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Interest rates are going up on student loans, and college students and graduates are running out of time to lock in low rates.
Procrastination, often a way of life in college, will be costly this time around.
"A lot of people have got a shock coming," second-year Lower Columbia College student Betty Keolker said.
Second-year LCC student Jordan Reed, 22, just arranged for two student loans totalling $3,250. He hadn't heard about the June 30 deadline to lock in his 4.7 percent interest rate.
"My dad is in debt because of student loans," Reed said, figuring its time for him to consolidate his loans at low, fixed rates.
A combination of rising interest rates and legislative changes will make new loans more costly and make existing loans more expensive after June 30.
Every July 1, the Treasury Department adjusts the interest rates on existing Stafford loans -- the government-guaranteed student loans that 44 percent of full-time undergraduates rely on to pay tuition bills. For the second year in a row, Treasury bill rates have jumped nearly two percentage points, taking Stafford loan rates along with them. Last June, rates on Stafford loans in repayment stood at 3.37 percent. On July 1, they are forecast to top 7 percent.
Also, Congress in 2002 mandated that all new Stafford Loans issued after this July 1 will carry a higher, fixed interest rate of 6.8 percent.
The other major student loan program --- the so-called Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students, or PLUS loans --- also will experience similar increases. Interest rates on existing loans are expected to rise from 6.1 percent to 7.94 percent, while new PLUS loans will have a fixed rate of 8.5 percent for most borrowers.
Students like Keolker and Reed, who already have government loans, will continue to receive variable interest rate changes every July 1 unless they consolidate loans by June 30. Predicting future interest rates is difficult.
"It's hard to predict how much," said Kay Lewis, University of Washington director of student financial aid. But "interest rates in general have been going up."
By consolidating loans before July 1, students can convert variable-rate loans to low fixed-rate loans. Borrowers can consolidate loans with any lender, now matter who holds their current loans. The easiest way is to apply online.
Changes in the student loan programs stem Congress decision in December to cut $12 billion from student financial aid programs. This year, the federal government budgeted more than $78 billion for 9 million students, according to the Sallie Mae Foundation.
Married loan recipients should know that after July 1 they no longer can combine their separate loans into one single loan.
Also, for students enrolled now, this is their last chance to consolidate loans and still be able to put off payments until after graduation. With all the changes, the office of financial aid at LCC is bracing for a barrage of student queries.
LCC loan coordinator Betty Sjoblom said she hasn't seen many confused students, yet.
"I think we'll see quite a few students coming in with questions," she said, "hopefully before the end of the month."
Sjoblom advised students to be cautious about what they borrow: "Don't borrow what you want; borrow what you need."
That was Keolker's strategy. She said she borrowed minimally.
"I was hoping not to need a loan," said Keolker, 43. "Now I want to get through this with as little debt as I can."
Share your thoughts with other readers of this story. After your comment is approved, it'll appear below.
Leafgreen wrote on June 24, 2006 11:42 PM:" I am a grad and need to consolidate my loans before the deadline of June 30, 2006 when the rates go WAY up! So I went on a google hunt (I mean search ;). Unfortunately, now google has succumbed to a bunch of organic (regular results below the ads) search spammers. But eventually, I did find a site that has rated a few student loan consolidators, and says they have checked them out. Here's the web page: http://lendersrated.com/index.htm#student Hope it helps you... Leafgreen"
use a nickname
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if you can't prove it's true, don't say it Read more (they're short, we promise).
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Licorice returns to New York City's Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 West 3rd Street, on July 8th as part of the Late Night Groove Series. Licorice's Blue Note shows are always something special, so make plans to get there for some post-July 4th fireworks. Doors open Saturday at midnight.
Have a new video for "History's Stranglers" here from their new record coming out in July.
Jack White's "don't call it a side project" side project, The Raconteurs, have added some additional shows to their summer tour. At the present time, The Raconteurs (a/k/a The Saboteurs in Australia) will play a series of shows overseas before returning to America's left coast. In making their way back east, White, Benson and the boys will hit the 2006 Lollapalooza Festival.
Thanks to Dale Pantalione for sending in his review of last night's Radiohead show. If anyone else sees a show and wants to publish a review, send it over and we'll link back to your MySpace page.
If you're in the Brooklyn area tonight check out Pela at NORTHSIX w/ Longwave and The English Department - 66 North 6 Street Brooklyn, NY 11211.
And, for our friends in the Sarasota Spring, NY area - Army of Me will be at The Grotto for a FREE show tonight. 388 Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY (518.584.2283) 22+ (this is not a typo) - show: 11pm.
For those in DC, stop by the Velvet Lounge for Justin Jones.
Also, for the DC folks this Saturday June 3rd, Wes Tucker & the Skillets have a cd release party at Iota -2832 Wilson Blvd. Arlington VA, music starts @ 9:00pm.
Don McCloskey is at the Rickshaw Stop in San Fran this Saturday Night.
Licorice will celebrate the release of: "Live at the Baggot Inn," a collection of songs from 16 acts recorded at the club throughout the past year by playing one intimate set. The CD and release party are in memory of former soundman Jon Anthony who recently passed away. 100% of the proceeds from the night and sales of the CD will be donated to Music Rising, an organization dedicated to rebuilding the Gulf Region note by note, in Jon's name. Licorice's "Swisher" appears on the disc. Tickets will be $10 and will include a CD with admission.
James Blunt will play a not so secret Myspace show tonight at The Cutting Room, 19 W. 24th St., NYC - (212) 691-1900. James scored big points and lived up to his last name last week at the Novella Awards when he quipped "it's continued to get me laid" in response to critics of his heavily played tune "You're Beautiful."
Head Automatica will be performing a special live acoustic performance at Virgin Megastore Times Square in New York this coming Monday, June 5th @ 11pm to celebrate the release of their new record which will be available in stores June 6th.
While Mike Gordon & Ramble Dove prepare for a summer of honky-tonk (with no badonkadonk), they have posted a couple tracks from a Burlington, VT Radio Bean session on Gordon's website
Depeche Mode have endured the fickle musical landscape for roughly twenty five years. Experiencing career highs (Violator), career lows (David Gahan's heroin problems), and a comeback or two (Exciter, Playing the Angel). To pay tribute to their longevity, Rhino has remastered three of Depeche Mode's album's from their 80's heyday: Speak & Spell, Music For The Masses, and Violator.
The remaster includes remixed stereo versions of the original recordings, additional songs, 5.1 surround sound and DTS versions on DVD, and a "Behind the Music" style "mini-film." However, because it was the record that kicked things off for the band, I'll focus on Speak and Spell.
Depeche Mode were unique when Speak and Spell was originally released and not simply because they disposed of the guitar, bass, and drum and replaced them with synthesizers. Thier uniqueness stemmed from matching all these sounds with their finely crafted pop songs. Vince Clarke, Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore manned the synths behind David Gahan's innocent vocals. "Just Can't Get Enough", a Depeche Mode classic and arguably their most recognizable tune on Speak and Spell, still has that heart thumping beat. That first record also included Depeche Mode classic's "New Life" and "Dreaming of Me."
Clarke's songs range from fluffy dance party song's to extremely dark and menacing. On the remaster they include the not so subtle, but upbeat, tale of heartbreak "I Sometimes Wish I Was Dead". The homoerotic "Boys Say Go" and "What's Your Name?" are almost laughable after 25 years of debate on the "sexuality" of Depeche Mode. The songs hold up as instrumental's, but I can't imagine Gahan or Gore even entertaining such light fare. "Puppets" and "Photographic" are much more indicative of the template that Gore would adopt in future Depeche Mode songs. These are the hidden gems of Speak and Spell.
Gore's infancy as a song writer is on full display for their first album. The forgettable "Big Muff" follows the somber "TORA! TORA! TORA!" - which is solid enough for repeat listens and hints ever so slightly at the musician that Gore would become. Gahan's vocals which seemed muffled on the original release gain a little more strength on the stereo remaster and are completely liberated in the 5.1 and DTS versions. More than on any other Depeche Mode release Gahan comes across more as a figurehead rather than a front man, especially on the aforementioned "Boys Say Go" and "What's Your Name?."
For pure and casual Depeche Mode fans, the retrospective mini-film Do We Really Have to Give Up Our Day Jobs?, makes this remaster worth it's weight. Clarke, Fletcher, Gore, and Gahan are positively giddy when they remember the genesis of Depeche Mode. Clarke, of course, left after Speak and Spell and went on to form Yazoo (Yaz in America) and later the hugely successful Erasure. Twenty five years has dispelled any acrimony that occurred at the time. Clarke's leaving the band is only mentioned in a textual epilogue at the close of the mini-film.
One of the other highlight's of the mini-film is the interview with Brian Griffin who conceptualized the cover photo for Speak and Spell. He owns up to the fact that the cellophane covered swan is a bit over the top and finally admits he has no idea what he prompted him to submit such a horrible cover to the band, though the band seem to give him a pass.
Never having heard Dolby 5.1 or DTS sound I was rather impressed at how much more life the process gives to the music. Depeche Mode's electronic sound is more vibrant in the surround sound digital format. Gahan's vocal's, as previously mentioned, are placed in front of the music rather than in between the groups monophonic keyboards. "Just Can't Get Enough" and "Dreaming of Me" are revived with the new format and "Photographics" dark robotic melody simmers.
This refresher in Depeche Mode circa 80-81 makes you a little better for the effort you put into the listening experience. Producer Daniel Miller said it best, "They were never New Romantics, they were Futurists." Twenty plus years, the future has arrived and now Depeche Mode helps us romanticize about the not too distant past.
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Each Sunday afternoon in Beijing, about 300 people gather in Dr Sun Yat-sen Park, next to Tiananmen Square. Most are in their fifties and sixties. To Chinese eyes, their behaviour seems odd. They are certainly not here for a spot of t'ai chi, nor are they about to take part in a subversive demonstration. Instead they watch each other, shyly yet purposefully. Suddenly a booming voice breaks the awkward silence: "What have you got?" Its source is a large, grey-haired woman, approaching a quiet couple.
"Boy. 35. Five foot ten. Graduate. IT manager. And yours? Can I see the picture?" The grey-haired woman is brisk and practised. She has clearly been here before.
"Er . . . here. Our daughter is 29." The couple hesitantly take out a photo, looking uncomfortable, as if they are having second thoughts. "She has a degree, too. She's a teacher. Do you have a photo of your son?"
"I left it at home today, but just look at me and you'll get an idea." The woman gives a hearty laugh as a small crowd begins to circle. "To tell the truth, my son is fat."
"Oh well, our daughter isn't exactly thin," the wife replies modestly.
Dr Sun Yat-sen Park is named after the founding father of modern China, and it stands on the site where the imperial family worshipped their ancestors, some 600 years ago. Today, it is the venue of China's first "love market", a meeting point between China's tradition of arranged marriage and the irresistible rise of consumer choice, even in the area of personal relationships. Here, parents come to exchange pictures and brief biographies of their children of marriageable age in the hope of finding the perfect partner for each, with the right qualifications, income and, almost as important, a compatible animal sign.
"My son is a dragon. Is your daughter a rabbit? No?" The grey-haired woman shifts her eyes away from the couple to search the crowd around her. "Has anyone got a rabbit? I'm looking for a rabbit. Rabbit and dragon are a good match!"
Historically, the western concept of "romantic love" was alien to Chinese culture: free love was taboo and marriage was an expression of filial duty. In Mao's China, love for any person or thing other than the Party was denounced as bourgeois sentiment. Today, the empire of love is expanding, and the only penalties lovers suffer are those they inflict on each other. Yet the rise of love, which appears an exciting aspect of modernity to many young Chinese, is also bound up with the perils of the market: it feeds off the insecurity that is an inextricable part of China's transformation.
The pressures of the "love game" are heightened, in China, by demography. Across the country there are more young men than women - one of many malign consequences of the "one-child" policy - but the concerned parents attending the "love market" know that, in the cities, eligible young men are at a premium. The Chinese have a term for men with the perfect package of availability and affluence: these "diamond bachelors" are quickly snapped up, unless they fiercely resist the loss of their precious independence. In big cities, the local women also have to compete against small-town girls who are keen to "upgrade" by acquiring a prosperous urban husband. In a society where "The winner takes it all" is the motto of the day, and where the young are still expected to conform by marrying, parents feel compelled to enter the race for love, even though their children are frequently dismayed by their activities.
This conflict between the generations is another consequence of the one-child policy. China's young adults grew up in the ruins of the old world while the new world was still struggling to be born. They lack the support of sib-lings and peer group, while their parents, who survived the harsh psychological landscape of the past half-century, often fail to comprehend their emotional needs. It is hardly surprising that these young people are isolated and confused, nor that, as attitudes towards love and marriage change, the generation gap is widening.
Where there is confusion, there is also a business opportunity. Last month, on the 28th floor of a gleaming block in Beijing's IT district, six young people gathered, each holding a notebook and a pen. They were attending China's first "school of love", a newly opened training centre that offers weekend courses in the "art of love". Festooned with film posters for Titanic and Romeo + Juliet, and a heart-shaped wreath of red roses, the classroom advertised the promise of the course.
The school's founder and only teacher is an energetic, 40-year-old former salesman named Du Shengxiang. After selling steel, iron and T-shirts for ten years, he has reinvented him- self as a "youth" consultant, offering some of the classics of western popular psychology to a Chinese audience. A combination of Jerry Springer and Britain's TV psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud, Du is convinced that he can put his talents to profitable use by helping those with communication problems, especially in romantic affairs. His selling points are his outgoing character and his ability to crack jokes while making serious points.
"Look," Du says, "this is The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. It's from America. I want you to read it." Du picks up the book from his desk and turns to one of his students, a young man with thick glasses. "Zhinan, next time you meet a girl, talk to her about The Art of Loving. Bombard her with theories about love until she is dizzy. I promise you she will fall for you. Instead of going out with a fool who has a house and a car, she'd want someone who truly understands love."
Surprisingly, Du's students are young, intelligent university graduates, some with PhDs, yet they all share a shy and reserved disposition, and have difficulty expressing their emotions. Many of them have never experienced love. Feeling despondent in a society in which market values rule the day, they find Du's style, even more than his theory, an encouraging influence. Zhi Wei, a 24-year-old man, says: "Teacher Du has made us realise that being reserved is so tiring." Du has opened up their lonely hearts, even if his teachings are inspired by commercial products such as the trite bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
Despite his small enrolment, Du, a self- confessed romantic whose favourite film is Jane Eyre, has big ambitions for his school of love. "Waiting is a painful thing. My class is a bit like the first Chinese Communist Party meeting," he laughs, promoting his concept as a modern revolution. "One day I will build my own empire."
The search for love has created business opportunities for some, but the idea of choice in personal life has brought its own, all-too-predic-table costs. Family - the cornerstone of Chinese society - is the first casualty. Over the past two decades China's divorce rate has soared by 500 per cent. A recent TV drama series, Chinese-Style Divorce, struck a loud chord with millions of viewers. The series tells the story of an ambitious woman who pushes her doctor husband to pursue money and success, while taking voluntary redundancy herself to look after their only child. As the gap in social status between the couple widens, her insecurity becomes obsessional, leading to a long-drawn-out divorce.
The success of the drama stemmed from its portrayal of divorce as the result not of an affair, but of a deeply unsettled state of mind shared by the whole society. As detective agencies mushroom all over China, cashing in on extramarital affairs, increasing numbers of couples are experiencing the loss of trust that is affect- ing Chinese society as a whole. Shen Yan, the 37-year-old director of Chinese-Style Divorce, and a divorcee himself, speaks from experience as he explains his drama. "There is too much pressure and temptation out there. It's becoming a nightmare. Every family worries. Is the man going to meet someone today? Or is he going to be seduced? What's going to happen . . . Everyone lives in constant fear." To reinforce his point, Shen Yan remarks that he was not the only newly divorced man in his production team: most of his colleagues were also divorcees.
As the Chinese saying goes, "Where there is a gain, there is also a loss." China's climate of fear has created a flourishing divorce industry. Although new laws have made divorce cheaper and quicker (nowadays, it costs the equivalent of less than '1 and just 20 minutes to get a divorce at a civil affairs bureau) there is still no shortage of bitter divorces, and the lawyers have never had it so good. A new website gives would-be divorcees a step-by-step guide. Its founder, the divorce lawyer Wang Fang, owes her success to media exposure. An attractive former student of economics, she describes her career choice in market terms: "China's greatest asset is its population. A large number of people means a large number of families. A large number of families means a large number of family disputes. So the market demand is great."
In her smart new office, Wang Fang's enlarged portrait photo has pride of place, competing for attention with a painting of Karl Marx. After decades of unquestioning faith in communism, China is now the most ardent follower of the market. Belief in the self is superseding belief in past idols.
For the parents in Dr Sun Yat-sen Park, the search for that perfect person who will make their child happy is hard and long, yet anxiety is the mother of hope. A woman wearing dark glasses sighs with a bitter smile. "I've come again and again," she says. "It's so tiring. But what else can we do? These days, they are all only children. When we are gone, who will they have to lean on? You can't rely on friends. People just use one another in today's society. When you get to your forties and fifties, if you don't even have someone to bring you a cup of tea, won't that be sad?"
Once, we were allowed to say only, "I love Chairman Mao." Now we can say, "I love you," but the older generation feels painfully the selfishness that has grown with this freedom, and the vulnerability inseparable from the pressure of competition. The future may be less brutal than the past the old people lived through - it would be hard for it to be more so - but they worry that its emotional contours will be as harsh, in their own way, as the world they survived.
Xiao Jia Gu's film about romance in China will be shown on al-Jazeera International later this summer
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'They do [retirement parties] for everybody, so I knew what was coming,' Riel says, referring to her 22-year career with the company, where she spent most of her time sewing pockets on coats. 'They go out of their way,' she says, adding, 'I have a friend who worked for 38 years at a library in Massachusetts, and they did nothing for her when she retired.'
The manufacturer of protective equipment for firefighters and emergency workers may be unusual in that it has a written policy regarding retirements, notes HR manager Gayle E. Troy, SPHR. For retiring employees with 10 or more years of service, the company purchases gifts and/or gives cash equal to $100 for each year of service. So at Riel's going-away gala, she received gifts and cash valued at $2,200.
Troy and her HR staff query a retiring employee's co-workers, family and others for gift ideas to make each party special. 'When I first started here, there were a lot of people ready to retire,' Troy says. 'After three or four of them, I determined we needed a policy, and $100 a year seemed like a nice compromise.' One to three Globe employees retire each year.
Troy admits that what works at Globe Manufacturing, with 387 employees in Pittsfield and 49 at a second location in Ada, Okla., might not work at other companies.
'Our celebrations cost very little, except for the gift itself,' she says. 'The personal touch throughout the process makes all the difference.'
Lifetime Employment
Retirement celebrations will become increasingly common as the baby boom generation nears its golden years. Holding appropriate send-offs for these milestones may become an important morale builder for employees rapidly approaching their own retirement.
For most workers, however, the era of one career-long employer is long gone. Mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, downsizings, rightsizings and waves of start-up companies have muddied what was once a clear employment landscape, creating a more mobile workforce that often expects to change jobs several times over a career.
For this reason, retirement parties are 'a bit of a dinosaur,' says Bob Nelson, president and founder of Nelson Motivation Inc., based in San Diego. 'Stable, predictable employment in stable, predictable industries just doesn't happen anymore,' says Nelson, author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees (Work- man, 2005).
At most employers, integrating new employees into a company and its culture while rewarding efforts that propel the business are the current focus, Nelson says. 'In terms of meaning and motivation, the here and now are much more important'thanking employees for what they've done and achieved and focusing less on how long they've been with the company,' he says.
Yet Nelson agrees that, at companies with retirement party traditions, those events still resonate with longtime employees who have yet to leave the workforce. 'Are you going to stop with the next one?' he asks. 'If done right, retirement parties add meaning and context to someone's career with the firm'and that's powerful stuff.'
Policies Rare
Many organizations take a personal approach to planning employee retirement parties, but rarely are celebration policies codified outside of government and university settings.
'Retirements aren't one of our big deals. But when it happens, it's handled on a local basis by the local management group,' says Dave Quint, SPHR, HR director at JRN Inc., a Columbia, Tenn.-based franchisee of 165 fast-food restaurants. The company employs 3,800 workers in 10 states. 'We're in the quick-serve restaurant business, and we usually don't have a lot of long-term people.' Ninety percent of JRN's franchises are for KFC Corp., which Quint notes also has no formalized guidelines.
But Quint recalls that one of his former employers, a family-owned lumber company in Indiana, made a big deal out of retirements, holding an annual dinner for all of its retirees and their spouses.
Robin Bond, SPHR, an attorney and president of Transition Strategies LLC in Wayne, Pa., once worked at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and still remembers the two-hour cookie-and-punch receptions held for retiring employees. Co-workers would stop by for five or 10 minutes to greet the retiree and enjoy refreshments before heading back to work.
'I personally looked forward to that, thinking that it would be me someday,' says Bond, whose company specializes in employment law. 'How expensive can cookies and punch be? [Retirement parties] create a sense of employees being valued and send a message to the rest of the organization that they're valued and cherished. It's a nice touch.'
In her practice, Bond has noticed that fewer of her clients offer even token retirement parties or recognize significant service anniversaries. One reason, she believes, is that companies are leaner than they used to be, with no one responsible for planning such events. However, events still occur, mainly on an ad hoc basis, with the retiree's peers chipping in for a gift, paying for a catered lunch or staging a potluck affair.
City College of San Francisco has both formal and ad hoc retirement events, including an annual chancellor's party for faculty, administrators and classified employees sponsored by the faculty association. Martha Lucey, dean of marketing and public information, calls the event 'semi-official.' Faculty and administrators with 20 or more years of service to the college receive a captain's chair or rocking chair with the college logo, and those with fewer years of service receive a crystal apple with an inscription.
Faculty and staff often are feted at department events, and some retirees who have made notable contributions are recognized at the board of trustees level, Lucey says. Recently retired art instructor and Art Department Chair Roger L. Baird, for example, had a revolving exhibit gallery renamed in his honor by the trustees.
Jacquelyn Green, a Spanish instructor and chair of the Foreign Language Department who retired in 2003 after 37 years at the college, has her chair 'in a prominent place in my living room. It's very comfortable,' she adds. The Foreign Language Department also treated her to a 'huge and spectacular affair' in the greenroom of a local theater. Attendees included Chancellor Philip R. Day Jr. and several trustees, Green recalls.
The consolidated luncheon or reception for retirees, traditionally held in May, hasn't always enjoyed administration sanction, and Green credits Day for his support and assistance. 'The event has very good feelings around it and is presented in a very upbeat way,' she says. 'It's clear that [current employees in attendance] are just as much in love with the college as the people who are retiring.'
And that's why retirement parties remain deeply imbedded in the fabric of many companies. Even impromptu affairs can elicit feelings of warmth and camaraderie among employees, says Brian J. Sands, recognition consultant for MTM Recognition of Annapolis, Md., which designs employee award and incentive programs.
Many companies create personalized collages that represent the worker's tenure at the company intermingled with significant events in the company's history. Sands recalls the retirement of a hospital cafeteria cook after nearly 50 years on the job. Four former CEOs who had run the hospital during her career wrote her notes, and she 'felt like a superstar' at her luncheon, Sands says.
'The key is to treat everyone equally on the basis of tenure, not performance or title. That's our philosophy,' Sands says, 'but most companies don't think that way.'
Equity a Concern
Establishing a policy that ensures equitable observances of retirements is smart not only from an employee relations standpoint but from a legal standpoint as well. Companies that don't treat employees equitably can be subject to discrimination claims, says Heather Gatley, executive vice president of HR services and general counsel at AlphaStaff Group Inc., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based HR outsourcing company that provides training, benefits, compliance and HR counsel to hundreds of companies with more than 20,000 employees nationwide.
She recommends that larger companies have written rules to be consistent in treatment of employees. Smaller companies probably don't need to be so diligent, but the HR director should monitor what occurs on an ad hoc basis.
'Written policies are always a good idea,' adds Sarah A. Kelly, an attorney in the Labor and Employment Law Group at the Cozen O'Connor law practice in Philadelphia. 'Smaller employers might think it's overkill, but it depends on the size and complexity of the company.'
In general, it is OK to have a retirement party for someone leaving the company voluntarily, as long as everyone in similar circumstances is eligible for a party. If the event is company-sponsored, the company should take the same care it does with holiday parties and other events, being cognizant of the potential liability around serving alcohol and the consequences of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior, Kelly says.
'Managers should realize that behavior has the same consequences at an off-site event as it does in the office,' Kelly says. However, the attorney adds that potential liability should not be an overriding reason to bar retirement parties.
Even considering the hassle that planning a retirement party can represent, the benefits to morale far outweigh the time and company resources expended on the effort, says Troy. At Globe Manufacturing, the HR department handles each event, including the purchase of personalized gifts.
For retirees, a send-off party can put a punctuation mark on a fulfilling career.
Globe 'has so many longtime workers because they like it there,' says Riel, 73. 'I could have retired at 62 or 65, but I chose not to. I enjoyed working there.'
Riel's words are like music to Troy's ears, affirmation that the HR department's hard work is paying real dividends in longevity and employee loyalty.
'Planning retirement parties seems so simple, so straightforward, and, in reality, it is,' says Troy. 'It's not rocket science.'
Matt Bolch is an Atlanta-based freelance writer who has been a business journalist for two decades.
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"Its been there about seven or eight years. We have no idea what it is; we just thought it might be a water tank or something. People have said is an oil tank, or some kind of antenna. But why should we even bother to try to figure it out. Isn't it easier if we just consider it as a big ball? I like it because it makes the scene of our village very familiar from a distance."
A titan standing 30 meters tall, the "ball" is about eight years old. For the residents living near the field of Daechu-ri, located in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, their lives have revolved around a mysterious ball mounted in the sky, all the while never knowing exactly what it is.
You can see it easily within a radius of 15 kilometers. Standing 30 meters high, it might not be a big deal compared to skyscrapers in the big cities, but in the open field without a high mountain in the backdrop, the ball is quite noticeable.
As you see it in distance, you may think it is just a kind of water tank. However, it has the form of a perfect sphere. An oil tank, especially a liquefied gas tank, can be in the shape of a sphere because it can endure high pressure. But such oil or gas tanks should be set up near the ground or beneath it to closely monitor the possibility of an explosion.
Gleaming white, the ball shines against the dark green of spring and summer. Getting closer to it only makes one more curious.
I tried to find this ball through map-search engine Google Earth. The high-resolution satellite program that can even focus on automobiles is not only fascinating, but scary. I could easily find Daechu-ri and Dodu-ri, the extensive fields near the ball. But the ball's exact location was forbidden because it is located in an area used by the U.S. military. I already knew that the ball was the property of the Camp Humphreys. Google Earth shows a clear view of the village, field, and estimated coordinates of the white ball, among the hazy outline of Camp Humphrey. It was 17 digital numbers.
I visited Daechu-ri frequently over the last three years. It is impossible to miss the white ball in the vast field.
Like the residents, I was also curious about this fixture of the landscape, but I did not ask about it. As the ball is located in a military area, it must be a military installation. Perhaps it is a tank that can hold water or petroleum.
I have been curious about the structure ever since I learned that almost nobody in the area knew its exact usage. Residents did not know about the ball, nor did activists who are pushing for the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Korea. Seeing the ball again and again, it became more and more familiar to me.
I have asked for help from the public information office of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, and uploaded many pictures on the Internet portal site to find out more. There was no answer from the office, but someone sent me a memo through the Web site.
"This is not a ball... Weren't there any Air Force airfields nearby the photographing spot? If there are, it should be some kind of radar." Actually, I already guessed it might be radar. I wanted to know its exact name, material, and usage, so I asked again.
"I'm sorry but such military information about material or capability is not open to the public; moreover that type of U.S. military equipment is forbidden. I just know that this sphere-shaped radar is much better than rectangle-shaped radar in terms of capability of detection, and almost every large-scale U.S. Armed Forces base is using this kind of radar. You should find somebody who served in the KATUSA radar troop in the U.S. Air Force if you want to know more."
If I can find the right experts, maybe I could know the white ball's name. I met a military expert who served in the air force, and photographer Lee Si-woo, who made a documentary about the division of the Korean Peninsula.
When we think about a "radar," we usually imagine a spinning plate-shaped antenna. The "radome" (radar + dome) protects this type of radar with a sphere of special insulating material. As with a gas storage tank, the sphere-shaped cover can effectively endure not only inside pressure, but also outside pressure. The material of the cover does not deteriorate the radar's capability, but it protects the radar from rain, snow, and wind. The capability of radar is measured by its range and accuracy; these are directly connected with the size of the radar. Therefore, a longer diameter makes a better radar.
The radome is not only used as a ground radar, but also for aircraft and vessels. The radome is essential for fighting planes because modern wars are now determined by information technology. A radome is usually fitted onto the cockpit of normal fighter planes. An AH-64D Apache Longbow fits its radome on the main wing.
An early warning system called E-3, or AWACS, performs airborne surveillance, command, and control (C2) functions at an altitude of 10,000 meters, and the core equipment of E-3 is the 9.14-meter diameter radome on the machine. The E-3's detection distance is 400 kilometers, and it can analyze 600 targets in the area and trace 200 of them. For reference, the distance from Seoul to Pyongyang is only 230 kilometers.
I showed to many people the picture of the white ball on a postcard, one with the white ball seen through the weeds. People usually recognized it as a water tank, but some people actually thought it was a giant golf ball. An art gallery representative said to me, "So you are doing a project about golf?" Hearing that, this photo looks just like a golf ball on a tee.
"Right now, somebody is watching your every movement." This may sound like something from a science-fiction movies, but instead, it's real.
In the greatest surveillance effort ever made, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) created a global spy system -- codename ECHELON -- which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world. ECHELON is controlled by the NSA and operated in conjunction with the Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) of England, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada, the Australian Defense Security Directorate (DSD), and the General Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) of New Zealand. These organizations are bound together under a secret 1948 agreement, UKUSA, whose terms and text remain under wraps even today.
The ECHELON system is fairly simple in design: It positions intercept stations all over the world to capture all satellite, microwave, cellular, and fiber-optic communications traffic, and then processes this information through the massive computer capabilities of the NSA, including advanced voice recognition and optical character recognition (OCR) programs.
It looks for code words or phrases -- known as the ECHELON "dictionary" -- that will prompt the computers to flag the message for recording and transcribing for future analysis. Intelligence analysts at each of the respective "listening stations" maintain separate keyword lists for them to analyze any conversation or document flagged by the system, which is then forwarded to the respective intelligence agency headquarters that requested the intercept. Besides the main five countries, there are other countries that help the U.S. spy system, and Korea is one of them.
In May 2001, the European Union reported that ECHELON is "the electronic, international spy system of the U.S. with confidential attitude." The report recommends not using phone, fax, and Internet while sending secret information. Many media compare the identity of ECHELON to "Big Brother," the omnipresent overseer of George Orwell's novel "1984." There are U.S. radome bases in England and Australia, observing messages from all over the world.
Peace activists of England and Australia have been gathering with pickets signs, trying to hit the radars with golf balls and insisting the militaries dismantle the bases.
I am not sure that whether the golf ball of Hwangsaewool field is used for the same purpose. A military expert said, "If it was that important of a military facility, it would not be installed on the open field so that people can see or approach it easily."
He suggested the radome is for weather forecasting. However, radomes for weather forecasting are usually smaller than Hwangsaewool's radome. Also, considering that scout planes frequently take off and land at Camp Humphrey and Osan Air Force near the radome, and these scout planes observe activities as far away as Okinawa and North Korea, it is not very difficult to imagine the radome's true function.
The military expert emphasized that, "The most important U.S. base on the Korean peninsula should be Pyeongtaek, because it is the core base of communication security." Therefore, the golf ball of Hwangsaewool is not that simple.
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Kingston - Like many other men, Larry Godinez loves his Husqvarna and is quick to show off its unique features.
The 62-year-old retired Spanish teacher is the new president of the Wiltwyck Quilters Guild. He's been piecing together quilts in his basement for the last five years. His hobby outgrew the laundry and dining rooms. His wife, Tina, barred him from taking over the living room with pins and snippets of cloth, so he shifted operations to a pingpong table in his basement. Friends recently built him a custom sewing table large enough to easily work on his king-sized creations.
Godinez studied art years ago as a student at St. Lawrence University, but his professor/father convinced him in his junior year to go to Spain and return to the States as a high school Spanish teacher.
For 32 years he taught at Kingston High School, and every year brought groups of students to Spain to hone their language skills.
"I never could have quilted when I was still teaching. I gave everything to my students," he said.
When he retired, two friends invited Tina to learn to quilt. Though she preferred to stick to her knitting, Larry was an enthusiastic student. The sense of color and design he'd poured into his landscape paintings now filled his quilts with soft transitions and sensitive arrangements.
Like many other members of the guild, once he'd done a "Medley Opus" quilt showing his mastery of all the basic techniques, he was ready to move away from the classic patterns into creative designs of his own.
HIS DREAMS HELP HIM come up with designs or solve technique problems.
"I wanted to get more creative. One night I was dreaming of an underwater scene and when I woke up I knew I wanted to include that somehow in my design," Godinez said.
The result was a fish tank quilt with multiple transparent layers sandwiched with tinsel, embroidered fish and photographs screened onto fabric.
He has created several memory quilts and teddy bears for widows and their children, made of the clothes of their deceased loved ones. A particular favorite is a tie quilt he finished two weeks ago.
"A friend asked if I knew anyone who made quilts and I said I did," Godinez said. "She said she had a friend who wanted someone to make a quilt out of her father's neckties. It turned out to be a woman I'd worked with at the high school for years. We met, and she brought over a bag of 200 ties."
He laid out all the ties and spent months reinforcing the delicate silks with interface backing.
"The ties belonged to Bill Rose, who was a radio personality and was very active at Ulster Performing Arts Center," Godinez said.
Initially he'd wanted to put a photo of Bill in the middle, but his daughter, Cynthia Rose, didn't feel that would be the right image for the center medallion.
"Everything happens for a reason," Godinez said. "I came up with the idea to embroider a rose in the middle and along the bottom put some pictures of Bill and the phrase 'Old Bill,' because that's the name he was known by at UPAC."
The quilt took a full year to make and was mounted in the living room for weeks while guild members, neighbors and those who'd heard that the project was done all paid a call to see the quilt.
"When I finally gave it to Cynthia, she cried for an hour. She was so happy with how it came out," Godinez said.
IT HAS BEEN ENTERED in this year's Nashville Quilt Show competition and will be in the Wiltwyck Quilters Guild's annual show Oct. 14-15 at SUNY Ulster.
"I think there are a lot of men out there who are closet quilters," he said. "We have 155 members and only four of those are men, but at every meeting I'll hear women talk about how their husbands helped them with their quilts, but you could never get them to a meeting because it's their wives' hobby. It might be good to start a men's auxiliary, so men can learn what it is that their wives have been doing. Men are creative. This is a craft where they can show it."
For more information about the Wiltwyck Quilters Guild, go to www.wiltwyckquiltersguild.org.
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As he saunters into Fabrique nightclub, a sprinkling of deferential admirers greets him; his signature is needed on a document; and the atmosphere in the club ratchets up a notch.
The champagne soon begins to flow and later in the night, Ballen takes the microphone and begins his act, daring clubbers to shake off their inhibitions.
Born in New York to Jamaican parents, he has become a well-known fixture in Shanghai nightlife.
Five years after dropping out of law school and escaping to China with about US$1,000 in travelers' cheques, he has used his silky-smooth bass voice to build a modest media/events promotion company with two dozen full and part-time employees.
He has also made a name for himself as the host of Getaway, a nationally aired travel television show with an audience of about 12 million, he hosts and co-produces a national radio show called I Music; hosts a local radio show called Live It Up Shanghai; co-produces/writes for CCTV International's popular show Culture Express; is a columnist for at least three magazines and he is the voice heard worldwide by users of Motorola phones.
"I am the voice in the A series phones and dictionaries worldwide. Their top tier phones speak, pronounce words, give voice commands and responses, and read message alerts. All my voice. Every phone in the English Language. Took one year to complete," said Ballen.
In addition to his own company, BallenWestcom Entertainment, the thirty-something-year-old also operates Bitc Entertainment Group with a handful of Hong Kong partners.
Now he wants to explore the Jamaica of his childhood, the one he remembers from his summer holidays in Portland.
And he wants to share that with the viewers of his TV series - a show that has the potential to reach millions of viewers via CCTV's global reach.
"Getaway is the most widely-aired travel adventure series in all of China. We're going to do three to four episodes (in Jamaica)," Ballen explained. "My Plan is to be in Jamaica before the end of July."
A rough outline of his seven to nine day itinerary includes visits to Cooyah clothing line and Jampro, and finding his way back to the places he remembers from idyllic summer holidays in the island. These include Mavis Bank, where he spent many days on family friend Clinton McGann's coffee farm.
"We're going to take them back to my roots," he said. "Hopefully we can go back to Portland and Black Rock (where his mother is from) and see my family from all over there. Obviously we'll go MoBay, go Negril, Rio Grande."
The idea, he said, is to introduce his fans to the Jamaica he knows and loves.
"I relish my Jamaican heritage and try and put that out there for people to see and appreciate," said Ballen whose parents ensured that he became a Jamaican citizen at age three.
"Part of it is selfish," he admitted. "I want to distinguish myself from the black Americans that they may see on TV."
He also wants to spread the word that hip-hop has its genesis in reggae.
"I want to let everyone know that when I play, or when I have my deejays at my events playing Biggie Smalls or Busta Rhymes or Pete Rock or real old-school like DJ Kool, Heavy D - all of these artistes that they hear - they need to know that they're hearing my roots," he said passionately. "They need to know they're hearing Jamaica and that hip-hop's earliest progenitors are the sound system parties that became the block parties that generated the notion of deejays or selectors. We are the root."
This passion spills over into a desire to get big name Jamaican artistes performing at his events. Ballen dreams of the day when he can lure the likes of Sean Paul, Beenie Man, and Damian Marley to his shows in China.
"This is the biggest market in the world and it's already appreciating our music and our culture, but in many ways the concept of us and who we are and the country is nebulous," he said. "And so they hear Sean Paul's newest track and they're moving."
But they think Sean Paul is African.
"... The good thing is they already like the music. So the battle is 90 per cent won," he said. "Now the challenge is to show them where this comes from."
That, he said, is part of his reason for taking Getaway to Jamaica.
"Hopefully I'll be able to weave that into a yarn that says, 'This culture that you may have already felt or touched upon in the abstract, well this is the place itself. It's a real place that you can go to and see, and experience the humour and the pride and the poetry of our people'."
He added with a laugh: "There's a reason that an island of two million has had the impact it's had on a global level; and it's not because we're not good - to try to put a modest spin on it."
Ballen's trip to Jamaica hasn't simply been spawned by his desire to share the island with the world, as his father Dr Patrick Ballen readily points out.
"Part of it is expanding his business and part of it is that he's trying to reconnect with his roots," said Ballen senior, from his son's comfortable 21st floor apartment during a recent visit to Shanghai with Andrew's stepmother, Naomi Viray Ballen.
"I think both of those things are probably worthwhile doing."
This approval has been years in coming.
Back in 2001, after Andrew threw in the towel and left law school, his father wasn't so sure that he was on the right track.
"In our family, we believe in finishing what we start," said Dr Ballen, who is a surgeon in North Carolina.
These days, Andrew's success has been enough to appease his father who can admit, with a chuckle, that his son has "made the very best of the wrong choice".
"I'm certainly very proud of him, very proud of his accomplishments. He's found a niche that he's very good at," Dr Ballen said.
Andrew frankly admits that China was his escape hatch, a way to get away from his family's disapproval after he failed to live up to the 'immigrant's dream' of becoming either a doctor or lawyer.
"As you know, Jamaican immigrants don't look kindly on that kind of thing," he said.
"My father, my godfathers are either colonels in the air force or physicians. My uncle Wayne was actually out in Shanghai as the president of GE Plastics, the youngest president of a GE division. And so for me to drop out of law school was heresy; it was the worse thing I could possibly have done. My father, originally from Kingston, is an Ivy League-educated surgeon. So my coming to China was really escapism, more than anything."
In the early days of his 'fall from grace' - when his family was shocked that he had chucked in a promising law career to become a struggling English teacher in China - Ballen was busy discovering his entrepreneurial skills.
His successes, over the years, have been as a result of gutsy moves, skill and the luck of being in the right place at the right time.
A year after he moved to China, one of his students, impressed with his diction and pronunciation, helped him land his own radio show. Later, she suggested he try out for the Motorola job. With the money he earned from that contract Ballen, who by then had had modest success hosting the Shanghai nightclub scene's first ever hip-hop party, launched his own events company. By 2003, he added Getaway to his already impressive resume.
But it wasn't easy.
The initial deal was that he should do two trial episodes, without being paid a salary. But Ballen had other plans.
"I said give me the show for a year, don't pay me a dime but give me 33 per cent of any advertising revenue that I can bring in," he recalled.
"Now, at that point, no English programme had generated anything vis-'-vis hard advertising, or soft for that matter - hard being actual commercials and soft being product placement, et cetera, inside the show."
With the deal inked, he set out to aggressively market Getaway, aiming for clients that he knew wanted to attract a white-collar bilingual audience. He hasn't looked back since.
Career-wise, China was the quintessential dream for Ballen - a place where he could pull himself up by his bootstraps and take advantage of what was then a wide open media landscape.
"I wanted to come to a place where (you make it by) your own pluck, your own work ethic. There's no affirmative action out here; it's just we do what we do. I think that for the average Jamaican/American that sensibility appealed to me," he said.
He works hard, said his wife and former student, Rachel. Her husband's typical day, she said, is packed with editing and recording sessions at the TV station; early morning phone calls to the US to ink deals with hip-hop artistes; afternoon meetings with his business partners; a stint in the gym in the evening; a stop at a club for a show later at night; then all this is topped off with writing his columns.
For Ballen, he has found his niche and he's reveling in it. When he first came to China, he didn't know a word of Chinese.
Now, when needed, he conducts interviews in Chinese on his English-language TV show.
"I literally came out here saying I need to regroup, and make a determination about what it is that I had in store for the world and the world has in store for me," he said.
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Lush gardens abound at Virginia Tech
Visit the old-fashioned garden, the new garden or the garden promoting world peace.
The new special events and education center at the Peggy Lee Hahn Horticulture Garden will have its grand opening Saturday at the annual Garden Gala.
"If you have a garden and a library," the ancient Roman statesman observed, "you have everything you need."
There's a library, of course. But there are also three splendid gardens within walking distance of one another.
The relatively new horticultural garden bears the name of a former first lady at Tech, and its education center hosted its first wedding on Saturday.
The Colonial "kitchen garden" at Historic Smithfield Plantation and the university's horticulture garden on Washington Street have graced the campus since 1984.
The Virginia Tech International Peace Garden features plants from countries that have gone through turmoil and some planted in memory of international students at Tech.
The Peace Garden at the Cranwell International Center sprouted a decade later, thanks to Bob Youngs.
Youngs, now the outgoing president of the Rotary Club of Montgomery County, was in charge of the club's international service committee back in 1994 when the idea of creating a garden devoted to peace occurred to him.
The plants chosen for this garden have stories to tell. Sit quietly there and you can almost hear the cedar of Lebanon, the Bosnian pine and the Korean dogwood.
"We tried to get trees, shrubs and flowers that originated in parts of the world that were in turmoil and overcame the turmoil through peace efforts," Youngs explained.
Many of the plants also represent memorials devoted to the international community.
There are roses planted in memory of the young daughter of a local Mexican family and a spruce tree honoring the memory of a Chinese graduate student who was killed after leaving Virginia Tech.
"There are several other memorials," Youngs added, pointing out that the garden site next to the Cranwell Center was once a mobile home court.
"During World War II, there were about 75 trailers there. That was necessary because a large number of veterans came to the university with the financial support of the GI bill and there was no housing for married students at the time."
Now, lush ferns and hostas grow in the shade of oak and cherry trees. Chinese holly and Japanese maples are familiar sights to visitors, many of whom come from the lands where the plants originated.
A bench next to the garden overlooks a vast spread of Hokie stone and the mountains shadowing the horizon. It's a good spot to contemplate peace.
"We find many people sitting there looking out over the campus," Youngs said.
Donna Ludwig of Blacksburg works among coreopsis blooms; she's one of the garden's regular volunteers.
At Historic Smithfield Plantation, on the edge of campus near the duck pond, the garden tells the story of the Prestons.
Col. William Preston moved his family here in 1774. He became a Revolutionary War patriot and died in 1783 while attending a regimental muster. His wife, Susanna Smith Preston, lived 40 more years after her husband and was responsible for managing the plantation.
Now, the buildings and garden are managed by Smithfield's museum staff and dedicated volunteers.
Garden coordinator Lori Tolliver-Jones said the kitchen garden represents the kinds of things the Prestons would have grown in their day. Early colonists brought seeds, roots and cuttings to the New World to plant in dooryard gardens.
"Usually," Tolliver-Jones noted, "there was more than one purpose for a plant. Even the things that look pretty were likely used for another purpose."
Baptisia -- one of her favorites -- is such a plant. Its pretty blue flowers make an attractive ornamental display, but the plant, also known as blue false indigo, was used for dyeing clothes.
Yarrow (used as an astringent, a tonic and a dye) and spider wort (thought to cure the bite of a particular spider) adorn the Smithfield garden, as do hollyhocks, lady's mantle and foxglove, a plant used for skin ulcers and as a heart stimulant that was also thought to combat the power of witches.
Tolliver-Jones said the plants at Smithfield represented three uses: culinary, medicinal and textile.
Those who volunteer their time tending the garden learn history and botany simultaneously.
Summer Driscoll plants a parsnips seed in the Smithfield Plantation garden.
Summer Driscoll, 13, loves working in the garden, although she doesn't always know what will come of her work.
As she gently tilled black soil and prepared to plant parsnip seeds wrapped in a wet paper towel, she admitted she had never eaten a parsnip.
"I probably will now," she said. "I enjoy seeing the plants grow that I've planted."
Tolliver-Jones keeps a photo diary of the Smithfield garden, starting with April's empty bare earth and following the growing season in pictures -- the daffodils of May, cabbage leaves of June, day lilies in July, tall corn stalks and plump fox grapes in August.
For her, it's the enduring quality of a garden that offers perspective.
In her T-shirt and dungarees, she still has a connection to the women who gardened in hoop skirts and bonnets long ago.
"Working in the garden is my favorite part of being here," she said. "It's just so pleasant to be in the garden."
Virginia Tech's horticultural garden has a new name -- and a lot more space.
Officially named the Peggy Lee Hahn Horticulture Garden in 2004 -- after the wife of former Tech president T. Marshall Hahn -- the garden grew from 2.5 acres to more than 5.5 acres after the Hahns donated money for garden expansion and the addition of a new special events and education center.
The center, which crews scrambled to finish last week, hosted its first wedding Saturday.
Holly Scoggins, an associate professor and garden director, said the horticulture garden has long been a popular site for weddings.
Whereas happy couples once had to change in the greenhouse bathrooms, however, the new center offers special changing rooms as well as a reception facility.
But it's not a special occasion that usually brings visitors to the garden.
Coreopsis blooms in the Smithfield Plantation garden with the plantation smokehouse in background.
"Oh, my goodness, all the time people come," Scoggins said. "People come to eat their lunch. Every bench is full."
With literally thousands of carefully labeled plant species, as well as gazebos, fountains and pools, the garden is an oasis amid buildings, stadiums and parking lots.
"Green. It's a nice thing to have," said Scott Rapier, the greenhouse manager.
The garden has trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that provide a color spectrum ranging from peach to pink, violet to scarlet.
And Scoggins said development of the garden is still a work in progress.
"The whole garden, when it's complete, will have a meadow garden. The object is to bring a little bit of mountain landscape here."
Because the garden does not have a budget allocated by the university, Scoggins and her staff raise funds for operation and expansion. That -- along with her responsibilities for directing employees and volunteers who maintain and run the garden -- keeps her plenty busy.
"My own garden looks like crap," she admitted, surveying the beauty around her. "I have had no time this year."
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The University's plans for a 21st century extension of its campus in Allston took more definite shape this year with the selection of a site and architect for a half-million-square-foot science complex, as well as the announcement of plans for new arts and culture facilities.
These first steps, taken after three years of extensive planning and consultation within the University, with the city of Boston, and with the surrounding communities, are the beginning of a multi-decade process to imagine and build in Allston the educational, research, and residential facilities necessary for Harvard to advance knowledge and maintain academic leadership into the next century.
"It's very encouraging to see that plans for Harvard's properties in Allston, while still in the early stages, have become much more tangible in recent months. Sites have been identified for a new science complex as well as interim arts and culture spaces, and we anticipate additional forward movement in the months ahead," said Jamie Houghton, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation. "Our ultimate goal in Allston is to strengthen Harvard's long-term capacity to generate exciting new knowledge and ideas and to educate the very best students of each generation. The progress we have made this year brings us appreciably closer to that goal, and I'm grateful to all those who have played a part."
In addition to announcing its first projects this year, Harvard established a public display to share preliminary ideas for Harvard's future in Allston; held forums to solicit feedback and discuss concerns of faculty, students, staff, alumni, and Allston residents; and created the Allston Development Group to oversee planning for, and ultimately the building of this new dimension of Harvard's campus.
Christopher M. Gordon, chief operating officer of the Allston Development Group and former director of the $4.4 billion Logan Modernization Project for the Massachusetts Port Authority, describes the accomplishments of 2005-06 as having established a foundation for Harvard's future in Allston.
"When I arrived at Harvard, I discovered a solid foundation of planning for the Allston Initiative," said Gordon. "President Summers' vision and leadership and the thoughtful input we've received from the Harvard and Allston communities have made it possible for the University to begin to realize ideas that have evolved over nearly a decade."
Over the coming year, the University will refine its thinking about the programmatic elements of the extended campus with a goal of developing a comprehensive, yet flexible, 50-year master plan for Allston. According to Gordon, Harvard's planning team expects to complete the plan - a framework with future building locations, street and block patterns, new open spaces, better riverfront access, and transportation improvements - in the next year with additional input from all corners of the University community and beyond.
Said incoming interim President Derek Bok, "The year ahead promises to be one of progress as the University's planners, in consultation with the Harvard community and our neighbors, continue their efforts to help shape and strengthen Harvard for decades to come."
A year of planning publicly
Recognizing the importance of broad consultation, leaders of the Allston planning process have made a point of soliciting input from a wide range of groups. To that end, the University opened the "Harvard in Allston" exhibit room in the Holyoke Center arcade in October 2005. The Allston Room, as the exhibit has become known, displays preliminary ideas and possibilities for Harvard in Allston identified by Harvard's planning consultants, the Cooper, Roberston, Gehry, Olin collaboration - ideas being considered as part of Harvard's 50-year Allston master plan. The exhibit has drawn more than 2,000 visitors, including members of the Harvard community and residents of the city of Boston and surrounding neighborhoods.
Harvard's planning team also solicited the ideas and opinions of Allston residents and Harvard faculty, staff, students, and alumni through a variety of other forums.
The President's Advisory Committee on the Allston Initiative, a group of Harvard alumni and friends led by Robert M. Bass and Penny S. Pritzker (A.B. '81) - many of whom are experts in urban planning, design, and development - met regularly this year to advise the president and the Allston Development Group on planning.
At a workshop run by Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public places, 50 Allston residents discussed ways the surrounding community could benefit from a future campus and proposed ideas like outdoor meeting places, parks, play areas, fountains, cafes, restaurants, and possibly a farmers' market. Harvard and the Allston community task force appointed by the mayor in December 2005 are also meeting regularly to discuss these and other ideas.
"The feedback we have received and will continue to solicit is a critical part of the iterative process of planning," said Kathy Spiegelman, chief planner for the Allston Initiative. "These comments are helping us sharpen ideas, identify key issues, and, ultimately, will help us realize a successful long-term vision for Harvard in Allston that will serve generations."
Science, culture emerge as first projects
As thinking about Harvard's future in Allston progressed, science and the need for facilities to accommodate new ways of approaching scientific research and exploration emerged as a University priority.
"When considering the history of our scientific enterprise - of any scientific enterprise - what quickly becomes clear is the difficulty of predicting, and preparing for, future needs," said Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman. "There is simply no more room left in Cambridge for the long-term growth of interdisciplinary science," he said, "so if we are to grow, and we must, and remain nimble, it will have to be in Allston."
Hyman pointed out that fields of science change over time, and noted that facilities have to be flexible. "We need to design facilities that can accommodate changing needs, that can be used for one form of investigation for a period of years, and then can be adapted for another use," he said.
Last winter, at the request of Harvard's science deans, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers appointed a broadly based Science Planning Committee, including representatives of science departments and Schools across the University, to build on the long-range Allston science planning done by Harvard faculty to date.
"The important thing is that this is an effort to ensure that Harvard will be the best place in the world to do science," said Andrew Murray, Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Genetics, director of the Bauer Center for Genomics Research, and one of the co-chairs of the committee. "And it's an effort to do that by broadly representing the faculty in eliciting good ideas about areas to grow science and engineering over the next 10 to 20 to 30 years. Larry Summers said he wanted us to have an impact so that his successor's successor would be grateful to us."
"Science is going to be distributed across the North Yard in Cambridge, Allston, and Longwood; the idea is to get as much input from people and weld it into a coherent plan," Murray continued.
Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, and Science Planning Committee member, said, "When changes occur in science, they do so more rapidly than in other disciplines. The University needs to plan for the scientific future in a way that allows it to be as nimble as possible. Any plan for the future of Allston science must be integrated with planning for science on what will be the University's three centers of science."
The need to foster that integration - and the pressing need for a home for the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, where scientists can work side by side sharing findings and approaches that may apply to different organ systems - led to the University's first Allston projects, announced in February. At that time, Harvard selected the architectural firm Behnisch Architekten of Stuttgart, Germany, to design a state-of-the-art science complex in Allston, south of Western Avenue near the Harvard Business School.
The announcement was embraced by the mayor of Boston. "The construction of this 21st century campus in Boston will have a positive transforming effect upon the Allston neighborhood and the city, strengthening the position of Boston as the life sciences capital of the world and increasing the capacity of our economic engine," said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.
Arts and culture to enliven Harvard in Allston
At the time of the science announcement, Harvard also unveiled plans for interim arts and cultural spaces to be created in Allston, including a new visual arts center on Soldiers Field Road. Menino noted that the coming arts and culture facilities would "not only enrich and inspire students and faculty, but also neighborhood residents as well."
In May 2006, the Harvard University Art Museums announced the selection of Daly Genik Architects of Los Angeles to design the visual arts center. The center, which would enable the renovation of the Art Museums' facilities in Cambridge and serve Harvard students and the public, marked just the beginning of the University's arts and culture presence in Allston.
Charting the course for arts and culture in Allston was the mission of a committee of arts and culture faculty, museum directors, and arts leaders convened in the fall. The committee met throughout the year to consider Harvard's needs as well as what would be required to make Allston a culturally vital campus for students, faculty, and neighbors. In the coming year, the group will engage additional faculty members and other constituencies in discussions to further refine Allston arts and culture plans.
"The Arts and Culture Steering Committee has been a marvelous forum for imagining communities, both for Harvard and for Allston and the greater Boston area. While most of us have thought of our respective pursuits in terms of the academic and extracurricular needs of our own students and faculty, it is inspiring to think of ways in which Harvard can share what it knows and does about culture and the arts of the world with the larger community," said William Fash, Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology, Howells Director of the Peabody Museum, and a member of the arts and culture task force.
"We have had fun and quite a few challenges envisioning the ways in which culture and the arts at Harvard can 'act locally' while thinking and working globally," Fash added.
While science and arts and culture planning advanced this year, Harvard's School of Public Health and the Harvard Graduate School of Education continued their own academic planning and assessment of the opportunities and challenges offered by a prospective relocation to Allston.
One school already in Allston welcomes the presence of new academic neighbors. "Harvard's expanded presence in Allston is an extraordinary opportunity for the University in general and for the Business School in particular," said Jay O. Light, dean of Harvard Business School (HBS). "One of my goals as the new dean of HBS, after more than 30 years on its faculty, is to increase the amount of collaboration between the Business School and the other professional schools. Thanks to the leadership of President Summers, Allston will become a center for world-class research and development in biotechnology, as well as the home of various Harvard professional schools. These are exciting developments in the history of the University, and I am eager to do all I can to make them a great success."
A successful crossroads for campus and community in Allston
Gordon said the issue that came to the surface most clearly during the year's consultation was the look and feel of a future campus. "Harvard faces the challenge of respecting and building on its traditions, while remaining open to design innovation in the new century," said Gordon. "We know Allston is not going to be a replica of Harvard Yard in Cambridge, however, it has to be equally iconic - a successful common ground for Harvard in the 21st century - and we are working to understand what that means."
In selecting Behnisch Architekten, a design firm known for its leadership in environmentally sustainable design, for Harvard's science complex in Allston, the University made a conscious decision to emphasize principles of sustainability at the outset of planning for the new campus, beginning with its first project. Stefan Behnisch, as the project's lead, signals increased expertise in the area of sustainable development and green building design.
Ultimately, what happens in Allston will be exceptional and open to all, says Laurie Olin, principal of Olin Partnership and professor of landscape architecture and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania. "One thing about great universities is they have a tradition of providing high-quality public space that is desirable to the university community, the neighborhood, and society at large," said Olin. "Harvard understands the importance of creating a campus with a generous public realm that is handsome, well built, environmentally sustainable, and attractive and will give the community an identity."
"We can create a place that is open, free, and usable by all people - families and children, and faculty, staff, and students - and contributes to the quality of life of the Allston community and Boston region," Olin added.
Progress to come
In the coming year, The Allston Development Group will assist Harvard's project planning committees to complete designs for the science complex and the visual arts center, and will begin building both projects. Meanwhile the consultation process will continue through the use of the Allston Room and other forums. Harvard's planning team expects the preliminary vision for the first full phase of development for Harvard in Allston to become more refined within the next year.
That vision includes the further enhancement of Harvard science and research; the strengthening of the University's professional schools through the increased collaboration and intellectual integration resulting from the relocation of the School of Public Health and Harvard Graduate School of Education; the identification of arts and cultural activities that would enliven a campus; housing for undergraduates along the Charles River; housing for graduate students and community residents; and ways to seamlessly integrate Harvard in Allston, Harvard in Cambridge, the Longwood Medical area, and beyond.
"The next steps of the master planning process have to be carefully considered," said Gordon. "The University has done a lot of thinking about what makes sense, what might fit. We need to refine these ideas and think about how to make the master plan really come alive - what will the new Harvard look like? How can we make it a wonderful, livable place? Where will things be? When will they be built? - these are all key questions to explore further in conversations with people in the coming year."
Landscape Photo
Winston Salem artist, Marianne DiNapoli-Mylet, worked with students at the Middle School on the concept and design for the mural last fall. The students, under the direction of Spanish teacher Margo Mullinax, have created a design that reflects the beautiful landscape, Christmas trees, music, an outdoor picnic, the river, and many faces and hands that live and work here.
The mural was painted on fabric panels, a new, cutting edge technology for mural installations. The students painted directly on the fabric. The panels will be adhered to the wall with a special adhesive followed by a protective coating
Installation of the mural was set for last fall, but after several attempts at putting the mural on the wall, DiNapoli-Mylet realized that the wall itself was just too cold, according to Executive Director Jane Lonon of the Ashe County Arts Council. Although the temperature was okay and the air was warm enough, the wall was too cold for the adhesive gel to hold.
Now the mural installation has been complete. 'The newest mural in the downtown arts district is a bright, vibrant tribute to the diversity of Ashe County. The project was a collaborative effort with the Middle School and was funded and sponsored by the Arts Council. The subject matter and the title 'Unity in Diversity' speak volumes about the changing face of our county,' Lonon explained.
'Eighth grade Spanish class students developed the design for the mural and they completed the art work under the direction of artist, Marianne DiNapoli-Mylet. The mural was created on fabric panels and was then transferred and adhered to the wall. The artist tied everything together. It's a stunning example of new methodology in the creation of murals and is an outstanding example of a collaborative project within our community.'
Spanish Teacher Margo Mullinax of Ashe County Middle School said last fall the mural project was very exciting for her and her students. Last year, she said she went to the Arts Council with a project proposal. 'That dream became a reality. As a Spanish teacher, I struggle daily to find ways to interest my students in Spanish and fight preconceived prejudices about Hispanic culture. As a class, we work all semester talking about ideas of diversity, tolerance, and peace. I thought the creation of a mural would be the perfect way to share with the community what we had been working on in class,' Mullinax explained.
'I wanted a mural that would be created by my students for the community, a project they would have ownership and pride in. I hope the mural will be something they point out to their friends each time they pass by, share the symbols with their family and carry the memory of the project with them into adulthood, maybe even pointing out the mural to their children.'
The class began brainstorming together as to what message they hoped to send to the community. Mullinax said all students agreed that we wanted to encourage tolerance in our community, a celebration of diversity in Ashe County, a rejection of prejudices and an overall feeling of community unity. 'To underline these attitudes we asked volunteers from the Latino Center to help with the painting. We especially wanted a mural that would belong to the community, representing where we lived, the beauty of the nature in our area and the issues of our community. We wanted a mural that would cause people to stop and think,' Mullinax pointed out.
The artist then took a list of ideas submitted by each student, along with their drawing sketches and created the mural design based upon a combination of these student suggestions, according to Mullinax. The mural was then shown to the students for approval, with several students exclaiming, 'Our mural is going to be the best one in all of Ashe' and 'Hey, that was my idea.'
The artist then drew the mural on large fabric squares using a grid technique. The students proceeded to outline all of her drawings and then fill-in with the appropriate colors at her instruction. As the students have said, 'Mrs. Marianne always knew what to do; she was really cool and helped us a lot. We want to thank her for working with us and letting us get to know her.'
'Every eighth grade student who takes Spanish at Ashe County Middle School has participated. Most of my students could tell you exactly every spot they painted, down to each blade of grass. Painting helped us to learn a lesson in unity, too,' Mullinax noted. 'All of the students are very excited and the response from the project has been overwhelmingly positive. Most students have said that 'the project has really helped [them] think more about different groups in our community'. The students describe the mural as 'teaching everyone to get along no matter their skin color' and the idea that, 'the Hispanics in our community are just like us in many ways.'
Mullinax said she and the students 'hope the community will learn as much from the mural as we have. Be sure to look for the symbols in the mural and try to figure out the Spanish words along the border.
'This project would not have been possible without the support of the Arts Council, which has been an immense help. The Arts Council made my dream a reality, helping us to find funding, an artist, a mural site, and so much more. The Spanish classes would also like to thank the owners of Geno's, who have been very cooperative and generous in the use of their building.'
DiNapoli-Mylet is known for another mural in West Jefferson, Traditions on the New River at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Main Street. DiNapoli-Mylet has created murals across the state and is recognized for her use of vibrant color and a sometimes whimsical style. She is an accomplished painter whose balance of technique and style result in images that are beautifully crafted. Her ability to engage the cultural influences of the region is particularly significant in this project.
The project is funded with an Arts in Education Residency Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council in partnership with Ashe Middle School, the West Jefferson Partnership Committee, and the Latino Center.
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