FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26, 2006
Due to the closing of Columbia College's 623 S. Wabash Avenue building, as a result of the multiple-alarm fire at the George Diamond building, 630 S. Wabash Avenue on Tuesday, October 24, several of the Open House presentations and department visits scheduled for Saturday, October 28 have been relocated and/or cancelled.
The following presentations and visits have been relocated and/or cancelled:
1. The Art and Design presentations have moved to the Getz Theater, 72 E. 11th St.. Studio visits have been cancelled.
2. The ASL-English Interpretation presentations have moved to the Park Room at the University Center of Chicago, 525 S. State St.
3. The Portfolio Center presentations have moved to the Loop/River Room at the University Center of Chicago, 525 S. State St.
4. The Science and Mathematics presentation has been cancelled.
5. The campus trolley has been re-routed around street closures.
A revised brochure with these corrections is being printed.
For further questions about undergraduate Open House, please call Ania Greiner at 312.344.7034 or email agreiner@colum.edu.
Columbia College Admissions Office appreciate the understanding, flexibility, and cooperation of all departments who have been directly effected by these changes and we are confident that this Saturday will be a success!
Media contact: Micki Leventhal,m 312.344.7383 (cell: 773.484.3533) or Priscilla L. Hunter, 312.344.7805 (cell: 312.286.6624).
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BREAKING NEWS
Media Contact: Micki Leventhal 312-344-7383 (Cell: 773-484-3533) or
Priscilla Hunter 312.344.7805 (Cell: 312-286-6624)
UPDATE: Two Columbia Campus Buildings to Remain Closed Through Friday, October 27 - Other Campus Buildings/Services Open and Functioning
Chicago IL (Oct 25, 2006: Noon) -- Columbia College Chicago evacuated five of its academic buildings north of Balbo Drive last evening because of a multiple-alarm fire at 630 S. Wabash Avenue, in the vacant George Diamond building.
Two of the college's buildings - 623 South Wabash and 619 South Wabash - remain closed today (Wednesday, October 25). Materials on exhibit in these two buildings will be moved to the back of the structures, out of the "collapse zone" of the Diamond structure.
We expect that those two buildings will remain closed for the rest of this week. All other campus buildings remain open and fully functioning.
College administrators began building evacuations yesterday about 4:45 p.m. - before the Chicago Police and Fire Departments mandated evacuations. The Chicago Fire Department indicated that there was no release of toxic materials into the air during or following the fire. Sensors in the college's air handling systems have not detected particulate matter in those systems.
The college will bring in charcoal filters later this week to address the smell of smoke in buildings on the northern part of the campus.
Demolition of the George Diamond building will begin as soon as the Chicago Fire Department authorizes contractors to access the site. Clean up of the George Diamond site may take as long as two weeks, but access to the 600 block of South Wabash is expected within the next week.
The college continues to work closely with the Chicago Police and Fire Departments, as well as the city's Office of Emergency Management and Community Affairs, to monitor conditions in the affected area.
Although we are assured that there is no threat to public health or safety, employees with medical concerns who work in buildings north of Balbo should inform their supervisors and request time off. Time off will not count against accumulated sick-leave or vacation days.
Open House for prospective students, scheduled for this weekend, will continue with program alterations to accommodate anticipated building closures. For questions about undergraduate Open House plans, contact Ania Greiner (agreiner@colum.edu or extension 7034). For questions about scheduling of this weekend's Graduate Open House, contact gradsch@colum.edu or extension 7260.
For Immediate Release:
October 24, 2006
Luke Palermo is available for interviews.
On Friday, November 3rd the Television Department of Columbia College Chicago and the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will celebrate the endowment of the Sharon Palermo Scholarship Fundat the college's Hermann Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Avenue.
This inaugural event will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a reception and light refreshments. At 7:30 p.m. mystery writer Barbara D'Amato will read from one of her award winning books. Tickets are $60 per person and may be purchased by calling 312.344.7410. Tickets may also be purchased at the door the day of the event. RSVP at www.colum.edu/alumni/palermo. For further information call 312.344.7410.
The need based scholarship is created in the memory of Sharon Palermo to provide tuition assistance for low income Columbia students majoring in television. The beloved wife of Television Department's long-time faculty member Luke Palermo, Sharon passed away in the fall of 2005.
Sharon and Luke dedicated their lives to educating young people, and they both enjoyed seeing the learning process unfold, as students began to ask questions and formulate their own ideas and interpretations of the world. "We had no children of our own, so we felt that each young person we worked with was in some small ours," says Luke.
Sharon always worked in education and was committed to the students she came in contact with far beyond her professional responsibilities. She spent more than 25 years providing administrative support at the middle and high school levels.
She was an office coordinator at Proviso West High School from 1991 to 2001. From 2001 to June 2003 she served as administrative assistant to the director of special education at Lyons Township High School. In June 2003 she accepted a position as administrative secretary at Burr Ridge Middle School, a position she held until August 2005.
Luke began his teaching career as a math teacher at Lyons Township High School in the early 1970s. In February 1973 he took a staff job in the school's audio-visual center at a time when television was just being introduced into school curriculums.
In 1973 he was offered a job at Riverside-Brookfield High School as supervisor of television and audio-visual services and is credited for building the school's video program and incorporating television into the school's curriculum.
When the time came for him to expand his knowledge in the area of audio-visual and photography, the school that was mentioned (even back then) was Columbia College. He attended an open house at Columbia College in the mid-1970s and then began is 30-year relationship with the college. In 1982 he began teaching part-time in the Television Department and in August of 1986 he became a full-time faculty member.
Luke's contributions to the college, academy and the community are many. Sharon was an integral part of those contributions. Luke and Sharon were married for more than 30 years. She lived life with great joy, whether absorbed in a mystery novel, a rousing game of Scrabble, a placid lake side vacation or cooking with Luke.
Luke is a resident of Woodridge, Illinois.
Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution committed to access, opportunity, and excellence in higher education, provides innovative practice and education in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to 11,500 students in more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs. Founded in 1890 as a communications school for women, Columbia was provisioned in 1963 as a liberal arts college with a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to arts and media education and a progressive social agenda. Under the modern leadership of President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D., Columbia is aggressively pursuing its mission to bring a richness of vision and a multiplicity of voices to the creation of culture through the diversity of our students and graduates. For further information visit www.colum.edu.
Media contact: Priscilla L. Hunter, 312.344.7805 or phunter@colum.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 23, 2006
Images are available electronically
In Brazilian artist Adriana Bertini's Dress Up Against AIDS, the condom, currently the only method that protects those who are sexually active from contracting HIV, has been dyed and threaded together to make a fashionable collection of attire from dresses to evening gowns. This exhibition invites the audience to see condoms in new ways; the colorful latex gowns are a playful array of couture designs as well as pręt-a-porter, but, more importantly, Dress Up Against AIDS, attacks a serious global issue with humor and aplomb. Bertini's dresses break the social taboo about condoms as an object of "promiscuity" and ask the viewer to enter into a dialogue about the true importance and nature of the condom in relation to HIV&AIDS prevention. Bertini is a well-known artist who has dedicated her work to AIDS prevention through the arts.
Dress Up Against AIDS is one of a number of exhibitions and programs that Columbia College presents as part of Critical Encounters, an ongoing series of yearlong college wide examinations of important social issues, specifically HIV&AIDS, that focus and challenge the thinking of all members of the college community. Visit www.colum.edu/criticalencounters for more information.
WHEN: November 16, 2006 - January 5, 2007
Opening Reception with artist: November 16, 5 - 7 pm
World
AIDS Day
Reception: Friday, December 1, 4:30 - 6pm
WHERE: Columbia College Chicago's
Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S. Wabash Avenue
COST: Free and open to the public
INFO: Media Inquiries/image requests/interviews:
Elizabeth Burke-Dain 312.344.8695
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 12, 2006
Note: Go to www.colum.edu/kamoinge to view all the images in the auction
Chicago, IL - In an exclusive evening reception and art auction of historic and current works, Working Together: Kamoinge, many of the living members of the Kamoinge Workshop are donating their photographs to Columbia College Chicago to establish the Kamoinge-Ferman Scholarship. The Kamoinge-Ferman Scholarship provides ongoing funds for International Educational Study to students who have excelled in African-American Studies and/or made contributions to the African-American Community.
The Kamoinge Workshop is a fascinating piece of African-America history. Kamoinge ("a group of people acting together") was formed in New York in 1963 (the same year that the civil rights bill was introduced into the U.S. Senate) to address the under-representation of black photographers in the art world. The group was founded by Louis Draper, Ray Francis, Herbert Randell and Albert Fennar with Roy DeCarava serving as its first director. Kamoinge's body of work spans the past thirty years and includes numerous images of daily life in black America during the last half of the twentieth century. Roy DeCarava is the illustrator of Langston Hughes' book, The Sweet Flypaper of Life. DeCarava's retrospective was in 2006 at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The evening includes a live and silent auction of photographs by such artists as Anthony Barbosa, Adger Cowans, Toni Parks, and Ming Smith, conversations with the artists, and delicious refreshments.
Kamoinge photographers who will be present at the event are Anthony Barbosa, Adger Cowans and Herb Robinson
WHEN: Evening Reception and Art Auction
Friday, November 10th
TIME: 6:00 to 9:00pm
PHOTOS
ON VIEW: November 6 -10th
WHERE: Gallery Guichard
3521 South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
Located in the heart of historic Bronzeville
COST: $60 each. To purchase call, 312.344.7297
Tickets may be purchased at the door the day of the event.
INFO: Iris Dawn Parker, 312.344.7297
MEDIA
CONTACT: Elizabeth Burke-Dain at 312.344.8695
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 18, 2006
WHAT: What happens to a visual experience when it is seen in more than one place at a time? In an exhibition that crosses and evolves over a three-state area, the curators of Working Frameworks have collaborated to create a cross disciplinary/cross-institutional/tri-state art network. When an object of art moves from one locale to another, it demonstrates the allegorical and material alignments and displacements that unwittingly occur when it is witnessed in one place and then another.
"Working Frameworks is an event accumulating force as it moves through and about time," says Saul Appelbaum, one of the curators of Working Frameworks and a video artist. The website for Working Frameworks is also one of the art works in the exhibition:http://www.workingframeworks.com. This enigmatic website appears to be the navigational scope of a submarine, but with a few clever clicking maneuvers will take you to images of the show and to interactive web-based art. The site also tracks the activities of the exhibitions other locales.
Each of the forty participating artists' work will be in a traveling display that began at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in September and the Knowlton School of Architecture and Skylab Gallery in Columbus, Ohio in October. The show will complete its run at Columbia College Chicago's C33 Gallery and Conoway Center from November 17, 2006 - January 5, 2007.
Chicago participants include members of performance and video art collective, ie, and Masters Degree candidates and alumni from Columbia College Chicago's MA and MFA programs in Interdisciplinary Arts: Heather Hartley, Casey Murtaugh, Elizabeth Czekner, Matthew Kopp, Mel Racho, Diane Derr, and exhibit coordinator, Todd Kephart.
Working Frameworks utilizes performance, installation, flat art, photography, multi-channel video, new media and space/time travel as source material for this genre-defying exhibition.
WHEN: November 17, 2006 - January 5, 2007
Opening Reception and Performance
The Conoway Center, 5:00 - 7:00pm
WHERE: Columbia College Chicago's C33 Gallery, 33 E. Congress, 1st floor
and The Conoway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Avenue
COST: Free and Open to the Public.
MEDIA CONTACT
& MORE INFO: Elizabeth Burke-Dain 312.344.8695
Chicago, September 2006-- One of America's most recognizable television personalities, Joan Lunden will be in town on Thursday, October 19 at 7:30 p.m. at The Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan Ave., to kick off the third season of Columbia's program series, "Conversations in the Arts: Up Close With..."
Lunden will be interviewed by ABC 7 Chicago Emmy award winning news anchor and reporter Cheryl Burton.
General admission tickets are $50 each and may be purchased by calling Ticket Web, 866.468.3401 or at www.ticketweb.com. At the conclusion of the conversation, members of the college's President's Club will join Ms. Lunden at a private reception. To learn how to join the President's Club, call 312.344.8652.
"Conversations in the Arts is an in-depth dialogue with some of today's most respected members of American arts and letters," says Columbia president Warrick L. Carter. "Columbia is a major contributor to Chicago's vibrant arts scene and it's natural that we would offer the kind of programming that brings the audience face to face with the men and women who have helped to shape our perceptions of the world through their contributions to arts and culture. We're thrilled to be able to offer these evenings to the city's cultural community."
Upcoming Conversations in the Arts:
• Salman Rushdie, Wednesday, March 14, 2007
• Jane Alexander, Thursday, April 26, 2007
Each featured artist will be joined by the evening's host in a small theater setting for an intimate conversation about the arts. To learn more about other public programs and events at Columbia, visit our on-line Calendar of Events at www.colum.edu/calendar.
Joan Lunden is an Emmy award winning broadcast journalist, author and national speaker as well as a wife, mom and homemaker. She was the longest-running co-host on early morning television as co-host of "Good Morning America" from 1980 to 1997. During her tenure, she reported from 26 countries, covered four presidents, five Olympics and two royal weddings.
She executive produced and hosted "Behind Closed Doors with Joan Lunden" from 1996-2001 for ABC and later A&E. Lunden has been given access to places few have ever seen, including the CIA Headquarters and the Secret Service Training Grounds. She has experienced flying at 65,000 feet in a U2 Reconnaissance aircraft, night attack jump training with the 82nd Airborne, the private warehouses of the Smithsonian Institute and the elite world of thoroughbred horse racing.
Chicago native, Cheryl Burton is co-anchor of the ABC 7 News at 5 p.m., and contributing anchor of ABC 7's 10 p.m. newscast. She joined ABC 7 as a weekend co-anchor and reporter in November 1992.
Prior to joining ABC 7 Burton was a weeknight anchor for the 6 p.m. news at KWCH-TV in Wichita, Kansas. In 1990 she served as a general assignment reporter for WMBD-TV in Peoria, Illinois.
She began her broadcasting career in 1989 at WGN-TV Chicago as co-anchor of the nationally syndicated weekly series "MBR: The Minority Business Report."
Burton is one of the most well-known and popular news personalities in the city. She is very active in the Chicago community and volunteers much of her time to non-profit groups and charities including the Boys and Girls Club of America and as a motivational speaker for the Chicago Public Schools. She serves on the boards of the Life with Lupus Guild, the Multicultural Dance Center and City Year. She also participates in Rush-Presbyterian/St. Luke's annual fashion show.
She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including several Emmy awards. In 2005 she received the first "Sisters in the Spirit" award, given by Chicago area gospel singers to individuals who exemplify a faith-based life. The Chicago Association of Black Journalists presented her with the Russ Ewing Award in 2004 for her story of a mother to daughter kidney donation. In 2003 she was awarded the Russ Ewing Award for her coverage of the E2 nightclub tragedy.
Burton received her B.S. in psychology and biology from the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. She resides in Chicago.
Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution committed to access, opportunity, and excellence in higher education, provides innovative practice and education in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to 11,500 students in more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs. Founded in 1890 as a communications school for women, Columbia was revisioned in 1963 as a liberal arts college with a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to arts and media education and a progressive social agenda. Under the modern leadership of President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D., Columbia is aggressively pursuing its mission to bring a richness of vision and a multiplicity of voices to the creation of culture through the diversity of our students and graduates. For further information visit www.colum.edu.
Chicago, September 2006 - The human political landscape is global, internal, and, in the case of filmmaker, Yu-Ting Hsueh, intergalactic. The 30 Albert P. Weisman Scholar recipients at Columbia College Chicago examine themes of imagination, racism, elicit love affairs in spaceships and family history, just to name a few. Work in nearly a dozen disciplines will be shown, including photography, painting, book and paper arts, comics, poetry, sculpture, and film.
The 2006 Albert P. Weisman Scholars Exhibition runs from Monday, October 9 to Friday, November 17, 2006 at the Hokin Gallery and Annex located on the first floor, 623 S. Wabash. The Opening Reception will be on Thursday, October 26, 2006 from 5-7pm. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. Monday - Thursday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday by appointment. Admission is free. For information call 312.344.7663.
Some of the highlights:
Film: Andrew Francisco
Project Title: The Guru and the Bodybuilder
The Guru and the Bodybuilder is a cross-cultural documentary film projects about wrestling in North India. The filmmaker, by learning Hindi and training as a wrestler, explores the recent history and modern practice of this physical art. The worldview and cultural perspectives of those who participate in traditional Indian wresting juxtaposed with those who choose to attend newer bodybuilding gymnasiums, this film explores broader concepts of modernity and tradition.
Photography: Howard Henry Chen
Title: Multiple Entry Visas
Multiple Entry Visas is a photographic landscape project that shows a recent, newfound fascination with Vietnam as a destination not just for Western tourists, but also for intra-tourists who are simultaneously discovering Vietnam alongside backpackers and returning veterans. What is this need for reconciliation or exotica that is fueling a tourism boom in a country that not long ago was a televised battlefield? This work began through Chen's own travels in Vietnam with his Vietnamese cousins. They traveled to tourist sites that catered to both local Vietnamese (amusement parks that cater to wealthy Vietnamese, inspired by native Asian mythology) and largely Western tourist groups (propagandized and contrived war memorials at famous battlegrounds.)
Book and Paper Arts: Mardy Sears
Project Title: My Curiosity Overwhelmed My Trepidation
Utilizing the language of the 19th century circus poster, Sears creates a series of broadsides on the subject of animal experiments in science. With their bold images and garish colors, Sears uses the circus poster genre as a means to attract and create curiosity. This group of posters creates her own menagerie in print, "Maggie's Magnificent Scientific Menagerie." Each poster will highlight an individual animal and a particular science experiment connected with this animal.
2006 Albert P. Weisman Scholars are students at Columbia College Chicago who are awarded grants to complete communications projects from the Albert P. Weisman Memorial Fund.
Media Contact: Elizabeth Burke-Dain 312.344.8695
For Immediate Release
September 26, 2006
NOTE: Sheldon Patinkin and Rob Chambers are available for interview
Starting this spring, college students who are serious about learning the craft of comedy will have the opportunity to participate in a semester-long immersion in comedic performance, history, writing and improvisation. "Comedy Studies," developed and presented by the Theater Department of Columbia College Chicago and The Second City, partners an internationally recognized comedy theater with a major academic institution for a college-credit program that is open to students from any college or university. Unlike any other course of study in content, scope or resources, Comedy Studies provides a unique opportunity to study full-time at the Second City, the nation's center of comedy and satire, for an entire semester.
Some of the famous comedic talents who have developed their skills at The Second City are: Dan Aykroyd, John and Jim Belushi, John Candy, Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, Bonnie Hunt, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Tim Meadows, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis and Martin Short.
Now aspiring comedy performers and writers can have that unique The Second City experience while earning 16 hours of college credit through Columbia College Chicago.
All courses are taught by professional faculty selected by a team from The Second City and Columbia College. Courses are at The Second City Training Center in Chicago. Students will also attend shows in that city's vibrant theater, comedy and improvisation venues, network with theater artists and present their work in a final showcase.
"Comedy Studies students will enjoy an intense level of learning and growth," says Sheldon Patinkin, chair of Columbia's Theater Department and one of the original founders of The Second City. "They'll be in the thick of the professional environment yet will continue to make their parents happy by staying in school!"
"It's like a semester abroad right in the heart of Chicago," notes Rob Chambers, president of The Second City Training Centers and Educational Programs. "This program is remarkable in that it offers students - not only from Chicago but from across the country and even abroad - the chance to immerse themselves in this unique combination of Second City, higher education and Chicago's rich cultural community."
All students in Comedy Studies take the same full load of 16 credit hours during the 15-week semester. Students with a minimum of junior-level status and a demonstrated interest in performance, comedy writing and improvisation are invited to apply. Application deadline for Spring, 2007 is October 16, 2006.
Information at 312-344-6100 www.comedystudies.com; info@comedystudies.com.
Media Contacts: Columbia College: Micki Leventhal 312-344-7383 or Priscilla Hunter 312-344-7805 The Second City: Rob Chambers 312-664-4032