Names in the News

Marika Pruska-Carroll (Political Science), an expert on Russia, was interviewed on March 23 by CBC-TV and CJAD news after the latest unexpected move by President Boris Yeltsin. She said that in sacking his cabinet, Yeltsin had once again shown who was boss.

Palmer Acheson (TESL) was the subject of a full-length profile in El Gazette, an international monthly newspaper for teachers of English. It tells the story of how Acheson, a bored student in Britain in the 1960s, found his métier when he was hitchhiking in Germany. A businessman got him to give his son English lessons, and it led to a life of globetrotting and scholarship.

The Eric O'Connor lecture by Dean of Students Donald Boisvert on homosexuality and Christian ethics was the leading item in Harvey Shepherd's religion column in The Gazette on March 21, and was accompanied by a photo first published in CTR and taken by student Andrew Soong.

Les Affaires reported that a dozen public relations executives from Allard et associés had David Howes, chair of Sociology and Anthropology, give them five seminars recently for a fresh perspective on marketing.

Frank Chalk (History), an authority on genocide, was quoted in an article that appeared in The Toronto Star and the Edmonton Journal about the 1907 massacre of three-quarters of the Herero people of Namibia by German settlers and soldiers. Chalk said that an academic work on the event lay the groundwork for Hitler's racial policies.

The Winnipeg Free Press, among other papers, quoted Daniel Salée (SCPA principal) on the drafting of federal Tory leader Jean Charest to lead the Quebec Liberals. "I don't know that he understands the issues we have to deal with here now," he said. "I find it really sad that the next campaign will be fought on the basis of personalities, and issues will take a back seat."

Guy Lachapelle (Political Science) was quoted in another Gazette article carried across Canada by Canadian Press. He said that annointing Charest "is risky, but it gives the party a chance to go after a new support base. It gives them a little fame, a little vigour."

Student poets Diana Tegenkamp and Christina Thompson, who recently launched a chapbook, and belong to a spoken-word choir called syntActs, were mentioned in Hour, and their mentor, Erin Mouré (Creative Writing) was called "truly one of today's toughest and canniest versifiers."

Farewell to Martin Kusy, former Dean of Graduate Studies, who is off to become Brock University's dean of business. We had to read it in Brock's local daily, the St. Catharines Standard. The article quoted retiring dean Ron McTavish as saying it was history repeating itself. A few years ago, Kusy followed McTavish as Chair of Concordia's Department of Decision Sciences and MIS.

Susan Palmer (Religion) was quoted in a full-length feature in the national Homemaker magazine on cults. She said there are more than 32,000 new religious movements around the world, and 800 in Quebec alone. Almost all are harmless, said Palmer, who has been an expert witness in court cases. Palmer was also a contributor to an exhaustive discussion of the future of religion in the February issue of Books in Canada.

Napoleon's Retreat, a novel by Rob Allen (Creative Writing/Matrix) was briefly reviewed in Hour, where Carl Wilson called it "an unpruned forest of allusion, satire, politics and play," and "a high-fat, Pynchonesque urban romp."