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It was a very good year 1996 was a great year for writers and editors at St. Jerome's. Eric McCormack, a professor of English at the College, was nominated for a prestigious Governor General's Award for his most recent novel, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. But in his usual earnest, self-effacing manner, McCormack didn't let the nomination go to his head. "Win or lose," he told the local newspaper, "I'm too old to take the awards personally." Grail: An Ecumenical Journal, edited by Michael Higgins, Academic Dean at the College, won two awards from the Catholic Press Association: "When Chona Sang," by William Lewis, was judged best short story of the year, and "An Interview with Nino Marzoli, Bishop of Bolivia," by Michael Higgins and Doug Letson, won third prize for best interview. Grail, which is published by Novalis, is based at St. Paul University in Ottawa. Peter Hinchcliffe, a faculty member in the English department at the College and member of the editorial board of The New Quarterly, was pleased when the literary journal won the 1996 Gold Medal for fiction at the National Magazine Awards. The winning entry was a novella-length story by Ottawa writer John Metcalf, "Forde Abroad," which appeared in the fall 1996 issue of the journal. The New Quarterly is based at the University of Waterloo. The 1996 St. Jerome's student recruitment campaign, co-ordinated by Dana Woito, Registrar at the College, won two awards from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (CCAE) at a competition open to universities and colleges across Canada. The "English Majors at Work" poster series, which profiles four English graduates and communicates the practical value of an English degree and a liberal arts education, won the silver award for best poster, and the 1996 recruitment poster, which features a student at the College wearing a denim jacket and a College cap, won the bronze award, also for best poster. According to the judges, the recruitment poster "creates a friendly first impression" for potential students. The English Majors series of posters and the recruitment poster were written by Linda Kenyon of Kenyon & Co. and designed by Tom Bishop of Ampersand Studios, both in Waterloo. And at the same competition, SJC Update won the CCAE silver medal for best newsletter. The judges described SJC Update, which is also written by Kenyon and designed by Bishop, as "lively, well-written, and people focussed" with "warm and interesting articles." We blush! Victor visits by Dave Augustyn A switch turned on inside of me when I was twelve, and it hasn't turned off," says Victor Malarek, who presented the Thirteenth Annual Graduates' Association lecture at the College in November. "That summer, they shipped all of us from Weredale House--an abusive, mismanaged institution for boys from broken homes in Montreal--to camp because they didn't know what to do with us in the city. The director of the camp beat my brother, Fred, in full view of the counsellors. None of them said a thing. Scared of losing their jobs, they remained silent." Perhaps as a result of that experience, Malarek, now an investigative reporter with CBC TV's The Fifth Estate, has "a deep and committed passion for change. I feel the responsibility to get involved in issues...to push forward and not stand on the sidelines." Malarek's career began when he discovered that three detained youth had hanged themselves over the Christmas holidays in 1971. His story forced a full-scale provincial inquiry into the conditions of the detention centre. "The authorities wanted time off at Christmas so they sent the youths to a detention centre. Alone in their cells, frightened and in despair, the youths decided to end their agony. The authorities not only neglected those in their care, they tried to cover up the suicides." A street kid from Lachine, Quebec, Malarek has written four acclaimed books and won three prestigious Mitchener awards for public service in journalism. In March 1997, Malarek was awarded a Gemini Award in the category of Best Overall Broadcast Journalist in Canada. 3 Centre for Catholic Experience lectures Jesus: At the Heart of the Struggle to be Church February 6, 1998 Can we liberate Jesus from the margins of our own journeys and allow him to be once more at the heart of consciousness as we fashion the church for the next millennium? Margaret Brennan, a member of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters from Monroe, Michigan, will consider this and other questions in the third lecture of the St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience's 1997-98 program. Encountering God: Scripture and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola March 6, 1998 Many years ago now, the late David Stanley, a prominent Canadian scripture scholar, wrote a widely influential book on the use of scripture in the Spiritual Exercises. This year's lgnatian Lecturer, Bishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., will re-visit that work and update its significance for today's spiritual encounter with God. Bishop Prendergast is co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue of Canada, liaison bishop for the Canadian Catholic Biblical Association, and auxiliary bishop of Toronto, with responsibility for the Western Pastoral Region.