Feb. 2023 News Blog
News briefs from the HCC campus and beyond
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Grace Notes
Anyone with the name Grace Kelly would seem destined for the stage. That has certainly been true for the HCC liberal arts major from Springfield who shares the name with the famous actress and late princess of Monaco. The young Grace Kelly appeared last year in HCC productions of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Men on Boats," as well as "Romeo and Juliet" with the Greenfield Community Players. "My parents kind of stumbled into the name and liked it, and I just happened to stumble into acting and liked it," said Kelly, who made her directorial debut Feb. 25 with the HCC student production of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," an ambitious undertaking for a first-timer leading a cast of 17. "I have a huge love for Shakespeare, so my first thought was to go there. Why not?" she said on the eve of the one-day show. "I've gotten so much support." Kelly got her start in theater in middle school and really started to dig in as a freshman at Springfield's Central High, where for four years she participated in a theater program with the Lenox-based Shakespeare & Company. "I got to see more than 40 Shakespeare shows," said Kelly. "If I hadn't gone through that program, I wouldn't have tried to direct. It was such a transformative and important part of my high school experience." Asked what the audience could expect from her interpretation of "Much Ado About Nothing," she thought for a moment and said, "It's a Shakespeare comedy, right? So strap in." (Above, left to right, HCC student-director Grace Kelly with student actors Isabela Rosado and Kit McKenzie in the Black Box Theater)
Earthquake Relief
When word spread about the need for donations to help survivors of the devastating Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, HCC nursing student Elif Kuruca did not hesitate to act. "Turkey is my home," said Kuruca, who now lives in Ludlow. "I grew up in a society where people are taught the value of collectivism rather than individualism. It is embedded in our culture and religion to look out for one another and to help people when they are in need." The Turkish Consulate in Boston had sent out emails and messages with lists of needed items. In Springfield, the Imam Buhari Mosque enlisted members to contact schools, medical offices, and supermarkets to set up collection areas. Kuruca set up a donation zone at HCC in the office of Institutional Advancement, where students, faculty, and staff dropped off diapers, tents, sleeping bags, over-the-counter medications, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hygiene products, socks, children's clothes, baby wipes, and more. In total, the mosque collected three U-Haul trucks worth of donations. "I'm proud to attend a school that listens to its students and takes action on things that matter," she said. (Above, Kuruca stands in the parking lot outside the Donahue building after loading her van with donations for earthquake survivors.)
In the Funny Papers
Sharp-eyed readers of Hager the Horrible may have noticed a nod to HCC's Taber Art Gallery in the Jan. 19 comic strip, which ran in the Springfield Republican - and many other newspapers across the country. Granby illustrator Gary Hallgren has been involved in creating the Hagar strip since 1988 and is one of the many artists participating in the "Upward and Onward" exhibition now showing at the Taber Gallery. He had a show of his own at the Taber in 2019. Hager the Horrible is a caricature commenting on modern-day life in the United States through a loose interpretation of Viking Age Scandinavian life. The comic strip was created by cartoonist Dik Browne and is syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It first appeared in February 1973 and has been a mainstay of the funny pages ever since, still distributed to 1,900 newspapers in 56 countries and translated into 12 languages.
Speaking Truth
Alum Safiyah Bey '21 (above left) and her mother, attorney and civil rights advocate Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, gave a Black History Month presentation Feb. 8 about their involvement with the Truth School, an organization focused on racial justice founded in 2016 in response to what Amatul-Wadud describes as "growing, racial, anti-everyone sentiment" in the U.S. Bey and her mother have been active with the Truth School as both students and co-facilitators. The first class they taught together focused on Islam and the state of Muslim women in America. "Our aim has kind of shifted now to focusing more on the multi-generational aspects of race, gender, and class," said Bey, now a senior at Mount Holyoke College, where she is majoring in international relations and also a member of the Muslim Student Association. Bey first came to HCC through the college's Gateway to College program and later served as president of the Student Senate. She was featured in a Profile of Excellence for Commencement 2021. "I think HCC was definitely the foundation of my interest in African-American studies and the realm of social justice," she said. "It definitely prepared me for what I'm doing now with the Truth School."
