A Postcard from Europe
Dr. Laurie McDowell
Campus Director for the Austria Semester and Professor of Music
Imagine living through a the world seems reversed, where
blizzard that lasts for three weeks, down is up, and any movement
the little village in which you live becomes a dizzying, disorienting,
so choked with snow that trucks and frightening experience,
are brought in to remove it so the My eight previous trips
shoveling can continue. Imagine to Austria had hardly prepared
your 10-minute stroll to class now me for such a winter. On January
a 30 to 40-minute struggle 11, the Brevard College Semester
through knee-deep snow and in Austria group gathered in
over treacherous ice-coated Atlanta. While we waited to
paths, your every movement board the plane, we talked of the
hampered by your multiple layers coming adventure, the thrill of the
of clothes. Imagine driving or prospect of life in central
skiing in near white-out condi- Europe—a new country, a new
tions, where the natural order of language, and new opportunities
for travel and personal growth.
There was a sense of awareness
among the group members that
this was an historic occasion, as
Maggie Zednik, German Profes
sor and founder of the Austria
Semester Program in Altmunster,
would retire this spring. This,
therefore, would be the final
program, the 11"' year in which
Brevard students would settle
into Altmunster on the Traun
Lake and call it home. Further
more, this was the largest
group—12 students—ever
assembled. Participants included
TaraBeddingfield, Susie Baer,
Leisha Weeks, Yuka Kawasaki,
Leslie Wallace, Stacey Simpson,
Alison Stephen, Lauren Faulkner-
Duncan, Laurel Cowart, Tami
Manella, Ashley Moore, and
James Duncan. I personally
wondered how such a large
group would impact our small
apartment building and the
village. Together we descended
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Brevard Book Award
Aikman’s Great Souls
Named 1999 Choice
Each year, the Alumni
and Admissions Offices here at
BC present the Brevard College
Book Award to one outstanding
rising senior in each Western
North Carolina high school.
Rising seniors are selected by
school guidance counselors.
The awards, which consist of
Aikman’s book and a certifi
cate, will be presented at each
school’s Honors Day Program.
This year’s book of choice is
David Aikman’s Great Souls:
Six Who Changed the Century.
In Great Souls, Aikman, a
former Time magazine senior
correspondent, focuses on the
lives of Billy Graham, Nelson
Mandela, Pope John Paul II,
Mother Teresa, Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, and Eli Wiesel.
1999 COMMENCEMENT
ALUMNA DONA VAUGHN
TO DELIVER ADDRESS
J. Thomas Bertrand, President, Brevard College
Alumna Dona Vaughn is a professional singer, actress,
educator, television producer, and theater and opera director in New
York City. She is currently Director of the Opera Workshop at the
Manhattan School of Music, Acting Coach in the Metropolitan Opera
Young Artists Development Program, and Resident Director of the
renowned Portland (Maine) Opera Repertory Theatre.
After graduating from Brevard College as a voice major in
1964, she completed her baccalaureate studies in music at Wesleyan
College, then ventured to New York City to pursue her dream of
performing on Broadway. She studied acting under Uta Hagen,
Herbert Berghof, and Lee Strasberg. She studied dance in the Martha
Graham Studio. Vaughn soon won acting roles in Steven Sondheim’s
Company, the original Broadway production oi Jesus Christ Super-
star, Cy Coleman’s See Saw, and In Celebration of Lillian Heilman On
which she understudied both Jane Alexander and Jane Fonda). While
performing in Broadway shows at night, she attended graduate school
at Hunter College, earning a master’s degree in stage directing.
Dona Vaughn has many acting credits to her name: in theater
(both on and off Broadway and in touring and summer stock compa
nies) television (as Dr. Marcia Vaughn on The Guiding Light), film
(roles in Godfather II, A Way of Life, and Minstrel), and radio (as
producer and host for seven years of a popular half-hour radio
program. Spotlight on the Arts, syndicated through the Greater New
York area). Vaughn has numerous directing credits in theater, musical
theater, and in opera throughout the United States and Canada,
including major productions on and off Broadway, at Lincoln Center,
and with the New York City Opera. She has served as a visiti ng
professor, dramaturge, or guest director at many colleges and universi
ties, including University of Michigan, University of Kansas, Northern
Wesleyan College. The State University of New York at Plattsburgh
conferred on her the Phi Eta Sigma Distinguished Faculty Award for
making “the greatest contribution to the Freshman Class in the
promotion of academic excellence and concern for the general welfare
and interest in the development of the total student.” Her husban ,
Ron Raines, is a talented singer and actor who plays the nefarious
Alan Spaulding on The Guiding Light, a popular television soap
opera. They have a 10-year old daughter, Charlotte Vaughn Raines.
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