Conceived, choreographed, and performed by Withers, the piece was illustrated by visually delightful images from across the globe that flashed behind her as she danced. I was intrigued by the international influences and fascinated by the resulting composition.  With other members of the Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, Withers has performed sections of this project in New York and Salt Lake City as well as abroad in Nairobi, Kenya, and Rio de Janerio.

If you’re on campus this weekend, be sure to catch Fall Danceworks, which will feature choreography by faculty, including Withers, and students.  Performances will continue November 19, and 20 at the Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre.

A poster from “Designing Tomorrow,” curated by Laura Shiavo.

Last week, Museum Studies Professor Laura Shiavo treated me and a group of Museum Studies alumni to a guided tour through the National Building Museum’s new exhibit Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s.

Schiavo, the curator of the exhibit, provided us a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the exhibit’s creation. She and her colleagues did archival research on the fairs’ host cities—Chicago, IL (1933–34); San Diego, CA (1935-36); Dallas, TX (1936); Cleveland, OH (1936-37); San Francisco, CA (1939-40); and New York, NY (1939-40)—and even searched on eBay to find some of the original programs and brochures from the world’s fairs.

Dean Barrat and Museum studies alumni mingle at the exhibit reception.

The result is a stunning display full of photos and artifacts depicting how the World’s Fairs popularized modern design and promoted science and consumerism in America as a relief from the Great Depression. It features seven thematic galleries: Welcome to the Fairs, A Fair-going Nation, Building a Better Tomorrow, Better Ways to Move, Better Ways to Live, Better Times, and Legacies.

If you’re in the D.C. area, I encourage you to take in this captivating exhibit, which will be on display through July 2011.

In addition, prestigious institutions such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the American Cancer Society awarded grants to 68 of our faculty researchers to help fund their research. For example, Psychology Professor Maria Zea will use her grant from the National Institutes of Health to work with the DC Developmental Center for AIDS Research; and Chair  of Anthropology Brian Richmond’s grant from the Leaky Foundation will further advance his study of primates’ teeth  and the origins and developments of their chewing and feeding adaptations.

We are so proud of our faculty for being at the forefront of learning and discovery.

Philosophy Professor Paul Churchill, Dean Barratt, Makwei Mabioor Deng, and Evan Faber.

I recently met an incredible young man named Makwei Mabioor Deng, GW’s first Banaa Scholar. Originally from a village in the southern Sudan, Deng and his family fled to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya where they lived for 16 years. Deng came to GW via the Banaa scholarship program in 2008 and is now majoring in philosophy with aspirations of law school.

On top of his full load with GW, Deng recently completed a book in Dinka, the language spoken by the more than three million Jieng people in the Sudan and across the globe. His efforts will help transition Dinka from an oral language to a standardized written language, and his book has the potential to introduce written language the Jieng people.

Banaa was created by recent alumni Evan Faber, BA ’09, Justin Zorn, BA ’08, and a few of their fellow students activists during their time at GW. Arabic for “build” or “create,” Banna provides a free education to Sudanese students in the United States on the condition that they will return home to improve their country. Its mission is to improve the conflicts in Dafur and Sudan by empowering peacemakers both within and without of the countries.

GW is currently accepting applications for an additional Banaa student to begin in Fall 2011. I encourage you to learn more about Banaa.org and their efforts and view the video about Deng’s experience thus far.

At its anniversary celebration last week, I rubbed elbows with filmmakers, Emmy award-winners, and former students. Many of the more than 350 graduates who trained with the Institute for Documentary Filmmaking turned out for the event. The Institute has drawn students from Bangladesh, Somalia, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Uganda, and other countries across the globe. Center Director Nina Gilden Seavey also screened her new feature 4^th and Goal, a compelling story that charted the six-year journeys of four young men in their quest to make it to the NFL.  Maybe Nina, an Emmy award-winning documentarian and Columbian College alumnus (MA ’91), will garner another award for this wonderful piece of work.

Happy anniversary to all those who made this program such a success. Here’s to another 20 years of exceptional non-fiction storytelling!

Photograph by Zain Shah.

Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance Dana Tai Soon Burgess opened his new performance Charlie Chan and the Mystery of Love last Friday to much anticipation thanks to a feature story in The Washington Post. In this autobiographical piece, Dana’s choreography reveals a glimpse into his childhood in Santa Fe, where he grew up watching and admiring Charlie Chan on television. The fluid movements of his dancers were exquisite and brought to life this profound coming-of-age story. Dana’s play received rave reviews this week by The Post’s Sarah Kaufman, who concluded that “with this work, [Dana Tai Soon Burgess] deserved to be crowned poet laureate of Washington dance.”

Congratulations Dana!

“One of the themes in

—Theatre Professor Alan Wade

Recently, GW’s Main Stage opened its season with David Mamet’s Oleanna, produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance and directed by Theatre Professor Alan Wade. The production featured four nights of performances: one by the Alpha cast, one by the Omega cast, and, in an interesting experiment, two shows were performed by a combination of players from each of the two casts. The experiment was fascinating to watch as the actors did not rehearse together prior to the performance. In front of our eyes, they created their own staging as their lines unfolded. I was very impressed with the student actors’ abilities to adapt in the moment to their scene partners.

Keep an eye out for Main Stage’s upcoming performances. Don’t miss William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, premiering Halloween weekend!

At the Parent’s Association Advisory Council meeting, I chatted with parents about our academics and the improvements we’ve made to our advising system. They were pleased to hear that we’ve doubled the number of professional advisors now available to undergraduates. On Saturday morning, nearly 500 parents and students stopped by the Dean’s Breakfast to socialize with members of our faculty and administration. I spoke to them about the special academic opportunities we offer our students, such as the Dean’s Seminars for freshmen.

It was an all-around great weekend, and I appreciate the efforts families made to join us and their students on campus for the festivities.

Dr. Zahi Hawass and Dean Barratt at the GW Capitol Archeological Institute event.

In early October, I was proud to deliver welcoming remarks at an event marking the opening of the new GW Capitol Archaeological Institute. The institute was made possible through a generous donation by alumni Deborah Lehr, MA ‘89, and John F.W. Rogers, BA ’78. Headed by Eric Cline, chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the new institute will provide a focus for our archaeology work in the Middle East (including both Israel and Jordan), Greece, Italy, Egypt, China, Africa, and Mexico.

We were honored by to have renowned archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass speak at the opening celebration. In 2002, Dr. Hawass was appointed Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, a government council in Egypt that oversees the cultural heritage of that country. Earlier this year, he was named Vice Minister of Culture of Egypt. His work earned him recognition as one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine in 2005. During the event, he spoke about excavations in the valley of the tombs and showed us pictures of a stairway that leads literally hundreds of feet into the earth.

We were also joined by Columbian College National Council member Bill Warren, who has his own strong interests in archaeology, anthropology, and stratigraphy; and Andrew Oliver, who recently donated more than 8,000 volumes on subjects pertaining to Ancient Greece, Rome and the Near East to Gelman Library.

I am excited about the prospect for new scholarship and discovery that the institute will enable. It is our hope that the Capitol Archaeological Institute will place GW at the forefront of research in this field.

Ellen Zane (left) and Vanessa Maltin (right)

The Thursday prior to Alumni Weekend, the George Washington Alumni Association recognized its distinguished alumni through the annual Alumni Achievement Awards.

I presented a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award to Ellen Zane, BA’73. Ellen Zane is the president and chief executive officer of Tufts Medical Center and the Floating Hospital for Children. Ellen is the first woman to run the hospital in its 214-year history.  Ellen is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Clinical Care Research at Tufts University School of Medicine. Ellen has served on Columbian College’s National Advisory Council for Arts and Sciences, and she was the keynote speaker last spring at GW’s Woman and Philanthropy Forum. She now serves on the Science and Engineering Complex Taskforce for GW and has recently joined the GW Board of Trustees.

We also gave the Recent Alumni Achievement Award to Vanessa Maltin, BA ’05. She has been featured as a gluten-free food expert on CNN, CNBC, Discovery Green, ABC News, and in The Washington Post. Vanessa serves as the food and lifestyle editor of Delight Magazine, sits on the Advisory Board of the Celiac Disease Program at Children’s National Medical Center, and maintains a website, Celiac Princess, that’s full of useful information and gluten-free recipes. Maltin also recently published her second book, The Gloriously Gluten-free Cookbook.