The Harbinger
April 11, 2005
Hiram College will play host to season of Scandanavian Drama
Tyst, a new and unique Northeast Ohio arts organization, will launch its inaugural summer season of Scandinavian plays on Thursday, June 9, in Hiram College’s Hayden Auditorium by presenting “Ghosts,” a probing examination of societal hypocrisy and conventional morality by Henrik Ibsen, Norway’s greatest playwright.
The first of four modern Scandinavian productions with what Tyst Executive Director David M. Benson believes are important cultural, artistic and educational values, “Ghosts” will be performed at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. Sundays through June 26.
In Swedish, Tyst means silent – in this case, the sort of anticipatory stillness that grips an audience as the house lights go down and the curtain rises on something new.
“We are not just another Northeast Ohio arts organization going after the same entertainment dollar,” Benson said. “We are attempting to create something that will pull people in from a larger region.”
In addition to Northeast Ohio, Tyst’s target audience includes a Scandinavian-American population that stretches from New England to the Upper Midwest, with especially significant concentrations in such areas as Jamestown, N.Y.
“For a summer festival, we wanted a place where people could feel they are both getting away and getting a new experience,” Benson said. “Hiram provides that kind of relaxed atmosphere.”
Located in a bucolic setting 35 to 40 miles from Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown, Hiram is accustomed to being a village with a global connection. Hiram College not only attracts students from all over the world but also sends a high percentage of its students abroad for study programs led by Hiram faculty members.
“Our community is obviously very pleased to play host to the Tyst performance series,” Hiram College President Thomas V. Chema said. “In addition to attracting people to our campus, the performances will provide hands-on learning opportunities for our students interested in theater, business, marketing and the performing arts.”
The Tyst series will also include Finn Jussi Wahlgren’s “Dead and Gone to Granny’s” (June 30 to July 17), Norwegian Jon Fosse’s “Someone is Going to Come” (July 21 to Aug. 7) and Swede August Strindberg’s “The Pelican” (Aug. 11 to Aug. 28). It brings to fruition Benson’s 20-year dream of creating “something less focused on a particular discipline and more focused on values and culture.”
In the future, Tyst plans to add music and dance to its repertoire. “We’re even trying to figure out how to do design elements in a performance setting,” Benson said. “Design is a huge part of Scandinavian society.”
Benson and fellow Tyst creator Karen Gustafson of the Cleveland Museum of Art drew upon their Scandinavian heritage for inspiration. Benson, an entertainment lawyer in downtown Cleveland, also relied on an extensive background in the performing arts that began with study at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and included work with such actors as Ben Kingsley in the Royal Shakespeare Company.
“I was so inspired,” Benson said, “that I went headlong into the theater and came to think that it would be really great if I could do something in my career that was not driven by the decisions – whims – of other people.”
Benson’s moment arrives when the curtain rises on “Ghosts,” a drama as relevant today as it was when it was written more than a century ago. The play was published in 1881 but not performed until the following year because of its controversial content – the impact of congenital venereal disease on a family.
“In Scandinavia,” Benson said, “they’re always trying to take the classics and rethink them, and that’s what we want to do, to take historical drama and make it current.”
Current – with a special Tyst touch.
Ticket prices range between $15 and $20. They are available from the CITX Hotline at 216-771-1778. More information is available from Tyst’s Cleveland office at 216-241-2510 or by e-mail at tystart@hotmail.com.
Senior Art Exhibition
 | The Hiram College Art Department is proud to announce the Senior Art Exhibition from April 20 - May 11 in the Frohring Art Gallery. The Gallery will be open 9:00 am - 4:30 pm Monday - Friday. |
 | Works will be on display from art majors Carlton Dean, Megan Gaul, Amy
Keyson, and Robin Latkovich. Art minors Travis English and Michiko
Hirose will also have works displayed. |
 | The opening reception for the Senior Art Exhibition will be on Wednesday, April 20 from 4 - 7 pm in the Frohring Art Gallery. The reception is free and all are invited to attend. |
Hiram College Sends Jaina and Yowa to Columbus!
The Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing Conference
Professor Obie Slotterbeck has integrated an IRC (Integrated Research Component) in her Computer Graphics class (CPSC 387) that is designed to inspire the creative juices in her students. Yowa Kimura (Japan) and Jaina Sangtani (Sylvania, Ohio) have both successfully accepted the challenge by designing in languages OpenGL and C++ two remarkable graphic programs.
Yowa
has developed a tsunami program that graphically demonstrates the
devastating effects a tsunami wave can impose on coastal cities. The
wave can be controlled in speed and height showing different results
for waves of varying intensities. By right clicking on the screen, a
menu appears allowing both different camera angle shots as well as
closer examination of the city.
Jaina
has taken one of America's favorite board games, the Parker Brother's
Clue, and recreated Mr. Boddy's mansion complete with floor plan and
wonderful characters depicting the suspects found in the original game.
Jaina created the mansion to resemble a prison, thus insuring the
suspects have no chance for escape. Can you solve Jaina's crime
and unravel the mystery of Mr. Boddy's mansion? Was
it the butler with the candlestick in the library?The Columbus OCWIC (Ohio Celebration of Women In Computing) will be held April 22 and 23, 2005 and consist of 100 women from around Ohio attending technical and professional sessions and presenting research posters on their projects. Both Yowa and Jaina will be taking their posters, currently on display in the basement of Colton, to the conference and explaining their techniques and accomplishments to inquisitive participants.
Hiram College is a sponsor of the OCWIC and very proud to have Yowa and Jaina representing our Institution.
Women are critically needed in today's computer science industry. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 70% of the new jobs in the science and engineering fields from 2002 to 2012 will be in information technology. Because of misperceptions in our society, women earning bachelor degrees in computer science has recently fallen below 20%, despite the fact that most computer scientist work in multidisciplinary teams frequently interacting with users and clients, an area where women not only excel, but often set the standards and ground rules.
Congratulations to Yowa and Jaina for honoring Hiram College and encouraging, by example, other women to enter the computer science discipline!
For more information on the program go to http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/ocwic.
Grant presents at London conference
Leslie
Grant presented “The Black Bottom: Black Moviegoing in Early Detroit,
Michigan, 1910-1924” at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Conference in London, England, March, 31 - April 3, 2005. She
presented her preliminary findings on black film exhibition in Detroit
at Hiram College as a Dissertation Fellow.In addition, Grant's biographic entries on Anthony Overton and Bebe Moore Campbell will be published in African American National Biography, edited by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, and published by Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
Hiram Model U.N. Earns Honors at Chicago Conference
Earlier this month, Hiram College students traveled to the Chicago Model U.N., an annual conference on creating innovative crisis committees. The U.N. simulation attracted many of the nation’s top teams, with delegations from Harvard, Stanford, Boston, and the University of Pennsylvania. Two Hiram students, junior Jaina Sangtani and senior Shannon Keeney, were awarded Verbal Commendations for their performances at the conference. This is the third consecutive regional or national conference at which Hiram students earned special recognitions.
Muriah L. Newland-King Invited to Speak at DePauw University
31st Annual Undergraduate Honors ConferenceDepartment of Communications Arts and Sciences
On
Friday, April 1, 2005, Muriah Newland-King, a Hiram College graduating
senior from Enon, Ohio, made a presentation at the 31st Annual
Undergraduate Honors Conference at Depauw University. Muriah’s
30-page submission triumphed through a rigorous national competition
where prominent communication scholars carefully analyzed her work
entitled “The Effects of Inoculation Theory and Perceived Reliability
of Internet Information Sources on Attitudes Toward Human Rights and
the Zapatistas.”This conference is the longest-running and most widely respected undergraduate communication conference in the United States. Submissions are received from colleges and universities throughout the country, and being chosen to present one’s research at this conference is no small accomplishment!
Muriah’s invitation to represent herself and Hiram College at such a prestigious event is a great honor for everyone in our college community. The subject matter of her research, however, despite the confusing title, involves an issue critical to the dignity and compassion of humanity.
Muriah began her research accompanied by Professor Linda Rea, not in air conditioned college libraries, but in the steaming jungles and desecrated Mayan villages of Chiapas, Mexico and Guatemala. They did not converse with business executives in their conference rooms, but rather interviewed ravaged Mayan woman who witnessed their husbands and children tortured and murdered by government sponsored troops. They did not negotiate their way into private interviews with recluse celebrities, but rather into the jungle camps and village outposts run by the rebel Zapatistas. Their studies rival the adventures of world missionaries; their narratives are difficult to read because tears keep blurring the pages, and their message blatantly challenges the guttural roots of what it means to be human!
Because of Muriah’s research and heart-warming experiences through Hiram College, she has decided her career will center on the world’s humanitarian issues. “In such an arena,” Muriah states, “I can truly make a difference to humanity!”
Sports Update
The
baseball team split with Allegheny last week, then beat Case Western
Reserve in two games on Saturday, followed by a win against Lake Erie
on Sunday, improving their record to 11-8 overall and 3-1 in the NCAC.
Senior pitcher John Prejsnar (pictured) was named the NCAC Pitcher of
the Week last week. This week the team hosts Baldwin-Wallace on
Thursday and travels to Oberlin for games on Saturday and Sunday.The softball team lost doubleheaders to Allegheny and Kenyon last week, slipping to 8-11 overall and 0-4 in the NCAC. This week the team travels to Wooster on Thursday and hosts Denison on Saturday.
The men’s track & field team competed at the Mount Union Open on Saturday, recording several season-best times and some strong finishes against the likes of West Liberty State, Behrend, Case Western Reserve, Oberlin, and others in the 12-team unscored meet. The 4x100 meter relay of Geoff Kibler, Mike Grafton, Matt Watroba, and Petar Besalev ran a season-best time (44.25) and took 2nd place in the finals while A.J. White finished 2nd in the high jump with a season-high jump of 6’2”. Besalev was named the NCAC Athlete of the Week in Men’s Sprints/Hurdles. This week select members of the team compete at the All-Ohio Championships at Ohio Wesleyan on Saturday.
The
women’s track & field team also competed at the Mount Union Open on
Saturday, finishing 2nd in three events. Lynne Hutchison placed 2nd in
the 100 meter hurdles finals after running a season-best time in the
preliminaries, and Julie Feather-Faber (pictured) placed 2nd in both
the high jump and the javelin with season-best performances in both
events. Feather-Faber was selected as the SAAC Student-Athlete of the
Week. This week select members of the team compete at the All-Ohio
Championships at Ohio Wesleyan on Saturday.The men’s tennis team lost to Thiel last week at home, slipping to 1-6 overall and 0-2 in the NCAC. This week the team hosts Allegheny on Thursday.
The women’s tennis team lost to Allegheny last week and the match against Kenyon was postponed. The team’s record is now 1-5 overall and 0-1 in the NCAC. This week the team does not compete, returning to the courts on April 19th.
The men’s golf team hosted the Hiram Invitational, playing Oberlin in match play format. The two teams tied, with each team winning 2.5 matches on the day. The team travels to Wooster on Friday and Saturday to play in the Wooster Invitational.
The women’s golf team did not compete last week and are off again this week, with their next event scheduled for April 18th.