January 2009
Fly-er
They’re known as pesky and annoying. Yet, when magnified they become an art form — at least in Images from Science, an exhibition of scientific photography showing at ArtStreet gallery through March 26.
Fruit Fly – Drosophila melanogaster, 2007 by Scott Streiker is one of the photographs in the exhibit. The little pest, displayed at 120 degrees of magnification, is from UD’s Nanoscale Engineering Science and Technology Laboratory, taken in conjunction with a graduate biology class. Streiker is the lab's microscopist.
When staring at the work, it looks like a fine abstract painting. The meticulous rows of spheres with wispy strands form the beast’s structure. Wrapping lines spin tightly around the spherical mass of round and block shapes, almost hiding its true identity.
Other beauties to be found include a songbird in flight, tick feeding on human flesh, 6-month old fetus and honeybee licking sugar. The works making up the exhibition, organized by the Rochester Institute of Technology, span universities across North America, Europe and Australia.
Godwinks
"Sometimes you feel something so beautiful, so joyous, that you should just walk away and don't touch it."
Those poignant words from President Daniel J. Curran perfectly captured the emotion that enveloped the Kennedy Union ballroom after Susan Ferguson and Joseph Saliba spoke from their hearts about what it meant to receive this year's Lackner Awards for their dedication to the University's Catholic, Marianist mission.
Ferguson, director of the Center for Catholic Education, spoke of the power of "Godwinks" — "a silent, little message of assurance that no matter what is happening in your life or how uncertain things may seem a the moment, God is with you and will help you move toward certainty."
Saliba, interim provost, escaped "by the skin of his teeth" from war-torn Lebanon, finally ending up at the University of Dayton where he learned English and earned three degrees.
"I love the University of Dayton, like I love my homeland and that beautiful mountain town of Bteghrine, because mine is a story of how the Marianists and this University saved my family," Saliba said. "This is a story of how a Midwestern university restored a broken family, their bonds threatened by war. Yes, this University gave me and all of my brothers and sisters an education. But that isn’t even the half of it, not even close: this University brought us together again, allowed us to bring our parents to safety; this University allowed us to meet our spouses, for us to have children, for us to live our lives.
"This University," he said to a hushed room, "read the signs of our own troubled times in Lebanon and embraced us in the full, warm, and loving mantle of Mary."
Boll asylum
Twitching body bags, heavy fog and the emotional effects of insanity may spook audiences at the University of Dayton Dance Ensemble’s winter concert tonight and tomorrow night.
Choreographed by director Mark Cummings and lead dancers Damion Smith ’97 and Tiffany Lobertini, “The Aviary: A Ghost Story” follows the main character’s struggle to distinguish reality from illusions as he loses his mind in an insane asylum.
“It might scare you,” Cummings said. “(Audience members) may feel some anxiety or paranoia.”
This year’s concert is slightly different than traditional ensemble performances, he said. The show is one extended piece with an underlying story, not the habitual four- to five-piece repertoire.
But like past performances, the concert includes various local dancers.
“The ensemble is not just for UD dance students,” Cummings said. “We invite guest artists and try at give former dancers in the community a chance to perform.”
Smith is a former dancer with SMAG Dance Collective and a choreographer and rehearsal director for the ensemble. Lobertini joins the ensemble from the Gary Geis Dance Co. in Springfield, Ohio. The show also includes two local UD alumni.
The performance and delusional journey to the insane asylum begins at 8 p.m. both nights in Boll Theatre.
My Old House: 228 College Park
Secret caves, surround sound and traffic signs are just a few highlights at 228 College Park this year.
Compliments from and to the chef
Sometimes success means not having to raise your hand.
Twice a year the avocation of Tom Davis and the profession of Herbert Schotz intersect in Kennedy Union’s Marianist Dining Room. Schotz, executive chef with UD’s dining services, creates a multicourse meal around national cuisines. MIS professor Davis, whose wine-tasting course is always full, matches the food with wines, drawing on his decades of experience as a collector.
This term’s dinner offered British and Scottish food headlined by leg of lamb with accompaniments including “bubble and squeak.” (I did Google that in advance to see what I’d be eating. Recipes online paled before Schotz’s concoction of potatoes, cabbage, turnips, Brussels sprouts and leeks.)
At the end of the meal, I was able to talk with Schotz of the dinner (I now know more about clotted cream — served that night with scones — and blood sausage, a future possibility that needs a new name). And, as we talked of the wines, Schotz mentioned how Davis’ enthusiasm for wine transfers to his students. I told Schotz I thought his love of his work was also contagious among his food service colleagues.
And he told me a story. He was attending an off-campus conference on management when a presenter asked the attendees how many had since being at the conference called back to their campuses to check how things were going. All but one raised their hands and received the message that they were bad managers — if they were good, they would not have to call.
Schotz was the one attendee who didn’t raise his hand.
He had learned that lesson earlier. Returning from trips, he had noticed he had to put out metaphorical fires, calm bickering and sort out problems. He resolved to create an atmosphere where people could and would do their jobs without him needing to be present. So now he has more time to come up food challenges for Tom Davis’ wine pairings.
Australia, perhaps?
Slumdog millionaires? No, but they're entrepreneurs
These were Doug Dirks' instructions: move to Bangladesh, befriend slum dwellers and help them start businesses.
This is one of the slum dwellers he met: Rosa, a widow and mother of eight children who had spent years begging for food and sleeping under junkyard rubble. Dirks helped her start a business by collecting raw materials and crafting stuffed animals. She now sells 350,000 of them a year. She also has more than 20 employees, and her children attend college.
Business development can be the difference between no meal and three meals, illiterate children and premed students, life and death. Giving people a specific trade and aid for marketing is all it sometimes takes, he said.
Dirks told students about these experiences as keynote speaker at this year's Human Rights Week. He used his 25 years in business development assistance with the nonprofit Ten Thousand Villages to bear witness to the results of empowering the poor with their own artistry.
The week's theme — “Free vs. Fair Trade” — attracted as many business, engineering and arts and science majors as political science and human rights students for the first time in the event's history, said Stephanie Zielonko, Human Rights Week president. (And sparked a debate on the pages of Flyer News here and here.)
Zielonko said students across a variety of studies are increasingly caring about human rights in their future jobs, making Human Rights Week a little better every year and giving her hope for a better world.
My Old House: 115 Evanston
These fifth-year seniors don't just share a house on Evanston — they also share the same major (mechanical engineering) and a healthy obsession for jam sessions, foosball and board games.
300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469-2963
udquickly@udayton.edu • 937-229-3241