| November 15, 2006 | Vol 8. No. 5 |
Gansworth’s Mending Skins Wins National Literary Award
Mending Skins, the third novel published by Eric Gansworth, professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence, is the recipient of a prestigious 2006 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Literary Award in the novel category. National in scope, the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Literary Awards honor excellence in multicultural literature."It was wonderful to receive notice of the award," says Gansworth, "PEN is a terrific organization whose mission is very much in line with my belief about the act of writing--defending free expression and fostering literary fellowship."
The PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Awards represent a new perception of multicultural literature that does not seek validation from the literary establishment, but creates its own standards and models of literature.
“This is a very prestigious literary award, and from my perspective is very well-deserved,” says Paula M. McNutt, PhD, dean of arts and sciences. “In addition to being a superb writer, Eric is very dedicated to his work, and it is wonderful to see that great dedication recognized at the national level.”
Gansworth is among a distinguished group of PEN-Oakland Award winners, including acclaimed poets, essayists, and television journalist Bill Moyers, who is the recipient of this year’s censorship award.
"It is an honor to be in the company of past PEN Oakland Award winners, like Joy Harjo, Gerald Vizenor and Clifford Trafzer, who were all generous with their support of my work, and took time and energy to welcome and nurture a new voice," adds Gansworth.
Awards will be presented on December 3 at a ceremony in the Oakland Public Library’s West Auditorium in Oakland, CA. The program will be hosted by authors Tennessee Reed and Lucha Corpi.
Mending Skins was published by in 2005 by Bison Books.
Canisius Receives $1.1 Million Talent Search Grant
The U.S. Department of Education awarded Canisius College a Talent Search Grant for $1,129,452. The grant, effective September 2006, is disbursed in $283,754 increments each year for the next four years. Congratulations to Lilly Adams-Dudley, director of the college’s C.O.P.E. program. The grant money will be used to support the college’s Talent Search Program, which serves more than 600 city of Buffalo high school students annually, the majority of which are from minority and low-income families. Students in the program are encouraged to finish high school and ultimately attend college. They receive tutorial services and academic study skills training, career testing, and college preparation including college tours.
This is the fourth time Canisius has received the Talent Search Grant.
Canisius Now Podcasting on iTunesU
Canisius College students can now download select faculty lectures, course materials and more right to their iPods. The college has been awarded a free Apple Computer service contract to post audio and video content on iTunesU, a custom version of the iTunes Music Store. Any Canisius faculty, staff or student with a GriffMail account can access this iTunesU account for free. Faculty can post video and audio of class lectures, course materials and other information for students to download. This content can then be played on the student’s computer or easily loaded onto an iPod. Apple provides the college with 500GB of free on-line storage.
In addition to course material, the college plans on posting additional content in the future such as commencement ceremonies, sporting events, musical performances and lecture series recordings.
To visit our iTunesU site, click here. You can log in with your regular GriffMail username and password. For more information on how to post course materials, please contact Scott Clark via E-mail at clarks@canisius.edu. For more information about iTunesU, visit Apple Computer’s Web site here.
NetGazette Holiday Contest
How much do you know about holiday legends and traditions? While many legends are only loosely based in history, one of the following holiday legends was made up by the NetGazette editor. Pick out the fake one, and you could win a Canisius hoodie, courtesy of the Canisius College Bookstore, or lunch for two in the faculty dining room, courtesy of Chartwells. We’ll draw three names out of a hat from the group of those who answer correctly. Winners will be announced in the next issue of the NetGazette on Wednesday, December 13. Good luck!
Legend #1 – Rudolph
The beloved Christmas character Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was actually created for a Montgomery Ward Department Stores holiday advertising campaign. Although at first the copywriter’s boss worried about a story which featured a misfit reindeer with a red nose -- an image often associated with drinking – a friend of the copywriter from the art department came up with sketches of some reindeer with red noses. The idea was a hit and the rest is history.
Legend #2 – Christmas Cards
Christmas cards date back to 1863, however German schoolchildren decorated their own cards and sent them to one another before this date. The first formal card was designed in Switzerland. It was lithographed on cardboard and consisted of a color print of a party of children with grownups holding mugs of beer raised in a toast over the words “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.” Since it only cost a penny to send a card at that time, the custom caught on quickly.
Legend #3 – Tinsel
Along time ago a mother was busily cleaning for Christmas, and even the spiders fled upstairs to the attic to escape. When the house became quiet the spiders climbed among all the branches of the Christmas tree. By the time they were through climbing, the tree was completely shrouded in their dusty grey web. When Santa Claus came with the gifts for the children and saw the tree covered with spider webs, he knew the mother and children would be disappointed, so he turned the webs into silver and gold. The tree sparkled and was even more beautiful than before.
Legend #4 - Poinsettias
A Mexican legend tells of a boy who had no gift to put by the figure of the baby Jesus in church on Christmas Eve. On his way to church, he heard an angel tell him to pick some dried weeds as his gift. As he placed the weeds down beside the other gifts, they were transformed into beautiful flowers. Dr. Joel Poinsett, the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico, brought the plant to the United States where it was named the “poinsettia.”