Miscellanea

Miscellanea

• Tony Adah, Film Studies, recently attended the 2009 Cinefest in Syracuse, N.Y. Adah and two film students spent three days at this annual conference, where film professionals, academics and enthusiasts gather to screen classic and rarely seen films, present scholarly research and attend workshops. Cinefest is one of the more important conferences concerning Silent Era film archiving, restoration/preservation work and academic research. Adah and the attending students intend to write and publish a paper concerning certain aspects of the conference. Film Studies faculty and students have been attending the Cinefest conference annually since the early 1970s.
• The MSUM Office of International Programs and the department of Languages and Cultures organized a spring break trip to Paris from March 13 to March 21. Nineteen students and two faculty members participated in the tour, plus their guide, Professor Emeritus of French Jim Kaplan. The group stayed in a charming 17th-century hotel in the heart of the Latin Quarter. Each day they enjoyed excursions to Paris’ cultural attractions, the Louvre, The Arc de Triomphe, the Musee d’Orsay, Versailles, Notre Dame, etc. The students also had a lot of fun shopping, visiting the Moulin Rouge, Montmartre, The Catacombs and the Pere Lachaise Cemetary to see Jim Morrison’s grave. The week in Paris wound up with a banquet in one of Paris’ renowned restaurants. Two credits were available in the course French 290, “Discovering Paris,” and the students did original projects that featured their personal or career interests. This is the fourth year in a row that this program has been offered.
• Pam Werre, Public Services Librarian, has been named the editor of the new Children’s Literature section of the online version of the Guide to Reference, a publication of the American Library Association. The Guide to Reference, formerly Guide to Reference Books, has a long history in print as a core publication of librarianship in the United States. This new Guide is the first to be published electronically and the first to engage the Web as a medium for reference publishing and services.
• Kaylyn Gerenz, an advanced sculpture student in the Department of Art & Design, has just received a $2500 scholarship to study art at the Penland School of Crafts. Located in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the Penland School is a world-renown art school where people from all walks of life immerse themselves in the creation of art through materials, processes, and techniques. She will spend three weeks studying under textile artist Pam Blotner of San Francisco.