Columbia College Books

This is a good book to have in your theater library (especially for black actors/thespians). There are some great contemporary pieces and monologues (especially for Black men). I have always been supportive of The Theodore Award winning plays. The characters are real and the language is rich. The writing is great. Most of the plays are short, so these plays would be good for a burgeoning African American theater company or ensemble to produce.

Since the early part of the 20th century, Chicago has been a national leader in the production of black theater. There are currently six black companies, and black productions are regularly featured at the three Tony Award-winning regional theater companies.

Theodore Ward (1902 - 1983) mentored and encouraged many aspiring dramatists in Chicago from 1968 until his death. To honor Ward, and to aid black playwrights in the development and production of scripts, Columbia College Chicago established the Theodore Ward Prize for African American Playwriting in 1985. Only full-length plays addressing the African American are considered, and the playwright must be of African American descent. Since one of the goals is to uncover and identify new works, scripts which have received professional production are not eligible.

This anthology of prize-winning plays is the first in a series to be published every three years. Compiled and edited by Chuck Smith (currently Resident Director at Chicago's Goodman Theater, and affiliated with the prize for fifteen years) it presents seven plays spanning nearly two decades, with diverse subject matter and treatments. Christopher Moore's "The Last Season" (First Prize 1987-88) immerses us in the final days of the Negro Leagues. The most recent offering, Shepsu Aakhu's "Kiwi Black" ( First Prize 2001-02) tells the story of adolescent son coming of age under the watchful eye of a tough-love father.

But my synopses can't possibly do these scripts justice. Highly recommended for any theater library!

"...A wonderful, multi-faceted documentation of a project that explores what it takes and what it means to create excellent arts integration..."
Steven Seidel, Director of Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"...To be used by anyone interested in making a difference in urban education."
Dr. Sonia Bassheva Manjon, Director, Center for Art and Public Life, California College of the Arts

"There are precious few portraits of what creative education actually looks like. AIMprint: New Relationships in the Arts and Learning fills this gap with rich narratives of cutting-edge educational practice." "...A quantum leap in the field."
Arnold Aprill, Founding Director, Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education

The Adlers use a qualitative research study w/Peter becoming a participant observer to study the socialization of college athletes and the social psychology of the self. I believe this piece of research is valid research. It saddened me to read what our materialistic world is doing to the young individuals that are recruited for college basketball. It also proved to me that college basketball is about big business, and not really a sport. Unfortunately, it continues today and not only in basketball. Thank you Patricia and Peter for opening our eyes. Anyone interested in knowing the real truth about college athletics should consider reading this book.

The service was excellent on this purchase. Book was in very good condition. I would recommend this source highly.

This book is a lifesaver, complete with flowcharts of possible problems, descriptions of illnesses, what to do for your child and when to call the doctor. Most helpful of all are the many pictures of what rashes, etc. actually look like. I heartily recommend this for anyone with children.

I am very satisfied about this book. I recieved at good timing from when I ordered it. Also this person kept me posted on when they had sent it and where it was. Thank you very much!!

I finished National Music Academy in Kiev,Ukraine.Now I`m a professor of violin.Can Icontinue my education in your place?

Assistant Professor Adrian Rodgers and Associate Professor Emily M. Rodgers present The Effective Literacy Coach: Using Inquiry To Support Teaching and Learning, a guide that goes a step beyond the nuts and bolts of day-to-day coaching in the search to understand how literacy coaching can breathe renewed life into instructional practice. Offering research-based strategies to improve the teacher-coach connection, The Effective Literacy Coach discusses how to guide group discussions, the art of asking the right question, how to get the most out of one-on-one coaching, and much more. Enthusiastically recommended for remedial reading teachers, whether they work with children, teens, or adults.

General Eisenhower's five year tour of duty as president of Columbia is told with great gusto and just the right amount of detail by historian Travis Jacobs. It's jammed with stories that make it fun to read from beginning to end. Plus you really get a sense of history about this nationally renown university. It starts with Murray Butler's 44 year reign--old, blind, and deaf--and the desparate search for a new dynamic replacement.

Was Ike anti-intellectual and anti-academic? Here you see both sides: He refused to honor John Dewey at a 1949 banquet; He was found sitting at his clean desk one day reading a Western novel; yet he spoke eloquently before a history class about the military books that influenced his decisions in Europe during WW2; he made surprise appearances in classes, including an economics course, although he was clearly more fond of Baker Field and the football games.

Critics said he vacationed too much, played too much golf and bridge with his buddies, made too many off-campus appearances, and was seldom available to Columbia professors and administrators. But some of that was due to his staff handlers, who shielded him from his Columbia colleagues. Jacobs tells a delightful story of how history professor Robert Livingston Schuyler got around his handlers and met up with the General on his way home for lunch (pp. 125-26).

After reading Jacobs' biography, I'm amazed how much Eisenhower accomplished, given his constant interruptions--trips to Washington, NATO leader, and running for President in 1952. Yet he gave a lot of good publicity to Columbia, which was hurting financially after the war, and got involved in many university projects (although he hated fundraising).

Jacobs is even handed in reporting on Ike's supporters and detractors. His conclusion is that Ike was ultimately good for Columbia, and Columbia good for Ike even into his presidency; a surprise ending. My only complaint is that you learn very little about his wife Mamie in the book. She's around, but you never know what she's thinking. Otherwise, a mighty enjoyable reading of a little-remembered part of Eisenhower's career.

The cover of this award-winning anthology features Keith Carter's haunting photo "Atlas Moth."

Call me biased (I'm a graduate of Columbia College's MFA program), but inside are some writers to watch. Todd H. Dills, editor of The 2nd Hand, is here, along with Shelli Johnson, a recent winner of a Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Award. Carla McCarty's "McDono's" is a warm, hilarious story that should become an oft-reprinted classic. James R. Hein's novel excerpt takes you on the emotional laughter-tears-laughter ride of a family in which the mother is manic-depressive -- when he finishes the novel, I expect it to rival Confederacy of Dunces.

Other highlights include: fiction by Devon Polderman, Josephina Gasca, Lila Nagarajan, Deb Lewis, Julia Borcherts, Marya Patrice Smith, Erika Mikkalo, Felicia Swanson, Jeff Jacobson, and Audrey Qween Roy-Wicks, with creative nonfiction by Michael Curtin, Mark Child, John Lowery, Germaina Solorzano, and many others.

The anthology overall is vibrant and gutsy, with frank explorations of family, race, sex, class, mental illness, theft, altered states -- you name it. It will make you laugh at some points and bite your tongue in others, upset you, gross you out, disturb and challenge you in one-hundred and twelve ways -- but it WON'T put you to sleep.