David Wright, a Conservatory sophomore majoring in composition, won the editorial-of-the-year award in the National Scholastic Press Association/Los Angeles Times story of the year competition for an editorial on cultural understanding that ran in his high-school newspaper.
Wright's class from Arapahoe High in Colorado visited Wyoming Indian High School to give the students some "insight into the culture that lends its name" to his school. In his editorial, Wright said: "I think that by now most of us have at least gotten past outdated stereotypes of Native Americans. We know more about what they're not like than what they are like. By going on the trip I learned more about the latter ... I believe that getting to know the WIHS students as people first and foremost will provide a foundation from which to explore [the culture on the reservation]."
The Oberlin Jazz Ensemble, directed by Wendell Logan, is doing Oberlin proud.
In April it received an "outstanding" rating from the judges at the Ohio State Jazz Festival. In May the ensemble walked away with several awards at Cleveland's renowned Tri-C JazzFest. The judges named it "outstanding band" and dubbed Logan "outstanding director." Several ensemble members also were given "outstanding soloist" and "outstanding instrumentalist" awards.
The student musicians include pianist Allan Baker; trumpeters Kevin Louis, Farnell Newton, and Greg Glassman; saxophonists Burny Pelsmajer, Jermaine Lockhart, and Tom Bencivengo; trombonists Jonathan Arons and Andy Chapell; drummer Jason Brown; bass player Zack Pride; and guitarist Joe Friedman.
In a related development, Logan, a prolific composer, has been awarded a $5,000 Individual Artist Fellowship by the Ohio Arts Council. He will use the award to write a cantata based on God's Trombones, a collection of poetry by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938).
When he marched across the Commencement platform last May, Edward Buatois was not only going for his diploma, he was also continuing a family tradition. Buatois is the 29th person in his family to graduate from Oberlin.
"My forefathers make up three-quarters of the history of the College," he said.
His family tree includes alumni whose matriculations span five generations dating back to the Civil War. His mother, Barbara Buatois, is a member of the Class of 1953. His grandparents and great-grandparents preceded her. His great-great-grandparents were Joel Partridge (Class of 1864) and Aurelia Chapman (Class of 1865).
The latest Buatois received his degree nine years after he first enrolled at Oberlin. After several years as an undergraduate, academic burnout sent him to New York, where one tempting job in computer programming led to another. Last fall, however, he returned to campus to complete his degree in psychology and apply to graduate school, where he wants to pursue a master's degree in creative writing.
In recognition of the pioneering role that Oberlin has played in the development of contemporary dance, the College is celebrating the 25th anniversary of contact improvisation this summer with a national conference at Oberlin.
Contact improvisation enjoys a popularity on campus unprecedented at undergraduate institutions, according to dance faculty member Anne Cooper Albright, whose classes in the dance form have been a regular part of the dance curriculum since she joined Oberlin's faculty in 1990.
Founder Steve Paxton created "Magnesium," his first contact-improvisation work, at Oberlin during a seminal workshop early in 1972. Later that year Paxton, Oberlin student dancers Nancy Stark Smith and Curt Siddall, and others officially launched contact improvisation as a new dance form in a series of performances at New York's John Weber Gallery.
Contact improvisation has grown into a complex, multi-dimensional dance genre with its own journal, Contact Quarterly, co-edited by Smith, and an international network of dancers, scholars, and enthusiasts.
Springtime in Oberlin! It brings out the best of the College.
Across the campus the season bursts forth in a profusion of roses, peonies, irises, Oriental poppies, wisteria, hostas, daylilies, and other blooms. The landscape's elegance and vitality, nurtured and groomed by the dedicated grounds department, have made Oberlin a mecca for garden clubs, bus tours, and photographers-and recently earned it a horticultural accolade.
Classical America-a society that encourages the classical tradition in arts-has honored Oberlin College with its Arthur Ross Award in the category of Landscape Architect/Gardener. Oberlin was cited for "turning to horticulture, the ancient instrument for giving life to the community, in embellishing the town of Oberlin and the Oberlin campus."
Fifteen Obies are spending the summer in the idyllic hill town of Urbania, Italy, immersing themselves in Italian language, culture, and music as part of Oberlin in Italy, a five-week study program developed by Conservatory voice professors Daune Mahy and Gerald Crawford.
Now in its tenth year, the program enables Conservatory students to combine vocal or instrumental coaching in the traditions of the Italian lyrical style with language study at Centro Studi Italiani (CSI), Urbania's prestigious language school. While in Italy, the Oberlin students live with local residents.
Undergraduates from the College of Arts and Sciences can also enroll in the CSI language program; they study Italian history, literature, arts, and crafts.
The day after commencement, it was back to work for Peggi Ignagni. After taking one course a semester for the past nine years, Ignagni, a circulation desk supervisor in the main library, proudly took her place in Class of 1997.
Ignagni began working for the College in 1988 as an administrative assistant in the Career Services Office. Shortly after, she took her first course in French, taking advantage of a program that allows employees to enroll in one course per semester at no charge.
Managing the office workload and the class work took a great deal of determination. Time taken out of the office for coursework and other class-related activities must be made up. Ignagni managed some of this by taking courses during her lunch hour. But it was not easy.
"It's not just putting in the time," she said. "It's putting in an incredible amount of effort and really wanting to learn."
Thanks to a $25,000 grant from the Florence J. Gould Foundation, 10 Oberlin students and two faculty members will spend three weeks in January 1998 on a study tour of the historical harpsichords and organs of France.
Professor of harpsichord Lisa Goode Crawford will lead the tour, which will include primary stops in Paris, Toulouse, and Strasbourg, as well as visits to Lyons and Poitiers. The students will have the opportunity to play important historical French organs and harpsichords; learn about their construction, sound, and context; and gain a better understanding of the historical and cultural environment that generated the music they'll be studying.
A similar tour took place in 1996, directed by Crawford and Dominique Serve, a French organist. That tour was funded in part by the Minneapolis Foundation.
Return to the ATS-July 1997 Table of Contents