Mica

Regarding the article crowing about the increase of Chinese students at Maryland Institute College of Art ("MICA enjoys an Eastern influx" May 25): Does this mean that MICA allowed in all talented and eligible American students and there were many spots left over? That in a country of 300-plus million there weren't enough Americans interested in a prestigious art institute? And no deserving citizen was turned away? Of course, it's probably like those hundreds of unwanted slots that will go to illegal immigrants under Maryland's Dream Act. Apparently college admission isn't competitive anymore and our own people have no problem getting a spot where they deserve.

To understand what Fred Lazarus accomplished during his 35 years as president of the Maryland Institute College of Art , one need only look at the gleaming concrete-and-glass structure housing the school's Brown Center for new media. The rakishly angled building rising above the school's Mount Royal Avenue campus symbolizes the future of both art and higher education in America as surely as the stately neoclassical building across the street from it reflects its past. Mr. Lazarus, who announced this week that he will step down as president in 2014, had the genius to see that future and the skill to build it in Baltimore.

The colorful work of Baltimore's Globe Poster Company, which began in 1929 and closed last year, will live on at the Maryland Institute College of Art . MICA announced Friday that it would acquire approximately 75 percent of Globe's collection — about 5,000 letterpress illustrations, many of them hand-carved; 350 drawers of type; and original posters Globe created for the likes of James Brown and Frank Zappa. It was one of the country's largest makers of posters in this form.

As President Fred Lazarus IV expanded the Maryland Institute College of Art over the past 35 years and helped turn it into one of the nation's leading arts colleges, supporters say, he has also focused on Baltimore - to the betterment of his college and his city. Lazarus, 71, announced Monday that he would retire in May 2014. Upon hearing the news, the city's cultural and civic leaders praised his foresight, saying he realized early on that improving life both in Baltimore and at the 187-year-old school went hand-in-hand.

For nearly two centuries, the Maryland Institute College of Art has been known for training painters, sculptors and fashion designers. But in May, MICA broadened its course offerings, and it is preparing to confer its first master's degrees on about 200 students planning careers in fields ranging from engineering to public health to computer science. The next step: an MBA program that will start next fall and provide classroom instruction at both MICA and the Johns Hopkins University's Carey School of Business.

The making of the Oscar-nominated movie "Music by Prudence" is a tale of two schools, one in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and one in Baltimore. A favorite for best short documentary at tonight's Academy Awards, this 33-minute flight presents an affecting portrait of its tough, gifted title character, the singer-songwriter in a band of disabled youths at the King George VI School & Centre for Children With Physical Disabilities in Bulawayo. Prudence Mabhena suffers from arthrogryposis, a condition that deforms joints and cost her both her legs.

A nine-block stretch of Charles Street near the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus will undergo a $28 million makeover — including new sidewalks, curbs, streetlights and trees—under a deal approved by the city's spending board Wednesday. Plans for the renovation of the street, which have been in the works for at least seven years, are expected to be completed early next year, transportation department spokeswoman Adrienne Barnes said. Construction is expected to begin next summer.

Tears welled in Tywana Reid's eyes as she described a tumultuous week. "Half the time, I cry myself to sleep," the 16-year-old said. "Because I say, ‘Who is there to talk to?' " As Reid's words spilled forth, a half-dozen other high school girls from across Baltimore nodded in compassion. Such an exchange might sound too raw for any setting other than a confidential support group. But in the background, three students from the Maryland Institute College of Art captured every moment on shoulder-mounted video cameras.

D. W. Griffith's overpowering 31/2 -hour epic, "Intolerance," gets the perfect showcase Saturday, 95 years after its premiere — a screening with live, original music during an event exploring, yes, intolerance. The Maryland Institute College of Art has commissioned a new score by Anne Watts and Boister, who will perform it at 7 p.m. in the Brown Center's Falvey Hall. It's the closing attraction in a film series linked to MICA's exhibition about intolerance, "The Narcissism of Minor Differences.

Far from clinging to their daughter, Rose He's parents urged her to pursue an art degree 7,500 miles from home. Like many Chinese families, they thought an American diploma could lead to a better job. He, a Shanghai native, could not be happier with her decision to enroll at the Maryland Institute College of Art . "In China, you keep drawing and drawing, but you don't have your own ideas," she says. She recently exchanged emails with a prospective applicant from Beijing.

Lotfy Nathan never figured he'd connect with the 12 O'clock Boys, a West Baltimore dirt-bike gang whose culture he was hoping to capture on film. At best, he figured to end up with a documentary about trying to track down the group, and having little luck at it. Fortunately for Nathan, it didn't work out that way. "It was surprising to me that I was able to sort-of breach the group," says Nathan, whose "12 O'clock Boys" will be getting its world premiere at the South by Southwest arts festival in Austin, Tex., next month.

I got lost on the way to the church. A few weeks ago, I was heading down Wolfe Street into the complex that is Johns Hopkins Hospital when I drove past Ashland Street. I had to stop at a Citgo station for directions to get back on track. There it was - the City of Hope Missionary Baptist Church - a two-story building that shared a block with some of the vast medical encampment that is both swallowing and saving East Baltimore. Just beyond the church were abandoned rowhomes, some of them roofless, all of them boarded up. This particular weekend marked City of Hope's fifth anniversary.

Sean O'Harra's furniture might be newly constructed, but there's nothing "new" about it. Walking through his workshop, a cavernous warehouse space on Reisterstown Road, O'Harra points to an enormous piece of wood, a cross-section of a maple tree trunk. "That is a tabletop," he explains. "It came out of a yard in Mount Washington and migrated to me. " The wood is rich brown, with prominent grain and an intricate, almost lacy, edge. It made its way to O'Harra via friends and friends of friends who knew he would appreciate it. He'll pair the wood with a metal base, balancing the maple's organic beauty with the cool modernity of metal.

The food truck trend has rolled onto the campus of the Maryland Institute College of Art. Set to debut sometime during the week of Oct. 15, the Artist's Palate will ply the university's Bolton Hill campus, bringing students breakfast sandwiches, late night snacks and meals in between. The newest truck in Baltimore's fleet of mobile vendors is one of the country's first for a university setting, according to Christopher Bohaska, the MICA's director or operation services. “A food truck is an idea that we've had for a while,” Bohaska said.

Twenty years after opening its first large residence for students, the Maryland Institute College of Art plans to build a $16.5 million addition that will increase the number of undergraduates living on campus and help revitalize Baltimore's North Avenue corridor and northern Bolton Hill. College officials intend to break ground this fall on Commons II, a five-story building with 62 apartments that can accommodate about 240 students. When it opens in the fall of 2013, MICA will have on-campus housing for more than 1,000 students, up from practically none in 1991 and enough for more than half of its undergraduates.

Congratulations to Reba Ann Hause on her recent graduation from Anne Arundel Community College, where she received her certificate as an emergency medical technician – paramedic. The emergency medical technician program provides the knowledge and skills to personnel who will care for the acutely sick and injured. These skills prepare students to practice as competent entry-level pre-hospital providers. Upon completion of the program, students are eligible for employment with a fire department, an inter-facility transport service or as a technician in a hospital emergency department.

"Music by Prudence," made partly with the financial and creative support of the Maryland Institute College of Art, overcame several other strong candidates, including the American labor tragedy "The Last Truck," to win best short documentary at the 2010 Academy Awards on Sunday night. Few Oscar films have packed in more profundity per minute than this tale of Prudence Mabhena, 21, and seven other disabled young musicians in Zimbabwe transcending bigotry and isolation through art and fellowship.

The French cartoon that won the Oscar for best animated short this year, "Logorama," is a giddy, nightmarish chase that wrings nonstop surprise and a horrible beauty from a vision of corporate logos and trademark characters taking over the Earth and all creation. Talk to the founders of the "Festival Image" that starts today at Maryland Institute College of Art — including Sylvain Cornevaux, deputy director of the Alliance Francaise de Washington, and Laurence Arcadias, co-chair of MICA's animation department — and you feel there was something fated about French cartoonists tackling America's advertising culture and remolding it into a vision of apocalypse.

The surveillance state expands. The Patriot Act allows our phones to be wiretapped. Our email and Internet transactions leave a trail for some to follow. The police can access our GPS location data through our smartphones without a warrant. Retailers record our purchasing habits with painstaking detail. Apparently, Target studies those purchases to determine when customers are pregnant - in the second trimester, no less - for specialized marketing purposes. And now, there will be surveillance drones.

You usually head for a vending machine when you're craving a bag of chips or can of soda. But there's a one machine in Baltimore that dispenses objects such as a "Hankie Pankie," a heart-shaped engagement ring, a mini-Zombie or, for those in need of quick religious reassurance, a "Pocket Nun. " That's just some of the fare available — with a few crisp dollar bills — from the "Art-o-mat," part of a national project designed to bring fine...