Elizabethtown College News 
Back to top 9/27/2006 Flute/piano duo to present music of American women composers A Boston-based duo – flutist Peter H. Bloom and pianist Mary Jane Rupert – will present “Music of American Women Composers” at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 23, in Elizabethtown College’s Leffler Chapel and Performance Center. The concert by “2” is open to  the public free of charge.The program for the evening features the magnificent but seldom-heard Sonata in “A Minor Opus 34” (1896) by Amy Cheney Beach. Also included are Elizabeth Vercoe’s 2003 composition “Kleemation” (inspired by five drawings of Paul Klee), Marion Bauer’s “Sonata Opus 22” (transcribed for alto flute) and “Masks” by Katherine Hoover, a series of short movements evoking different masks (Native American, African American, Mexican American and others). Bloom and Rupert have performed together for more than 15 years, appearing in venues across the country, with two CDs on the North Star Record label. They’ve been praised for their “music that can set the heart singing” (Better Homes & Gardens) and their “stellar concert...fine musicians in perfect harmony and with such mastery of their instruments” (The Bedford, Pa. Gazette). Acclaimed as a concert pianist and harpist, Rupert has given solo recitals from Carnegie Hall to Beijing Concert Hall, and has appeared with symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the United States. She is on the faculties of Wellesley College, Tufts University, Boston College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned a bachelor of music in piano from Oberlin College, and she holds a master of music in piano and in harp, and a doctor of music in piano performance and music literature from Indiana University. Bloom has given solo recitals from Boston’s Jordan Hall to Beverly Hills, tours nationally with chamber groups and jazz ensembles, and appears on more than 25 recordings from labels including Sony Classical, Dorian, Newport Classic and others. The Boston Globe called his playing “a revelation for unforced sweetness and strength.” He is an historical instrument consultant to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, has served on the faculties of New England Conservatory and Regis College and is a board member of the James Pappoutsakis Flute Competition. He holds a master of music in flute performance with distinction from the New England Conservatory. Back to top 9/20/2006 $1 million gift to create colloquium on peacemaking, global citizenship A $1-million endowed gift from Lancaster residents Judy S. and Paul W. Ware will create The Ware Colloquium on Peacemaking and Global Citizenship at Elizabethtown College. Judy Ware, a 1968 graduate of the College, is currently a member of Elizabethtown’s Board of Trustees.  “This program will create significant new educational opportunities for our students in this pivotal mission area,” said College President Ted Long. “The distinctive educational experiences it delivers will change their lives, and ultimately the world around us.” The Ware Colloquium, delivered annually under the auspices of the College’s Center for Global Citizenship, will consist of three major elements. The Ware Lecture on Peacemaking will ensure that students understand the nature of human conflict and what peacemaking entails, as well as the contemporary challenges of building a peaceful world. The Lecture will bring to campus nationally and internationally recognized speakers to address issues of peacemaking. The inaugural Ware Lecture on Peacemaking will be presented by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on March 19. The Ware Practicum in Conflict Resolution will prepare students for the practice of conflict resolution so they have the skills and know-how to be effective peacemakers in their own lives. Through this program, conflict resolution training will be offered several times a year to students, faculty and employees. The Ware Seminars on Global Citizenship will engage students with the public sphere of life so they learn to take responsibility as global citizens for advancing the welfare of communities around them. The seminars – which will be structured within both the academic and cocurricular programs – will take several forms. Visiting “scholars in residence” may teach courses on global citizenship or conduct one-time seminars on the subject. The Ware gift may also allow the College to focus its First-Year Colloquium on issues of global citizenship. The goal will be for all Elizabethtown students to experience a Ware Seminar during their years at the College. “I am proud to be a graduate and now a trustee of Elizabethtown College,” Judy Ware said. “The gift my husband and I made to establish the Ware Colloquium on Peacemaking and Global Citizenship will further cement Elizabethtown’s institutional identity as a college founded in the Brethren tradition of peace, non-violence and human dignity. In addition to an already great education, students will now have access to unique experiences that raise issues of peacemaking. Learning skills in conflict resolution and becoming good citizens of our world will certainly aid them in many ways.” Judy Ware is an active volunteer, leader and philanthropist in the Lancaster community. She supports and/or serves as a volunteer for the Fulton Theatre, Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County, St. James Episcopal Church, Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Lancaster YWCA, and Lancaster County Historical Society and James Buchanan Foundation for the Preservation of Wheatland. She currently serves as a board member of the Samaritan Counseling Center, Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Lancaster York Heritage Region, Lancaster General HealthCare Foundation and Lancaster Country Club. In 2001, Ware founded the Lancaster Investment Forum Team and served as the Women’s Investment Network Club president. She also served for five years on the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority Board and was the second vice chairman when her term ended fall 2005. She received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Elizabethtown College in 1968, has studied painting with Sam Feinstein in Philadelphia and has taken graduate courses at the University of Virginia and Millersville University. Ware retired in 1997 as an art teacher at the Lancaster Country Day School. Paul W. Ware is chairman of the Feree Foundation. He is a trustee at Franklin & Marshall College and the Pennsylvania Academy of Music. He volunteers for the Pennsylvania Dutch Council, Boy Scouts of America, World of Scouting Museum, St. James Episcopal Church and Water for People. Back to top 9/14/2006 Homecoming and Family Weekend 2006, Oct. 20-22!
Back to top 9/13/2006 Dale W. Brown Book Award recipient to discuss 'Anabaptists and Imagination' Bluffton University English professor Jeff Gundy will present “The Return of the Prodigal: Anabaptists and Imagination” at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 21, at the Elizabethtown College  Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. The event is open to the public free of charge. Copies of Gundy’s book “Walker in the Fog: On Mennonite Writing,” for which he earned the Young Center’s 2006 Dale W. Brown Book Award, will be available for purchase and signing. Gundy’s talk, which is based on his book, will explore the recent strong emergence of imaginative writing among Anabaptists and Mennonites, and seek to demonstrate that such work is constructive and even essential for contemporary followers of Jesus. Poet Julia Kasdorf of Penn State University will respond to Gundy’s lecture and comment on his book. She and Gundy will also present a poetry writing workshop from 12:30 to 2 p.m., Sept. 22, at the Young Center. The workshop is open to the public. Part of the C. Henry Smith Series published by Cascadia Publishing House, “Walker in the Fog: On Mennonite Writing” explores important Mennonite and related authors — Patrick Friesen, William Stafford, Julia Kasdorf, Jean Janzen, Keith Ratzlaff, and others — as well as crucial issues and themes, such as power and authority, myths of origin and possibility, heresy and community. Gundy has taught writing, literature and general education courses at Bluffton University since 1984. He has also taught at Hesston College, Goshen College, Indiana University and the Antioch Writer’s Workshop. The recipient of six Ohio Arts Council grants for poetry, Gundy was also the first two-time winner of the C. Henry Smith Peace Lectureship. His earlier prose books are “Scattering Point: The World in a Mennonite Eye” and “A Community of Memory: My Days with George and Clara.” His poetry collections include “Rhapsody with Dark Matter,” “Flatlands,” “Inquiries” and “Deerflies,” winner of the Editions Prize and the Nancy Dasher Award. His poems and essays have appeared in dozens of magazines and journals, including Christian Century, Mennonite Quarterly Review, The Sun, Image, Shenandoah, Georgia Review, Conrad Grebel Review and Mennonite Life. The Dale W. Brown Book Award, first presented in 2004, is a national award that recognizes an outstanding book in Anabaptist and Pietist studies. The award was named for Dale W. Brown, a retired Bethany Seminary professor who lives in Elizabethtown and served previously as a fellow at the Young Center. A noted author and theologian among the historic peace churches, Brown has written “Biblical Pacifism,” “Understanding Pietism” and “Another Way of Believing: A Brethren Theology.” Nominations for the 2007 Brown Book Award will be accepted until Dec. 1. Visit the Center’s website at www.etown.edu/youngctr/ for details. Back to top 9/13/2006 Woodwind recital offered by faculty member Faith Shiffer, adjunct professor of clarinet and saxophone, will present a woodwind recital at 3 p.m., Sept. 24, in Zug Recital Hall. The event is open to the public free of charge.  “A Suite of Suites” will feature selections by Telemann, Milhaud, Brahms and a new piece composed by Shiffer herself. Featured artists for the recital are Debra Ronning (piano), a lecturer in music at Elizabethtown; John Zurfluh (cello), a faculty member at Elizabethtown and Franklin and Marshall colleges; and Stephen Shiffer (trombone), a member of The Pottstown Symphony Orchestra, the Buzz Jones Big Band, Charlie Van Horn Big Band and Skip Stine/Cathy Chemi Big Band. Shiffer graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Music in clarinet performance from Millikin University in Decatur, Ill., and earned a Master of Music in clarinet performance from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. She has performed 46 musicals with various regional theaters throughout Pennsylvania, Illinois and Montana; she toured nationally with productions of “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Chicago and “South Pacific.” Shiffer has performed with artists such as Pearl Bailey, Victor Borge, Dave Brubeck, Cathy Chemi, Rich Little, Manhattan Transfer, Rita Moreno, John Pizzarelli and Sunny Wilkinson. Locally, she has performed with the Harrisburg Symphony, Theatre Harrisburg, Pride of the Susquehanna Riverboat Band, Reading Civic Opera, The Buzz Jones Big Band, The Spring Garden Big Band, The Possumtown Six Dixieland Band, The Shiffer Trio, Allenberry Theatre and Mount Gretna Theatre. In addition to teaching at Elizabethtown College, Shiffer continues to perform throughout central Pennsylvania. She also maintains a private teaching practice in Ephrata. Back to top 9/8/2006 Elshtain to give annual Lefever talk Elizabethtown College will welcome political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain as its  2006 Ernest W. Lefever Visiting Fellow in Ethics and Culture. Elshtain will present a public lecture at 7 p.m., Sept. 28, at Elizabethtown’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Her talk, “Can War Be an Instrument of Justice?,” is open to the public free of charge.A political philosopher whose task has been to show the connections between our political and our ethical convictions, Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at The University of Chicago. Her books include “Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social Thought,” “Meditations on Modern Political Thought,” “Women and War,” “Democracy on Trial” (a New York Times “Notable Book” for 1995), “New Wine in Old Bottles: Politics and Ethical Discourse” and “Who Are We? Critical Reflections, Hopeful Possibilities,” for which she received the Theologos Award for Best Academic Book 2000 by the Association of Theological Booksellers. In 2002, Elshtain published a book, “Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy,” and an edited volume, “The Jane Addams Reader,” which won second place for biography in 2002 from the Society of Midland Authors. In 2003, she published “Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World,” which was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2003 by Publishers Weekly. In addition to her book-length studies, Elshtain writes widely for journals of civic opinion, and lectures -- both in the United States and abroad -- on whether democracy will prove sufficiently robust and resilient to survive. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and chair of the Council on Civil Society. She has served on the board of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and is currently on the board of the National Humanities Center and of the National Endowment for Democracy. Elshtain has been a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer, is the recipient of nine honorary degrees, and received the 2002 Frank J. Goodnow Award, the American Political Science Association’s highest award for distinguished service to the profession. In 2003, she was the second holder of the McGuire Chair in Ethics at the Library of Congress. Elshtain delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 2006. The Visiting Fellow in Ethics and Culture at Elizabethtown College was established to honor Ernest W. Lefever, an alumnus of the Class of 1942 and founder of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Each year a Lefever Fellow visits campus for two days to share his or her professional experience, particularly regarding moral dilemmas in contemporary society, with students and faculty. In addition to giving a lecture, the Fellow meets with students, faculty and administration. Back to top 9/6/2006 College receives Mellon grant to support global education Elizabethtown College has received its first grant from The Andrew W. Mellon  Foundation – a $25,000 award to build a high-impact approach to global education and to prepare faculty to deliver that education to students.The Mellon grant will allow the College to strengthen its commitment to programs of international and cross-cultural understanding -- one of four attributes of an Elizabethtown education identified in a recently completed strategic vision for the College. With the grant funds, a Mellon Task Force on Global Education will be established and charged with developing and articulating a distinctive model for international study at Elizabethtown. In addition, the College will create a Mellon International Faculty Development Program, which will prepare faculty to deliver global education through classroom instruction and scholarship. These programs will build upon efforts already undertaken by the College to enhance international and cross-cultural perspectives. In addition to hiring more international faculty members and assisting more students with international study opportunities, the College established a Center for Global Citizenship in 2004 to enhance study abroad, service-learning and peacemaking. “We are especially pleased to have the support of the Mellon Foundation for this important initiative,” said college president Theodore Long. “It will enable us to develop a distinctive approach to global education that will become a signature program for the college." Back to top 9/6/2006 'No God But God' author to speak on Sept. 13 See video of Reza Aslan on The Daily Show on Aug. 21, 2006 . . . Reza Aslan, author of “No God But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam  ,” will speak at Elizabethtown College at 11 a.m., Sept. 13, in Leffler Chapel and Performance Center. His talk, “The Three Faiths of Abraham: The Hope for Interfaith Dialogue Between Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” is open to the public free of charge. This is the first event in the fall colloquium series, “The World in Focus.”Aslan is a research associate at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy and a doctoral candidate in history of religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He previously earned a bachelor’s degree in religion from Santa Clara University, a master’s degree in theological studies from Harvard University and a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the University of Iowa. Aslan has served as a legislative assistant for the Friends’ Committee on National Legislation in Washington, D.C., and was elected president of Harvard’s Chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, a United Nations Organization committed to solving religious conflicts throughout the world. Until recently, he was both visiting assistant professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Iowa and the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Slate, Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Nation, and others, and has appeared on Meet The Press, Hardball, The Daily Show, The Tavis Smiley Show and Nightline. His first book, “No God But God,” has been translated into half a dozen languages and was short-listed for the Guardian (United Kingdom) First Book Award. Born in Iran, Aslan currently resides in Santa Monica and New Orleans, where he is the Middle East commentator on National Public Radio’s “Marketplace” and a regular op-ed contributor to the Los Angeles Times. |
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