So American higher education needs reform? “What have we learned from our experience in K-12 education reform that would help us in evaluating the Spellings Commission report? That history warns against putting too much emphasis on the economic context of higher education. It also shows that quick, ‘top-down’ fixes for reforming education at any level are unlikely to work.”
Tag: 10.24.06
CNN, NPR Decline To Run Ads For “Death of a President”
“The movie, ‘Death of a President,’ caused a stir at the Toronto Film Festival in September where it debuted, and two major U.S. theater chains have declined to screen the movie when it debuts in the United States on Friday.”
The Last Radio Orchestra
“Radio orchestras, which continue to play an important role in the musical life of Europe and Asia, were once crucial organizations in the U.S. and Canada. The CBC Radio Orchestra is the last of its breed in North America. Supported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., this is the only surviving radio orchestra on the continent.”
The Virtual Read
Many businesses have joined online virtual worlds. Now a big publisher has set up virtual shop and created an online community…
Canada Reworks Film Financing Rules
“Telefilm Canada announced major changes yesterday to how it finances the making and marketing of English-language and French-language movies in Canada, changes it believes will put more Canadian films, including documentaries, on the country’s screens and increase audiences for them.”
Getty Research Chief Steps Down
Thomas Crow is stepping down as director of The Getty Research Institute to take a position in modern art history at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. “Prof. Crow, who is also professor of art history at the University of Southern California, joined the Getty as director of the Getty Research Institute in 2000. Prior to that, he had been Robert Lehman Professor of Art History at Yale University.”
Did Beaverbrook Inflate The Value Of His Art Gifts?
Just how valuable were the paintings Lord Beaverbrook gave to a Canadian gallery back in the 1950s? Testifying at an arbitration hearing in Fredericton on Tuesday, Sir Maxwell Aitken “suggested that the original Lord Beaverbrook might have bent the truth about giving a series of valuable paintings to the gallery to persuade his rich friends to make similar donations to his pet cause.”
What Happened To Music After The Nazis?
“The Americans were convinced that Nazi Germany had been a cultural desert and that the public needed and appreciated them for supplying the refreshing waters of hitherto unavailable music. What they failed to realize was that much good contemporary music was performed in Hitler’s Germany and that until the war the country was not closed to the works of British or French or other European composers.”
Boosey Gets A New Leader
“Marc Ostrow has been promoted to become general manager of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., its New York-based affiliate company. The promotion follows Jenny Bilfield’s departure after twelve years with B&H to take up a position as artistic and executive director at Stanford Lively Arts.”
At Washington’s House, A Determinedly Mediated Experience
Mount Vernon has just spent $110 million on a face-lift that includes two new buildings, and visitors are going to be herded through the whole, highly choreographed museum experience, like it or not. “People are channeled with the same linear certainty as cars in a car wash. The goal of the visit, Mount Vernon, becomes a surreal glimpse of the real, framed by dizzying bits of entertainment.”