Winemaker, author to share vineyard history

Award-winning winemaker Ken Wright and McMinnville author Jim Gullo will present “History of the Vineyards,” a history of some of Oregon’s top vineyards, Monday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall at Linfield College.

The talk grows out of a series of reports that Wright, owner of Ken Wright Cellars pictured left with wife Karen, commissioned Gullo, pictured below, to undertake that explore the histories and land usages of 13 Willamette Valley vineyard properties Wright farms and/or sources for his award-winning lineup of Pinot Noir wines. Beginning in 2015, Gullo has researched and written stories about properties like the Freedom Hill Vineyard, Canary Hill Vineyard and others that Wright sources. The properties lie in several Oregon AVAs, including the Yamhill-Carlton, Ribbon Ridge, Dundee Hills and Eola-Amity Hills.

Emerging from the vineyard histories is a rich tapestry of the people and events who shaped Oregon lands long before the wine industry began to take hold over the last 50 years. Farmers, blacksmiths, judges, pioneers, Civil War and Indian War heroes, and the first flock of sheep ever to be driven across the plains to the Oregon Territories all wound up, at one time or another, on Willamette Valley lands that today produce some of the finest wine grapes in the world. The stories were published on the Ken Wright Cellars blog (www.kenwrightcellars.com/blog) and were the centerpieces of a marketing campaign.

“The history of these properties is rich and varied, and Jim did a fantastic job rooting out the people and stories that bring these properties to life,” said Wright.

Wright moved to Oregon and founded Panther Creek Cellars in 1986, then established Ken Wright Cellars in 1994 in Carlton. His 2012 Abbott Claim Vineyard Pinot Noir was named the top wine in the world for 2014 by Wine Enthusiast Magazine.

Gullo is a McMinnville author and journalist whose articles about wine, travel and regional subjects appear in the Oregon Wine Press, Alaska Airlines Magazine, Portland Monthly and the Horizon Airlines Magazine. He has written ten books including “Trading Manny” and “The Comedy Keeper.”

The talk, part of the Linfield College Wine Lecture Series, is free and open to the public. For more information, call 503-883-2766.

Linfield to celebrate Giving Day

Tuesday, May 2, is Linfield’s 2nd annual Giving Day. Exciting activities are planned for our Portland and McMinnville campuses: in the Wildcat Den in Portland (11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.) and the Fred Meyer Lounge in McMinnville (9 a.m. – 4 p.m.).

Join us to celebrate how Linfield Gives, and participate by encouraging alumni, parents and friends to support the college on May 2, so we can raise more than $100,000 and help our students thrive.

For more information about spreading the word or making a gift of your own, contact your colleagues in Institutional Advancement, 503-883-2217.

When Linfield gives, students thrive.

Roberto Gonzales, Harvard professor and author, to speak

Roberto Gonzales, assistant professor at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, will discuss his work from a 12-year-study of undocumented youth and education on Thursday, May 4, at 6:30 p.m. in the Richard and Lucille Ice Auditorium at Linfield College.

Gonzales is the author of “Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America.” The book is a vivid ethnography that explores why highly educated undocumented youth share similar work and life outcomes with their less-educated peers, despite the fact that higher education is touted as the path to integration and success in America. Mining the results of a 12-year study that followed 150 undocumented young adults in Los Angeles, “Lives in Limbo” exposes the failures of a system that integrates children into K-12 schools but ultimately denies them the rewards of their labor.

Gonzales, one of the nation’s leading experts on undocumented immigrant youth and young adults, is also associate editor of the journal “Social Problems,” has conducted research focusing on the ways in which legal and educational institutions shape the experiences of poor, minority and immigrant youth.

A book signing and reception will follow the lecture.

The event is free, open to the public and sponsored by Academic Affairs, the President’s Office, Nicholson Library, Unidos Bridging Community and the Diversity Advisory Committee. For more information, contact Gerardo Ochoa at 503-883-2617 or gochoa@linfield.edu.

Linfield students, professional musicians collaborate for chamber ensemble

Linfield College will present the second Faculty-Student Chamber Ensemble of the 2016-17 season on Thursday, May 4, at 7 p.m. in Delkin Hall in the Vivian A. Bull Music Center at Linfield.

Prior to the concert, a presentation of electroacoustic compositions by Linfield students, will be held at 5 p.m. in the Bull Music Center lobby.

Students enrolled in the music technology and composition courses, taught by Professor Andrea Renkemeyer, have composed short electroacoustic pieces this semester. Through varied listening and reading assignments, students have gained a deeper understanding of the history and tools of electronic music composition. Visitors can listen to their projects, which will be on looped playback

The concert with feature performances of three 20th-century masterpieces. Linfield student musicians and faculty Albert Kim and Paul Owen will be joined by flutist Abigail Sperling and violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport.

Now entering its second season, the Faculty-Student Chamber Ensemble gives advanced Linfield music students the opportunity to perform alongside professional mentor musicians. Student performers are nominated by the music faculty, while mentor musicians represent Linfield College, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Willamette University, Concordia University, the Portland Opera Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Chintimini Chamber Festival, TableTop Opera and Universidad Juan N. Corpas (Colombia).

The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call 503-883-2275 or visit linfield.edu/arts.

Annual symposium to spotlight student achievement

Scholarship and creative achievement will be showcased at the 25th annual Linfield College Student Symposium Friday, May 5, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Linfield’s Keck Campus.

The symposium, a compilation of work done by Linfield students, will be held in various locations including Nicholson Library, Bull Music Center, Ford Hall and the Miller Fine Arts Center. The work includes student performances, set design, and schloarship in the humanities, social and behavioral sciences and the natural sciences. This year’s symposium showcases the work of 208 different students from 23 different departments and disciplines presented as posters, tabletop displays and short talks.

Descriptions of student work are posted in DigitalCommons@Linfield in advance of the event.

The Student Symposium is sponsored by Academic Affairs and the Wendell L. Foote Science Endowment. For more information, call 503-883-2224.

Theatre concludes 97th season with ‘The Women of Lockerbie’

Linfield College theatre students will explore grief and healing in the face of intolerable pain when they present “The Women of Lockerbie,” the final show of the 97th season.

Performances are May 4-6 and 11-13 at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, May 7, at 2 p.m. in the Marshall Theatre. In addition, Deborah Brevoort, playwright, will be in residence working with students and presenting talks for the community on issues surrounding the play.

“The Women of Lockerbie” transports the audience to the hills of Scotland seven years after Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed in 1988 by a terrorist bomb and crashed into the small village, killing all 243 passengers, 16 crew members, and 11 individuals on the ground. It tells the plight of a mother from New Jersey traveling to Scotland to find her son’s remains. She meets the women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the U.S. government to obtain the clothing of the victims found in the plane’s wreckage. Determined to convert an act of hatred into an act of love, the women want to wash the clothes of the dead and return them to the victim’s families. Inspired by a true story, the characters and situations in the play are fictional. Written in the structure of a Greek tragedy, the play is a poetic drama about the triumph of love over hate. It is the winner of the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award.

Brevoort will be in residence at Linfield May 4-6 to celebrate the opening of Linfield’s production. The residency is sponsored by the Lacroute Arts Series at Linfield College. The Lacroute Arts Series is made possible by the generosity of Ronni Lacroute, Linfield College trustee and arts benefactor.

Playwright-in-residence special events:

• Book signings: Prior to the performances on Thursday, May 4, and Friday, May 5 from 7-7:25 p.m., Brevoort will sign copies of her book “The Women of Lockerbie & The Comfort Team.” Books will be available for purchase at the signing.
• Behind the scenes with the production team: On Thursday, May 4, after the performance, stay for a short question & answer discussion with the playwright, designers and director as they share their ideas about creating this production.
• Meet the playwright dessert reception: Join Brevoort at a dessert reception before the show on Friday, May 5, from 6 -7p.m. in the lobby of Ford Hall.
• Post show discussion, “From Tragedy to Healing”: On Friday, May 5, immediately following the performance, Brevoort, Gupton and the actors will join the audience in a discussion of the themes developed in the play.
• Writing process talk: Brevoort will present “The Women of Lockerbie: The Journey from Inspiration to the Stage” on Saturday, May 6, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Marshall Theatre in Ford Hall. She will talk about her writing process, from the moment of inspiration to the staged production. She will also discuss the many detours along the way, such as adapting Greek tragedy to a contemporary subject; Aristotle; playwriting craft issues; poetry; contending with critics; and new play development programs.

Tickets are $9 for full price; $7 for seniors (62+) and Linfield faculty and staff (two tickets per ID); and $5 for students (age 10+, any school, one ticket per ID); with a $2 discount on all tickets on opening night. Seating is reserved. Tickets are available online at www.linfield.edu/arts and tickets will be available at the Marshall Theatre Box Office beginning Tuesday, April 25. Located in Ford Hall, the box office is open Tuesday through Friday from 3 to 5 p.m., and until 7:30 p.m. on performance days. The box office will also be open May 6 and 13 from 3 to 7:30 p.m. and on May 7 from noon to 2 p.m. The box office is closed Mondays. For more information, call 503-883-2292. The Marshall Theatre is fully accessible.

Linfield’s Marshall Theatre takes part in Playwrights Welcome, which offers available tickets to professional playwrights free of charge. The production is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. For more information, call 503-883-2292.

‘Works in Progress’ dance showcase set at Linfield

Linfield College will host the spring dance showcase, “Works in Progress,” on Saturday, May 6, at 7 p.m. in the Richard and Lucille Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall.

The Linfield Dance Showcase is a culmination of work developed by adjunct Professor Michele Ainza, Linfield dance students, the Dance Team and Hip Hop Club. The showcase will feature a variety of dance styles, including contemporary dance, jazz dance and hip hop. Students performing are from departments across the college who all share the love of dance. The showcase will run approximately 30 minutes.

Ainza earned a master of fine arts from California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, and a certification in Laban/Bartenieff  Movement Analysis from the Integrated Movement Studies based out of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. She is also a registered yoga teacher through Yoga Alliance.

The performance is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Linfield College Department of Music. For more information, call 503-883-2275 or visit linfield.edu/arts.

Peter Ho Davies to present ‘The Fortunes’ at Linfield Reading

Multi-award-winner fiction writer Peter Ho Davies will read on Friday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m., in the Austin Reading Room of the Jereld R. Nicholson Library at Linfield College.

Davies will read from his new novel, “The Fortunes,” a sly, funny, intelligent and artfully structured piece. “The Fortunes” recasts American history through the lives of Chinese-Americans and reimagines the multi-generational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience. This novel captures and capsizes more than a century of Chinese-American history, showing that even as family bonds are denied and broken, a community can survive. Building fact into fiction, spinning fiction around fact, Davies uses each of these stories—three inspired by real historical characters—to examine the process of becoming not only Chinese-American, but American.

Davies is the author of two novels, “The Fortunes” (winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award) and “The Welsh Girl” (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize), and two short story collections, “The Ugliest House in the World” and “Equal Love.” His work has appeared in Harpers, The Atlantic and The Paris Review among others, and has been chosen repeatedly for the awards series’ Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Houghton-Mifflin’s Best American Short Stories. In 2003 GRANTA magazine named him among its Best of Young British Novelists.

Davies has received prestigious fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in writing the short story. Born in Britain to Welsh and Chinese parents, he now makes his home in the United States, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Michigan.

This reading is a part of the “Readings at the Nick” series. The lecture is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Linfield Nicholson Library and the Linfield English department. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte at 503-883-2517, swhyte@linfield.edu.

Community news

Elizabeth Straus, visiting assistant professor of nursing, presented a poster, “Avoiding the Mito Crash — Care considerations for children with mitochondrial diseases,” at the Society of Pediatric Nurses Conference in Florida April 6-9. Her poster earned the Poster Excellence Award- Clinical Practice. She was also selected to develop guidelines on the care of children with chronic conditions and their families for the Society of Pediatric Nurses.

Joe Wilkins, associate professor of English, was named as winner of the 2017 Oregon Book Award in poetry. He received the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry for his book, “When We Were Birds.”

Julie Fitzwater, visiting assistant professor of nursing, presented a poster at the Western Institute of Nursing in Denver, Colo., “Comparison of Temperature Measurements on an Acute Care Trauma Unit.” She presented results of a project developed by bedside nurses at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center engaged in clinical inquiry about the methods used to measure temperature in acute care.

Jackie Webb, associate professor of nursing, presented a poster at the Western Institute of Nursing in Denver, Colo., “Provider and Patient Perceptions of Group Care for Non-malignant Chronic Pain.” Webb also participated in the National Association of Hispanic Nurses Leadership Conference Jan. 26-28 in Raleigh, N.C. The focus of the conference was Transformational Leadership.

Melissa Robinson, associate professor of nursing, published “Using blogs to increase awareness of public health issues” in the Journal of Nursing Education, and “Service learning enhances conceptual learning in a RN to BSN program” in the International Journal for Innovation Education and Research.

Keondra Rustan, visiting assistant professor of nursing, was elected chair of research for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, in the healthcare systems and modeling group.

Events calendars

View the Linfield events calendar or the Linfield athletics calendar.