Tony Price received a Heights Award from Jody Mooradian, Boston College associate director of athletics, at a recent women’s basketball game. Photo by John Quakenbos Photography.

“The Heights Award,” presented by The Massachusetts State Lottery and Boston College Athletics, was conferred to Price during a special ceremony at a Boston College women’s basketball game on Feb. 12. Price was honored for his longtime activism for inner-city youth athletics and for working “tirelessly to create opportunities and inspire others to become involved in women’s athletics,” according to a Mass. State Lottery press release.

Price began his career as a coaching volunteer at the Boston Community Center before becoming director of youth activities at Nuestra Comunidad in Roxbury, Mass., where he organized job fairs, tutorial programs, and sports activities for young children in the community. As director of youth and recreation at Lena Park Community Development Corporation, he established the community’s first women’s basketball program. Prior to joining Simmons College, Price was as an assistant coach at UMass-Boston for two seasons.

At Simmons, Price is the winningest head coach in the program’s history. In 2003, he was named the Great Northeast Athletic Conference’s coach of the year after leading his team to a school-best 16-9 record.

“We were overjoyed with the success of our inaugural Centennial Grant program last year, launched in honor of the association’s 100th anniversary,” said Alumnae Association Executive Board President Suzanne Culver ’93. “We felt strongly that the programming was worth continuing this year.”

Each of this year’s recipients received $500, the maximum award amount. The grant recipients are:

• Susanna Flug, associate director of undergraduate service learning at the Scott/Ross Center for Community Service, in support of two projects.

• The Colleges of the Fenway Boston Immersion Alternative Spring Break will give undergraduates the opportunity to spend their spring breaks in Boston, where they will learn about, connect with, and take positive action in the community. Incorporating the theme “Youth Empowerment in Roxbury and Mission Hill,” the week’s events will include feature leadership, diversity, and college access trainings; explorations of Boston’s past and present; discussions with local leaders; hosting an event for local youth; and volunteering each afternoon with two after-school programs. The goal is to help students better understand the assets and challenges of these communities, connect with local individuals and organizations, and develop an understanding of the context and leadership skills necessary to make community change.

• In collaboration with student service learning assistants Emily Cohen ’07 and Wei Wong ’08, Flug will develop a student group to support and promote service learning across campus. The grant will help train a core group of students in leadership, group facilitation, diversity, and public speaking skills, enabling them to plan and lead student activities in support of service learning experiences.

• Teresa Nelson, the SOM’s Elizabeth J. McCandless professor of entrepreneurship, in support of sending select management students to a national business plan competition at the University of Colorado. The funding will be used to defer the costs of sending the undergraduates who write the winning business plan in their Management Senior Seminar course to the 2007 National Business Plan Competition at the University of Colorado in April. The grant will enable the students to showcase their accomplishments and place them on a national platform representing Simmons.

• Ali Kantor, director of athletics, in support of the Simmons Varsity Club spring event. The grant will bring together senior-year athletes and alumnae former athletes for a sporting event against the remainder of the undergraduates who comprise the varsity teams. The competition will be followed by a reception where the senior athletes will be inducted into the varsity club. The event will enable students to network with alumnae and to receive mentoring and role modeling.

The Centennial Grants were made available to undergraduate students and faculty, undergraduate student groups (clubs and dorms), academic departments, and staff members and organizations. The Alumnae Association will offer these grants again next fall.

For more information about the Centennial Grants, visit www.alumnet.simmons.edu or contact Eileen Seman, associate director in the Office of Alumnae/i Relations, at 617-521-2309.

This series focuses on the emotionally damaging effects of slavery by digitally manipulating African American portraiture from the early 20th century. The original portraits, collected by W.E.B. Du Bois for the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, include war veterans, teachers, businessmen, and schoolchildren, and demonstrate the existence of an emerging black professional class.

Reparations contrasts the hopefulness of an earlier African American generation that had been promised new-found freedom with the continued disparity blacks experience today. By digitally manipulating Du Bois’ portraits, Johnson is able to externalize the destructive and corrosive nature of racism.

Reparations is on exhibit in the lobby of Beatley Library on the first floor of Lefavour Hall during February and March.

Please note: the Copy & Mail Center does not sell stamps, but they can be purchased at the Simmons bookstore.

The Copy & Mail Center accepts payment via Fenway Cash. If you have any questions, visit the center in MCB E002, call x2428, or email copymail@simmons.edu.

Upcoming dates:
• Thursday, March 1, 3:00-4:00 p.m. in the Kotzen Meeting Center (Lefavour Hall)
• Monday, April 23, 3:00-4:00 p.m. in the Special Functions Room (C-124)
• Tuesday, May 22, 2:00-3:00 p.m. in the Kotzen Meeting Center (Lefavour Hall)
Dessert and beverages will be served.

Susan’s Open Office Hours for students will be held in the President’s Board Room, on the following dates: Monday, Feb. 26, noon-1:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, April 24, 4:00-5:00 p.m.

For more information, contact Carolyn Fontaine in the president’s office at carolyn.fontaine@simmons.edu or x2156.

From now on, Americans will “spring forward” March 11 and “fall back” Nov. 4, instead of the first Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October. This change reflects part of a national energy policy bill passed in 2005.

Some computer programs controlling timers on electronic equipment may still reset themselves on the old dates. IBM and Microsoft have customer support centers on their websites for software that will need manual clock updates, including older versions of Microsoft Outlook and Windows. Older home electronics, like VCRs or DVD recorders, may also need to have their clocks updated manually.

Daylight Saving Time Trivia

• The correct phrase is Daylight Saving Time (“saving” is singular).

• Contrary to popular belief, Daylight Saving Time was not created for farmers nor does it benefit farmers.

• First suggested by Benjamin Franklin in his 1784 essay, “An Economical Project,” Daylight Saving Time was instituted in the U.S. during WWI to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later hours of daylight from April to October. During World War II the federal government again required the states to observe the time change. Between the wars and after World War II, states and communities chose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which standardized the length of Daylight Saving Time.

• Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have chosen not to observe Daylight Saving Time.

• Equatorial and tropical countries (lower latitudes) don’t observe Daylight Saving Time since the daylight hours are similar during every season and there’s no advantage to moving clocks forward during the summer.

Sources: about.com; infoplease.com

WARBURG LECTURE SERIES

From radical Islam’s presence in Europe, to the “blood diamond” trade of Sierra Leone, this spring’s Warburg Lecture Series introduces the Simmons community to some truly global issues. Titled “From the Global Agenda,” the series brings highly esteemed experts to the College.

February 26, 3:00-4:30 p.m., LIB428 (library building, 4th floor)
“Radical Islam in Europe: An American Perspective,” presented by Leslie Lebl, Senior fellow of the Atlantic Council of the United States and principal, Lebl Associates.
A former Foreign Service officer who served as minister-counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels, she also has more than 24 years of service in the State Department. A member of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Women in International Security, Lebl has expertise in European political and defense issues.

March 12, 3:00-4:30 p.m., LIB428 (Library Bldg. 4th Floor)
“Blood Diamond: The Rest of the Story,” presented by Ambassador Thomas Hull, Republic of Sierra Leone.
Ambassador Hull joined the Foreign Service in 1976 with a public diplomacy specialization. He most recently served as deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and was the director of African affairs at the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.C., prior to its merger with the State Department. He is the first former Peace Corps volunteer who served in Sierra Leone to later return as ambassador.

March 19, 3:00-4:30 , Kotzen Meeting Center (Lefavour Hall)
“Diplomacy and the Use of Force,” presented by Ambassador Mary Ann Peters, dean of academics of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.
A senior diplomat, Peters served as U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh from 2000 to 2003. She previously served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Canada and as director for European and Canadian affairs at the National Security Council. In 1993, she served as deputy assistant secretary of state, with oversight responsibility for U.S. relations with 19 western European countries and Canada.

The annual Simmons College Warburg Lecture Series calls upon national and international experts to explore important current issues in international relations. The conference is named for Joan Warburg ’45, who established the Warburg Chair in International Relations at Simmons. Current Warburg Chair and conference organizer Walter C. Carrington is former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and Senegal, and a leading authority on many African issues as they relate to the U.S.

For more information on these lectures, contact Maria Callejas, office of political science and international relations, at x2594.

RACE, EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY LECTURE AND BOOK SERIES

Simmons and Beacon Press began a historic partnership last year to examine the increasingly critical role of education in a multiracial and multicultural democracy. The inaugural lecture series featured Spelman College President Beverly Tatum and was attended by overflow audiences, including academic and community leaders from throughout the Commonwealth.

The 2007 Simmons College/Beacon Press Race, Education and Democracy Lecture and Book Series continues to shine a spotlight on these issues by offering four lectures led by Dr. James D. Anderson, the leading historian on black education, and launching a book adapted from Tatum’s lectures.

Anderson, this year’s distinguished lecturer, is the professor of history and educational policy studies and head of the department of educational policy studies at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of the award-winning book The Education of Blacks in the South: 1860-1935 and senior editor of History of Education Quarterly, and served as advisor for the PBS documentaries School: The Story of American Public Education (2001) and The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow (2002).

The lectures take place March 14-15 and April 5-6. All lectures take place 4:00-6:00 p.m. in the Linda K. Paresky Conference Center and are free and open to the public. [Following the April 5 lecture, Beverly Tatum will sign copies of her book, Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation, which examines how schools can be key institutions for forging connections across the racial divide and narrowing the achievement gap.]

March 14
“The Historical and Contemporary Value of Education in African American Communities”

March 15
“African American Struggles to Reduce the Achievement Gap: Lessons for Educators, Community Activists and Policymakers”

April 5
“The Historical Context for Understanding Race Conscious Means to Educational Equality: Lessons From the Louisville and Seattle School Desegregation Cases”
[Signing of Beverly Tatum’s book, Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation, follows.]

April 6
“Civic Education, Citizenship and Immigration: Race and Democracy on the 150th Anniversary of the Dred Scott Decision”

Theresa Perry, professor of Africana studies and education, is the director of the Race, Education and Democracy series. “If we are to intelligently commit ourselves to reducing and eliminating the achievement gap, we need to know what African Americans have done, over time and contemporarily, to reduce both the opportunity and achievement gaps,” she said. “Having this kind of knowledge will help activists, educators and policy makers understand why and how they might collaborate in efforts to raise the achievement of Black students.”

For more information, or to register for a lecture, visit raceandeducation.com.

A large story on the SOM’s recent survey about women’s use of flexible work arrangements appeared in the February issue of Boston Women’s Business. The article, titled “Optioning In,” featured photos of the three authors, SOM professors Mary Shapiro, Cynthia Ingols, and Stacy Blake-Beard. As a result of that article, New England Cable News interviewed Boston Women’s Business editor Vicki Donlan about the SOM survey Feb. 8.

The Trustman Gallery’s exhibition “Transparent Couture and Other Pleasures” by Cynthia Atwood was highlighted in the Feb. 6 Boston Globe’s Sidekick section. The mention included a reprint of a work from the exhibit. On Feb. 15, the Boston Globe reviewed the exhibit in its Arts & Reviews section.

GSLIS Professor Candy Schwartz was interviewed Jan. 28 on the radio program Commonwealth Journal to discuss “Libraries and the Digital Revolution.” Commonwealth Journal is an award-winning program produced by WUMB Public Radio network and carried by nearly two dozen radio stations around Massachusetts.

On Feb. 1, Communications Lecturer Dan Connell was interviewed live on Jamaica radio’s Hot 104 program The World Today, on the topic of Somalia. Connell also was interviewed the following week for Mshale, a Minneapolis weekly newspaper targeted at the city’s African community. The article focused on Eritrea and its role in Somalia and the surrounding region.

The SILC film event “Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican?” was mentioned in the Feb. 12 Boston Globe Sidekick section. The documentary’s creator, Simmons alumna Claire Andrade-Watkins, was referenced in the piece.