Make It to Manifest
Tomorrow, Friday May 11, is Manifest! To find out anything and everything you need to know, visit the Manifest website. From there, you can navigate to event listings and descriptions, schedules, maps, and links to Manifest on Frequency TV and ManifestSL.
Chicago’s Studio Gang Chosen to Design Media Production Center
Jeanne Gang & Studio Gang Architects will design Columbia’s Media Production Center (MPC), the first new-construction project undertaken by the college. The building is slated for the southeast corner of 16th and State Streets, currently a vacant lot.
Gang, whose Chicago-based studio is emerging as one of the most innovative in architecture today, was chosen from an initial field of 29 firms from across North America that were invited to submit qualifications for the project. In December, the field was narrowed to four finalists: Helfand Architecture of New York, Morphosis of Los Angeles, and Brininstool + Lynch and Studio Gang, both of Chicago. Since that time, members of the selection team have been working with the architectural firms to determine the best fit.
“Jeanne Gang’s portfolio clearly demonstrates an understanding of each of the clients with which she has worked, as well as a fresh and original approach to public architecture. However, our choice was about more than innovative design,” said Allen Turner, chairman of Columbia’s board of trustees. Turner also expressed confidence in Gang’s ability to work with the college’s administrators, academics, and creatives, and to stay on schedule and on budget. Her reputation for considering environmental sustainability was also a factor.
Doreen Bartoni, dean of the School of Media Arts, said it was clear that “Jeanne is very committed to this project and understands fully what it means to the college. The level of research she conducted, not only on materials and program requirements, but on the history of Columbia as an educational and cultural institution and the history and current cultural currency of media arts, was truly impressive.”
Gang, a resident of Columbia’s South Loop neighborhood, is excited to be working on project that, she says, “will look at the intersection of academics, media, and architecture. From both a conceptual and a practical standpoint Studio Gang has an opportunity to create a building that not only meets the client’s functional needs but also expresses the importance of media arts in today’s society and the emergence of Columbia College as a major educational institution.”
Prior to founding Studio Gang Architects in 1998, Gang worked with OMA/Rem Koolhass in Rotterdam and Booth Hansen Associates in Chicago. Since 1997 she has taught design studios at the Illinois Institute of Technology, College of Architecture, and has been a visiting professor at the Harvard Design School and the Yale College of Architecture. Studio Gang’s local projects include the Starlight Theatre in Rockford, innovative for its movable roof, and the Chinese American Service Center in Chicago.
Fire Closes Offices at 218 S. Wabash
A fire occurred on the evening of Friday, May 4 on the unoccupied ninth floor of 218 South Wabash, a building in which Columbia leases office space. The fire is under investigation by the Chicago Fire Department, which is not expected to issue a formal report about the incident for at least two weeks.
Approximately 35 Columbia College employees from various centers, institutes, and performance units recently moved into rental space on the seventh floor of the building, the only floor occupied by Columbia personnel. Although the fire itself was contained to the ninth floor, seventh-floor Columbia offices sustained minor water damage. No college personnel were injured in the incident, and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble collection of music and manuscripts, housed on the floor, appears to have escaped damage.
The units affected include the Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, the Center for Asian Arts and Media, the Center for Arts Policy, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the e-Center, Upward Bound, and Academic Research. Displaced employees are being relocated to temporary offices.
Columbia Rejects U.S. News College Ranking Process
Last month, Columbia opted to stop submitting institutional data for the annual U.S. News & World Report college rankings issue. Columbia joins a growing list of colleges and universities that are challenging the process by which institutions are rated in the publication.
In an April 11 letter to the editor of U.S. News & World Report, Columbia president Warrick Carter challenged “the stratified, elitist ratings system employed by U.S. News, which purports to provide a valuable service to families and students evaluating their higher education choices.” He pointed out that the many college presidents who “are expressing skepticism about playing the ratings game” are “articulating what Columbia College Chicago long ago recognized. U.S. News college rankings are, in fact, very poor indicators of an institution’s quality or value to society.”
According to an article in the May 7 issue of Inside Higher Ed, complaints about the ranking system “have gained momentum this year as part of a broad critique of college admissions that includes concerns over the use of standardized test scores, early admissions, the ability of wealthy families to gain advantage in the admissions system, and suburban hysteria over getting kids into the ‘right’ college.” Critics have expressed concern over the influence the U.S. News process may exert on college policies; i.e., “many colleges say that they feel a need to pay more attention to SAT scores than they might otherwise, or to attract applicants for the purpose of rejecting them because such moves are favored by the magazine’s formula.”
Reflecting these concerns, Carter wrote, “The U.S. News ratings criteria, simply stated, are not standards of success that Columbia College Chicago chooses to apply to itself. Not only are the U.S. News ratings faulty measurement indices, they may have become increasingly irrelevant to families making college decisions.”
Carter’s letter concludes with the statement, “The U.S. News rating system does not adequately reflect the impact or value of institutions that, like Columbia, open doors to the creative professions for vast segments of American society whose voices have long been muted by institutions and structures that perpetuate power and privilege.”
Among the other institutions defying the U.S. News status quo is Sarah Lawrence College, whose president, in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, called the ratings “misleading” and accused U.S. News of “creating” data it could not obtain from her college. Insider Higher Ed reports that 12 college presidents have joined in a “call to arms,” urging hundreds of their peers at liberal arts colleges to boycott the survey.
Deborah Holdstein Appointed Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dr. Deborah Holdstein has been appointed the new dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Columbia, effective July 15. Holdstein comes to Columbia from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where she is currently chair of the English department. Prior to her arrival at Northern Illinois, Deborah taught at Governors State University, where she chaired the Graduate Council and held the position of Faculty Associate for Graduate Studies and Research, at one point also serving as Special Assistant to the Provost while chairing the university's North Central re-accreditation process.
Holdstein’s professional accomplishments also include a long involvement with College Composition and Communication, the flagship journal of Composition Studies and the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which she has edited since 2005. She has published and presented widely on scholarly subjects ranging from literature to film studies.
Holdstein succeeds acting dean Dominic Pacyga, who was asked to fill the post in 2006 when former dean Cheryl Johnson-Odim took a position as provost and vice president of academic affairs at Dominican University. Pacyga, who has taught at Columbia for more than 25 years, plans to return to teaching here following a year-long sabbatical to complete his most recent book, Chicago: Urban Biography.
College Elects Two New Trustees
At its May 3 meeting, Columbia College Chicago’s board of trustees approved the nominations of Susan V. Downing and Barry M. Sabloff for board membership.
Downing, a Chicago resident and philanthropist, has been a member of the President’s Club since 2000, is a member of the Institutional Advancement Committee, and is co-director of the Columbia College Parent’s Fund (her son is a 1999 graduate of the college). She currently serves on the trustee board of the Adler Planetarium, where she is also president of the women’s board, as well as the Goodman Theatre’s women’s board, the board of Gold Coast Neighbors, and the Sarah Siddons Society.
Sabloff served as executive vice president, Chicago and head of the international group for Bank One, where he held numerous executive and leadership roles over a 30-year career. He currently serves as vice chairman of the board of directors for Marquette National Corporation and Marquette Bank in Chicago, and as a director of CoBank in Denver and Calypso Technology, Inc. in San Francisco.
Students Create Smoke-Detector PSA Campaign for Fire Department
When the Chicago Fire Department asked Columbia’s Music department to come up with a jingle they could use to educate the public about smoke detectors, they were anxious to find alternative ways to get their message out to the people of Chicago. They were put into contact with faculty member Laurence Minsky, whose ad-agency classes have launched several successful campaigns for area non-profits.
“The smoke-detector campaign fit the mission for the ad-agency class perfectly,” said Minsky. “Having a real campaign for a real issue is such an important learning moment for my students. They can see the effects of their work and they are truly helping people at the same time.” For the class, students meet with clients, report back to their “agency,” and pitch and produce theme-based ideas for print ads, television commercials, and radio spots.
“Traditionally, smoke-detector campaigns soft pedal the issue with images of smiling children or instructional images of families installing smoke detectors in their homes,” said Minsky. “The Fire Department wanted to bring a more powerful message. They wanted something that would hit home for people. Something that would make them want to run out and either buy a working smoke detector or put new batteries in their existing home device.”
Actually showing the fires and devastation of the buildings was something the students felt very strongly about. The stories that are communicated in the images of this ad campaign come across loud and clear. One shows a black dog in front of a raging house fire. Below the dog are the words, “This family of five didn’t have a working battery in their smoke detector. There was only one survivor.” Another shows a house engulfed in flames with the caption, “A $2 battery could be the difference between watching your family grow up or watching television alone.” All five ads include an image of a smoke detector with the words, “Check your detector.”
The ads are scheduled to appear soon throughout Chicago at bus stops, in CTA stations, and other major transportation hubs.
PR Firm Recruits Radio Students To Create Documentaries
Four students from the Radio department's spring 2007 Radio Documentary class have been involved in a professional audio project in Chicago. The four—Aaron Glasser, Dwight Haesler, Katie Vinopal, and Steve Sarley—were recruited by local public-relations firm Reno Lovison Marketing to produce several short feature documentaries. The spots will, among other things, highlight the work of young Chicago jazz pianist Steven Solomon, help promote a unique approach to group piano lessons, and shed light on the business of motivational speaking. Each of the pieces will be used on individual client websites as special audio files.
“These students are producing short documentaries for these websites using all the skills they have learned from the Radio curriculum: production, writing, sound gathering, storytelling, and performance,” says Radio faculty member Dave Berner. “This brings together all the skills they need to be successful radio/audio producers in a world where ‘radio’ also means audio on the Internet.”
Newsbriefs
Free trolley service will be available between campus and Navy Pier for faculty and staff volunteering and participating in commencement exercises on Saturday, May 12. Trolleys will leave 600 S. Michigan Ave. at 9:15 and 9:30 a.m., and 2:15 and 2:30 p.m. There will be two returning trolleys following each ceremony.
The 2007-08 College Council has elected its executive officers: Dennis Rich (AEMM) as council chairman, Keith Kostecka (Science + Math) as vice chairman, and Curtis Lawrence (Journalism) as secretary.
The Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) has announced the Technology Fellows for 2007: Kevin Henry and Stan West (Critical Encounters Web Resource), Peter Thompson and Thomas Shirley (Updating the Digital Take-Home Professor Tutorials), Barbara Burckart (Student Orientation to Online Learning), Suzanne Blum-Malley and Brendan Riley (Designing and Using Open Source, Collaborative Book Module for Writing Projects), Terrie Byrne and Molly Chanson (Creating and Using Podcasts in the Classroom), Barbara Iverson and Suzanne McBride (Convergence Coash Series for Journalism Department), Brady Hyde and Etta Worthington (TV Arts Writing Interactive Website and DVD), Beau Beaudoin and Brijetta Hall (Culture, Race and Media Interactive), and Sue Peacock and Celia Ross (The Embedded Library: Bringing Columbia College Library Resources out of the Library and Into the (Virtual) Classroom).
Faculty & Staff Notes
Dave Berner (Radio) debuted his audio documentary "Finding My Kerouac" at public radio station WFUV in New York this past winter. The hour-long documentary, based on the spirit of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, also received airplay at public radio station WKSU in Cleveland and was later licensed by the on-line audio book website Audible.com. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Road. The author's original manuscript, a 125-foot scroll, is now on an international tour, with an exhibition at Columbia planned for fall of 2008.
Ivan Brunetti (Office of the Webmaster) created the cover art for this week’s New Yorker magazine (May 7). Brunetti’s drawing, “Style Sheet,” is his second cover for the New Yorker this year.
Christopher Swider (Film + Video) was awarded first place (a Platinum Remi) at the Houston International Film Festival for his screenplay Peter and the Chrome Plated Fish. Swider won in the Comedy: Adaptation or Original category. The Remi award is named after the painter Frederic Remington.
Stan West (English) has been awarded an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the
University of New Orleans. His thesis, “What is An American? A Personal Geography Examining Why American Expatriate Writers Lived in Paris and Madrid,” will be available May 19 at the UNO Collection on the Louisiana Digital Library. West also recently reported from the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and will report from the Cannes Film Festival as part of a joint venture between WNUA 95.5 FM Chicago and Columbia’s Critical Encounters Program.
