Expression Spring 2003 by Debra Falzoi

Expression SPRING 2003

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF EMERSON COLLEGE

When Words Fail How speech-language experts fight the effects of aging on communication

Screenwriting The Joys and the Perils

A Truly Majestic Affair Photos by Frank Monkiewicz

The 22nd Annual EVVY Awards The always-exciting student EVVY Awards ceremony was extra glamorous this year as it was the first event to be presented in the newly restored Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College. The venue had been closed for more than a year for restoration. Some 42 EVVY Awards were presented in May to students for outstanding work in writing, television, film, new media, audio, journalism, dance and other areas. An Alumni Award of Distinction was presented to Douglas Herzog â&#x20AC;&#x2122;81, president of USA Network. Celebrity award presenters

included WBZ-TV News anchors Lisa Hughes and Kim Carrigan; Al Jaffe â&#x20AC;&#x2122;68, vice president for production recruitment and talent negotiations for ESPN; and award-winning documentary filmmaker David Sutherland. The student executive producers were Michael Urann, Luiza Ricupero and Leah Farrell. The students hosts were Ben Colonomos, Evie Kline, Seth Dolan, Sarah Donovan and Vanessa Ranko.

Expression SPRING 2003

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF EMERSON COLLEGE

Memory Lane

Radio Days at Emerson

Campus Digest

Commencement 2003, Majestic Theatre named for Cutlers, new Board of Trustees members announced, Brimmer and Beacon Street buildings sold, and more

From the Writers Who Brought You…

Professional screenwriters ride a roller coaster

The Art and Soul of a High School

How Emerson helps shape Boston’s only public high school for the arts

When Words Fail

How speech-language experts fight the effects of aging on communication

Notable Expressions

A compendium of accomplishments in various fields

Alumni Digest

Alums who work in sports; photo coverage of alumni events from around the country

Class Notes

Read the news about your classmates

Profiles

Meet an alum who edits The Old Farmer’s Almanac, and a costume designer with an eye for detail

My Turn

Faculty member Uppinder Mehan explores life as an ‘alien’

Expression Executive Editor David Rosen Editor Rhea Becker Writer Christopher Hennessy Design Consultant Charles Dunham Editorial Assistant Tara Pierson

Expression is published three times a year (fall, winter and spring) for alumni and friends of Emerson College by the Office of Public Affairs (David Rosen, Associate Vice President) in conjunction with the Department of Institutional Advancement (Jeanne Brodeur ’72, Vice President) and the Office of Alumni Relations (Barbara Rutberg ’68, Director).

Office Of Public Affairs public_affairs@emerson.edu (617) 824-8540 fax (617) 824-8916 Office Of Alumni Relations alumni@emerson.edu (800) 255-4259 (617) 824-8535 fax (617) 824-7807

Memory Lane

In This Issue

Radio Days 1 9 2 2

1 9 3 2

“President Southwick’s Commencement Address to the Alumni will be heard by Emerson graduates and former students all over the country this year through the medium of the radiophone. By special arrangement with the American Radio Corporation, Prexy’s address will be broadcasted from the big radio sending station at Medford Hillside. All [Emersonians] have to do is seek the nearest radio station at 7:45 o’clock on the evening of Sunday, May 14, or ‘listen in’ on their own radiophones.” Emerson College News, May

“A special course in Radio Address was opened at the College at the beginning of the second semester. The instructor is Arthur F. Edes, program director of Station WEEI, Boston…. Later in the course Mr. Edes plans to arrange an Emerson program and put it on the air from the stage of the assembly hall before the entire student body.” Emerson College News, March

1 9 4 0 A list of “Radio Jargon” used behindthe-scenes by radio announcers and engineers was published in the June issue of Emerson Quarterly. Among the colorful terms are arsenic: a boring program; corn field: a studio with many microphones; old cow hand: an experienced staff member who escorts important guests about the studio; wood pile: a xylophone; spiel: the commercial copy; clam bake: poor program results because of poor preparation; and out in the alley: to be out of range of the microphone. Emerson Quarterly, June

1 9 5 2

Emerson students rehearse a radio play in a broadcasting studio at Station WEEI, circa 1932.

Charles Dudley, professor of radio speech and chairman of the Broadcasting Division, wrote that although WERS was broadcasting a regular schedule of seven hours daily, five days a week, “we feel that we must not stand still, particularly in view of the fact that we are competing with two other non-commercial FM stations.” With these words, he launched a drive to raise $5,000 to secure a more powerful transmitter for WERS. Emerson College Bulletin, October

With this issue, we introduce Expression’s new look, created by Boston-based graphic designer Charles Dunham. The magazine is still chockful of information and ideas about the college you love, but it boasts a fresh appearance. We hope you enjoy it. Now, to the contents of the issue: Imagine suddenly losing your ability to speak or comprehend speech. For thousands of elderly Americans – the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population – such a scenario is very real. Our cover story, written by staff writer Christopher Hennessy, grapples with this important issue by examining the key role speechlanguage pathologists play in helping older Americans face communication loss. Emerson faculty in Communication Sciences and Disorders and alumni working in the field shed light on various communication disorders and the people who battle them. Next, we take an inside look at the challenges and joys of professional screenwriting, with a glimpse at the work lives of several prominent alumni screenwriters (they’ve written, for example, The Wild Thornberrys Movie, Sleepless in Seattle and Girl, Interrupted). Have you ever seen the movie or reality TV show Fame, about young performers pursuing their artistic ambitions? Well, Boston is home to a similar breeding ground for talent. We take an up-close look at the Boston Arts Academy and the role Emerson has played in making this high school what it is today. And don’t overlook an illuminating Alumni Digest piece on a number of Emersonians who work in sports-related positions. – Rhea Becker, editor

Expression welcomes short letters to the editor on topics covered in the magazine. The editor will select a representative sample of letters to publish and reserves the right to edit copy for style and length. Send letters to: Editor, Expression, Office of Public Affairs, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston MA 02116-4624; public_affairs@emerson.edu.

2 Expression Spring 2003

Campus Digest 2003 Commencement exercises held in May Some 1,100 undergraduate and graduate degrees were awarded at Emerson College’s 123rd annual Commencement, held May 19 at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston. U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) spoke at the undergraduate ceremony. Biden, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former chair

U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden spoke at the College’s 2003 undergraduate Commencement ceremonies.

of the Judiciary Committee, received an honorary degree along with communication industry executive Leo Hindery. The graduate Commencement speaker was Christopher Cerf, an author, composer, humorist and a driving force in children’s and educational television. He received an honorary degree along with arts patron Lois Foster ’49 and noted poet Thomas Lux ’70.

Majestic Theatre named in honor of Benard-Cutlers The landmark Majestic Theatre at 219 Tremont St., Boston, has been named the Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College in recognition of a leadership gift toward the restoration of the century-old perform-

Look for a special issue of Expression in September on the restoration and reopening of the Cutler Majestic Theatre. ing arts venue from Joan and Ted Benard-Cutler ’51. Mr. Cutler, chairman of the College’s Board of Trustees, is an internationally known travel industry executive who is active in numerous cultural, educational, medical and civic organiza-

tions in the Boston area and nationally. He founded the former GWV International Travel Company and is now a partner in The Interface Group Inc. and president of its GWV division in Needham, Mass. “Together with his wife, Joan, Ted has played a defining role in enabling Emerson to build its new ‘Campus on the Common,’” President Liebergott said. “In 1997, he led a successful campaign to fund state-of-the-art new facilities for WERS-FM, our award-winning, student-run radio station.” In 1999, the Cutlers made a lead gift toward the restoration of the Majestic Theatre. Built as an opera house in 1903 in the “Beaux Arts” style,” the Majestic Theatre was described by the Boston Globe as “the most beautiful playhouse Boston has

seen” when it opened on Feb. 16, 1903. It was the first theater in Boston engineered without pillars and similar obstructions to visibility and sound, and the first to be designed for electric light. Its architectural importance earned the Majestic a place in both the Massachusetts and National Registers of Historic Places and status as a Boston Historic Landmark. In the summer of 2001, Emerson launched an ambitious project to fully restore the theater and upgrade its facilities. The theater has been closed

since April of 2002 to enable reconstruction work to proceed inside the building. It is scheduled to reopen later this year.

Ted (’51) and Joan BenardCutler celebrate the renaming of the Emerson Majestic Theatre to the Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College.

3 Expression Spring 2003

Four new trustees elected to College Board The Emerson College Board of Trustees has elected four new members, two with broad experience and stature in entertainment and two with equally strong backgrounds in the communication industry. They are Kevin Bright ’76, Steven Goldman, David J. Grain and Richard R. Janssen. One is an alumnus of the College and two are parents of Emerson students.

Kevin Bright ’76, who received an Emerson Alumni Achievement Award in 2000, is an executive producer of the top-rated NBC television series Friends, winner of the 2002 Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Created by Bright’s partners, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, Friends debuted in the fall of 1994. Since then, it has received 44 Emmy Award nominations. Bright earned a degree in television from Emerson in 1976. He studied under Professor Dan Lounsbery.

Steven Goldman served until recently as executive vice president and chief administrative officer of the Paramount Television Group, a division of Paramount Pictures Corp. He was responsible for the Television Group’s business and legal affairs, finance, media relations and research departments and was also involved with government affairs. A native of St. Louis, he received a Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement at the

Vault renamed for Bordy

Buildings at 69 Brimmer St., 126-130 Beacon St. sold

ON THE MOVE. The building at 69 Brimmer St. (above) and the 126-130 Beacon St. complex have been sold.

4 Expression Spring 2003

Emerson’s two remaining academic buildings in the Back Bay, 69 Brimmer Street and 126-130 Beacon St., were sold in May. The occupants of the buildings are being relocated to new or newly renovated facilities on the main campus in Boston’s Theatre District. Brimmer Street, the longtime home of the Performing Arts Department, was sold to a nonprofit organization called Park Street Kids for use as a private elementary school. President Jacqueline Liebergott noted that the building has housed a private school since it was built in 1913 and added, “We are pleased that the property will continue to be used for educational purposes.” Vice President for Administration and Finance Robert Silverman said fa-

St. Louis/Mid-America 2000 Emmy Awards. Goldman is a graduate of the University of Illinois. His daughter, Jessica Goldman, earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at Emerson in 1999, and his son, Evan, is a film major in the Class of 2006. David J. Grain is president and member of the Board of Directors of Pinnacle Holdings Inc., a provider of Internet, broadband and wireless communications site facilities. He is the senior executive responsible for all company operations. He joined the company in January 2003,

cilities for the Performing Arts Department will be relocated to other College buildings, including the new Norman I. and Mary E. Tufte Performance and Production Center, which opens in September. The Beacon Street property housed the Department of Journalism and a variety of broadcast and print journalism facilities. The buildings were sold to a condominium developer. The faculty and staff who worked at Beacon Street are being relocated to renovated and technologically upgraded facilities at 120 Boylston St., as is the College’s Office of Admission.

The large room on the ground floor of 216 Tremont St. that was formerly known as “The Vault” has been renamed the Bill Bordy Theater and Auditorium. The naming is in recognition of a major recent gift to the College from Bordy, a Hollywood director and producer and a member of the Class of 1958. Bordy was publisher of Drama-Logue, a weekly trade newspaper covering the Los Angeles theater scene. In addition to his most recent gift, Bordy has established a scholarship fund at Emerson and provided financial support for the renovation of the Majestic Theatre. Bordy received an Alumni Achievement Award from the College in 1985.

Kevin Bright ’76

Steven Goldman

David J. Grain

Richard R. Janssen

after serving as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with General Catalyst Partners, a venture capital firm located in Cambridge. Grain earned a bachelor of arts degree in English from the College of the Holy Cross and a master

of business administration from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. Richard R. Janssen is chief executive officer of Strategic Data Corp, which develops marketing optimization technology designed to improve the effectiveness of Internet advertising for

Web publishers, ad networks and advertisers. He previously co-founded and took public two high technology companies: Homestore.com, of which he served as president and chief operating

officer, and Delphi Information Systems Inc., an insurance software company. He was president of Janssen & Associates, a private investment and strategic planning company. His son, Christopher, is a new media major in the Class of 2003 at Emerson.

College newspaper wins CASE gold prize

Federal grant to fund technology and equipment The College has been awarded a federal grant to support academic programs that will take place in the new Tufte Performance and Production Center. The $800,000 grant for equipment and technology is contained in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill signed into law Feb. 20, 2003. Emerson received a similar grant totaling $1 million in January of last year. Both grants are administered by the U.S. Department of Education. “Thanks to these awards, the studios in the new Tufte Center will have

the latest in digital recording and editing equipment for our students working in television and film,” said Emerson President Liebergott. “We are deeply grateful for the support we have received from our congressional delegation, most especially from Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative Michael Capuano of the 8th District.” Liebergott also thanked the many alumni, board members and friends of the College who contributed their time and expertise to secure the grant, including Trustees Ted Benard-Cutler ’51, Peter Meade ’70 and Larry Rasky ’78.

The College’s official on-campus monthly publication, Emerson College Today (ECT), won a Gold Prize at the CASE District 1 Publication Awards Competition, held in New York City this past winter. ECT won in the category of Newsletters (2 colors or fewer). ECT shared the gold prize with Harvard Graduate School of

Education and M.I.T., and beat Smith and Harvard University, which took Silver Prizes. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) holds the annual competition. ECT is edited by Rhea Becker and designed by Liz Rosen and is published by the College’s Office of Public Affairs, which is directed by Associate Vice President David Rosen.

WINNING WAYS. Editor Rhea Becker (left) and staff writer Christopher Hennessy of Emerson College Today celebrate winning a gold prize. Becker also edits Expression magazine; Hennessy is staff writer.

5 Expression Spring 2003

Outstanding teachers win Miller awards Each year, two instructors, one full-time and one part-time, are given the Helaine (â&#x20AC;&#x2122;55) and Stanley Miller Awards for Outstanding Teaching. Robert Todd, assistant professor of visual and media arts who teaches film production classes and is an experimental filmmaker, won the full-time faculty award. Aleksander Wierzbicki, faculty member in the De-

partment of Organizational and Political Communication who teaches oral interpretation and fundamentals of speech communication, won the outstanding parttime instructor award. The Helaine and Stanley Miller Award for Outstanding Teaching honors Emerson faculty members who demonstrate remarkable dedication and creativity while encouraging his or her students to master their discipline(s) of study.

Robert Todd

Aleksander Wierzbicki

Prominent visitors come to campus

Singer Tori Amos The campus hosted many prominent visitors this past academic year who came to offer master classes or talks. The roster of visitors included: actress Fiona Shaw, actor Brian Dennehy, singer Tori Amos, newscaster Sander Vanocur, poet Stephen Dunn, set and lighting designer David Hays, historian Howard Zinn, Boston Globe editor Marty Baron, speech-language expert Judy Reilly, actress Christine Baranski, film director Frank Oz and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

6 Expression Spring 2003

Historian Howard Zinn

Poet Stephen Dunn

From the Writers Who Brought You…

ssional sc fe o r re P

e n

s ter ri

e r i d

By Rhea Becker

l l e r

s t a o c

hen Coleman Hough ’82 learned that she’d sold her first screenplay, she literally fell on the floor. “I couldn’t believe it,” she recalls. Her script became 2002’s Full Frontal, a film from powerhouse director Steven Soderbergh, starring Academy Award winner Julia Roberts. Following on the heels of her breakthrough, doors all over Hollywood were flung open to her: “That year was a wild ride. Everyone is curious about you. Suddenly I was talking to some really cool people.” Nothing beats the joy of breaking in, selling the first screenplay. But if truth be told, even professional screenwriters

with an impressive film credit or two find the road is not always smooth. Screenwriters – as several successful Emerson alumni attest to here – live a roller-coaster life. Along with the joys of seeing one’s words spoken on the silver screen, comes heartbreak: a grueling process known as ‘development,’ in which writers may witness their words rewritten or simply eliminated. And that’s just one of the challenges. “To be a screenwriter you have to cultivate a skin like a rhinoceros but keep a child’s heart,” says Anna Hamilton Phelan ’65, whose credits include Mask, Gorillas in the Mist and Girl, Interrupted.

7 Expression Spring 2003

Getting a Start Screenwriters’ careers can be launched in a variety of ways. Some start out in television and migrate to feature films; others write ‘spec’ scripts, that is, scripts written on speculation with no buyer in mind; and others mix talent with a bit of luck. A few years after graduating from Emerson College, Kate Boutilier ’81 snagged a position as a writer’s assistant on the popular television

During a torrential rainstorm, she met a neighbor while sandbagging the front of their houses. He happened to be an entertainment lawyer who eventually got her script to the right desk. ‘I was very lucky’ — A.H. Phelan series Falcon Crest. She worked there for two seasons before she got up the courage to show her writing samples to the executives. They liked her work and eventually she was writing for television series all over town, including Growing Pains, Northern Exposure, Baywatch, Lois and Clark, Rugrats and

8 Expression Spring 2003

The Wild Thornberrys. Her transition to movies was eased by the fact that she was already deeply familiar with the Rugrats and Thornberry characters; thus, she was tapped to pen screenplays for Rugrats in Paris (2000) and The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002). Coleman Hough had been a poet, playwright and actress for many years before turning to screenwriting. One of her earliest efforts turned out to be a smart, edgy script about several denizens of the L.A. film world. A friend named Steven Soderbergh stepped in. “If he believes in you, he’ll do anything for you.” Soderbergh, director of hits like Sex, Lies and Videotape, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, helped usher Hough’s Full Frontal script through the Hollywood maze. “He became a champion of my work,” she says. Anna Hamilton Phelan believes the hardest part is “getting your foot in the door, getting your first project.” Majoring in theater arts at Emerson, Phelan had been an actress for several years after graduating. She took a hiatus to get married and have children

and then took a job in public relations for a hospital in Los Angeles. It was in this setting that she stumbled upon the story for Mask, which tells the tale of Rocky Dennis, a boy with a serious facial/skull deformity and his bikergang mother who attempt to lead normal lives. “I met Rocky and his mother in the hospital corridor. I was so taken with them and with his dignity and sense of humor. I wondered if there was a great story there.” Phelan had written some one-act plays but never a screenplay. She put together a spec script but had no agent and knew few people in the film industry. Then serendipity stepped in. During a torrential rainstorm, she met a neighbor while sandbagging the front of their houses. He happened to be an entertainment lawyer who eventually “got my script to the right desk. I was very lucky.” For screenwriters, writing spec scripts is always a gamble. But somewhere around his fifth script, Jeff Arch ’76 beat the odds. His screenplay was purchased and became the basis for the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle, starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

‘Development Hell’ Even after breaking in, screenwriters often struggle through the development phase, the often-lengthy, frequently treacherous road a script travels between the original writing and the eventual (if all goes right) production of the film. Phelan calls development “an occupational hazard.” A writer’s expertise can get mired in the development mix. “You’re in a room with all the people involved, and there are a lot of [executives, writers, and so on] with so many different viewpoints, you take notes, and then you go off and you’re supposed to fix the script,” says Boutilier. While developing The Wild Thornberrys Movie, someone on the team suggested placing the rhinoceros character in a particular scene, but Boutilier balked: “I’d done all the research. It was set in Africa and I said, but there are no rhinos in that area. They would say, but it’s a cartoon. I would say, but I’m telling you, you can’t have the rhino in that region of Africa. And they’re rolling their eyes.” Boutilier admits to occasional frustration because “there is a point sometimes where you say ‘it was really better five drafts ago.’ ” Arch recalls the labyrinthine road that Sleepless took to the silver screen: “I wrote it as a spec, sold it as a spec, rewrote it for the studio, rewrote it again for the first director they hired, then they hired another director and got Nora Ephron to rewrite it and she became the director.” After Ephron was brought on board to work on Sleepless, Arch ultimately received a “story by” credit and shared screenwriting credits with Ephron and David Ward. Five different writers worked on the script for Rugrats in Paris – the original team of writers and then three other writers, including Boutilier. She feels that “there’s more discarding of writers these days. A writer will do a

draft of a movie and another writer is brought in to rewrite it. There is almost always more than one credit on a movie.” And sometimes no credit at all. Brent Hanley ’98, whose first produced screenplay resulted in the 2001 film Frailty (starring Bill Paxton and Matthew McConaughey), was tapped to work on the script for the recent movie Holes, starring Sigourney Weaver and

‘I wrote it as a spec, sold it as a spec, rewrote it for the studio, rewrote it again for the first director they hired, then they hired another director and got Nora Ephron to....’ — J. Arch

Full Frontal photos by Bob Marshak

Jon Voight. Louis Sachar, who wrote the book on which the film is based, was hired to write the original screenplay; Hanley was brought in to rewrite it. The Writers Guild of America (WGA), the union for professional screenwriters, ruled that Hanley would receive no on-screen credit for his work. “Unfortunately, I think it’s impossible to be a screenwriter in Hollywood without an uncredited work,” says Hanley, who is philosophical about the outcome. “It’s fair. The WGA says you have to prove that 33 percent of it is your original work, and it wasn’t. They have a process and they have rules they have to adhere to. The WGA has a longstanding tradition of honoring the first writer, which is a good tradition.”

Jeff Arch ’76 wrote a spec script that became the basis for the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle (far left) starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. One of the first scripts Coleman Hough ’82 wrote became the 2002 film Full Frontal (above and below) starring Blair Underwood and Julia Roberts.

Drawerful of Miracles

Oh, the People You’ll Meet

Although the film industry can be unforgiving, one of the most satisfying aspects of the profession – all the screenwriters agree – is the people one is surrounded by. Phelan remains in touch with Rocky Dennis’ mother (Mask): “She’s still riding a Harley and wearing leather.” Boutilier stays in contact with “the people who gave me my first break” ‘The credits were still on the some 20 years ago. Arch relishes “the screen. I looked up and there relationships I’ve gained. There are was my name. It was huge. really good people out there. You can Because there were writers in talk shop, you care about each other’s families.” It is simply the way Hollythe audience, they burst into wood works: “You meet people and it’s applause.’ — K. Boutilier all [about] relationships,” says Hough. And sometimes one of the greatest rewards is the boundless support of writing that you wouldn’t have explored fellow screenwriters. Before Thornberotherwise. You discover things about rys was released, Boutilier attended a yourself during that process, and that’s preview of the film for Writers Guild what it’s about.” Jeff Arch has his own drawerful of members. She had not yet seen the completed movie and was so nervous scripts, numbering about 20. “Three of that she hovered outside the auditothem got made,” he says, “and I work in a business where that’s a great ratio.” rium during the showing. “I poked my head in thinking it was over, but Unlike Phelan, this scenario leaves actually the credits were still on the Arch feeling creatively bereft. So he’s screen. I looked up and there was my changing tacks and becoming a novelname. It was huge. Because there were ist, a genre in which he feels he will be writers in the audience, they burst into able to exercise more control over his applause. I was so glad I didn’t miss creations. He maintains, however, that that moment.” E his screenwriting career has offered “plusses that are incredible. I can’t complain. I got in, and that’s what I wanted. Every time someone says ‘sleepless in Seattle’ or ‘hopeless in Hoboken,’ I know I got to them.” Scripts that never find a home and simply take up space in a drawer are just part of the landscape for many professional screenwriters. Phelan has a stack of eight unproduced scripts. “It’s never a loss,” she says agreeably, “because you’ve explored things during that process of

Kate Boutilier ’81 had spent many years writing for television before making the transition to screenwriting. One of her first efforts was the animated film The Wild Thornberrys Movie (above and right).

10 Expression Spring 2003

The Many Writing Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters

There are as many ways Springsteen for Gorilto write a screenplay as las in the Mist, and the there are screenplays Jayhawks for Girl, Intercirculating through Holrupted. She writes in a lywood. The screenwriters “little room” in her home, who spoke to Expression where the wall is covered open a window on their with Post-its containing work as they discuss habbits of dialogue and other its ranging from burning miscellany. She likes to the midnight oil to writing get an early start: “If I to the rhythms of rock don’t write in the mornmusic. ing, I won’t do it. Once Coleman Hough the business of the day ’82 lives on a “really encroaches on me – doing noisy block” in Brooklyn the laundry, changing the Heights, so she decided to cat litter and going to the rent space at The Writers market – I can blow the Room. Leaving her home whole day.” Phelan shuns each day at 10 or 11, she computers, using felt-tip walks an hour (“on nice pens and writing longhand days”) to the Manhattan instead: “There are more space. There, she unpacks of us than you’d think.” her laptop, launches her Nighttime suits Final Draft screenwriting Brent Hanley ’98, who software, applies a pair begins his ‘day’ at 11 p.m. of earplugs and works and writes until 4 in the until approximately 7 morning or later. “I’ve p.m. “I’m my own boss,” always been a nocturnal she says. In the evening, person,” he says. He uses she savors her down time Movie Magic screenwriting by going out to socialize. software and writes about Although Hough continues five days a week, dependto pen poetry, plays and ing on his deadline. He monologues, which she lives in Texas and works in performs herself, “screenan office in his home. writing is something I After many years, stumbled on” that proKate Boutilier ’81 has vides her with a living. tamed her procrastinaIf Hough believes tion habit. “I remember that silence is golden, my very first assignAnna Hamilton Phelan ’65 ment. I was so nervous to prefers the reverse: she start, to face the blank listens to music when she page, that I would put it writes, and not just any music – Black Sabbath during the writing of Mask,

off.” She works best when facing deadline pressure. Today, she starts out in the morning, working from 10 to 3, with a break for lunch. “I think four and a half hours is about all any good writer I’ve ever known can really do.” If she’s on a roll, she continues to work in the evening, printing out whatever she’s written that day and making hand-penciled revisions on the pages. Boutilier starts a project by making “lots of notes, not dialogue” by hand on legal pads. Then she moves to cards and Post-it notes. Then, turning to her computer, she beginning to write. He incorporates her notes generally foregoes outlininto script format. She ing his work in advance, writes whether the muse but just plunges right in. moves her or not, as fast LaGravenese, who reas she can, producing 10 ceived an Academy Award pages on “a good day.” nomination for Best OrigiShe fears that “if I died nal Screenplay (The Fisher and anyone read my first King), has been known to draft, I’d be found out as write to the accompania fraud.” But her system ment of music. works: “I write something no matter how bad and –R.B. then go back to it. I find that 40 percent is usable.” At the end of the day, she rewards herself with a walk with her dogs. “It’s a nice life,” she says. Richard LaGravenese ’76, whose credits include The Fisher King, The Bridges of Madison County and The Horse Whisperer, clears his mind through meditation before

11 Expression Spring 2003

ART&

The

SOUL

of a High School

How Emerson helps shape Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only public school for the arts

Story by David Rosen Photos by Rick Friedman

estled behind historic Fenway Park sits a much newer institution that seems destined to bring fame of a different sort to Beantown. It is called the Boston Arts Academy (BAA), and it is already a source of pride for officials at Emerson and the five other local colleges who joined forces to bring about the creation of the Academy five years ago. Located at 174 Ipswich St., the Academy is the first and only public high school for the visual and performing arts in Boston and is believed to be the first such school in the country created through a public/nonprofit partnership. It enrolls 400 young women and men (grades 9-12), who come from 15 different Boston neighborhoods. The student body reflects the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s diversity: 47% are African-American; 30% Caucasian; 18% Latino; and 2% Asian American.

12 Expression Spring 2003

Three Emerson alumni (preceding page) teach at the Boston Arts Academy. They are (from left) Lise Simring ’00, Juanita Rodriquez ‘85 and Sam Martinborough ‘93. Above, Linda Nathan, MA ‘90, has been principal of the Academy since it was founded in 1998. At right, Martinborough conducts a vocal ensemble in his music classroom.

The impetus to create the Academy came from the ProArts Consortium, which comprises six leading Boston colleges devoted to the visual and performing arts. These schools – Emerson, Berklee College of Music, Boston Architectural Center, the Boston Conservatory, Massachusetts College of Art, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts – are represented by banners that are draped inside the entranceway to the four-story Academy building. (Since it was built in 1911, the yellow brick structure has housed several schools, government agencies and – appropriately enough, for a school known as the “BAA” – a wool shipping company.) Jacqueline Liebergott, president of Emerson College, was also president of the Consortium back in 1998 when the

BAA was founded, and she is credited with leading the lobbying effort with city officials and the media that led to the creation of the Academy. “Jackie made it happen,” recalls Associate Professor Robert Colby, who directs Emerson’s graduate programs in performing arts and in teacher education and who has been involved with the BAA since its inception. “It wouldn’t have happened without her.” Reflecting on the importance of the BAA, Liebergott says, “Boston is a great artistic as well as educational center, a truly world-class city. So for us, an arts academy is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. When the Consortium took up the issue, the idea of forming a public high school dedicated to the arts had been bandied about for more than 25 years. But no one had been able to put all the pieces together. That’s what we did.”

Emerson is well-represented throughout the Academy. Colby notes that the principal of the school, Linda Nathan, has a doctorate from Harvard College and earned a graduate degree from Emerson, and that several Academy faculty members, including Juanita Rodriguez ’85, Sam Martinborough ’93 and Lise Simring ’00, are alumni of Emerson College. A retired Emerson faculty member, Miles Coiner, also teaches at the BAA. Principal Nathan says involvement from Emerson and the other Consortium schools has been crucial in the development and success of the Academy. “Alumni, faculty members and students from the Consortium schools play a vital role in the life of the Acad-

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emy,” she says. “They helped us design our facilities and develop our curriculum, and they continue to help in many other ways.” Emerson, for example, provides student teachers and helps the Academy conduct its annual applicant auditions. In addition, Academy students attend special events at Emerson, such as a workshop conducted last year by entertainer Whoopi Goldberg.

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As a pilot school within the Boston Public Schools, the Academy serves as a laboratory of academic innovation and arts education. The school’s mission is to provide “a rigorous academic and arts education for students who are eager to think creatively and independently, to question, and to take risks within a college preparatory program.” Students specialize in one of five arts subject areas: visual arts, theater, dance, instrumental music or vocal music. They spend at least 12 hours a week in arts classes, often staying after school or coming in on Saturdays to rehearse for a performance, and their

schedules incorporate a full college preparatory course load, including humanities, mathematics, science and a foreign language. The curriculum places a special emphasis on developing writing skills. Seniors embark on a unique capstone experience: writing a grant proposal to fund an independent community outreach arts project. “The Boston Arts Academy is committed to the performing and visual arts,” says Nathan. “But we’re equally committed to the arts and academics and to teaching them in ways that

High-Energy High

complement and support each other. Our graduates are prepared either to go on to college or to a profession in the arts.” Data from the Class of 2002 (the first full graduating class) show that an impressive 94% of the graduates went on to college, compared to a citywide rate of 63% in Boston. Four graduates came to Emerson and others went to schools such as Berklee College of Music, Bard College, Boston University, Brown University, Ithaca College, the Juilliard School, Regis College, UMass./Dartmouth and the University of Texas. E

It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but as soon as you walk through the doors of the Boston Arts Academy you know there’s something special about the place. This is not your typical urban public high school. There are no metal detectors, no bells to signal class changes and no uniforms, except the smiles that seem to adorn everyone’s faces – students, faculty and staff alike. Even the security guard at the door is humming and singing. Could it be that everyone is happy to be here? So it seems. On a recent visit, the third floor bustles with activity. “Five, six, seven, eight,” shouts dance instructor Sheryl PollardThomas. “Yo, Julia, that’s not a plié,” she continues as she demonstrates how it should be done. “It goes like this, dear. Capiche?” Two doors down, students design theatrical costumes, while at the other end of the hall a music theory instructor explains how a dominant seventh chord resolves to a tonic chord. An announcement comes over the public address speakers. “Sorry to interrupt,” says Principal

Linda Nathan, “but I wanted you all to know that Mr. Gonzalez [that’s science teacher Ramiro Gonzalez] has been named teacher of the year by the Boston School Committee.” The students cheer. It’s 10 a.m. Classes change, and students pour out of classrooms en route to their next assignments. They stream past Principal Nathan, who has just left her office. “Hi, Ms. Nathan,” shouts a girl. “Didja have a nice vacation?” “Yes, very nice, and what about you?” responds Nathan, who stops in the middle of a corridor to have her picture taken for a magazine article. When the students see the camera, they instinctively crowd around their principal. She greets each of them by name. The kids jockey for position. They want to be the center of attention. And they want to be near Nathan. Some 20 yards or so behind the pandemonium, a smaller and more subdued real-life drama unfolds. A young man discusses a family issue with a middle-aged staff member. She drapes an arm around his shoulder and assures him that things will work out. The photo shoot ends. The students continue on to their next classes. Back to business as usual at a very unusual place.

—D.R.

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“I

love you.” Three simple words. But words that take on even greater significance when you’re not able to say them to your loved ones. For millions of elderly Americans, communication loss – due to age-related problems like stroke, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease – can thwart even simple speech like “I love you.” As they grow older, the elderly can face a range of speech and language difficulties, from mild memory loss to total speech and hearing loss, to swallowing disorders that can lead to life-threatening pneumonia, say speechlanguage pathologists. Confronting communication problems among the elderly is taking on greater urgency these days because that segment of the population is growing at an unprecedented rate. Ameri-

How speech-language experts fight the effects of aging on communication

Story by Christopher Hennessy Photos by Rick Friedman

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cans are living longer: Life expectancy has risen from 47 years to 76 years over the past 100 years, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics. And nearly 25 percent of the American population will be over the age of 65 within 30 years, according to the American Geriatric Society. Hand in hand with a growing number of elderly is a rise in the problems that sometimes accompany an aging population. Of the six most deadly conditions in older Americans, stroke is the third most common and Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth. These are both conditions that can shatter an individual’s ability to communicate. Emerson’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders – along with other speech-language pathology programs around the United States – meets this growing population’s needs by addressing communication disorders across the lifespan. “We all take communication for granted,” says Patricia Fitzpatrick, who earned her Ph.D. from Emerson in 1999. “And I think when [communication loss] happens, people are struck by the realization that all of a sudden they need help with something that once was very automatic.” Fitzpatrick has worked with an elderly population since 1979 as a certified speech-language pathologist and section chief at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Boston) and the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center at Boston University. ‘Normal’ Aging Over the natural course of aging, it is normal to experience some communication changes, says Dr. Tracey Milligan, MSSp ’91, a certified speechlanguage pathologist who is now a physician completing her neurology residence at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Normal aging can lead to voice tremors, a change in pitch, and in some cases deterioration of the vocal cords, says Daniel Kempler, chair of Emerson’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. He points out,

however, that with some changes, like memory loss, “often at first you can’t tell if it’s just a normal part of aging or the beginning of something.” Older individuals may begin to forget names of people and ordinary objects and sometimes take longer to retrieve the words they are searching for. This “tip of the tongue” problem, as it is known colloquially, is also a common first sign of Alzheimer’s, he explains.

One of the most prevalent communication problems the elderly face is presbycusis, hearing loss caused by old age. “Hearing loss affects communication, [and chronic] communication breakdown has the potential to affect many areas of life,” says Emerson Assistant Professor and audiologist Bethany Milner. A 2003 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that hearing loss affects up to 40 percent of adults aged 65 and older and is strongly linked to depression and decreased quality of life.

BRAIN POWER. Emerson faculty Daniel Kempler and Cynthia Bartlett have an intimate understanding of how the ‘aging brain’ affects communication. Kempler is professor and chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders; Bartlett is an associate professor.

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Besides affecting everything from enjoying a night at the theater to understanding a bank teller, Milner says that hearing is especially important for older individuals – it’s crucial that they understand directions from physicians and caregivers. Hearing aids and other assistive devices mean the elderly can often substantially improve their “access to sound.” As a medical doctor, Milligan stresses it is essential to determine if a patient is not hearing or, more troubling, not understanding; a breakdown in comprehension and processing of information can point to a potentially dangerous problem in the brain, such as aphasia. She carries with her a “pocket-talker,” a device that amplifies her speech to better communicate with and evaluate patients. Other Challenges Communication loss can also result from a stroke, with 4 million people in the United States living with the aftereffects, according to 2002 figures from the National Stroke Association.

The Boston VA’s Fitzpatrick works on a daily basis with patients who have aphasia, a disorder caused by stroke that impairs the expression and understanding of language as well as reading and writing. “Most patients [with the disorder] tell us they’ve never heard of aphasia, so they really need a lot of instruction,” she says. About 1 million people in the United States currently have aphasia, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders estimates, and a majority of those are elderly. Fitzpatrick describes the initial stages of working with patients with aphasia. “At first, it can be almost like interpreting another language,” she says of the halting, laborious speech that results when aphasia robs its victims of the ability to find and articulate words and phrases (see sidebar on p. 20). Depending on the severity of the stroke and which part of the brain is affected, aphasia can fall on a continuum from global (total communication and comprehension loss) to mild loss. “You become accustomed to interpreting a lot,” Fitzpatrick explains. “[But] what you’re more focused on is

trying to understand and make the person feel at ease.” If symptoms are going to completely subside, they should do so in two weeks or so after the stroke, says Emerson Associate Professor Cynthia Bartlett. If that doesn’t occur, the speech-language pathologist will assess “what kind of communication skills the patient still has and how he or she can best take advantage of them to make their way communicatively through their daily lives,” she explains. For Emerson professor Kempler, there are two kinds of therapeutic approaches to aphasia and other conditions: restorative and compensatory. “You can try to get back the function that you’ve lost or that has been diminished, or you can let that go and try to replace it in some way,” he said. Restorative therapy might entail practicing mental word searches or “drills” for word loss, while compensatory therapy involves finding alternate methods of communication. Speech-language pathologists often teach patients how to adapt by exploring how to best use writing, drawing, gesturing or a combination of these methods, adds Bartlett.

What You Can Do to Help Communication is a two-way street, says Daniel Kempler, chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Emerson College. Here, he offers some important yet easyto-follow suggestions on how loved ones can help the elderly with speech, language and hearing problems. The following information is excerpted from a chapter Kempler wrote for Eldercare at Home: A Comprehensive Online Guide for

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Family Caregivers at www.healthinaging.org/ public_education/ eldercare/16.xml. First, when engaging in communication, here are a few basics to remember:  

 

Talk face-to-face and maintain eye contact. Eliminate background noise. Turn off the TV and radio. Communicate in a quiet, well-lighted area. Have the older person sit up for conversation, if possible.



Use writing, pictures and gestures to supplement spoken language. Select familiar topics for conversation. Here are some things you can do to help: If a person with memory problems does not remember the day or even your name, ask yourself, “Does it really matter?” before getting upset and correcting him or her. It is often better to have an enjoyable time conversing than a factually correct conversation.

Encourage using many words to express ideas. For example, if the person is saying that he or she played bingo last night, but all that is coming out is “I went to play, oh, I can’t remember the word, the name of the game,” you might ask how to play the game, or where it is played. Create opportunities for socializing. When people have problems communicating, other people tend to talk to them less and so they get less stimulation. This

In severe cases, new technology is being used to help patients. Fitzpatrick recalls a “globally aphasic” patient who was able to make life-changing progress by learning how to use a computer program called C-ViC, which presents the user with a set of symbols on a screen. The patient used the symbols to write out messages on the computer and, Fitzpatrick exclaims, “that made all the difference in the world.” The patient was able to move from a nursing home to assisted living, where she was able to go to dinner with friends, attend the theater and re-enter her life. Milligan recalls a patient who, due to a stroke, was unable to speak at all. But through “melodic intonation therapy” (using song-like speech to compose short messages) the patient was able to sing, “I love you” to her family. Milligan admits those three little words took “a lot of work, but the fact that she could communicate that little bit to her family meant so much to everybody.” Fighting the Battle Degenerative diseases can also cause communication problems. Rik Lemoncello, MSSp ’99, deals with many of these as a senior speech-language

can lead to isolation and further deterioration of abilities. Be patient. If the older person hesitates in answering a question, he or she may just need more time to process the question and to formulate an answer. Inform everyone who talks to the older person what type of communication problems he or she is having. This way everyone can help.

pathologist at HealthSouth New England Rehabilitation Hospital, a 160-bed inpatient acute rehabilitation hospital in Woburn, Mass. He often works with patients, for example, who have Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, which affect approximately 1 million and 4 million Americans, respectively. The dementia that often accompanies Alzheimer’s

Here are some things to avoid: In general, don’t interrupt. This can increase frustration and make communication difficult. Avoid asking for multiple repetitions. Often what someone says is equally hard to understand the second and third time. Instead of asking someone to repeat, try one of these strategies: ask specific questions (“Are we talking about dinner?”); ask for another phrasing (“Tell me in a different way”); or

ask a follow-up question to confirm or clarify (“Did you say you wanted to go for a walk?”). Avoid overly complex sentences with openended questions. Speak in simple sentences, but don’t talk in “baby talk.” For example, for someone who has trouble speaking, often the hardest questions to answer (and which produce the hardest answers for you to understand) will be open-ended

NOW HEAR THIS. Emerson Assistant Professor Bethany Milner, an audiologist, with equipment used to test hearing. Hearing loss affects up to 40 percent of adults age 65 and older.

questions such as “Where do you want to live?” Instead, ask for a simple choice such as “Would you like to live in the city or in the country?” Also, “yes” or “no” questions can be helpful.

Excepted from website of the American Geriatric Society (AGS) Foundation for Health in Aging.

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Finding the Words Tracing the steps in a journey back to speech

One minute Rabbi Leonard Zion was enjoying a leisurely morning chat with his wife, Deborah, at the breakfast table, discussing a letter he’d just written to a colleague. The next he was lost in a world that made no sense, where language was incomprehensible and where his body suddenly gave out. It was May 10, 2001, and Zion was having a stroke. Rabbi Zion is one of 750,000 Americans each year who suffer a stroke and he’s one of 4 million living with stroke’s after-effects – such as a communication disorder known as aphasia. At the time of his stroke – age 76 – Zion was an associate professor at Northeastern University in Boston, and since 1981 he was the executive director of the International Cooperative Education Program for the Asia-Pacific Region, an organization housed at Northeastern that trains future graduates to meet the demands of globalization. His past credentials are equally impressive. He pursued his doctorate in social policy from Brandeis University’s Heller School; he also served as

APHASIA. Dr. Patricia Fitzpatrick, PhD ‘99, a speech-language pathologist, meets weekly with Rabbi Leonard Zion at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Boston to work on regaining communication skills after a stroke.

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Opera singer Jan Curtis (right), who has aphasia, appears in a new film, After Words. Curtis has participated in an Aphasia Discussion Group at Emerson.

director of the Hillel Foundation at Brandeis as well as associate dean of students in the 1960s. He earned his rabbinical degree from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. In the halting speech that’s a tell-tale sign of aphasia, the Rabbi recalls the story of how his life changed forever. The telling takes effort: he appears to thoughtfully ponder everything he says, building his narrative word by word. But the rabbi is a natural storyteller and a crystal-clear thinker. Two years of working with speech-language pathologists, including Emerson alumna Patricia Fitzpatrick, PhD ’99, at Boston’s Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, have brought him from the brink of total communication loss back into a realm where, as he puts it, he can “be part of the world” again. Upon waking in a hospital room after four days and realizing he was unable to speak and that he had lost his memory, “I said to myself, ‘I must be dead,’” he recalls. His wife spoke to him, but it made no sense; newspapers contained nonsense. “[And] I had no way to express the feeling that was contained within me,” he says throwing open his arms in frustration. Soon, however, he would begin speech therapy (along with physical and occupational therapy) at the HealthSouth New England Rehabilitation Hospital near Woburn, Mass. Not long after, however, his insurance ran out. So Zion began to visit Community Rehab Care (CRC) in nearby

Newton, where he worked to regain language four hours a day, five days a week for five months. There, about four months after his stroke, he made a breakthrough when he was able to say his wife’s name. By the end of the month, he had learned from his speech therapist to breath from the diaphragm in order to support speech production, something he would practice with his daughter during walks around his house. “I felt the energy from the breathing. I was so happy that I felt this new energy that would enable me to speak.” Still no one could tell him just how long it would take to be able to speak normally. “So I had to be content. Not happy,” he laughs goodnaturedly, “but content.” Then, in late September 2001, he was invited to give a presentation at the CRC, where he shared his story about his stroke, read some poetry, sang a little, and handed out fortune cookies. Zion later participated in the Boston Aphasia Community Group at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. There, he became part of the documentary After Words, a film

on aphasia by Emmy Award-winning director Vincent Straggas. The film debuted this June at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston. Renowned mezzo-soprano Jan Curtis (who has been a member of the Aphasia Discussion Group at Emerson College’s Center for Acquired Communication Disorders) is also profiled in the film. Then, seeking further rehabilitation, in December 2001, the rabbi met Dr. Fitzpatrick, speech pathologist section chief at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center at Boston University. There, he began making even more progress as a member of Fitzpatrick’s aphasia discussion group. Just a few months later, he remembers clearly, he was looking at a book just before bed, Walden by Thoreau. As he tried to read the narrative aloud, “I was able to listen to my voice for the first time!” Reliving the moment, he calls out the words he relished: “springtime – lake – autumn.” The moment prompted him to begin writing creatively. Since then, he has written well over 100 stories, essays and poems. Another milestone occurred New Year’s Eve 2003, when the rabbi performed his daughter’s wedding ceremony, including offering wishes in Portuguese to his daughter’s Brazilian husband. Rabbi Zion has come a long way since his stroke robbed him of language. “I had to work every day to read, to think, to write, to speak, to converse. And I found if I visualize in my mind a picture, that would open me up to the world – and I want to be a part of the world.”

– C.H.

can cause sufferers to progressively lose their ability to communicate and understand. By far, the greatest single cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s, with nearly half of those over 85 and one in 10 persons over 65 with the disease. When it comes to degenerative diseases, says Lemoncello, there comes a point when “we can’t generally get back the actual [communication] functions. So what we do is educate the families on how to communicate, how to help [their loved ones] remember things, keep them organized, have a routine to their day, keep them out in the community as much as possible.” Lemoncello also helps patients deal with feeding and swallowing problems due to degenerative conditions like multiple sclerosis and throat cancer, which can necessitate the removal of the larynx (voicebox). More and more elderly are becoming ventilator-dependent, he says, a life that brings with it a host of challenges, including how to communicate and eat with a tube in the trachea (windpipe). This is a scenario in which speech pathologists literally save lives – if a patient “aspirates” (swallows improperly), material can settle in the lungs and lead to life-threatening pneumonia. Lemoncello recalls working with a 60-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis who had been ventilator-dependent for a number of years and couldn’t speak. He worked with the client to develop a number system, 1-20, with numbers that corresponded to messages. Simply by mouthing “one,” for example, she could “say” please fluff my pillow. Speech-language pathologists must be experts not only at understanding the mechanisms of the body but also the mechanisms of a host of augmentative and alternative devices, ranging from speech amplifiers and letter boards, to programmable devices with synthesized speech output, to

picture/symbol boards that patients can communicate with by pointing. Such devices range from the very low- to the very high-tech, says Bartlett. Milligan points out that speechlanguage pathologists aid people like famed British physicist Stephen Hawking in learning how to use the computer devices that allow them to speak. Hawking has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which caused him to require a tracheostomy. The Emotional Landscape Helping clients deal with the emotional fallout of communication loss can fall to speech-language pathologists, says Bartlett. In fact, in a course on aphasia that Fitzpatrick teaches to graduate students (she has been an adjunct professor at Emerson), she suggests the students consider that their clients might need to move through the well-known KublerRoss stages of grief. Another “psycho-social” component in addressing communication loss is engaging the family as much as possible, say both alums and faculty. Audiologist Milner says, “It’s important for a family member to hear that their father or mother is not just ignoring them or it’s not just ‘selective listening,’” but to really understand how hearing loss can change a family dynamic. Family involvement in therapy for all kinds of issues is often crucial to recovery, says Fitzpatrick. “We may see the patient once or twice a week, but unless the family knows the kinds of strategies we’re working on and how to communicate with [their loved ones], it doesn’t do much good for the patient to see us a few times a week,” she explains. Imagine waking up one day and not being able to communicate with your son or daughter, play with the grandchildren or utter simple sentences. Even the words “I love you” or the names of family members take immense concentration. Speech-language pathologists and audiologists work every day to help restore that most precious of human traits – our ability to communicate. E

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Notable Expressions Film Sarah Green ’81, producer of the Oscar-nominated movie Frida (about artist Frida Kahlo), has taken on executive producer duties for the sequel to the movie Dirty Dancing, titled Havana Nights: Dirty Dancing 2. The movie, which was filmed in

Puerto Rico, is an Artisan Entertainment and Miramax Films production and is scheduled to be released on Valentine’s Day 2004. Gregg Seibert ’91 combines his love of filmmaking and skiing in Perfect Run, which screened at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in April. Aside from writing, directing and co-producing the piece, Seibert also stars as an avid skier on a quest to find New England’s perfect slope. Shane Free ’99 was nominated for two “Golden Trailer” awards this year for his film editing work on the independent hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding (starring Emerson alumna Andrea Martin ’69). The awards are considered the Oscars of the movie trailer industry. Free works for Hammer Films, where he was hired immediately following an internship

Actress Andrea Martin ’69 appeared in the CBS sit-com My Big Fat Greek Life. John Harrison ’71 adapted Children of Dune for television.

at Columbia Pictures as part of Emerson’s Los Angeles program. Alex Tse ’98 has been tapped to write the screenplay for Superfly, a remake of the ’70s ‘blaxploitation’ classic, for Warner Bros. and producer Joel Silver. Tse also recently wrote the film ’87 Fleer, about the economic and cultural divide in San Francisco’s Richmond district, where Tse grew up. It centers on a white teenage boy in a rough school dominated by Asian, Latino and black gangs. Spike Lee’s 40 Acres & a Mule and Tom LaSally’s company, Giant Robot, will produce. Omar Naim ’99 graduated with a slew of short films to his name and a documentary, Grand Theater: A Tale of Beirut, which made him a finalist at the Student Academy Awards. The 25-year-old is in production with his first feature film, the sci-fi thriller Final Cut, which will star Robin Williams. The Lions Gate project is set in a world where people are implanted with a chip that records their lives. The Lebanon-born Naim moved to the United States in the ’90s to study film.

Television Andrea Martin ’69 appeared in the CBS sit-com My Big Fat Greek Life, based on the 2002 hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Martin reprised her role as Aunt Voula.

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Norman Lear ’44, the Emmy-winning producer of All in the Family, has collaborated on several episodes of the Comedy Central animated satire South Park. The TV veteran is best known for producing comedies in the 1970s, including Sanford and Son, Maude and The Jeffersons. Lear is also known as the creator of The Declaration of Independence Road Trip in which one of the last surviving original historical documents (which he owns) tours the country as part of an exhibit. John Harrison ’71 wrote the teleplay and is co-producer of a new miniseries, Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune (for the Sci Fi Channel). Previously, Harrison’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel Dune was a critical and international ratings success. One of Harrison’s latest projects is his adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winner David McCullough’s epic story The Johnstown Flood (ABC). Harrison will direct the threehour movie later this year for executive producer Ridley Scott. Harrison also was the writer-director for the USA Network world-premiere movie Donor Unknown, as well as the Starz/Encore Network world-premiere movie The Assassination File. i

Theater Sean Graney ’94 was recently profiled by the Chicago Sun-Times for his work as founder and artistic director of the Hypocrites, the upand-coming Chicago theater company for which he has directed more than 18 plays. Last winter, Graney staged “a highly acclaimed” revival of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. This spring, he directs Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days in which a woman is slowly swallowed by a mound of earth.

Literature Bart Cameron ’00, former adjunct writing professor, has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Iceland. Cameron will explore Icelandic culture and writing. “As a Midwestern writer, I thought the study might help me explore themes of isolation and that it might help me understand the literary traditions of the upper Midwest,” he explains. Cameron has taught at Bronx Community College and Long Island University (Brooklyn campus), and he runs a writing center at Stern College for

Women, Yeshiva University. His fiction has appeared in Fourteen Hills, The Brooklyn Rail and Downtown Brooklyn. Kim Ficera ’82 has authored a book, Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: An Unconventional Life Uncensored (Kensington), which is a collection of essays and performance pieces. Ficera, a “largerthan-life humorist” who compares herself to David Sedaris, takes on such disparate topics as “why size matters to God, lesbian break-up parties, and being called an ‘older woman,’ ” among others in the 320page book. Victoria Clements ’79 has published a book on literary pioneer Catharine Maria Sedgwick, a writer who is ranked with Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant as a founder of American literature, according to the book’s publisher. Writing in the four decades before the Civil

War, Sedgwick published six novels and over 100 short stories and sketches as well as novellas, travelogues and children’s books. Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Critical Perspectives was published by Northeastern University Press in December 2002. The book is co-edited by Lucinda Damon-Bach and Mary Kelley. Clements is a professor of English at the College of Southern Maryland. John P. Glynn ’77 has published Commentary and Reference Survey: A Comprehensive Guide to Biblical and Theological Resources (Kregel Publications), which lists and ranks approximately 800 commentaries and 1,200 volumes related to biblical interpretation, theology, church history and computer resources. Olen Steinhauer, MFA ’99, has written The Bridge of Sighs (St. Martin’s Press), a mystery about a young detective, Emil Brod, living in post-World War II Eastern Europe. Brod must uncover the killer of a state songwriter who appears to have been blackmailing a politico with a dark past and connections to the highest levels of the

government. Library Journal wrote, “An intelligent, finely polished debut, loaded with atmospheric detail.” And Kirkus Reviews added, “Time, place, and cast are all richly evoked in a well-written, often gripping debut.” Christina Pugh, MFA ’00, had her poem “Mourning Cloak” published in the March 2003 edition of Atlantic Monthly magazine. Pugh is the author of the chapbook Gardening at Dusk (Wells College Press, 2002). She has poems published or forthcoming in the Harvard Review, Columbia, Hayden’s Ferry Review and other publications. Critical articles from Pugh are forthcoming in Herspace: Women Writing from a Space of Solitude (Haworth Press, 2003) and Interrogating Images (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press). She received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship from Poetry magazine, the Grolier Poetry Prize, among others, and a Whiting Fellowship for the Humanities.

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Alumni Digest A Few Good Sports — from the NFL to ESPN, alumni take positions throughout the sports industry Whether you’re Division III or Big Ten, from a college with a history of winning or a tradition of trying, a life in sports doesn’t have to end when you graduate. Across the country and around New England, a number of Emersonians are pursuing careers in a variety of sports-related fields – from sportscasting to marketing, from broadcasting to team management.

Al Jaffe ’68 is vice president for production recruitment and talent negotiations at ESPN.

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Emersonians are high-ranking administrators at ESPN; local sports anchors and directors for New England Sports Network; commentators for professional teams; a baseball team general manager; and an NBA scout. The following is a look at just a few of the Emerson alums who work in sports: Maria Soares ’92, coordinating producer for ESPN International, says,

“The sports world is so high energy and there’s a lot of room for creativity” – two reasons she has been working at ESPN for over a decade. Soares oversees television productions for the international network and manages the creation of all Spanish and Portuguese commentary and voiceover production – at least 10 hours of programming a day. “On a given day we could probably work on eight different sports, from tennis to football, from cycling to boxing,” she explains. She also helps produce the “XGames” (extreme sports) in Asia, Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona. What makes her job special? “There is no more international language than sports, and nothing translates emotion like sports.” Sportscaster Wayne Larrivee ’77, the voice of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, says, “Generally those of us in the [sports field] followed a number of sports since we were kids, so it’s an opportunity to really do something you enjoyed as a kid – and it does keep you young.” Larrivee also does play-by-play for the Chicago Bulls (on WGN-TV). He covers about 80 games per year, including college and professional basketball and football. For Larrivee, calling the play-byplay began back at Emerson. He recalls, “I’d get dressed up and sneak into Boston

Celtic games with my typewriter-briefcase and my tape recorder and go up to the abandoned hockey boxes up near the rafters and sit down and ‘call’ the games.” Larrivee has been broadcasting NFL games now for about 25 years. For Al Jaffe ’68, working in sports broadcasting was his “chance to combine two of my passions – television and sports – in the same place.” Jaffe, who is also an Emerson Overseer, is vice president for production recruitment and talent negotiations at ESPN, where he has “really been able to remake the on-air face of ESPN,” he explains. “Because ESPN is in such demand, I often feel like the director of admissions at Harvard; we have to be very selective, but anybody’s who serious about sports journalism wants to be with us.” The feeling of competition is something Sam Presti ’00 experiences on a daily basis. Presti, assistant director of scouting for the National Basketball League’s San Antonio Spurs, says he is “challenged every day to find ways to stay ahead of the other teams in the league.” For Presti, a former

Lions basketball captain, “there’s no time clock, it’s a 24-hour-a-day job.”But that’s what makes it great, he says. Echoing the sentiments of many Emersonians working in sports, he says, “No day’s the same” and stresses that “creativity and forwardthinking are rewarded.” For Presti, this rings especially true – he’s often scouting ball players in a different city every week as well as traveling the world. Conrad Smith ’78 agrees that variety is what makes his job interesting. Smith is vice president for corporate sales for the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Lynxs. In his 20 years in sports, Smith has found, “you’re only limited by your own creativity.” He oversees suite sales, the publications department, and all TV and radio advertising broadcasts, among other responsibilities. Smith believes the communication skills he learned at Emerson help him a great deal in his work: “This really is a people business, a relationship business.” Though he often endures 60- to 70-hour work weeks, Smith says “the 90,000 people screaming [in the stadium] and the energy around that, around being part of a successful team” is a true bonus. Trevor Gooby ’98 believes there’s “a different bond [among colleagues] in

the sports industry,” which he quickly emphasizes is “definitely a big business.” Gooby recently became general manager of the minor league baseball team the Vero Beach Dodgers, a farm team to the major league Los Angeles Dodgers. Gooby “oversees the day-to-day business of a sports team” and is in charge of spring training stadium operations for the Los Angeles Dodgers. A few other Emersonians who work in the sports world include: Skip Lockwood ’76, who had an 18-year career as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox, Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets; Lee Stacey ’76, vice president of sales and marketing for the New York Jets; Phil Adler ’79, audio supervisor for the national “A” game of the NFL on CBS (he has been mixing sports for network television since 1988, including work on five Olympic Games and Super Bowl XXXV); Mark Quenzel ’82, a senior vice president of programming at ESPN; Rose Mirakian-Wheeler ’82, a director of New England Sports Network’s broadcasts of Boston Bruin games; Gene Lavanchy ’86, sports anchor for Boston’s WHDH

Channel 7; Bob Rodgers ’90, who has been producing and anchoring New England Sports Network’s Sportsdesk show for more than 15 years (in addition, since 1996, Rodgers has been the in-studio host for NESN’s Boston Red Sox coverage); Kim (Norton) Healey, MA ’94, executive assistant to Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots (Healey has been involved on special projects for the Super Bowls of 1996-97 and 2001-02); and Cara ‘Cricket’ (Glennon) Truax, MA ’99, a group sales manager for the Orlando Predators, an arena football team that plays Sunday nights and whose games are broadcast on NBC. — C.H.

Wayne Larrivee ’77 is the voice of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.

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Los Angeles

At the third annual Emerson Festival of Film and Video, held in February 2003, Emerson students whose films were chosen for the festival gather beneath the marquee.

Hosts of the West Coast EBONI gathering were (from left) Stephen Farrier ’75, Leslie Moraes Davis ’80, Doug Holloway ’76, Barbara Perkins ’77 and Brent Jennings ’74.

New York City More than 200 alumni, students, faculty and friends of the College attended a conference on “Advancing Women in Communication,” which was held in April at the Time-Life Building in New York City. The event, which featured Emerson alumni panelists, was sponsored by the College’s offices of Institutional Advancement and Alumni Relations and was hosted by the New York Alumni Chapter. Left: The panelists were (from left) Janet Scardino ’81, senior vice president of international marketing at America Online; Linda Corradino ’81, executive producer at the women’s cable channel Oxygen; Marcia

Robbins-Wilf ’71, philanthropist and educator; President Jacqueline Liebergott; Randy Ketive ’69, president of the Board of Realtors for Eastern Bergen County, N.J.; Bobbi Brown ’79, CEO of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics; and Kathie Berlin ’65, a communications strategist who has developed marketing projects for major films and other projects. Bottom Left: At the Women in Communication event were (from left): Lee Addis ’46, Peter Mones ’83, Elayne Kessler ’69, Susan Melchiori ’81, Jon Satriale ’94 (president, N.Y. Alumni Chapter), Cynthia Crane ’57 and Tripp Whetsell ’94.

Famed acting coach Susan Batson ’64 held a class in March for Emerson Performing Arts undergraduates, faculty members and alumni at her acting studio, Black Nexxus, in New York City.

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The first West Coast Reunion of EBONI alumni took place in February 2003 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. At the gathering, Emerson President Jacqueline Liebergott described plans for Emerson’s new Center for Diversity in the Communication Industries.

Florida

At Emerson’s Festival of Film and Video were Hadeel Reda ’90, president of Winchester Films; Jim Lane, executive director of Emerson’s Los Angeles Center; and Aaron Ryder ’94, head of production and development for Newmarket Films.

CNN Reporter and Alumni Board Member Steve Young ’62 Dies Emerson graduate and CNN reporter Steve Young died April 27 after a long battle with lung cancer. He was 61 years old and a member of the class of ‘62. A college lecturer and author, Young served on the Emerson College Alumni Board for the past five years. A highly regarded technology reporter, Young joined CNN in August 1987,

after 20 years at CBS. His work earned him many awards, including the Overseas Press Club Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, and Emerson’s own Alumni Achievement Award. “Steve was a consummate professional, a skilled writer, a gifted reporter, an inspiring mentor and a kind and gentle man who will be greatly missed,” said Sandi Goldfarb ’78, president of the Emerson Alumni Association. “Steve lived with the same courage, focus and dignity that graced his career.”

A Southern Florida alumni event held at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in January included (seated, left): Millie Radlauer ’53 and her husband Phil; (standing) Jane Guterman ’73 (president, Southern Florida Alumni Chapter) and Chet Tart ’74.

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Boston Terry Semel (left), chair and chief executive officer of Yahoo Inc., presented a talk on “Shaping the Future of the Internet” to students, faculty, alumni and friends on campus in March. Semel is the father of Courtney Semel, a member of the Class of 2003. He is joined by Ted Benard-Cutler ’51 (center) and Vin Di Bona ’67.

Above: The New England Chapter of the Alumni Association held its Sixth Annual “Day at the Races” in April at Suffolk Downs, outside of Boston. At the presentation of the cup to the winning jockey of the Emerson College Race were (from left; front row) Bonnie Glovin ’58, Paul Ricci ’65, the jockey, Helaine Aronson Miller ’55 and Diane PurdyTheriault ’55; (back row) Al Savitsky and Lee Kelly. Right: EBONI alumni gathered with current EBONI students for a jazz brunch in May at Emerson. Friendships were renewed, and President Liebergott spoke at the gathering. The event was hosted by Kim Swann ’81 and Dorothy Prince ’70, MA ’79.

More than 30 alumni from Emerson and Berklee College of Music came together in February for a night of jazz and a lesson in Southern cooking. The event took place at Bob the Chef’s in Boston; it was the first time the colleges have joined for an event.

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Class Notes 1950 Nanette (Andre) Clark has undertaken a variety of writing projects in recent years, including three self-published books (Harker’s Hard Hat, The Brothers Carry-A-Mouse-Off and Ruby–The Gem of West Cummington), and she collaborated with her sisters to write their childhood story for their own children and grandchildren. Nanette also writes for The Small Farmer’s Journal, which is devoted to the preservation of the family farm.

1954 Jerry Finn ’54-’56, who received his law school degree from B.U. in the same week he received his Emerson College degree, started the Banyan Theater Company in Sarasota,

Fla., last year. Jerry is pleased to report that they will be expanding their season this summer.

1956 John Nadeau was elected to the Board of Advisors of the Creative Retirement Institute at Washington state’s Edmonds Community College. The program is devoted to creating lifelong learning opportunities for people over 50.

1958 Two of June August Zorn’s songs appear on a recently released 3-CD set called 125 Songs For Kids. June wrote the words and music for I Want To Believe, and the music for Teddy. Both songs were originally produced for a children’s show, How to Succeed at Witch-

Adele D’Man ’92 (second from left) and husband Peter Goldberg ’91 (left) were “thrilled” that three films they worked on were screened at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Adele was featured along with Denis Leary ’79 in The Secret Lives of Dentists. Two films that Peter worked on, Camp and The Hebrew Hammer, were also screened at Sundance. Adele and Peter’s work is featured on their website, www.bfgfproductions.com. At right is Camp director Todd Graff and actress Joanna Chilcoat.

ery, which has been staged in several California cities as well as in Miami.

1961 Elena (Altobelli) Stuart just celebrated her 25th year on the faculty of West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She is chair of the Department of Communicative Disorders and coordinator of the Speech/ Language/Hearing Clinic. In her free time, Elena takes to the stage as a cast member in local Gilbert & Sullivan productions, travels extensively, and visits her children on the West Coast. Kevin McNally ’80 is director of convention services for the Westin Chicago River North Hotel. Kevin was also featured in a cover story, “A View from the Top,” in the January 2003 issue of Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine.

1969 Suffolk County (Mass.) District Attorney Daniel F. Conley has named Assistant District Attorney Bruce A. Dean as chief of his office’s Special Prosecutions Unit, which concentrates in the investigation and prosecution of organized crime, economic crime, high-tech crime and other matters of public corruption. After leaving Emerson, Bruce earned his M.S. from Boston University and his J.D. from New England School of Law.

1972 Marsha (Gitkind) Partington is living near Minneapolis with her 12-year-old daughter and two golden retrievers, and is coordinator of a school-age

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David Gregory ‘95 and Jennie Pyles ‘95 were married on Sept. 9, 2001, in Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France. The couple originally met while abroad at the Emerson program at Kasteel Well in the Netherlands in spring 1993. Many fellow Emersonians made the trip to France to attend the wedding, including Kelly Callahan ’94, Crista Crews ‘97, Brian Lavelle ‘95, Mark Raskin ’95, Lesley Robins ’95, Bryan Rosenthal ‘95, Sherry Sternosky ‘95, Matthew Talesfore ‘95, Daryl Tucker ‘95 and Grant Viklund ’96. The newlyweds now live in Los Angeles.

childcare program for a school district in suburban Minneapolis. Marsha would love to hear from fellow Emersonians at marsh-joy@earthlink.net.

1973 Barney Bishop was recently appointed to the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees by Gov. Jeb Bush, and is awaiting confirmation by the Florida Senate. Barney was also elected to the Board of Governors of the Governors Club in Tallahassee, Fla.

1974 Marc Drazin was awarded a Chicago/Midwest Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for Individual Craft Achievements Off-Camera – Technical Achievement for his work on Chicago Cubs High Definition Baseball.

1977 John Glynn, of Stoughton, Mass., has published Commentary and Reference Survey: A Comprehensive Guide to Biblical and Theological Resources (Kregel Publications).

1979 Karen (Carbone) Stockbridge has completed her first book, Her Forty-Seventh Complete Revolution Around the Sun. The memoir, written entirely in verse, is the first of a series to be published by Karen’s own Fox Eyes Press. Through this and other forthcoming works, Karen hopes to “help others articulate their stories of pain—be it personal pain or pain [associated with] more ‘worldly’ issues.”

1987

1988

A web enterprise run by Brett Dewey was recently highlighted on MSNBC. The site, www.WickedCoolStuff.com, is run by Brett, his wife, Cynthia, along with staffers, and features thousands of television, movie, comic book, cartoon and pop culture items for sale.

After 14 years as station manager of WCAT-TV in Wakefield, Mass., Robert Haigh has accepted the position of executive director at Lowell Telecommunications Corporation in Lowell. Robert lives in Chelmsford, Mass., with his wife, Linda, and is very active in the folk music scene.

Laura Douglas opened her own post-production “boutique,” called RedEye Professional Post, in Alexandria, Va., in January 2002. In their first year, Laura and her staff have created bimonthly promos for the cable channel BET, and have just finished production on First Note, a short film that will premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and then “make its way to every music classroom” in America. Susan (Hester) Pendleton married Will Pendleton in Wythe County, Va., last year. After a honeymoon in Alaska, they settled in North Carolina. She is programming and production supervisor for Biltmore Estate, responsible for all audio and video production. She can be reached at wfpendleton@aol.com.

1989 Russ Gannon, his wife, Leslie, and their 3-year-old daughter Siobhan “welcomed baby #2” to the family on March 1: a boy named Trevor Henry. After 10 years working with HMV Records, Russ was recently named general manager of the HMV Superstore in Harvard Square, which ranks as one of the largest record stores in New England. Lee Harvey was awarded a DuPont-Columbia Award for her film Culture of Hate – Who Are We? The film, which was created for KPBS Public Television in San Diego, also won an award for outstanding achievement at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism’s

1980 Erik Joseph owns Seaport Hardware and Wharf Rat Art Supplies, which are both located in the new Seaport District in South Boston. Joseph Siegel is the son of Marci Baron Siegel ’94 and the grandson of Ed Baron ’70.

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Kristen Curran ’92 was married to Bernard Faller on Sept. 22, 2001, in Providence, R.I. Several Emersonians attended, including Class of 1992 members Michael and Kim (Leahy) Beaudet, Raoul and Marylee (Murphy) Verheggen, Kim Haack, and Duncan MacDonald, and Monica (Becker) Murphy ’87, Paula Borkum Becker ’64 and Dennis Becker ’64. The bride works as a senior coach/trainer at the Speech Improvement Company Inc. in Boston.

“Let’s Do It Better!” Workshop on Race and Ethnicity. Larry Potash won a Chicago/ Midwest Emmy for Best Anchor for his work as morning news anchor on Chicago’s WGN (Channel 9). Christine Cali-Vala is marking her fourth wedding anniversary in June. Her son, Joseph Jr., will be 2 in July. She is specialty sales manager for Live Sound International magazine and prosoundweb.com. Friends can write to Christine_Vela@hotmail.com

1990 Reggi (‘Gina’) Davis has been promoted to transportation specialist with the Department of Defense Inspector General’s Office. She’d love to hear from Emerson chums, including Kevin McCarthy and Kat Doyle. She can be reached at Lunastro@hotmail.com. Jacqui (Brisco) Killen and her husband, Dave, welcomed their first daughter, Tessa Nicole, into the world on Jan. 24. The couple also has two sons, Brandon and Jameson. Jacqui admits her life in Ft. Thomas, Kentucky (right outside of Cincinnati), is a far cry from her Emerson days, but she loves her life, “minivan and all!” Jacqui is an account executive at JA&G Advertising. She would love to hear from old friends Karen Brader and Charla Hymes at jacqui@jag.com.

1991 Michele Labbee Crane and her husband, John, became the parents of a second child, Nathan Michael. The couple’s daughter, Meghan, is “just 18 months older and adores her new brother!” Michele is taking a hiatus from her career in the communications industry to care for her expanding family. She can be contacted at mklabbee@cs.com. Susan Molloy returned to Boston from New York to take the role of Violet in the Lyric Stage Company’s Side Show this spring.

1992 Nicole Greaves and her husband, Christopher O’Melvin, received a present on their son Liam James’ birthday—a daughter, Eva Colette, who was born March 15, exactly three years after her big brother. Nicole is employed as the performing arts coordinator for Bryn Mawr College, and pursues poetry in her spare time. Her work has appeared in several literary magazines, including The American Poetry Review, and in 2001 she received a Leeway Grant in poetry. She lives in “a very old house” in Conshohocken, Pa., and can be contacted at Piobmor@aol.com.

Siobhan (Donovan) Haughey ’95 and her husband, Michael, had a baby girl, Mairead Catherine, in October 2002. Siobhan is working at State Street Corp. in Boston as a multimedia/ presentation manager and would love to hear from fellow Emersonians at Siobhan_Donovan@hotmail.com.

Marj Kleinman is in the process of completing her master’s degree in educational psychology at New York University. After her May 2003 graduation, she plans to develop and produce educational programs, media and outreach for children and their families. Write to Marj at wackymarj@earthlink.net.

Athena Matsikas is heading to Boise, Idaho, to host that city’s KISS-FM 103.3’s morning show after on-air radio stints in New York City, Phoenix, Buffalo, Fresno, and Las Vegas. In November 2002, Athena was married to Frank Pavone, and hopes to expand her family soon. Athena wants to “give a huge shout out” to her sisters in Chi Delta Chi, and all her other friends.

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In Memoriam 1923 1936 1937 1938 1940 1942 1948 1950 1950 1951 1951 1951 1951 1952 1954 1954 1955 1956 1962 1967 1970 1971 1975 1992

Mabel Louise (Arey) Esterer of Manzano del Sol, N.M. Julia Quigley McGarvey of Avon, Conn. Dorothy Lee Rankin of High Point, N.C. Martha (Chertoff ) Shapiro of Farmington, Conn. Marjorie Herman of Belmont, Mass. C. Samuel Barone of Dunkirk, N.Y. Doris Gonyer Chace of Monrovia, Md. Paul Hughes of Bedford, Mass. Dr. Parker R. Zellers of St. Petersburg, Fla. Sylvia Beers Gilmore of Gardner, Mass. Edwin V. Johnson of Haverhill, Mass. Ronald Little of Seneca Falls, N.Y. Frances A. Welling of Framingham, Mass. Herbert Saari of East Dennis, Mass. Jane L. Cummings of Pembroke, Mass. Mary Olsen Allen of Springfield, Ill. Jon MacArthur Fitch of Old Saybrook, Conn. Frank O. Goodlander of Lewisberry, Pa. George Kreisberg of Los Angeles, Calif. Susan Sepenuk of Cambridge, Mass. Chris Ally of San Francisco, Calif. Donald C. Shulman of St. Petersburg, Fla. Laurie Susan Miller of Alexandria, Va. Jolie Garber Savdie of San Diego, Calif.

1993 Steven Pekock, MA ’93, has returned to the Boston area to accept the position of director of development for the Scottish Rite Masonic Charities in Lexington.

1994 Melanie Guerra and Mark Gronemeyer have planned a June 14, 2003, wedding in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Emily Frangipane ’93 will be a member of the wedding party. Melanie is in the process of getting her graduate gemologist designation from the Gemological Institute of America, and has started her own company, Northern Light

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Jewelry, selling original designs. Melanie works as brand marketing coordinator for Bloom Cosmetics and serves as director of public relations for the Northwest Colorado Animal Assistance League and vice president of the Emerald City Opera Guild. She can be reached at www.gronos.com.

poem “Apples and Bananas” appeared in the March issue of Ladybug magazine. Chris may be contacted at wellofsacrifice @hotmail.com.

1996 After graduating from law school at Loyola Marymount University, Benjamin Rajotte became a member of the California Bar and is practicing in the Los Angeles area. T.J. Shanoff can be heard on the Sporting News Radio Network as the co-host of a national sports and comedy program, Murray in the Morning. T.J. also works for Second City in Chicago, where he just finished a stint as musical director for a touring show featuring comedian Martin Short. A production he cowrote, Sing-Along Wizard of Oz, will be touring the country this year, and includes stops at the Kennedy Center and Hollywood Bowl. T.J. can be reached at TJSBEATLES @aol.com.

1997 Julia Daymbani-Lonan has been working in Indonesia’s oil and gas industry since her Emerson graduation. She recently took a position with Schlumberger Indonesia as public relations and communication manager. In March 2002, Julia married Andrey Daymbani, a pastor serving in Jakarta. She says ‘hi’ to Karen Kartika, Kris Cremers, Ganesh Kalyanam and Thanawan Thavijaroen. Julia is at jlonan@yahoo.com.

1998 Erol Hofmans received his master of arts degree in international conflict analysis at the University of Kent at Canterbury, Brussels School of International Studies. His dissertation is on “The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Transformation of European Security in the 1990s.” Erol may be contacted at tijd@hotmail.com.

1995 William “Angel” Connell Jr., MA ’95, was married to Maryanne Craddock on Oct. 12, 2002, in Providence, R.I. They live in Westford, Mass. Chris Eboch is living in Socorro, N.M., where she serves as the New Mexico Regional Advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Chris’ third nonfiction book for the school market, Modern Nations of the World: Turkey, was published in March, and her

Writer-director Lee Miller, MFA ’97 (right), screened his latest work, Real Time, at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in May. Jeff Wager ’95 (left) of Galactic Pictures was the final cut editor for Real Time, which chronicles the lives of 10 teenagers in the California Youth Authority state prison system. The film has been screened at several other festivals, including the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival in California and the Manchester International Film Festival in Vermont. Miller is chair of the Digital Motion Picture Department at Cogswell Polytechnical College in California. Wager, a director of photography, and Lee are co-producing another film this summer along with other alums.

Therese Perkins ’96 was married to Richard Buckingham, former assistant director for housing operations at Emerson, in November 2002. Therese is putting her Emerson skills to use as an actress and a youth worker for City Stage Co. in Boston. Jennifer Toone ’95 has been named senior account supervisor for Trion Communications in Providence, R.I.

John Palisano’s first feature film, Man Made, was picked up for distribution by CinemaNow after playing at the Silver Lake Film Festival in Los Angeles. John invites friends to e-mail him at johnpalisano@earthlink.net.

Karsten Robbins, MA ’99, has been named president and CEO of Kids Energy, a Boston-based provider of quality interactive learning tools for K-12.

1999

Ezra Fieser was awarded second place in the Business and Economic Writing category in the Maryland-DelawareD.C. Press Association’s 2002 Editorial Contest.

Saundra Booker has taken a new position at American Morning with Paula Zahn on CNN. Several Emersonians have formed Red Banister Productions in North Hollywood, Calif., which opened with a production of Little Shop of Horrors in March. The show was directed by Joseph Leo Bwarie ’99, produced by Jessica Trimble ’99 and choreographed by Kenny Kelleher ’99. Nicole Charbonneau ’99 served as plant designer, and Deanna Pino ’91 and Darren Reed ’00 performed in the show. The company’s Emersonian roots run deep – the name “Red Banister” was inspired by the very ones that line the staircases of the Brimmer Street building, where the company’s founders cut their theatrical teeth.

2000

Katie Kemple is living in Washington, D.C., where she works as a publicist for the Washington Performing Arts Society. She also auditioned for and has been asked to join the Silk Road Dance Company, a D.C.based group that performs Central Asian and Middle Eastern dance at venues across the country. She is engaged and plans to marry in fall 2003. Greg Waxberg, music director of Public Radio in Mississippi, can be heard on the web at www.etv.state.ms.edu.

2001 Ken Reynolds is working in New York City for Creative Bubble, a company providing editorial, audio, graphic and multimedia services to broadcast and commercial outlets. Aside from serving as editor for the first season of Oobi, a show airing on the cable network Noggin, Ken has become a probationary firefighter and member of the Smithville South Hook, Ladder and Engine Company No. 1 in North Bellmore.

Where Are You And What are You Doing Please use the form below to submit news that you would like to share with your fellow Emersonians. Or, if you prefer, e-mail your news to Barbara_Rutberg@emerson.edu. New job? Recently engaged or married? New baby? Moving? Recently ran into an old classmate? Received an award? Let us know. First Name

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Mail to: Class Notes, Emerson College, Office of Alumni Relations, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624

Profiles Fabric Fantasy Costume designer Chrisi KarvonidesDushenko ’83 fashions whole new worlds

Karvonides-Dushenko reviewing costume designs for the sci-fi film The One with writer-director James Wong.

As an undergraduate, Chrisi Karvonides-Dushenko ’83 created an entire 1860s wardrobe for the Emerson College production of the Noel Coward Victorian comedy, Family Album – all out of $2-per-yard fabric. “There was nothing of the period in stock,” she explains. But to make the entire cast’s costumes from scratch? “What was I thinking!” she exclaims. She’s come a long way since then. Karvonides is an Emmy Award-nominated costume designer – for Tom Hanks’ 1998 From the Earth to the Moon – and over the last 20 years, she has designed costumes for film, television and Broadway. In addition to her B.F.A. in theater arts from Emerson, she holds a master’s degree in theater design from Yale. Currently, she is the costume designer for NBC’s hit drama American Dreams, set in the turbulent 1960s. When she approaches a new show, “each scene is like a painting. It’s not about a pretty dress; it’s about the silhouette and the color floating in a space,” she explains. Her job’s biggest creative thrill is creating new worlds from scratch – especially developing “period styles” for shows like American Dreams as well as creating whole new futuristic fashions for films. “You’re creating your own world and your own style, and I am in complete control of the color palette,” she says. A recent job had Karvonides designing all the costumes for superheroes like Batman and Catwoman for the WB’s Birds of Prey series and promotions – a gig that made her a hero to her two young boys. Karvonides has worked as assistant designer and sketch artist for action-adventure and science fiction films like Batman, Demolition Man,

delight in creating futuristic looks – HBO’s 12-part miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. The show was her first as head costume designer. Karvonides demands absolute authenticity. “I’m a fiend for research,” she laughs. In preparation for From the Earth to the Moon she contacted the wives of the Apollo astronauts and examined piles of home movies, scrapbooks, and actual garments sent to her. The creation of authentic spacesuits for the astronauts was a particular challenge. “It was all hand-cut, handanodized steel, and all the mechanical parts worked like the real ones,” she says of the suits’ construction. She even used balloon bladders – like those used in parade floats – so the suits would expand and appear pressurized. Karvonides recalls that when Dave Scott (an astronaut who walked on the moon in 1971 and the show’s technical advisor) saw the finished suits, he actually began to shake. And for Karvonides that’s better than any Emmy. —Christopher Hennessy

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True Lies, Water World, Bicentennial Man and others. While these films offer huge creative rewards for costume designers, they also demand a great deal of work. These projects had Karvonides on the job for up to 18 months, more than twice the usual time for films. For the huge space-epic Starship Troopers, “we made everything, down to the boots and underwear – 2,500 costumes,” she recalls. “The reality of this job is that it’s extremely exhausting,” she says, noting that an 18-hour day is not uncommon and most days begin at 6 a.m. or earlier. For a recent episode of American Dreams, she had to dress 150 actors and extras for a ’60s soapbox derby scene. At the last minute, the producer changed his mind and insisted that all the female cast members be costumed in pants rather than skirts or dresses. Somehow, Karvonides and her team managed to make do – and the cast was dressed just as the sun was coming up. Her “big break” came with a show that allowed her to combine both her passion for period costumes and her

Editing the venerable publication The Old Farmer’s Almanac is a task Janice Stillman, MA ’78, relishes.

George Washington was president when Mr. Robert B. Thomas of Sterling, Mass., prepared his humble first copy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac in 1792. Two hundred and eleven years later his work is not only being carried on but enjoyed by approximately 18 million readers. Today, Emerson alum Janice Stillman is making history of her own as the 13th editor of North America’s oldest continuously published periodical. She earned her master’s degree in mass communication from Emerson in 1978. “The number 13 was the luck of the draw,” she says. Stillman also happens to be the first female to hold the post. Her role at the Almanac – with its trademark yellow cover and period design – is to carry on the tradition while keeping an eye on the contemporary. Stillman oversees the editorial content of each issue. The 2003 Almanac features a story on that singularly

creepy insect, the earwig; a piece on Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York City’s Central Park and Boston’s Emerald Necklace; and a story on the invention of the TV dinner. “What gets me up in the morning is the chance to teach, influence, motivate and persuade through the media, any media,” says Stillman. But the Almanac is probably best known for its weather forecasts – 12 months of weather predictions published in each issue with, according to tradition, an 80 percent accuracy rate. “The weather has always been a key ingredient in farmers’ almanacs. We had an agrarian society [in the 18th century],” explains Stillman. Today, solar science, climatology and meteorology are used in making the weather predictions. The Almanac has long been known for its folksy blend of sunrise tables, planting charts, home remedies and more – sometimes printed in columns of fine type. Part of Stillman’s mission is to oversee some changes that make it easier to “navigate” through the publication: perhaps adding section headings at the top of each page or additional photographs. How has the Almanac thrived all these 211 years? Loyalty. “It has been in households for centuries,” says Stillman. “Folks tell me all the time that they’ve read it all their lives.” Stillman oversees a staff of six, working in offices in rural Dublin, N.H., where they produce several other Almanac-style publications as well as the flagship Old Farmer’s Almanac. As it is the year 2003, the Almanac has a website, too. In a recent, typical month, approximately 4 million people visited the site. “There are oil paintings of the founder and his wife in the office, but

Photo by John Curtis

This Old Almanac Janice Stillman, MA ’78, leads The Old Farmer’s Almanac into a new century

we are as current as any media company out there,” says Stillman. Before becoming editor at the Almanac in 2000, Stillman’s career took many forms in a variety of locales: she was an English teacher in Norwood, Mass., an editor at the upscale Robb Report magazine, a promotion director at a television station in New Orleans, and an instructor in advertising and copywriting at Loyola University. Stillman is also an experienced traveler, who once purchased a 14-month open airline ticket and backpacked around New Zealand and Australia as well as India, Kenya and much of Europe. But being a native New Englander – born in Boston and raised in Norwood, Mass. – she missed the seasonal changes and the familiar feel of the region, so she returned to manage a one-of-a-kind publication that’s a real “piece of Americana.” – Rhea Becker

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My Turn Stranger in a Strange Land How science fiction helped me make sense of an ‘alien’ world Master University screened movies from Bombay. But when my family moved from Hamilton, a city of 200,000, to the tiny town of Lucknow, Ontario – population 1,200 – it was impossible to blend in. In Lucknow, and in the regional high school my brothers and I attended, not only were we the only Indians, we were the only non-whites. I discovered books in grade six while still in Hamilton. Typical Canadian sixth-grade fare – young adult stories set in contemporary Canada or England – contained notions of family and home

FEELING ALIENATED. Uppinder Mehan, assistant professor of writing, literature and publishing, accompanied by a pair of strange creatures.

that were similar to what I knew but different enough that I couldn’t make the connection between these characters’ experiences of the world and mine. It was easier and more exciting to be enthralled by an entirely different world: The adventures of a lone spaceman

Masks courtesy of Jack’s Joke Shop, Boston, Mass.

Much to my joy and amazement I’ve found an opportunity to teach the genre of writing that first captivated me as a young person: science fiction. Growing up in Bombay, India, my family moved a world away to Hamilton, Ontario, where I spent all my energy trying to understand this alien place that my father’s wanderlust had brought us to in the middle of winter. In Hamilton there were a couple of other Indian families and even a bit of Indian culture: once every two months or so the Indian students group at Mc-

36 Expression Spring 2003

exploring an alien environment made much more sense to me than most mainstream fiction. By reading science fiction, I was no longer the strange one in a normal world. With the move to high school in Lucknow and the addition of adolescent angst, I was more than ready for tales that would transport me away from the known world. The visions of H.G. Wells and Isaac Asimov drew me in with their emphasis on the larger picture of social struggles and heroic endeavors. Arthur C. Clarke’s spiritual and evolutionthemed stories always promised that life as we knew it was only a stage set. But most of all, I liked the idea that we weren’t alone in the universe – that I wasn’t alone. As an undergraduate at the University of Windsor, I had already started to drift away from the four or five story types of science fiction that my high school library stocked, when I discovered the sophisticated and nuanced science fiction of Ursula K. LeGuin, Brian Aldiss and Samuel Delany. I saw in these writers a literary and cultural awareness that allowed me to class them with the best of contemporary writers. In much of today’s science fiction, one can explore the enormous complexities of life now and as it might be. But every now and then I’m still that lone spaceman trying to figure out these aliens. Uppinder Mehan, assistant professor of writing, literature and publishing, primarily teaches Anglophone postcolonial literature in Emerson’s Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing.

Why Emerson College? Because Professors Like the Late Peter Corea Make a Lasting Impression “Peter Corea was very loud

To honor his memory and

and very funny, and he cared

perpetuate his ideals, Bauer

deeply about his students,”

and several other alumni

says Thomas Bauer ’68, an

have formed a committee

Emerson College Overseer and

to support the Peter Corea

former Alumni Association

Memorial Fund. The goal is to

president who runs the media

raise $25,000 for a mediated

services department of a large

classroom and an additional

municipal cable television

$25,000 for a lecture series

station in Pemberton County,

dedicated to “emotional well-

N.J. “He taught us how to set

ness,” which was a cause that

goals and objectives and how to

Corea championed. Other

stand up for our rights. He was

committee members include

one of a handful of people I’ve

Jon Iarrobino ’98, Peter

met in my career who made a

Loge ’87, Jennifer Mattson

lasting impression on my life.”

’92, Gary Sagendorf ’88 and

Peter Corea taught at Emerson for 37 years and chaired

former faculty member Trudi Feinstein.

the Psychology Department for

“Dr. Corea loved Em-

many years. He died in 2001 at

erson, and generations of

the age of 77.

Emersonians loved him,” says Bauer. “We need to make sure that his indomitable spirit and the ideals he stood for live on as the College continues to grow and attain new heights.”

Thomas Bauer ’68 is on the committee working to establish the Peter Corea Memorial Fund.

To learn more about the Peter Corea Memorial Fund and other opportunities to support academic programs, scholarships and special projects at Emerson, contact: Martha Cassidy, Director, Annual Fund, Office of Institutional Advancement, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624; (617) 824-8543.

Photo by Rick Friedman

RULING THE AIRWAVES. Omar Wael, in the stateof-the art studios at WERS (88.9 FM), eagerly takes to the mic knowing his voice reaches listeners across New England. Student-run and professionally managed, WERS is Emerson Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s award-winning radio station. This year, the station garnered 11 out of 17 regional studentmedia awards presented by the Associated Press for radio news and sports reporting. Emerson has been ranked first in the nation for college radio in the Princeton Reviewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Best 345 Colleges 2003 rankings.

Emerson College 120 Boylston Street Boston, Massachusetts 02116-4624

XXXVIII Expression Spring 2003

Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage Paid Burlington, VT 05401 Permit Number 4