20-27

february

2006

poet sonia sanchez will offer 2006 quintessence lecture

“Sonia Sanchez is a lion in literature’s forest,” says Maya Angelou. “This world is a better place because of Sonia Sanchez: more livable, more laughable, more manageable. I wish millions of people knew that some of the joy in their lives comes from the fact that Sonia Sanchez is writing poetry.”
Sonia Sanchez (right) will deliver a lecture, “Where Do We Go from Here?”, as this year’s Quintessence Day speaker on Thursday, Feb. 23, at 7:30 pm in Alumnae Hall.

“Ms. Sanchez is one of the most influential black poets of this century,” said Quintessence Day Chair Kendall Alexander ’08. “She was inspired by many, including Malcolm X and others in the Black Power Movement. Sanchez is the author of multiple books of poetry and received the Robert Frost medal in poetry in 2001.”

Sponsored by the student group Ethos, Quintessence Day is an annual celebration at Wellesley that honors “the essence of black womanhood in its most perfected state.” Sanchez is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, including Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems; Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums: Love Poems; Does your house have lions?, which was nominated for both the NAACP Image and National Book Critics Circle awards; Wounded in the House of a Friend; Under a Soprano Sky; Homegirls & Handgrenades, which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; and I’ve Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems. Her plays include Black Cats Back and Uneasy Landings and I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t. Her books for children are A Sound Investment and Other Stories; The Adventures of Fat Head, Small Head and Square Head; and It’s a New Day: Poems for Young Brothas and Sistuhs. She has edited two anthologies: We Be Word Sorcerers: Twenty-five Stories by Black Americans and Three Hundred Sixty Degrees of Blackness Comin’ at You.

Sanchez has received the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, the Lucretia Mott Award, the Outstanding Arts Award from the Pennsylvania Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Women International League for Peace and Freedom Award, the Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Humanities, a National Endowment for the Arts Award and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. For more information, call x1046.

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symposium explores heritage of religion and violence

Questions about the link between violence and religious traditions, and their sacred writings, have been front and center in the current public discourse.

“One entry point to the discussion is a close and honest look at the key texts in question, on their own terms, and in their own literary and historical contexts,” says David Bernat, religion.

In conjunction with Boston University, Bernat has convened a group of prominent biblical scholars to address these issues in a day-long event Monday, Feb. 20, from 8 am-3:30 pm in Pendleton West 212. The symposium entails two panels, one focused on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and one treating the New Testament and Early Christianity. Presentation titles include “The Problem of Violence in Prophetic Literature” and “The Legacy of Sectarian Rage: Vengeance Fantasies in the New Testament.” A closing lecture, “Forms of Ritualizing Violence: Past and Present,” with a response from Stephen Marini, religion, will bring the questions into a broader perspective.

The symposium is free and open to the public, and breakfast, coffee break and lunch are included.
For more information about speakers and presentations, go to here or e-mail dbernat@wellesley.edu.

The event is sponsored by the Elizabeth Luce Moore Fund for Christian Studies at Wellesley.

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daffodil deadline

Daffodil Days, an annual campaign sponsored by the American Cancer Society, will be celebrated the week of March 13 with fresh daffodils delivered to offices. Order forms are posted in departments or may be obtained by contacting Melissa Hawkins, Center for Work and Service, at x2357. Orders and payment must be made by Friday, Feb. 24, through the CWS.

The cost is $7 for a bouquet of 10 daffodils, $25 for a bouquet of 10 daffodils and a Boyds teddy bear and $20 for a Gift of Hope, a vase of daffodils delivered to an anonymous patient in a hospital.
Checks should be payable to the American Cancer Society.

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film festival chronicles tragedies of tibet

A Tibet Film Festival is in progress that aims to tell a story that has not been adequately heard, according to Wellesley’s Students for a Free Tibet.

“Through our annual film festival, Students for a Free Tibet hopes to bring students closer to the true story of Tibet,” said organizer Luzon Pahl ’07. “The Chinese invasion, persecution and continued abuse of Tibet and its people is a tragedy that we cannot turn a blind eye to. Since 1950, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed, 260,000 Tibetans have died in labor camps, and approximately 6,000 monasteries, nunneries, shrines and religious sites have been destroyed. The films we have selected are powerful versions of this story.” Each film will be shown at 7:30 pm in Collins Cinema. On Tuesday, Feb 21, Devotion & Defiance: Buddhism and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Tibet chronicles the complex struggle of monks and nuns who defy the Chinese government’s attempt at control.

On Wednesday, March 1, Cry of the Snow Lion is an award-winning documentary filmed during nine journeys throughout Tibet, India and Nepal. On Thursday, March 9, Tibet’s Stolen Child features six Nobel Peace laureates (the Dalai Lama, John Hume, Mairead Maguire, Jose Ramos-Horta, Desmond Tutu and Elie Wiesel) and other moral and religious leaders examining the abduction of a 6-year-old religious figure. For more, e-mail lpahl@wellesley.edu.

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robotic exhibit explores art and technology


COLLISIONnine BOTbits, an exhibit that explores art and technology, will be on display from noon-6 pm in the Jewett Arts Center Gallery through March 8.

This experimental exhibit showcases the work of artists from MIT and beyond who use new technologies in their work. Nine pieces are presented that focus on art with robotic elements in an interactive workshop/laboratory format.

The artwork often involves never before tried technologies, concepts and installation approaches. It is also an opportunity for these artists to experiment, show ideas and techniques and gather feedback from the public. For more information, call x2042.

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wellesley student to start bike program

Anita Yip ’07 (right) has recently received an award from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Campus Ecology Fellowship Program to create a community bicycle program on campus and to educate the campus and local community about the environmental benefits of alternative transportation, clean energy and related issues.

The project includes a grant of $1,800; the project advisor is Elizabeth DeSombre, environmental studies. Yip also received the Katharine Timberman Wright Award from the Center for Work and Service in the amount of $750 to establish the bicycle program.

Yip says, "$1800 will be used to buy 10 bikes. $750 will be used to buy helmets, signage, locks, extra bike parts and accessories, publicity, paint and primer, and for having a bike mechanic to certify bikes and teach a course on bike maintenance."

Yip is the second Wellesley student to become a NWF Campus Ecology Fellow after Ariel Diamond ’05. Yip will present a proposal to College Government and hopes to involve the campus in shaping the bike program. “A group of students and I involved in the newly constituted organization the Community Bike Initiative (CBI) would like to see the program officially launch in fall 2006,” she said. For more information on the NWF fellowship, go here.

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don't miss: johns hopkins researcher to explain the biology of breast cancer

“The Biology of Human Breast Cancer,” the 2006 Helen A. Padukula Lecture, will be presented Monday, Feb. 27, at 5:30 pm in Science Center 277 by Dr. Nancy Davidson ’75 (left), professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. A reception will take place at 5 pm in Sage Lounge. This lecture is first in the spring 2006 40th Anniversary Celebration Lecture Series of the Biological Chemistry Program.

Davidson is an internationally recognized expert in the research and treatment of breast cancer. As director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Program, she has integrated basic scientific investigation of the biology of breast cancer with a nationally renowned clinical program focused on new therapeutic approaches to the disease. Davidson holds the Breast Cancer Research Chair in Oncology at Hopkins. A graduate of Wellesley and Harvard Medical School, she joined the Hopkins faculty in 1986 after training at the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins and the National Cancer Institute. She has published key findings on the role of hormones, particularly estrogen, on gene expression and cell growth in breast cancer. She is currently investigating estrogen receptor gene regulation and has a strong interest in characterizing the pathways by which breast cancer cells die in the hope that new therapies might target those pathways. Davidson’s work has been widely published in scientific journals and textbooks. She is a recipient of the American Cancer Society Clinical Oncology Career Development Award, the Merck Clinician Scientist Award, the American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award, the Brinker International Award for Breast Cancer Research and the Medical Advancement Award for the Avon Foundation.

For more information, call x3153.

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colleagues in the news

martin brody, music, has been interviewed by The Boston Globe in a remembrance of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who died Jan. 30. A friend from her college days, Brody said Wasserstein had “such a gift for friendship that every time you saw her, even if there was a long time in between, she picked up from where you left off,” adding that “all of that humor was there, along with a really sharp, perceptive way of looking at people.”

nora hussey, theatre, also remembered Wasserstein in a separate article in the Globe. Hussey had directed a production of Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women and Others in 1981 and again in 1991 at Wellesley; that performance was attended by Wasserstein herself. In talking to students, Hussey recalled, she told them, “Don’t wait for someone to hand it to you. Go out, produce, direct.” Hussey and her colleagues in theatre studies plan to celebrate Wasserstein’s life and work at a Wellesley event later this winter.

kimberly mealy, political science, has conducted a video-conference discussion with Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) in Pendleton. Students from Mealy’s seminar, “African Americans and the U.S. Political System,” joined Post-doctoral Fellows Michelle Bragg and Donna Harris and other students in posing questions to the U.S. representative. The group engaged the congressman in a discussion of the renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; Lewis’ experience working with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a student activist during the Civil Rights Movement; and the Congressional Black Caucus’ Hurricane Katrina Relief Bill. Rep. Lewis encouraged the students to become student leaders and activists in order to work on political and social issues that they feel passionate about.

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calendar

monday february 20

presidents’ day.

symposium. “Religion and Violence: The Biblical Heritage.” 8 am-3:30 pm, PNW 212. Sponsor: Elisabeth Luce Moore Fund. (See story.) Info: x2611.

meditation. 7-8:15 pm, lower chapel. Sponsor: Buddhist Community. Info: x2793.

bahá’í gathering. 8:30 pm, Freeman. Info: x4188.

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tuesday february 21

foh seminar. “Calligraphy for Botanical Labeling.” Speaker: Cynthia Henrich, calligrapher. 2/21, 2/22, 2/23 (snow date: 2/ 24). 10 am-3:30 pm, Botanic Gardens Visitor Center. Members: $150; others: $195. Info: x3094.

lecture. “Tracking Segregation: Student Experiences in Tracked Math and English Classes as a Repercussion of Historical School Desegregation Trends.” Speaker: Terah Venzant, Education Dept. candidate; Consortium for a Strong Minority Presence Fellow, Carleton College. 12:30-1:20 pm, PNE 139. Info: x3232.

president’s open office hour. 12:30-1:30 pm, GRH 350. Info: x2243.

lecture. “Jewish Feminism in America: Equality or Revolution? Two Sides of a Movement.” Speaker: Rabbi David Ellenson, president, Hebrew Union College. 4:30 pm, Collins Cinema. Sponsor: Jewish Studies. Info: x1107.

discussion. “Halaqa/Study Circle.” 6:45-8:30 pm, lower chapel. Info:mailto:nkhalil@wellesley.edu.

film. Devotion & Defiance: Buddhism and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Tibet. 7:30 pm, Collins Cinema. Sponsor: Students for a Free Tibet. (See story.) Info: lpahl@wellesley.edu.


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wednesday february 22

cws blood drive. 10-3 pm, Campus Center, Tishman Commons. Info: x2357.

cws job fair. “Wellesley Women in Science Job Fair.” 11:30 am-2 pm, Science Center. Info: x2352.

disability discussion. 12:30-1:30 pm, FND 305. Sponsor: Disability Services. Info: x2434.

training. Girls’ LEAP Self-defense “Teaching Women.” Wednesdays thru 4/12, 12:30-2 pm, Shafter Rec. Room. Info: lvanderp@wellesley.edu.

russian table. 12:30-1:30 pm, FND 416. Info: x3549.

spanish table. 12:30-1:30 pm, Tower Court. Info: x3571.

community meeting. 6 pm, lower chapel. Sponsor: Unitarian Universalists. Info: x3484.

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thursday february 23

chinese table. 12:30-1:20 pm, Stone-Davis livingroom. Info: CSAmail@wellesley.edu.

arabic table. 12:30-1:30 pm, Tower Court. Info: x2916.

french table. 12:30-1:30 pm, Bates. Info: x2403.

lecture. “Spacetime and the World. Speaker: David Harvey, anthropology, CUNY. 4:30 pm, Collins Cinema. Sponsor: Newhouse Center for the Humanities. Info: x2698.

lecture. “How Can We Be Modern Without Religion? Mediating the Bodies of China’s Falun Gong.” Speaker: Angela Zito, anthropology, NYU. 5 pm, PNE 225A. Sponsor: Anthropology. Info: x2935.

italian table. 5:30-6:45 pm, Tower Court. Info: x2616.

esl tutoring. 6-8 pm, PLTC small conference room. Info: x2480.

worship service. 7 pm, lower chapel. Sponsor: Protestant Christian Chaplaincy. Info: x2655.

meeting. Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. 7-9 pm, Campus Center, Multipurpose Room 2. Info: wivcfmail@wellesley.edu.

quintessence lecture. “Where Do We Go from Here?” Speaker: Sonia Sanchez, poet. 7:30 pm, Alumnae Hall. Sponsor: Ethos. (See story.) Info: x1046.

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friday february 24

cws fair. “Not-for-Profit and Public Service Career Fair.” 10 am-2 pm, Sports Center Multipurpose Room. Info: x2352.

african film festival. 11 am-4 pm, Collins Cinema. Info: wasamail@wellesley.edu.

prayer/discussion. Muslim communal (Jummah). 12:30-2:30 pm, lower chapel. Info: x2656.

shabbat service. 5:30-6:30 pm, BIL 300. Info: x2685.

south asian film festival. “East Meets West.” 6-9 pm, PNE 225A. Info: WASACmail@wellesley.edu.

bible study. 7 pm, Campus Center 413. Sponsor: Asian Baptist Student Koinonia. Info: x1831.

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saturday february 25

african film festival. (See 2/24 listing.)

south asian film festival. Noon-9 pm. (See 2/25 listing.)

films. Godzilla (1955), 7 pm; Jaws, 9 pm. PNW 212. Sponsor: Film Society. Info: x7043.

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sunday february 26

shivaratri. Hindu tradition.

african film festival. (See 2/24 listing.)

south asian film festival. 11 am-9 pm. (See 2/24 listing.)

worship service. 11:15 am, Houghton Chapel. Sponsor: Protestant CC. Info: x2655.

catholic mass. 4 pm, Houghton Chapel. Sponsor: Newman Catholic Ministry. Info: x2688.

meeting. Darshana. 5 pm, lower chapel. Sponsor: Hindu Community. Info: x2794.

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monday february 27

japanese table. 12:30-1:20 pm, Tower Court. Info: x7922.

panel. “Study Abroad in Latin America.” 4:30-5:30 pm, PNE 225A. Sponsor: International Studies. Info: x3532.

lecture. “The Biology of Human Breast Cancer.” Speaker: Nancy Davidson ’75, oncology, Johns Hopkins. Reception: 5 pm, Sage Lounge; lecture: 5:30 pm, SCI 277. Sponsor: Biological Sciences. (See story.) Info: x3153.

meeting. CG Senate. 6 pm, Academic Council Room. Info: cgpresident@wellesley.edu.

esl tutoring. (See 2/23 listing.)

cws workshop. “Alumnae/Student Mock Interviews.” 6:30-8 pm, GRH 441. Info: x2352.

meditation. (See 2/20 listing.)

german table. 8-9 pm, Stone. Info: x1685.

bahá’í gathering. (See 2/20 listing.)

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ongoing

exhibit. COLLISIONnine BOTbits. Jewett Arts Center, through 3/8. (See story.) Info: x2043.

exhibit. Remembering Wellesley’s Black Past. Clapp Library Archives, through 3/31. Info: x2127.

exhibit. On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West. DMCC, through 4/24. Info: x2051.

exhibit. Any Opinions? Artist: Xu Bing. DMCC, through 6/3. Info: x2051.
book sale. Clapp Library reading room. Donations: 50 cents to $4. Info: x2894.

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