Story Tips
September 2008

Archive
Subscribe

Reporters behind bars: U of M to host discussion on media and law enforcement at RNC
September 19, 2008

Thousands protested and hundreds more were arrested during the recently completed Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Among those detained were several journalists, photographers and other media members, a story that stole some headlines away from political matters at the convention.

The University of Minnesota’s Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law will be hosting a panel discussion on media and law enforcement at the RNC at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22 in the Coffman Memorial Union Theater, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis. The event, which is free and open to the public, will include journalists who reported from the RNC as well as representatives from law enforcement, city government and media law experts.

The panel will be moderated by Al Tompkins from the Poynter Institute and will attempt to answer exactly why so many journalists were arrested at the RNC and what can be done in the future to prevent similar results.

The discussion is also sponsored by the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists, the Minnesota Journalism Center and the U of M School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

More information on the event can be found at, http://www.mnspj.org/wp-content/uploads/save-the-datefinal.pdf.

U of M professor serves as composer for New York City opera based on Sept. 11 tragedy
September 15, 2008

In the seven years since the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, tributes of nearly every size and shape have been paid to the victims of terrorism who lost their lives on that day. However, the recent opening of “Calling: An Opera of Forgiveness” at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City represents a new direction, and a University of Minnesota music professor is playing a key role. Based on the book “A Mother’s Essays From Ground Zero” by director Wickham Boyle, the 90-minute electroacoustics score for the performance is provided by Douglas Geers, an associate professor of composition at the university’s School of Music.

“We wrote this to honor all the people who have experienced the tragic events of Sept. 11,” said Geers, who was on his way to class at Columbia University when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. “It’s not a piece that’s meant to only be a memorial because we want it to be something that will move everybody and resonate with everybody, not just the people who were there in New York City that day.”

The opera, which opened last week and is showing at the La Mama (74A East 4th St. in New York) until Sept. 28, blends drama, music and choreography to capture the reactions and reflections of one family witnessing the attack on the World Trade Center at close range. In her essays, Boyle writes about living just blocks away from the Twin Towers and having her two children attend a school adjacent to the World Trade Towers.

The chamber ensemble for “Calling” includes Geers and his wife, violinist Maja Cerar. Geers’ “instruments” are a laptop computer -- complete with a Nintendo Wii Remote -- which he uses to make his performances more visual and kinetic. Geers has showcased the technology at various different music festivals, including the annual February SPARK Festival of Electronic Music and Arts that he created on the Twin Cities campus.

Geers is available for media interviews by contacting Lisa Marshall of the School of Music at (612) 626-1094 or marsh396@umn.edu, or Ryan Maus at the university News Service at (612) 624-1690 or maus@umn.edu.

More information on “Calling” can be found on the web at www.callingtheopera.com.

Biggest science experiment in history aims to explain deep mysteries of the universe
September 10, 2008

After more than 15 years of planning and construction, the biggest science experiment in history is ready to start today and the University of Minnesota will be a part of it. Scientists from around the world have converged at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland, where they have constructed the largest instrument in history to explore how things work at the most fundamental level. This mammoth machine is called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will collide two very high energy beams of protons at four points where sophisticated detectors will study the states of matter produced.

U of M physics professor Roger Rusack and 25 of his university colleagues are among the more than 1,700 physicists and engineers who have collaborated on a detector. Rusack has been actively involved since 1993. He has helped design and develop many components of the detector and has contributed to the scientific effort and management, and in January 2009 he will take over leadership of a major part of the detector project.

The physics being studied last occurred during the first milliseconds after the Big Bang. The resulting data has the potential to explain the structure of the universe. The detectors at the LHC are ready to make observations as soon as the first beams are generated this week.

Rusack can comment on the importance of this experiment and how physicists around the world will use the observations to solve some of the deepest
mysteries of the universe, stretching the imagination with new forms of matter, new forces of nature and new undiscovered dimensions of space.

For more information about the LHC, including high definition video for downloading, visit http://www.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam

To interview Rusack about the experiment, contact Ryan Mathre, (612) 625-0552, mathre@umn.edu or Drew Swain, (612) 625-8962, dswain@umn.edu.