At Brown

Faculty, graduate award ceremony April 28

The annual award ceremony honoring faculty and graduate teaching will be held at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 28, in Andrews Dining Hall.

The event, sponsored by the dean of the Faculty and the dean of the Graduate School, is preceded by a reception at 4:30.

Awards to be presented include Faculty Teaching Awards, the Harriet W. Sheridan Award for Teaching and Learning, Wriston Fellowships, and the Presidential Graduate Student Teaching Awards. This year will inaugurate the new Sheridan Award Medal.

In addition, Sheridan Teaching Certificates will be presented to members of the Brown and RISD community who have completed the requirements of the Sheridan Teaching Seminar Program (Certificate I), Classroom Tools ( Certificate II), and the Professional Development Seminar for Advanced Graduate Students (Certificate III). All members of the Brown and RISD community are invited to attend.

Library offers new online reference service

The University Library has launched the Brown University Library Chat (BULchat), which allows Brown students, faculty and staff to ask questions online. When reference staff are on duty, they will respond immediately to the queries using either Internet chat software or e-mail.

This service will benefit those using the Library Web site who wish to receive real-time assistance with their research. BULChat is particularly beneficial to those using the Library electronic resources from their office or dorm.

For more information about this service, please visit the Web site.

Second annual Dave Zucconi 5K Run is May 9

The second annual Dave Zucconi 5K will be held on Sunday, May 9.

The race is held in the memory of Zucconi '55, the man known to many as "Mr. Brown." Zucconi was an influential Brown alumnus, administrator and fundraiser who worked for the University for more than 44 years. He died of cancer in January 2003.

All proceeds from the race will be donated to The Tomorrow Fund for children with cancer.

For details about location, start times, directions and entry forms, please go to the Web site.

Student group offers chance to win house painting

Langston's Hues, a residential painting company run by Brown students Langston Dugger '04 and Adam Mangana '04, is offering Brown faculty and staff the chance to win an exterior house painting job.

In order to gather data about customer experiences with residential painting, Dugger and Mangana have created an online market survey located on its Web site. Brown faculty and staff are invited to complete the survey. Those who do will be eligible to win an exterior house painting job.

Awards and Honors

Paula Vogel, the Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Creative Writing and Professor of English, has been named the recipient of a 2004 Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Vogel teaches playwriting and directs the M.F.A. playwriting program at Brown Her plays include "Desdemona," "And Baby Makes Seven," "The Oldest Profession," "The Baltimore Waltz," "Hot 'n' Throbbing," "The Minneola Twins" and "The Long Christmas Ride Home." Her play "How I Learned to Drive" won an Obie, a New York Drama Critics award, Outer Critics Circle award, and the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Her other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, and the Pew Charitable Trust Senior award. Her work was selected for the 2004-05 season of the Signature Theater in New York.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters annually gives the Academy Awards in literature to honor writers of "exceptional accomplishment in any genre." Vogel was among eight writers selected to receive the 2004 award.

Fayneese Miller, associate professor of education, was recently named a 2004-05 American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow. The ACE Fellows Program, established in 1965, is designed to strengthen institutions and leadership in American higher education by identifying and preparing promising faculty for responsible positions in college and university administration.

Miller will spend the next academic year working with a college or university president and other senior officers at a host institution. She is among 35 fellows selected this year in a national competition. The award is based on academic credentials and potential for administrative leadership, and recommendations of colleagues.

Founded in 1918, ACE is the nation's largest higher education association, representing more than 1,600 college and university presidents.

Off the Shelf

Wanda Hunter, administrative assistant in the Department of Education, has written a novel titled "The Carpenter of First Church." The book centers on the congregation of the First Church, a beacon of Christianity in a small town. The story features the reaction of parishioners to a new minister, the Rev. Elias Carpenter, who was sent to challenge their established traditions and inspire them to reexamine some long-held beliefs. Published by AuthorHouse, it is Hunter's first novel. The story was inspired by a visit to her hometown church in a small town in the Midwest.

Obituary

David Laurent, a music professor at Brown for 50 years and chairman of the music department for 10 years, died March 30 at the age of 83.

A 1949 graduate of Brown, where he received his master's degree in music in 1953, he also had pursued special studies in music at the University of Wisconsin, the New England Conservatory and Boston University.

Laurent was perhaps best known for his performances from the oratorio, German lieder, French melodie and American song repertoires. He appeared with major East Coast symphony orchestras and was the featured artist at Bach Festivals in Providence, Rochester, and Winter Park Beach, Fla. The high points of his career included performing in Verdi's Requiem at the Imperial College, in London, and receiving the coveted Grand Prix du Disque for his role as the Christus in an early-1950s recording of Alessandro Scarlatti's St. John Passion.

He was a past president and former governor of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, a member of the American Association of University Professors, and a former president of the Faculty Club at Brown.

In recognition of his years of service, the University established a scholarship in his honor that is awarded each year to the University's most prominent voice student.

He is survived by his wife, Ruth Carew Laurent, a daughter, two sons and three siblings. A memorial service was held April 3.

(Portions of this obituary are taken from the March 31 Providence Journal.)