CLEVELAND (TDB) -- He was from Buffalo, but his road to success really began in Cleveland. And Tim Russert never forgot the city, nor lessons that "there's a world beyond yourself" to serve learned during his days as a college student in NE Ohio. The NBC news journalist, who collapsed and died on the job Friday, graduated from John Carroll University with a political science degree 1972. He earned a law degree from Cleveland State University in 1976, where President Michael Schwartz mourned his passing: "Tim sought the truth in a straight-talking, no-nonsense manner, and his wit, genial manner and everyman persona endeared him to everyone on campus as well as his legion of television viewers."
Russert long credited the Jesuit campus of John Carroll University in the Cleveland suburb of University Heights with playing a major role in shaping his worldview. The 58-year-old newsman appears on the Website among alums who are the pride of JCU, and he quotes the Gospel of St. Luke, "To those whom much has been given, much is expected. And if there is one lesson that I took from John Carroll, that is it." His son is named Luke.
Showing posts with label John Carroll University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Carroll University. Show all posts
Friday, June 13, 2008
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Cleveland Poet George Bilgere: A Cadaver Got Him Started
CLEVELAND (TDB) -- Ever hear of The Dead Poet's Society? This tale runs in reverse. George Bilgere, who runs the creative writing program at John Carroll University, is a living poet of note. But it was a dead guy, a janitor named Morris who left his body to science, that unlocked the Ohioan's inner muse. He told Garrison Keillor recently just how it happened
Bilgere said he started college planning to be a scientist, then a physician.
"It took just one terrifying experience with Chemistry 101 to cure me of that delusion. And I realized I'd rather write about the world than dissect it. But in many ways the things I learned about in biology and zoology courses proved just as valuable to me as a writer as anything I learned in a writing workshop. For instance, the first poem I wrote as an undergrad -- my first poem, period -- was about Morris, the school cadaver. He'd been a janitor at the school for 30 years, and decided he wanted to stay on, even in death. I never would have met Morris if I'd started life as an English major. What is that joke? If you want to make God laugh, make a plan."
There is more about Bilgere at John Carroll and one of his poems is here. It's not about Morris, who definitely belongs to the dead janitor's society.
Bilgere said he started college planning to be a scientist, then a physician.
"It took just one terrifying experience with Chemistry 101 to cure me of that delusion. And I realized I'd rather write about the world than dissect it. But in many ways the things I learned about in biology and zoology courses proved just as valuable to me as a writer as anything I learned in a writing workshop. For instance, the first poem I wrote as an undergrad -- my first poem, period -- was about Morris, the school cadaver. He'd been a janitor at the school for 30 years, and decided he wanted to stay on, even in death. I never would have met Morris if I'd started life as an English major. What is that joke? If you want to make God laugh, make a plan."
There is more about Bilgere at John Carroll and one of his poems is here. It's not about Morris, who definitely belongs to the dead janitor's society.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Cleveland, Ohio And Ingenuity: Anyone Knows An Ant Can't
CLEVELAND (TDB) -- The annual summer shindig for sentient beings that is known as the Ingenuity Festival ends today, just as another event devoted to the creative juices begins a two-month run on the shores of Lake Erie. This one is about science and social animals -- how they solve problems, and how, by working together, they manage complex systems.
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is sponsoring demonstrations about swarm intelligence on Saturdays, peeking into a rapidly emerging area of research that asks and tries to answer this question: Individual creatures often aren't ingenuous, but their colonies act intelligently, how can they behave so wise and smart? Coincidentally, the topic of swarm behavior gets in-depth exploration in the July issue of National Geographic:
"A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, allocating workers to different tasks, or defending territory from neighbors. As individuals, ants might be tiny dummies, but as colonies they respond quickly and effectively to their environment. They do it with something called swarm intelligence.
Where this intelligence comes from raises a fundamental question in nature: How to the simple actions of individuals add up to the complex behavior of a group? How do hundreds of honeybees make a critical decision about their hive if many of them disagree?"
It is all about ingenuity. At the museum, you'll be able to work like a swarm. Researchers at John Carroll University and Case Western Reserve University have been working on the science and designing robots the size of large cockroaches. They try to get swarms of human beings to perform various tasks collectively. It is one of the cool things happening in Ohio. The museum link above connects to a scientific paper published by the JCU and Case scientists.
For those not into scientific writing, which can be stodgy, read the National Geographic piece. It explains how researchers are trying to find out how the insects function as a group with no bosses in charge.
In 1959, Frank Sinatra sang "High Hopes" about the ant that moved a rubber tree plant and the song won an Oscar. (If you scan through the lyrics in the link you'll see he did a version promoting John F. Kennedy as the 1960 Democratic nominee. Swarm behavior? Or just the Rat Pack?)
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is sponsoring demonstrations about swarm intelligence on Saturdays, peeking into a rapidly emerging area of research that asks and tries to answer this question: Individual creatures often aren't ingenuous, but their colonies act intelligently, how can they behave so wise and smart? Coincidentally, the topic of swarm behavior gets in-depth exploration in the July issue of National Geographic:
"A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, allocating workers to different tasks, or defending territory from neighbors. As individuals, ants might be tiny dummies, but as colonies they respond quickly and effectively to their environment. They do it with something called swarm intelligence.
Where this intelligence comes from raises a fundamental question in nature: How to the simple actions of individuals add up to the complex behavior of a group? How do hundreds of honeybees make a critical decision about their hive if many of them disagree?"
It is all about ingenuity. At the museum, you'll be able to work like a swarm. Researchers at John Carroll University and Case Western Reserve University have been working on the science and designing robots the size of large cockroaches. They try to get swarms of human beings to perform various tasks collectively. It is one of the cool things happening in Ohio. The museum link above connects to a scientific paper published by the JCU and Case scientists.
For those not into scientific writing, which can be stodgy, read the National Geographic piece. It explains how researchers are trying to find out how the insects function as a group with no bosses in charge.
In 1959, Frank Sinatra sang "High Hopes" about the ant that moved a rubber tree plant and the song won an Oscar. (If you scan through the lyrics in the link you'll see he did a version promoting John F. Kennedy as the 1960 Democratic nominee. Swarm behavior? Or just the Rat Pack?)
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