November 04, 2009

Marymount Professor Sayers Named Educator of the Year

 English department faculty member Kari Sayers received the honor of Educator of the Year, an award presented by the Rotary Club of Palos Verdes Peninsula at its annual Educator of the Year awards ceremony on November 4 at the Palos Verdes Golf Club. Joining Professor Sayers in this honor were other Palos Verdes teachers from elementary and secondary education.
Professor Sayers was elected by her College peers for this honor.  “We are certainly very proud of all that Professor Sayers has accomplished at Marymount College as an instructor and academic leader,” said Dr. Michael Brophy, president of the College.  “She is a warm, sincere and genuine member of our community who goes ‘above and beyond’ every day on our campus” said Dr. Brophy.
Presenting the award that evening to Professor Sayers was Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Ariane Schauer, Ph.D.  In her remarks, Dr. Schauer said, “Professor Sayers is a very caring and dedicated member of our faculty. She brings a global perspective to the teaching of language and to her understanding of students.  It is a privilege to work with her, a wonderful teacher, mentor and colleague.”
The Educator of the Year Award was established 29 years ago and serves as a public acknowledgment of the contributions made by excellent teachers in providing educational growth and development for students in the Palos Verdes community.  All individual teachers from educational institutions on the Peninsula are eligible, and each participating educational institution uses their own method and criteria for selection.

October 10, 2009

Reading to Kids in LA

On Saturday October 10th MOVE and PTK members, as well as Faculty and Staff volunteered at Magnolia and Politi elementary schools. The morning started out with a light breakfast, and a small introduction to the program. After that, volunteers were paired-up and sent to meet with their reading groups. The children ranged from kinder garden to fifth grade and all were equally excited to read spooky stories in regards to the upcoming holiday. Along with the stories the volunteers presented craft time, this allowed the children to comprehensively take something from the story that they enjoyed and physically make it. Some children made goblin masks, while others painted pictures. When small group time had ended, all of the children and volunteers joined together in the auditorium for a Magic Show. The excitement from the children filled the room, this day was an obvious success.
After the volunteering, Marymount Volunteers headed to the Original Farmers Market, located next to the Grove in LA. While there, students were able to experience a variety of cultural foods for lunch.
Reading to Kids was a great success with over 45 volunteers and hundreds of smiling faces :)

October 02, 2009

Marymount's Family Weekend - Fall 2009

Dr. Ron McCurdy and company performed The Langston Hughes Project, Ask Your Mama: 12 Mood for Jazz at Marymount CollegeFriday, October 2nd, 2009.   The Langston Hughes Project is a multimedia concert performance of Langston Hughes's kaleidoscopic jazz poem suite. Ask Your Mama is Hughes's homage in verse and music to the struggle for artistic and social freedom at home and abroad at the beginning of the 1960s. It is a twelve-part epic poem which Hughes scored with musical cues drawn from blues and Dixieland, gospel songs, boogie woogie, bebop and progressive jazz, Latin "cha cha" and Afro-Cuban mambo music, German lieder, Jewish liturgy, West Indian calypso, and African drumming -- a creative masterwork left unperformed at his death.
Marymount's Family Weekend Fall 2009  Marymount's Family Weekend Fall 2009

October 01, 2009

The Boy's & Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor

The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor is the LARGEST daily provider of youth development programming in the entire South Bay - serving over 2200 youth DAILY!  Many of our members come from poverty level families and and are highly at-risk.  We are currently recruiting volunteers to assist in our Learning Centers at our 13th Street & Cabrillo Avenue site in San Pedro (10 minutes from Marymount).  Marymount students in the past have been great volunteers in our program.


We have three separate Learning Centers where we can use your assistance:  Elementary, Middle School and High School.  The elementary and middle school centers primarily provide homework assistance, computer assisted instruction and basic reading and math tutoring.  Our high school program is called "College Bound" as we dedicate ourselves to provide a college pathway for all of our teens.  Besides homework assistance, College Bound provides academic case management, SAT preparedness activities, assistance in applications for college acceptance, SAT exams and FAFSA; writing workshops, and mentoring.  We primarily are looking for volunteers to support children in all three centers with homework assistance - but volunteers have often assisted in the other center activities as well.

We have "flexible" hours which should be of benefit to Marymount College students.

In addition, we are recruiting volunteers who can work as assistants in our other program areas (fine arts, dance, music, sports, recording studio, etc), can assist at our entry desks and/or can provide data input.

If interested in volunteering, please contact Tony Tripp of the Boys & Girls Club at (310) 833-1322 ext 236.

We thank you for your time and consideration of the children we serve.

Mike Lansing
Executive Director

Marymount Contact:
Susan Garman
Coordinator of Service Learning Programs
310-303-7290  (office)

August 05, 2009

Marymount Remembers Marineland

This month’s cover features Mother Jean Baptiste (left) and Mother Inez (center), faculty at Marymount College, visiting Marineland Aquarium circa 1960. Faculty and students from Marymount College frequently visited Marineland of the Pacific, located on 90 acres along the beach in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, to see marine exhibits and displays. view on-line article
*Marymount College is still currently located in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

May 18, 2009

Marymount Lecture Looks at Life Outside Auschwitz

Shayna Sorrentino, president of Marymount College’s Jewish Student Union, is a young woman with a purpose. She wants to explore what connects us - and separates us - in our faiths. More importantly, she wants to share the Jewish heritage of faith and perseverance with both the Marymount and South Bay Community. To that end, Shayna invited Palos Verdes resident Robert Geminder to the campus to speak about his experiences as a child in Poland during World War II – not inside a camp, but outside as he tried to escape the Nazi tyranny.

“So many of us have heard of the horrors in the concentration camps but Mr. Geminder lived through a much different horror. As a child he witnessed atrocities; he knew what would happen if he and his family were ever caught. I can’t imagine where that fortitude comes from – nor can I imagine how he went on to become such a productive citizen after that. I think we will all learn a lot from his experiences.”

Indeed, Mr. Geminder has a lot to say about staying alive, the dedication of family and the importance of faith. Because of a resourceful mother, he escaped the Jewish ghetto before it was razed, scrambled through a hole in the top of a train car as it sat idle 100 yards from Auschwitz and masqueraded as a Christian only to have to escape again when the Nazis decided to kill Jew and Christian alike.

This is a story of amazing courage and resilience. Shayna Sorrentino and Marymount are excited to welcome Mr. Geminder to our campus on April 29. Admission is free. The event will be held in the Marymount Auditorium at 7:00 p.m.

Artfully Crafted: Students Bring It Home

Under a hot sun on a beautiful Palos Verdes Saturday, over 50 Marymount College students joined staff and faculty to build a house right in the College’s parking lot.

This wasn’t just any house and these weren’t just any students: the loft house is destined for a needy family in Mexico and the majority of students were freshman participating in orientation week.

With the help of Hands of Mercy, the 12 foot square pre-fabricated loft home was constructed in panels. Slowly the peak of the roof, the staircase to the loft, and the walls of the home came into focus until everyone wielding a hammer or using a saw had to pause and smile at the fruits of their labor. But that Saturday they wouldn’t see the final product. When all was said and done, each piece of the house was loaded on a trailer to be trucked to Mexico. The students and their advisors will follow to the small town outside of Ensenada where they will finish their mission. The house will be put together, painted and presented to the family who will live in it.

Victoria Boyd, a freshman from Rancho Palos Verdes, and Anthony “Chip” Angeles of Manhattan Beach, both hope to be one of the 25 students chosen to accompany the house to Mexico.

“I wanted to get involved from day one,” Victoria said. “I got a chance to meet people. After today, I hope I get a chance to follow this project through to the end.”

That sentiment was echoed by Chip Angeles who made the day of service a family affair. His mother – dressed in a ‘Marymount Mom’ T-shirt – pitched in alongside her son. Chip pointed out that he has “always liked helping and giving back.”

The family in Mexico is lucky indeed; Marymount is luckier still to have Victoria, Chip and so many other wonderful young people in our student body.

Marymount College Café Takes a Bite Out of Climate Change

Did you know that the lunch at Bon Appetit, Marymount College’s Café, has the power to raise or lower the temperature of the planet?

Take a common lunch favorite, the burger.  Beef is a carbon-intensive food, as is cheese. Even lettuce and tomato have a real impact if purchased out-of-season.

So what lunch can you munch with a clear conscience? At Marymount College, according to Donna Novotney, General Manager of the Bon Appétit Company on campus, it’s easy to enjoy a planet-friendly lunch.

Starting on Low Carbon Diet Day, menu options at the Marymount Cafe will be designed so that no one has to give up on favorites. The event will demonstrate how to make that beloved, high-carbon beef burger more eco-friendly.

Take that burger, for instance. Skip the cheese and the bacon, and swap out-of-season lettuce and tomato for a tasty lower-carbon alternative like grilled onions. Opt for a Chicken Cesear salad or better yet, a vegetarian dish instead of the high-carbon beef burger. Tips to save the planet are even as simple as eating everything you put on your plate, or taking home the leftovers so that spoiling food doesn’t release gasses into the atmosphere.

The Café has educational materials and information about what students and the community can do to lower the carbon footprint of their food while at school, shopping, at home and when eating out. Also available is an online personal calculator to tally your meal’s carbon score: www.eatlowcarbon.org.

“As food manager, I’m constantly looking for ways to enhance the quality of our meals. Taking steps to do that while helping the environment is the icing on the cake – so to speak,” Donna says with a smile.

Nationally, the goal of Bon Appetit Management Company’s Low Carbon Diet is to reduce by 25% emissions from the foods that have the highest impact on climate change. To reach that goal, Bon Appetit is purchasing all meats and vegetables from North America, reducing the amount of beef and cheese served, eliminating air-freighted seafood, and decreasing purchases of tropical fruits. Reducing packaging, limiting use of disposable containers and minimizing food waste are also part of the Low Carbon Diet. And local, seasonal foods remain the focus of the menu.

Marymount Professor turns Film Director

Marymount Professor Bruce Schwartz debuts "Dark Canvas"



http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=6044830