TROY News Center

TROY -- Clifford Levy, deputy editor of the Metro Section of the New York Times and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his investigative reporting, will speak to Troy University students at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the Trojan Center Theatre on the Troy Campus.

Levy’s presentation is a part of the TROY’s partnership with The New York Times, which supports the University’s Quality Enhancement Plan to create a culture of engaged readers.

Levy also oversees investigative projects and specializes in social media. He has also served the Times as their Moscow Bureau Chief and secured one of his Pulitzer Prizes for a series of articles about human rights and freedom of speech in Russia.

Levy joined The Times in 1990 as a news assistant, was promoted to reporter in 1992 and has served various positions with the paper since that time. Before joining The Times, Levy was a reporter for the New York bureau of United Press International.

In addition to his Pulitzers, Levy is a three-time winner of the George Polk Award, presented annually by Long Island University to honor special achievement in journalism. He also has been honored with the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Foreign Correspondence, the International Print Winner for the RFK Journalism Awards in 2009 and a 2009 Eppy Award from Editor & Publisher.

Born in New Rochelle, N.Y., on June 15, 1967, Mr. Levy graduated from Princeton University in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and international affairs.

Mr. Levy is married with three children and lives in Brooklyn.

MOBILE – The role of higher education is to provide the foundation for young people to build a life and not just a career, Catholic Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi told Troy University officials here on Thursday during a luncheon at the Battle House Hotel.

The Most Rev. Rodi, who has served as Archbishop of Mobile since 2008, addressed a gathering of TROY officials before signing a long-term lease for a Catholic ministry center that will be included in a 376-bed faith-based residence hall on the Troy Campus. The residence hall, which is about 67 percent complete and expected to be operational in August, will house a 2,300 square-foot Newman Center.

“It is the essential role of a university to build the foundation on which students will prepare to not only make a living but also build a life,” the Most Rev. Rodi said. “A university is more than just a place where learning takes place in classrooms. It is a place that encourages dialogue of differing ideas. It is that type of dialogue that makes the heart feel and compels us to act.”

So many choices avail themselves to young people today and those choices extend to one’s values system, the Most Rev. Rodi said.

“More than any time in our history, we live in a world of choices,” he said. “Choice can enrich our lives and faith plays a specific role in the values of life. We welcome the opportunity that Troy University has extended to us and we look forward to this ongoing relationship.”

Newman Centers are found on secular university campuses throughout the world and on more than 270 campuses in the United States. The Center at Troy University represents collaboration with St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Troy and the Archdiocese of Mobile.

Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., TROY Chancellor, welcomed the Archbishop as a member of the Trojan family, presenting him with a Trojan statue.

“This relationship speaks to the very heart of our University motto, which dates back to our founding in 1887, educating the mind to think, the heart to feel and the body to act,” Dr. Hawkins said. “We are grateful for the Archbishop and we look forward to this new relationship that will be of great benefit to our students.”

Troy University Chancellor, Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., and the Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, Archbishop of Mobile, sign a long-term lease for a 2,300 square foot Catholic student ministries center inside a new faith-based residence hall on the Troy Campus. Standing are, from left, are Gerald O. Dial, president pro-tem of the Troy University Board of Trustees, Trustee and Foundation Board Chair Karen Carter and Father Den Irwin, of St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Troy. (TROY photo/Andy Ellis)
An artist's rendering of front entrance of the Residence at the Newman Center. (TROY photo)

Troy University students on Tuesday were challenged to consider their own legacy by the teacher who leads an after-school program at a Tennessee middle school that gained national attention for its lasting tribute to the victims of the Holocaust.

Sandra Roberts, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Whitwell (Tenn.) Middle School, was on the Troy Campus on Tuesday to discuss “The Paperclip Project,” which began in 1998 as an after-school study program to examine the Holocaust. Roberts delivered lectures to area middle school students during the morning and to TROY students, faculty and staff on Tuesday afternoon. A public lecture was scheduled for the Johnson Center for the Arts in downtown Troy Tuesday night.

“You are the future leaders of this community, your home communities or other communities around our country,” Roberts told the audience gathered in the Trojan Center Theatre. “What will your legacy be? What will people say that you champion? What is it that you are passionate about? In your lifetime, we will lose the last Holocaust survivor. What happens then? Will there stories be lost or will we remember and choose to honor their legacies through our own lives?”

In an effort to quantify the number of victims of the Holocaust in a manner in which the students could understand, the after-school group began collecting paper clips, a symbol commonly worn by Norwegians as a silent protest against Nazi occupation during World War II. At the end of the first year of the program, 752,000 paper clips had been collected.

“By the fall of 2000 we had received several large packages, and then the paper clips just stopped coming in,” Roberts said.

That all changed when the program received national media attention, first from NBC Nightly News and then from both the Boston Globe and the Washington Post.

“The article ran in the Boston Globe on the first day of Passover. The next week was our spring break,” Roberts said. “The principal called me the first night of spring break and told me to come to the school. When I arrived we went to the cafeteria and every table was stacked up with letters and packages containing paper clips. For the next six weeks, the Post Office was no longer able to deliver our mail.”

The students began meeting before school to read the letters and count and categorize the paper clips. The project began receiving half a million paper clips daily, Roberts said.

“As a teacher, the whole time I wondered if the students really got the purpose of the program and the meaning behind the paper clips,” she said. “Then one morning I came in and one of our students was sitting off in the corner with a paper clip in her hand, just turning it over and over. When I asked what was wrong, she said that her mother, who had cancer, had just received a treatment and had a rough night. She then held up the paper clip, turned to me and said, ‘What if this one person knew or would discover the cure for breast cancer and yet died all because of hatred.’ At that point I knew that she had truly learned the impact that hatred can have.”

Roberts’ lectures will continue on Wednesday in Dothan where she will lecture to area school children Wednesday morning. A public lecture and reception will be held at 4 p.m. in the Sony Hall auditorium inside the Library/Technology Building on TROY’s Dothan Campus. Roberts also will deliver the public presentation “Learning from the Holocaust” at Temple Emanu-El in Dothan at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 23. The event is free and open to the public.

Roberts will deliver her presentation to students, faculty and the public in Montgomery on Jan. 24 beginning at 6 p.m. in the Rosa Parks Museum Auditorium. Earlier that day, she will also lecture to Montgomery area middle school students.

Troy University will play host to the sixth annual Southeastern United States Honor Choir Jan. 18-19 on the Troy Campus.

Nearly 200 high school vocalists from Alabama, Georgia and Florida will take part in the event, receiving direction from guest clinician/conductor Dr. Gary Packwood. Participants will present a closing concert at 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 19 in the Claudia Crosby Theater. The concert is free and open to the public.

Dr. Packwood is director of choral activities at Mississippi State University. His duties include conducting all choral ensembles and administering the choral activities area. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Packwood served as associate professor and associate director of choral activities and head of music education at the University of Montevallo from 2003-2011, where he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in choral music, music education and conducted the Chamber Singers and University Chorus.

Dr. Packwood earned the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Southeastern Louisiana University, the Master of Arts degree from Florida Atlantic University and Doctorate of Musical Arts (Choral Conducting & Literature) degree, with a minor in Music Education from Louisiana State University.

“Dr. Packwood is a dynamic and engaging conductor and I am so excited that students from Alabama, Georgia and Florida will be able to spend such concentrated time with him” said Diane Orlofsky, director of Troy University choirs and coordinator of the event. “He has programmed a diverse, multi-cultural and upbeat program that will have everyone smiling, and I guarantee they will leave better musicians and better human beings, just for having worked with him.”

During the event, vocal scholarships will also be awarded to some deserving high school students.

“This event has doubled in size, and we are genuinely excited about welcoming these singers to our campus,” Dr. Orlofsky said.  

A project designed to stress the importance of tolerance and respect for different cultures at a Tennessee middle school will be the topic of a series of lectures at Troy University Jan. 22-24 as a part of the University’s “Year of Holocaust Remembrance” activities.

Sandra Roberts, the eighth-grade language arts at Whitwell (Tenn.) Middle School, will discuss “The Paperclip Project,” which began in 1998 as an after-school study program to examine the Holocaust, during lectures at the Troy, Dothan and Montgomery campuses.

The lectures are co-sponsored by Troy University, the Alabama Humanities Foundation, the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center, One Clip at a Time, the Troy-Pike Cultural Arts Center, Temple Emanu-El in Dothan and Troy University’s College of Communication and Fine Arts.

The paperclip became the focus of the project when students discovered that Joseph Valler, a Norwegian Jew, was credited as having invented the paper clip and that Norwegians commonly wore them on their lapels as a silent protest against Nazi occupation during World War II. The initial goal was to collect six million paper clips, one for each of the victims of the Holocaust victims.

Students began bringing paperclips to school and then established a website to bolster their collection efforts. The students soon began to receive not only paperclips but also countless letters and documents relating to the Holocaust. To date, the students in Whitwell have collected more than 30 million paperclips and more than 30,000 letters from all 50 states, more than 50 foreign countries and from all seven continents.

The project was the topic of the award-winning documentary, “Paper Clips,” by Miramax Films in 2004.

Roberts will lecture to middle school students in the Claudia Crosby Theater on the Troy Campus beginning at 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 22. A lecture for Troy University students and the public will be presented at 1 p.m. in the Trojan Center Theatre, followed by a community reception at 5 p.m. and a gallery lecture, “Learning from the Holocaust,” at 5:30 p.m. at the Johnson Center for the Arts on East Walnut Street in downtown Troy. All of Tuesday’s events are free and open to the public.

On Jan. 23, Roberts will speak with students from Dothan City schools beginning at 9:30 a.m. A public lecture and reception will be held at 4 p.m. in the Sony Hall auditorium inside the Library/Technology Building on TROY’s Dothan Campus. Roberts also will deliver the public presentation “Learning from the Holocaust” at Temple Emanu-El in Dothan at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 23. The event is free and open to the public.

Roberts will deliver her presentation to students, faculty and the public in Montgomery on Jan. 24 beginning at 6 p.m. in the Rosa Parks Museum Auditorium. Earlier that day, she will also lecture to Montgomery area middle school students.

For more information about the lectures or the Year of Holocaust Remembrance, contact the Office of Sponsored Programs at (334) 670-3102.