January 2005

CENTENARYpalooza 2005! Brochures & Online Registration Available Now

If you have not yet received your Homecoming brochure, email with your name and address and another one will be mailed to you so that you can get your reservation in before the February 10th deadline.

NEW! Choir Alumni Affinity Chapter E-newsletter link

Interested in staying connected with Choir life among alums and actives? Read this month's edition of the new Choir Alumni Affinity Chapter E-Newsletter: HERE.

Attention all alumni: Homecoming Chapel Alumni Choir Being Formed

Homecoming is quickly approaching. CENTENARYpalooza 2005! will take place February 17-20 th . To conclude the weekend's festivities, the Church Careers family will facilitate a campus-wide service of worship, celebrating the legacy of Centenary and 30 years of training and growing spiritual leaders. As part of the celebration, we would like to have a Chapel Choir of mixed voices from both the current student body and the alumni community. Rehearsals will be every week, beginning Tuesday, January 25th from 6pm-7pm in Brown Memorial Chapel. All students and local alumni are invited to join us. For those who may not be able to make the preliminary rehearsals, there will be a rehearsal Saturday, February 19th from 11am-Noon just before the Homecoming Parade, and another Sunday morning at 9am. If you are interested in participating in the Homecoming Chapel Choir, please contact DeAndre Johnson in the Church Careers office at 318.869.5029 or email him at .

Second Semi-Annual Alumni Association Meeting to Take Place during Homecoming

All Centenary graduates and those who attended Centenary for at least one year are automatically members of the National Alumni Association and as such are encouraged to attend the second Semi-Annual Alumni Association Meeting. Alumni are invited to come and meet National Alumni Leadership Board Members and learn about what they have been doing on behalf of alumni and the College. The meeting will take place on Homecoming Saturday from10-11 AM in the Anderson Choral Building's Carruth Choir Room. The door prizes will be great—2 collector pieces of art will be up for grabs compliments of Centenary Trustee and Honorary Alumnus Fletcher Thorne-Thomsen. We hope to see you there!

Centenary College to Participate in the Highland Mardi Gras Parade

The 10th Annual Krewe of Highland Mardi Gras parade will take place on Sunday, February 6, at 2 PM, and, for the first time in its history, the parade will pass right in front of our campus! Our own Dr. Schwab will be the Grand Marshall riding in the very front of the parade. We will also have ten really cool pick-up truck floats in the parade and a Centenary party along the parade route! Centenary alumni are invited to take part in this fun day!! The Jones-Rice Intramural Field will be designated as "Family Zone" and open to the community at Noon as a good, "dry" place for families to visit our campus, participate in kids games, enjoy free hot dogs, and of course view the parade. All alumni, faculty, staff, and students are invited and encouraged to join in the activities! There are many ways to participate:

  1. The theater and art departments are already creating our floats, but we are looking for alumni and groups on campus to help with the decorating. If you decorate a float, you get first chance to ride on that float! Interested in finding out more?...Email: Carla in Alumni Relations at .
  2. The Admissions Office staff will be out at Jones-Rice Field that day to talk to people about our College and to give tours to anyone interested in seeing the campus.
  3. Student Life will have an obstacle course and spin art for the kids. Want to help with these activities? Email: .
  4. Pick up trucks and drivers are still needed. Any alumni with a pick-up truck that has an open truck bed who want to drive in the parade please contact Carla at: .
  5. Wondering how you can actually ride on a float or walk along side? Well, spaces are limited but guess what...we still have some room. Wait 'til you see our "throws." They are fantastic! ACT NOW if you want a spot in the parade! Email: .
  6. Speaking of throws, in addition to the ones we've ordered we are collecting old Mardi Gras beads that can be reused. If you would like to donate some please deliver them to the Alumni Relations Office—Room 131 Hamilton Hall.
  7. Finally, everyone is invited to the Centenary Parade Party at the home of Patty Roberts '82 (which is right on the parade route at 2304 Creswell Ave). Do you have a special snack that you like to prepare for parties? Email Patty if you'd like to help with goodies: . This exciting "community outreach" event is proudly presented by your Centenary College Alumni Association and the Office of Alumni Relations!

Class Notes Online

Read the latest class notes, marriages, births, and in memoriam listings: HERE . They are updated monthly.

Campus News:

Centenary's Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Convocation

Dr. Valerie Smith, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature and the Director of African American Studies at Princeton University, will be the keynote speaker Monday, Jan. 17, when Centenary College of Louisiana holds its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day convocation. D r. Smith's talk is titled "Memory and the Civil Rights Movement," and will commemorate Dr. King by exploring how positioning Dr. King's memory and the Civil Rights Movement within a broader history of oppression and resistance can inspire action today. The program, free and open to the public, will be held at 11 a.m. in Kilpatrick Auditorium on the Centenary campus.

Contemporary Japanese Crafts at the Meadows Museum

Contemporary Japanese Crafts, an exhibition representing six themes, will be on display beginning Jan. 16 at the Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College. In order to provide an understanding of a wide variety of crafts, the exhibition identifies several characteristics of contemporary Japanese crafts and presents works that exhibit those characteristics. Shiraishi Masami, chief curator of the Crafts Gallery of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, notes that the works “are classified by material (for example, ceramics, dyed fabrics and lacquer ware), by historical period, or by group of artists.”

Noted Jesus Scholar John Dominic Crossan at Centenary Jan. 18-20

The Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan — considered by many to be the foremost scholar of historical Jesus — will speak Jan. 18-20 during seminars at Centenary College. Dr. Crossan, professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University, has written 20 books on the historical Jesus in the last 30 years. Four of them have become national religious bestsellers: The Historical Jesus (1991), Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994), Who Killed Jesus (1995), and The Birth of Christianity (1998).

Dr. Crossan has been a frequent guest on prime time television including such programs as: PBS' Frontline Series, "From Jesus to Christ;" ABC's "Primetime Special with Diane Sawyer on Mel Gibson's Film, The Passion of the Christ , NBC's Dateline, "The Last Days of Jesus;" and ABC's "Peter Jennings Reporting: The Search for Jesus." He will present sessions on "Jesus & Paul" and "Rome & America: Replacing the Empire of Rome with the Kingdom of God," which are part of the Faith and Reason seminars produced by the D.L. Dykes, Jr. Foundation of Jackson, Miss. The program schedule,as follows, is scheduled to take place in Kilpatrick Auditorium:

  • Tuesday, Jan. 18
    Seminar Session 1: "Roman Imperial Theology and the Normalcy of Civilization"
  • Wednesday, Jan. 19
    Student sessions: "Recent Archaeological Discoveries and the Historical Jesus and Paul"
    First-Year Experience (student) session: "Truth-Telling in Biblical Scholarship" (Open to registrants as seating is available)
    Seminar Session 2: "The Radicality of God and the Ambiguity of Bibilical Tradition"
    Seminar Session 3: "Jesus, Paul, and The Kingdom of God"
  • Thursday, Jan. 20
    Seminar Session 4: "The Resurection of Jesus for Contemporary America"
    Lunch with Dr. Crossan: "The Life of the Public Scholar"

Cost for all sessions, including lunch with Dr. Crossan, is $125. Costs for portions of the program are $100 for sessions 1-4 and the student sessions; $30 for each individual session; and $25 for the Jan. 20 lunch. To register, call 601-354-0767 or 800-882-7424, contact or download the registration form at http://www.faithandreason.org . Registration forms and further information are also available from Rev. Don Meeks, director of the Center for Theological Studies, at 318-869-5156 or .

Updates

If you move or change phone numbers or email addresses please let us know so that we can keep in touch with you. Also, let us know about memorable moments such as weddings, births, and promotions, so that we can keep your peers and our records updated.

If you know Centenary alums that are not receiving this email or other mail correspondence, please forward this email to them and ask them to update their contact information.

Contact information can be updated online at http://www.centenary.edu/alumni.