Awards

02 March 2001 |

Cal Performances, Berkeley schools team up for Kennedy Center institute
Cal Performances and the Berkeley Unified School District have been selected as one of 13 new teams of arts organizations and school systems to participate in the Kennedy Center’s “Partners in Education” Institute.

“We are honored to be included in this prestigious program,” said Cal Performances Director Robert Cole. “The workshops our team devises will enable teachers and schools to take full advantage of the outstanding cultural resources Cal Performances brings to the community. Annual meetings and workshops in Washington, as well as ongoing consultation with the Kennedy Center’s education department, will also provide … a continual stream of innovative ideas for delivering arts education to our children.”

Attending the May 16-20 institute in Washington, D.C., will be Hollis Ashby, associate director of Cal Performances, and Suzanne McCulloch, a practicing artist, teacher and coordinator of arts-related grants at Longfellow Middle School and six elementary schools in Berkeley.

The Berkeley town-gown team is the only one to represent California this year and only the third team from the state to participate in the institute during its ten years. Teams selected to participate demonstrate the potential for arts organizations and the school systems to initiate or expand programs for teachers and commit to collaborating on developing programs.

Oscar nomination for journalism instructor
Deborah Hoffmann, who teaches in the broadcast program at the Graduate School of Journalism, has been nominated for an Academy Award for “Long Night’s Journey into Day,” the documentary feature she directed and produced with Frances Reid.

The film explores the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa, where those who had committed politically motivated racial murders were offered amnesty in exchange for disclosing the truth about their apartheid-era actions.

This is Hoffman’s second Academy Award nomination; her first was in 1994, for “Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter.” Oscar winners will be announced March 25.