columbia universityrecord calendar events are listed in

ington Heights. Call sponsorsfor details.

17TH, MON.12:00 P.M. “TRP-PLIK, aBifunctional Protein WithKinase and Ion Channel Activ-ities.” Loren Runnels. Pharma-cology. 305-8778. 724 BB.

20TH, THURS.4:00 P.M. “Integrated Signalsin Olfactory Behavior.” CoriBargmann, UCSF. Biochemistry& Molecular Biophysics. 305-3885. 301 HHSC.

EXHIBITS

CCAALLEENNDDAARR

TALKS17TH, MON.11:00 A.M. “The Problems ofInduction, Statistical Analysisand Computer Learning.”Vladimir Vapnik, AT&T Labs.939-7023. Interschool Lab,715 CESPR.

SPECIALEVENTS

14TH, FRI.3:00 P.M. (All day.) HolidayCrafts New York. Featuringblown glass, jewelry, wood,ceramics and wearable art.

6 C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y RECORD December 14, 2001

Admission: $6. (800) 649-0279. Lerner.

15TH, SAT.9:00 A.M. (All day.) HolidayCrafts New York. See Dec.14th listing for details.

4:00 P.M. Open Studio.Columbia MFA candidates ofthe SoA Visual Arts Division.Featuring painting, printmak-ing, sculpting and digitalmedia. 854-4065. WatsonHall, Prentis Hall, and Stude-baker Hall.

16TH, SUN.11:00 A.M. (All day.) HolidayCrafts New York. See Dec.14th listing for details.

7:30 P.M. ProkofievMarathon. Alexander Toradze,George Vatchnadze, and Alexan-der Korsantia, piano, accompa-nied by the Toradze Piano Stu-dio. Performing the completepiano sonatas of Prokofiev.Hosted by Joseph Horowitzwith the participation of ValeryGergiev. 854-7799. Tickets:$20. Miller Theatre.

18TH, TUES.6:00 P.M . Concert. BachSociety Orchestra and Chorus,featuring Alisa Weilerstein,cello. 854-0480. St. Paul’sChapel.

19TH, WED.12:05 P.M. Annual ChristmasConcert. The InterchurchGospel Choir. ‘WednesdayNoonday Concerts.’ 870-2231.Chapel, Interchurch Center.

HEALTHSCIENCES

Unless otherwise noted, all list-ings are at Columbia University’sHealth Sciences campus in Wash-

THRU FEB. 22ND"Shakespeare and the Book.”Rare Book and ManuscriptLibrary, 6th fl, Butler.

ATHLETICSTickets: 854-2546. Results: 854-3030. Unless otherwise noted,all listings are at Dodge Physi-cal Fitness Ctr on the Morning-side Heights campus.

21ST, FRI.6:00 P.M. W Basketball v Wagner.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

E-mail: calendar@columbia.eduFax: 212-678-4817All submissions must be received in writing by the deadline.

Events are listed in this order: date, time, title, name/affiliation ofspeaker(s) or performer(s), title of series (if any), sponsor(s), fee andregistration information (if any), phone number of contact, and loca-tion. All phone numbers are area code (212) unless otherwise noted.

For deadlines & information, call Rebecca Chung, CalendarEditor, 212-854-6546 or the RECORD, 212-854-3282.

The Calendar is updated weekly on the Web athttp://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/calendar/.

Events are listed on a first-come, first-served basis free ofcharge. All events are subject to change; call sponsors to confirm.

EVENTS AT COLUMBIA — DEC. 14, 2001 - DEC. 22, 2001

Important Dates for Fall 2001:

Friday Dec. 14th – Friday Dec. 21st:Final Exams

Saturday Dec. 22th – Monday, Jan 21st:

Winter Holiday

School of Architecture,Planning & Preservation

Black BuildingBarnard CollegeCenter for Comparative

Literature & SocietyColumbia Center for New

Media Teaching & LearningCenter for the Decision

SciencesCivil Engineering &

Engineering MechanicsSchapiro Center for

Engineering & PhysicalScience Research

Center on Japanese Economy & Business

Barnard Center for Research on Women

Center for the Study ofScience & Religion

Columbia UniversityEast Asian Languages &

Cultures

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Hammer Health Sciences Building

Harriman InstituteInternational Affairs

BuildingInstitute of Latin American

StudiesColumbia Institute for

Research on Women & Gender

Institute for Social and Economic Research &Policy

Columbia Law SchoolLamont-Doherty Earth

ObservatoryCollege of Physicians

& SurgeonsSociety of International

Law & Politics in International Affairs

School of International & Public Affairs

Graduate School of the ArtsTeacher’s College

Architecture

BBBCCCLS

CCNMTL

CDS

CEEM

CEPSR

CJEB

CROW

CSSR

CUEALAC

GSAS

HHSC

HIIAB

ILAS

IRWG

ISERP

LawLDEO

P & S

SILPIA

SIPA

SoATC

ABBREVIATIONS

Only 40 years ago, jour-nalism was a man’s world.Rare was the woman whocould endure the machoarena of investigative report-ing or hard news. But somedid, and, as a result, theycreated the opportunitiesthat young women reporterstoday often take for granted.

These pioneering womenare the focus of a one-hourdocumentary, "She Says/Women in News," to be airedon PBS Dec. 18. The filmspotlights ten women whoclimbed the newsroom lad-der through their award-win-ning reporting and todayenjoy positions of influenceand power as editors, colum-nists, general managers andanchors in newsrooms acrossthe country.

"She Says/Women inNews" is the collaborativeeffort of Joan Konner, pro-ducer and former dean of theGraduate School of Journal-ism, and Barbara Rick, aPeabody and Emmy Awardwinning journalist and film-maker. The co-production ofRick’s company, Out of theBlue Productions, and JoanKonner Productions, Inc.was funded by the John S.

and James L. KnightFoundation and theWhitehead Founda-tion, and is a presen-tation of six televi-sion stations, allheaded by women.

"These womenare heroes—smart,insightful, funny,highly profession-al—who have suc-ceeded in the busi-ness while remain-ing real people withreal lives," Konnersaid. "We haveattempted to showhow they’ve trans-formed and expand-ed the agenda ofnews while bringingan element ofhumanity to newsand the newsroomenvironment."

The documentaryfollows the lives ofwomen like JudyCrichton, who start-ed her career in 1948and was the firstwoman producer, writer anddirector for the acclaimed"CBS Reports" documentaryunit; Nina Totenberg, thelegal affairs correspondentfor National Public Radiowho broke the AnitaHill/Clarence Thomas story;

Anna Quindlen, the firstwoman Op-Ed columnist forthe New York Times whowon a Pulitzer Prize for hercolumns; Carole Simpson,the first woman anchor forABC World News TonightSunday, and Helen Thomas,

a former UPI reporterand the first woman tobe accepted into theWhite House PressCorps where she’scovered over sevenpresidential adminis-trations.

"There is accep-tance now, but everydoor had to be brokendown," Thomas said."We weren’t allowedto become membersof the National PressClub until 1971.That’s a long wayfrom 1920 whenwomen got the vote.It’s been a struggle."

These ten women,along with others,helped change thelandscape of newsthroughout the pastfour decades.

"What’s news inthis business is what’son the front page,"said Narda Zacchino,senior editor of theSan Francisco Chron-

icle. "And when you changethe kind of stories that go onthe front page and havethem more family-oriented,more health-oriented andmore education-oriented,then you’re changing thedefinition of news."

The documentary alsoshows the personal lives ofwomen who have had tolearn how to balance theircareers in journalism withtheir family responsibilities.It follows the life of CNNanchor Judy Woodruff as shecares for her handicappedson, as well as the difficultchoices Washington PostWriters Group SyndicatedColumnist Geneva Over-holser made. When she waseditor of the Des MoinesRegister, she ran a series ofstories that included thename of a rape victim. Theseries won the newspaper aPulitzer Prize.

Despite the gains made bywomen in positions of influ-ence in journalism, "SheSays/Women in News" alsopoints out the challengesthat lay.

"I once got a PeabodyAward and when I lookedout over the room, I wasamazed (after years in whichI was the only woman) to seehundreds of women in thisbanquet room," recalledNPR’s Totenberg. "Then Ilooked up to the networkexecutives who were givingthe award and I pointed tothem and said, ‘Maybesomeday, there will be askirt up there, too.’"

BY JO KADLECEK

Documentary Profiling Pioneering Women in the Newsroom to Air Dec. 18 on PBS

Former Journalism School Dean Joan Konner

C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y RECORD Dacember 14, 2001 7

Industry Expert Seymour Melman Seeks an Economic Revival in Manufacturing

For more than 40 years,through economicdownturns and boom

times alike, Seymour Melman,one of the country’s leadingexperts on industrial productionand a Columbia faculty memberfor more than half a century,has warned about the conse-quences of industrial declinethrough the export of manufac-turing jobs abroad. Now, he isattempting to reverse the trendin his own backyard, New YorkCity.

Melman, who turns 84 thismonth and is professor emeritusof industrial engineering at theFu Foundation School of Engi-neering and Applied Science,remembers when much of Man-hattan below 34th Street wasgiven over to small manufactur-ing lofts, many of them family-owned factories that turned outknitwear, leather goods andother consumer products whilesupplying steady and substantialjobs for the New York workingclass. Melman counted himselflucky to have landed a good-paying summer job in one ofthese knitwear factories whenhe was a high school studentduring the Depression years.

These Manhattan factory loftsdisappeared decades ago – theirgoods now produced overseas, astory that is retold in formermanufacturing centers acrossthe nation. But Melman believespassionately that factories canbe wooed back to New Yorkthrough the lure of a computer-literate population.

The classic argument for whyU.S. manufacturing declined—that union laborers priced them-selves out of competition, lead-ing industry to move to thedeveloping world for cheaperlabor—is dead wrong, says Mel-man, who makes the case forreindustrialization in his latestbook, “After Capitalism: FromManagerialism to WorkplaceDemocracy,” published this fallby Alfred A. Knopf. Melmannotes that Germany and Japanby 1996 had combined mer-chandise exports of $935 bil-lion, compared to $625 billionby the United States. But theirhigher exports were achieved

even though hourly compensa-tion for production workers inGermany averaged $31.20 andin Japan, $21.00, compared to$17.70 in the United States.

Melman argues that deindus-trialization is a dangerouscourse that leaves the countrymuch too dependent on imports,notably for capital goods. Hesays this danger is particularlyevident now with layoffs occur-ring in many service-dominatedindustries since the Sept. 11 ter-rorist attacks.

“After Capitalism” listsdozens of industries that haveexperienced a catastrophic dropin production in the second halfof the 20th century, includingmachine tools, whose workforce was cut by more than onehalf from 1977 to 1996, officemachines, ball and roller bear-ings and construction, miningand textile machinery.

The factories of today, saysMelman, are not so muchdependent on the sweat of theirworkers but on their brains. To

be competititve today manufac-turers need workers able tooperate highly-sophisticatedcomputer-based operatingequipment. Melman gatheredtogether a group of 40 like-minded academics in Novem-ber—a second meeting isplanned for early next year—toshape a strategy for reindustrial-ization, with New York City asits main target. “We believe ahighly educated, high-wagelabor force affords unmatchedopportunities for economicgrowth. Deindustrialization canbe reversed,” says Melman. Inaddition to political scientists,urbanists and business experts,some from the ranks of his for-mer students, the Melman groupalso includes administratorsfrom the East New York TransitTechnology High School inBrooklyn, who are interested inthe possibility of a revival inlight rail manufacturing in themetropolitann area.

The group began to explorethe prospects for reinvigorating

two product classes, represent-ing capital goods and consumergoods – subway cars andknitwear. Melman notes thatnorthern Italy has established athriving knitwear manufacturingcenter, using computerizedmachines that require a techno-logically savvy workforce. Mel-man was distressed to discoversome time ago that subway carsare no longer made in the UnitedStates and that when New YorkCity invited bids for $1.5 billionin new subway equipment,companies in Japan and Canadaresponded but no U.S. firmsought the contract. Prospectsfor hi-tech knitwear productionwill be examined in a Feb. 1meeting at Columbia, open tothe University community(RSVP to 854-2936 or sm279@columbia.edu).

The disturbing implications ofdeindustrialization, Melmanwarns, is the prospect thatAmerica will become a third-rate economy unable to repairthe damaged parts. In his new

book, he describes parallelsbetween the corrosive milita-rized economic system that col-lapsed in the Soviet Union andour own management-dominat-ed “state capitalism” with itsemphasis on decision-processactivity. “Russia has sufferedthe consequences of exactlythose processes that we haveseen at work in the U.S. econo-my,” writes Melman in “AfterCapitalism.” “The difference ismerely of degree, not of kind.There is no law of nature or manthat exempts the United Statesfrom the devastating effects ofthe processes that ultimately ranthe Soviet Union into theground.”

“After Capitalism” is Mel-man’s ninth book and in it heexplores many of the excessesof American industrial manage-ment—particularly what he seesas its chief offense, seekingprofit above all else—and ofmilitary budget planners thathave absorbed the interests ofthis longtime nuclear disarma-ment activist in previous workslike “Profits without Produc-tion;” “The Permanent WarEconomy: American Capitalismin Decline” and “Pentagon Cap-italism: The Political Economyof War.”

But Melman is heartened by anew development on the factoryfloor that he believes can pointthe United States toward astronger, more resilient andmore equitable economy – whathe describes as the movementtoward workplace democracy.Decision-making at GeneralMotors’ Saturn plant nearNashville, Tenn. is a model ofthis movement. Production isorganized around work units ofeight to 10 members and theemphasis is on group effortinstead of individual perfor-mance. These teams are respon-sible for a range of tasks,including scheduling, budgetanalysis, training and house-keeping. This authority andresponsibility, which tradition-ally belongs to plant manage-ment, empowers workers andrepresents the best hope forreversing a sense of powerless-ness and threats of unemploy-ment and displacement amongAmerican workers, Melmansays.

School of the Arts Professor and Alumna Team Up to Produce “Ball in the House”

Ira Deutchman, associateprofessor and supervisor of theproducing concentration in theSchool of the Arts GraduateFilm Division, has teamed upwith alumna Tanya Wexler(MFA 1995, Directing) to pro-duce the film “Ball in theHouse,” which screened at theToronto Film Festival in Sep-tember.

The film was produced byRedeemable Features, of whichDeutchman is a founding part-ner, and Chimera Films, co-founded by Wexler. “Ball in theHouse” was directed by Wexlerand is a dark comedy about alikeable “screw-up” who des-perately wants to “stay clean”from drugs and alcohol, butwhose highly dysfunctional

family seems to be doing every-thing they can to prevent him.Wexler describes the film as a“dark, absurd drama withcomedic aspects.”

During her time at Columbia,Wexler only took one class withDeutchman. Their professionalrelationship began whenWexler’s business partner,Stephen Dyer, was working withDeutchman’s partner on “Find-ing North.” Deutchman and hispartner, Paul Newman, werepleased with Wexler’s work onthat film and were interested inher next project.

“It was actually good the waywe became connected,” saidWexler. “It was round-about, butit lent more credibility to mywork. Ira is incredibly support-ive of young filmmakers. Hegives freedom to the filmmakerwhile staying involved and serv-

ing as a mentor.”“Working with Tanya and

Stephen [Dyer of ChimeraFilms] on ‘Finding North’ hasbeen a great pleasure,” Deutch-man said in making the produc-tion announcement for ‘Ball inthe House,’ “and we werethrilled when they came to uswith this terrific, well-writtenscreenplay. We jumped at thechance to become involved.”

Throughout his 27-yearcareer, Deutchman has workedon over 130 films. His screencredits include: associate pro-ducer of John Sayles’ “Mate-wan,” executive producer ofJonathan Demme’s “Swimmingto Cambodia,” Gary Sinise’s“Miles from Home” and PaulBartel’s “Scenes from the ClassStruggle in Beverly Hills.” Heis currently the president andCEO of StudioNext, a New

York-based digital film and newmedia production company.

Formerly, Deutchman wasthe founder and president ofFine Line Features and seniorvice president of parent compa-ny New Line Cinema. Heserves on the advisory boards ofthe Sundance Film Festival andthe Los Angeles IndependentFilm Festival.

While at Columbia Wexlerdirected the short films “TheDance” and “Cool Shoes.” “TheDance” played at the TellurideFilm Festival, The Seattle FilmFestival and the First LookSeries.

Wexler likens her time atColumbia to her role as a moth-er of children ages one andtwo—“When my children try toclimb the stairs, I spot them,and help them do it on it theirown, much the same way pro-

fessors and graduate schoolprograms offer students a gen-tle nudging to help them devel-op—to help them take thatextra step on their own. Colum-bia offers excellent mentorsthrough professors like Ira[Deutchman] and Zipora Trope,an Israeli film director,” saidWexler.

“Film school allows you tohave a transitional moment,where you are pre-professionaland post-graduate… a time tocook a little bit. It gives you theopportunity to hone your skillsand ultimately come out furtherahead,” she said.

In 1998, she and StephenDyer formed Chimera filmsafter they produced her debutfilm, "Finding North," whichpremiered to sold-out audiencesat the 1998 Palm Springs Inter-national Film Festival.

BY SUZANNE TRIMEL

RECORD PHOTO BY JASON HOLLANDER

Seymour Melman, professor emeritus of industrial engineering at the Fu Foundation School of Engi-neering and Applied Sciences, at his desk in S.W. Mudd Hall.

BY KRISTIN STERLING