September 7, 2005 Source: St. Jerome's University: http://www.sju.ca/about/media_releases.asp SJU’s Higgins named one of TVO’s Top Ten” Lecturers Isabel Bassett, TVOntario’s Chair and CEO, announced the short-list of Ontario’s ten best lecturers on Tuesday in Ottawa. Included in the list is Michael W. Higgins, President of St. Jerome’s University, who will be one of ten lecturers featured on the TVOntario program Big Ideas in November. Higgins was initially one of thirty post-secondary educators selected by columnist Robert Fulford, playwright Andrew Moodie and Literary Review of Canada editor Bronwyn Drainie from over three-hundred-and-fifty nominees. The same panel narrowed the list down to ten lecturers, who will be featured, two lecturers per week, on successive Big Ideas broadcasts beginning Saturday, October 15 at 1:00 p.m. The program is hosted by Irshad Manji and is repeated on Sunday at the same time. The selection of Ontario’s best lecturer will be left to viewers, who can register their choice by telephone (1-886-281-3536) or online (www.tvo.org/bigideas). The winning lecturer’s university or college will receive a $10,000 scholarship sponsored by TD Meloche Monnex. Higgins has been President of St. Jerome’s University—a Roman Catholic University federated with the University of Waterloo—since 1999 and holds cross-appointments in English and Religious Studies. He has authored or co-authored My Father's Business: a Biography of His Eminence G. Emmett Cardinal Carter (1990), The Jesuit Mystique (1995), the award-winning Heretic Blood: The Spiritual Geography of Thomas Merton (1998), The Muted Voice: Religion and the Media (2000) and the best-selling Power and Peril: The Catholic Church at the Crossroads (2002). His latest book, Stalking the Holy: In Pursuit of Saint-Making, is scheduled for release this fall. Van Gogh the Subject of Inaugural Cummings Lecture at St. Jerome’s For Immediate Release: 9/6/2005 A tormented artist, disdained by his peers only to become a celebrated icon of the twentieth century, is the subject of the inaugural Laurence A. Cummings Lecture in Cultural History at St. Jerome’s University. Dr. Modris Eksteins addresses the topic of “Art, Fame, and the Problem of Authenticity: Vincent van Gogh and Us” on Friday, September 16th at 7:30 p.m., in Siegfried Hall. Eksteins examines Van Gogh’s life and art to understand how this obscure 19th century artist—the victim of poverty, critical neglect, unrequited love, mental illness and suicide—rose to near-mythic status in the twentieth century, his distinctive post-impressionist canvases, once unsold, now commanding record prices. What does this transformation say about Van Gogh and, more importantly, about us? A Rhodes Scholar and a Professor of History at the University of Toronto (Scarborough), Eksteins is currently researching a book on Vincent van Gogh. He is the author of Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (1989), winner of the Trillium Prize and the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association, and selected one of Amazon.ca’s fifty essential Canadian books. Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II, and the Heart of Our Century (1999) won the inaugural Pearson Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize and was selected as one of the Best Books of the Year by The Globe and Mail, Los Angeles Times, The Independent, and Times Literary Supplement. The Laurence A. Cummings Lecture in Cultural History was established by students of Dr. Cummings, a professor of English at St. Jerome’s from 1962 to 1972, who went on to found the cultural history program at the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture. Admission is free but space is limited. Graduates of St. Jerome’s University who were taught by Dr. Cummings or who belonged to his theatrical troupe, St. Aethelwold’s Players, are also invited to a reunion brunch on Saturday, September 17th at 10:00 a.m. at the University. Call Sarah Daly at 884-8111, x8277 to register. | 