Wayne State University's Arts Achievement Awards program, honoring a community arts activist and seven prominent alumni, will begin at 4 p.m. Thursday, March26, in the McGregor Memorial Conference Center.

President Irvin Reid will greet the awardees. The 1997 Arts Advocate Award will be presented to Ms. Emma Lazaroff Schaver of Southfield, arts patron and former performer.

Recipients of the 1997 Arts Achievement Awards are: art - Lori Christmastree of Buffalo, NY; art education - Victor Miesel of Ann Arbor; communication - WXYZ-TV anchor Erik Smith of Brighton Township; dance -Marion Kirk Jones of Phoenix, Ariz.; English - Frank Pahl of Ann Arbor; music - Malcolm Johns of Dearborn; and theatre - Kim Carney of Royal Oak.

The awards program is part of WSU's annual "Celebration of the Arts" that will be held Wednesday-Friday, March 25-27, to showcase the variety of arts programs and activities that are regular features at the university. Most activities are free and open to the public and include displays of art, literature, music and dance. Among the scheduled events, along with phone numbers to call for information (main campus area code is 313):

Wednesday, March 25 * Art education - lecture with Victor Miesel, 4:30 p.m., rooms 156, 158Community Arts Building, 577-0490;

Thursday, March 26 * Dance - lecture with Marion Jones, noon, Adamany Undergraduate Library, 577-4273;

* Theatre - staged reading by Kim Carney of her play, "Lib," a coming of age comedy, 1 p.m., Studio Theatre, 577-7646;

* Music - lecture with Malcolm Johns, 1:55 p.m., room 101 Schaver Music Building, 577-1800;

* Art and art history - lecture with Lori Christmastree on "Household Objections," 2 p.m., Bernath Auditorium, Adamany Undergraduate Library, 577-2930;

* Awards presentation - 4 p.m. followed by reception, McGregor Memorial Conference Center, 495 Ferry Mall, 577-2246; and

* Theatre - "A Woman of No Importance" by Oscar Wilde, 8 p.m., Hilberry Theatre, through April 23, 577-2972.

Friday, March 27 * Art and art history - workshop on handmade book construction by Lori Christmastree, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., room 2117 Old Main, 577-2993;

* English - lecture by Frank Pahl, 3 p.m., 51 West Warren, room 3234 English department, 577-7695; and

* Performance of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" by William Shakespeare, 8 p.m., Hilberry Theatre, through May 9, 577-2972.

Arts Advocate - Emma Lazaroff Schaver, in her mid-'90s, has founded and supported local, national and international arts and charitable organizations for many years.

She has been the international chairwoman of the Israel Zimria (a world assembly of choirs held in Israel); chairman for the publication of the "Anthology of Yiddish folksongs" and through Hebrew University, founder and chairwoman of Jerusalem Vocal Arts group; and founder of the American Israel Cultural Foundation. She continues membership in many groups.

Locally, Schaver is a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Public Library, and the WSU Anthony Wayne Society among others. In 1954 she established the Morris and Emma Schaver Educational Fund at the WSU Press; she is a major donor to the department of music. The music building is named in honor of Schaver, and tentative plans are underway to name the new recital hall in Old Main for her.

As a soprano soloist, Schaver performed with Leonard Bernstein and several European orchestras as well as the Detroit Civic Opera Company and the San Carlo Opera. She performed with the Mexico City Opera, Cincinnati Opera Co. and was a guest soloist with the Detroit Symphony, Israel Symphony, and the Haifa Symphony Orchestras.

Schaver has received honorary degrees from the Julliard School and the Jewish Teachers Seminary and was given the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award. Her son Isaac Schaver received a WSU bachelor's degree in English.

Art and art history - The exhibitions of bookwork and catalogues by fabric artist Lori Christmastree are found throughout the country and abroad in Yugoslavia, Russia, Ukraine, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzogovina among others.

She has been a professor of design at the State University of New York at Buffalo since 1981. Before that Christmastree at Wayne State as an art and art history faculty member and gallery and events coordinator/faculty advisor for the Student Art Forum.

Her art is part of collections in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Ohio Arts Council, among others. Her book works are available in major U.S. cities and Switzerland.

A 1997 International Research Exchange Board Scholar in Bulgaria grant is the most recent of her many grants and honors including two Fulbright Senior Scholar grants. Christmastree received a bachelor of science degree from Simmons College in Boston and a master's of fine arts degree from Wayne State.

Art education - Professor Victor Miesel has been with the University of Michigan in the department of the history of art since 1957. He has traveled and lectured extensively at universities throughout Europe and Great Britain, especially Italy and Germany, during that time, as well. His subjects included Romantic landscape paintings, Picasso and Cubism, Kandinski, Klee and abstract expressionism.

Miesel has been a visiting professor at Barnard College and Columbia University and directed several summer programs in Florence, Italy. He presented a lecture series at the Detroit Institute of the Arts for six years and lectured at Yale University, Guggenheim Museum, National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and a number of other universities.

A productive author, Miesel has written books and has numerous articles in art publications throughout the country. He also presented a 15-segment television series, "Understanding Art" for the University of Michigan.

Miesel received a bachelor's degree in painting, sculpture and art education from Wayne State and a master's degree in the history of art and doctorate from the University of Michigan. He received several fellowships at Michigan and a Fulbright Award in Wurzburg, Germany.

Communication - Erik Smith has been giving Detroiters their morning "wake-up call" for more than 25 years. The popular anchorman of the program, WXYZ-TV 7 "Action News This Morning," joined the station in 1963. The rest, as they say, is local TV history.

While he might be best known for his timely human interest or light-hearted feature stories, since 1991 Smith also has served as co-anchor of TV 7'ssuccessful "Action News Midday." On occasion, he can be found between the highs and lows on a weather map.

For more than three decades Smith has covered the major news stories in metropolitan Detroit, such as the 1967 riot, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, the tragedy of Northwest flight 255 and the post office shootings in Royal Oak and Dearborn. He also was the last reporter to talk with the late Malcolm X before his assassination in 1965.

At Wayne State Smith appeared in Bonstelle and Hilberry Theatre productions and managed the student radio station, WUBG. He remembers the day President John Kennedy died in 1963. None of student staff came to work and he felt other networks had more information to offer, so he closed the station. "Much to the dismay of faculty director Jack Warfield," he says, "It was a dismal day."

The veteran reporter/anchorman has been honored with numerous awards including six Emmys, six major individual achievement awards from the Associated Press and United Press International as well as various community service awards. He majored in mass communications and journalism at Wayne State.

Dance - Professor Marion Kirk Jones of Arizona State University was a member of the Lester Horton Dance Company and has taught at Cornell University, Purdue University, the University of Rochester and the Cranbrook Institutions of Michigan. Her studies included intensive work with modern dancers Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, Ted Shawn and Louis Horst. She received her ballet training at the School of American Ballet.

In 1982 she won the Arizona Commission on the Art Choreographer's Fellowship award and received special recognition as an artist from the governor in 1983.She was the artistic coordinator of the Arizona Dance Showcase, the Gala Dance Benefit for AIDS in 1990 and for the National College Dance Festival in 1992.

Jones taught at Wayne State, as did her father, Arthur Neville Kirk, a silversmith, who had a long-time association with the university. She received a bachelor's degree from Wayne State and a master's degree from Arizona State University.

As artistic director for the Desert Dance Theatre with others she created a trilogy of large-scale major works devoted to the civil rights movement. One, "Sister Moses: The Story of Harriet Tubman," continues to be widely performed throughout Arizona. She is founding board member of the National Council on HIV Disease. In addition to her career in dance, she is a founding board member of the National Council on HIV Disease and an associate of the Arizona Institute for Peace, Education and Research.

English - Frank Pahl is an experimental musician who uses a variety of genre and media. He has installed prize-winning aural sculptures - sound and kinetic sculptures with moving parts that produce musical patterns of sound.

He has been the festival coordinator for Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit "Earwhacks" sound festival for 1992 and 1993. Since 1980, the music composer and instrumentalist has been a recording engineer/producer for several national and international artists and a freelance writer for various magazines.

Pahl has been commissioned to compose music for theatre and dance performances, and documentary films such as James Knight's, "Ballad of Fire," and Tyree Guyton's, "Strange Fruit." Among his most recent performances are the Kyoto and Tokyo solo shows where he performed as a one-man band, performances at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and a European tour with OAM and Solofest.

His recordings, CDs and LPs, include "Remove the Cork," "Feral Chickens," "Only a Mother," and "Riding White Alligators."

Among Pahl's recent awards are a 1997 Merit scholarship from the University of Michigan (U of M), a 1997 Polk Award Winner, a Detroit Music Hall of Fame Award from the Metro Times, a Best Instrumentalist Award, and a Non-Traditional Fellowship from U of M.

Pahl received a bachelor's degree in English from Wayne State and a master's degree in fine arts from U of M.

Music - Professor Emeritus Malcolm Johns has conducted and taught internationally for the past 60 years with more than 45 years of teaching at Wayne State. He has an international reputation for his choral excellence and creative organ presentations.

Johns taught in the department of music from 1947-1982; since 1983 he has been a member of the adjunct faculty regularly recruiting, conducting and teaching. He is featured annually as founder and conductor emeritus of the "Salute to Downtown Detroit" concerts begun in 1967 at Old St. Mary's Church in Greektown.

Johns has devoted his professional career toward the musical enrichment of the metropolitan Detroit community through extensive performances. He has developed his musical understanding through research of ethnic music throughout the world, encouraging and commissioning aspiring composers and interpreting the traditional musical masterworks.

Johns was given the 1997 Maynard Klein Award for Distinguished Service to Choral Music in Michigan. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in music from Wayne State.

Theatre - When Kim Carney was acting and earning her bachelor's of fine arts degree in theatre, she wrote her first play, "The Elevator," just to do something for her class. Each member of the class had a part in the play, she remembers. Now a successful playwright, Carney says she got a "well-rounded" education at Wayne State and it helped a lot.

Her newest play, "Labor Day" recently was produced at Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre, where her play, "Only Me and You," was produced in 1995 and her comedy, "Nooner," had an extended run in 1993.

Her other plays include "Lib," which was produced by the Friends and Artists Theatre of Los Angeles, where it received six Drama-Logue awards including outstanding play.

"Photographic Memories," produced at the Boarshead/Michigan Public Theatre and the Baldwin Theater in Royal Oak, won local "best play" awards for both productions.

"Bombshells" was produced at the Boarshead/Michigan Public Theatre and at the University of Detroit's Theatre Company, along with her one-act play," Influence," under the umbrella title, "Women in Bars."

A founding member of the Detroit Playwright's Initiative, Carney has written play lets for each of their three productions, "Cruisin' Woodward," "Detroit Stories," and "Jingle Bells the Hard Way."

For more information call Eileen Raider, WSU Office of Community Relations, at(313) 577-2246.