Some New York City students drew stacks of plaintive pictures to express how they felt about the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. Others wrote poems — some disconsolate, some determinedly optimistic. Now, the New York school system has compiled dozens of these artistic responses in a book, "Messages to Ground Zero: Children Respond to Sept. 11, 2001." SHELLEY HARWAYNE, the superintendent of District 2 in Manhattan, collected drawings, poems, journal entries and essays from students citywide for the book, published by Heinemann and scheduled for release on Sept. 11. Also included are touching letters sent by children across the United States.
. . . And Celebrity Decorations
DONALD J. TRUMP drew a skyscraper, WILLARD SCOTT fashioned a happy face and WILLIAM WEGMAN sketched a city street filled with his famous Weimaraners. About 1,000 celebrities, students, firefighters and the families of Sept. 11 victims have decorated children's building blocks as part of "Rebuilding Hope," a project by the arts therapy department of the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. The project is intended to help New Yorkers express their grief. The blocks will become part of a sculpture the department hopes to build in downtown Manhattan as a memorial. "There is something inherently healing in the creative process," said JENNIFER DROWER, a coordinator in the department, which is expecting more than 2,000 blocks when the project is complete. Anyone who wants to paint a block can do so from noon to 2 p.m. on Aug. 22 at the School of Visual Arts, 132 West 21st Street.
CUNY Names Visiting Professors
Two noted philosophers, SAUL KRIPKE and MARTIN DAVIES, have been named visiting professors at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Dr. Kripke won the Swedish Academy of Sciences' Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy in 2001 and began teaching at CUNY last semester. Dr. Davies, the author of "Meaning, Quantification, Necessity: Themes in Philosophical Logic" (1981), will begin teaching in the spring.
Juilliard Sets Bachelor's in Jazz Studies
The Juilliard School, in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center, has announced that it will offer a bachelor's degree in jazz studies starting next fall, with auditions in late March. The four-year program will include weekly private lessons and courses in ear training and keyboard skills, jazz improvisation, composition and arranging, and the liberal arts. The program is to be headed by VICTOR L. GOINES, artistic director of jazz studies. Students will perform in the New York area, on tour with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and in master classes with guest artists like WYNTON MARSALIS. Juilliard first introduced jazz to its curriculum last year with the creation of the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies.