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C A M P U S PHOTO COURTESY OF K. MYERS
DeGrazia presents 1999 Isaac Lecture Emilio DeGrazia, ’63, will be the Isaac Lecturer during the 1999 Elkin R. Isaac Research Symposium, April 14-15. DeGrazia has written or edited five books, including the novels Billy Brazil and A Canticle for Bread and Stones. He has also published more than 100 short stories, poems and essays in anthologies and literary journals. The recipient of a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, he is currently professor of English at Winona State University in Minnesota. While on campus, DeGrazia will also meet with classes in creative writing and literature. Other speakers during the symposium include ethnobotanist Wade Davis, author of the international best seller The Serpent and the Rainbow (later released as a motion picture), and biological anthropologist Laurie Godfrey, a specialist on the anatomy and evolution of primates. Godfrey’s visit was sponsored by the Albion chapter of Sigma Xi scientific honorary society. Sixty-three students will present the results of their research and creative work in presentations and poster sessions during the symposium. Topics range across the curriculum and include: “Trade vs. Technology: Determining the Cause of the Widening Wage Differential,” “Women Found and Lost: Six
News in brief The Elmer Iseler Singers, one of Canada’s most renowned professional choirs, performed April 5 in Goodrich Chapel under the auspices of the College’s David L. Strickler Endowed Concert Series. Formed in 1979 by the late Elmer Isler, who also developed Canada’s first professional choir in 1954, the 20member group performs a wide variety of music ranging from baroque to contemporary. Douglas Rose, assistant professor of music at Albion, performed with the Iseler Singers from 1984 to 1986 and arranged their Albion appearance. The David L. Strickler Endowed Concert Series was established in 1992 by alumni and friends to honor Strickler, who was professor of music and director of the Albion College Choir from 1943 to 1976. The endowment ensures that a premier concert performance group will be a permanent feature of the Albion music scene. The Albion College theatre production of Vinegar Tom was among four college productions featured during the “Evening of
Corrections The following items correct errors that appeared in the winter 1998-99 edition of Io Triumphe. We regret the errors.
1998 Hall of Fame John Walker, ’54, should have been listed among the members of the 1952 MIAA championship football team inducted into Albion’s Athletic Hall of Fame at Homecoming 1998. Walker was named to the allconference squads, on both offense and defense, in 1952 and 1953.
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Fiction Pieces,” “The Women of Ravensbrück: The History of the Women’s Concentration Camp,” “The Effects of Exercise on Leucine Metabolism in HIV+ Individuals,” and “An Environmental Toxin (Mercuric Chloride) Inhibits Human Immune System Activity.” For the first time in the 10year history of the symposium, College classes will be cancelled on the day of the symposium in order for all students and faculty to attend the various presentations. The Elkin R. Isaac Endowed Lectureship was created in 1991 by Albion College alumni in honor of their former teacher, coach and mentor, Elkin R. “Ike” Isaac, ’48. In 1997, the lectureship was expanded and was associated with the College’s annual Student Research Symposium.
Scenes” at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival regional competition, Jan. 5-9 in Indianapolis. In addition, six acting students performed in the festival’s Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship competition, based upon reviews received during the 1998 Albion College theatre season, and two student designers (sets and costumes) earned invitations stemming from their work on A View from the Bridge, staged on campus last fall. Each year, nearly a thousand students and faculty participate in the festival nationally. Albion College’s World Wide Web site, www.albion.edu, has claimed national recognition for design and function, the third such award it has received in less than a year. CampusTours.com, an Internet company specializing in online college campus tours, gave Albion its Four-Star Award for virtual college tours in March. CampusTours noted that Albion’s “tour and campus map demonstrate the tremendous potential of online multimedia college tours.” Albion’s Web site previously earned awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and Market Central.
Chronicle of Albion women Albion-area historian Frank Passic passed along the following corrections on the profile of Gwendolyn Dew Buchanan. Her birth date was June 18, 1903, not 1904 as reported. It was the town of Howell, not Homer, whose electric power was cut off during an aerial ballooning incident in which Buchanan was involved. Finally, Buchanan attended Albion College for three years prior to transferring to the University of Michigan where she earned a degree in journalism. She was a member of Delta Gamma sorority.
While studying at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, senior Kirk Myers visited the southernmost point in Africa at Cape Agulhas (pictured). He used vacation periods to travel to other locations in southern Africa, including Mount Kilimanjaro.
Living and learning in the new South Africa by Jake Weber When Cuban leader Fidel Castro addressed South Africa’s parliament last fall, Albion senior Kirk Myers had one of the best seats in the house—in the president’s box, right by Nelson Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, and her daughter Josina. Myers had become friends with Josina during a political science class they were both taking at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and she had urged him to accompany her to the speech. “It was amazing,” he says, to sit in the “president’s box . . . listening to Fidel Castro.” Myers was in South Africa under an offcampus program Albion maintains with UCT as part of the College’s South Africa
Behind the scenes at ‘Saturday Night Live’ by Melissa Driessche, ’99 Mary Summers remembers one of the most intense moments of her life. It was just before show time on the set at “Saturday Night Live,” and the executive producers made a last-minute decision to change one of the sketches and add a new one to the opening segment. Summers and the other interns sprang into action. “We had to race all over the whole studio, telling the camera men, the stage crew and the cast members about the change. The success of the show’s opening depended on us,” Summers says. A junior at Albion, Summers decided to spend last fall semester off-campus on the New York Arts Program. The program, which provides internships in a student’s chosen field, seemed like a natural choice for Summers, who is active both in the Theatre Department and the Purple Rose at Albion College Theatre Project. “I [went] to New York expecting to work for ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Summers says, “I was really excited about it because it was something that I had always wanted to do.” On her second day in the city, when she was still getting settled in her new apartment
initiatives begun in 1989. He first became interested in going to UCT when, as a firstyear student, he was invited to a meeting of Albion’s Committee on South Africa (COSA). His friendships with a South African student and other Albion students who had participated in the Cape Town program kept the possibility of traveling to South Africa “brew[ing] in the back of my mind,” says Myers. He finally decided to go when he realized he could combine off-campus study, thesis research and a required internship for the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Public Policy and Service, all in one semester. Leaving his hometown, Millville, MN, in mid-July, Myers arrived in the middle of South Africa’s winter. That was the first of many adjustments he would make over the next five months. In the racially diverse city of Cape Town, he was surprised to discover he was set apart not only for his nationality, but for the fact that, unlike most of his African classmates, he had been raised in a rural community. (continued on p. 20)
and finding her way around, Summers received some devastating news. She called the studio to confirm her job, and the show’s film coordinator told her that, due to scheduling conflicts, they would not be able to use her as an intern until November. “I was so disappointed when they told me that they didn’t need me. The whole reason I came to New York was to work for ‘Saturday Night Live,’” she recalls. “I almost decided to pack up and go home. . . .” In the meantime she located another internship with the Off-Broadway improvisational troupe Chicago City Limits, where she did some publicity work and staffed the office. She also took improvisational comedy classes one night a week. Although she enjoyed her work at Chicago City Limits, she called “Saturday Night Live” each week to see if they needed her. The last week of October, Summers came home to a welcome message on her answering machine: the film coordinator at “Saturday Night Live” was asking her to report to work that Saturday. “I was so ecstatic—it was what I had been waiting for all semester!” She was given a job with the show’s writers as a research intern. She sat in on pitch sessions and read-throughs, worked with the Weekend Update joke writers, was involved with the show’s budget, and did extensive research for possible sketches. “I remember one time they were working on a sketch about fishing, so I had to do all (continued on p. 20)
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