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Grain & Chaff
Big sendoff
It's probably a safe bet that the UMass fight song was heard
for the first time in Gainesville, Florida on May 30 as friends
hosted a farewell dinner for Chancellor-designate John V. Lombardi
and his wife Cathryn. History professor Mike Gannon belted out
the tune to the delight of the Lombardis.
"I'm a pretty good sight reader," Gannon told the Chronicle.
"I think I sang acceptably." Lombardi said Gannon's
performance was "terrific."
Dutch treat
Linguistics professor Barbara Hall Partee was elected in April
as a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences. According to Partee, there is only one other linguist
who is currently a foreign member of the academy. "It seems
that about 5-8 foreign members are elected in all each year,"
said Partee. "It's quite exciting."
Circumstances of pomp
Interim Chancellor Marcellette G. Williams gave the commencement
address on June 7 at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield.
Williams was asked to speak by Anina Kostecki, a dual-enrolled
student at Frontier and UMass and daughter of Paul T. Kostecki,
research professor of Environmental Health Sciences.
No left turn
Sociology professor emeritus Paul Hollander, a long-time critic
of leftist thought in academia, was honored June 1 by the National
Association of Scholars, which describes itself as "the only
academic organization dedicated to the restoration of intellectual
substance, individual merit, and academic freedom in the university."
Hollander received the organization's Peter Shaw Memorial Award
for "exemplary writing on issues pertaining to higher education
and American intellectual culture." Hollander was lauded
for his 1981 book, "Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western
Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba," which
NAS president Stephen H. Balch said exposed the "intellectual
secession" of western scholars who embraced totalitarian
societies as utopias. Growing up in communist Hungary, said Hollander,
made him aware of the importance of political freedom, pluralism
and tolerance.
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