Names in the news

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

Provost and Vice-Rector Research Jack Lightstone was quoted in an article in the January issue of the national publication University Affairs by writer and alumnus Sylvain Comeau on the renewed hope for funding increases for Quebec universities.

Marika Pruska-Carroll (Political Science) was on the CBC program Counterspin as part of a debate on what should be done about the turmoil in Russia and its effect on East-West relations, and appeared on TVA on the same subject. When Boris Yeltsin resigned, she was interviewed by Newsworld, and she has recorded a lecture about Russia for high school students to be broadcast on YNN.

An article about the online course in personal finance launched by Arshad Ahmad (Finance), first published in The Gazette, made it into papers beyond Montreal, including the St. Catharines Standard. The course reaches more than 400 students.

The work of photographer Angela Grauerholz (MFA 82) was given two full colour pages in The Globe and Mail on Saturday, December 4. Critic Blake Gopnik marvelled at how she can make ineffable the "effable" -- banal glimpses of everyday life. Just last weekend, her name was among those mentioned in the National Post as a must-have Canadian artist for ambitious collectors.

Voir MontrŽal followed up on the recent accusations that film and TV producers are padding their budgets to get more funding from government. They interviewed Louise Lamarre (Cinema), who teaches a course in budgets. She said it's the system. Agencies fund productions, not businesses. In order to stay afloat, producers are obliged to factor in their office costs, and this is understood by all. The real power, she added, is wielded by the distributors, and a filmmaker who doesn't interest them is out of luck getting financing.

William Bukowski (Psychology) was interviewed for the National Post about a tricky parental skill: how to help your child see when he or she has unsuitable friends, gently pointing out the friend's objectionable features, such as being bossy or unsympathetic.

Adjunct professor James Kass (Applied Human Sciences) is an expert on teamwork and space flight. He is based in Munich, but is working with his sister Raye Kass (also ApHS) on a project with astronauts in Moscow. A public lecture he gave recently at Concordia was given an interesting preview by Doug Sweet, of The Gazette.

An article in the Mirror headlined "Death of a bizarre landmark" tells of the imminent destruction of Drummond Court (the building with the hole on de Maisonneuve Blvd.) and the venerable neo-classical YMCA. The Y will move into a renovated version of its next-door neighbour, the Norris Building, which was once the hub of Sir George Williams University.

Bill Reimer (Sociology/Anthropology) was interviewed on CBC's Radio Noon on December 1 on the impact on rural Canada of the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle. It came on the eve of a trip he took to Japan to speak on, among other things, Canada's trade position.

Louise Gauthier (Sociology/Anthropology) was consulted and extensively quoted for two articles on graffiti in The Gazette.

Daniel SalŽe (School of Community and Public Affairs) was quoted in a year-ender on Quebec politics for the Canadian Press. While he agreed with other pundits that Premier Lucien Bouchard's lustre has dulled and a siege mentality has developed in the beleaguered PQ cabinet, he said that sovereignty's popularity is cyclical and Bouchard might well hang in for another election.

You may have caught Dean of Commerce Mohsen Anvari recently on PBS television, on a program called Policy. He was debating with well-known academic gadfly John Crispo (University of Toronto) on the subject of tenure. (Crispo was against it; Anvari was for it, with qualifications.) Anvari was also a guest panelist on The Editors. Both programs are produced by the Montreal-based production company World Affairs.

McGill University made news twice in recent weeks: First, for a study showing that Montreal has more university students relative to its population than any other city in North America, and second, for floating the idea of a private liberal arts college aimed at international students. This latter idea looks a lot like the Loyola International College proposed by our own Faculty of Arts and Science last year, and slated to open in the next two years.