Park Gala...oooh la la!....needs your help

Last spring, two Parkies -- Matt Gogal and Amy Zeleznock -- got in touch with me with a fantastic idea: They wanted to establish an annual Park School Gala, a semi-formal celebration open to Park School students and their guests.

"We wanted something fun that everyone could all bond over as well as getting all pretty," says Amy.

I agreed that that was a pretty cool idea, so I said I'd help sponsor it (hey, what's a dean for?).

And now it's happening:

DATE: APRIL 14
TIME: 8pm-11:59pm (apparently Emerson is closing at 12 midnight).
DETAILS: Parkies: $10
Non-Parkies (including dates, which ARE NOT REQUIRED): $15
(Such a deal...)

At this point, Amy and Matt need some help to get this thing going.

And that means you.

We're looking for five or six great Parkies who would be willing to help with the planning and dedicate an hour or so the night of the event (in shifts, so nobody has to work the whole evening).

The benefits of volunteer work include:

1. you get in for free,
2. you can be the organizer next year, after Amy and Matt graduate;
3. you can put it on your resume;
4. you can feel great about the fact that you helped make a very special event happen in the Park School, and that means all your friends will owe you big time.

Email Amy and Matt. And start planning for the first-ever PARK GALA.

ICTV takes home FOUR Pegasus awards!

Four Ithaca College Television programs received 2007 Pegasys Awards for Cablecasting Excellence. The February 23 presentation was televised live on Time Warner channel 13 from the downtown cable access studio. This annual competition honors local public and educational access programming.

ICTV winners were:

Comedy/variety –
This Week Tonight, produced by Michael DeHart and Kyle Jamieson

Live –
Sports Final, produced by Luke Uttaro

Magazine –
The Gridiron Report, produced by Amy Zeleznock

Documentary –
The Race episode 1, produced by Peter Berg

Additionally, Sports Final and The Race were selected Best Educational
Access programs. Time Warner will sponsor them in the Alliance for
Community Media’s Hometown Video competition.

A ride to New Hampshire?

Greetings,

I emailed you all to inform you directly about the services for Cassandra Karpinski being held in New Hampshire this weekend (tomorrow and Monday). Since then, I have heard from at least one student who would like to go but needs a ride (we tried to hire a bus but none of the local companies could provide us a driver for that short a turn-around). If you're going and would be willing to make room for one more, would you please email me at dlynch@ithaca.edu, OR just post a comment here, and let other students know that you'd be willing to carpool?

Thanks!
Dianne

Help Make Trish the Mardi Gras Queen!

This just in from Trish Capello, an IMC grad who is living in Vail. And YOU (OK, all of us) can help make Trish the Mardi Gras Queen this year -- just by taking the time to vote for her (oh, come on, what else do you have to do for the next 27 seconds? Let's get behind a fellow Parkie!)

Here's the message:

"In just one short year here in Vail, CO I have been nominated for Vail's Mardi Gras Queen...and I wouldn't be in marketing if I didn't reach out to the IC eco-system.

If you go to http://www.vaildaily.com/section/NEWS scroll to the bottom right and I’m the first nominee Trish Capello. And of course if you’re ever in Vail look me up."


She's in second place. WE can change that!





Thanks,

Trish

Poverty, Panic, and the Greening of....FLEFF brings extraordinary classes to IC

The FINGER LAKES ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007 will bring more than 100 special events to Ithaca between March 26 and April 2, including a series of exceptional mini-courses open to IC students across the college.

Take a look:

The Greening of Corporate Management [BINT19700-01]
This course aims to create an awareness of the extent of environmental degradation and will examine different approaches to green corporate management. Concepts of environmental ethics will be introduced. June Wu, Instructor

Poverty, Panic, and Population Health [HPS 39901-01]
FLEFF themes touch on many issues in international health. The role of cities in concentrating poor people and the role of panic and fear in relationship to public health will be discussed along with the role of cartography in addressing public health issues. Stewart Auyash, Associate Professor
We Have Issues: Exploring the Environmental Context behind Films [ENVS 10300-01]
This mini-course will explore the underlying environmental issues in selected films from a scientific, cultural, ethical, historical, and political perspective. Five films will be selected and a team of faculty from environmentally-related fields will provide students with background information on one of the specific issues that will be portrayed in the film.

Beyond the Maps [FREN 22000-01]
This course will explore how five French and Francophone Festival films challenge our sociological, philosophical, sexual and esthetic maps. These movies show not only different cultures and environments with which we are more or less familiar, but also lead spectators to think about their own cultures and prejudices. Patricia Gravatt, Assistant Professor

Required Viewing: The Best of the Fest 2007 [GCOM 29206]
FLEFF 2007 is screening current, cutting-edge films from around the globe that address a variety of scientific, cultural, and political issues by exploring four interrelated themes: Maps and Memes, Metropoli, Panic Attacks, and Soundscaping. Students will attend five screenings, participate in question/answer sessions with the filmmaker(s), attend one meeting at the start of the festival, and students will prepare a short, written summary of each film and the specific issue(s) it addresses.
Stephen Tropiano, Assistant Professor, Program Director, Ithaca College Los Angeles Program

Storyscapes [GCOM 29206]
It's no accident that our ears are on the sides of our heads: the world is a three-dimensional place. But stories need to move forward. Radio producer Jon Miller (http://homelands.org/producers/miller.html) leads students through an exploration of real-world storytelling using real-world sound. This mini course will emphasize the decisions sonic storytellers make, from where to point the microphone to how to weave
together disparate sonic elements to reconstruct reality.

Live Sound for “Silent Film” [MUNM 27100 – 01]
This workshop course will focus on developing a sound design for the film, His People to be screened on the closing night of the festival. Prerequisite: Digital Recording and Editing, or Advanced Audio Production, permission of instructor. Peter Rothbart, Professor

Check out Hamula in the NYT!

IMC Professor Scott Hamula attended the American Advertising Federation program for outstanding minority students in New York last week, and the group spent an afternoon at the New York Times. The newspaper is moving into a new building, so this is one of the last times "the public" will be allowed to visit the space that has been home to the nation's 'newspaper of record' since 1904.

As Scott reported, it was "really special, for students and faculty advisers alike."

Very cool.

Nationally Syndicated Columnist Covers the Politics of War

Norman Solomon—syndicated media columnist and founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy—will speak on “The Media Politics of War” at Ithaca College on Tuesday, Feb. 13. Part of the Park Scholar Tenth Anniversary Speaker Series, Solomon’s talk will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Park Hall Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

A journalist whose experience spans many years of freelance writing for Pacific News Service and other media outlets, Solomon has been writing his nationally syndicated column “Media Beat” since 1992. In addition, he is the author of 12 books, including “Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media,” “Wizards of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News,” and “War Made Easy: How President and Pundits Keep Spinning Us.”

In the introduction to Solomon’s 1999 book, “The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media,” educator and author Jonathan Kozol wrote, “The tradition of Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and I.F. Stone does not get much attention these days in the mainstream press . . . but that tradition is alive and well in this collection of courageously irreverent columns on the media by Norman Solomon.”

An archive of Solomon’s columns are available at www.normansolomon.com.

Solomon’s talk is the second in a year-long campus wide speaker series celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Park Scholar Program, a merit-based financial assistance initiative that covers the cost of up to four years of undergraduate study in the Roy H. Park School of Communications. The first speaker in the series was Danny Green, the 1985 Park School alumnus who co-created The Smoking Gun website.

The Race is ON!

Pete Berg's sleepless nights and hundreds of phone calls are paying off this semester with the airing of The Great Race, the Park School's greatest (to date) reality show. Take a look at the Ithaca Journal story in today's newspaper!

Way to go, Pete (and all of the scores of other students who helped set it up and make it happen....)!

Shoot a PSA -- for a very good cause....

Every year, thousands of people across the globe are affected by international disasters:

* This past Sunday, the flooding in Indonesia
* Genocide in Darfur
* Tsunami in Asia
* Toxic dumping in Cote d’Ivoire
* Increased violence in the Middle East



And every year disaster victims receive donated items they cannot use. For instance, cans of spam or t-shirts sent to Muslim countries are culturally inappropriate and expensive to ship abroad. Americans are very generous donators to relief efforts, but while well-intended, the generosity can often be misplaced. We need to educate the public that “cash is best” when dealing with international disaster relief, and the Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) is doing just that.



University film students across the nation are getting together to participate in the Center for International Disaster Information’s (CIDI) challenge to inspire and motivate the general public to support U.S. organized international disaster relief campaigns and encourage them to respond properly by giving cash donations to international disaster relief efforts.



CIDI, a federally-funded organization, has launched its second annual public service announcement (PSA) contest for U.S. university students called “PSAid: Public Service Announcements for International Disasters”. PSAid is challenging all U.S.-based university students to create a 30-second PSA that demonstrates appropriate international disaster relief and relays the message that “cash is best”. Not only will college students have the chance to win apart of $20,000 in cash prizes and gain national recognition, but they will be making a difference in the lives of international disaster victims. All entrees are due by April 2, 2007.



Students are asked to submit their entries digitally at www.psaid.org. This interactive website not only provides students with helpful production tools such as logos, stock images, common myths and FAQs, but will also allow them to participate in the selection process by blogging about entries, posting submissions to their social network pages such as MySpace and Facebook, and ultimately voting on their top choices.

Gossa's work changes lives

This just in from Barry Derfel, a staff developer in the Ithaca School District and an IC alum. Derfel is using Professor Gossa Tsegaye's film, "Dream Street on Buffalo Hill" in his workshops and he needs another copy; he's afraid the one he has is being worn out from overuse!

Hello Mr. Tsegaye,

I am a staff developer in the Ithaca City School District, and my responsibility is to support staff, administration, and community in the work to eliminate race, class, and disability as predictors of success. I am also an Ithaca College graduate, and a former student of Janet Fitchen's. I have been using your video in a workshop series
entitled "Creating Schools Which Affirm Rural Youth," and I have been requested to run a number of workshops for small groups of staff at Ithaca High School. I am wondering how to obtain more copies, since the one copy I have was leant to me by Sue Rakow, another staff developer, and I am afraid it may eventually wear out....

Thank You.

Barry Derfel

Nice to know that Gossa's work is making such a difference.

Park Scholars Program announces "junior" awards beginning in 2008

Greetings,

On behalf of the Park School, the Park Scholar Program, and the Park Foundation, we are very pleased to announce that beginning with the 2008-2009 academic year, Park Scholar Awards will be available to students already enrolled in the Park School.

The specific details regarding the application and selection process are being developed as we speak, but we wanted to be sure to share some of the preliminary details with you.

During the spring 2008 semester, Park School sophomores will be eligible to apply for Park Scholar Awards. Three students will be selected as Park Scholars, and these students will join the Park Scholar Program as juniors, beginning in the fall 2008 semester.

It is our expectation that a limited number of Park Scholar Awards will be made available to juniors every year going forward. Students will apply during the spring of their sophomore year, and will enter the program during the fall of their junior year. These awards will be made in addition to the ‘regular’ class of incoming freshmen Park Scholars each year.

Award recipients will be selected via the same criteria currently utilized in the selection of Park Scholars: academic excellence; community service; leadership; extracurricular participation; and commitment to the field of communications. Only students matriculated in those degree programs currently eligible for the Park Scholar Award may apply. As with the existing Park Scholar Awards, international students are not eligible. Transfer students are also not eligible; only those students who have been enrolled in an eligible degree program in the Park School of Communications since matriculating at Ithaca College are eligible to apply.

As with the existing Park Scholar Award, these two-year awards (for a student’s junior and senior years) will cover the full cost of attendance (tuition, room and board). In addition, the award includes stipends for living expenses, books, and a one-time computer purchase of $2,500.

Those students who receive the award and enter the program during the fall semester of their junior year will be expected to meet the same eligibility requirements as current Park Scholars: full-time enrollment at a minimum of 12 credit hours per semester as a Cinema and Photography, Communication Management and Design, Integrated Marketing Communications, Journalism, or Television-Radio major in the Park School of Communications; a 3.5 cumulative grade point average throughout the term of the scholarship; a strong and continued record of community service and extracurricular involvement; participation in Park Scholar academic programming and enrichment activities; and good judicial standing.

We are delighted to share this exciting news with you, and continue to be grateful for the tremendous generosity of the Park Foundation, without which none of this would be possible.

As you can imagine, there are a lot of details to be worked out. As soon as we have more information, we will share that with you. In the meantime, please feel free to contact Park Scholar Director Matthew Fee (parkscholars@ithaca.edu) with any preliminary questions that you may have.

Dr. Dianne Lynch

Dean, Roy H. Park School of Communications

Matthew Fee

Director, Park Scholar Program

The guy with the golden voice....remember Ed?

Many of you still remember Ed Cohen, an '05 grad and a guy with a broadcast voice if ever there was one....
He keeps in touch, and he's doing well:
Hello all,

Hope everyone is well on the South Hill and beyond. Just wanted to pass along an update...I have been hosting a Manhattan basketball coaches show on SNY (the Mets network), called Manhattan College Basketball Weekly. It airs Fridays at 4 pm and Saturdays at 11 am. We are about halfway through the schedule. If you have the chance to tune in, that would be great.

All the best.

- Ed

Tune in. And let him know that his fellow Parkies are among his biggest fans....

IC Scriptwriters Unite (and get some feedback on your work...)

This just in from Amanda Pendolino, president of the Ithaca College Scriptwriters Association:

The IC Scriptwriters Association is a (sort of) defunct student organization that Amanda and several of her co-writers have decided to revive. It's going to serve as an extracurricular writing workshop for TV and film writers who would like constructive feedback on their work - whether it's for class, an ICTV show, an upcoming student film shoot or the material they'll use to break into Hollywood. All majors and levels of experience are welcome.

Rush night will take place on Tuesday Feb 13 at 7 pm in Park 220.

The group also has an official site/blog: http://icscriptwriters.blogspot.com

FLEFF!

If you are interested in participating in the 2007 Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival as an intern, want to meet exciting artists, filmmakers, writers, and activists, and want to be part of a team that mounts a major interarts festival, now is the time to sign up. Opportunities are available in arts administrations, festival operations, marketing, festival blogging, and hospitality. All positions entail meeting and escorting prominent guests on campus, at forums, at the downtown theaters, and at various openings and gatherings.

If you are interested in participating, kindly do the following:
1. email Dr. Patricia Zimmermann, codirector, FLEFF or Dr. Tom Shevory, codirector, FLEFF, at patty@ithaca.edu and shevory@ithaca.edu . Let them know you want your name on the internship list

2. Then show up at our intern orientation meeting on February 13 at noon in CHS 214- 1. It’s the office next to the Office of International programs.

Once you email Dr. Zimmermann and Dr. Shevory of your interest, you will be put on an email notification list for internship meetings. They will be sending interested
interns a copy of this year's program (it's top secret at this point, but interns get a preview!)

Interns get their names listed in the catalog, some other festival goodies we will tell you about at our next meeting, a great resume builder from a major film festival, and access to all guests in an casual festival setting both on campus and downtown as one of our festival staff. You'll also get to wear a special
lanyard identifying you as festival hospitality staff during the festival.

An added plus is that FLEFF fellows, graduate students from top graduate programs across the country, will be part of the festival, so it is also a great opportunity
to find out more about graduate school!

France!

And (Viva la france!) the winners are.....

Freshmen:
Maggie DeGennaro
Jeff Goodwin
Linsdey Hollenbaugh
Sayoh Mansaray
Tricia Nadolny
Jeff Tatanus

Sophomores:
Melissa Gillis
AJ Mizes
Tristan O'Neill
Kath Tibbetts

Juniors:
Christi Betz
Carrie Buchwalter
Joshua Keniston
Jackie Merchant
Rachel Steiner
Chelsea Theis

Seniors:
Patrick Johnson
Kristin Leising
Brad Milison
Erin Sager

Stop by and see April sometime this week; she'll fill you in on the details. Congratulations! You're going to have the time of your lives!

SuperBowl News: Forget the game, watch the ad by a Parkie (and check the blog for the announcement about who gets the free trip to France!)

So tonight is the BIG GAME.

For football fans, that's all the entertainment you need.

But for the rest of us, watching a bunch of great big guys running into each other, grunting and falling down isn't really the high point of the evening.

We just tune in for the ads.

And tonight, we have even more reason to do that. During the commercial break for the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter, we get to watch an ad created by a fellow Parkie. Gino Bona, a 1995 Ithaca graduate, won the NFL's inaugural "Pitch Us Your Idea for the Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever. Seriously" contest.

Bona, who beat out over 10,000 other entrants, traveled to Los Angeles to watch his idea being filmed. He and a guest will also be guests of the NFL at Super Bowl XLI in Miami.

Watch Gino's pitch:
Pitch Us Your Idea for the Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever. Seriously.

USA Today feature:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2007-01-08-nfl-ads-usat_x.htm

And right after Gino's ad, log on to the blog to find out which lucky Parkies will participate in this year's trip to France in May.

Now that's what I call a Superbowl party!

Screening of Independent Korean Films Comes to Park

Three Sungunkwan University students from Seoul, South Korea, will present a screening of current, award-winning Korean independent short films in the Park School Auditorium, on Saturday, Feb. 10, at 6 p.m.

The students will discuss the films and answer questions after the screening. The event is free and open to the public -- and it's a great opportunity to have a conversation with Korean students who care as deeply about film and creative expression as you do.