CalMagSpr05 ind.indd - CSUSB Magazine - California State ...

C O L L E G E N E W S
Eri Yasuhara, dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Designed primarily for future
and current teachers at the high
school and community college
levels, the master’s degree program
in Spanish made its debut
in January after needs assessments
showed strong public support
— especially among educators
— for the program.
“As a Hispanic Serving
Institution, CSUSB now can
greatly expand its ability to
serve the needs of the Spanishspeaking
community in our service
area,” said Dan Whitaker,
CSUSB Spanish professor and
coordinator of the new master’s
THE LID OF NETER HENEB
FINDS A HOME
The coffin lid of the mummy of Neter Heneb had floated about private
collections since the 1950s, never quite finding the kind of stability
every coffin lid needs. But this past October the lid received a new lease
on life after CSUSB’s Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum purchased it with
the aid of lovers of ancient art. The soft buzz created by the purchase is
due primarily to the lid’s age — a 2,500-year-old artifact that’s now on
exhibit in the RVF.
In the case of Neter Heneb, age comes not before, but with beauty.
Shaped like a human body, the coffin lid is about 6 feet tall and made of
several thick Lebanese cedar planks which are covered with fine linen and
decorated over a striking yellow background. The face of the deceased,
painted in rich red-ochre tones, indicates that the coffin was made for a
male. Female faces were typically done in a pale yellow. A double row of
vertical hieroglyphic text below the rich floral broad collar covering the
upper part of the body gives the name of the coffin’s occupant, “Neter
Heneb.” According to the inscriptions on the lid, a coffin was made for
Neter Heneb because he’d done his fair share of offering geese and oxen
to the temple. The coffin is dated c. 650-300 B.C. “A mummy coffin
like this one,” says Eva Kirsch, director for the Robert V. Fullerton Art
Museum, “has been long desired for the museum collection, and since
2003 the museum had actively tried to locate and acquire one.”
Many museum board members helped purchase the relic. They
include Mr. A. Bertrand Cassan, Dr. and Mrs. Benson Harer, Mr.
and Mrs. Allen Gresham, Mr. and Mrs. Howard Grossman, President
and Mrs. Albert Karnig, Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Martin, Ms. Joanne
McDaniel, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Shimoff in honor of Mr. E. Eugene
Yeager, and CSUSB department of art professors Sant Khalsa and Don
Woodford. The university Foundation also helped fund the acquisition,
which was made through a Beverly Hills public auction.
Bringing the ancient coffin lid to the RVF strengthens an already
world-class Egyptian collection, partly on extended loan and partly
owned by the museum. Considered the finest collection of Egyptian
antiquities on the West Coast, many of its objects have been published
in scholarly exhibition catalogs and popular books about ancient Egypt.
Several objects from the collection also have been lent to major exhibitions
organized by major museums. The museum owns close to 100
objects, most of them donated by the Harer Family Trust.
ROLLING OUT A SPANISH MASTER’S
program, which also is open
to students from Cal State
San Bernardino’s Palm Desert
Campus.
Offered through the university’s
world languages and literature
department, the program
gives students two options, one
in Spanish language teaching and
the other in Hispanic literature,
linguistics and civilization. Fulltime
students should be able to
complete the program in two
years, which is the average time
for similar master’s programs
throughout California. About
25 students enrolled in the first
Spanish M.A. class during the
winter quarter.
Spanish master’s degree candidates
are eligible to participate
in the department’s international
programs in México, Perú and
Cuba. CSUSB was designated a
Hispanic-Serving Institution by
the U.S. Education Department
in 1999. The title denotes colleges
and universities whose
enrollments consist of at least
25 percent Latino students. Cal
State San Bernardino’s enrollment
is almost 35 percent
Hispanic.
Arts & Letters
QUICK TAKES
When 11-year-old Nate’s leg is
crushed in an accident on his
family’s small Nebraska farm, he
is bitterly resentful of the orphan
John Worth, whom his father
takes in to pick up the work Nate
can’t do. John had lost his family
in a New York City tenement
fire. “Worth,” a novel by CSUSB
English professor Alexandria
LaFaye, is the winner of the 2005
Scott O’Dell Award for Historical
Fiction. A short, sparse novel,
the book tells the Orphan Train
story from Nate’s viewpoint.
Thousands of children were sent
from crowded orphanages and
homes in the Northeast to live
with families on farms throughout
the Midwest from the 1850s
to the early 20th century.
■
Teresa Cotner, assistant professor
of art at Cal State San
Bernardino, has received the
Outstanding Higher Education
Visual Art Educator Award
for 2004 by the California Art
Education Association. Cotner
won the award, in part based on
her supervisory work with student
teachers and interns, and
also for her efforts in developing
and teaching the first on-line art
class at CSUSB. Another award
recipient in recent months
was Kathryn Ervin, chair of
CSUSB’s theatre department.
She received a Pioneer Award
from the San Bernardino branch
of the NAACP in December.
A theatre arts professor at
CSUSB since 1989, Ervin was
recognized for “bringing the
[theatre] department to another
level in regard to community
awareness,” said Walter Jarman,
president of the NAACP San
Bernardino branch.
7
Spring/Summer 2005 CSUSB