as saying that in developed countries, children spend much of their time indoors, where air circulation is often poor, particularly in the winter.

Harold Chorney (Political Science), responding to a Mirror reporter who asked about the viability of adopting the U.S. dollar in Canada, said, "Only two kinds of people support [it]. The first are Quebec sovereignists; they think that if you eliminate the Canadian dollar, you eliminate a barrier to sovereignty. The second are wealthy people who like to vacation in the United States, because a low dollar makes travelling more expensive. I don't think we should dismantle our monetary institutions for them."

David Howes (Sociology and Anthropology) was interviewed on local CBC Radio's All in a Weekend about the international conference on the senses he helped to organize this spring, and articles about the eclectic scholarly gathering were published across Canada.

Jean McGuire (Associate Dean, Commerce/Administration) gave Gazette business columnist Jay Bryan the lowdown on stock options recently. She said that options are often dispersed to top executives -- on top of their often million-dollar salaries -- in two tiers, one based on the company's performance, and the other a long-term incentive plan.

The research of historian Greg Nielsen (Centre for Broadcast Studies) focuses on what we laugh at, and why. His research on comedy in English-speaking Canada and Quebec was the focus of an article last week in The Gazette. He says that since the late 1980s, English Canada has refused to recognize Quebec's cultural claim for autonomy; This Hour Has 22 Minutes is especially successful at exploiting this fact. Francophone Quebecers have not reached a political consensus, however, and as a result, political satire is scarce.

Every spring, SIDIM (the Salon International de Design d'Intérieur de Montréal) holds a big show aimed at professionals, but they also have a competition for students. This year, Design Art student Marcus Turchetta won the SIDIM (Salon International de Design d'Intérieur de Montréal) Québec Éco-design award for his chaise longue. It is made of recycled rubber and aluminum with a natural fibre cushion.