PresRelease

First Mansfield Today, and then the Hartford Courant, report that long-time Mansfield Four Corners landmark Kathy John’s restaurant has closed. Over the years, many UConn students, faculty, staff, visiting families and sports fans frequented Kathy John’s for ice cream or a hamburger or to browse the eclectic gifts department. It had been in business for the last 40 years.

The rubber stamp department
Kathy John’s was on my “to do” list of things to experience in Storrs. I know many of our UConn alums will remember Kathy John’s and there are probably some special memories connected to one of those booths or sitting at the counter.

I was in Gampel last Wednesday evening for the Women’s BB game against Florida and I ran into my friends, Officer Dawn Tomalonis and Officer Paul Osella of the UConn Police Department. I call Officer Tomalonis “Safe” and Officer Osella “Sound.” Our university police are among the best in the country. I’m always impressed by their professionalism – they help all of us stay Safe and Sound.

UConn’s Voice and Opera Department will be joining forces with Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, the Department of Dramatic Arts and Irish Studies (an undergraduate concentration in the English Department) for a unique opera theater experience at 8 p.m. Saturday at von der Mehden Recital Hall. The Daily Campus ran an article today.  I’ll reproduce the announcement from Vocal Studies’ web page:

A thrilling double bill of the struggle between the natural and supernatural.  Riders to the Sea combines the drama of Irish playwright J. M. Synge with the music of British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. This one-act tragedy illuminates harsh conditions of rural Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century through one family’s struggle to survive in a battle against poverty and nature itself. This epic masterpiece is followed by Menotti’s The Medium, a haunting journey through the human psyche exploring the powers fear and love.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 8 pm
von der Mehden Recital Hall
University of Connecticut, Storrs Campus

Irish playwright J.M.Synge

Following Saturday night’s performance, the production will travel to New York City to present an encore performance of “Riders to the Sea” in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center Plaza on Saturday, April 4, at 3:00 pm. This will be performed as part of a series commemorating the Centennial Anniversary of Synge’s death. Here’s the program announcement from the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts web site:

Saturday, April 4, 2009, 3:00 PM
“On an Anniversary”: J.M. Synge, 1871-1909
Riders to the Sea: The Opera
Performance of selections from the opera by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with commentary by Alain Frogley, Constance Rock, and others. This production was produced by Ms. Rock for the University of Connecticut, where it will be performed on March 28, 2009. The opera received its first performance in 1937.

At UConn, Constance Rock is Associate Professor of Music (Voice) and Coordinator of Vocal Studies in UConn’s Department of Music, and Alain Frogley is Professor of Music (History).

Those at our Stamford campus (and others) should check out the exhibition of paintings, photographs, and drawings by regional campus students, staff and faculty in celebration of the Year of Science. It’s on display at the Stamford Campus Art Gallery through April 8, and there will be a public reception on Saturday, April 4, 1 to 3 pm.

“I Always Look for My Paradise,” Guido Garaycochea
The exhibition features the paintings of Guido Garaycochea, a professor of art and art history at the Avery Point Campus. Also included in the exhibit are algorithms by Sandra DeLozier Coleman, adjunct professor of mathematics at the Avery Point Campus, and botanicals by Diane Barcelo, adjunct professor of art and art history at Avery Point. Students from Chile, Germany, Ukraine, and the United States also contributed to this show.

The Gallery is located on the Concourse level of the campus, at the intersection of Broad Street and Washington Boulevard. Free parking is available on the second floor of the UConn Stamford Campus Washington Boulevard garage. You can find out more about the Stamford campus Art Gallery here.

Dean of UConn’s School of Business Chris Earley told me about a new learning accelerator that the Business School is planning, to create opportunities for some of our students to have an impact in the community through social innovation and social entrepreneurship. This accelerator is called SCOPE, for Sustainable Community and Public Engagement learning accelerator. SCOPE will parallel other Business School learning accelerators such as edgelab, innovation accelerator and financial accelerator. It’s not a new center nor does it create new courses. It brings together activities for our MBA and undergraduate students to learn by engaging in social innovation and social entrepreneurship in intensive learning activities.

In a typical accelerator experience, one to two faculty members come together with a group of students from the MBA, Masters, undergraduate, and even PhD programs to work intensively with company representatives for a fixed time period (often 14 weeks of full-time effort). The faculty members and the sponsoring organization jointly decide the goals and appropriate activities for the project. For Edgelab, projects are generated from within various business units of General Electric, and it is the dedicated, full-time responsibility of two GE managers, whose offices are located at our Stamford campus, to manage the projects. For the IA and FA, companies apply to participate in the accelerator and they generate project ideas. Here projects are chosen based on the learning opportunities presented for our students.

SCOPE’s target group of partners include non-profit organizations and for-profit companies that have social outreach and community impact as a significant part of their strategic missions. To avoid what some have described as the “tyranny of the bottom line,” UConn’s approach is based on the idea that having a positive influence on society-at-large complements the typical for-profit focus emphasized by most business schools. We emphasize the sustainability of this community influence with attention to revenue generation that is enhanced by incorporating a business or for-profit perspective. Rather than training business leaders for the non-profit sector, the SCOPE accelerator has been created to train business leaders – who pursue careers in either the private or public sector – that want to make a difference in the lives of others around them.

One pillar organization of SCOPE will be Special Olympics.  SCOPE will begin its first projects with the Special Olympics organization in the Fall of 2009. The second pillar will be an in-house program that provides entrepreneurship and business management training to U.S. military veterans disabled as a result of service to their country. This program will be conducted at UConn in collaboration with the founding institution, the Whitman School of Business at Syracuse University, and its consortium partners (Florida State University, UCLA, Texas A&M, and Purdue University). Our School of Business is currently applying for acceptance into this consortium and planning the first residency for the veterans in Summer of 2010 at our Stamford campus.

The third pillar is an intensive study-abroad program for undergraduate business students to work with social entrepreneurs in rural Guatemala. This program was begun in 2007 in cooperation with the non-profit organization, Social Entrepreneurship Corps. Partnering with students from other universities (such as Notre Dame and Duke University), UConn undergraduates spend two months during the summer in rural Guatemala alongside local entrepreneurs initiating and growing businesses that have a positive social impact. In the past, projects have worked with entrepreneurs providing eyeglasses, water purification systems, and eco-friendly stoves to the indigenous populations.

I’m really excited about these new opportunities for our UConn students, and for our partnering organizations.