Members of the MKA Faculty Receive Professional Recognition
Congratulations to two MKA Upper School faculty members who have received professional recognition in recent weeks.
English teacher Laurie Albanese, together with co-author Dr. Laura Morowitz, is the 2012 recipient of a Haddasah-Brandeis Institute research grant in support of their work on a historical novel based on the 1907 Klimt painting, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer." Albanese and Morowitz will use the funds to travel to Austria this summer, where they will visit Vienna and Linz, Hitler's boyhood home. They will also be the keynote speakers at the annual Book and Author Luncheon to be held at the Women’s Club of Upper Montclair on April 18, where they will discuss their previous collaboration, The Miracles of Prato.
Albanese is also the co-recipient of a grant funding the Scarsdale Girls' Center in Scarsdale, NY, a creative empowerment program designed to help middle school girls find their voices, expression and identities in order to see themselves as the heroes of their own lives. The program is designed around the "Be the Hero" creative writing curriculum that Albanese developed, and is scheduled to expand to New Jersey next year. More information on all Albanese’s projects can be found at http://www.laurielicoalbanese.com
Upper School Learning Specialist Lori Loebelsohn is also an artist who received her BFA from The Cooper Union, and her Haggadah (life-cycle) paintings were featured last week in an article by international newsfeed The JewishTelegraphic Agency, and was subsequently picked up by The Jerusalem Post, the largest English newspaper in Israel, as well as by other papers and news outlets in America and Europe.
The article focused on Loebelsohn’s biggest project to date: illustrating a 20-page Haggadah created by an 85-year-old man with the intent to create a family heirloom.
The full article can be read at http://www.jpost.com/ArtsAndCulture/Arts/Article.aspx?id=265959, and as a consequence, Baristanet and the Glen Ridge Voice have also interviewed Loebelsohn. Images of Loebelsohn’s work can be seen on her website at www.loriloebelsohn.com