Men's Chorus Wows Radio Audience

Members of the BW Men’s Chorus under the direction of Frank Bianchi entertained more than 100 audience members in the Gund Studio at the Idea Center® in Cleveland...  and many more listening on WCLV radio.  The station found the performance so enjoyable, they decided to rebroadcast it on December 24 at 10 a.m. OR you can listen online, on demand, any time.

Men, college-age and up, from throughout the Greater Cleveland community, including BW faculty, staff and students, make up the Men's Chorus, which is an offering included in BW's robust Conservatory Outreach Department.

The BW Men’s Chorus peforms at the Idea Center. That's WCLV radio host Bill O'Connell in the red sweater.

Chemistry, Culture and Cooking Combine for Tasty Final

BW Honors Program students take courses that are innovative and experiential, including "The Science and Culture of Food" taught by the Chemistry Department's Dr. Ray Shively. The interactive course explores the science behind food preparation, as well as the cultural and geographical constraints on what we eat and why.

For their final this semester, 20 students prepared and presented a 13 course dinner at the BW President's House and the experience was caught on video. Dinner guests (and "Top Chef" judges) included President Bob Helmer and his wife Linda, BW Board of Trustees Chairman Paul Carlton and others.

Yellow Jacket Generosity Puts a Sting in Hunger

The generous BW community “put a sting in hunger" this week according to Cynthia Gornik from the Finance Department, who rallied the troops for a campus food drive. As faculty, staff and students who are still on campus gathered together for the annual holiday luncheon yesterday, they dropped off 1,455 pounds of food and $230 in cash donations for the Cleveland Foodbank.

Gornik extended special thanks to Ed Murray for enduring the cold as donations were collected and for transporting the donations to the Foodbank. Alan Conn, The BW Women’s Basketball Team, Mary Reniff, Rachel Barkfelt, and Lauren Schneider also provided special support for the project. Well done, Yellow Jackets!

MBA Grad Pitching "Brand Mentor" Around the World

Photo Courtesy: Jeff Forman/JForman@News-Herald.com

Kim Holizna, who earned her MBA from BW, is taking on the newly created position of international trade administrator for the City of Mentor. In an article announcing her appointment, The News Herald says Holizna is as "comfortable talking foreign trade with a Japanese CEO as she is educating a local business owner on the basics of exporting."

The Russell Township resident takes on her new position with an eye on attracting foreign investment, supporting export-capable companies, and facilitating business partnerships for the city’s core industries, including jet turbine and medical equipment manufacturing.

Prior to this post, Holizna most recently served as director of the Northeast Ohio Trade & Economic Consortium's International Trade Assistance Center.

BW Composer in Residence Wins Prestigious Arts Fellowship

BW Composer in Residence and alumnus, Clint Needham '04 is among 20 writers, dancers, musicians, performers or playwrights in Cuyahoga County to win the prestigious Community Partnership for Arts & Culture (CPAC) Creative Workforce Fellowship for 2014.

According to a CPAC news release, the Creative Workforce Fellowship program annually recognizes "the leading lights of the region’s artistic community." Tom Schorgl, president and CEO of the Community Partnership, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “It’s one of the more substantive fellowship awards in the United States.”

Neeham will use the $20,000 fellowship to develop a new, large-scale composition for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and Verb Ballets for the spring of 2015.

Earlier this year, Needham talked with Cool Cleveland about the growing BW Conservatory of Music Composition program, in advance of BW's FOCUS Festival of Contemporary Music.

Students Witness a Piece of History in South Africa

BW Students in Cape Town, South Africa

The enrichment gained from study and service abroad was bumped up a notch for a group of 19 BW students and three professors on the BW faculty-led trip, "Peace, Reconciliation, and the Arts in Northern Ireland and South Africa." With the death of South Africa's great statesman, Nelson Mandela, announced on one of their final days in Cape Town, the students and professors witnessed 'Madiba's' people in mourning, some joining tens of thousands of South Africans in signing condolence books set up around the country.

"Nelson Mandela was more than a person, more than the first black President of the Republic of South Africa: He was Madiba, the father of the new South Africa. He was a symbol of Hope. He was a symbol of Peace. He was a symbol of Freedom," wrote Kody Luczak in his travel blog. "The mood in Cape Town was eerie. Normally, the street our house was on bustled with activity. About a half an hour after the news broke of Madiba's death, I went out to see if anything was happening. It was silent: no sounds, no activity, nothing."

"There was an outpouring of emotion, but mostly in the form of remembrances, anecdotes, and well-rehearsed accounts of 'Madiba's' deeds and place as an icon here," said Herbert "Butch" Marshall, associate professor of Music Education. "It has been a powerful finale to a powerful seven weeks for our students... and we are all touched by the gravity of this occasion."

The students were featured in a NewsChannel 5 TV report when they returned to Ohio, and you can read more from one student's perspective, Chynna Smith of Lorain, in a Morning Journal newspaper article.

Service Makes the Season Merry and Bright

The BW community worked to make the season merry and bright for 177 children served by the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services and Goodrich-Gannett Neighborhood Center through BW's Office of Community Outreach’s (OCO’s) Annual Gift Drive.

More than 125 BW community members contributed and/or helped wrap the gifts, with leadership provided by Mauren Schindler '16 and Taylor Flowers '15,  as well as Jesper Zuber, who serves as OCO’s Student Director of Special Projects.

Since its inception as a student-initiated program, BW's Office of Community Outreach (OCO) has further developed to support the University's mission of creating contributing, compassionate citizens.

Economics Prof Explores Values as Brand

Crain's Cleveland Business called on BW economics professor Kay Strong for insight into businesses that focus on fair trade.

The article, in the latest issue of the magazine, explores the conundrum of small, local firms in NE Ohio that face challenges due to their fair trade practices, but believe in what they do.

“Companies who step out and say, 'These are my values and these are the values of my business,' and brand those values, I think, there are niches for those companies," Strong says. "There is an advantage to putting it (your vision) out there because it's a way of branding yourself.”

2013 Music Theatre Grad Heading to Broadway

Another graduate from BW’s music theatre program has landed in a big Broadway production. Chris McCarrell ’13 is joining the cast ensemble of the Broadway revival of LES MISERABLES. According to BroadwayWorld.com, the production will start in March 2014 at the Imperial Theatre.

During his time at BW, McCarrell portrayed Mark in RENT and Young Ben in FOLLIES. He was also featured outside BW in Cain Park’s productions of SWEENEY TODD (as Anthony) and NEXT TO NORMAL at the Beck Center for the Arts.

That spring performance at the Beck produced a rave (and prophetic) review from Plain Dealer critic Andrea Simakis: "In his signature, show-stopping number "I'm Alive," the BW senior manages to channel the insatiable, selfish hunger of youth into a blast of pure vital energy. It feels as though, if hooked to a battery, he could power the world. That, in a word, is a star. Catch a glimpse of him now in the home skies, before he shoots to Broadway."

McCarrell's quick move to Broadway is the latest example of how students are developed in BW’s renowned music theatre department. Watch for up and coming talent as BW Music Theatre presents CARRIE at the Beck Center from February 7 to March 9, 2014.

Chris McCarrell as Young Ben in FOLLIES at BW November 2012

BW Grad Crashed the Auto Industry Boys Club 50 Years Ago

A 1959 ad in the Grosse Pointe News (Mich)

As General Motors makes history by naming Mary T. Barra as the first woman in the top job at a major auto manufacturing company, Baldwin Wallace University remembers an alumna who helped blaze the trail a half-century ago.

Lois Zolliker ’44, like Barra, a native Detroiter, spent 22 years in the automotive industry as a designer in the Interior Design Studios of Chrysler (1955-70) and at American Motors (1971-77). Described in a 1972 news report as one of the “The Big Four’s Big Four Females,” Zolliker was the first woman to head a department (of male designers) and the first to make it to the executive level.. way back in 1963! She went on to establish her own product color consulting business.

In a letter looking back at her remarkable success in a male-dominated industry, Zolliker observed, “The fact that I survived before ‘Women’s Lib’ has special meaning for me because I have always believed that with the proper attitude and work ethic, one can move mountains. I also found that the men I worked for and with were my greatest allies. Any barriers or inequality that they saw THEY had removed.”

Of her unlikely rise within the auto "boys club," Zolliker went on to add, “It was not all sweetness and light, but most of those experiences had a humorous side.”

So, Mary T. Barra, congrats and best wishes in your new post at the helm of GM. But don’t forget that you “stand on the shoulders of giants” including a pioneering BW graduate named Lois Zolliker.

Student to Debut Solo Photography Exhibition

Cameron Dunbar '14 will showcase the beauty and humanity of South Korea's capital city in "From the Seoul," a solo photography exhibition at Negative Space Gallery in downtown Cleveland from December 28 to January 24 of the new year.

"My show 'From the Seoul' focuses on my experience in South Korea last summer," says Dunbar. "I wanted to experience being in a completely different culture half way around the world, and explore how even the mundane is life changing."

Dunbar works as a BW photographer/videographer and is finishing his undergraduate degree in film. For more information, visit www.r3dglasses.com

First Students Inducted into New BW Philosophy Honor Society

Eight students are the first to be inducted into BW's newly established chapter of Phi Sigma Tau, the International Philosophy Honor Society. BW’s Philosophy Department inducted students Jacob K. Hunter, Paul J. Krause, Michelle J. Kupiec, Adam H. Lyons, Mary J. Morgan, Timothy J. Reinhart, Samuel M. Schwab and Paige Serbin into the inaugural class of the honor society. Membership is extended to both outstanding students and professors of philosophy.

In addition to recognizing academic excellence, membership in Phi Sigma Tau provides a means for furthering scholarship, as well as communication and networking between philosophy departments in accredited institutions. Founded in 1930, the Society now has a network of over 200 chapters throughout the United States and Canada, with 12 chapters in Ohio.