0 N C 0 R D I A , S SDAY ,_____PORT VOL. 20 FEBRUARY 8, I996 Toboggan race set for Saturday Ice Falcon to fly The toboggan will slide down the BY MI C HAEL OR SI N I hill on skis, but because contest rules ix Engineering students are in stipulate that "whatever touches the SWinnipeg today to compete in snow has to be concrete," the bottom the Great Northern Toboggan Race, of the fiberglass skis had to be coated one of Canada's biggest student with concrete. skill-testing challenges. Team captain David Janssen said The team's entry, the Ice Falcon, that he and his five teammates have was front and centre in the J.W. worked feverishly over the last five McConnell Building's atrium last months to prepare their hefty entry week (see photo, left), where other for the competition. "One of our Concordians could admire it and team members spent two days alone wish the team luck. making the Falcon's wings." It was featured las t week on "I still have a good 24 hours of Newswatch and Pulse News, and work left before I leave for Win­ people have been visiting their new nipeg," Janssen said on Monday. Web site - http://www.civil. The students and their Ice Falcon concordia.ca/toboggan - which the will drive the 2,500 kilometres to team intends to keep up to date. Winnipeg - 48 hours non-stop - The concrete toboggan weighs in through frigid territory. Northern at 272.5 pounds, and comes com­ Ontario and the Prairies, never plete with an eye-catching head and balmy at this time of year, have been beak made from styrofoam, chicken in the grip of record-breaking wire and papier mache. minus-40 temperatures. Harry Standjofski's Atreus opens tonight at F. Smith Auditorium IN THIS ISSUE C. Ancient Greek drama still speaks to us Business is good SUPPLEMENT: . The kudos just keep coming eight, and a few modern surprises founded, POV Productions. BY PHILIP FINE for Concordia's Commerce and Ombuds Office for an audience that might expect a Standjofski found his cast of 16 Administration students. Four Report irector Harry Standjofski had deferential treatment of the classics. students open-minded toward. this MBA students from the Faculty Dsome advice for his actors: The play was first staged in 1992, 3,000-year-old theatre genre. In won the annual Maritime Tele­ "Come on, you remember that and Standjofski has made some turn, he doesn't require any specific phone and Telegraph Dalhousie East and west time you sacrificed your daughter. changes for this production. style of acting. International Business Case Use that." Standjofski, a 36-year-old Con­ "I just tell them to put themselves Competition, which was held on Chinese journalism teachers A little humour helps when you're cordia alumnus, is one of those rare in that position," he said, referring to January 28 and February 2. visit us and our professors trying to connect emotionally with birds, a homegrown theatre profes­ the characters who endure epic The format of the event is go there to compare the monumental events of Greek sional who is still here and working. events, "and then see what their unique. In the span of five hours, news-gathering. In fact, he's a celebrity, thanks to his voices and bodies do." drama, with its fierce morality and Concordia students James Page2 leading role on the weekly Radio­ Atreus opens tonight at the F C. Smith long monologues. McKenna, Ingrid Pavilanis, Canada television drama A Nous Auditorium (7141 Sherbrooke St. W) Professor/ actor/writer/ director Helen Trifonopoulos, and Nevill Deux, now winding up its third and and runs until February 16., with the Standjofski is directing a group of Smythe received, analyzed and Response to final yea·r, and he has appeared exception ofFebrua ry 12 and 13. Tick­ second- and third-year Theatre stu­ returned a previously unpub­ the Globe onstage at the Centaur, in local sum­ ets are $1O ; $8 far students and seniors. dents in Atreus, his own adaptation lished international business case mer theatre and in a company he co- Call 848-4742. Rector Frederick Lowy's riposte of three Greek plays, in a production via fax from Halifax. They then to a slight in the national press that opens tonight on the Loyola presented their analysis to the is reprinted in full. Campus. judges live from Montreal, using Page4 His version of the classics has the Faculty.s video-conferencing enough snips, tucks and contempo­ equipment. The team's coach rary references to make accessible a Hindu Chair was Management Professor type of theatre that many have to be Jan Meyers. T.S. Rukmani brings a prodded to watch. The theme is fate Eighteen schools from Cana­ wealth of Sanskrit scholarship versus psychology, and the prolific da, the United States, the Unit­ to Concordia. Montreal playwright has dealt with ed Kingdom, Finland and Page 5 the same dramatic issues that faced Argentina took part in the com­ the original authors, Aeschylus, petition. This is the second year Euripides and Sophocles, in many of that Concordia has participated. NEXT ISSUE: his other plays. The Concordia team will FEBRUARY 15 Atreus condenses three two-and- z receive the Minister's Cup, which NO ISSUE THE a-half-hour classics, Iphigenia Aulios, ~ is sponsored by the Department FOLLOWING WEEK Agamemnon and Electra, into one i three-act play of 90 minutes. ~ See Commerce, p. 7 There's a classic Greek chorus of a= Visiting professor Sheng Xigui is fascinated by Canadians at leisure, obstreperous students Concordia through a Chinese lens In one Communication Studies students will, too. before he graduated. tion in crowded Beijing. BY ALISON RAMSEY class, he noted .the number of film Another goal is to introduce the He has spent the past 10 years "People enjoy their lives in differ· Seen through the eyes of a Chi­ projectors. "There are six," he said, topic of ethics, currently unknown in teaching a six-day week, which was ent ways, I think," he said. "This is nese photojournalist and university impressed, "all used at the same Chinese journalism courses. While the norm until a year ago, when one kind of impression of Montreal. time. And students can give their Canadian journalists study ethical China adopted the five-day work During their leisure time, people are lecturer, Concordia classrooms are ideas at any time." dilemmas involving privacy, violence week. The Cultural Revolution, happy and busy." delightfully well-equipped and poor­ He intends to try breaking the tra- and minorities, Sheng foresees his class which was fiercely anti-intellectual, Sheng dreams of doing hard-hit­ ly disciplined. ditional docility of Chinese students talking about when to name teenagers created a gap in the country's educa­ ting documentary photography . Sheng Xigui, a journalism teacher when he returns in the fall. After his and how to report crime stories. tion system; the two other professors Born and raised in a peasant family, at Renmin University of China, is initial shock, Sheng enjoyed the Despite the country's 55 minori­ in his department are in their 60s, he wants his work to inspire reform auditing courses for two terms before give-and-take between students and ties, "there is no racism like there is and Sheng imagines he will become and financial aid for the impover­ returning to Beijing next August. professors here, and he hopes his here," he said, and reporters don't even busier soon, when they retire. ished rural poor. "It's important not breach privacy with anything near Given his hectic schedule in to just take pictures that are beautiful the zeal of those in Europe and China, Sheng is fascinated with and happy." North America. Canadian leisure. During a roving A second Chinese teacher arrived Sheng has been preparing for this visit to Old Montreal, he pho­ at Concordia on January 15, and will trip for a long time. He thought in tographed activities that struck him also stay a year to audit courses. The 1984 that his trip was imminent, and as strange. visit by Xu Qiin Yuan, from China's studied English intensively. The Back in China, he'll show slides of Beijing Broadcasting Institute, is the rules kept changing, however, and people having their fortune told, a first of what the Journalism Depart­ then there were the unwritten rules, child's face being painted, and a row ment hopes will be a series of such as having to be at least 30, and of men in colonial military costume exchanges with that institution. married. (He is both now, though he firing off muskets. Journalism chair Enn Raudsepp I;; was neither when he first applied.) Another set of shots from Notre­ obtained a $15,000 grant to cover "'a: Ir Sheng, 33, is part of the first gen­ Dame-de-Grace captures ivy-framed Xu's expenses here after contacting ill a: 0 former Gazette editor-in-chief Nor­ z eration to be educated after the Cul­ doors, flower-filled windowboxes <( tural Revolution of the 1970s. He and plants dangling from balconies. man Webster, who heads the @ I a. was asked to become a lecturer even There is no room for such decora- Howard Webster Foundation. News watchdog Allan C. Brownfeld sees a left-wing agenda, Concordia professors intrigued by changes, sloppy ethics and tabloid values in the media constants in Chinese media Taking AIM at the media Journalism in China one's trash in search of material, but minority bias in the media which BY JONATHON GATEHOUSE through Canadian eyes when the National Enquirer does so, distorts the truth about the political ournalists can't be trusted to the New York Times does not hesitate and social agendas of such groups.