MOUNT VERNON — “Peach Blood,” a play by a Cornell College student about the eventful life of a woman trying to chart a future independent of a haunted past, premieres Friday, Dec. 8, in Cornell’s Plumb-Fleming Studio Theatre in Armstrong Hall.

The play continues Dec. 9, 14, 15 and 16. All performances are at 8 p.m.

Holli Gipson, a senior English and theater major from Fort Worth, Texas, has written a script “alternately funny and chilling, and always painfully human,” says director Mark Hunter, chair of Cornell’s theater and communications studies department. The play follows Nancy, 29, living with dysfunctional parents who obsess about ancient situation comedies and the sex life of Marilyn Monroe. She works for a struggling gay artist, and she has encounters under a mysteriously indestructible peach tree with her sister who has been missing for years.

Gipson started work on the script in fall 2005 after completing a playwrighting class at Cornell. Personal experiences influenced this work of fiction, including conversations she’d had with friends about Marilyn Monroe, and the peach trees in her grandmother’s yard. When a knee injury sidelined her for the Cornell basketball season, she continued work on the play while recovering from surgery. Director Hunter quickly embraced the production for the Cornell stage. “Peach Blood” is the first student-written work chosen for the theater department’s mainstage season.

“It is most unusual for a first playwriting effort by an undergraduate student to receive this level of production at any institution. Holli will likely be making playwriting waves in years to come. We are delighted to celebrate this signal achievement by one of our own,” Hunter says.

Gipson, who intends to pursue graduate studies in playwriting after a two-year Peace Corps stint in Africa, says, “It’s a great feeling to see it come to life.”

To reserve tickets for “Peach Blood,” call the box office at (319) 895-4293 or go to www.cornellcollege.edu/theatre/box_office/. Admission is free to Cornell students, faculty, staff, emeritus faculty and retired staff. General admission is $8 for adults and $5 for students, seniors and youth.

MOUNT VERNON — The Cornell College Chamber Singers and Concert Choir will present “Gloria in Excelsis!” for the annual holiday concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, in King Chapel. Admission is free.

The program includes four settings of the “Gloria” text. The Concert Choir will perform Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major, featuring soloists senior soprano Sarah Brungard and senior mezzo-soprano Kara Stumpff; and Gloria from “Missa Kenya” by Paul Basler, with a solo by sophomore tenor Andrew Showalter. The Chamber Singers will perform Gloria ad modum tubae by Guillaume Dufay, with a solo by sophomore baritone Matt Roberts; and Gloria in Excelsis Deo! by J.S. Bach, with violin accompaniment by junior Sarah Fisher Hovde and first-year Dali Cao.

The Chamber Singers also will perform “Pat-a-pan,” by former Cornell music professor Alf Houkom (1962-1988), whose work has been performed by professional groups and soloists including the Dale Warland Singers, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and the Gregg Smith Singers.

The ensembles are directed by Lisa Hearne, associate professor of music and director of choral music. Accompanist is organist Lynda Hakken.

MOUNT VERNON – The Cornell College Jazz Ensembles concert is 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, in Kimmel Theatre of Youngker Hall. Admission is free.

The concert will feature the 5 O’clock Combo and the 3 O’clock Big Band, under the direction of Don Chamberlain, associate professor of music.

The concert had been postponed from its original date of Nov. 19.

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED

Nov. 22, 2006

MOUNT VERNON — A poet from Afghanistan will read from and discuss his work Thursday, Dec. 7, at Cornell College for the Global Voices series of campus appearances by international writers.

The reading is at 7 p.m. in Shaw Lounge of The Commons. Admission is free.

Partaw Naderi has published five poetry collections and several prose books on modern Afghan literature. His work has been translated into five languages, including English. An artist, scholar, journalist and literary critic, Naderi has edited Zhwandoon Quarterly Magazine, directed the Art and Cultural Programs section for Radio Afghanistan and reported on current affairs for BBC World Service. Currently he is with the Afghan Civil Society Forum in Kabul.

Global Voices presents periodic visits to Cornell by creative writers in residence at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. Since 1967, more than 1,000 writers from more than 115 countries have attended the IWP.

MOUNT VERNON - A multicultural conference Saturday, Nov. 18, at Cornell College will feature workshops on topics from rock music and racism to white privilege and leadership, plus live entertainment including a drum demonstration, belly dancing and slam poetry.

Titled “Celebrating Diversity, Discovering Unity: A Global Imperative,” the conference goal is to create a forum for exchange and learning about diversity in all its dimensions.

“Our vision is to bring together individuals and organizations focusing on the challenging issue of diversity and how it affects our society, both domestically and abroad, in an effort to move us closer in order to see the many ways we are all alike, and value the ways we are different,” says Ken Morris Jr., director of the Office of Intercultural Life at Cornell.

The conference will be held in The Commons. Highlights include a keynote lecture, “Dimensions of Diversity,” at 10 a.m. by Rita Ali, executive director of diversity at Illinois Central College in Peoria. Workshops led by Cornell administrators, faculty and students, and guest speakers are scheduled at 11 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. in several rooms of The Commons. Following lunch in the Cornell dining halls, there will be live entertainment on the Orange Carpet from 12:30 to 1 p.m.

Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. The conference is open to the public and registration is free. Lunch is $5 for guests of the campus.

For more information on the conference, call Cornell’s Office of Intercultural Life, (319) 895-4484, or e-mail Ken Morris, kmorris@cornellcollege.edu.

Cornell politics professor Dave Loebsack, making his first run for public office, was elected to Congress in Iowa’s 2nd District on Tuesday. Democrat Loebsack defeated 15-term incumbent Republican Jim Leach. Loebsack has taught at Cornell since 1982, specializing in international relations.

For more …

Des Moines Register
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Loebsack for Congress

Chris Carney ‘81 elected to Congress
Another Cornellian politics professor, Christopher P. Carney ‘81, was also elected a U.S. Congressman. Carney will represent the 10th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. Carney is an associate professor of political science at Penn State Worthington-Scranton, where he has taught since 1992. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their five children in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, in Pennsylvania.

For more …

Carney for Congress

MOUNT VERNON — A Cornell College chemistry alumnus, former president of Colorado State University and current partner in a venture capital firm focused on biotechnology will lecture on “Biotechnology as the Next U.S. Economic Driver” at 11:15 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, at Cornell.

The lecture is in Ringer Recital Studio of Armstrong Hall. Admission is free.

Ralph “Chris” Christoffersen is general partner at Morgenthaler Ventures in Boulder, Colo. After receiving a Cornell degree in chemistry and mathematics in 1959, he completed a doctorate in physical chemistry at Indiana University and served on the chemistry faculty and in academic affairs administration at the University of Kansas. He was president of Colorado State for two years before joining the pharmaceutical industry in 1983, first as a senior researcher at The Upjohn Co. and SmithKline Beecham, and then as CEO of Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals. He joined Morgenthaler Ventures in 2001.

Christoffersen returns to Cornell as part of the Beta Omicron Distinguished Alumni Visitors Program. During his stay he will visit a class on capital markets and meet with economics and business students and faculty, plus members of the Cornell Financial Group, a student organization.