DECEMBER 15, 2004
THIS WEEK
Final Exams Are Here
Final Examinations for First Semester
2004-2005 will be given throughout this week (Dec. 13-17).
Click the link to view the university's official policy on
Final Examinations and Dead Week, from the Academic Services Handbook.
ACADEMIC
SERVICES HANDBOOK |
UNL CAMPUS
NU Foundation names finalists in design competition for new International
Quilt Study Center building at UNL
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's
International Quilt Study Center will soon have a new home created by one
of three well-known architects competing for the opportunity to design the
building.
The new, privately funded building will provide year-round exhibition
space, work areas dedicated to research, care and maintenance of the
collection, and expanded storage capacity for the world-class quilt
collection. The facility will be approximately 30,000 square feet and built
at the northwest corner of 33rd and Holdrege streets.
A design competition among the three finalists is being conducted
under the auspices of the University of Nebraska Foundation to identify the
architect for the project. The total project cost, including construction,
professional fees and equipment, is budgeted at $10,315,050. The NU Board
of Regents approved the program statement for the project at its meeting in
September.
An evaluation committee, comprised of individuals from NU Central
Administration, UNL facilities management, UNL faculty and staff, NU
Foundation and a design competition consultant who is the dean of the
School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico,
reviewed proposals from 37 architectural firms and has identified three
finalists:
• Kisho Kurokawa architects & associates of Tokyo, partnering with Sinclair
Hille architects of Lincoln
• Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York City, partnering with Alley
Poyner Architects of Omaha
• Studio Daniel Libeskind of New York City, local partner to be announced
These firms will begin creating design plans, including architectural
models, drawings and costs analyses in preparation for their final
presentations to the committee on March 8, 2005.
The architectural and planning competition was funded by the Robert
and Ardis James Foundation. The firm that wins the competition will receive
the contract for the project and the other two finalists will each receive
$50,000 for their creative professional design services. The James
Foundation also provided a leadership gift of $4 million for the building.
The International Quilt Study Center represents one of the world's
largest and most comprehensive collections of quilts, with more than 1,650
quilts. The collection includes the Ardis and Robert James Collection of
antique and contemporary studio art quilts, the Cargo Collection of African
American Quilts and the Jonathan Holstein Collection of Pennsylvania Amish
Quilts, as well as the seminal Whitney Collection.
The center is currently located on the second floor of the Home
Economics Building on UNL's East Campus in an environmentally-controlled
storage room. The room was built when Ardis and Robert James donated their
quilt collection to UNL in 1997. No gallery space or dedicated work areas
were prepared at that time; rather the plan was to use existing galleries
on campus on a rotating basis for exhibition of the collection and to use
selected classrooms for the routine care and conservation of the
collection.
In addition to providing improved exhibition space, the new building
will increase accessibility for scholars, students and the general public.
An enlarged state-of-the-art storage space will allow the center to remain
a model facility in accord with recommendations of the American Institute
for Conservation and the American Association of Museums.
The University of Nebraska Foundation is a nonprofit corporation
supplementing support for students, faculty, facilities and programs at the
University of Nebraska's four campuses through gifts from alumni, friends,
corporations and other foundations since 1936.
NU FOUNDATION |
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DEVANEY CENTER, DECEMBER 18, 9:30AM
Ted Kooser to Address 1,450 UNL
Graduates at Dec. 18 Commencement
Ted Kooser, poet laureate of
the United States and professor of English in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
College of Arts and Sciences, will give the address and receive an
honorary doctor of letters degree at UNL commencement exercises Dec.
18 at the Bob Devaney Sports Center, 1600 Court St.
Chancellor Harvey Perlman will preside
over the 9:30 a.m. ceremony. Approximately 1,450 students will receive
degrees.
Because of construction of the Antelope Valley Project south of the
Devaney Center (including the closing of Court Street on the south
side of the building), those planning to attend commencement exercises
are urged to use the 27th Street entrance to State Fair Park to get
to the ceremony. Shuttle buses will be available for transportation
from parking lots to the Devaney Center.
Kooser was named poet laureate (officially the Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress) Aug. 12 by James H. Billington,
Librarian of Congress, and began his duties on Oct. 7. Previous poets
laureate include Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks and Rita Dove.
The author of 10 collections of poetry and prose including "Local
Wonders, Seasons in the Bohemian Alps," (2002) published by University
of Nebraska Press, Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939 and attended
public school there before earning his bachelor's degree at Iowa
State University (1962). He taught school for one year before moving
to Nebraska to pursue graduate school. He received his master's degree
at the University of Nebraska in 1968. He has lived all of his life
in Nebraska and Iowa and worked for 35 years in the life insurance
business, retiring in 1999 as a vice president.
Kooser's most recent work is an upcoming University of Nebraska Press
book, "The Poetry Home Repair Manual," due out soon, following "Delights & Shadows" (2004).
His other collections of poetry include "Sure Signs" (1980), which
received the Society of Midland Authors Prize for the best book of
poetry by a Midwestern writer published in that year; "One World
at a Time" (1985); "Weather Central" (1994); and "Winter Morning
Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison" (2000), winner of the
2001 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. "Local Wonders" also won the
Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003. The book was also chosen
as the Best Book Written by a Midwestern Writer for 2002 by Friends
of American Writers, and it won the Gold Award for Autobiography
in ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards.
Kooser is also the author, with his longtime friend Jim Harrison,
of "Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry" (2003), for which the
two poets received the 2003 Award for Poetry from the Society of
Midland Authors. Among Kooser's other awards and honors are two National
Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley
Kunitz Prize, the James Boatwright Prize and a Merit Award from the
Nebraska Arts Council.
Doctoral candidates will be honored in a hooding ceremony at 3:30
p.m. Dec. 17 at Kimball Recital Hall, 11th and R streets (extended).
Doctoral candidates will receive their diplomas at the Dec. 18 commencement
exercises at the Devaney Center.
A drop-off area for graduates and mobility-restricted guests will
be available on the south side of the Devaney Center on Dec. 18.
Sign language interpreters for hearing impaired individuals will
be provided on-screen by HuskerVision. Guests in wheelchairs will
be seated on the northeast corner of the arena floor. Golf carts
will be located at the ramps on the exterior north and south sides
of the Devaney Center to assist disabled guests entering and leaving
the building.
Admission is free to both ceremonies, and tickets are not required.
The Dec. 18 commencement exercises will also be streamed live on
the UNL Web site.
UNL
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EISENTRAGER•HOWARD GALLERY, THROUGH
DEC. 17, NOON-5PM
Capstone Exhibition Presents Work
of Nine BFA Candidates
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The semiannual BFA Capstone Exhibition in the Eisentrager•Howard
Gallery, on the first floor of Richards Hall.
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The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Capstone
Exhibition continues today in the Eisentrager•Howard Gallery
in Richards Hall, Stadium Drive and T streets, on UNL's city campus.
A closing reception will be held Friday, Dec. 17, from 5-7pm in the
gallery.
The BFA Capstone Exhibition features the
work of graduating seniors from the Department of Art and Art History.
This presentation is the culminating undergraduate presentation for
art students during their university program. The following nine
artists are included in the exhibition:
Shannon Bourne shows a series of oil paintings depicting
organic forms in atmospheric environments.
Matthew Gohring is a graphic designer who is exhibiting
several brochures and magazine covers he produced for the College
of Engineering and the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
Kris Haskin is presenting a series of small and
larger oil paintings that employ bold and textual abstractions.
Justin Irwin shows five larger abstract paintings
on shaper canvases distinguished by layers of marks and patterns.
Jessica Mills is exhibiting colorful etchings with
overlayed drawings and images that are identified by poetic titles.
Kathryn Scherfenberg presents exquisite sets of
earthenware ceramic plates, cups, serving dishes and place settings,
glazed with beautiful decorative surfaces.
Meghan Stratman shows paper and collage images depicting
women and works based on female storybook characters.
Nolan Tredway exhibits oil paintings of fantasy
landscapes, and a DVD series entitled "Milk" that employs puppet-like
figures in epistemological dialogues.
Timothy Wegner shows eight stoneware and porcelain
sculptures based on organic images with monochromatic satin glazes.
The Department of Art and Art History's Eisentrager•Howard
Gallery is open Monday through Friday, noon-5pm. The gallery is located
on the first floor of Richards Hall.
COLLEGE
OF FINE AND PERFORMING ARTS | ART
AND ART HISTORY |
MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Continuing this week at the Ross: Since
Otar Left, Being Julia
UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center
presents the winner of the prestigious Critics' Week Grand Prize
at the Cannes Film Festival, Since Otar Left and the film Being
Julia, the newest film from director István Szabó.
Since Otar Left is a bittersweet
tale of deception and affection. Three Georgian women--strong-willed
matriarch Eka (90-year-old former dental assistant and fledgling
star Esther Gorintin), her long-suffering daughter Marina (Nino Khomassouridze)
and rebellious granddaughter Ada (Freeze, Die, Come to Life's Dinara
Droukarova)--all live together in their stately-yet-crumbling apartment
in contemporary Tbilisi, the capital of the former Soviet republic.
Eka pines for her beloved son Otar, a physician who is now a construction
worker in Paris.
Marina is deeply resentful of her mother's obsession with her absent
brother, while Ada endures their bickering and yearns for a more
adventurous existence. When a friend of Otar's calls with tragic
news, Marina and Ada must make a seemingly impossible choice: Do
they keep Eka from learning the truth? Former assistant director
to Bertrand Tavernier and Krzysztof Kieslowski, Bertuccelli deftly
spins the delicate threads of familial conflict and maternal love
into a bewitching tangle of intergenerational duplicity.
In Being Julia, London theater actress Julia Lambert (Annette
Bening) starts having a nervous breakdown. She still rules the West
End, but is growing too old for ingénue parts. Enter Tom Fennell
(Shaun Evans), an adoring lad half her age, and a clandestine affair
begins. Though she's happy for a while, Julia eventually winds up
in a face-off with a Tom's other, much younger lover (Lucy Punch).
Luckily, the spirit of Julia's cantankerous old acting coach (London
theater legend Michael Gambon) follows Julia around offering some
tough-love encouragement.
Set in the late 1930s, this is a fine costume comedy-drama about
the sorrows and joys of art. The eternal question of "when am I acting
and when am I myself?" has seldom been addressed as intelligently
as it is here; Bening seems to be not only tangling with her own
status as an aging beauty, but also with the limits of her own acting
abilities, and it's a pleasure to see her transcend both with such
triumphant exuberance. Bravo, Miss Bening, and kudos to director
Szabó (Mephisto) for rendering his obvious love of theater,
cinema, and actors with such contagious warmth. Other fine performances
include Jeremy Irons as Julia's manager/husband and Juliet Stevens
as her jaded maid.
More information is available at the Ross website.
MRRMAC | SINCE
OTAR LEFT |
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