The Philadelphia Inquirer

Graduates in Philadelphia put themselves to good use

By Daniel Rubin; Inquirer Columnist

October 6, 2011

You've probably seen the bad news about recent college graduates, or maybe you have someone back home right now stretched out on the couch.

A Georgetown University study puts the unemployment rate for those with new bachelor's degrees at 9 percent, which is better than the numbers for those who didn't graduate from college, but not so good if they're just starting to pay off all that debt.

Here's something good: Six years ago, a couple of Haverford College alums created a program to reverse the brain drain that was sapping Philadelphia of its finest young thinkers.

Called Philly Fellows, it placed service-minded fresh graduates with local nonprofit organizations, and it has done a fine job of keeping that talent on hand: Half of its 86 alums still work in the city, and one - Justin Ennis - has risen to be executive director of the agency where he began, the After School Activities Partnerships.

...Adrienne Webb is typical of those the program prizes, a Bryn Mawr grad from Pittsburgh who completed three internships in the area before starting in July as a Philly Fellow. Twice, she worked with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. And she helped poor people in Norristown fill out their tax forms.

...For one year, the fellows live rent-free in one of three rowhouses scattered around the city. In addition to grossing about $1,000 a month (the program is funded mainly by AmeriCorps and the nonprofits themselves), they defer paying off student loans for 12 months, and after their service, they earn a $5,000 stipend.

...The experience has warmed the fellows to Philadelphia, which four years of living at the city's edge doesn't necessarily do, says Sameer Rao, a Haverford grad from Avon, Conn., now working with the Philadelphia Young Playwrights.

"For a lot of people [in college], Philadelphia is not a very exciting city," he said. "It's much more interesting than people think."

Rebecca Wright, a Swarthmore grad from Newton, Mass., likes living at 46th and Spruce Streets in a flat filled with people her age doing similar work, but knowing different things.

"Adrienne finds out about all these really cool poetry things and film screenings, while others know where the best bands are playing."

The only downside? It's about time for them to start thinking about what they want to do next year.

Coast Weekend (OR)

Northwest Authors Series hosts Emily Chenoweth

October 4, 2011

Cannon Beach - Emily Chenoweth, who speaks Saturday, Oct. 8, at the Cannon Beach Library, was 19 when her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer and died in less than a year. Her mother had been her best friend, and Chenoweth was devastated. She went on to graduate from Swarthmore College in 1994, then taught high school for a time before going to New York to study at Columbia University and become a fiction editor at Publishers Weekly.

Her writing appeared in literary magazines and in such publications as People. She wrote commercial and young adult fiction. And she wrote a piece about her mother called "The Friend Who Got Away" for an anthology on friendship. That led to a book contract and her first novel. Chenoweth, who now lives in Portland and won the 2009 Oregon Literary Fellowship, will speak at 2 p.m. at the library as a part of the Northwest Authors Series of free author talks.

Her novel, Hello Goodbye, tells of a woman diagnosed with cancer, the week's vacation her husband plans for her and their daughter and friends without telling anyone how close death is, and the daughter's romance with a resort worker. The stubby plot synopsis suggests a maudlin tale, but readers strongly disagree. Phillip Gerard, a judge for the award of the literary fellowship, said Chenoweth is simply too good a writer to let that happen. She wrote, he said, "with restraint and a control over language that brings beauty into the equation. Chenoweth captures the essential dignity of these characters and insists upon their responsibility to act on behalf of one another rather than simply to passively endure their fate. Chenoweth offers the reader a mastery of craft along with a genuine emotional connection to the characters-the best kind of combination."

The Philadelphia Inquirer

In prints and paintings, an outlook on devastation

By Edith Newhall

October 2, 2011

Familiar to Philadelphians from her Print Center solo of 2008 and PAFA's Philagrafika group show of 2010, Orit Hofshi's carved woodblock and painted renderings of desolate, roiling, war-torn landscapes are so visceral that viewers can almost feel the intense energy that propels Hofshi as she works.

The sensation of sharing a physical relationship with the art resonates in her current solo exhibition, "Orit Hofshi: Resilience" at Swarthmore 's List Gallery, too, but the enormous scale of her work in this modestly sized gallery make the massive woodcuts, prints and paintings appear to be windows looking out to kaleidoscopic scenes of destruction in a country of no particular identity. That is a slightly scary, discombobulating feeling. When you learn that Hofshi's mother was the only Jewish child to escape the Nazi occupation of her town in then-Czechoslovakia (she and Hofshi's father, also a Holocaust survivor, helped found Matsuva, one of Israel's first kibbutzim), you realize that these indeterminate, devastated landscapes are much more literal than they look.

The exhibition marks her first installation, Convergence, which takes up the entire back space of the gallery. Viewed from a wooden observation deck and theatrically lit, the space, which has been painted entirely black, has shallow, rectangular trays filled with inky fluid on its floor. It could be a shoreline as seen at night.

But above the glistening "ink" (it's actually oil), the artist has diagonally suspended four woodcut prints showing scenes of cascading rubble. Further back in the dark recesses, the two woodblocks from which the suspended prints were printed are supported by poles and stand erect like sentinels, as if to prove that history cannot be erased.

The San Francisco Examiner

Building an education: college admissions for prospective engineers

October 2, 2011

Gordon Brown, former Dean of Engineering at MIT, described engineers as operating at "the interface between science and society." They apply science to convert resources and solve problems to the benefit of humankind. No wonder then that many young people, without knowing much about the field at all, are drawn to it when they begin to consider college admissions.

...Prospective engineers also need not choose between attending smaller liberal arts colleges with their intensely mentoring environments and ready access to faculty resources, or studying engineering. In reality, future engineers can study almost everywhere. Smaller universities that do not offer doctoral degrees but rank exceptionally high as engineering programs, include Bucknell and Villanova. Even smaller colleges may boast their own schools of engineering, and many of these are amongst the top-ranked programs, including Lafayette, Swarthmore , Smith and Union Colleges.

Targeted News Service

Five UCSC Students Win Fulbright Scholarships

September 30, 2011

The University of California at Santa Cruz issued the following news release:

Five UC Santa Cruz students in four disciplines are winners of Fulbright scholarships for a year of research and study abroad.  ...

Joanna Ory graduated from Swarthmore College in 2006 with degrees in biology and psychology before enrolling in the environmental studies Ph.D. program at UCSC.

Ory said she was attracted to UCSC's interdisciplary program because it allows her to pursue her interests in public policy, environmental quality, sustainable agriculture, and water issues with the goal of applying her research to solutions. This past year she also won a Sustainability Fellowship grant from the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. Her advisor is professor Brent Haddad.

Ory will travel to Italy to research the effects of policies that limit herbicide use and promote sustainable pest management on corn farms in the Veneto region in the north. She plans to look at how the policies have affected water quality as well as farmers' decisions and economic outcomes. She leaves Oct. 15 and plans to stay nine months.

Specifically, Ory is interested in how the ban of the herbicide atrizine in Italy 20 years ago has affected water quality and agricultural economics. Atrizine is currently under a national review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency so the experience in Italy will provide insights for the creation of U.S. policy, she said.  ...

SPORTS

The Delaware County Daily Times (PA)

D'Annunzio sets mark for Swat

October 6, 2011

Times Staff

There's a new shutout king at Swarthmore.

David D'Annunzio stopped four shots to set the program record for career clean sheets as No. 21 Garnet held off Manhattanville, 1-0, in men's soccer action Wednesday night.

It was D'Annunzio's 26th shutout of his career. Michael Stewart put back a rebound in the 73rd minute for the only goal of the game.

The Delaware County Daily Times (PA)

Delaware County Athlete Hall of Fame inducting new class this October

October 5, 2011

The athletes being honored are as follows:

...

Dave Johnson (Distinguished)

A graduate of Swarthmore High and Swarthmore College, Dave participated in cross-country, basketball and track and field, and has spent a majority of his professional life promoting the sport of track and field.

He is the founder, editor and publisher of Philadelphia Track, and was statistical editor for Track and Field News, and historian for the prestigious Penn Relays. Dave has served as the public address announcer for numerous major domestic track and field meets, including the US Olympic Trials and the Atlanta Olympic Games. Since 1996, he has served as the Frank Dolson Director of the historic Penn Relays

Dave has been the director/consultant for entry confirmations for the Olympic Trials and the US World Championships. He covered the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, was a member of the NBC Sports reporting team for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and press journalist at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia.

A member of numerous international and national track and field organizations, Dave is a member of the PA State High School Track and Field Hall of Fame, Swarthmore/Nether Providence/Strath Haven High Schools Wall of Honor, and the 2010 winner of the Sam Skinner Award from the Track and Field Writers of America. ...