Alumni Notes–November 1999 | Johns Hopkins Magazine

Reposted Alumni Notes--November 1999 by Julie Snyder (Johns Hopkins Magazine)
Class of 1996: JEFFREY P. DOSHNA and SARAH (WATSON) DOSHNA write: "We are pleased to announce the birth of our son, Noah Alexander Doshna on April 29. Sarah continues to work as a process engineer for Merck & Co., in their sterile pilot plants. Although Jeff is continuing his doctoral studies in the department of urban planning at Rutgers University, he has assumed the role of 'stay-at-home' dad for the time being. Fellow Vincent-Willard alumna IVY WONG '96, paid a visit in June and brought a card for Noah signed by ROGER OEN '96, JAMES ARMSTRONG '94, CHRIS ALDRICH '96, MAX BARTEAU '96, TAMMY WU '96, JANET LEE '96, PETER SYLVES '96, and TONY TSAI '96. We also regularly see JOHN PAXTON '96."
8/8/2018: I’m collecting some snippet mentions of me from the early days of the web. Notes like this online (and also in print at the time) were the original social networking.

Johns Hopkins Goes West | Alumni News–June 1997 | JHU Magazine

Reposted Johns Hopkins Goes West | Alumni News--June 1997 by Billie Walker (editor) (Johns Hopkins Magazine)
More than 400 guests attended Johns Hopkins convocations in San Francisco and Burbank in March, hearing from President William R. Brody and other outstanding faculty speakers about developments at Johns Hopkins. The Southern California convocation, held at the Walt Disney Studios, was hosted by University trustee John F. Cooke, Disney's executive vice president-corporate affairs.
During the convocation luncheon at the Disney Commissary in Burbank, Oscar-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, A&S ’66, at left, talks with Chris Aldrich, A&S ’96. At right is James Neal, the Sheridan Director of Homewood’s Eisenhower Library and one of the event speakers.

After his computer music performance at the Southern California convocation, Peabody’s Forrest Tobey is surrounded by admirers as he explains his use of arm gestures to trigger sounds stored in the synthesizer.

In Pasadena on the evening before the Southern California convocation, President Brody meets Los Angeles area alumni and friends at a dinner hosted by University trustee Charles D. Miller. Here he talks with Dr. and Mrs. J. Michael Criley, at left, and Dr. and Mrs. Richard Call.

JHU Commencement 1996: George H.W. Bush | Johns Hopkins University

Reposted JHU Commencement 1996 (Johns Hopkins University)
Address of George Bush
41st President of the United States

The Johns Hopkins University
Arts and Sciences/Engineering Undergraduate Diploma Award Ceremony
Baltimore, Maryland -- May 22 1996
(verbatim transcript)


Madam President, thank you for that wonderful, warm introduction and what a pleasure it was to meet with Asma and the other leaders of this class here today. I felt very relieved when I told them that I was going to give this speech on the gold standard and the international balance of payments. It only takes about 50 minutes and they all seemed enthralled with the idea. All of which reminded me, as I was telling Dr. Nathans and my friend, Mike Bloomberg, who's taken on the chairmanship of the board here, about a graduation at Yale University which I attended, and the speaker went on. He went Y is for Youth, he went on about 25 minutes, A for Altruism, another 35 minutes, L for Loyalty, 30 minutes, E for Excellence. By the time he finished, all but one kid had left. The guy was praying. He said, "Oh son, I'm so pleased to see you here giving thanks." He said, "What exactly are you praying for?" The kid said, "Well, I'm praying that I did not ... thanks to the Lord that I did not go to Johns Hopkins University."

Um, I'm pleased to be here. It's been a little more that six years since I visited this prestigious university for Commemoration Day. And I am delighted to be back here. I salute Dr. Nathans for what he has given to this university, not only as faculty but as his interim period as president and I am grateful for his service to the country on our Science Board which he served ... with no partiality, but just bringing to the board his sense of excellence for which Johns Hopkins is so famous. It doesn't seem possible that 48 years ago I was sitting out there where our graduates are today, most of them, bursting to get out there and claim my stake in the world, to try anything. And I am sure that each of you feels the same way, and I encourage you to do it all. Don't be afraid of trying, of dreaming. Don't even be afraid of failure or tears. We all stumble. We all face fear, and that's what makes us human. But none of us should ever regret, none of us should ever sit at a grandchild's graduation and think, I wish that that were me, starting all over again, there's so much I'd do differently. First of all, don't worry, any of you graduates, if you're not 100 percent sure what you want to do the rest of your life, what you want to be 30 years from now. Barbara and I have lived in about 40 different houses, over the course of 51 years of marriage, and I wish Barbara would stop saying, "George can't hold a job." But, uh, but it was only after a couple of decades out in the real world that I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. But the point is this, you have a lifetime of chances in your grasp right now. Don't lose any of them. Don't give up the chance to take a risk, follow a vision, hug a child, touch a life.

Touching a life. That's what I want to talk to you about today. Each of you has visions of success for your future. You can just feel the energy as the president spoke here, what a wonderful job she did. Find your own ways to define it. Let me give you mine. As often I said as president, I believe that any definition of a successful life must include service to others. It's just that simple. It doesn't mean that you have to run for public office, but I hope all of you will somehow save some time to be actively involved in our political system. It's not very pleasant in the political arena these days. There's an adversarial press, and a very, very much, kind of a controversial environment. But it's worth it. It's worth it to get into what Teddy Roosevelt calls the arena, roll up your sleeves and try. Serving others does mean rolling up your sleeves and getting involved in your community, though. It means getting off the sidelines, it means being a doer and not a critic. It means contributing to a cause larger than yourself. There is no problem. You know you read the papers, there's all these problems. But there is not one single problem in the country today that somewhere is not being solved by some people. And for eight years as vice president and four as president and even today unemployed and retired, I have seen literally thousands of examples of the neighbor-helping-neighbor spirit that made this country the kindest and the gentlest and the strongest in the entire world. It was one of the real joys of being president, and Barbara and I are continuing to try and encourage others to volunteer their time and effort to fighting a community problem. People say, "What's it like from going from being president of the United States of America one day" ... they don't say to be unemployed the next, they're very polite to us now. We can even go to a ballgame in Camden Yards and not even get booed. It's wonderful. But they say, "What's it like," "What's it like?" and it's a wonderful life, because what we want to do is what everybody on this faculty, I'm sure, does; what every parent does; and that's put something back into the system. Give something to the community in one way or another. It doesn't have to be dramatic, it doesn't have to be in the newspapers, some way to have the satisfaction of knowing you're helping make somebody else's life a little brighter. Of course, government has an obligation to help those who cannot help themselves. And yet there's something special about the kindness of a neighbor helping someone he or she doesn't know. It gives that special touch that is beyond the power of government to provide. No exercise is better for the human heart than reaching down and lifting someone else up, and to serve others, to enrich your community. This truly defines a successful life. For success is personal, and it is charitable, and it is the sum, not of our possessions, but of how we help others.

And so, here I am at 72 years old, and I'm expected to give advice, and I will. My advice is to encourage you to follow the example of those who have preceded you and to set an example for those who follow. For each of you, Johns Hopkins has been a wonderful place of possibilities. This standard of excellence has been for each of you a place of possibilities. A place where you have developed your potential and prepared for the future. But now the time has come to venture out. The time has arrived for you to put in the hard work and the sacrifice and dedication that transforms these possibilities into reality.

Do it all, but do it without neglect of family. People say to me, "What's the largest problem, what's your biggest shortcoming?" The largest problem is, in my view, facing the country is the decline or the weakening of the American family and my biggest shortcoming was not being able to rally the country, not for government legislation, but to do something to strengthen the American family. And so each of you, your career paths ahead of you, do something to help strengthen the family and for those kids that don't have a family, take them under your wing and help them, too.

Let me close. I am an optimist about the future. I honestly and truly believe that our best days are yet to come. I believe this because I've seen how far we've come. Gone are the suspicions and the conflict of the Cold War. We no longer face threat of nuclear holocaust, where your parents, some of them, were taught to hide under their desks, to avoid nuclear fallout. We no longer live in a world of two antagonistic superpowers, and, as for me, I take heart that a teacher will not have to explain balance of terror, mutually assured destruction, and all of these other acronyms of the Cold War. We're putting that dark chapter behind us and today the world is rife with promise and opportunity, and yes, cliche though it may be, today begins the rest of your life. A Yale teacher once said, "Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it, for today has power, boldness and magic in it.

My favorite story was told by a great friend of Barbara's and mine who received the congressional gold medal the other day, the coveted award, Billy Graham. And he told about a speaker that was standing where I am and the speaker went on too long, so one of the guys at the head table, the dais, picked up his shoe, heaved it at him, missed him and hit a lady sitting in the front row. She goes like this and says, "Hit me again. I can still hear him."

So I would say to you, be bold in your dreaming, be bold in your living, be bold in your caring, your compassion, your humanity and then, when you sit at your grandchild's commencement half a century from now, you'll look back at the tapestry of your life and find it good, and that will be the greatest success of all.

Thank you for welcoming me back to this very special campus and may God bless every single graduate in the class of 1996. Thank you very much!

SNARK sponsors sneak preview at Shriver Hall | Johns Hopkins Gazette

Reposted SNARK sponsors sneak preview at Shriver Hall (Johns Hopkins Gazette)

The student-run SNARK film series will screen a sneak preview of the soon-to-be-released Michael Douglas-Annette Bening film, American President, in the newly refurbished Shriver Hall Theater at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 14. The auditorium, which seats 1,100, was recently outfitted with a new screen, 35-mm projectors and soon-to-be-installed Dolby sound system in part to accommodate student organizations, which promised to bring to Homewood sneak previews of major Hollywood films.

SNARK director Chris Aldrich says the free tickets are available at the Levering Hall Student Union desk beginning at noon.

MSE Symposium Unspools Tuesday at Shriver Hall : At 100, Why Do Movies Matter? | JHU Gazette

Reposted MSE Symposium Unspools Tuesday at Shriver Hall : At 100, Why Do Movies Matter? by Mike Giuliano (Johns Hopkins Gazette: October 9, 1995)


MSE Symposium Unspools Tuesday at Shriver Hall

At 100, Why Do Movies Matter?

Mike Giuliano
-------------------------
Special to The Gazette

     Not that turf-conscious professors need worry about one of the main campus buildings being converted into a nine-screen multiplex theater, but the movies have arrived on the Homewood campus in a big way.

     Most immediately, the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, "Framing Society: A Century of Cinema," opens this week to examine the roles of the motion pictures in American society. Its undergraduate co-chairmen, Matt Gross and Chris Aldrich, are no strangers to the subject of film. Each is involved in film classes, student film organizations, film production, screenings and a just-launched magazine. All of which, considered together with the symposium, they hope will provide a new frame of reference at Hopkins for the only art form that proceeds at 24 frames per second. 

     Lest anyone still harbor the prejudice that movies should be accompanied by popcorn and not term papers, young filmmaker Gross is quick to defend the academic worth of their symposium offering.  

     "Chris and I always felt it was an appropriate topic for the symposium," he says. "It wasn't so much deciding whether to do it as how to do it. We want to explore how cinema fits into our culture. Can a particular movie or stream of movies change things in society?"

     By way of example, he dips into film and political history for the famous anecdote about President Woodrow Wilson's proclamation that D.W. Griffith's controversial 1915 film Birth of a Nation was "like history written by lightning."

     Gross says, "It's a historical fact that Wilson was one of the first people to give legitimacy to film. Since he went to Hopkins, he's like this guy sitting on top of the ivory tower saying this is a way of reporting history. That legitimizes film as a historical pursuit. And the 100th anniversary of cinema is an opportunity to look back on film in a cultural and intellectual way."

     Gross adds that a visit to Paris reinforced his sense that the French, whose visionary Lumière brothers began showing movies commercially in 1895, have a much keener sense of film history than do Americans.

     "It's not just that Americans don't have a grasp of film history. There's not a good grasp of history among the American people," he says.

     There's yet another reason why Gross believes movies haven't always received the respect they deserve in this country.

     "Also, possibly, the business of film has gotten in the way somewhat," he says. "Because it is big business--it's a product--some people may not feel it's worth looking at" in an academic forum, he says.

     Gross looks on this year's symposium as a springboard for a broader discussion, both on campus and in the larger community, of the role played by movies.  

     "The symposium is a way to get everybody who is interested together in one place to talk about movies. Beyond the symposium, we're trying to create at Hopkins a kind of cinematic culture. And we need to expand so that the Baltimore public knows about what's at Hopkins," Gross says. "Being on campus for four years, everything feels so isolated. Many students know a lot about film but not always about what's going on off campus, and people off campus in Baltimore know about film but not about what we have here. 

     "We'd like to integrate Hopkins into the Baltimore community at large. We want to be a regular part of the movie scene. So we want the symposium to act as a catalyst for everything else," he says.

     One impact the symposium will have on and off campus will result from the outfitting of Shriver Hall with a new 38-foot screen.

     "The old screen had been subjected to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and other things," says Mary Ellen Porter, special assistant to dean of students Larry Benedict. The film is noted as much for its campy content as for its cult following, who make viewing the film an interactive experience replete with vegetables and other substances tossed at the screen. 

     Also added were 35mm film projectors, and there are plans to add "surround sound" equipment next year. These technical enhancements will make the 1,174-seat hall the largest and potentially one of the best movie theaters in the Baltimore area.

     Existing film series such as the long-running Reel World and Weekend Wonderflix will look better on screen. Porter says the booking of preview screenings and other special programs "will give us a chance to reach out to the greater community in a way we don't now."

     Better campus screening facilities can enhance both a weekend date for the latest Die Hard movie and a student taking notes on the mise-en-scène in a Renoir film.

     "In terms of facilities, film is a machine art and machines are a part of it," notes Richard Macksey, a longtime Hopkins professor of humanities and film and an active member of Baltimore's cinema culture. He cites the upgrading of 110 Gilman several years ago as an instance of how film courses prosper when projection moves closer to state of the art.

     Indeed, the cinematic zeitgeist on campus seems healthy. Last summer saw the birth of yet another film series, The Snark, which offers classics and avant-garde fare. Also recently arrived on the screen scene is the Animation Club.    

     The recently established Johns Hopkins Film Society and its magazine, Frame of Reference, promote film culture at Hopkins, including criticism, theory, history and production. Mardi Gras Baltimore, co-directed by Gross and 1995 graduate Gil Jawetz, will premiere at the symposium at 8 p.m. on Nov. 15. 

     Gross hopes the diversity of symposium speakers will provide the insights and inspiration to support and nourish the
confluence of Hopkins' film-related activities.   

     For example, James G. Robinson, founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Productions, will talk about the business of making movies. Veteran screenwriter Millard Kaufman and young director Rose Troche will each talk about their place within that industry. Critic Molly Haskell will talk about the role played by women in filmmaking and criticism. And Thomas Cripps, among the world's leading scholars of black film history, will add his reflections on the representation of blacks in the movies and the social effects of those images.

     It's a lineup that has won over at least one initial skeptic.

     "Frankly, I was a little skeptical of it at first because a lot of money goes into [the symposium], and I didn't want to see speakers who'd stand up there schmoozing and then vanish into the night," says English professor Jerome Christensen, who directs the Film and Media Studies program. 

     Established in 1991, Film and Media Studies is a cooperative program of the departments of English, French, German, Hispanic and Italian Studies, Writing Seminars, Humanities and Philosophy. Presently, students may minor in this area, but Christensen expects that the eventual addition of a film production course will enable students to major in Film and Media Studies. Although he says Hopkins "will never be a film school" on the scale of New York University or the University of Southern California, it is taking its place with other academic pursuits at Homewood.

     "I'm glad [Gross and Aldrich] have used [the symposium] in a way that will be educational," Christensen says. "I'm hoping the symposium will demonstrate the range of opportunities both in terms of careers and the intellectual challenges that contemporary film represents. It also gives us a push to do other things."

     Christensen suggests the symposium visit of Indian filmmaker Girish Karnad will likely figure into classroom discussions in a course on Indian film being offered in the spring. Undergraduate internships with Robinson also are under discussion.

     "My aim is to have some institutional pay-off to these things," he says.

     "Film is especially adaptable to an interdisciplinary approach and it's used for so many pedagogical purposes now," says Macksey of the Hopkins approach to teaching film. Having mentored such future Hollywood talents as Walter Murch and Caleb Deschanel during their student days in the 1960s, Macksey has been a constant advocate for film studies on campus.

     And what would the students like to see on the classroom screen scene in the semesters ahead?

     "I'd like to consider how the film study is done at New York University, Columbia, USC and elsewhere and then find a different and original way to go at it at Hopkins," Gross says. "Many of those film schools examine how movies are made and not as much attention is paid to movies as literature. That's something Hopkins can do."

Eisenhower Symposium Brings Movie Industry Insiders to Hopkins

Reposted Eisenhower Symposium Brings Movie Industry Insiders to Hopkins by Leslie Rice (Headlines at Hopkins)
Imagine life without movies.

The moving picture turns 100 this year and some Johns Hopkins University undergraduates who can’t picture life without a big screen have marked film’s centennial by bringing to the Homewood campus an impressive group of movie industry insiders to discuss the powerful medium of film.

The 1995 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, “Framing Society: A Century of Cinema” will be held in Shriver Hall at 8 p.m. on different nights from Oct. 10 through Nov. 16, and is entirely free and open to the public.

James Robinson, founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Productions, will discuss the movie-making business in the series kick-off event Oct. 10. Since 1988 Robinson has produced at least 26 films, including Young Guns I and II, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Enemies: a Love Story, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and True Romance. Last year Robinson, a Baltimore resident who commutes every week to the West Coast, was named the most prolific producer of the year by Hollywood Reporter Magazine.

Also during the series, an independent film maker will discuss the recent boom in independent, low-budget films while another director will talk
about the importance of her identity as a Latina lesbian and her struggle not to be pegged as a “queer” director. Other speakers will discuss the portrayal of African-Americans and women in movies, and one of India’s leading directors will discuss the international movie scene.

Symposium organizers say another highlight will be a lecture given by veteran screenwriter Millard Kaufman. Kaufman, 78, has weathered the ups and downs of the film industry for decades and his colorful, tell-it-like-it-is style is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Besides writing memorable Lee Marvin and Spencer Tracy westerns like Bad Day at Black Rock and Take the High Ground, he is also known for risking his career by fronting the screenplay Gun Crazy for a blacklisted friend during the McCarthy era. Still, Kaufman is probably most famous for creating the quirky and comical cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

During the symposium, Hopkins will also hold the grand opening of the Shriver Hall Theater in Shriver Hall Auditorium, which will be outfitted with state-of-the-art screening capabilities, making it the largest movie theater in the Baltimore-Washington area. In the future, the new theater will host movie premieres and sneak previews as well as off-beat and foreign films.

The Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium was established in 1967 by Hopkins’ undergraduate student council to honor the university’s eighth president.
Every year since then, a team of two to three students chosen by the student council has arranged and managed all aspects of the series. Usually about six prominent figures are booked to address a current national issue.

Covering topics like the nuclear arms race, human sexuality, freedom of the press and foreign policy and race, the symposium has been drawn speakers like Aaron Copland, Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Bernstein, former senators George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy, Pat Robinson and Isaac Asimov.

This year’s symposium organizers are Hopkins seniors Chris Aldrich and Matt Gross. Gross and fellow Hopkins senior Gil Jawetz have also produced and directed a short film, Mardi Gras, Baltimore, which will premiere during the symposium.

The 1995 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium.

Oct. 10, 8 p.m.
Lecture.
“The Film Industry.” James G. Robinson, CEO of Morgan Creek Productions; producer of True Romance, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Major League 2.

Wednesday, Oct. 11, 8 p.m.
Screening.
Go Fish, written and directed by Rose Troche.

Thursday, Oct. 12, 8 p.m.
Lecture.
“Sexuality and Film.” Rose Troche writer/director of Go Fish.

Wednesday, Oct. 18, 8 p.m., Shriver Hall.
Screening.
U.S. premiere of Ondanondu Kaladalli, directed by Girish Karnad.

Thursday, Oct. 19, 8 p.m.
Lecture.
“World Cinema.” Girish Karnad, leading film director of India and past director of the Film and Television Institute of India.

Thursday, Oct. 26, 8 p.m.
Lecture.
“Women In Film and Criticism.” Molly Haskell, New York film critic and author of From Reverence to Rape.

Thursday, Nov. 2, 8 p.m.
Lecture.
“Censorship of Film.” Millard Kaufman, screenwriter, Bad Day at Black Rock, Take the High Ground, Raintree Country; board member of the Writers Guild of America; creator of Mr. Magoo.

Friday, Nov. 3, 8 p.m.
Screening.
Bad Day at Black Rock, written by Millard Kaufman. The film will be introduced by Kaufman and followed by a question and answer session.

Thursday, Nov. 9, 8 p.m.
Lecture.
“Race and Film.” Thomas Cripps, author and history professor at Morgan State University.

Friday, Nov. 17, 8 p.m.
Premiere and screening.
World premiere of Mardi Gras, Baltimore, written, produced and directed by JHU students Gil Jawetz and Matt Gross. Screening of Laws of Gravity, produced by Larry Meistrich.

Thursday, Nov. 16, 8 p.m.
Lecture.
“Independent films.” Larry Meistrich, producer of Laws of Gravity and New Jersey Drive; CEO of the Shooting Gallery.

(photos of speakers available upon request)

MSE Symposium Considers the Cinema at 100 | Johns Hopkins Gazette

Reposted MSE Symposium Considers the Cinema at 100 by Leslie Rice (Johns Hopkins Gazette: September 18, 1995)


MSE Symposium Considers the Cinema at 100

Leslie Rice
-----------------------------------
Homewood News and Information


     It was just curiosity that drew the crowds of people to see Thomas Edison's latest invention one century ago. How could they have known then the colossal impact those odd, grainy, flickering moving pictures would forever have on American culture?

     Two Hopkins undergraduates have marked the 100th anniversary of the moving picture by bringing to the Homewood campus an impressive group of film industry personalities to talk about the movies.

     The 1995 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, entitled "Framing Society: A Century of Cinema," will examine the power of the medium of film. Admission to the symposium, in Shriver Hall at 8 p.m. on various nights from Oct. 10 through Nov. 16, is free and open to the public.

     During the lecture series, chaired by Hopkins seniors Matt Gross and Chris Aldrich, an independent film maker will discuss the recent boom in independent, low-budget films while another director will talk about the importance of her identity as a Latina lesbian and her fight not to be pegged as a "queer" director. Other speakers will discuss the portrayal of African Americans and women in movies, and India's leading film director will discuss the international movie scene.

     "We chose speakers who could talk about film in a historical context," Gross said. "We didn't want someone to just come in and say, 'Here's my film: look at it'."

     Kicking off the series will be James Robinson, founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Productions, who will talk about how the film industry has become big business. Since 1988 Robinson has produced a couple dozen films, including Young Guns I and II, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Enemies: A Love Story, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and True Romance. Last year Robinson, a Baltimore resident who commutes every week to the West Coast, was named the most prolific producer of the year by Hollywood Reporter Magazine.

     Aldrich says he's particularly excited to hear screenwriter Millard Kaufman, scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 2. Kaufman, 78, has weathered the ups and downs of the film industry for decades. Besides writing memorable Lee Marvin and Spencer Tracy westerns like Bad Day at Black Rock and Take the High Ground, he is known for risking his career by fronting the screenplay Gun Crazy for a blacklisted friend during the McCarthy era. Still, Kaufman may be most famous for creating the quirky and comical cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

     "Kaufman is planning to talk about censorship in film, but even if he just talks about his career it will be very entertaining," Aldrich said. "He's very colorful and tells really funny stories about his experiences with some of the most powerful people in the industry." 

     During the symposium, Hopkins will also hold the grand opening of the Shriver Hall Theater within Shriver Hall Auditorium, which will, by then, be outfitted with state-of-the-art 35mm projection and sound equipment, making it the largest movie theater in the Baltimore-Washington area.

     In the future, the new theater, made possible through university grants submitted by Aldrich and Gross, will host movie premieres and sneak previews as well as off-beat and foreign films.

     The Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium was established in 1967 by Hopkins' undergraduate student council as a means of honoring the university's eighth president. Every year since then, a team of two to three students chosen by the student council, after a very competitive proposal process, has arranged and managed all aspects of the series from beginning to end--from selecting the topic, to raising money (this year roughly $35,000), to booking the personalities to reserving rooms. Usually about six prominent figures are booked to address a current national issue.

     Covering topics like the nuclear arms race, human sexuality, freedom of the press, and foreign policy and race, the symposium has drawn top-flight speakers like Aaron Copeland, Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Bernstein, former senators George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy, Pat Robinson and Isaac Asimov.

     Aldrich and Gross decided they wanted to direct the 1995 symposium after attending many of the lectures from last year's symposium on children's issues.

    "Chris just turned to me and said, 'Let's do next year's symposium,' " Gross recalled. "Without even thinking, I said, 'On movies, right?' He said 'yeah,' and that was it. I wish I could say it was a decision we pondered long and hard on, but it wasn't." 

     Since their proposal was chosen by the student council last December, the two have felt the weight of all the successful symposia of the past, which have captured national and local attention.

      "It's really been a constant pressure, and over the summer it was a full-time job for both Chris and me," said Gross, who happens to be a fledgling director. "All things considered though, I feel really lucky to have been able to do this. Just the experience of having to deal with every single detail, getting to know some of these people, and the kinds of things I have learned has been incredibly rewarding." 

*****************************************************************
THE MSE SYMPOSIUM - 1995 SCHEDULE
     "Framing Society: A Century of Cinema," is a series of lectures by film producers, directors, critics and screenwriters. All lectures and film screenings are free and open to the public and will take place in the new Shriver Hall Theater on the Homewood campus. 

------------------------------
Tuesday, Oct. 10, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Lecture.
     "The Film Industry." James G. Robinson, CEO of Morgan Creek Productions; producer of True Romance, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Major League 2.


------------------------------
Wednesday, Oct. 11, 8 p.m. 
------------------------------
Screening.
     Go Fish, written and directed by Rose Troche.


------------------------------
Thursday, Oct. 12, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Lecture.  
     "Sexuality and Film." Rose Troche, writer/director of Go Fish. 


------------------------------
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Premiere and Screening.
     English premiere of Ondanondu Kaladalli, directed by Girish Karnad. 


------------------------------
Thursday, Oct. 19, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Lecture.
     "World Cinema." Girish Karnad, leading film director of India and past director of the Film and Television Institute of India. 


------------------------------
Thursday, Oct. 26, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Lecture.
     "Women in Film and Criticism." Molly Haskell, New York film critic and author of From Reverence to Rape.


------------------------------
Thursday, Nov. 2, 8 p.m. 
------------------------------
Lecture. 
     "Censorship of Film." Millard Kaufman, screenwriter, Bad Day at Black Rock, Take the High Ground, Raintree Country; board member of the Writers Guild of America; creator of Mr. Magoo.


------------------------------
Friday, Nov. 3, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Screening.
     Bad Day at Black Rock, written by Millard Kaufman. The film will be introduced by Kaufman and followed by a question and answer session.


------------------------------
Thursday, Nov. 9, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Lecture.
     "Race and Film." Thomas Cripps, author and history professor at Morgan State University.


------------------------------
Wednesday, Nov. 15, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Premiere and Screening.
     Premiere of Mardi Gras, Baltimore, written, produced and directed by JHU students Gil Jawetz and Matt Gross.         
     Screening of Laws of Gravity, produced by Larry Meistrich.


------------------------------
Thursday, Nov. 16, 8 p.m.
------------------------------
Lecture.
     "Independent Films." Larry Meistrich, producer of Laws of Gravity and New Jersey Drive; CEO of the Shooting Gallery.
*****************************************************************

     Call the symposium office for further information at (410) 516-7683.

Snark Hosts Summertime Film Festival | Johns Hopkins Gazette: June 12, 1995

Reposted Snark Hosts Summertime Film Festival (Johns Hopkins Gazette: June 12, 1995)
Chris Aldrich is a movie machine.

He directs the Reel World film series, a long-standing weekly feature at Homewood during the academic year. Along with fellow film junkie Matthew Gross, he is chairing the 1995 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium celebrating the first 100 years of motion pictures, which is always an incredibly labor-intensive student-run project.

And to fill up those lazy summer days, he has created the Snark Summer Film Festival–106 feature films in 45 consecutive days–from June 16 through July 30.

All screenings are free.

The nightly dose of double (and sometime triple) features will be held at Shriver Hall, at Homewood, with the first film beginning promptly at 8 p.m. Generally a few short films will start the evening, and there will be a five-minute intermission between feature films.

The following is the tentative schedule for the Snark Summer Film Festival. For a complete listing and to confirm dates, films and times, call (410) 516-8666.

Friday, June 16: Bogart
Casablanca,
The Big Sleep

Saturday, June 17: American Classics
The Great Train Robbery,
Citizen Kane,
Stagecoach

Sunday, June 18: Polanski
Two Men and a Wardrobe,
Knife in the Water,
Cul-De-Sac

Monday, June 19: Godard
All the Boys Are Named Patrick,
Alphaville,
Masculine-Feminine

Tuesday, June 20: German Expressionism
The Student of Prague,
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,
The Golem: How He Came into the World

Wednesday, June 21: Kurosawa
Seven Samurai

Thursday, June 22: Hitchcock
Blackmail,
Murder

Friday, June 23: Chaplin
Steamboat Willie,
Modern Times,
Steamboat Bill Jr.

Saturday, June 24: Classic Horror Films
The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
The Phantom of the Opera,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Sunday, June 25: Renoir
Toni,
Boudu

Monday, June 26: Godard–Plus
The Red Balloon,
A Married Woman

Tuesday, June 27: German Classics
Blue Angel,
Threepenny Opera

Wednesday, June 28: Kurosawa
Yojimbo,
Sanjuro

Thursday, June 29: Mixed Bag
The Concert,
Number Seventeen,
The Man Who Knew Too Much

Friday, June 30: Campy Screamers
Little Shop of Horrors,
Night of the Living Dead,
Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Saturday, July 1: Light Comedy Night
The Producers,
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Sunday, July 2: Renoir
A Day in the Country,
Rules of the Game

Monday, July 3: Truffaut
Les Mistons,
The Wild Child,
Jules et Jim

Tuesday, July 4: Fritz Lang
M,
The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse

Wednesday, July 5: Kurosawa
Rashomon,
Drunken Angel,
Ikiru

Thursday, July 6: Hitchcock
The 39 Steps,
Secret Agent

Friday, July 7: Film Noir
Scarlet Street,
D.O.A.

Saturday, July 8: American Classics
Sunset Boulevard,
The Maltese Falcon

Sunday, July 9: Renoir
Grand Illusion,
La Bête Humaine,
The Southerner

Monday, July 10: Borzage Directs
A Farewell to Arms,
History Is Made at Night

Tuesday, July 11: Classic Silents
The Passion of Joan of Arc,
Sunrise

Wednesday, July 12: Kurosawa
Red Beard,
Throne of Blood

Thursday, July 13: Hitchcock
Sabotage
Young and Innocent

Friday, July 14: American Classics
Rebel Without a Cause,
It Happened One Night

Saturday, July 15: Kate Hepburn
Philadelphia Story,
Bringing Up Baby

Sunday, July 16: The Pagnol Trilogy
Marius,
Fanny,
Cesar

Monday, July 17: Classic Tearjerkers
The Yearling,
Lassie Come Home

Tuesday, July 18: Campy Busby Berkeley
The Gold Diggers of 1933,
The Gold Diggers of 1935

Wednesday, July 19: Satyajit Ray
Pather Panchali,
The World of Apu

Thursday, July 20: Hitchcock
The Lady Vanishes,
Jamaica Inn

Friday, July 21: Odd Men Out
On the Waterfront,
The Third Man

Saturday, July 22: Laurel and Hardy
The Bohemian Girl,
Flying Deuces,
Saps at Sea,
Blockheads,
Chump at Oxford

Sunday, July 23: Harold Lloyd
Don,
The Freshman,
The Kid Brother

Monday, July 24: More Harold Lloyd
His Royal Slyness,
Girl Shy,
Feet First

Tuesday, July 25: Cowboy Yarns
Bells of Capistrano,
Bells of Rosarita

Wednesday, July 26: Satyajit Ray
Devi, Mandabi

Thursday, July 27: Hitchcock
Foreign Correspondent,
Notorious

Friday, July 28: Hitchcock
Shadow of a Doubt,
Strangers on a Train

Saturday, July 29: Hitchcock
North by Northwest,
Psycho

Sunday, July 30: French Drama
Bizarre, Bizarre,
The Earrings of Madame de

Symposium Investigating Film and Society | Johns Hopkins Gazette

Reposted Symposium Investigating Film and Society (Johns Hopkins Gazette)

Symposium Investigating Film and Society

     The Student Council has announced that the 29th annual Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium will look critically at the movies and their relationship to society. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the cinema's birth. 
 
     Christopher Aldrich, president of the Reel World film series, and Matthew Gross, director of the Snark film series, and symposium co-chairmen, are planning a series of lectures, panel discussions, movie screenings and special events that will provide a comprehensive understanding of cinema's role in the world.

     The Aldrich/Gross proposal was one of 18 submitted for consideration.

     As part of the symposium's planning, Dean of Homewood Student Affairs Larry Benedict has agreed to renovate and upgrade the Shriver Hall film projection facilities. Although details are not yet final, upgrades are expected to include a 40-foot-wide screen (bigger than the one at the historic Senator Theatre) and Dolby surround sound. These and other changes would make Shriver Hall one of the 20 best movie theaters in the country, Aldrich said. 

     The MSE Symposium is completely run by undergraduates. Proposals for a wide range of ideas are submitted in the fall to a Student Council committee. The chairs of the winning proposal then take responsibility for fund-raising--Aldrich expects their budget will  top $55,000--formalizing the program, selecting and inviting speakers, dealing with lawyers and agents, organizing the event and arranging publicity.

     The MSE Symposium is scheduled to begin the last week in September.