Cold start – Winter training can be exhilarating, but runners – novice or experienced – need to closely monitor their body signals
By Elizabeth Cooney – Globe Correspondent / January 25, 2010

Angela Morello was excited about her first long run of the new year. Dressed in the winter gear her mother gave her for Christmas, she was ready to do loops along the Charles River to prepare for this year’s Boston Marathon. The 23-year-old Boston University grad is new to marathons, but she is motivated by the runners she has watched pounding past her apartment on race day, cheered on by throngs along the route.

“I want to be on the other side of that,’’ she said.

To get there, she plans to log many miles in the cold.

Training for a marathon is itself a test of endurance, requiring a detailed plan, months of preparation – and grit. The challenge, while pounding out the miles, is to build stamina, stay healthy, and fortify the mind for the 26.2 miles that will begin in Hopkinton on April 19.

As there is for most outdoor physical regimens in the winter, there will be pain, there will be boredom, but first there will be cold.

Art, music, politics share long history – Songs, murals and posters continue to drive political and social change
By Ashley Dean, Huntington News Staff – January 21, 2010

President Obama’s visit to Northeastern Sunday brought an already heated Senate race to an even hotter degree and turned the school’s little strip of Huntington Avenue into the center of an important political rally.

The mass of supporters for Martha Coakley and opponent Scott Brown brandished signs, chanted slogans and sang songs – rallying and protesting as Bostonians, Americans and all people have done for hundreds of years. One major by-products of all this political strife, though, is art and music.

The American Revolution produced songs like “Yankee Doodle” and the Civil War helped produce “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Musicians like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and the Beatles have had incredible success with politically-minded music. Artists like Emory Douglas, Shepard Fairey and Pablo Picasso created art with the intention of inspiring change.

An important quality of successful political art and protest art is its ability to reach a massive audience, which for decades has meant bringing it to the streets.

“Street art has very old roots,” said Sara Doris, assistant professor of contemporary art history at Northeastern. “Certainly in the 1960s you had the emergence of the mural movement.”

‘M*A*S*H’ director, work honored at Tsai
By Heather Vandenengel/BU Daily Free Press – January 25, 2010

Robert Altman was a rebellious director who brought something out of actors that other directors could not, a panel of Altman’s colleagues and loved ones said to an audience of 400 at the Tsai Performance Center Friday night.

The panel was part of a celebration of the 40th anniversary of Altman’s film, “M*A*S*H,” and the release of Boston University journalism professor Mitchell Zuckoff’s new book, “Robert Altman: The Oral Biography.”

The event also included a screening of “M*A*S*H” and was co-hosted by the BU Alumni Association and the College of Communication as part of Winterfest Weekend.
The evening began with a multimedia presentation by Zuckoff about Altman’s life, career and his innovations as a director.

“Throughout his career, Bob was always more interested in characters, behaviors and human behaviors, than classic storytelling,” Zuckoff said.

Zuckoff, who worked with Altman on his book before he died in 2006, also emphasized the tumultuous relationship the director had with Hollywood.

“Throughout his career he was fighting with the studios,” Zuckoff said.

Recent Report Calls For More Awareness Of Faculty Diversity
By Meghan Nelson/MIT TECH STAFF REPORTER – January 20, 2010

The Initiative for Faculty Race and Diversity released its final report on the minority faculty experience at MIT last Thursday after a two and a half year effort. Stemming from an effort to understand why a disproportionately small number of MIT faculty are members of minority groups, the report found that there are inequities in the minority faculty experience.

Of 1,009 faculty members, only six percent are classified as minorities, an increase from the four and a half percent in 2004, where the federal government defines minorities as naturalized or permanent residents who self-identified as African, Hispanic, or Native American. Since Asian residents are represented at MIT at a higher percentage than represented at the general U.S. general population, they are not considered underrepresented minorities. The numbers of minority faculty are comparable to other science universities.