Westmont News

The Jazz Ensembles, directed by adjunct music professor Ron McCarley, will perform 8 p.m. April 24 in Deane Chapel on Westmont’s lower campus. Admission is free.

The ensembles with perform “Move” from “Birth of the Cool” by Miles Davis; “Whisper Not”; “Yardbird Suite”; “Anthropology”; “Here's that Rainy Day,” sung by Alicia Burns; “Moonlight Serenade,” sung by Sarah Stockton; “It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing”; “Red Clay” and others.

Rev. Dr. Craig Bartholomew of Redeemer University College in Toronto will speak on “Athens and Jerusalem: Ingredients in Theological Interpretation” 4 p.m. April 16 in Hieronymus Lounge, in Kerrwood Hall on the upper campus.

The lecture, sponsored by the Erasmus Society, is free and open to the public.

Bartholomew will discuss how the postmodern era has created a renewal of interest in theological interpretation of the Bible.

The annual Spring Choral Concert featuring the Choir, Chamber Singers and Vox Lumina Women’s Chorale will be 8 p.m. April 30 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State St. (at Micheltorena). A free-will donation will be requested.

Westmont musicians will showcase their skills at the spring concert for the Wind Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m. April 23 in Deane Chapel on the lower campus. Admission is free and the concert is open to the public.

The Chamber Orchestra, directed by Emily Sommermann, has 12 student members. The program includes the Haydn Cello Concerto in C major with soloist Erin Crumley, a junior. Also on the program is Serenade for Strings by Josef Suk.

Westmont’s graduating art majors’ best work will be displayed during Reynolds Gallery’s annual Senior Art Show, April 13 through May 1. An artists’ reception, which is open to the public, will be 5-7 p.m. April 16 in the Art Center.

The work on exhibit is art that has been created during a seminar class in which each student designs and plans his or her own project, concentrating on an area of expertise, for example, ceramics, sculpture, photography or painting.

Music Professor Grey Brothers will direct the Westmont Chamber Singers in a Palm Sunday performance of Antonio Rodriguez de Matta's “The Passion According to Matthew,” 7 p.m. April 4 in Deane Chapel, next to the Art Center on the lower campus. The concert is open to the public and admission is free.

Matta was a 17th-century maestro of the Mexico City Cathedral. Brothers edited Matta's “Passio secundum Mattheum” from a manuscript found in the cathedral’s archives. This may be the first time Matta's work has been heard since the 17th century.

“Body Image” is the theme of this year’s Sophomore Project art exhibit at Reynolds Gallery, featuring the work of Westmont art students, March 9 through April 3.

Gallery hours may fluctuate during spring break, March 15-19, so please call the Art Center at (805) 565-6162 before visiting.

The art has been produced by students primarily in their sophomore year, explained Susan Savage, associate art professor and department chair.

Robert S. Bryant, owner of Bryant and Sons Ltd. Jewelers and a longtime supporter of Westmont and many other non-profit causes in Santa Barbara, was granted emeritus status when he recently completed three years of service with the Westmont Foundation board.
"Stewart Abercrombie is the only other foundation board member who has been granted this special status upon leaving the board. It is reserved for those who contributed of themselves beyond the expectations of a typical board member.

British Physicist John Polkinghorne will speak on “Can a Scientist Believe in a Destiny Beyond Death?” 7:30 p.m. March 29 at the University Club in downtown Santa Barbara. The event, sponsored by the college’s Behavioral and Natural Sciences Division, is free and open to the public.

Polkinghorne will address the Westmont student body in chapel at 10:30 that morning with a talk on “A Physicist’s Approach to the Christian Faith.” Members of the public are also welcome in chapel.

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Professor David Wells will speak on “Spirituality, Not Religion” 4 p.m. March 24 in Hieronymus Lounge. The event is free and open to the public.

"Wells is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Gordon-Conwell, which is in Hamilton, Mass. He was born in Zimbabwe, lived for some years in England and worked as an architect before beginning theological training.

Westmont College’s Repertory Theater presents Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” 8 p.m. Feb. 26-28 and March 4-6 with a matinee performance at 2 p.m. March 6 in Porter Theatre. The production, adapted and directed by Professor John Blondell, is a theatrical presentation based on the famous Romantic novel.

Begun in 1816, “Frankenstein” was completed in 1818 when Mary Shelley was but 19 years old. Though early response was mixed, the novel is now considered one of the most significant novels of the early Romantic period, as well as an icon of contemporary culture.

After weeks of putting their speaking and debating skills to the test, student finalists will compete in the 7th Annual Expressions Speech and Debate Tournament Championship at 7 p.m. March 9 in Page Hall Multipurpose Room on the upper Westmont campus. The event is free and open to the public.

More than $10,000 in prize money will be awarded to winners throughout the speech and debate tournaments, with a $500 prize going to the overall debate champion and $200 awards going to the class champions in speechmaking.

TechKnowledge Point Corp., founded by David Newton, Westmont professor of entrepreneurial finance, will hold the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (SEED) business plan competition and awards luncheon Feb. 20-21 at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort.

The final competitions, which are free and open to the public, will be 8:30-11:30 a.m. Feb. 21 in the resort conference center.

In a new body of work by Westmont Art Professor Susan Savage, a simple silver bowl provides an interesting yet poignant point of focus. Humble yet elegant, the bowl tells a story that becomes expressively spiritual in its revelations of mystery and truth.

“Bearing Witness: Recent Paintings by Susan Savage” will be on exhibit Feb. 2 through March 5 in Reynolds Gallery. An opening reception and lecture will be 4-7 p.m. Feb. 5. Savage, an arts educator for more than 30 years, serves as associate professor and art department chair.

Representing the best mathematical minds of their schools, approximately 100 students will compete Feb. 7 at Westmont’s 18th annual High School Mathematics Contest.

The keynote speaker for the awards banquet is Paul Zorn, a professor at St. Olaf College and the author of a popular textbook on calculus.

David Batstone, professor of social ethics at the University of San Francisco and a writer on popular culture, and film producer Steven Crisman will speak on “Pop Culture with Values: If You Don't Like the News, Go Out
and Create Your Own” 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4 in the Founders Room in the Kerr Student Center.

The event is free and open to the public.

“Vocation, Vocationalism, and the Liberal Arts” is the theme of the fourth annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts, Feb. 6-7, hosted by the Institute for the Liberal Arts at Westmont.

While the conference is by invitation only, the public is invited to an evening forum and desert reception 7:30 p.m. Feb. 7 at the El Cabrillo Room of the Santa Barbara Radisson Hotel.

Associate Music Professor Steve Butler was honored this year with an ASCAP award for his achievements in the field of concert music.

ASCAP is a performing rights organization dedicated to those who compose music and write lyrics. The organization, which represents every genre of music, is composed of 170, 000 U.S. members and represents a multitude of worldwide artists. Members have included musical creators such as Duke Ellington, Madonna and Garth Brooks.

The Westmont College Choir, the Westmont Chamber Singers and the Vox Lumina Women’s Chorale present “The Singing Season,” the annual Christmas Choral concert, 8 p.m. Dec. 6 and 7 at Trinity Episcopal Church. Admission is free, but a goodwill offering will be taken. Trinity Episcopal is located at 1500 State St., at the corner of State and Micheltorena streets.

Westmont’s choral groups present “A Celtic Christmas” 8 p.m. Dec. 12 and 13 at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Santa Barbara. Admission is free, although a free-will offering will be requested.

The Westmont College Choir and Westmont Chamber Singers, directed by Steven R. Hodson, and Vox Lumina Women’s Chorale, directed by Laura Brinton, will sing a variety of Celtic holiday songs.

Trinity Episcopal Church is the corner of State and Micheltorena streets.

For more information, call the music department at (805) 565-7040 or the public affairs office at 565-6051.

The James L. Stamps Foundation has awarded Westmont $100,000 to advance the college’s administrative software system and increase support for spiritual formation projects.

These two vastly different systems both work as an integral, albeit unseen, structure for advancing the college’s mission of educating young people equipped to appreciate and contribute to an increasingly complex world.

Westmont Windancers’ fall dance concert, “Random Radiance,” takes abstract expressionism to a new dimension 8 p.m. Dec. 5 and 6 and 2 p.m. Dec. 6 in Porter Theatre.

Weaving together the visual and performing arts in an innovative and intriguing manner, the dances draw inspiration from paintings by Chagall, Kandinsky, Pollock and an original painting by student Ryan Lonac, interpreting and bringing them to life through movement.

Embrace the sounds of Christmas and classical music 8 p.m. Dec. 5 at the Westmont Wind Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra concert in Deane Chapel on Westmont’s lower campus. Admission is free.

“The group has grown in size, morale and quality each semester,” director Ron McCarley said.

The Westmont Chamber Orchestra and Wind Ensembles will present their fall concert 8 p.m. Nov. 22 in Deane Chapel, on Westmont’s lower campus. Admission is free.

The Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Emily Sommermann, will perform Vivaldi’s “D minor Concerto Grosso,” the “Adagio” from the First Organ Sonata by Mendelssohn and the famous “Holberg Suite” by Edvard Grieg.

“It is exciting to work with this ensemble and to watch these musicians grow,” Sommermann said. “It will be a great performance.”

The Westmont jazz band, choir and three combos will perform the best of their work at the Jazz Ensemble Concert, 8 p.m. Nov. 21 in Deane Chapel.

For the first time, professor Ron McCarley is playing lead alto in the 14-member band. This is also the first concert to include a jazz choir. The choir will be directed by music professor Steve Hodson.

Voskuyl Library, in conjunction with Reynolds Gallery’s Christmas show, "Storytellers," is exhibiting the work of Itoko Maeno and Bruce Hale, two Santa Barbara children's book illustrators, through Jan. 17, 2004.
Maeno, a native of Japan, earned her bachelor of arts degree in graphic design from Tama Art University in Tokyo. Now a resident of Santa Barbara, she has illustrated more than 25 children's books. Four of her titles have won national awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Picture Book in 1989.

Voskuyl Library, in conjunction with Reynolds Gallery’s Christmas show, "Storytellers," is exhibiting the work of Itoko Maeno and Bruce Hale, two Santa Barbara children's book illustrators, through Jan. 17, 2004.

Maeno, a native of Japan, earned her bachelor of arts degree in graphic design from Tama Art University in Tokyo. Now a resident of Santa Barbara, she has illustrated more than 25 children's books. Four of her titles have won national awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Picture Book in 1989.

Westmont’s first fall dance concert featuring a unique blend of dancing and acting will be 8 p.m. Nov. 15 and 2 and 8 p.m. Nov. 16 in Porter Theatre. Admission is $5 for students and seniors and $8 for general audience.

The performance is centered on our relationship with water and will feature one complete piece of contemporary dance. The concert will also include students acting in a European style of clowning. The piece features six dancers and seven actors.

The 19th-century battle of Abraham v. Abraham and the questions it poses about religious identity and racism will be presented by Assistant History Professor Chandra Mallampalli at 7 p.m. Nov. 17 in Hieronymus Lounge.

"Mallampalli’s talk, “Race, Religion and Law in British India: Abraham v. Abraham (1863),” is the Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture for fall semester. Sociology Professor Thomas Jayawardene and History Professor Shirley Mullen will respond.

R. Anthony Askew, Allan Nishimura and Robert Wennberg have received the college’s first distinguished professorship award, an honor that recognizes their exceptional commitment to their students and Christian liberal arts education.

The award, which will be given every two years, includes an additional $2,000 annual stipend to be used for their work at the college until retirement. Professors must have taught at the college for at least 20 years to be considered for the honor.

Kurt Wenner, Italian muralist, frescoe painter and founder of Santa Barbara’s I Madonnari, will join Westmont Professor of Art Tony Askew in the first of a series of “Conversations About Things that Matter” hosted by Westmont Downtown at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 7 at the University Club at 1332 Santa Barbara St. Admission is free.

Santa Barbara architect and art collector Barry Berkus has donated a sculpture by environmental artist Robert Lobe to Westmont.

The piece, displayed on the lawn outside Reynolds Gallery, has been on loan to Westmont for a number of years. Berkus donated four other sculptures to the college last year that also had been on loan from his private collection.

The aluminum sculpture, like many of Lobe’s works, features the shape and texture of a tree.

“Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt’s Religious Paintings,” English Professor Marilyn Chandler McEntyre’s second volume of poetry on the works of the great masters, was published this week by Eerdmans.
The event, featuring poets from around the West, will also include readings from Westmont, UCSB and Santa Barbara City College students.

A special evening of readings by Chicano and Chicana poets, “El Espíritu de la Raza/The Spirit of the People: Chicano/a Poetry,” will be 7 p.m. Nov. 11 in Hieronymus Lounge.

The event, featuring poets from around the West, will also include readings from Westmont, UCSB and Santa Barbara City College students.

Philosophy Professor Jim Taylor was recently elected to the executive committee of the Society of Christian Philosophers.

The committee of four people represents the entire society and reports to the society's president, Robert Audi of the University of Nebraska. Annual meetings of the committee take place at the Central Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association each spring.

Chemistry Professor Stanley Edward Anderson has been selected for a National Research Council Senior Research Associateship award, which has allowed him to conduct studies at the University of California Santa Barbara during a sabbatical.

Working with UCSB Chemistry Professor Michael T. Bowers, Anderson is analyzing molecular structures using ion chromatography/mass spectrometry techniques perfected by the Bowers Group.

“Of Sky and Land,” paintings of the New England landscape by Denise Adams, will be on exhibit Oct. 23 through Nov. 2 in Reynolds Gallery. The opening reception will be 4-6 p.m. Oct. 25 in the Westmont Art Center and is free and open to the public.

“The paintings of Denise Adams express a freshness and painterly quality that enhances and magnifies the beauty of nature,” Reynolds Gallery Director Tony Askew said. “There is a poetic strength and simple beauty in content and subject.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy David Vander Laan will speak on “Divine Conservation and Persistence through Time” 7 p.m. Oct. 21 in Hieronymus Lounge in Kerrwood Hall.

Physics Professor Michael Sommerman and Philosophy Professor Jim Taylor will respond.

Vander Laan will explore various views about how God sustains the existence of human persons through time. The issue has important implications for how God will preserve our existence from this life to the afterlife. The lecture is the Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi presentation for the fall semester.

“The Bourgeois Gentleman,” Moliere’s hilarious comedy that paints a portrait of Monsieur Jourdain, whose obsessive desire to associate with the gentry takes over all reason and moderation, comes to Porter Theatre in November.

In the play, Monsieur Jourdain spends an outrageous amount of money on fashionable clothes, lessons in dance, fencing, music, language and philosophy, and gifts for a countess in order to try and buy himself high social position, but is only deceiving himself.

“A Fall Festival of Choral Music” will be presented by the Westmont choirs 8 p.m. Oct. 24 at San Roque Catholic Church in Santa Barbara.

The festival will feature the Westmont College Choir, directed by Steven R. Hodson, and Vox Lumina Women’s Chorale, directed by Laura Brinton, singing Benjamin Britten’s cantata for choir and soloists: “Rejoice in the Lamb.”

Sophocles’ “Antigone,” the classic dramatic text of a young woman struggling against the law, will be told through music and dance in the Westmont Theatre department’s presentation 8 p.m. Oct. 24, 25 and 31 and Nov. and 2 in Porter Theatre.

There also will be a matinee performance at 2 p.m. Oct. 26 and Nov. 2. Admission is $5 for students and seniors and $10 for the general audience.

The production examines Antigone’s struggle and explores the three types of laws that humans face: laws from religious texts, civil codes and the unwritten law in people’s hearts.

Chemistry professor Nivaldo Tro is the author of a new textbook, “Introductory Chemistry,” published by the nation’s top chemistry textbook publisher, Prentice Hall.

Tro has worked with Prentice Hall for the last two and a half years on the project, which also has a Web site for students and teachers to use along with the book. The book is unique in its approach to developing problem solving skills in chemistry and in its use of molecular graphics to communicate important chemical concepts.

Reynolds Gallery’s Christmas 2003 exhibit, “Storytellers: Children’s Book Illustrators,” featuring the work of three of the nation’s premier children’s book illustrators, opens Nov. 3 and runs through Jan. 17, 2004.

The show, sure to engage and enchant viewers of all ages, will include original paintings and drawings from a broad range of the books by Kadir Nelson, Kinuko Y. Craft and Gary Kelley.

Admission is free; no reservations are required.

Duncan, a leading environmental activist who lives in Montana, is widely recognized for his humorous and beautifully crafted essays and novels. He is a passionate voice for wilderness and wildlife, particularly salmon. His collection of essays, “River Teeth,” inspired an upcoming Oregon film festival and the award-winning literary magazine, River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Non-fiction.

An exhibit of the emotionally charged and thought-provoking paintings of Chicago artist Tim Lowly, inspired by his severely developmentally disabled daughter, opens the fall season at Westmont’s Reynolds Gallery. “Trouble the Water” runs Aug. 20-Oct. 19.

Lowly will speak about his life and work during a Westmont chapel service 10:30 a.m. Oct. 18 in Murchison Gymnasium. A closing reception will be 4-6 p.m. Oct. 18 in the Westmont Art Center. All events are free and open to the public.

Westmont's student performance of its first original production, “The Mariner,” directed by theater Professor John Blondell, will be reprised Oct. 4 and 5 during the internationally acclaimed Lit Moon Theatre Festival in downtown Santa Barbara.

Two performances are scheduled, 11 p.m. Oct. 4 and 4 p.m. Oct. 5 in the Center Stage Theatre, upstairs in the Paseo Nuevo Mall. Tickets cost $8 for students and $10 for general audience.

San Diego author and physician David Peck will present a slide show and lecture on his book, “Or Perish in the Attempt: Wilderness Medicine in the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” 7 p.m. Oct. 6 in Hieronymus Lounge in Kerrwood Hall on Westmont’s upper campus.

Princeton Professor Albert Raboteau will speak on “Healing the Wounds of Racism: The Role of Memory and Mourning” 4 p.m. Oct. 2 in Hieronymus Lounge in Kerrwood Hall on the upper Westmont campus.
The lecture, sponsored by the Erasmus Society, is free and open to the public.