Diversity in theCommunication

IndustryWhy itmattersand howwe aremissing the mark

*Forty-five percent of daily newspapers do nothave a single minority staff member — American Society of Newspaper Editors

ExpressionW I N T E R 2 0 0 3 T H E M A G A Z I N E F O R A L U M N I A N D F R I E N D S O F E M E R S O N C O L L E G E

Maria Menounos ’00,

Max Mutchnick ’87

and Doug Herzog ’81

speak at a panel on

the set of Will & Grace.

QUIET ON THE SET!

Neal Roscoe ’92

(left) and Chris

Jackson ’92

Deeny Kaplan ’73

(right), who won a

2001 Emmy, ac-

cepts a recognition

award from Emer-

son President

Jacqueline Lieber-

gott at a reception

at the home of Vin

Di Bona ‘67.

John Ferraro ’80,

Scott Davis ’73,

Kate Boutilier ’81

and Paul Dini ’79

A group of Los Angeles-area

alums and others gather at

Vin Di Bona’s (left) home to

honor Emmy winners.

Los angeles-area alumni, L.A. Center studentsand prospective students and parents gatheredon the set of the Emmy-winning television pro-

gram Will & Grace to hear from three alums behindsome of television’s most innovative programming.The alums, Max Mutchnick ’87 (Will & Grace), VinDi Bona ’67 (America’s Funniest Home Videos) andDoug Herzog ’81 (president, USA Channel), spokeabout their respective careers and the TV industry.The panel was moderated by Maria Menounos ’00,correspondent for Entertainment Tonight. In anotherevent, Emerson Emmy winners were honored at analum’s home.

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 1

2 MEMORY LANE

3 CAMPUS DIGESTWERS enjoys its best-ever fundraiser, a new

athletic director is named, the distinguished

faculty award winner is selected, and more

5 DIVERSITY IN THECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRYRead our report on this critical issue and

find out what the College is doing to help

address the crisis.

13 THE UNSWERVING GAZEDocumentary film remains an uncompro-

mising witness in the midst of the ‘reality’

glut; also, several Emerson film experts

choose the top documentaries of our time

18 AS GOOD AS GOLDThe Robbins Speech, Language and Hear-

ing Center and the annual Spring Musical

each mark 50 years

24 NOTABLE EXPRESSIONSA compendium of accomplishments in

various fields

26 ALUMNI DIGESTPhoto coverage from events all around

the country, and more

30 CLASS NOTES

33 PROFILESMeet a man who markets a pro football

team, a woman who dispenses therapeutic

advice to the masses, and a young actor

who has taken the Boston stage by storm

36 MY TURNAlum Charles Collins ’76 finds himself

returning to campus when his daughter

enrolls at Emerson

For alumni and friends of

Emerson College

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

DAVID ROSEN

EDITOR

RHEA BECKER

WRITER

CHRISTOPHER HENNESSY

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

TARA PIERSON

Cover illustration by Joel Holland

EXPRESSION is published three

times a year (fall, winter and

spring) for alumni and friends of

Emerson College by the Office of

Public Affairs (David Rosen, asso-

ciate vice president) in conjunction

with the Department of Institu-

tional Advancement (Jeanne

Brodeur ’72, vice president) and

the Office of Alumni Relations (Bar-

bara Rutberg ’68, director).

OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

public_affairs@emerson.edu

(617) 824-8540,

fax (617) 824-8916

OFFICE OF ALUMNI RELATIONS

alumni@emerson.edu

(800) 255-4259, (617) 824-8535,

fax (617) 824-7807

Copyright © 2003

Emerson College

120 Boylston St.

Boston, MA 02116-4624

Expression

CONTENTS WINTER 2003

PA G E 5

PA G E 1 8

PA G E 3 4

PA G E 3 6

2 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

IN THIS ISSUE memory lane

Fifty years ago, the Emerson cam-pus saw many changes, includingthe inauguration of the 8th presi-dent of the College, Dr. S. JustusMcKinley, in December 1953.Many other events occurred thatyear, both large and small, as cov-ered by the student newspaper, theBerkeley Beacon:

“THE WERS DRIVE is moving

along. . . . The higher-wattaged

WERS will be beneficial to

Emerson as a whole. If you

have a dollar or more, stop into

the Broadcasting office on the

3rd floor.” —January 1953

“THE FIRST JOSEPH E. CONNOR

memorial award for distin-

guished contribution to theater,

radio, motion pictures or televi-

sion has been conferred upon

Edward R. Murrow. Mr. Murrow

received the unanimous vote of the

entire fraternity [Phi Alpha Tau].”

—April 1953

“THE PRESENT CONDITION of the café

is tantamount to Bedlam – or in plain

English – a mess. It would help the

workers in the Snack Bar if each of us

would make it a point to put his rub-

bish in a receptacle, and the end result

would be a clean café for all.”

—October 1953

“THE ANNUAL BENEFIT party to pur-

chase new records for the Emerson

College campus station, WECB, will be

held in the Emerson College Theatre

on the night of December 5th. . . . John

McDuff also reports that he has bid for

the services of a “name” entertainer to

drop in and give out with a few num-

bers. It is hoped that as many students

as possible will turn out for this gala

affair, which in the past has proved to

be one of the highlights of the Emer-

son Social Calendar. Tickets [are] 75

cents per person, $1.25 for couples.”

—November 1953

“AS PART OF THE CHRISTMAS festivi-

ties this year, Phi Mu Gamma and Phi

Alpha Tau are sponsoring an all-school

carol singing party. Plans, at present,

call for the group to stop at several

places along the way to sing carols for

shut-ins and older people. . . . After the

group has finished their singing, there

will be refreshments and a good time

for all at the Boys’ Dormitory.”

—December 1953

SEVERAL LOCAL establishments adver-

tised in the 1953 editions of the Berke-ley Beacon. Newbury’s Steak House

promoted its special “Char-Broiled

Steak Dinner” for a thrifty 99 cents

and Charlie Mun’s “Complete Laundry

Service” was offered at a storefront

located at 88 Massachusetts Ave.

When is a newsroom not a news-

room? When its staff does not re-

flect the complexion of the world

on which it reports. Diversity in the

communication industries – jour-

nalism, broadcasting, public rela-

tions, advertising – is sorely lack-

ing across the country. Our cover

story, written by David Rosen, ex-

amines the rationale for diversity

and points out how Emerson Col-

lege is pursuing initiatives to help

increase minority representation

in these fields.

The College is marking two impor-

tant milestones this year – the

50th anniversary of the founding

of the Robbins Speech, Language

and Hearing Center and the 50th

annual Spring Musical. You’ll enjoy

learning how these venerable insti-

tutions have made a century worth

of history at Emerson.

Documentary film has long influ-

enced social activism. Sometimes

this history is obscured by today’s

‘docu-tainment’ - television pro-

gramming like Survivor, The Os-

bournes and The Real World. Jim

Lane, executive director of Emer-

son College’s Los Angeles Center,

takes a look at documentary film

and its important place in film his-

tory. In an accompanying story, we

ask Emerson cinema experts to

nominate their all-time top docu-

mentary films.

With this issue, we are introduc-

ing a new section, Notable Expres-

sions, which takes a look at the ac-

complishments of alumni and other

members of the Emerson communi-

ty in a wide range of fields.

And don’t overlook the photo

coverage of alumni events

from around the country,

including Boston, Chicago,

Washington, D.C., Los Angeles

and New York.

Enjoy the issue and let us

know what you think.

Rhea Becker, editor

Expression welcomes short letters to the editoron topics covered in the magazine. The editorwill select a representative sample of letters topublish and reserves the right to edit copy forstyle and length. Send letters to: Editor, Expres-sion, Office of Public Affairs, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624; pub-lic_affairs@emerson.edu.

The Boys’ Dormitory, circa 1950

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 3

campus digest

WERS enjoys best-ever fundraiseremerson’s student-run FM radio

station WERS (88.9) must be doing

something very right. The station col-

lected approximately $122,000 in

pledges from 2,395 listeners during its

most recent WERS Member Madness

Week (November 2002).

“WERS just concluded the most

successful membership drive in the

station’s history,” said Dave Murphy,

general manager of the station. The

fundraiser chalked up a 20% increase

over last year’s drive.

“The [students] are willing to go to

extraordinary lengths to ensure that

WERS is able to continue providing its

listeners with the

best music available

and succeeding gen-

erations of Emerso-

nians with the op-

portunity to work at

the best college ra-

dio station in the

country,” Murphy

said.

In other WERS news, the station

began broadcasting around the clock at

the start of the fall term 2002, and in

doing so, joined the ranks of the other

premier Boston-based FM radio sta-

tions that also air programming 24

hours a day. The move gives the station

14 extra producer and deejay positions,

helping satisfy the demand for student

on-air slots, and provides an extra four

hours per day to broadcast.

WERS is the first non-commercial

station established in Boston (1949).

rudy keeling, former head basket-

ball coach at Northeastern University,

has been named director of athletics at

Emerson. Keeling said he was attracted

to Emerson because of its increasing

prominence among Boston-area col-

leges and universities and its commit-

ment to building a strong NCAA Divi-

sion III athletic program.

Keeling began his professional ca-

reer in 1980 as an assistant men’s bas-

ketball coach at Bradley University in

Peoria, Ill. In 1986, he as-

sumed a similar position at

Marquette University in

Milwaukee. Keeling came

to New England in 1988 to

become head men’s basket-

ball coach at the University

of Maine (Orono), where he

led the team to its most

successful record in over

90 years. In 1996, Keeling

was named head men’s bas-

ketball coach at Northeast-

ern. In addition to improv-

ing the team’s ranking, he

graduated every senior in a

timely fashion. Keeling suc-

ceeds Rick Bagby, who is

now athletic director at Bel-

larmine University in

Louisville, Ky.

New athletic director namedBerkeley Beaconwins journalismcompetition

The student newspaper, the Berke-

ley Beacon, has won the Society

of Professional Journalists’ 2001

Mark of Excel-

lence Award

for outstand-

ing student

journalism.

The award

recognizes the

newspaper as

the best in the

nation for editorial writing. The

paper beat out weekly and daily

newspapers at hundreds of colleges

and universities across the coun-

try. The Beacon also won a regional

second place award for Best All

Around Non-Daily Student News-

paper and third place for Spot

News Photography.

Rudy Keeling, new

director of athletics

4 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

campus digest

Film alums sharesuccess storieswith Emersonians

Emerson alums who work in

the film industry returned to

campus last fall to share suc-

cess stories with a packed

house of current students.

Pam Abdy ’95, president of

production for Danny DeVito’s

Jersey Films in Los Angeles,

and Sid Levin ’78, co-owner of

the Boston-based Firstframe

Inc. and three-time Cine Gold

Eagle award winner, spoke.

Remarkably, Abdy began

her career after a bad break –

literally a broken foot, which

took her out of Emerson’s

dance program and into media

arts. She soon found herself

interning at Jersey Films in

L.A. She was eventually pro-

moted to an executive post,

and ultimately to president of

production, the position she

currently holds.

Abdy has worked as a pro-

ducer on the films Man on the

Moon and How High, and she

now generates her own mate-

rial for films.

Sid Levin, one of the

“founding fathers” of EIV at

Emerson, now produces pieces

for the Home and Garden net-

work as well as PBS,

Discovery Channel and A&E.

He recalled his beginnings

at an Emerson newswriting

internship at WHDH (Channel

7) in Boston, even though he

had absolutely no background

in newswriting.

Levin is impressed with

Emerson’s facilities today. “I

saw the Ansin Building, and

you’re on the cutting edge of

technology, so edit away,” he

told the students.

Distinguished FacultyAward recipient named

the 2002 mann stearns Distin-

guished Faculty Award has been given

this year to Jean Stawarz, assistant pro-

fessor of visual and media arts. Last

year’s recipient, John Bell, assistant pro-

fessor of performing arts, gave a pres-

entation on a new work for puppet the-

ater that he produced with the support

he received as the 2001 recipient of the

award. Stawarz will present a talk on her

work next fall. The award was created

with an endowment by Norman and

Irma Stearns ’67, Hon. ’92.

Norman and Irma Stearns, Assistant

Professor John Bell (seated), President

Jacqueline Liebergott and Assistant

Professor Jean Stawarz

Kent Atkins, Jane Rose,

Carol Reed and Helen Rose

’38 attended the Friends of

the Emerson Majestic The-

atre annual fall fundraising

event at the Ritz-Carlton

on Boston Common in Oc-

tober 2002. The event

chairperson was Patrick

Morris, G ‘97. The silent

auction was led by Ana

Costa and Professor Emeritus Leo Nickole, who coordinated entertain-

ment, which included performances by Neil Davin ’72 as well as current

students. Helen Rose is the founder of the Friends of the Majestic.

The Friends have raised money to help restore the Emerson Majestic

Theatre as one of Boston’s historic landmarks and an important center

for the performing arts for Emerson students and faculty and the

Greater Boston community.

Friends of the Majestic hold benefit

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 5

Why it matters and how we are missing the mark

What do americans look like?What languages do they speak? What

do they cherish and believe in? How do

they view the world at large? And how

does that world view them?

More than ever before, attitudes and

perceptions related to these questions –

at home and abroad – are shaped by the

information and images that people re-

ceive from the news media and other

segments of the communication indus-

try. And this is what makes the issue of

diversity in communication so crucial.

B Y D A V I D R O S E N

Diversityin the

communicationindustry

6 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

Assuring that those who direct and staff the nation’s com-

munication outlets reflect society as a whole is a matter of

national concern not only because America is committed to

equal opportunity, and not only because many corporate ex-

ecutives see diversity as good for business, but because —

as a people — we value the truth. We want to see ourselves

as we really are, and we want others to understand who we

are and what we stand for.

DIVERSIFYING THE DISCOURSE

“Media outlets exert tremendous influence over what Amer-

icans think about themselves and what others think of Amer-

ica,” says Charles Beard, an emeritus member and former

chair of the Emerson College Board of Trustees and the first

African-American attorney named a partner in a major

Boston law firm (Foley Hoag & Eliot, where his practice area

includes communication law). “As you move from one eth-

nic group to another, there are fundamentally different views

of the world, and these different viewpoints need to be ex-

pressed in the public discourse. This can only

happen if there is sufficient minority repre-

sentation within the industry.”

“Diversity on the street and back in the

newsroom is important because it brings

depth and perspective to the reporting of

events,” adds Pam Cross ’75, reporter and

news anchor at WCVB-TV (Channel 5) in

Boston. “Most of the reporting about the

African-American and Latino communities

in the mainstream media is one-dimension-

al. The stories usually deal with conflict and

violence. You don’t see much about everyday

life and all the good things that are going on.”

Joseph Torres, communications director

for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, says his

organization is concerned about the numbers of Latinos and

other minorities in newsrooms, but adds, “what we are most

concerned about is intellectual diversity. We need to have a

healthy discussion and debate over what stories get covered

and how they are presented.”

COLORING THE NEWS

Some commentators downplay the importance of newsroom

diversity and a few, like William McGowan, author of the con-

troversial new book Coloring the News, have urged news or-

ganizations to abandon minority hiring goals. McGowan,

who has reported for several major media outlets, argues that

the push toward diversity creates a political correctness that

“corrupts” rather than enhances how the news is reported.

He writes:

“America is at a demographic and public policy cross-

roads. But just when information about its changing national

identity needs to be robust, knowledgeable

and honest, the ongoing media crusade for

diversity has made American journalism

weaker, particularly on complex stories in-

volving race, gay rights, feminism, affirma-

tive action and immigration. Encouraging a

narrow orthodoxy that restricts debate and af-

firms identity politics, this crusade has fos-

tered a journalistic climate in which impor-

tant reporting is often skewed; facts that call

into question a preconceived, pro-diversity

script get short shrift; and double standards that favor ‘op-

pressed’ groups over others become the norm.”

McGowan’s thesis has been challenged by the National

Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Associa-

tion of Black Journalists and other organizations.

Jerry Lanson, chair of Emerson’s Department of Jour-

nalism and a former deputy city editor of the Pulitzer Prize-

winning San Jose Mercury News in California, also takes is-

sue with McGowan.

“Some journalists argue that any good reporter can in-

terview anyone and cover any story, and to a certain extent

this is true,” he says. “But we’re all products of our envi-

ronment and our socio-economic background as well as our

racial ancestry, class, generation, sex, sexual orientation and

religion. We do not always see things the same way.”

Lanson cites the following example: “When the [historic

exhibition of ] Tall Ships came to Boston some years ago,

many journalists and others were surprised to learn that

Differentviewpointsneed to beexpressed in thepublic discourse.This can onlyhappen if there is sufficientminority representation.”CHARLES BEARD

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 7

some in the African-American community did not look fa-

vorably on the event. We learned that because of an article

written in the Boston Globe by an African-American reporter.

It never occurred to white people, myself included, that these

ships were used in the slave trade.”

When covering and assigning stories, journalists need

to “test their own fault lines,” he adds, crediting this phrase

and its implications to Robert Maynard, the late publisher

of the Oakland Tribune. “When a newspaper has diverse rep-

resentation on its staff, it is likely to do a better job covering

the news.”

Lanson recalls that when he was at the Mercury News back

in the early 1990s, people of color already comprised a ma-

jority of San Jose’s population. About a third of the city was

Latino and there were significant numbers of Vietnamese

and African-American residents as well. Yet the staff of the

newspaper was nearly 90 percent white.

Coverage of the Latino community back then was usual-

ly relegated to a weekly section. It was against this backdrop

that the Mercury News developed a two-part series on gang

violence. The first part dealt with the problem and the sec-

ond focused on solutions. The first installment began on

page one and featured a prominent photo of Latino teens

beating up a Vietnamese youth. But the day the series began,

a devastating fire burned a huge swath through the nearby

city of Oakland, and the Mercury News ran a special wrap-

around section on the fire. The second part of the series,

which discussed efforts by community leaders to curb vio-

lence, was buried inside the paper.

EMERSON SET TO DEDICATE RESOURCES TO DIVERSITY ISSUES Major grant will fund important efforts

Emerson has been awarded a $500,000 grant

from the Lloyd G. Balfour Foundation, Fleet Na-

tional Bank Trustee, to help the College advance

its goal of increasing diversity in the communi-

cation industry.

The five-year grant was awarded in October

2002 in response to a proposal the College sub-

mitted to the Boston-based foundation outlining

a series of interrelated programs involving high

school partnerships, recruiting programs, cur-

riculum development and career placement. The

goal is to create a more diverse and culturally

sensitive generation of communication leaders.

In announcing the grant, President Jacqueline

Liebergott said, “We are enormously grateful to

the Balfour Foundation, and we look forward to

working with them as we proceed with this vital

project.”

She said one of the first orders of business is

to establish a new Center for Diversity and to

hire a director who will report directly to her.

The Center will help coordinate existing efforts

to broaden diversity on campus and undertake

new initiatives.

The grant comes as the College engages in a

campus-wide conversation about the importance

and place of diversity and diverse populations at

Emerson. Enhancing the diversity of the student

body and faculty and bringing a multicultural

perspective to the Emerson curriculum and co-

curricular activities are among the top priorities

articulated in the College’s five-year strategic

plan.

Stuart Sigman, dean of the School of Commu-

nication, served as the principal author of the

grant proposal. He worked closely with Jeanne

Brodeur, vice president for institutional advance-

ment, and Thomas Hanold, director of corporate

and foundation relations. Trustee Emeritus and

former Board chair Charles Beard was also in-

strumental in securing the grant.

The Lloyd G. Balfour Foundation arose out of

the estate of Lloyd G. Balfour. Balfour, who died

in 1973, was the owner of the L.G. Balfour Co.,

the renowned Attleboro, Mass., manufacturer of

class rings, membership insignia and other relat-

ed products. One of the foundation’s major grant

priorities is to provide “opportunities that will

improve upon the education, career and life op-

tions available to disadvantaged populations.”

— D.R.

JERRY LANSON, chair of Emerson College’s Department of

Journalism: “Some journalists argue that any good reporter

can interview anyone and cover any story . . . but we’re all

products of our environment. . . . We do not always see

things the same way.”

8 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

“The Latino community was outraged, first by the picture

and then by the perceived focus on the problem but not the

solutions,” Lanson said. “The paper took a hard look at it-

self and instituted a new policy to increase its minority staff

by hiring one person of color for each white hire. We also

changed our news coverage patterns and developed a team

approach to reporting on minority communities.” Today, ac-

cording to the American Society of Newspaper Editors

(ASNE), people of color comprise 31 percent of the MercuryNews staff.

SO HOW ARE WE DOING?

But accomplishments like this are the exception, not the rule.

Despite commitments to diversity expressed by industry as-

sociations and media companies, America is doing poorly

when it comes to increasing the level of minority represen-

tation at newspapers, television and radio stations, public re-

lations and advertising agencies, and other segments of the

communication industry.

Non-whites comprise 31 percent of the

American population (including 12.9 percent

African-Americans, 12.5 percent Hispanics

and 4.2 percent Asian Americans), accord-

ing to the 2000 U.S. Census, and these per-

centages are expected to increase throughout

the decade.

But at the 1,435 daily newspapers across

the country, minorities comprise only 12 per-

cent of newsroom staffs (including 5.3 percent

African-Americans, 3.9 percent Hispanics,

and 2.4 percent Asian Americans), according

to ASNE’s 2002 employment survey.

And a staggering 45 percent of daily news-

papers in America do not have a single mi-

nority staff member. This number represents a 1 percent-

age point increase over 2001 and a 6 percentage point

increase over 2000. In other words, as the number of non-

white Americans has increased, the number of newspapers

employing people of color has actually decreased. The results

are particularly disturbing in light of ASNE’s long-standing

commitment to minority employment, as stated in its di-

versity mission statement: “[T]he nation’s newsrooms must

reflect the racial diversity of American society by 2005 or

sooner. At a minimum, all newsrooms should employ jour-

nalists of color and every newspaper should reflect the di-

versity of its community.”

Most newspapers that have no minority staff are small-

sized publications in rural areas. In Montana, for example,

10 of the 11 daily newspapers in the ASNE survey report they

have no non-white news staff members. The same is true for

four of five dailies in North Dakota and 23 of 26 dailies in

Iowa.

While newspapers in most major East

Coast cities report significant minority rep-

resentation (for example, 16 percent at the

New York Times, 17 percent at the Wall StreetJournal, 16 percent at the Philadelphia In-quirer, 18 percent at the Boston Globe and 10

percent at the Boston Herald), the numbers

generally fall short of the non-white popula-

tions in those cities. And a surprising num-

ber of papers in medium-sized cities report

no minority representation (for example,

Pawtucket, R.I.; Portsmouth, N.H.; Brattleboro, Vt.; Pitts-

field, Mass.; and Palm Beach, Fla.).

The highest percentages of minority staff members are

found at the newspapers in Honolulu (45 percent), Miami

(46 percent), Detroit (23 percent) and Washington, D.C. (21

percent). The percentages in Chicago, San Francisco, Dal-

las and Houston are, respectively, 15, 17, 17, and 18 percent.

Overall, from 2001 to 2002, the percentage of minority

journalists working at daily newspapers increased from 11.6

percent to 12.1 percent, after having dipped slightly in 2000.

That decline was the first in 23 years, ASNE said, and it was

caused by an overall reduction in the total number of news-

room jobs.

BROADCASTING THE NEWS

The level of minority representation in broadcast news and

in broadcasting generally is higher than it is in the newspa-

per industry, but it is very much a mixed bag. The annual

Diversityon thestreet and backin the newsroomis importantbecause it bringsdepth and per-spective to thereporting ofevents.”PAM CROSS ’75

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 9

A POOR TRACK RECORD

The issue of diversity in commu-

nication is not new. It was raised

at least as far back as 1947 in a

report titled A Free and Respon-

sible Press issued by a 13-mem-

ber commission on freedom of

the press funded by the publisher

of Time magazine and chaired

by Robert Maynard Hutchins,

president of the University of

Chicago.

The Hutchins report dealt with

radio, television and film as well

as newspapers, magazines and

books. It called for greater “diver-

sity of information and discus-

sion” in mass communication and

urged the media to project “a

more representative picture of

the constituent groups in the so-

ciety.” It did not, however, explic-

itly connect these goals with a

need for diversity in media

staffing and ownership.

Two decades later, a panel es-

tablished by President Lyndon B.

Johnson to probe the causes of

race riots that had rocked Los

Angeles, Newark, Detroit and oth-

er cities, addressed the issue of

diversity in the newsroom head-

on. The Report of the National

Advisory Commission on Civil

Disorders (chaired by Illinois Gov-

ernor Otto Kerner) said, “The

Commission’s major concern with

the news media is not in riot re-

porting, as such, but in the failure

to report adequately on race rela-

tions and ghetto problems and to

bring more Negroes into journal-

ism.” The Commission concluded

that “news organizations must

employ enough Negroes in posi-

tions of significant authority to

establish an effective link to Ne-

gro actions and ideas and to meet

legitimate employment expecta-

tions.”

THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE 1968 KERNER

COMMISSION REPORT:

“The journalistic profession has been shockingly back-

wards in seeking out, hiring, training, and promoting

Negroes. Fewer than 5 percent of the people employed

by the news business in editorial jobs in the United

States today are Negroes. Fewer than 1 percent of the

editors and supervisors are Negroes, and most of them

work for Negro-owned organizations. The lines of

[communication in] various news organizations to the

militant blacks are, by admission of the newsmen

themselves, almost nonexistent. The plaint is, ‘We

can’t find qualified Negroes.’ But this rings hollow

from an industry where, only yesterday, jobs were

scarce and promotion unthinkable for a man whose

skin was black …”

“Editorial decisions about which stories to cover and

which to use are made by editors. Yet, very few Ne-

groes in this country are involved in making these de-

cisions, because very few, if any, supervisory editorial

jobs are held by Negroes. We urge the news media to

do everything possible to train and promote their Ne-

gro reporters to positions where those who are quali-

fied can contribute to and have an effect on policy

decisions …”

“If the media are to report with understanding, wis-

dom and sympathy on the problems of the cities and

the problems of the black man – for the two are in-

creasingly intertwined – they must employ, promote

and listen to Negro journalists.”

“Television should develop programming which inte-

grates Negroes into all aspects of televised presenta-

tions … Negro reporters and performers should appear

more frequently – and at prime time – in news broad-

casts, on weather shows, in documentaries, and in ad-

vertisements … Any initial surprise at seeing a Negro

selling a sponsor’s product will eventually fade into

routine acceptance, an attitude that white society must

ultimately develop toward all Negroes.”

1 0 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

staffing survey conducted by the Radio, Television and News

Directors Association (RTNDA) and Ball State University

shows that the minority workforce in television newsrooms

actually dropped from 24.6 percent in 2001 to 20.6 percent

in 2002. The decline was steepest among Hispanics. In ra-

dio, minority newsroom staffing decreased from 10.7 per-

cent in 2001 to 8 percent in 2002. Again, Hispanics ac-

counted for most of the drop.

Minority representation among television news directors,

who shape the content of newscasts, increased by a per-

centage point to just over 9 percent in 2002. Only 5 percent

of radio news directors in 2002 were minorities, up less than

1 percentage point over 2001.

Michael Carson, vice president and general manager of

WHDH-TV (Channel 7) in Boston and an Emerson College

trustee, says the station’s parent company, Sunbeam Televi-

sion Corp., is “mindful of the fact that we are a business

that operates over the public airways.” In addition to sup-

porting diversity for ethical reasons, Carson believes that

“achieving diversity in our industry is a good

business practice. When we are sensitive to

the needs and interests of all segments of the

markets we attract more viewers, and as the

size of our audience increases, so does our

advertising potential.”

Carson says that both WHDH-TV and

WSVN-TV (Channel 7) in Miami, which is

also owned by Sunbeam, continue to follow

once-mandatory equal employment oppor-

tunity guidelines set by the Federal Com-

munications Commission, even though they

no longer have the force of law. In keeping

with those guidelines, the staff in Miami is

more than 50 percent minorities, reflecting the composition

of the station’s Miami-area audience, according to Carson.

Minorities comprise 18 percent of the staff of Channel 7 in

Boston, which reaches some 2.5 million viewers throughout

New England. The minority population of Boston, where the

station is based, is around 10 percent.

Reliable figures for minority employment in public rela-

tions and advertising are harder to come by, but by all ac-

counts, these two industries lag behind the print and broad-

cast news media.

“While many Fortune 500 executives have come to rec-

ognize the need to have diverse workforces in order to com-

pete in a global economy, the public relations industry has

moved slowly in this area,” says Ofield Dukes, chair of the

diversity committee of the Public Relations Society of Amer-

ica (PRSA) and founder of one of the first black-owned pub-

lic relations firms in the country, in Washington, D.C. “There

have been very few incentives, and as a result minority rep-

resentation is very low.”

On the positive side, Dukes notes that

PRSA recently adopted diversity as one of its

three major policy initiatives for the upcom-

ing year. The initiative includes compiling a

minority employment database, outreach to

minority students studying public relations

in college and mentoring programs.

Douglas Holloway ’76, president of net-

work distribution and affiliate relations at

Universal Television and an Emerson trustee,

says minority employment in the communication industry

is “uneven” and “particularly weak” in terms of African-

American employment. “We haven’t seen much progress

in middle management and senior positions in the industry.

People like Richard Parsons [chief executive officer of AOL

Time Warner and an African-American] are the exception,”

he adds.

To Holloway, the issue of minority representation is first

and foremost a matter of equal opportunity. “Companies

should be reflective of the communities they serve,” he says.

He also notes that people of different backgrounds bring en-

hanced levels of awareness of the preferences and sensitiv-

ities of large segments of the viewing and listening public.

“This is important when it comes to developing programs.”

Dwight Ellis, vice president for human resources at the

National Association of Broadcasters, says broadcasters and

advertisers should pursue diversity “because it’s the right

thing to do for both ethical and business reasons.” He adds,

“With the increasing number of African-Americans and oth-

When weare sensi-tive to the needsand interests ofall segments ofthe markets weattract moreviewers...”MICHAEL CARSON

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 11

MINORITY REPRESENTATION IN PRINTAND BROADCAST JOURNALISM

Minorities comprised only 12.2 percent of editorial staff members at daily

newspapers in 2002, according to the annual employment survey conducted

by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE). The figure is up one-

half of a percentage point over figures for 2001. Minority representation in

television newsrooms stood at 20.6 percent in 2000, a decrease of four per-

centage points over 2001, according to the annual staffing survey conducted

by the Radio, Television and News Directors Association (RTNDA) and Ball

State University. The survey indicates that the percentage of minorities in

radio newsrooms also dropped (by nearly three percentage points) from 10.7

percent in 2001 to 8 percent in 2002. The ASNE and RTNDA survey results

are reported below.

MINORITY REPRESENTATIONIN THE PUBLIC AT LARGE

Non-whites comprise 31 percent ofthe American population, accordingto the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau sur-vey. Most demographers believe thepercentage has grown since then andwill continue to grow in the years tocome. The 31 percent figure includes12.9 percent African-Americans, 12.5percent Hispanics and 4.2 percentAsian Americans.

DAILY NEWSPAPER WORK FORCE

2002* 2001

Caucasian 87.9% 88.4%

African American 5.3 5.2

Hispanic 3.9 3.7

Asian American 2.4 2.3

Native American 0.6 0.4

Total Non-Caucasian 12.2 11.6

*Total does not equal 100% due to rounding

BROADCAST NEWS WORK FORCE

T E L E V I S I O N

2002 2001

Caucasian 79.4% 75.4%

African American 9.3 9.9

Hispanic 7.7 10.1

Asian American 3.1 4.1

Native American 0.5 0.6

Total Non-Caucasian 20.6 24.7

R A D I O

2002 2001

Caucasian 92.0% 89.3%

African American 4.1 5.2

Hispanic 2.4 5.5

Asian American 0.8 <1.0

Native American 0.7 <1.0

Total Non-Caucasian 8.0 10.7

1 2 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

er minorities in the domestic marketplace, businesses need

to provide the goods and services they want. To do this ef-

fectively, businesses need to understand the essence of mi-

nority communities. Generally speaking, people of color are

better equipped than whites to do this. This is even more so

when it comes to marketing to and communicating with peo-

ple in countries where non-whites and non-Christians are in

the majority.”

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Many communication-industry trade organizations have em-

braced diversity as a goal and established programs aimed

at helping companies increase minority employment. Pro-

gram elements range from the creation of minority databases

to the establishment of fellowships and mentoring pro-

grams.

While supporting these initiatives, most observers believe

they will bear limited fruit by themselves.

“I’ve been working on the issue of diversity for 20 years,”

says Holloway. “The various segments of the industry tend

to be dominated by people from certain ethnic

and religious groups. They tend to hire people

they feel comfortable with, which usually means

people who come from the same background

that they do. So the status quo keeps perpetuat-

ing itself. If we’re going to make real progress,

people need to look outside of themselves. They

need to evaluate people’s work to find the best

ideas, and they need to take risks.”

Trustee Emeritus Charles Beard cites two reasons for lack

of progress in achieving diversity in the communication in-

dustry. The first is that minorities lack the capital needed to

acquire and operate cable systems, radio and television sta-

tions and other media outlets. The other is the limited suc-

cess that African-Americans and other minority groups have

had gaining industry experience, particularly at the man-

agement level.

Both Holloway, who is leading a campaign to endow a

scholarship fund for minority students at Emerson, and

Beard see education as a key ingredient in any recipe to ad-

dress the diversity issue.

“Emerson is a college of communication,” says Holloway.

“If we can put more well-trained people of color into the in-

dustry pipeline, it can make a difference.”

Adds Beard, “To the extent that Emerson and other col-

leges can increase the number of minority people who are

qualified to become editors, station managers, and movie

producers and directors, it can play a pivotal role because mi-

norities with real industry experi-

ence will be better equipped to ac-

quire capital and start their own

businesses.”

Emerson President Jacqueline

Liebergott says increasing racial and

ethnic diversity among students,

faculty and staff is one of the major

goals enumerated in the College’s

strategic plan. She also notes that

the College recently received a

$500,000 grant from the Lloyd G.

Balfour Foundation to support ini-

tiatives aimed at increasing diversi-

ty in the communication industry

(see accompanying story on p. 7).

“This grant will support the College’s efforts to recruit

and graduate a diverse group of students who will hold po-

sitions of influence throughout the communication indus-

try,” said Liebergott. “Emerson has an outstanding record

of placing students in internship positions that give them an

advantage upon graduation over job candidates from other

schools. We will now take on the challenge of providing a

more diverse group of students to internship sites and help-

ing our students carry that experience forward into the job

market.” n

David Rosen is associate vice president for public affairs at Emer-son College and a former political writer, journalism instructorand public relations consultant. He served as chief communica-tion officer at four universities prior to coming to Emerson in1999.

We will now take onthe challenge of pro-viding a more diversegroup of students tointernship sites andhelping our students

carry thatexperienceforward...”JACQUELINELIEBERGOTT

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 13

gIN A SCENE from the recent

documentary Bowling ForColumbine, filmmaker

Michael Moore appears on

camera as he attempts to ask

National Rifle Association

(NRA) President Charlton

Heston why Heston agreed to

speak at NRA rallies immedi-

ately after two horrifying gun-

related murders — the

Columbine shootings and the

accidental shooting of a 6-

year-old girl by a 6-year-old

boy in Flint, Mich. Heston is

unable to provide a cogent re-

sponse to Moore’s inquiries

and eerily walks away from

the film crew, leaving them to

find their own way out of his

palatial Beverly Hills estate.

If nothing else, this power-

ful documentary moment

compels us to question Amer-

icans’ relationship to violence

The unswerving

azeDOCUMENTARY FILM REMAINS AN UNCOMPROMISING WITNESS IN THE MIDST OF THE‘REALITY’ GLUT

By Jim Lane

MICHAEL MOORE displays

his weapons – a gun and a

film camera – as writer, pro-

ducer, and director of Unit-

ed Artists and Alliance At-

lantis’ award-winning

documentary Bowling for

Columbine.

P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E S Y O F M G M S T U D I O S

and, specifically, firearms. By showing a Hollywood film icon

in a radically different light, Bowling for Columbine forces me-

dia, celebrity and gun politics to collapse under the weight of

senseless and avoidable loss of life.

This scene is a brief moment in a feature-length film but

it succinctly illustrates the power of documentary to reveal cer-

tain aspects of our social world, revelations that are often un-

attainable in mainstream American film. The fiction film

form, mostly controlled by well-financed interests, tends to be

far less willing to take risks in what it does or does not pres-

ent. Moreover, because the fiction film stems from predeter-

mined scripts, casting of actors, and securing of directors and

producers, all at a high price, the need for return on invest-

ment weighs heavily. As a result, the

fiction film tends to reproduce what

has already proved financially suc-

cessful and to rely more on stereotype,

especially as it pertains to race, class

and gender. The fiction film operates

in the world of fantasy. But the docu-

mentary operates from the non-imag-

inary world. The way that documen-

tary makes its meaning continues to

be a potent, cultural force.

EXPOSING DOCUMENTARY FILM

New, unanticipated documentary forms have surfaced recently,

perhaps obscuring the traditional forms of documentary with

which most of us are familiar. Americans, for example, seem

fascinated with the documentary-style representations of the

world as offered by television programs such as The Osbournes,Fear Factor and The Real World. Reality television has gener-

ated much ink and income over the past decade. It is produced

for commercial venues and its essential purpose is to enter-

tain for commercial profit. Consequently, these programs may

experience the same economic pressures as fiction films and

therefore periodically suffer from the inherently retrograde at-

titudes contained in many fiction films. This, of course, is no

great revelation. What seems potentially most problematic,

at least at the historical level, is that the ‘reality TV’ genre may

be overshadowing other forms of nonfiction in the minds and

memories of Americans. It is important not to overlook doc-

umentary works that seek to make succinct arguments about

the social world or that have had a decidedly important impact

on us all (see accompanying story).

In the documentary film class I teach at Emerson College’s

Los Angeles Center, I have noticed that when students think

of documentary, they often think of reality shows. This may

be because the airwaves are virtually saturated with this form

of programming. It may also be the result of the impression

on the part of many students who wish to work in media that

1 4 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

Expression asked several Emerson film authorities to give

their opinions on the best English-language documentaries

of our time. Although it was difficult for them to narrow

their lists, our experts have named the following documen-

taries as works that have stood the test of time and had a

lasting impact on viewers.

MICHAEL SELIG, associate professor, Department of Visual and Media Arts

The Battle of San Pietro (1944) This work was one of hun-

dreds of documentary films made by Hollywood personnel

during World War II. Intended as a combat documentary for

propaganda purposes during World War II, it was so graphic

in its representation of the ground combat in Italy’s Liri

Valley that it wasn’t released by the U.S. government until

after the War had ended. In stark black and white, the film

is unsparing in its images of the death of both Allied and

Axis troops, as well as the destruction of the village of San

Pietro. It’s narrated by filmmaker John Huston, who main-

tains a matter-of-fact and, at times, ironic tone that makes

the film even more compelling.

The War Game (1966) by Peter Watkins for the BBC. An

enactment of the possible results of a nuclear attack in

England, this film’s newsreel-style presentation makes for

a convincing and harrowing experience. Watkins’ style of

(re)enacting events is a unique approach to documentary

filmmaking. Although it was never released for television

viewing, the BBC did allow theatrical distribution.

Titicut Follies (1967) by Frederick Wiseman. This was the

first production by Wiseman, a Boston-based attorney-

turned-filmmaker. The film uses a cinema-vérité style, pre-

senting the day-to-day activities of the Bridgewater State

Hospital for the Criminally Insane without voice-over com-

mentary. The film’s disturbing exposé of the hospital result-

ed in a series of lawsuits, and the film was released only to

mental health professionals for several years after its com-

pletion.

CRISTINA A. KOTZ CORNEJO, assistant profes-sor, Department of Visual and Media Arts

Roger & Me (1989) by Michael Moore. The ironic tone in

Roger & Me is a perfect approach to what is an ironic situa-

tion surrounding the closing of the General Motors plant in

Flint, Mich. The fact that the plant was making more money

than ever yet the company and CEO Roger Smith chose to

close the plant, leaving hundreds of families out of work and

homeless, couldn’t have been better portrayed. It’s clear

The Most Moving PicturesEmerson experts select the finest documentaries

‘IN THE CLASS ITEACH ... I HAVENOTICED THATWHEN STUDENTSTHINK OF DOCU-MENTARY THEY...THINK OF REAL-ITY [TV] SHOWS.’

— J. LANE

About the Harlem drag balls, Paris is Burning depicts

how “ . . . a younger generation of gay black men have

transformed their oppressive reality into an intricate

world of glamour and fantasy.” —Outweek magazine

No one anticipated the thousands that would attend the

1969 music festival known as Woodstock, pictured here

in Michael Wadleigh’s film about the event.

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 15

that the company had no rational or ethical explanation for

its decision, otherwise the CEO would have sat down with

Michael Moore to explain the company’s reasons. It is, in

fact, the skirting of the decision that makes this film work

so well. It touches on many issues, including that of busi-

ness ethics, the American dream for the average blue-collar

laborer, and, ultimately, the meaning of capitalism.

Paris is Burning (1990) by Jennie Livingston. This film is

an amazingly captivating work as it depicts a subculture of

gay Harlem and how these individuals, not accepted by the

larger society, have the same needs as everyone else — for

recognition, security and a sense of belonging. Livingston

does an excellent job of showing the performers’ lives with-

out imposing judgment on them. It’s clear from the way the

film was shot that she was accepted into the group and

trusted. She was not on an ‘anthropological’ study of a

group of outsiders but instead became an insider, allowing

the people to really show who they were as individuals and

as people who are normally perceived as being on the

fringes of society.

Incident at Oglala (1992) by Michael Apted. This film really

touched me because it’s essentially the story of how badly

America has treated, and continues to treat the Native

American population. Although the film is essentially the

story of Leonard Peltier, an incarcerated Native American

activist, the film’s larger theme is the continued repressive

assault on the native population of this land — a theme that

has not been addressed by our government and which has

not been an issue for most Americans. This film serves as

an eye-opening experience and a shameful reminder of how

our government will go to extremes, including that of vio-

lating constitutional, civil and human rights — rights that

we hold dear and which we flaunt all over the globe as what

sets us apart from other nations.

GRAFTON NUNES, Dean of the School of the Arts

The River (1937) by Pare Lorentz for the WPA. Imagine a

poetic documentary on a dam project! The force and terri-

ble beauty of the raging floods, juxtaposed with a melliflu-

ous dramatic soundtrack of the names of American rivers,

and the human effort to tame them through the Tennessee

Valley Authority produce a documentary that is beautiful

to the eye and ear, stirring and haunting.

Woodstock (1970) by Michael Wadleigh. The film chronicles

the chaos, idealism, naiveté, chutzpah and sheer good luck

of this iconic moment in American culture. It is enthralling

and exhausting, portraying the arc of a unique event that

so many of us attended or wish we had attended. With some

of the best rock performances ever caught on film.

Point of Order (1964) by Emile de Antonio. This film por-

trays the horror and absurdity of the Army-McCarthy tri-

als, the craven demagogue who was compelled to destroy

lives in order to remain in the national spotlight, and the

courageous people who fought the Red Scare at the height

of its contagious power. The climactic confrontation be-

tween Senator McCarthy and Joseph Welch remains one

of the most dramatic ever captured on film.

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1 6 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

there are more jobs in reality television than in other areas of

media. I spend the majority of the class exposing students to

other forms of documentary from various points in history.

Through this exposure my students very eagerly put reality tel-

evision in what I hope is a more historically accurate place.

One of the ideas I emphasize is that documentary is both a

product of history as much as it is a reflection on historical

events. This fundamental critical idea can help us make sense

of documentaries.

For instance, in 1937, noted documentarist Pare Lorentz

was able to convince the Roosevelt Administration that a film

should be made on the problems of flooding in the Missis-

sippi River Valley and its tributaries. Focusing on the Ten-

nessee River Valley and its vulnerabil-

ity to chronic, devastating floods, TheRiver documented the problem and il-

lustrated how to rectify the situation.

By promoting many of the same tenets

as FDR’s New Deal policies, including

the pivotal role the federal government

could play in improving the quality of

life of U.S. citizens, the film delineat-

ed an external set of social circum-

stances at the same time it implicitly

aligned itself with progressive social

policy. The River was as much a film

about the history of the poor rural South as it was a promotion

of the political ethos of the day.

During World War II, the Hollywood film industry aligned

itself closely with the war effort. Noted Hollywood directors

such as John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler and John Hus-

ton produced significant documentary work during this peri-

od. While the overwhelming thrust of these documentaries

was pro-war effort, Huston had the intellectual sensitivity to

produce The Battle of San Pietro, a film that complicated our

notion of war. Produced in 1944, San Pietro presented such

controversial, conflicted ideas about the effects of war on in-

dividuals that its release was delayed until the very end of the

war. Huston challenged prevailing attitudes toward the war by

showing the raw, human tragedy of death and destruction.

Echoing the ironic sensibility of Hemingway, Huston revealed,

by filming from the vantage point of the soldier on the ground,

how war could be as much a failure as it could be a triumph.

In later years, documentary proved its flexibility once more

by easily transitioning to television. Echoing many of the

themes initially voiced in The River, the film Harvest of Shame,

produced by Fred Friendly and narrated by Edward R. Mur-

row, was broadcast on CBS Reports on Thanksgiving Day 1960.

By illustrating the plight of migrant farm workers and fami-

lies, Harvest of Shame drew in sharp relief the workers’ horri-

fying labor conditions and the complete lack of social safety

nets for them. In striking contrast to most

of today’s broadcast journalists, Murrow

pointedly advocated for the central role the

federal government should play in improv-

ing these abject conditions. The film direct-

ly led to a number of congressional regula-

tions. Harvest of Shame was broadcast at the

beginning of JFK’s Camelot, a period in

which, despite Cold War anxiety, America

still enjoyed the fruits of its WWII victory and

the subsequent prosperity it brought to many

Americans. It was a time when many felt that

this prosperity should extend to many more

in the social strata. Harvest of Shame en-

dorsed this prevailing liberal progressive

agenda and articulated many concerns that

were soon to be addressed by Cesar Chavez’s

labor movement in California and LBJ’s Great Society policies

of the mid-’60s.

In November 1963, a clothing merchandiser named Abra-

ham Zapruder eagerly awaited the presidential motorcade to

pass through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. As the motorcade passed

within his view, he filmed the president’s limousine at the mo-

ment it was assaulted by a sniper’s bullets. The subsequent

“home movie,” later to be called, simply, The Zapruder Film,

became the key piece of visual evidence in the assassination

of JFK. Moreover, this brief bit of exposed 8mm Kodachrome

film, became a hauntingly graphic symbol of the end of an age

in American social life. It ushered in a new age of the medi-

ation of the everyday world and forever burned into the emul-

sion of history the blurring of private and public space. Like

many middle-class Americans of the time, Zapruder had pur-

chased his home movie camera to document family activi-

ties. Little could he have known that this consumer product,

made primarily for the recording of everyday, private events,

would produce one of the most famous records of a public

event in the 20th century. Home movies and public life con-

verged and led to the growing popularity of home movie cam-

eras.

With the development of portable, professional film cam-

eras in the 1960s, broadcast journalists rearranged the Amer-

ican landscape via American television. Against the wishes

of many, broadcasters showed us horrifying scenes of Amer-

ican excesses in Vietnam and police muggings in the streets

of Chicago. Through committed documentary work, broad-

casters challenged Americans’ sense of national identity.

Socially committed documentarists in post-’60s America,

such as Peter Davis with The Selling of the Pentagon (1971) and

the Academy Award-winning Hearts and Minds (1974), set the

stage for much tighter control of the media in the U.S., espe-

cially when it came to military matters. When U.S.-led coali-

HARVEST OFSHAME, WHICHEXAMINED THEPLIGHT OFMIGRANT FARMWORKERS, LEDTO A NUMBER OFCONGRESSIONALREGULATIONS.

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W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 17

tion forces invaded Kuwait in 1991, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf

deftly orchestrated a daily stream of thoroughly filtered facts

to the media, who blithely accepted the General’s reporting

without question. The military-industrial complex, previously

exposed in documentary work by Davis, had obviously recog-

nized the power of documentary as a potential threat.

In the late 1980s, during some of the darkest days in Amer-

ican labor history, filmmaker Michael Moore was able to con-

vince Warner Brothers to distribute Roger and Me. The basic

premise of the film is an ultimate red herring — Michael

Moore, outraged citizen of Flint, Mich., demands an on-cam-

era interview with Roger Smith, CEO of General Motors. This,

of course, never happens. But the premise nonetheless allows

Moore the forum to critique, in his now-familiar sardonic fash-

ion, the ruthless corporate downsizing at the expense of en-

tire cities. Moore’s blame did not end with GM, however. In

a daring move, Moore implicates many of the unemployed

workers as being a party to their own demise. Moore un-

flinchingly showed how workers themselves lacked the con-

sciousness to connect the dots and see the pattern of corpo-

rate decision-making that echoed the Reagan Administration’s

hostility toward organized labor. Roger and Me, a film about

the demise of labor, set the box-office record for a theatrical-

ly-released documentary — and this was during the peak of

the Reagan-Bush era. This kind of success proves Americans’

occasional desire to seek alternative perspectives on prevail-

ing political discourse.

In 1991 a man named George Holliday happened to be

standing on his apartment balcony in Los Angeles County

when he witnessed an altercation between L.A. police offi-

cers and an African-American man. Holliday grabbed his

home video camera and shot for two minutes as police offi-

cers repeatedly beat Rodney King. I happened to be living in

Los Angeles at the time and saw the video as it was first broad-

cast by local media. In a much faster media age than 1963, this

latest “amateur video” was quickly picked up by media out-

lets across the country and eventually led to the arrest of four

Los Angeles Police Department officers whose subsequent tri-

als led to what has come to be known as the L.A. “riots,” or

“uprising,” depending on your perspective. Indeed, Holliday

had accidentally happened upon an event that was to place na-

tional scrutiny on a troubled police department at a particu-

larly low point in race relations in Los Angeles. Holliday made

one of America’s “unfunniest” home videos and in so doing

forced us to look once again at America’s racist legacy.

CHANGING THE WORLD

Despite contemporary America’s paradoxical desire for the

postmodern simulation of reality — as witnessed in television

programming such as Survivor — the world portrayed through

nonfiction film and television still matters. Through the doc-

umentary, we encounter our world in a distinctly different

manner than we would through the ‘reality’ simulations.

Moreover, as spectators we sense the significant weight of “the

real” on a very different plane than we do “reality TV.” The

potential for social change, a long-standing function of the

documentary tradition, remains intact despite the prolifera-

tion of docu-tainment subgenres.

Accidental or intentional, the power of documentary is that

it can define a historical moment, result in legislation, or cause

social unrest. Because we live in a world so highly saturated

with media, we must be able to criticize and synthesize doc-

umentary meaning. We should be able to see clearly the dif-

ferences between docu-tainment and that other thing we call

documentary.

On a daily basis, we are confronted with all kinds of docu-

mentary iterations, from the nightly news to even the most

seemingly innocent home videos. We need to recognize that

these expressions are points of view on the world that need to

be evaluated. The sources of these points of view can vary. They

can emanate from one individual, small groups or corporate

America. Understanding the sources of the expression can

be crucial to an overall understanding of what is really being

expressed in a documentary.

Through documentary we can be asked to reflect on who

we are as individuals, who we are as a cultural group and who

we are as a nation. The protean nature of documentary has

proved itself a significant place where these questions are

played out in a public forum. It is our responsibility to chal-

lenge and be challenged by the points of view that are articu-

lated in documentary. n

Jim Lane, Ph.D., author of The Autobiographical Documentary

in America (University of Wisconsin, 2002), is executive directorof Emerson College’s Los Angeles Center.

Named after the annual talent show in which both

prisoners and staff participate, Frederick Wiseman’s

Titicut Follies graphically documents conditions during

the mid-'60s at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane

in Bridgewater, Mass. The film was banned until 1992 on the

grounds that it was an invasion of inmate privacy.

1 8 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

At Emerson College, where communication and the arts meet

in harmony, one very harmonious convergence takes place

this year. The Samuel D. Robbins Speech, Language and

Hearing Center marks the 50th year since its founding, and

the annual Spring Musical marks its 50th production this year.

In the following accounts, Expression recaptures 100 years of

history that have helped make the College what it is today.

goldAs

good

as

Two Emerson

institutions

mark 50-year

milestones

A ROBBINS CENTER

PICTORIAL

Samuel D. Robbins, a founding fa-ther of modern speech pathologyand a former Emerson professor forwhom the Robbins Center wasnamed, demonstrates the principlesof breath control; Emerson studentsare shown how to operate a psy-chogalvonometer; making an obser-vation of a clinician and a youngclient through a two-way mirror.

THE ROBBINS CENTERBy Christopher Hennessy

Apiece of living history resides on the Emerson Col-

lege campus, and this year it marks a half-century of

achievement and service.

The Samuel D. Robbins Speech, Language and Hearing

Center, now located at 216 Tremont St., Boston, has been at the

forefront of treating communication impairments and train-

ing future speech-language therapists since its beginnings.

When the Center was founded 50 years ago, it was linked

with the earliest study and practice of modern speech-language

therapy in the United States. Today, it remains a vital force in

the Greater Boston community and an in-

tegral part of Emerson’s nationally ranked

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Department.

HISTORIC ORIGINS

The Robbins Speech and Hearing Clinic,

as it was then called, opened its doors to the

public on Sept. 29, 1953. The Clinic was named after Samuel

D. Robbins, one of the fathers of modern speech therapy, an

Emerson professor emeritus, and co-founder and former pres-

ident of the American Speech and Hearing Association, who

was “internationally known for his pioneer[ing] work in the

field of speech therapy in this country,” according to an alum-

ni issue of the Emerson College Bulletin.

Before Emerson had its own clinic, Emerson students trav-

eled to various state-run clinics and “mental hygiene centers”

in the area, where they worked under Robbins’ observation

and supervision. Robbins was a faculty member and chair of

the Emerson College Department of Speech Pathology and

Audiology from 1936 to 1953. Upon Robbins’ death in 1968,

Dean of the College Richard Pierce noted that the department

Robbins had “established single-handedly” was “nationally

known” and the Clinic was “recognized as one of Boston’s lead-

ing social services.”

When the Clinic opened its doors, it was housed on the first

two floors of 145 Beacon St. in Boston’s Back Bay. It was

thought to be the largest clinic of its kind in New England. And

like its founder, it was considered a pioneering center for

speech therapy. The student newspaper, the Berkeley Beacon,declared that the opening of a “new and modern speech clin-

ic” had “made history” for the Emerson community. The

teacher training courses begun by Robbins and conducted in

the Clinic were “the first of [their] kind in any New England

college,” the Beacon continued.

Professor Emeritus Charles Klim ’49, MA ’53, asserts that

former faculty member and Emerson

alumna Catherine Perry ’20 was the prin-

cipal Emersonian behind the Center’s cre-

ation. Perry worked with Robbins himself

in the 1940s, and at his retirement dedi-

cated herself to the naming of a new cen-

ter in his honor. Perry served as the Clinic’s

first director and was succeeded by Klim.

The Beacon also noted that the Emerson College Women’s

Committee, a small group of alumnae who passionately sup-

ported the Robbins Clinic, raised $1,200 for its opening. Mem-

bers of the Committee also actually pitched in at the Clinic

(see accompanying story). The group later changed its name

to Aid to Speech Therapy, and its membership grew into the

hundreds in the late ’50s as it continued to raise funds for

the Robbins Clinic.

“There were very few places to get help in those days be-

cause people weren’t much aware of speech and language

problems,” says Klim. “And the Robbins Clinic was one of only

a few clinics in those early years.”

THE GROWING YEARS

The Clinic experienced “phenomenal growth” during its first

The Robbins Centeris linked with theearliest study andpractice of modernspeech therapy....

2 0

five years, according to documents writ-

ten by its first director, Perry. On opening

day, 13 children were treated. The Clinic’s

caseload increased steadily over five years

to a total of 135 clients.

The Clinic dealt with “almost every

kind and degree of speech and/or hear-

ing impairment,” according to Perry, in-

cluding children and adults who stutter,

individuals with speech impairment due

to cleft palate or cerebral palsy, and those

with profound hearing loss. By 1958, the

Clinic was staffed by three speech pathol-

ogists, an audiologist, a psychologist, a

pediatrician and graduate assistants. The

60 clinicians who were training at the

College in 1958 were required to clock

200 hours of clinical experience before

graduation.

Klim recalls a time when the Clinic

had no secretary to handle scheduling

clients, leading to some confusion – like

two clients showing up for the same hour

of therapy time. “Many a time I never ate

lunch, and I wasn’t the only one,” laughs

Klim.

Clients at the clinic also benefited

from pediatricians, psychologists and a

range of consulting specialists who were often called in or were

on hand, says Klim. Documents from the time indicate spe-

cialists included those in otology, laryngology, orthodontia and

neurology.

The clinicians themselves benefited from the Clinic’s nu-

merous professional associations. Through these local con-

nections, student clinicians were afforded opportunities to

work in the community — offering therapy to individuals with

aphasia, teaching voice production to those whose voice box-

es or larynx were removed due to cancer, and working with

children with speech and hearing problems.

In 1959, the College announced that a $25,000 grant from

the Charles E. Merrill Trust would be used for “the support

of speech and hearing research and rehabilitation.” Dr. S. Jus-

tus McKinley, then president of the College, declared those

funds would be applied to the Robbins Clinic. (According to

A VOICE FROM THE PAST

It’s 1953. The Robbins Center has been open only a few weeks and Director

Catherine Perry ’20 already sees signs of great promise. Step back in time

to read Perry’s charming first-ever progress note:

“The Samuel D. Robbins Speech Clinic has opened with 20 patients….

[Tuesdays and Thursdays] are now filled completely, and we must soon open

up Monday and Wednesday afternoons as well. Our youngest patient is a lit-

tle girl three years old, and our oldest is a man of middle age. The variation

in age is hardly greater than shown in the speech defects to be corrected.

These include cerebral palsy, delayed speech, sound substitution, poor artic-

ulation and voice quality, foreign accent, stuttering, and aphasia.

“The Women’s Committee, responsible for the entire physical setup for the

Clinic of which we are justly proud, have also most graciously provided host-

esses for the waiting room, who lend a very friendly atmosphere to our Clin-

ic…. They outdo themselves by serving tea to waiting patients and providing

a lollipop for each child as he leaves. Helen Volansky Rose ’38 brought in

beautiful plants as well as delightful and fabulous toys, a pony on wheels, a

realistic monkey, a clown that is ideal for teaching relaxation, and a Raggedy

Ann doll for the enjoyment, not only of the regular patients while they wait

for their lessons, but also for small brothers and sisters whom the mothers

cannot leave at home.

“Parents and children alike have been most responsive. We hear such com-

ments as: ‘We just love to come here, it’s such fun!’ Parents who have hardly

been able to get their children to come the first time, now find them eagerly

looking forward to their next day at the Clinic and speaking favorably of their

progress.”

Excerpted from A Century of Eloquence: The History of Emerson College by As-sociate Professor John Coffee and Richard L. Wentworth ’79.

THE MODERN ERA

The Robbins Center’s first director,Catherine Perry ‘ 20, instructsstudents — with the help of a youngman; working with a toddler at theClinic; a graduate student in speechpathology works with a man who suf-fers from aphasia as a result of strokein the Robbins Clinic when it washoused at 168 Beacon St.; in 1974, aclinician uses a game to engage a child.

a statement released by the College at the time of the award,

the clinic treated “over 150 cases of speech and hearing im-

pairment a year” and scheduled “over 5,000 hours a year of

speech and hearing therapy.”)

The timing couldn’t have been better. A grant application

document for the Clinic stated that more than 4 million peo-

ple in this country suffered from a speech or hearing impair-

ment (including 3 out of every 100 schoolchildren) and only

3,000 qualified speech pathologists and/or audiologists were

available to treat them. By 1960, services were in such demand

that the Clinic was operating year round. By 1965, more than

200 adults and children were being treated (Beacon, 1997).

In the late 1960s, growing enrollment in Boston-area pub-

lic schools meant that Emerson speech pathologists and stu-

dent clinicians were sought-after specialists who could per-

form much needed speech disorder screening. These

screenings were used to determine if the schools needed to

hire additional full-time specialists to provide speech pathol-

ogy services.

As the need for speech therapists increased, says Klim,

Emerson’s student population in the field increased. “Public

schools were beginning to hire speech therapists left and

right,” recalls Klim.

In 1965, the Clinic reached a milestone when a young pro-

fessor named David Luterman founded the Thayer Lindsley

Parent-Centered Nursery, which today boasts an internation-

al reputation. “The nursery added and continues to add a

whole new dimension to the Center,” Luterman explained in

a recent interview. “It’s one of the few institutions across the

country that trains speech therapists to work with young deaf

children in a family-centered model.” The Nursery also has its

own visiting fellow grant program that brings in specialists

from all over the world. Luterman, currently a professor emer-itus teaching at Emerson, has witnessed how the Center, “one

of the oldest programs in the country, has really blossomed

over the years.”

The 1960s also saw another advance for the Center. When

it moved to a new location at 168 Beacon St., the Center ben-

efited from the addition of new technology to help the hear-

ing impaired. A soundproof booth was added and a complete

audiometric diagnostic set-up was installed, recalls Klim.

A NEW ERA

The Thayer Lindsley Nursery is just one of several special-

ized programs that the Center now houses and which allow

current Emersonians an ever-broadening array of clinical ex-

periences. Other programs include the Center for Acquired

Communication Disorders (est. 1997), which provides cog-

nitive, linguistic, speech and language treatment for adults

with neurologically based communication disorders; and af-

filiated programs such as the Children’s Hospital Group Lan-

guage Therapy Program (est. 1975). Two more affiliated pro-

grams, the Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Program and

the New England Fluency Program, have both been added in

the last four years.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Naomi Stroh Janover ’30 made sev-

eral large gifts, supporting the Center’s programs.

The growth in programs housed at the Center was made

possible by another “monumental milestone” – its move from

168 Beacon St. to 216 Tremont St. five years ago, according

to the Center’s current director, Betsy Micucci. She recalls see-

ing the new space for the first time and realizing almost im-

mediately “that our wish list for the clinic of our dreams had

essentially been filled.” Micucci, who earned her M.S.Sp. from

Emerson in 1976, vividly remembers clinical training during

her own school days when students were doing “therapy in

different nooks and crannies” of the old brownstone on Bea-

con Street.

Now, graduate students and clinical supervisors have “state-

of-the-art facilities,” says Micucci, including nine therapy

rooms observable through two-way mirrors and television

monitors fed by video cameras in the rooms. Students are out-

2 2 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

fitted with wireless communication earpieces that clinical su-

pervisors use to offer suggestions without disrupting thera-

py, Miccuci says. The Center, which also boasts a Communi-

cation Science Laboratory and its own new Computer

Laboratory, is housed on two floors at 216 Tremont St. and is

fully handicapped accessible.

Today, the Center has a robust reputation in the commu-

nity for producing quality speech pathologists and for making

a real impact in the lives of its clients. Annually, the Center’s

various programs treat over 200 children and adult clients.

“Emerson is highly regarded for pro-

ducing not only creative but thoughtful cli-

nicians,” says Sandy Cohn-Thau, current

director of clinical education. “That think-

ing begins at the Robbins Center.” Cohn-

Thau places Emerson graduate students –

who have had their “first steps” at the Rob-

bins Center – in sites like schools and hos-

pitals all over the Greater Boston area.

Alumna Debby Finn, MS ’76, agrees

with Cohn-Thau. Finn, who is director of speech, language

and hearing services for the Medford (Mass.) Public School

system outside of Boston, says Emerson alums are “extreme-

ly well prepared, self-confident, good thinkers, self-starters,

and they have great clinical and people skills.” Currently, near-

ly half of Finn’s staff come with an Emerson pedigree.

Much has changed in the field of communication sciences

– new disorders, changing diagnoses, the evolution of tech-

nologies, higher standards for clinical training – but the Rob-

bins Center’s mission remains the same. Though the Center

has changed locations, grown in size and broadened its array

of services, after 50 years it continues to march toward two

very important goals – training top speech-language patholo-

gists and helping those with speech, language and hearing dis-

orders. These two goals ensure that the Robbins Center will

continue its important mission for years to come.

When the curtain rose on Emerson’s first spring

musical, nobody in the little theater behind 130 Bea-

con Street could have fathomed the impact the

show would have on the College. What began as a modest pro-

duction of Lady in the Dark has evolved into an all-out musi-

cal extravaganza that is unquestionably the grandest theatri-

cal performance of the academic year, combining the talents

of nearly 100 students, faculty and staff members. This year,

the 50th musical will be produced, Of Thee I Sing, which will

be staged April 3-12.

One man has stood at the center of this

Department of Performing Arts tradition:

Professor Leonidas Nickole, who directed

all but two of the annual shows between

1954 and his retirement in 2001.

“When we started out, we did not start

with the idea that it be an annual event,”

said Nickole in a recent interview. “We pre-

sented it in the old carriage house behind

130 Beacon. To our happy surprise, tickets

were sold out weeks ahead, so we said, let’s continue this.” The

annual show’s following mushroomed so quickly that the

show outgrew the carriage house. Over the years, the venue

has changed several times. Most recently, the musical has been

presented at the Emerson Majestic Theatre.

Nickole hoped the Spring Musical could be a vehicle to con-

nect the College and the Greater Boston communities, and

give the students involved an invaluable educational experi-

ence. The goal was to present the city with a professional-cal-

iber production that would showcase the talents of Emerson

students and give them a taste of what they had to look for-

ward to should they pursue a career in the theater.

Along the way, many wonderful things happened.

In 1956, the then-new Leonard Bernstein musical Won-derful Town was chosen to be the annual show. The weekend

of the performance, the composer happened to be passing

‘When we started ...,we did not start withthe idea that it be an

annual event.’ — Leo Nickole

THE ANNUAL SPRING MUSICALBy Tara Pierson

AN ANNUAL EXTRAVAGANZA

Spanning the decades, the Spring Mu-sical tradition has involved hundreds ofstudents over the past half-century inproductions that have included 1954’sLady in the Dark; Wonderful Town

in 1956; West Side Story in 1982; andCarnival in 1964.

through Boston and got wind of Emerson’s pro-

duction. Though he was unable to attend, he sent

a note to the cast and crew, bidding them good luck

and thanking them for choosing his musical.

To help support the production of the musical,

Nickole launched the student-run Musical Theatre

Society in 1969. The Department of Performing

Arts’ production arm, Emerson Stage, was created

in 1980 to oversee the choice of show, as well as

staffing and budget.

The College purchased the rundown Majestic

Theatre in downtown Boston in the fall of 1989.

Once the sale was complete, Nickole wasted no time

in directing that year’s musical, the patriotic-

themed George M!, on the Majestic stage. The open-

ing of the Majestic was a weekend-long affair which

included the show, a gala celebration and a parade.

THE MUSICAL TODAY

Each fall, the Department takes stock of the avail-

able student talent. If the student body is full of

hoofers, for example, you can expect to see a show

loaded with dance numbers. A more emotive bunch

of students may elicit a play that focuses on drama

rather than choreography.

The spring musical relies on the most student

involvement of any theatrical production in a giv-

en year. The cast generally ranges from 35 to 40 students, and

the crew is made up of another 30 to 40. The orchestra orig-

inally consisted of a trio – piano, bass and percussion. Today,

the music is provided by some 13 musicians.

Over the years, several now-famous Emersonians appeared

in the musicals. Actor Henry Winkler performed in Carnivalin 1964 and The Fantasticks in 1965. Eleven years later, Joely

Fisher (The Ellen DeGeneres Show) starred in 1987’s A LittleNight Music. Newsman Morton Dean appeared in Guys and

Dolls and actor Richard Dysart in Finian’s Rainbow. Countless

other cast and crew have gone on to Hollywood or Broadway

notability.

In conjunction with the spring musical, the Musical The-

atre Society annually bestows an Award of Distinction to an

individual or individuals who have distinguished themselves

in the field of American musical theater.

For information on the 50th musical, Of Thee I Sing, visit

pages.emerson.edu/emersonstage this spring. n

EMERSON’S 50 ANNUAL SPRING MUSICALS

1954 Lady in the Dark1955 Finian’s Rainbow1956 Wonderful Town1957 Guys and Dolls1958 The Pajama Game1959 Bloomer Girl1960 Brigadoon1961 Bells are Ringing1962 Wildcat1963 South Pacific1964 Carnival1965 The Fantasticks1966 Finian’s Rainbow1967 Anything Goes1968 How to Succeed…1969 Fiorello1970 West Side Story1971 Cabaret1972 Fiddler on the Roof1973 Applause1974 No, No Nanette1975 Anyone Can Whistle1976 On The Town1977 Zorba1978 Where’s Charley?

1979 Oklahoma!1980 My Fair Lady1981 The Music Man1982 West Side Story1983 Merrily We Roll Along1984 Candide1985 Little Mary Szance1986 Pirates of Penzance1987 A Little Night Music1988 A Chorus Line1989 George M!1990 The Pajama Game1991 Into The Woods1992 Cabaret1993 Hello, Dolly1994 City of Angels1995 Merrily We Roll Along1996 Wonderful Town1997 Fame1998 Gypsy1999 Candide2000 Follies2001 Children of Eden2002 Mystery of Edwin Drood2003 Of Thee I Sing

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 23

2 4 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

A compendium of accomplishments by members of the Emerson community

notable expressions

Emmy Award winner and alumna KATE

BOUTILIER ’81 is the primary writer for

the animated feature film The Wild

Thornberrys Movie, which was released

in late 2002 by Paramount Pictures. The

film is based on Nickelodeon’s animated

TV show about a family of naturalists

and their globe-trotting adventures in

the wild, a program that was developed

by Boutilier.

BRENT HANLEY ’98 has penned a

screenplay that has garnered praise from

directorial top dogs Sam Raimi and

James Cameron and suspense master

Stephen King. The supernatural thriller,

Frailty, opened nationwide last April, was

directed by Bill Paxton

and stars Matthew

McConaughey.

He goes by the name

KAOS, and he’s the direc-

tor of the action block-

buster Ballistic: Ecks vs.

Sever. Kaos (Wych

Kaosayananda), who earned

a film degree at Emerson in 1996, was

born in Bangkok to parents in the Thai

diplomatic corps. His movie Fha, which

opened in Thailand in 1998, remains one

of that country’s top-10 highest-grossing

films of the last five years.

DAVID MORWICK ’96 has

produced Little Erin Merry-

weather, which was recently

accepted into the N.E. Film

Festival.

ERIC SLADE ’82 directed a

documentary, Hope Along the

Wind: The Life of Harry Hay,

which aired on public televi-

sion last year. The film won

the Golden Gate Award at the

San Francisco International

Film Festival. The film, co-pro-

duced by KQED/San Francisco,

tells the life story of gay

rights activist Harry Hay.

ANDREW VAN DEN

HOUTEN ’02 appears in

the film Alma Mater, which

screened last fall at the

Austin Film Festival (where

it won the audience award)

and at the Hamptons In-

ternational Film Festival.

Alma Mater, which van den

Houten associate-produced, is “set

against the backdrop of John F.

Kennedy’s alma mater, Harvard Universi-

ty, just prior to his assassination in

1963…[and] grapples with social politics

related to gender, sexuality, religion and

class.” Van den Houten’s own film, Inher-

ent Darkness and Enlightenment, was

screened at the San Diego Asian Film

Festival last year.

CHRISTIAN WISECARVER ’01 and

John-Michael Trojan ’00, film graduates,

created The Red Brick Road, a film that

screened at the New Hampshire Film

Expo last fall. Wisecarver wrote the

screenplay and appears in the film, and

Trojan is producer and co-editor. Most

of the crew is composed of Emersonians:

Tim LaDue ’00, director of photography,

lighting design; Christopher Dorff ’00,

assistant director, actor; Andy Dennis

’00, original music; DeWayne Dickerson

’01, actor; and Abby Fillman ’00, actress.

pCHARLES EVERED, Emerson assistant

professor, saw his play Adopt a Sailorbecome part of a three-day theater

marathon commemorating the

attacks on New York City of Sept. 11,

2001. The marathon, called “Brave New

World,” was held at Manhattan’s Town

Hall and benefited the New York Chil-

dren’s Foundation. Adopt a Sailor fea-

tured Bebe Neuwirth as a woman who

witnesses the 9/11 attacks. Evered has re-

ceived attention for the play from the L.A.Times, Newsday, National Public Radio

and several other media outlets.

pJOHN KUNTZ ’90, well-known in Boston

for his unique one-man shows, won the

Best Solo Performance award at the New

theater

film

Antonio Banderas, Talisa Soto and director

Kaos ‘96 on the set of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

John Kuntz ‘90

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 25

Night Train, a new literary magazine ed-

ited by Emerson alumni RUSTY BARNES,

MFA ’95, and ROD SIINO, MFA ’99, was

published last year, with a Boston Globeeditorial heralding its launch.

What’s the GirlWorth?, the debut

novel by CHRISTINA

FITZPATRICK ’95,

hit bookstores re-

cently to positive

reviews. Set in

Madrid, the story

chronicles the

summer during

which a young woman tries to break free

of her past, only to be confronted by it

thousands of miles from home.

SHEILA HICKEY GARVEY ’71 recounts the life

of the late great Jason Robards in the

new book Jason Robards Remembered.

Edited in part by Garvey, the book com-

bines essays, tributes and anecdotes that

celebrate Robards’ career, and includes

pieces by Garvey, Kevin Spacey, Eli Wal-

lach and Blythe Danner.

Editor of the

Emerson-based

literary journal

Ploughshares DON

LEE, MFA ’87, has

a short story, “The

Possible Hus-

band,” in this

year’s O. Henry

Prize Stories.

Since 1918, the O. Henry awards have

been given to the best stories chosen

from large and small literary magazines

in the U.S. and Canada.

PETER JAY SHIPPY ’84 was recently award-

ed the 2002 Iowa Poetry Prize for

his manuscript Thieves’ Latin. The

national competition, open to both

emerging and established writers, is

administered by the University of

Iowa Press, which will publish Shippy’s

book in April 2003. Shippy has

recently had work published in the

Harvard Review, Poetry Ireland and

the Denver Quarterly. He is also a long-

time adjunct creative writing

professor at Emerson.

THOMAS MCNEELY’s “Tickle Torture” won

the Texas Institute of Letters’ Brazos

Bookstore Award for the best short story

of 2001. The competition is open to na-

tive or resident Texan writers or to sto-

ries with a Texan setting. The Texas In-

stitute of Letters was founded in 1938,

and the Brazos Bookstore is a well-re-

spected bookstore in Houston. McNeely,

MFA ’97, is currently a fellow in the

prestigious Wallace Stegner Fellowship

program at Stanford University.

ADAM MELL ’01 was one of the winners in

the Associated Writing Programs Intro

Journals Project for his nonfiction entry

“The Courage of Despair,” which was

taken from his senior thesis and tells

the story of his friendship with the co-

median Brother Theodore. Mell’s piece

will be published in the Bellingham Re-view in conjunction with the award.

Welcome to Heav-enly Heights, anovel by M.F.A.

alumna RISA

MILLER ’95 (pic-

tured left), was

published this

year by St. Mar-

tin’s Press. The

book, about

American immigrants living in a West

Bank community outside of Jerusalem,

began as Miller’s Emerson thesis. Miller

won the PEN New England Discovery

Award for fiction in 1999.

literature

York Fringe Festival for his play

Star****ers. The show presents a series

of vignettes about “a wild group of people

who have either sought fame in unex-

pected ways or had fame thrust upon

them.” Kuntz has won awards for his

Boston-based shows, including three

Elliot Norton Awards. His most recent

work, Jump Rope, was staged in Boston.

musicNANCY KAYE ’94, the singer

known as Rosey, has been signed

to Island Records and recently ap-

peared on The Tonight Show with

Jay Leno. Her CD, Dirty Child, was

released last summer. Rosey has

toured with singer Melissa

Etheridge.

2 6 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

alumni digest

Members of the College’s Alumni Association New England chapter gathered at

the Regattabar in Cambridge last fall for a jazz concert. From left are Judi Levin

’66, Mort Glovin ’57, Joan Florsheim ’66, Diane Purdy Theriault ’55, Paul Ricci ’65,

Ellen Rodman ’66 and Bonnie Glovin ’58.

At the Stearns

Lecture, given

by Michael

Solomon in Octo-

ber 2002, were

(from left) Presi-

dent Jacqueline

Liebergott; Irma

Mann Stearns ’67,

H ’92, Michael

Solomon ’59, and

his wife, Luciana.

Chicago-area Emerson

alumni, parents and

friends got together

at the Adobe Grill in

November 2002.

Gina Makris ’78 (left)

and Elizabeth Hollen-

doner ’92 attended.

ChicagoFrom left, Gail Golden Gold ’65, MSSp ’68, with an

Emerson student and her mother.

Sid Levin ’78,

co-owner of the

Boston-based

Firstframe Inc.

and three-time

Cine Gold Eagle

award winner, and

Pam Abdy ’95, president of production for Danny De-

Vito’s Jersey Films in Los Angeles, came to campus

recently to talk about their careers.

BostonAuthors Robert Parker and Calvin Trillin were on

hand recently to celebrate the 30th anniversary of

the Emerson-based literary journal Ploughshares.

Above: Parker, Jacqueline Liebergott, Trillin and Don

Lee, MFA ’87 (Ploughshares editor).

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 27

New YorkAlumni, parents and prospective students gathered at the

Penn Club in New York City in December 2002 to hear Marye

Tharp, the new chair of Emerson’s Department of Marketing

Communication, speak on the world of marketing. Paul Marte

’83 and Samantha Sallee ’01 were among the attendees.

Hope Linderman ’74 and Lynne Lamberis Roos ’74

Bill Miller ’74 hosted his New York alumni friends at his home in

December 2002. From left are Ken Fallin ’74, Ron Mandelbaum,

Charles Rosen ’68 and Miller.

Deborah Ko-

marow ’85, San-

dra Goldfarb ’78

(president of

the Emerson

Alumni Associa-

tion) and Jim

Nussbaum ’84.

More than 30 EBONI alumni gathered for their first reunion, in Washington, D.C. The event drew alums

(from 1969 to 1993) from as far away as New York, North Carolina and Florida for a reception and din-

ner at the Henley Park Hotel in November 2002.

Washington, D.C.Jennifer Cover Payne ’71 (left),

committee member for the EBONI

Reunion 2004, and Debra Jervay-

Pendergrass ’73, committee chair

for the EBONI Alumni Reunion 2004

Steering Committee.

2 8 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

alumni digest

In Los Angeles at a reception at the home of Vin Di

Bona ’65 to honor 14 Emerson alumni who were

nominated for 2002 Emmy awards were Gene

Braunstein ’72 (left) and Don De Mesquita ’70.

A special Emerson program was held on the set of the

hit TV series Will & Grace in November 2002. An

evening celebrating some of Emerson’s most success-

ful TV executives included (from left) Max Mutchnick

’87, creator of NBC’s Will & Grace; moderator Maria

Menounos ’00, an Entertainment Tonight correspon-

dent; Doug Herzog ’81, president of USA Network; and

Vin Di Bona ’65, Emmy-winning producer.

Clifton Powell ’78, Emerson President Jacqueline

Liebergott and Brent Jennings ’74.

President Lieber-

gott and Mr. and

Mrs. Robert Mad-

den, parents of an

Emerson student.

Los Angeles

Emerson alumni and friends on the set of Will & Grace.

Among those celebrating Emersonians who were nominated for Emmys last

year were President Liebergott (center) and (from left) Kevin Bright ’76, Gary

Grossman ’70, Deeny Kaplan ’73, President Liebergott, David Levinson ’97,

Kate Boutilier ’81 and Paul Dini ’79.

Mimi Cozzens ’56, Racelle Schae-

fer ’81, G ’83, and Jeanne

Brodeur ’72

Emerson faculty and administrators

Jim Lane, Rob Sabal, Grafton Nunes,

Tom Kingdon and Stuart Sigman

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 29

Reunion Weekend—May 30, 31 andJune 1

The Reunion classes are:

’33, ’38, ’43, ’48, ’53, ’58, ’63,

’68, ’73, ’78, ’83, ’88, ’93 and

’98. Members of the Reunion

classes along with all other

alums are warmly invited

back to campus to enjoy

these events:

100TH ANNIVERSARY

CELEBRATION of the recently

restored Emerson Majestic

Theatre. Enjoy a special per-

formance commemorating

this occasion.

50TH ANNIVERSARY of the

Robbins Speech, Language

and Hearing Center

CLASS LUNCHEONS with your

favorite professors

ALUMNI COLLEGE COURSES

taught by faculty and friends

TOUR THE NEWLY renovated

Majestic Theatre and the newly

built Tufte Performance and

Production Center

alumni digest

Inaugurations Galore

I N M E M O R I A M

1923 EIRWEN H. LLOYD-REES of Lake Wales, Fla.

1929 JEANETTE (SCHWARTZ) LEVENSON of Portland, Maine

1929 LINDA (ROGERS) MALONEY of Naples, Fla.

1939 MARY B. JONES of Milton, Mass.

1942 ROSE YVONNE (LEMIEUX) PARK of Duxbury, Mass.

1943 PHYLLIS (KAPLAN) RITTER of Hilton Head, S.C.

1945 OLIVE CARMAN RUSSELL of Avon, Conn.

1950 LAUREL KINCAID IRVINE of Sarasota, Fla.

1951 G. BRADFORD TIFFANY of Moultonboro, N.H.

1953 VIRGINIA MATTHEWS WHEELER of Watertown, Conn.

1957 JOSEPHINE M. BROADBENT of South Lawrence, Mass.

1964 CHRISTINE A. PALMER of Charlestown, Mass.

1970 PETER E. DIERKS of Yonkers, N.Y.

1970 THOMAS R. FOLEY of Fitchburg, Mass.

1974 ANITA D. FISHER of Los Angeles, Calif.

1976 ALDO M. MIGLIORINI of Stoneham, Mass.

1993 JEFFERY F. CABRAL of Raynham, Mass.

CALLING ALL MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 1963 Walter

Berhinger and John Bertsch are co-chairs and New England representatives

for the Class of 1963. If you are part of the Class and preparing to celebrate

your 40th reunion, please contact the co-chairs. Walter: Wjb0841@aol.com;

John: Jprbertsch@aol.com.

Scholarship to becreated in honorof Lucille Salhany

Emerson college has

received a gift of $200,000

from Compaq Computer Corp.

in honor of Lucille Salhany, a mem-

ber of the Board of Trustees of

Emerson College and a member

of the Board of Directors of Compaq

Computer. This gift will be used

to create The Hal & Tillie Mady

Scholarship. The scholarship fund

will honor Ms. Salhany’s parents

and will be awarded to American

citizens of Arabic descent who wish

to attend Emerson.

from time to time, alumni of Emer-

son College are requested to attend

presidential inaugurals at other institu-

tions of higher learning, particularly in

cases in which President Liebergott is

unable to do so. The following recently

represented the College:

JUDITH ESPINOLA ’61, Inaugura-

tion of Carol Christ, Smith College,

Oct. 19, 2002.

FRANK GELMAN ’78, Inauguration

of Judson Shaver, Marymount Manhat-

tan College, Oct. 18, 2002.

BARBARA RANDOLPH ’65, Inaugura-

tion of Jo Ann M. Gora, University of

Massachusetts/Boston, Sept. 27, 2002.

BILL HENNESSEY ’56, Inauguration

of Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Bates College,

Oct. 26, 2002.

MADELINE YUSNA ’76, Inaugura-

tion of Brian Barefoot, Babson College,

Sept. 20, 2002.

Bill Hennessey ‘56 representing

Emerson College at the inaugura-

tion of the new president of Bates

College last fall.

1 9 5 7MORT GLOVIN and his wife,

BONNIE GLOVIN ’58, who own

Boston Coffee Exchange, were

honored with the City Search

Editor’s Choice Award for the

Best Cup of Coffee in Boston,

2002. The contest is conduct-

ed yearly on the Internet, and

the public votes for their fa-

vorite Boston eating and drink-

ing establishments.

11 99 55 99SHELLEY (KAPLAN) ABRAMS

loves her new home on the

“gorgeous and secluded” Hy-

poluxo Island, one mile south

of Palm Beach, Fla. She can be

contacted at rka15226@earth-

link.net.

11 99 66 00In December 2002, BOB

MULLEN retired from teaching

after nearly 40 years. He

taught at Ohio State Universi-

ty, Worcester State College,

Graham Junior College, New-

ton Junior College, and, most

recently, at Northern Kentucky

University, where he taught for

31 years. Bob and his wife, Di-

anna Delgado, currently live in

Covington, Ky.

11 99 66 11ELENA (ALTOBELLI) STUART re-

cently celebrated her twenty-

fifth year on the faculty at West

Chester University, Pa. Aside

from teaching, Elena serves as

chairperson of the Department

of Communicative Disorders

as well as coordinator of the

Speech/Language/Hearing

Clinic, a position she has held

for 12 years. Elena is putting

her Emerson training to use as

a cast member in local Gilbert

and Sullivan productions, and

spends any free time she has

traveling.

11 99 66 8835th Reunion

RALPH MAFFONGELLI was re-

cently “twice honored” by the

city of Sheboygan for his 20-

plus years of local theater

work. Accolades came from

the board of directors of the

Sheboygan Theatre Company

as well as from an association

of local backstage technicians.

11 99 66 99ARDENE LYONS recently relocat-

ed to “sunny” Sarasota, Fla.,

where she works as a certified

home health aide for the eld-

erly, disabled and terminally ill.

She would love to hear from

old friends at Ardene2000@

comcast.net.

11 99 77 3330th Reunion

JANE GUTERMAN was honored

in June of 2002 by the Cystic

Fibrosis Foundation of Fort

Lauderdale for her commit-

ment and volunteer work with

the Starlight Children’s Foun-

dation.

11 99 77 44BARRY LUBIN was inducted into

the International Clown Hall

of Fame in November 2002,

joining the likes of Charlie

Chaplin and Emmett Kelly. He

is currently in his 14th year

touring with the Big Apple Cir-

cus and is developing a chil-

dren’s TV show based on his

character, “Grandma.” E-mail

him at BarryLubin@aol.com.

11 99 77 66RAYMOND RONCI, former Emer-

son faculty member, had his

volume of poetry, The World

of Difference, published by

Pressed Wafer Press in 2001.

His Selected Poems was recent-

ly published online by the lit-

erary journal Sugar Mule. Ray

teaches in the English Depart-

ment at the University of Mis-

souri in Columbia, where he

lives with his wife and son. A

practicing Zen Buddhist for

over two decades, Ray is the di-

rector for the Hokoku-An Zen

Center in Columbia.

11 99 77 99PHIL ADLER is starting his fifth

year as the audio supervisor of

the national “A” game of the

NFL on CBS. Over the last 15

years, he’s worked on five

Olympic Games broadcasts

and one Super Bowl. He cur-

rently resides in Ashland,

Mass., with his wife and son,

and is “always available” at

sportsound@bigfoot.com.

1 9 8 320th Reunion

VALERIE SURIANO and her hus-

band, Ted Gravlin, welcomed

their first child, daughter Kel-

ly Kathryn, on March 8, 2002.

Visit www.kellygravlin.com for

photos and info.

FRANK GORRELL is currently

employed as a senior account-

ant and financial analyst for a

multi-state insurance compa-

ny, Meadowbrook/TPA Asso-

ciates, in Andover, Mass.

Frank, his wife, Jenny, and

their two sons live in Grove-

land, Mass., where Frank

serves on the town’s finance

committee and is a member of

the fire department.

3 0 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

class notesExpression welcomes Class

Notes submissions. We

reserve the right to edit

copy and regret that we

may have to withhold some

items due to space limita-

tions. Send news items and

nonreturnable photos to

Barbara Rutberg, Office of

Alumni Relations, 120

Boylston St., Boston, MA

02116-4624 or e-mail

Barbara_Rutberg@emerson.

edu. Please include infor-

mation on how we can

contact you.

CLASS REUNIONS

For information regarding your Class Reunion in

2003, contact one of the following people:

1938, 1943, 1948, 1953, 1958, 1958:

Carolyn_Vandervelden@emerson.edu

1963, 1988: Bethel_Nathan@emerson.edu

1968: Barbara_Rutberg@emerson.edu

1973, 1978: Bethel_Nathan@emerson.edu

1983, 1998: Elizabeth_Baker@emerson.edu

1993: Jon_Iarrobino@emerson.edu

Call 1-800-255-4259 to speak to any of the above.

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 31

1 9 8 5JOHN LAMB was recently named

vice president of public affairs

at KeyBank. He is based in

Portland, Maine, with respon-

sibilities in both Maine and

Vermont.

DAVID MAZZAFERRO has been

active in the New England the-

ater scene, playing Nick in

Over the River and Through the

Woods at The Theater Project

in West Springfield, Mass., as

well as Carlino in Wait Until

Dark at the Greenwoods The-

atre in Connecticut.

1 9 8 7ALLISON LANDRESS and her hus-

band, Keith Murch, had “a

busy year starting a small con-

struction company and having

a beautiful baby boy,” Ian, in

2002. The baby’s godmother

is KRISTIN LAVIANO RHODES ’88.

1 9 8 815th Reunion

KAREN (CORRENTE) MCDOWELL

and her husband Joseph wel-

comed their first child, son

Corey Joseph, to their family

on Sept. 26, 2002. Karen,

who’s working as a freelance

copywriter, “would love to hear

from former classmates” at

Karenmcd@attbi.com.

JAN VAN DER LANDE has be-

come general manager of

StrICT Consultancy, a techni-

cal ICT consultancy company

based in the Netherlands.

1 9 9 0DONNA STOKES was recently

promoted to web communica-

tions manager at Hewlett-

Packard Company “after 10

fun years in L.A. working in

network television and adver-

tising.” Donna, her husband,

Tim, and son Ben also wel-

comed a new addition to their

family–a daughter, Elizabeth

Ivy. They currently reside in

Eagle, Idaho. Donna “would

love to hear from Terri M. ’90

or any Kappa gals.”

SARA (DECESARE) ROBINSON

and husband Brendan are the

proud new parents of daughter

Abigail Rose, who was born

Oct. 3, 2002. Sara recently

completed work as the associ-

ate visual effects producer for

the feature film Scooby Doo, re-

leased last year.

1 9 9 1KAREN (STEVENSON) DAVIS and

her husband, Bob, are enjoy-

ing their life on Long Island,

N.Y., with their 3-year-old

daughter, Jennifer. Karen is

teaching sixth-grade science,

and would love her friends to

write her at MrsDavisKR@aol.

com.

MEREDITH GREENBURG is as-

sistant professor of theater arts

as well as production manag-

er for California State Univer-

sity/Los Angeles Department

of Theatre Arts and Dance.

Aside from teaching, Meredith

is a stage manager for the Los

Angeles Opera. Her most re-

cent undertaking is the Mark

Taper Forum and Deaf West

Theatre’s co-production of Big

River, which features both

hearing and non-hearing cast

members. Write to Meredith at

mgreenb@calstatela.edu.

1 9 9 2ADELE D’MAN will appear on

screen with fellow Emersonian

DENNIS LEARY ’79 in the feature

film The Secret Lives of Dentists.

Adele and her husband, PETER

GOLDBERG ’91, who have their

own production company

(BFGF Productions), are cur-

rently in pre-production for

their own feature film.

1 9 9 310th Reunion

MICHELLE DEBAKEY directed a

documentary Quality of Life,

which chronicles the lives of

people with disabilities living

in Florida’s Landmark Learn-

ing Center.

1 9 9 4MELISSA (YOUNG) CENTENO was

married in Feisole, Italy (“very

amazing”), to Isaias Centeno

in October 2001. The newly-

weds met while working on

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

and currently live in Woodland

Hills, Calif. Contact Melissa at

melissa.young@mindspring.

com.

1 9 9 5KATE (WORTHINGTON) POITRAS

married Brian Poitras on July

27, 2002, in Boston. Fellow

Emersonians TANYA BAZLAMIT

’94 and KEVIN O’REGAN ’95 were

members of the wedding par-

ty, and JASON PAPAGAN ’95 and

JENIFER BOND ’95 attended the

wedding. Contact Kate at

kpoitras@charter.net

CHARISE (HALL) KRUPINSKI is

happily married and living in

Austin, Texas, and is kept busy

with two sons, a stepson and a

stepdaughter. She’d enjoy

hearing from “y’all” at

CMHAK@aol. com.

JUDITH LOGSDON has received

ROSALIE (KAUFMAN)

SHEFFIELD ’81 has

been appointed manager

of business development

for People Productions

in Boulder, Colo. The

media production and

post-production compa-

ny has hired Rosalie to

help highlight its growing

digital media capabilities. She can be contacted at

Rosalie@peopleproductions.com

SUSAN CHADWICK

’96 has been hired as

communications and

media specialist for

Bi-State Primary Care

Association, a non-

profit organization

that brings communi-

ty-based primary care

services to the med-

ically underserved of

Vermont and New

Hampshire.

MARC DUBE ’91 is cur-

rently working on the

CBS television drama

CSI. He and his wife of 10

years, Eileen, recently

“took the leap into par-

enthood,” and welcomed

daughter Juliette.

process of adopting their first

child, 2-year-old Mariah, who

has been living with them

since May 2002.

1 9 9 9ANTHONY SILVA screened his

avant-garde film animal

mechanique at several film fes-

tivals, including Silver Lake,

where it won an award.

2 0 0 0STEVEN WITHROW, MA, recently

wrote a book called Toon Art:

The Graphic Art of Digital Car-

tooning, which is slated to be

published in June 2003.

2 0 0 2Fresh from receiving his

M.S.Sp., ANTHONY GREGORY

was hired by Framingham

Public Schools as a speech-lan-

guage pathologist, and he re-

ports that he is working along-

side several other Emerson

alums, including: ANDREA OS-

TROSKY ’00, MARY DAVIES ’96

and MICHELE ROSS ’82. He en-

courages “other ‘speechies’ out

there” to contact him at An-

thony_ Ashley@msn.com.

3 2 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

class notes

the Stella Gray Teaching Ex-

cellence Award at the Univer-

sity of Wisconsin-Parkside, the

second teaching award she’s

received since she started at

the university in 1978.

1 9 9 6BENJAMIN RAJOTTE earned his

law degree in 2002 from Loy-

ola Law School, Loyola Mary-

mount University. He proudly

reports he passed the bar and

is now a member of the Cali-

fornia Bar Association.

1 9 9 7ERICA TRAVERS is working in

New York City as a producer

for Stephane Sednaoui, an ac-

claimed photographer and

music video director. Erica’s

most recent project is a DVD

compilation of Sednaoui’s

work, which will include clips

of his videos for Bjork, U2,

REM, Fiona Apple and the Red

Hot Chili Peppers.

1 9 9 85th Reunion

SARA BERKOWITZ was recently

promoted to director of sales at

the Lowell Memorial Auditori-

um in Lowell, Mass. Write to

saraberkowitz@hotmail.com.

ERIC LATEK wrote, produced

and directed the film A Life in

the Day of Ringo Vings.

JOHN PALISANO was recog-

nized for his hard work when

his first feature film, Man

Made, was selected to screen at

the Silver Lake Film Festival in

September.

CHARLOTTE PENCE, MFA, re-

ceived the state of Tennessee’s

Writing Fellowship in Poetry

for 2003. She has been teach-

ing at Belmont University in

Nashville since 1998. E-mail

her at pencejenkins@yahoo.

com.

HEATHER (CALDER) ROBERTS

and her husband, Drew, gave

birth to their first child, son

Brandon, on Sept. 23, 2002.

The couple is also in the

ALEXIS (SMITH)

BURRIS ’94 and her

husband, Blayde, wel-

comed their first

child, son Bostyn

Todd, on Aug. 2,

2002. KRISTEN

(TANZER) TEIXEIRA

’84 is the child’s god-

mother.

LUCY HOLSTEDT ’94, an associate professor of har-

mony at Berklee College of Music in Boston, was hon-

ored for her many years of dedicated service to the

College Diversity Committee. She is shown here with

Berklee President Lee Berk (center) and Holstedt’s

husband, Kirk Etherton.

WHERE ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING?Please use the form below to submit news that you would like to share with your fellow

Emersonians. Or, if you prefer, e-mail your news to Barbara_Rutberg@emerson.edu.

New job? Recently engaged or married? New baby? Moving? Recently ran into an old

classmate? Received an award? Let us know.

NAME ORIGINAL LAST NAME CLASS YEAR

ADDRESS CITY STATE ZIP

HOME PHONE E-MAIL

YOUR NEWS

Mail to: Class Notes, Emerson College, Office of Alumni Relations, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624

·

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 33

profilesnhl. nba. nfl. wnba. Neither alpha-

bet soup nor top-secret code, these let-

ters represent four of the biggest pro-

fessional sports leagues – and they

trace one alum’s rise through the

ranks of professional sports sales and

marketing. After more than two

decades of experience in marketing,

sales and advertising, Lee Stacey ’76

is now vice president of sales and

marketing for the New York Jets.

But Lee had ‘gone pro’ years before.

Prior to coming to New York, Stacey

worked as vice president of corporate

sales and broadcasting for the National

Basketball Association’s Cleveland

Cavaliers and the Women’s National

Basketball Association’s

Cleveland Rockers. Before

that, he oversaw the corpo-

rate sales initiatives of the

NBA’s Washington Bullets and the

National Hockey League’s Washington

Capitals.

For the Jets, Stacey was tapped “to

lead the revitalization of all aspects of

the Jets’ sales and marketing efforts

and spearhead an initiative to build a

new stadium in New York City,” he

says. And he’s bringing to these tasks

innovation and a love for broadcasting

– a passion that began as an under-

graduate at Emerson.

Stacey has directed the creation of a

new television show and two new radio

shows for the Jets franchise. “The

shows are not only a revenue producer,

but they’re also a branding opportunity

for us — to get our coach, our general

manager and our players out to the

community so that [fans] can see them

without their helmets on,” he explains.

But Stacey, who graduated with a

bachelor’s degree in mass communica-

tion, admits a fondness for the broad-

casting elements of his job. “Ever since

Emerson, broadcasting has been my

first love,” he says. At Emerson Stacey

worked for the WERS sports desk and

even played a year of Lions basketball

himself – perhaps an early sign that a

blend of sports and broadcasting

would be his calling.

The Jets television show he over-

sees is called 24/7, “a reality-based

coach’s show” which follows the week-

ly activities of Jets Head Coach Her-

man Edwards. It airs on New York

City’s WCBS-TV. The two new radio

shows air on the New York ESPN local

affiliate and include a weekly coach’s

report and an hour-long General Man-

ager’s show hosted by Jets G.M. Terry

Bradway.

Stacey’s responsibilities also in-

clude directing all sales and broadcast-

ing functions for the Jets as well as

marketing the team in gen-

eral. Marketing can run the

gamut from organizing

players’ visits to schools as

part of community service

projects to reviewing season

ticket-holder research to de-

termine new ways of giving

Jets fans the best possible

game-day experience. With

the new stadium construc-

tion on the horizon, Stacey

will oversee all new sales in

the building from premium

club seats to all suite and

corporate sales.

Stacey says star-power at

games is a bonus for the

franchise and the fans. Last

fall, he escorted Frasier star

and Jets fan Kelsey Gram-

mer around the stadium before and

during a game. This past season,

Michael Imperioli (from The Sopranos)and Chris Meloni (from Law & Order:SVU) also attended games.

Though he has worked for teams

in the NBA, WNBA and NHL, Stacey

says he’s discovered that due to the

NFL’s shorter season and smaller staff

“every game means something. The

highs are high and the lows are low.”

This season, the Jets were Super Bowl

contenders right up to a semifinal

playoff game.

But for this alum, there are more

touchdowns than fumbles in his job.

“I work in the number-one market in

the country, I’m working for a rejuve-

nated franchise, and we’re pursuing a

major construction project.” His only

challenge? Rooting against the New

England Patriots after all those years

as a fan. — Christopher Hennessy

SCORING A GOAL FOR MARKETINGMarketing V.P. Lee Stacey ’76 helps the New York Jets to soar

‘EVER SINCE EMERSON, BROADCASTINGHAS BEEN MY FIRST LOVE.’

3 4 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

perhaps you’ve read her column,

caught her appearances on the nation-

ally syndicated daytime talk show TheOther Half or taken her advice in na-

tional magazines like Ladies HomeJournal and Good Housekeeping. Dr.

Jennifer (Mann) Berman, a Beverly

Hills-based psychotherapist known to

her audience as “Dr. Jenn,” is busy dis-

pensing information on issues such as

self-esteem and family relationships

through media in the Los Angeles area

and throughout the country.

As an undergraduate at Emerson

College, Berman ’91-92 studied print

and television journalism. When she

learned about the tragic issue of date

rape, she promptly felt compelled to

work toward a career either in law or

psychotherapy. When she went West

for her final semester to participate in

the Los Angeles Program, she volun-

teered at a rape crisis center. After

graduation she did further volunteer

work at the Los Angeles Commission

on Assault Against Women, training

more than 100 people to work

the crisis hotlines.

Berman went on to earn a

master’s degree in clinical psy-

chology from Antioch Univer-

sity and a doctorate in psychology from

California Graduate School.

Of all the issues she deals with to-

day, she says that three areas occupy

most of her time – relationships (“It’s

everything from helping people get

into a potentially healthy relationship

to a relationship that is falling apart

because of poor communication”); en-

tertainment-industry issues (“every-

thing from coping with the pressures

of stardom to helping assistants deal

with difficult bosses”); and eating dis-

orders (“This forms 20 percent of my

practice”).

On television’s The Other Half,which is hosted by Danny Bonaduce

and Dick Clark among others, Berman

has expounded on a wide array of sub-

jects, including PMS and various per-

sonality types and how they affect rela-

tionships. A typical day for Dr. Jenn

may include “shooting a show in the

morning, seeing clients in the after-

noon and evening and having a writ-

ing meeting after that. I do a lot of dif-

ferent things and it keeps me from

burning out,” she says. Her monthly

column, “Dr. Jenn,” appears in Los An-geles Family magazine. She is currently

writing a self-help book with co-author

Donna Corwin.

One of Berman’s specialties is

sports psychology, and there’s a good

reason for that. As a child, Berman was

a nationally ranked rhythmic gymnast.

Her firsthand experience has made her

sensitive to the demands placed on

children in the

public eye. To that

end, she is a con-

sultant to a Los

Angeles-based organization called A

Minor Consideration, an advocacy

group founded by former child actor

Paul Peterson (The Donna Reed Show)

that protects child stars and athletes.

“I have a deeper understanding of the

pressures of being a young performer,”

she says.

Dr. Jenn (doctorjenn.com) has fond

memories of her Emerson experience.

“I was involved with about five million

organizations on campus,” she says

with enthusiasm. “I’m still in touch

with my Kappa Gamma Chi sisters in

Los Angeles and New York.” And the

skills she cultivated at Emerson – pub-

lic speaking, writing, broadcast jour-

nalism – are never far off.

— Rhea Becker

ASK DR. JENNJennifer (Mann) Berman ’91-92 broadcasts therapeutic advice from coast to coast

TWO OF THE PROBLEMS THAT OCCUPY MOSTOF HER TIME ARE RELATIONSHIP ISSUES

AND EATING DISORDERS.

profiles

W I N T E R 2 0 0 3 E X P R E S S I O N 35

miguel cervantes really sank his

teeth into his latest role.

Late last year, the young alum, a

member of the Class of 1999, played

the title character in the New England

premiere of the off-Broadway hit BatBoy: The Musical. Like a bat out of hell,

the show became a runaway hit at

Boston’s SpeakEasy Stage Company.

The local media went batty over it,

and audiences fell in love with his half-

boy-half-bat character, and the show

sold out nearly every night after its

first week. The production

now ranks as the biggest-

ever box office success at

the SpeakEasy, Cervantes

said, and this winter, the

campy, quirky musical re-

turned for a back-by-popu-

lar-demand four-week run

in January.

The show is set in West

Virginia, where Bat Boy,

who is captured in the wild

by three local youths, strug-

gles to find love and accept-

ance in a small town.

The musical requires

Cervantes to “act, dance,

climb and scurry; belt out a rock song;

croon a Broadway ballad; crack jokes;

and emote beautifully while hanging

upside down,” wrote a Boston Globecritic.

The role, which he admits was

“much different from anything that

I’d done before,” offers Cervantes the

“perfect combination of acting and

singing and physicality for someone

like me. It’s [great] to be able to do all

these things at the same time and still

have a real, meaningful character,” he

said. “It encompasses everything I

love.”

With previous training in dance,

the triple-threat actor enjoyed being

able “to jump around and be an ani-

mal” on stage, creating an entire physi-

cal persona for his character. “I like to

be mobile on stage, to be very physi-

cal.”

Cervantes’ biggest test was his char-

acter’s rock-like musical numbers —

“a very challenging vocal role for any-

body” but “so moving because of its

power,” he said.

Cervantes graduated with honors

from Emerson, where he appeared in

shows at the Emerson Majestic The-

atre each of his four years at Emerson,

including in the title role of Candide.

Upon graduation, Cervantes moved

to New York City, where he spent two

years making a go of it. He secured an

agent, his Actors’ Equity card, was do-

ing off-Broadway readings and similar

gigs, “and everything was humming

along,” he says.

Then came the morning that

changed the world: Sept. 11,

2001. Cervantes recalls the

day after the tragedy when

he called his mother and

said simply, “Momma, I’m

coming home.”

Home for the budding

actor was Dallas, Texas,

where he took a job working

at a car shop, wondering if

he’d ever make it back to the

stage.

Luckily, his Emerson

friends in Boston urged him

to return to his East Coast

haunts in an effort to resurrect his the-

ater career.

Then, in the fall he got the call that

he’d snagged the role of Bat Boy.

Cervantes proudly reports that audi-

ences compare the show to the New

York City production, a huge compli-

ment considering that the production

won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best

Off-Broadway Musical of 2001.

Soon, Cervantes may find himself

flying back to the Big Apple. It seems

New York agents have heard about his

performance and are clamoring to see

this curious creature. So, too, are the

Bat Boy fanatics who, Cervantes re-

ports, come to the show prepared with

an issue of the Weekly World Newstabloid – where the Bat Boy was first

“spotted.” —C.H.

HOLY STAGE PRESENCE, BATMAN!Young actor Miguel Cervantes ’99 swoops to cult fame in Bat Boy: The Musical

IT’S THE ‘PERFECT COMBINATION OF ACTINGAND SINGING AND PHYSICALITY FOR SOMEONE

LIKE ME. IT [IS] EVERYTHING I LOVE.’

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y C R A I G B A I L E Y

3 6 E X P R E S S I O N W I N T E R 2 0 0 3

A Family AffairAn alumnus finds himself reconnecting with the College when his daughterenrolls as an undergraduate at Emerson by charles collins ’76

my turn

Over a quarter-century has passed since I left

Emerson with my new wife the day after my gradu-

ation to live and work in Mexico, the

country of her birth. I didn’t know then

that I would spend the greater part of the next

25+ years traveling the world putting my studies

in business, organizational and political com-

munication into practice, establishing and man-

aging strategic alliances in the worlds of busi-

ness and politics.In time, I would return to Boston to

live and work, and raise a small family.

And although today I live not a great

distance from the College, my work,

travel and the passing years have im-

posed, as they sometimes do, a “dis-

tance of the spirit.”

Philosopher Charles Wesley Emer-

son once wrote: “The teacher is the gar-

dener, his service – his full service – is

to surround the young plant with favor-

able conditions of light and soil and at-

mosphere; then stand out of its way

while it unfolds its full blossom and fi-

nal fruitage.”

In June 1984 my daughter Alejandra

was born to my wife, Lourdes, and I.

And like most parents we watched her

grow and evolve from a child, and in

the twinkling of an eye, blossom into a

young woman in full possession of a

mind of her own and a thirst to find her

place in the world. Her day in the sun.

As her gardeners, we found Charles

Wesley Emerson’s principle useful on

more than one occasion, especially

when the “delicate little blossom” ap-

peared much more like a stubborn

weed one is tempted to pull up by the

roots.

“Expression” and “communication”

have long been popular vocab-

ulary words with teachers,

family and friends to describe

Alejandra’s natural talents and inter-

ests. She speaks well, writes well and

as both her mother and I can attest, her

acting and argumentation skills are

finely tuned instruments. For Alejan-

dra, “distance” (as in a long way from

home) also found its place in her vocab-

ulary. Although she had been encour-

aged by high school counselors not to

dismiss communication schools in

Boston such as Emerson, the lure of

“distance” had to be reckoned with.

And so began the search in distant

places to find the right soil and atmos-

phere for her to take root and blossom.

Many things happen on journeys to

places distant. One of which is perspec-

tive on places near. So, after a number

of college visits distant from Boston,

my daughter decided on her own to

take a tour of Emerson and that I ac-

company her. I did not find the request

extraordinary, in part because I under-

stood it was a natural reaction even if

only temporary to the effects of “dis-

tance.” We visited the “Campus on the

Common” one late summer afternoon

in 2001 and there together, each of us

bridged our distances. It was a home-

coming of years past, and of times to

come.

Today, as my daughter begins her

own exploration of the communication

arts and sciences, just as I did, as a

freshman 30 years ago, I, too, am be-

ginning a new “freshman” relationship

with Emerson. I am coming to know an

institution which is at once familiar,

but like the “Evolution of Expression,”

has itself grown and adapted over the

past quarter-century to flourish in the

ever-changing environment of human

expression.

I look forward to seeing my daugh-

ter develop, as I did, her own unique

set of skills and to find her place in the

world. Her day in the sun. I only hope

she doesn’t study argumentation. n

Charles P. Collins ‘76 graduated fromEmerson College with a bachelor’s degree inspeech with a concentration in business andpolitical communication. He serves as di-rector of strategic alliances with several or-ganizations spanning high tech to bio-techand government agencies.

Why Emerson College?

To learn more about how you can help support Emerson College,

contact Jon Iarrobino ’98, Office of Institutional Advancement, Emerson College,

120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624; (617) 824-8561.

With a leadership gift from

Trustee Douglas Holloway

’76, Emerson College has

established the Mary Burrill

Scholarship Fund.

The Fund is named in

honor of one of Emerson’s

first African-American

graduates, Mary “Mamie”

Burrill, a renowned

playwright, activist and

educator who, after

graduating in 1904, played

a prominent role in the

Harlem Renaissance. She returned to Emerson

to earn a second degree in 1930.

The Fund will provide scholarships for

deserving AHANA (African-American,

Hispanic, Asian, and Native American)

students attending Emerson College. The

recipients will be selected by a committee

named by President Jacqueline Liebergott

and chaired by Holloway.

“Our goal in creating this scholarship

program is to recruit and

support students of color

who have the potential to

become leaders in the

various communication

professions,” says Holloway,

who is president of Network

Distribution and Affiliate

Relations at Universal

Television in New York City.

“Emerson alone cannot

change an entire industry,

but we can play a pivotal

role in stimulating change

by educating some of the men and women

who will make crucial programming and

hiring decisions in the years to come.

“I hope that my fellow alumni and other

friends of the College will join me in

supporting this important initiative.”

Contributions to The Mary Burrill Scholarship

Fund may be sent to: Office of Institutional

Advancement, Emerson College, 120 Boylston

St., Boston, MA 02116-4624.

DOUGLAS HOLLOWAY

Because enhancing diversity in the communication industry is an important goal.

Emerson College120 Boylston StreetBoston, MA 02116-4624

Nonprofit OrganizationU.S. Postage Paid

Burlington, VT 05401Permit No. 4

THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SNOW BUSINESS. Storm-ready Emerson students take a break from their studies to

engage in a little snow business. For Emersonians, the Campus on the Common provides open space just steps

away from classrooms and residence halls, meaning students are never far from a winter wonderland. The stu-

dents topped off the snow figure with an Emerson cap.