At School of the Arts Symposium

10 C olumbia U niversity RECORD May 21, 2003 Reporters Seymour Hersh and Matt Pacenza to Receive Columbia Journalism Awards highest award given annually by Press. Five years later, Hersh was career, Pacenza traveled to regularly appears in more than 100 BY CAROLINE LADHANI the faculty of the Journalism hired as a reporter for the New York Guatemala as a human rights newspapers nationwide, was a School. Times’Washington Bureau, where observer and educator. He also did finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative reporter Seymour Of Matt Pacenza’s reporting, he served from 1972-75 and again public relations for a university 1985 and 1988. Her work has also Hersh and City Limits magazine which appears in the monthly print in 1979. theater and became a community appeared in numerous publications associate editor Matt Pacenza are publication City Limits and the His book The Price of Power: educator for an organ and tissue including Esquire, Atlantic, The receiving prizes for excellence in electronic City Limits Weekly, the Kissinger in the Nixon White bank. Pacenza earned a master’s Nation, Harper’s, Mother Jones journalism awarded by the faculty Journalism faculty said, “Pacen- House won him the National Book degree in journalism in 2000 from and TV Guide. She is the author of of Columbia’s Graduate School of za’s work stands out for its range Critics Circle Award and the Los New York University. four books, most recently Shrub: Journalism. and ambition. In the tradition of Angeles Times book prize in biog- Pacenza won 2002 National The Short But Happy Political Life Hersh will receive the 2003 Meyer Berger, his stories bring to raphy among other honors. Hersh Association of Real Estate Editor of George W. Bush co-authored Columbia Journalism Award for life seldom-heard and seldom-seen has also written a total of eight awards for Best Magazine Report, with Lou Dubose, and she has also singular journalistic performance people. They also tackle large and books and contributed to a PBS Best Young Journalist and Overall been a commentator on television in the public interest at the school’s complex ideas in ways that are television documentary, Buying the Individual Winner, for his series of and radio. May 21 commencement ceremo- refreshing, illuminating and chal- Bomb, in 1985. articles on New York City’s $1 bil- Ivins grew up in Houston, and ny. Pacenza received the 2003 lenging.” Matt Pacenza received the 2003 lion effort to collect defaulted after earning a B.A. from Smith Mike Berger Award on Journalism Hersh, a 1970 Pulitzer-Prize Mike Berger Award for his body of property tax debt. College, received a master’s from Day, May 20, for outstanding winner, contributes regularly to work over the course of 2002, He will receive $1,000 as winner the Columbia Graduate School of reporting on the lives of ordinary The New Yorker’s “Annals of exploring important policy issues of the Mike Berger Award, which Journalism. In 1970, she was citizens in New York City. National Security.” His work first in housing and poverty through honors the legendary New York named co-editor of the Texas “Seymour Hersh has for 30 gained wide recognition in 1969 stories about individual New York- Times reporter whose stories often Observer, a liberal monthly cover- years led the field of investigative for exposing the My Lai massacre ers. Examples include accounts of focused on the lives of ordinary ing Texas politics and social journalism, informing the public and its cover-up during the Viet- a low-income resident’s legal bat- New York City citizens. The prize events. She has also written for the and discomforting those who have nam War, for which he received tle against eviction and a nonprofit was created in 1960, a year after Houston Chronicle and the Min- deceived the citizenry, forming one the Pulitzer Prize for international housing organization’s struggles to Berger’s death, by Louis neapolis Star Tribune. In 1977, she of the bulwarks protecting our reporting. rebuild East Harlem. Schweitzer, a New York industrial- became a political reporter for The democratic freedoms,” said Inter- The University of Chicago grad- Prior to joining City Limits in ist and admirer of Berger’s writing. New York Times and later became im Dean David A. Klatell. “His uate is a native of that city and 2001, Pacenza wrote neighbor- Following the presentation of the Times’Rocky Mountain bureau work has been crucial in the con- began his career in journalism as a hood news stories that appeared in the Mike Berger award on Journal- chief. Ivins received the 1992 tinuing battles against government police reporter for the City News several publications including the ism Day, Tuesday, May 20, the Headliner’s Award for best column evasions and dissembling, and he Bureau in 1959. He later became a New York Observer and Newsday. witty and widely read syndicated in Texas. In 1976, she was hon- has done all this without fear or correspondent for United Press Originally from upstate New York, columnist Molly Ivins delivered ored as an outstanding alumna by favor, and with a modesty that International in South Dakota, and Pacenza earned a bachelor’s the annual Henry F. Pringle Memo- the Columbia Graduate School of belies the importance of his in 1963 went on to become a degree in environmental policy rial Lecture on covering national Journalism’s Alumni Association, efforts,” Klatell added. The Chicago and Washington D.C. cor- from Cornell University in 1993. affairs. and she served as a Pulitzer Prize Columbia Journalism Award, is the respondent for the Associated Before pursuing a journalism Ivins, whose column on politics juror in 1992. Panel Discusses ‘The Arts in Our Time of Conflict’ at School of the Arts Symposium by Oscar Wilde, starring Al Pacino and do other things to bring events Factors contributing to its success, loss and loneliness; BY KRISTIN STERLING (and produced by Roth); and of the world into consciousness, she said, were that the producers • The Penetration Play, by Win- James Schamus, School of the Arts such as readings, she suggested. raised enhancement money and the ter Miller, a psychological explo- “I get my impression of the film professor, executive producer Parsons added that she recently story featured a population that ration of uneasy relationships and world by reading new work by of Crouching Tiger Hidden Drag- read two scripts about the anxiety people were curious about. the struggle to tell the truth; playwrights,” said Daryl Roth, pro- on, and a writer and a producer of that now grips Americans in their Parsons added that Russell Sim- • The Scholar, by Emily Con- ducer of four Pulitzer Prize win- the upcoming film, The Hulk. everyday life. These plays are what mons’ Def Poety Jam is another bere, a friend’s visit cannot assuage ning plays—Proof, Wit, How I Margo Jefferson, cultural critic for art is really about—reaching deeply example of multi-cultural theater, the grief of shattered parents who Learned to Drive and Three Tall The New York Times and SOA pro- into human beings and communi- where poetry meets rap and hip- try to understand why their son Women, during a recent theatre arts fessor, moderated the discussion. cating with people, she said. hop. Schamus predicted that the committed suicide; symposium in her DR2 Theatre Among many topics, the panel The panel also discussed the impact of the Latino market will • Was, by Ryan Kelly, a widow entitled “Free Speak: The Arts in discussed the implications of the slow infiltration of diversity into increase quickly over the next five and her grown children confront Our Time of Conflict.” war in Iraq and terrorism in theater. theater. Roth cited Angels in Amer- years. memories of their loss; Roth was a member of a highly It is not theater’s responsibility to ica and Rent as two productions The symposium kicked-off a • Ozone Park, by Stacie Dugan acclaimed panel of artists, includ- deal with these issues, rather it is that turned the tide of traditional week-long festival of play readings Vourakis, portrays sisters who are ing: Anna Deveare Smith, actor, an opportunity, explained Smith. theater and ushered in diversity. by graduate playwrights in the seeking independence—one from director and playwright, currently “You can’t make people create Rent started in a small East Village School of the Arts. The plays a wheelchair, the other from a bot- featured in Presidio Med and The what’s not inside them,” said Jef- Theatre with a multicultural cast include: tle; West Wing; Estelle Parsons, ferson, explaining the lack of Sep- telling a down-and-out story, rather • Nobody’s Child by Beau • The Misfortune of Our actress, previously on Roseanne, tember 11th-related plays. Writers than the “glitz and glamour” that is Willimon, depicts the extremes Friends, by Sandi Groff, a CEO currently in Salome: The Reading can think beyond the conventional associated with musical theater. people go to when dealing with questions his own scruples. Joseph Jones Seeks to Redefine ‘What it Means to Be a Columbia Basketball Player’ (Continued from Page 1) Perhaps the greatest expectation give Jones—then head coach of doing other community service team, Jones says. Engles comes to among Columbians is that Jones an unspectacular Comsewogue activities. He intends to conduct Columbia having spent five sea- old program’s history—begins reg- will attract more high caliber play- High School team—his first big more basketball youth camps at sons as an assistant at Division I ular practice with his players. ers to Morningside Heights. A break.

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