|
|
Colgate counts on depth this season
|
Return to Top |
Rahme, Dave
Post-Standard, The
|
Jim Nagle admits his Colgate University men's lacrosse team took a step back last season. For a head coach in the fourth year of a building project, that is the wrong direction.
"It's tough when you don't have impact seniors," Nagle said. "You really need four solid classes of guys. I think we're getting close to that point."
Nagle's challenge this season will be getting a team that finished 7-7 overall but only 1-5 in the Patriot League to believe that it is getting close when the 2005 league record suggests otherwise and preseason top-25 PL teams Navy, Army and Bucknell await.
"We're trying to win it, trying to get the kids to believe they can win it," Nagle said of the league title. "Navy is a very tough, hard-working team that has played together as a team. I don't know if it is so much personnel as it is teamwork and commitment. That's what we're trying to tell our guys ... just keep trying to work to be a better team."
Nagle said the selling job has been made easier by this simple fact: The Raiders are a more talented, more experienced team than he has had in his four previous seasons in Hamilton.
"We're deeper than we've ever been," he said. "There is no Achilles' heel. In the past it was we were too young, we were lacking a faceoff guy, we were not a very explosive offense. It was always something. This year we're not dominant anywhere, but we're solid everywhere."
A look at the roster suggests Nagle is correct. For instance:
The top five scorers from 2005 are back, among them junior midfielder Brendan Hurley, who led the team in goals last season (27), and sophomore attack Matt Lalli (21-23), who led the team in scoring while blossoming into an excellent all-around player as a freshman.
At the faceoff, junior Chris Eck took 261 draws and won 149 (.571 percentage), both school records.
The close defense returns intact and should be bolstered by sophomores Corey Hinton and Tyler Philpot, who were banged up last season.
Andrew Jarolimek (.515 save percentage) is a four-year starter in goal who rarely makes an eye-popping save but just as rarely allows a soft goal.
The nucleus is there, then, for Colgate to rebound from its step back in 2005. Perhaps even more important to the future of the program has been the league's decision to allow scholarships. Nagle used that perk to attract players such as Lalli last season and Brandon Corp this season.
Corp, who starred at Chittenango High School for four seasons, will step in and make an immediate impact at midfield.
"He is a pretty special kid," Nagle said. "He is definitely helping us. He is very smart and very skilled. The thing that impresses me most about him, though, is he's come in and done such a great job of being that freshman who is a really good player but is not cocky. He is very unassuming."
Such additions have given Nagle the belief that his team is poised to make noise in the Patriot League this season. His challenge is getting his players to believe it, too.
Raider facts
Last season: 7-7, 1-5 in Patriot League
Coach: Jim Nagle, fifth year at Colgate (30-28)
Star: Sophomore attack Matt Lalli
Best addition: Freshman midfielder Brandon Corp |
|
|
Stolen-generation paintings on show
|
Return to Top |
The Perth International Arts Festival's fourth program in the Great Southern is in full swing with its premiere event, the exhibition of paintings from the Carrolup River Native Settlement, near Katanning, due to open on Saturday.
The Carrolup collection has been described as being of national significance and is one of the highlights of the festival.
The paintings were created by Nyoongar children aged from eight to 14, members of the stolen generation who were housed at Carrolup in the late 1940s and early 50s.
A collection of 113 of their works was taken overseas and ended up being donated to Colgate University in New York State.
About 20 works are being returned to Australia for the exhibition, Koorah Coolingah - Children Long Ago, in the Katanning Shire Gallery.
An exhibition of works by Nyoongar artists will be held in the Katanning Town Hall at the same time and there is a showing of new works by local artist Athol Farmer in the town's Mungart Boodja Art Centre.
Colgate University professor Ellen Kraly told Farmer of the works when she made a special trip to Katanning in 2004 to find out more about the Carrolup children. He subsequently went to the US to see the collection and was instrumental in organising the festival exhibition.
He says that when Professor Kraly first walked into the gallery and told him of the Carrolup art collection at Colgate he was stunned.
For Farmer, it was the culmination of a journey that began in 2000 when he went to Kuala Lumpur with a collection of Nyoongar art.
"People said, "What is this art, it's European looking?'," he said. "We had to explain it was European style but how it is set out and the feeling behind it is Nyoongar."
He came back determined to take Nygoonar art to a wider audience.
He sees the Carrolup exhibition and the Australia-wide publicity it has received as a giant step forward.
"Looking back, it is like it is meant to be," he said.
"It is like a lifeline from the past for our Nyoongar people to be recognised."
In other festival activities, the Barking Gecko Theatre Company's play The Feather Surfers will open in the grounds of Strawberry Hill Farm in Albany on Tuesday.
Trio Fused will perform at Denmark's West Cape Howe Winery tomorrow and young Guinean musicians Ba Cissoko at the Vancouver Arts Centre in Albany on Saturday.
Fans of literature are being invited to meet Carrie Tiffany, of Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living, on Monday.
The festival will conclude with a celebration of the region's food, wine and art, Taste Great Southern. There are more than 16 events in the food festival.
Perth food artist Bridget Waters will hold a workshop on March 2 at gorepaniART Gallery in Albany, inviting those attending to bring with them two items from their pantry, one dried and one fresh, to be turned into an artwork.
There will be a regional food feast prepared by chef Russell Blaikie and Forest Hill Winery chef John Walsh at the winery in Denmark on March 3. The next day Mr Blaikie will prepare a slow food lunch at Oranje Tractor Wines in Albany.
On March 5, 11 Porongurup wineries will join forces to hold a wine festival at Duke's Vineyard. |
|
|
Gofer gold
|
Return to Top |
Colgate University senior Susan Tahsler is behind the scenes at the Turin Olympics this week coordinating guest arrivals for NBC's "The Today Show," which is broadcasting from Italy.
She's seen some of the best-known Olympic athletes as they parade onto the set for interviews: figure skater Michelle Kwan, snowboarding gold and silver medalists Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler and speedskating gold medalist Chad Hendrick.
"My contact with the athletes and their families has been very brief, but everyone that I have met is friendly and approachable," Tahsler wrote in an e-mail from Italy.
She landed an internship with "Dateline" after meeting a Colgate alum in the broadcast news business. That helped her get the "Today Show" job.
Tahsler's all-time favorite Winter Olympic sport is figure skating. Her new favorite sport is the half-pipe. She went to the medals ceremony for Shaun White, who took the gold, and Danny Kass, who won silver in the event.
"I am staying in an apartment in downtown Torino with two of my co-workers. The location is amazing," wrote Tahsler, who's been in Italy since last month. She leaves Italy today.
"It is fairly cold, usually between 30 and 40 degrees, in Torino, however, I expected it to be worse. I guess that my years at Colgate prepared me for the cold." |
|
|
Clay church has a pastor for a year
|
Return to Top |
Staff writer Kathy Coffta Sims interviewed the Rev. Dr. Harvey Sindima, who was named supply pastor at the Clay Presbyterian Church in October.
Sindima will serve for a period of one year. During that time, the church will continue looking for a more permanent pastor, according to Sue Doran, mission coordinator for the Presbytery of Cayuga/Syracuse.
Sindima has served as moderator of the Presbytery of Cayuga/Syracuse and is head of the Presbytery's International Partnership Work Group. He has served as an interim pastor at churches in Auburn and Morrisville.
Sindima and his family support and run a charity in Malawi, Africa, called the Blantyre North Relief Project. The group is working to build an orphanage and school to help educate 2,500 children. The region has been ravaged by HIV/AIDS and many of the children the Sindimas help are AIDS orphans.
He also has authored four books: "Drums of Redemption: An Introduction to African Christianity," 1994, "Africa's Agenda," 1995, "Religious and Political Ethics in Africa: A Moral Inquiry," 1998, all published by Greenwood Press; "Malawi's First Republic: An Economic and Political Analysis," 2002, University Press of America. Name: The Rev. Dr. Harvey J. Sindima
Address: 101 Eaton St., Hamilton
Occupation: Supply pastor for the Clay Presbyterian Church; professor of religion and philosophy at Colgate University in Hamilton
Education: Undergraduate degree from the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Theological College in Malawi, Africa; master of divinity from the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta; master's in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland; doctorate in religion and society from Princeton Theological Seminary
My family: Wife Gertrude, a nurse/midwife for Hamilton and Norwich hospitals; children Catherine, Mable, Felix and Harrision; five grandchildren
I'm originally from: Malawi, Africa
I've lived here for: In the United States for 30 years, in Central New York for 19 years.
The reason I live in Central New York: I was invited to come to Colgate when I was at Princeton. When I visited I felt there was a mission for me at the school. They were underrepresented in terms of racial balance. Also, my wife felt, more than I did, that it was the right move to make if I wanted to be of service.
If I could pick one other place to live, it would be: Malawi, Africa. Someday, my wife, myself and my family will return there to stay permanently. I am not a U.S. citizen and my children received their secondary school educations in Malawi. They went to college in the United States.
When I'm not working I like to: I'm working on a book on the Underground Railroad. The book came about because I would go places in Central New York and find pockets of African-Americans. I was curious and through that I started going back - doing research on local communities 100 years back.
A group of students and I traveled from Clinton west to Buffalo, and from Clinton north to Canada. On each trip, along the way we found that a lot of the local communities had houses that they knew were part of the Underground Railroad. Those houses are still there and we even found artifacts, related to the Underground Railroad, in the basements and attics of these houses.
What is the title of the book: "North Star: The Underground Railroad in Central New York." |
|
|
Spitzer chosen as Colgate's graduation speaker
|
Return to Top |
Hawley, Nicole
Observer-Dispatch, The
|
Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer will be the keynote speaker at Colgate University's 2006 graduation ceremony May 21, university officials said Tuesday.
"He just seemed like a good fit," said 2006 Class President Sian-Pierre Regis. "He's running for governor, he's a great speaker, he's somebody students and the whole Colgate community would like to hear in general."
Spitzer is the frontrunner for the Democratic nod for the state's top spot.
Regis said the decision to ask Spitzer to speak was the result of a long process in which members of his class offered up numerous suggestions.
Oprah Winfrey and actor Will Ferrell, along with a range of politicians and writers, were among those the class put forward.
Regis said he had heard only positive feedback on Spitzer's agreement to speak, and didn't expect any of the protests that sometimes occur when politicians speak at universities.
"I don't think Eliot Spitzer is the most controversial political speaker we could have gotten," he said.
Spitzer will receive an honorary degree at the ceremony, as will some of the other speakers.
Among those who will join Spitzer on the dais are baccalaureate speaker Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, professor of ethics and theology for Drew University; Alfred and Aminy Audi, owners of the L. & J. G. Stickley, Inc. furniture company; and Walter Massey, president of Morehouse College and former director of the National Science Foundation.
"All exemplify the characteristics of public service and initiative that Colgate nurtures in students," Colgate spokeswoman Caroline Jenkins said.
"These men and women represent the many opportunities available to our graduates," she said. |
|
|
Arts take stage at Colgate; student performers, artists show skills during festival
|
Return to Top |
Kollali, Sapna
Post-Standard - Madison County Bureau, The
|
Colgate University sophomore Shevorne Martin didn't know anything about an upcoming art festival when she started sketching her friends on the college basketball team.
"I was here over (the semester) break with the basketball team and there was basically no one else," she said. "I have a wall in my room covered with these sketches of my friends."
But when she got an e-mail asking for student vendors to participate in an art bazaar, she decided to sell her sketching services for $5 per drawing. She is among more than a dozen students who will sell their artwork this week at Colgate's O'Connor Campus Center during the third annual Arts! Festival.
The festival, which ends Saturday, highlights Colgate's fine arts and performing arts programs with daily theater, dance, sculpture, music and crafts. Beginning today, there also will be afternoon children's workshops for local students.
"This is a really neat idea. It's a good outlet for student work," said senior Nicole Kinsman, who is selling $4 bowls made of vinyl records. At the end of the two-hour lunchtime bazaar Monday, she had just two of about 15 bowls remaining. "I was surprised they sold so well."
The festival is sponsored by the Colgate Arts Initiative and has grown each year, said junior art major Rachel Vining, one of the lead organizers. The art bazaar and children's activities are new this year, she said.
"We coordinated it with the (Hamilton) school break so we could get the community more involved," she said.
Hamilton elementary school art teacher Barbara Houze told pupils about the children's events after Vining contacted her. She said she hopes there is even more community involvement next year.
Joining the events this week are professional ice sculptors Gary Nuzzo and Sean Hance, both of Syracuse, who had perfect weather Monday to adorn the quad with some new decorations.
"I'm not really sure what we're making here," Nuzzo said Monday. "I'm just going to wing it and see what happens."
By late afternoon, his ice blocks had become an unofficial logo for the event: stacked letters and numbers reading "C '06 arts." Nuzzo and Hance will return to campus Thursday for another round of ice sculpting.
Other events this week include: a stage reading of plays, an improvisational comedy show, dinner theater, a dance show and free movies. |
|
|
Lessons on life and car repair
|
Return to Top |
McLaughlin, Abraham
Christian Science Monitor, The
|
For businessman Yasin Mbuka, life used to be all about making a profit. Back then, he toiled hard to expand his budding businesses - a grocery store and a car-repair garage. "I was somebody who would stand alone," he says, and not think much about others.
But that was before both he and his beloved wife got sick - and before his businesses were plundered by increasingly desperate employees. "It was before we knew about this pandemic," he says, referring to AIDS.
Now his wife, many of his friends, and his businesses are gone. But amid the loss, Mr. Mbuka has found a new way to function. In the shell of his old garage a few weeks ago he opened a car-mechanic school for orphans - for kids who, like more than 12 million African children, have lost their parents to AIDS.
Every morning, 27 young people pile into Mbuka's dusty courtyard. They start the day by expressing gratitude to God, by hoisting aloft a rusted Ford gearbox for exercise, and by hearing bits of wisdom from a gentle widower. "The little I have," he says, describing his new focus in life, "I have to share with these young kids."
Each morning, after this Muslim man leads the mostly Christian students in generic prayers, he exhorts them with things like, "Don't go in for smoking and drinking," and "avoid sexual intercourse."
In all, 12.1 million children in Africa and more than 15 million worldwide have lost their parents to AIDS, the UN says. At current rates, there could be 20 million AIDS orphans by 2010.
There are many efforts to help them. Just up the road in this small nation in southeastern Africa, a school and orphanage that cares for 700 children is funded by a professor and students at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. In South Africa, Oprah Winfrey has brought support and gifts to thousands of orphans. Across Africa the UN children's agency, UNICEF, backs programs such as "junior farmers," which teach kids the agricultural skills their parents didn't have the time to pass along.
But Mbuka's new school is a home-grown effort that emerged out of one man's desire to help the children of his departed friends. Many of those friends, in this country where 14 percent of adults are diagnosed HIV-positive, were felled by AIDS. "When it came to my mind that I should assist my friends by helping their children, I couldn't ignore it," says Mbuka, clad in a Pierre Cardin dress shirt, a relic of his prosperous past.
His effort is among the most-effective kind, experts say. "Interventions that are home-based and community-based and have a life of their own" rather than being imported and supported from outside "are the ones that work best," says Sarah Crowe of UNICEF's regional office in South Africa.
After hearing bits of Mbuka's wisdom, the kids take turns hoisting the gearbox, which weighs about 40 pounds and is from a 1970s Ford. "You must exercise to be strong in body - and in mind," instructs Mbuka. He joins them in lifting, which is remarkable, given that in 2001 he himself weighed just 119 pounds. "I never dreamed I could again hold a thing so heavy," he says.
After his wife fell sick in 1997, he too became ill. She died in 2001. Then in 2002, the international aid group Doctors Without Borders set up a clinic nearby - and began giving Mbuka and others anti-retroviral drugs. He has recovered to the point where he now hoists the gearbox overhead - although with a grimace that gets the kids giggling.
After morning calisthenics, teacher and students delve into the nitty-gritty of car repair; taking apart and rebuilding engines, brakes, and other parts of the three junky vehicles in his repair yard, including a 1972 Ford Escort, which is significantly older than each of Mbuka's students.
At first, Mbuka figured his kids would go to class only in the morning - and work or take care of family in the afternoon. But after the first week, they begged to stay all day, even if it meant skipping lunch. Few can afford a midday meal anyway.
Their hurry to finish school bespeaks the pressures they face. Many have their own families to feed - and want to rush through training to get well-paying jobs as mechanics. Africa's orphans go to school less often than children with parents still alive. In one UNICEF study of several African nations, on average, there were only 83 orphans in class for every 100 students with parents.
One of his students is 20-year-old Hendrina Diverson, a mom with a wide smile. Her parents died in 1988 and left her with "nothing to do." She now has a baby son, whom her sister cares for while Hendrina is at school.
This makeshift family is counting on Hendrina to get a job and support all three of them soon. "In six months we will go far," Hendrina says, referring to the time Mbuka expects to have his students ready to take the national mechanics exam. Already, by being in school, she proudly exclaims, she has become "strong enough to lift an engine."
Or there's Vison Kenne, a 22-year-old who's one of Mbuka's top students. If he passes the national exam, he could earn the princely official wage of $42 a month. "If I had so much money," says the earnest and sinewy young man, "I would open my own garage, and I would help my relatives so we could end our poverty."
In reality, though, with Malawi's struggling economy, many trained mechanics settle for earning $15 a month - although that's still more than, for instance, the $7 a month primary school teachers make. But realistically, Mbuka allows, many of these kids won't get jobs, at least for a while.
Training them is the best he can do for now. "If we were to stay quiet" and not do the training "then even if they got a chance" to work, they would only be able to "stand idle," he says.
In the optimistic tone of a man who has lived longer and is giving more than he ever expected, he adds, "We don't know what will happen tomorrow." |
|
|
A hunger to help others; Youth group's weekend fast supports African mission
|
Return to Top |
Kollali, Sapna
Post-Standard - Madison County Bureau, The
|
About a dozen Morrisville-area students spent much of the weekend without food.
For the fifth year, the youth group from Morrisville Community Church on Cedar Street held a 30-hour fundraising fast, giving up food from 9 a.m. Saturday until 3 p.m. Sunday.
"People think it's a little weird at school but it's for a good cause and it's really fun," Morrisville-Eaton high school senior Gillian Gay said. "It really makes you think about what you have and how fortunate you are."
The fast benefited the African poverty and orphan mission of Colgate University professor the Rev. Harvey Sindima, the church's former interim pastor and an active congregant. Sindima, of Hamilton, is now pastor at Clay Presbyterian Church in Onondaga County.
Students, ages 12 to 18, typically raise about $1,000 in pledges, and this year's have not yet been totaled, said youth group adviser Terri Lanterman. This year, the third year working with Sindima, the church plans to donate an additional $5,000, part of a large bequest, Pastor Russell Duncan said.
Sindima said he may designate the youth group's donation for building a home for children in Malawi, his native country. It would be the first home built in the new year through his mission, he said.
"I think it will be good for these kids to see their money going to other kids, helping them get into a new home," he said. "It's really amazing that these teenagers are sacrificing a whole weekend and giving so much of themselves for people they really don't know."
The students could not eat during the event, but they were able to have water and fruit juice, Lanterman said.
To keep their minds off their stomachs, Lanterman planned several activities, including making a cardboard house where the students would sleep overnight. They also played games, went to Sunday school classes, discussed the Sindima mission and completed service projects.
This year, the students painted the church, Lanterman said. They also continued their annual contest to see who can buy the most food for $10 at the local Big M grocery store. The food will be donated to the Community Action Program's food pantry, she said.
"It's really a great lesson in poverty. They see how difficult it is to feed a family on very little money," Duncan said.
The event ended Sunday afternoon with a shortened Communion service and a light meal of breakfast burritos.
"Sometimes, it's not so light a meal," Lanterman said. "But they're not as hungry as you might think."
To donate
The youth group will accept donations for its gift to the Rev. Harvey Sindima's mission until mid-March. To donate or for more information, call the church at 684-3314. |
|
|
Guest blog: R.I. Students Abroad
|
Return to Top |
Aiken, Karlene
Providence Journal, The
|
So I've heard it's not just me that has problems getting around in the United Kingdom. We do drive on the other side (left side) of the road here, but I'm not talking about that. I don't drive here. It's hard enough being a pedestrian.
I don't think pedestrians have the right of way here. In fact, I know they don't. In order to cross the street, first you must decide which way to look first (you look right - it took me a week to figure that out) and then you have to be totally sure that no one is coming. If a car is coming, they will not stop. I've heard engines gunning for me. I have heard rumors that if a pedestrian is hit, the pedestrian has to pay for damage to the car. I'm not sure that is true, but I'm still careful.
I definitely don't mean to say that I never walk in St. Andrews. I have to. I haven't figured out the bus system, and most of my classes are in St. Mary's College on South Street, which is a good 15 to 20 minute walk from my dorm room in New Hall (Side note - New Hall is a Three-Star rated hotel used in the summer by golfers). St. Andrews itself is a small town, with four main streets.
I've managed the crosswalks so far. Crosswalks here look a little like those at home, although they're accompanied by flashing lightpoles, which I don't yet understand. There are also two of the kind that have the button and the red light, and they work fairly quickly and beep loudly when you're allowed to cross.
There's also plenty of space for leisure walking, if you want to avoid the cars. St. Andrews lies on the Fife Coastal Path which runs right in front of the Old Course Hotel and up along the cliffs of the Scores and right by all of the ruins.
On the other side you can see the ocean. So, I guess getting around here isn't all that bad, as long as you know what you're doing. |
|
