IN THE HIVE

This article has been updated April 30, 2010 at 1.30 p.m. to include the original email exchange between Ralica Ninova, Ann Ferren and Tanya Papazova.

Effective from Fall 2010 semester, a new curriculum for the Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) major has been introduced. The JMC faculty worked on it for the past two years, but most of the work has been done this semester.

The More Honors (MH) Academy announced this year’s MH Scholarship winners during their 13th annual awards ceremony in the Skaptopara Sports Hall on April 16 in front of more than a thousand students and faculty members. Three winning teams were awarded a total of 3,000 leva.

This year the task was to prepare a short video clip on any topic, showing creativity and clear understanding of the values of More Honors.

Passion, age and relationship doubts mixed successfuly in "Three Tall Women," a play by Edward Albee which was shown April 21 and 22 in the Nikola Vapcarov theatre Chamber Hall of Blagoevgrad.

Winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize, the play is currently performed at the finest theaters around the world. Professor Nedyalko Delchev embarked on the challenging task of appropriately staging such a meaningful, passionate, intelligent and well written play.

The second Friends of the Library initiative is taking place at the Panitza Library between April 15 and May 14. AUBG students can donate money to the library in exchange for a selection of books available in front of the library entrance.

The initiative was set up for the first time last April to discard unused items and collect contributions for the library. The interim director of the library, Sophia Katsarska, said that the discarded books were initially supposed to be donated to other Bulgarian universities, but none of the universities sent a positive response.

The recession definitely lowered the chances of graduating seniors to get hired. We, the seniors, are also anxious about the upcoming graduation. But one way or another there is something we want to say before we put on our caps and gowns. While still here, we asked ourselves a question about the quality of education at AUBG, in particular of the Business Administration (BUS) major that we had chosen a few years ago.

Traycho Traykov, the Bulgarian Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism, gave a lecture in the New Academic Building (NAB) Auditorium on April 22. The topic of the presentation was "How can the government stimulate the sustainable growth of the Bulgarian Economy?" The event was organized by AUBG Business club.

The Academic Policies committee will make the final recommendation to the president by the end of the semester regarding the removal of D- and D+ grades from the AUBG grading scale. The recommendation, if accepted by the president, will be effective as of the Fall semester, Dean of Faculty Steven Sullivan said.

The AUBG community celebrated its third Environmental Week from April 19 to 25. This year, the event also marked the 40th anniversary of the Earth Day on Thursday, April 22.

The week was dedicated to activities promoting environmental awareness and healthy life style. It was organized by the Environmental working group, People to People International AUBG Chapter (PTPI), Better Community Club (BCC) and Roctaract Club Blagoevgrad - Centrum.

Hairspray, this year's Broadway Performance Club musical, was wonderful not only because of its success in Blagoevgrad and on the national tour, but for the unforgettable experience it gave to the cast members as well.

 

The senior gift of the Class 2010 will consist of three seven meter tall flagpoles with flags of Bulgaria, the United States, and the European Union, which will cost 790 leva each.

Dr. Cyrus Reed, a candidate for the AUBG provost position met with students on April 9. Around 10 students attended the meeting which lasted for an hour and a half in the NAB Auditorium.

Ten contestants participated in the first Miss AUBG contest organized by the AUBG Beauty Pageant Club on Monday at Club Juliani. AUBG rock band Slow and the AUBG Cheerleaders also performed at at the event.

This opinion piece is to respond to Professor Sandra Earley's concerns about the appropriateness of the Miss AUBG competition. I believe there were some issues raised that were found inappropriate and offensive towards some members of our community. As a Senator of the Student Government (SG) of AUBG, a female and a member of the budgetary committee, hence directly connected with the accreditation of the AUBG Pageant Club, I felt I had to stand up for my beliefs.

 

When a person gets to see his friends in a university production, expectations tend to diminish and people tend to become much more appreciative towards it. This is not such kind of a review. I have been bashing movies for defacto for a while, writing about their good points and weaknesses, and I will not treat Hairspray otherwise. I will be as objective as possible, since I paid money to view this almost-successful production.