A message from our colleague Magueye Seck:

My Fulbright experience is going fine so far. Although I am still adjusting to a completely different environment culturally, politically, and academically, I have received a lot of positive feedback from students and colleagues after the first six lectures on family violence and family policy analysis. The level of student enthusiasm is very high in all my classes here at Gaston Berger University. I have three classes and about 95 students. I have had a lot of work recently, because of the endless translations of course materials from English to French for my classes. The research aspect of my project is also in progress.

I am happy to have assistance from two graduate students who are doing field-work with me. We are in collaboration with two police stations including the police headquarters on the Island. We have already had two visits with the police chiefs, and we are now in the process of refining our instruments. On campus, many in the applied research field, including faculty, graduate and undergraduate students are all captivated by the changing structure of the family in Senegal. One cannot miss the passion in the discussions and analysis of family issues. Consequently, I am planning to organize a round table in which I am inviting professors from the U.S., France, Belgium, and other African Countries. The topic is being negotiated. It could center around the role of the family in the violence and the immigration crisis in Europe and in Africa.

Outside the campus, there is nothing I like more than watching the Senegal River which passes through Saint-Louis, my native island. It is truly a splendid beauty. I do not want to make envious my good friends in Massachusetts, but I must say it is 80 degrees here today, November 18. This will be the first winter in America that I will miss completely in 30 years.

Sometimes, I ride my bicycle around the island, and I put on my “Fulbright” t-shirt, hoping somebody will ask me about it. It is peculiar that most people here think that I am a stranger in the island—and they are always astonished that I speak Wolof which is my native language.

It would give me great pleasure to welcome Curry people in Saint-Louis, Senegal. I hope the semester is going well at Curry. Thank you.

Best wishes,
Magueye Seck, Ph.D.

They are staff members many of us have never met. They arrive at 11 p.m. and leave at 7 a.m. They are a very tight-knit team who work tirelessly through the night to keep our students and our campus safe. We are pleased to introduce you to our very experienced Public Safety Department midnight shift.

Officer Stephen LaChance, with the department for more than eight years, can most often be found at the front gate. He has a particular skill in effectively communicating with the College community and relaying information to fellow officers on the road.

Officer Randy Lloyd, with the department for approximately two years, is a graduate of Bridgewater State College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice. He is also a graduate of the Foxboro Police Academy and is currently working on a master’s degree here at Curry.

Officer Jason Martin is not only an Officer but is also is a licensed Emergency Medical Technician; quite helpful for the number of medical incidents the midnight shift encounters on a regular basis. Currently Officer Martin is continuing his law enforcement training at the Foxboro Police Academy and is very much into physical fitness.

Sgt. Terance Steel has been with the department for a little over a year and brings with him a great deal of experience. He is a graduate of Bridgewater State College with a degree in sociology, a graduate of the Plymouth Police Academy, and a Certified Dispatcher in the Commonwealth of MA. He is also first responder trained. He has served part- time as a sergeant on a municipal police department for six years.

Officer Jeffrey Lurie, with the department for six months, also serves as a part-time officer for a municipal police department and is a graduate of the Foxboro Police Academy. Officer Lurie is a Certified First Responder and has police dispatch experience. He holds an associate’s degree in law enforcement.

Officer Yves Laine, the newest member of the mid-night team, is a graduate of UMASS Dartmouth and is currently working on his master’s degree here at Curry. Officer Laine brings to the table the experience of having worked with the MA Sheriffs Department.

Officer Alex Kokoros is our Community Policing Officer and heads up the residence hall security division. He is responsible for organizing all the residence hall security officers, maintaining payroll for all of these officers, and training. Officer Kokoros is a graduate of the Foxboro Police Academy and is currently working towards his Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. Officer Kokoros is the only officer in the department who is police mountain bike certified.

The talents of our faculty spread far and wide beyond the walls of the traditional classroom: art shows, book publishings, lectures, performances, and more. We look forward to sharing these accomplishments with you on a regular basis via the Cruisin’ Curry e-Newsletter.

Laurie Alpert and Elizabeth Strasser have been teaching Fine Arts to Curry students for 24 and 30 years respectively. Like the entire Fine and Applied Arts department faculty, they are artists in the true sense of the word; continually creating art and passing on their enthusiasm to countless Curry students. Both Laurie and Elizabeth show their work at the Bromfield Gallery, Boston's oldest artist-run cooperative gallery. Elizabeth presented a solo show last April and Laurie will be presenting a solo show in May.

Laurie, trained as a painter, focuses her artistic energy on the art of printmaking, specifically Photo Intaglio ("solarplate") and Polyester Plate Lithography ("Pronto Plates"). Solarplate is a process in which thin metal plates with a light sensitive surface are exposed to light and images are transferred onto the plates. Pronto Plates resemble the surface of a Lithography plate and images can be put on the plate either digitally or by hand, and then printed on a press. Laurie also does a lot of work with Artist's Books in which several prints are uniquely transformed into a book form. Pictured above is her book titled, “Denali: Short Story.” Her subject matter often includes photographs taken while traveling. Laurie teaches courses in printmaking and Artist's Books along with several other classes in the Fine Arts curriculum.

Congratulations are in order as Laurie is pleased to share that she has just been awarded a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, the country's largest artist community which hosts artists and writers from around the world.

"Site" Paintings

Elizabeth's recent paintings relate to traditional landscape paintings. Although they present the visual details of the particular location, the color and form of the particular place, they also incorporate sound, weather, memory and mood.

“In each location I look for key colors and categorize forms, edges, textures and rhythms. I have painted in the desert, woods, and fields. The open window of a hotel in Tennessee revealed rooftops and the sound of musicians practicing." Pictured at left is Elizabeth’s work entitled, "Rooftop Shuffle, Nashville, Tennessee." This painting is quite impressive at three feet tall. Other paitings in this series are as tall as seven feet.

“Parks and gardens have inspired me in France and Italy, and the sea and islands in the Bahamas. The tragedy of the hurricanes in New Orleans brought ideas about the emotional attachments of place and the enormity of nature’s destructive power into the paintings. The diverse energies of land, sky, water, light, and movement, are combined with a desire to convey my specific response to the energy of each place.”

Elizabeth is a painter and a potter and runs the Ceramic studio at Curry, teaching several sections of Ceramics classes each semester. She also teaches Drawing and Watercolor and an upper-level class about the the development of ideas in studio art and graphic design called "Design Concepts".

Announcements about upcoming viewings of Laurie’s and Elizabeth’s work will be shared via email.

Curry College is commencing its third strategic planning process. Consistent with our two previous Strategic Plans, we want to begin by seeking input from our community about the future of the College. Faculty and staff feedback is very important to us.

We hope that you might spare a few minutes of your time to participate in our Strategic Plan Survey and let us know what you think about Curry’s strengths and weaknesses, future opportunities worth pursuit, and potential obstacles to be overcome. We also want to know about any specific initiatives you believe we should consider.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. The tremendous gains our College has made in recent years would not have been possible without the participation of the Curry community in the creation and execution of our first two Strategic plans. We are confident that the responses to this survey will provide a solid foundation for our next plan.

Click here to take the Curry College Strategic Plan survey!

Our Dependent Care Assistance Plan year begins January 1. If you have dependent care expenses (daycare, eldercare), this is a way to pay for them PRE-TAX. You can have up to $5,000 per year deducted from your paycheck and deposited into an account from which you can be reimbursed for these expenses. Since the money comes out before you are taxed on it, this account gives you “more bang for the buck”. Contact Mary Dunn or Linda O’Connor for more information.

Did you know that you can rescue a transferred caller from voice-mail purgatory? When transferring a call, if the voice-mail picks up, simply hit the cancel button to get the caller back.