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Theater Professor's Design Work Featured in Lincoln Center Exhibit
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Theater Professor Marie Anne Chiment, Head of Design, is exhibiting her set designs for the Santa Fe Opera production of The Magic Flute and her costume designs for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus in a Lincoln Center exhibit. Curtain Call: Celebrating A Century of Women Designing for Live Performance, opened Nov. 17 at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts at Lincoln Center's Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery and will continue through May 3, 2009. Featured flying overhead at the exhibit is the "Dragon" costume Chiment designed for Faustus. The costume, which has a 12-foot wing span and eyes that sparkle and glow from computer operated LEDS, required the expertise of over 20 Oregon Shakespeare Festival theater artisans to construct. Chiment has also written an article in Stage Directions that describes the process of the dragon's design and construction. |
The exhibit, the first of its kind, has been two years in the planning. Its purpose is to highlight and bring to public attention the notable contributions of American women to the art of theatrical design -- sets, costumes, lighting, projections -- from the early part of the 20th century to the present.
Featured Course for Spring Semester 2009
FMA 4240 TOPICS IN PRODUCTION: "Production Design" with Paul Sylbert
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Adjunct Film and Media Arts Professor Paul Sylbert is an Academy Award-winning art director and production designer. His films include Heaven Can Wait (Academy Award for Best Art Direction; nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Music, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress); Prince of Tides (nominated for Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Music, Best Adapted Screenplay); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay; and nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Music); Kramer vs. Kramer (Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Directing, Best Adapted Screenplay; and nominations for Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Editing); and three dozen other films. Professor Sylbert teaches a highly popular special topics course on “The Creative Process” each fall, and the course in Production Design in the spring. |
Broadcasting Faculty Member’s Documentary To Be Shown at Philadelphia Film Festival
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The Beirut Boys, a documentary made for PBS by Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media assistant professor Eugene Martin, has been invited to screen in competition in the Philadelphia Film Festival in April. The film, about three inner city African-American teens in Fairhill, North Philadelphia, was produced by Martin. It also has been selected by the National Black Programmer's Consortium for inclusion on its web site as part of the consortium’s national project on Black Masculinity. Filming is under way expand The Beirut Boys into a feature length documentary. |
Peer Teaching Assistantship Awarded to Dr. Tom Wright and StOC PR Major Jena Perlmutter
StOC Assistant Professor Tom Wright and StOC undergraduate Jena Perlmutter (Senior, PR major) have been awarded a Peer Teaching Assistantship for the spring 2009 semester from the GenEd program at Temple. They are working on Dr. Wright’s course, “Contemporary American Social Movements.” Ms. Perlmutter is one of 15 undergraduates competitively selected to serve as a Peer Teaching Assistant. A GenEd Peer Teacher is an undergraduate who has previously taken a GenEd class and will help teach the same course again. Both Dr. Wright and Ms. Perlmutter received stipends for this GenEd project.
Media Lab Founder Honored by State Association
Renee Hobbs, founder of the Media Education Lab and a professor in the Broadcasting Telecommunications and Mass Media department, has been honored by a state association. Hobbs received the 2009 Special Award from the Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology. The award is presented to an individual who has made a recent particular contribution to the field of communications. The organization is dedicated to promoting the use of educational technology in learning environments. It includes more than 3,000 members across the state who work both in the education and private sectors.
SCT To Be Represented at ICA Annual Conference
SCT will be well represented at the 2009 annual conference of the International Communication Association in Chicago in May.
Tom Jacobson, SCT Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, will present The African Philosophy Debate and a Communicative Action Narrative for Development. Verizon Chair in Telecommunications Jarice Hanson and SCT Dean Concetta Stewart will be on the panel Women in a Digital World: Conceptual Models of Inclusion.
FMA Professor Discusses Top Secret Rosies in World War II
LeAnn Erickson, associate professor in the Film and Media department, was the featured speaker in the closing session of the EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference 2009. She presented Hidden Her-story: The Top-Secret “Rosies” of World War II. The presentation was about a group of female mathematicians during the war who helped win the war and usher in the computer age.
StOC Professor to Publish Novel
Gregg Feistman, associate professor in the Strategic and Organizational Communication Department, will have his first novel published this year. The War Merchants is a thriller about a Philadelphia-based corporate public relations executive who stumbles upon a secret cartel of multinational corporations who use stolen World War II gold and treasures to manipulate world events.
Journalism Professor To Present Paper at MIT
A paper by journalism professor Chris Harper has been accepted for the Media in Transition 6: Stone and Papyrus, Storage, and Transmission conference to be held in April at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. His paper concerns the impact of digital media on media criticism.
Professors To Teach in Mexico, Tokyo This Summer
Two SCT professors will teach during Study Abroad programs this summer. Nancy Morris, associate professor in the Broadcasting Telecommunications and Mass Media department, will teach Media and Society in Oaxaca, Mexico. Fabienne Darling-Wolf, an associate professor in journalism, will teach Contemporary Media Culture in Tokyo.
Professor To Be Journal Guest Editor
Matthew Lombard, an associate professor in the Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media (BTMM) Department, is a guest editor for a special issue of Virtual Reality on Mediated Presence: Virtual Reality, Mixed Environments and Social Networks.
St. Nicholas Authentic Italian Festival is Subject of Documentary on Philadelphia Stories TV35
The St. Nicholas Authentic Italian Festival, produced and directed by Motion Picture Lab manager Len Guercio, was the subject of a documentary that aired on Philadelphia Stories TV35 on Dec. 14. Guercio has taught as an adjunct film professor and is a contributing writer for Student Filmmakers magazine. The festival, celebrated by the South Philadelphia Catholic St. Nicholas Parish, is a community celebration of cultural heritage and traditions. The documentary explored questions of ethnic authenticity and identity.
Journalism Professor on Panel for Reality TV Symposium
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Fabienne Darling-Wolf, an associate professor in journalism, was a speaker at a Dec. 5 symposium sponsored by The Scholars Program in Culture and Communication: The Graduate Working Group on Reality Television at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Real Worlds: Global Perspectives on the Politics of Reality Television explored global aspects of the reality TV phenomenon. Darling-Wolf discussed how the invasion of reality TV programs on the world-wide popular cultural scene in the past decade is the logical fulfillment of processes of globalization with which international communication scholars have long been preoccupied. She employed the case of the adaptation of the Endemol Star Academy format in France — the first in a series of such adaptations that would eventually spread through 50 nations across the globe — as a specific example. Her presentation concluded that Star Academy ultimately constructs a vision of the global that erases the political implications of gender, race, nation and cultural origin to reconcile the French audience with its own culture and its position in the world. |
Broadcasting Faculty Member's Film One of Ten National Winners; Photos appear on Sports Illustrated.com
A film by Eugene Martin, assistant professor in Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media (BTMM) Department, has been selected as one of ten national winners in the new on-line and theatrical film festival called "From Here to Awesome." The digital feature length narrative film, The Other America (81 mins., 2005), is about a teen boy who lives in a homeless shelter while going to high school. The film festival links filmmakers with audiences via strategic new media releasing partners. The Other America is being released internationally via Amazon digital download service, Hulu, Joost, Heretic Films, B-Side and Indieflix. The film also screens theatrically on Oct. 23 in New York City at the Times Square Arts Center. The web site for The Other America is www.theotheramericamovie.com.
Martin also recently had two photos published on Sports Illustrated.com. The photos were of the Anderson Monarchs, an inner city all African-American girls soccer club based on South Philadelphia. The team and their coach have been nominated as Sportsman of the Year, and Martin sold an accompanying photo to the web site and to the Guardian newspaper. Martin's honors students are making a documentary about the team, which is believed to be the only all girls African-American soccer club in the United States.
Theater Faculty Member Wins Barrymore Award; Alumna Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
Dan Kern, professor of theater, has won a Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre as Best Director for his production of Skylight at the Lantern Theater. The Barrymore awards are given by the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia to recognize artists for excellence and innovation while serving to increase awareness of the richness of the local theatre community.
Dolly Beechman Schnall, who received an MFA in Directing from the Theater Department, received the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award during the ceremony. Schnall was honored for her work as an actress, director, playwright, professor, board member and all-around advocate for the arts. After completing her MFA in theater at Temple, Schnall pursued a career in professional theater, performing in productions at Temple, along with the Cape May Playhouse, LaSalle College Music Theatre, Keswick Theatre, Burgundy Theatre, and the Ethical Society of Philadelphia. Temple also is among the locations where she has worked as a director, along with community theaters, other universities and professional productions.
Schnall has generously supported Temple through establishment of the Dolly Beechman Schnall Lectureship/Workshop Support Fund, which provides ongoing support for theatre education. She also has contributed to the Nathan Schnall, M.D. '47 Scholarship Fund, named in honor of her husband. In 2000, she received the GAA Certificate of Honor Award in recognition of her contributions to SCT.
Peter Reynolds, director of musical theater, was a semi-finalist for the Otto Haas Emerging Artist Award. Faculty members Peter DeLaurier and Ceal Phelan were nominated as supporting artists for the Barrymore Award-winning production of Six Characters in Search of an Author at People's Light and Theatre Co. Elena Bossler was a cast member of that production while a Temple senior.
StOC Professor To Be Associate Journal Editor
Donnalyn Pompper, associate professor in the Strategic and Organizational Communication Department, has been appointed to serve as associate editor for Communication Theory, a journal of the International Communication Association (ICA). During her three-year term she will work on the journal with its editor, Angharad Valdivia of the University of Illinois.
Advertising Department Chair and Faculty Member Win Award for Top Research Paper
Advertising Department Chair Michael Maynard and Faculty Member Dana Saewitz received the Top Research Paper award in the Internships and Career Interest Group category at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Conference in Chicago in August 2008. Their paper, Learning to Learn from the Industry: Employer Internship Satisfaction Survey, analyzed data from an online survey of more than 100 employers of Temple advertising student interns. Key findings led to the addition of several new courses and a renewed emphasis on writing, software skills, interviewing techniques and career planning for Temple students. To read a pdf of a condensed version of their article that appeared in AdWeek, click here.
Journalism Professor Discusses Reporter's Privilege at Historical Society
Associate Professor of Journalism Linn Washington joined other distinguished panelists at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania on Oct. 22 at Protecting the First Amendment: Freedom the Press and Reporter's Privilege. Reporter's privilege, the right of reporters to protect the identity of confidential sources, is a major tenet of the First Amendment that has come under attack in recent years. Without its protections, sources may be reluctant to cooperate with the media, undermining the ability of journalists to keep the public informed and expose wrongdoing in government, business, education and elsewhere. Washington, who is also a reporter for the Philadelphia Tribune, joined Mark Bowden, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, national correspondent for The Atlantic and author of Black Hawk Down and Guests of the Ayatollah; Paul Davies, editorial page editor at the Inquirer; and Robert C. Clothier, partner at Fox Rothschild LLP, who concentrates on First Amendment Law. This event was being held in coordination with the Media Law Resource Center Institute's project on reporter's privilege.
Communications Program Director Welcomes New Students at Fall University Convocation
Scott Gratson, Director of the Communications Program and Director of SCT Undergraduate Studies, welcomed members of the Class of 2012 at the University Convocation. He shared perspectives on the global reach of the School of Communications and Theater and the many opportunities available to students around the world. To read excerpts from his remarks, click here.
BTMM Faculty Member's Documentary Screened In Beijing, Hamburg and Dallas
A documentary created by Barry Vacker, a lecturer in the Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media (BTMM) Department, is being screened internationally. The experimental documentary Space Times Square was shown this summer in Beijing, China, at the Communication University of China, the most prestigious media studies university in China. It was shown during the Student Film Festival, where it was included in the "Professional Exhibition." The screening was made possible by XiaoLin Yu, a 2008 BTMM graduate, and Peng Wan, a current MFA student in Film and Media Arts (and graduate of Communication University of China). They also oversaw the production of Chinese subtitles for the film. It also has been selected for the 2008 Radar Hamburg International Independent Film in Hamburg, Germany. It was selected for the "art" category and will be screened at the Vicious Art Gallery, located in the St. Pauli arts and music district. In addition, the film was selected for the "experimental" category at the 21st Dallas Video Festival at the Angelika Theater. The festival is the oldest and largest video festival in America.
Journalism Chair Writes Forward To Book
Andrew Mendelson, Chair of the Journalism Department, wrote the forward to In Search of Norman Rockwell's America by Kevin Rivoli (Howard Books, 2008). In the book, photojournalist Rivoli proves that the idealistic, all-American views found in Norman Rockwell's classic illustrations are, in fact, accurate and timeless portrayals of a nation that truly does exist. The book pairs Rivoli's photographs side by side with Norman Rockwell's iconic paintings. Mendelson is a 2003 National Geographic Photographic Division Faculty Fellow. His research interests focus on how people cognitively and emotionally process visual images.
Theater Professor Hosts Workshop on Vocal Models Among Classical Heroines
Donna Snow, associate professor in the Theater Department, hosted a workshop for the Voice Foundation on "The Power of Heroines From Classical Drama: Vocal Models for the 21st Century Woman." The workshop included the performance of classical texts in which women find their own voices to defend their country, loved ones, beliefs, lives and honor, both in the courtroom and on the battlefield. Participants explored techniques to discover their own authentic voices as speakers and leaders. Snow is the head of the undergraduate and graduate acting programs.
Advertising Chair Quoted Regarding On-Line Film's Impact on Campaign
In the June 25, 2008 Bucks County Courier Times, Advertising Chair Michael Maynard was quoted on the impact of a candidate's on-line film on his run for Congress. Republican congressional candidate Tom Manion has posted online the first part of a film about his son's tour or duty, his letters home, and his death at the hands of the enemy in Iraq. Will the film help his candidacy? "Manion might not find out how effective the film will be until Election Day, but if criticism reaches a fever pitch online, it could hurt the campaign," according to Michael Maynard, chairman of Temple University's Advertising department. "You're playing with fire," Maynard said. "If it hits, it could be a marvelous, wonderful thing, but if it misses it could be a disaster."
BTMM Faculty Member Elected President of The National Association for Media Lite
racy
Sherri Hope Culver, a lecturer in Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media (BTMM) Department, has been elected President of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Media Literacy. The national membership organization is dedicated to advancing the field of media literacy education in the United States. Media literacy empowers people to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of an increasingly wide range of messages using image, language, and sound. It is the skillful application of literacy skills to media and technology messages. The organization was previously known as the Alliance for a Media Literate America.
Panel of Journalism Professors, Student and Alum Accepted For Conference
Journalism professors Chris Harper and Linn Washington, Mass Media & Communications student Dianne Garyantes and journalism undergraduate alum Terrence Lee will be panelists at " Convergence and Society: The Participatory Web conference at the University of South Carolina" in October 2008. They will discuss the topic "So Many Stories, So Little Coverage: A Practical And Theoretical Guide To Unite Multimedia Journalism and Urban Neighborhoods."
SCT Faculty and Alumni Serve As Panel for Temple on the Road, New York
SCT Faculty Members and Alumni led a panel discussion on "What's News? How Electronic Media are Changing Journalism" on Wed., June 4, at the Times Center in New York City. The panel was moderated by Andrew Mendelson, Associate Professor and Chair of Journalism. Panelists were Steve Capus, SCT ’86, President of NBC News; Jarice Hanson, Verizon Chair in Telecommunication; Christopher Harper, Associate Professor of Journalism and Susan Jacobson, Lecturer in the Department of Journalism.
Journal Article Explores Telepresence Theory
Matthew Lombard, an associate professor in the Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media (BTMM) Department, and Mass Media and Communications graduate Melissa E. Markaridian Selverian, have written an article in the current issue of the MIT Press journal Presence (volume 17, number 3). Their article, Telepresence after Death examines some of the increasingly sophisticated attempts by humans to evoke the presence of themselves or others after death and considers these efforts in the context of telepresence theory and research. Potential future research and ethical implications are also addressed.
Theater Professor Presents Poem at Spring University Commencement
Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, associate professor of theater, presented her poem Because Some Can See It -- "Owl light" at the university's graduation ceremony in May. She regularly presents original poems at School of Communications and Theater graduation ceremonies and has published nine books of poetry. Her honors in poetry include winning the DamilerChrysler "Spirit of the Word" National Poetry Competition at the Unity '99 Conference. To read the poem presented last spring, click here.
Professor Delivers Keynote Address
Edward Trayes, a professor in the journalism department, delivered the keynote address at the national convention of the American Copy Editors Society in Denver.
Trayes discussed his role as
co-founder of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund editing intern training program
and the future of copy editing in light of new technologies. The American Copy Editors Society is a professional organization working toward the advancement of copy editors in newspapers, magazines, Web sites and other journalistic endeavors.
