"The measure of a Life is its Service."
Two local Huntsville attorneys at Cantrell, Ray, Maltsberger and Barcus, LLP, will discuss their careers as part of the College of Criminal Justice’s “Real Talk With CJ” on Tuesday (April 27).
The lecture, featuring Bryan Cantrell and Lanny Ray, will be held at 2 p.m. in CJava, located in the Criminal Justice Center.
A graduate of Texas A&M University and Baylor University Law School, Cantrell moved to Huntsville in 2001 to open the firm that is now Cantrell, Ray, Maltsberger and Barcus, LLP.
He was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1995 and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, and all U.S. District Courts for the State of Texas.
Cantrell also has practiced law with the Dallas firm Fulbright and Jaworski and in College Station.
A managing partner with Cantrell, Ray, Maltsberger and Barcus, Ray graduated from Northeast Louisiana University before receiving a commission into the U.S. Army, with which he served for more than 10 years on active duty as an infantry officer.
In 1993, at the rank of captain, Ray resigned from active duty to enter the legal profession, graduating from Baylor Law School in 1996, when he was admitted to the State Bar of Texas.
He is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, several federal district courts, and the federal courts of appeal.
Before coming to Huntsville, Ray practiced law in Tacoma, Wash.; College Station; and clerked for the Louisiana Supreme Court under Justice Chet Traylor.
The “Real Talk With CJ” lecture is sponsored by the Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity.
For more information, contact Candice Williams, College of Criminal Justice undergraduate coordinator/adviser, at 936.294.1702.
The Alcohol and Drug Abuse Initiative will send students off with a reminder to be safe in their summer activities during the first “Orange and White Field Sobriety Day” on Tuesday (May 4).
The event will be held from 2-5:30 p.m. on Intramural Field No. 1.
“The ‘Orange and White’ field day will be a great way to end the spring semester and move forward into the summer,” said Rosanne Keathley, ADAI coordinator. “The alcohol and drug awareness field day will provide activities that are fun as well as educational.”
Among the activities planned are monster volleyball, giant bowling, team poker, a “drunk of the bungee” run, human crash cart, “Walk the Line,” “42: Sammy Style” and a dizzy bat derby.
The Student Health Center, TABC, the Chemistry Club, the CARE Program, the Counseling Center and the ADAI will also be on hand as “educational stops” that will provide tips and other lessons.
Field day snacks will also be provided and door prizes will be given away. The event is also Six Weeks of Alcohol Awareness Training eligible.
The “Orange and White Field Sobriety Day” is sponsored by the ADAI, University Police Department, Dean of Students’ Office, Student Activities, Aramark, Recreation Sports, Promo-World, Student Health Center, Counseling Center, TABC, Huntsville Memorial Hospital CARE Program, Chemistry Club and the health and kinesiology department.
It is open to all students, faculty and staff.
In addition, the first 100 students who attend the field day then head over to the Bearkat baseball game against Texas A&M will receive a T-shirt with their field-day card.
For more information, contact Keathley, at 936.294.1171 or hpe_rsk@shsu.edu, or Lisa Joyner, ADAI assistant, at 936.294.1160 or stdlij11@shsu.edu.
SHSU’s College of Education is helping Head Start and childcare teachers to continue their educations towards a bachelor’s degree thanks to a Texas Education Agency and Children’s Learning Institute grant received by two early childhood and special education professors.
Diana Nabors, associate professor of early childhood education, and Cindy Simpson, associate professor of special education, recently received the Texas Higher Education and Early Care Grant (IHE), a more than $279,000 grant that will subsidize the college educations of approximately 20 professionals beginning this summer and 40 this fall.
The grant will provide recipients with $100 per course hour taken to assist students with tuition for one full year (summer or fall 2010 through summer 2011).
“Head Start is moving to having a large percentage of the classroom teachers obtaining and holding a four-year degree. For some accreditations of child care centers, a large percentage of staff must hold a four-year degree,” Nabors said. “Because many child care and Head Start teachers began their career as a high school graduate, their work with young children, the minimal required training, and the new push for advanced certificates and degrees has given them the desire to go to college.
“This grant opportunity will allow the non-traditional students/child care or Head Start teachers to continue working while taking a few classes at a time to proceed toward their four-year degree,” she said. “In the process of the teacher developing their knowledge and skills through professional development and course work, the classroom experiences that they provide for the children in their classes will be at a higher quality. This higher quality of experiences will provide a better early learning opportunity and learning environment for children.”
The IHE grant will also pay for two full-time employees to assist with the mentoring aspect that is required.
The application deadline is May 1 for the summer 2010 semester and June 15 for the fall 2010 semester. Students must also be accepted by the university.
Applications for the grant are available through Nabors, at dnabors@shsu.edu, or Simpson, at lls_cxs@shsu.edu. Applications for university admission can be completed online at https://www.applytexas.org/.
The Student Advising and Mentoring Center will relieve Bearkat parents of some finals stress by providing them with study time on May 5.
Free childcare will be available for children ages six months to 12 years old on that day from 5-8 p.m.
“We will have a movie, coloring books, and other basic activities for the children,” said Candi Harris, SAM Center staff associate. “Parents can bring a toy or two for their child if they wish.”
Children will be watched by student volunteers who will undergo a background check, and a professional staff member also will be there at all times. Parents will be able to study in the Study Skills Classroom, and their children will be in the next room with the volunteers.
“It is important to note that we have had the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services review our program, and they have issued us an exemption certificate,” Harris said. “This basically means that we are okay to proceed with this program without any type of regulation from a child care-licensing office, mostly due to the fact that the parents will be literally right next door and can be contacted at all times.”
Parents who are interested in participating must pre-register children by May 3 and sign a participation agreement with all of the program guidelines.
Students who would like to volunteer may also sign up with Harris.
For more information, contact Harris at ceh021@shsu.edu or 936.294.4628 or visit the SAM Center, located in College of Humanities and Social Sciences Building Room 190.
The dance program will pay tribute to the many years spent dancing and performing in Academic Building III during its final Dance Spectrum concert in the building Wednesday (April 28) through Saturday (May 1) before it moves to the Performing Arts Center.
Performances will be held at 8 p.m. each evening, with a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee, in the AB III Dance Theatre.
The program will include original faculty and invited student choreography, a retrospective costume “fashion” show, and a video presentation of “Life in AB3.”
Choreographers include faculty members Jonathan Charles, Cindy Gratz, Dana Nicolay, Andy Noble, Dionne Sparkman Noble, and Jennifer Pontius as well as graduate student Amy Llanes and undergraduate Allison Mackley.
Featured on the program is Noble’s “Kinky Kool Fan Blowing Hard,” chosen for The National College Dance Festival on May 29 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a national festival that “highlights the outstanding quality of choreography and performance being created on college and university campuses,” according to program coordinator Jennifer Pontius.
Student works will include Llanes’s “Strong moves Slow” and Mackley’s “Erin Go Braugh,” both of which represented Sam Houston at ACDF.
“‘Strong moves Slow’ was a part of the adjudicated series at festival and as such chosen to be featured in the closing gala concert,” Pontius said. “Mackley’s exhilarating pointe work to Irish influenced music represented Sam Houston well as part of the non-adjudicated series.”
To visualize Nicolay’s “Vivaldi Trios” you have to imagine three waiters in a very busy restaurant trying to keep up with an over excited boss and a hyper guitar quartet, according to Pontius.
“‘Vivaldi Trois’ is an XMV Dance – eXtreme Music Visualization,” Nicolay said. “The dancers respond to nearly every note in the music - no matter how fast it is played. In the process they reveal relationships that are sometimes friendly - sometimes not. Beyond that the movement pretty much speaks for itself.”
Other pieces include Gratz’s “The Collector,” a work for five performers and set to music by the Kronos Quartet; “Al Otro Lado del Volcan: Vientos Verdes,” the newest dance work by Pontius set to the music of Los Incas; and Charles’ “In a Garden,” a playful, romantic look at Robert Schumann’s first movement of Schumann’s “Piano Quintet in E flat Op.44.”
“I wanted to make a piece that harkened back to the dances that I loved to perform. It is classic with a contemporary twist,” Charles said.
Finally, combining efforts, Noble and Sparkman Noble created a work highlighted by the music of Dave Matthews.
“His music is complex and eclectic and we hoped to find a way to match the nature of his music through movement that is energetic, exciting and a little bit sexy,” Sparkman Noble said.
Tickets are $10 general admission and $8 for students with valid ID.
For more information, contact the dance ticket office at 936.294.3988.
The Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas is raising money for the Primary Immune Deficiency Foundation through a “Blue Jeans for Healthy Genes Day” on Wednesday (April 28).
In honor of Primary Immune Deficiency Month, in April, participants are asked to donate $5 to the foundation and wear blue jeans on that day. For a $10 donation, participants also will receive a primary immune deficiency disease wristband, button pin and sticker, as well as a tax-deductible receipt.
A reception for “Blue Jeans for Healthy Genes Day” will be held that day, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the LEMIT Pope Room.
Approximately 250,000 people are diagnosed with primary immune deficiency diseases in the United States, a disease that occurs in persons born with an immune system that is either absent or hampered in its ability to function.
To sign up for “Blue Jeans for Healthy Genes Day,” e-mail Yvette Shorten at wys001@shsu.edu or call 936.294.3851, or for more information on PIDD or the Primary Immune Deficiency Foundation, visit their Web site www.primaryimmune.org.
The SHSU School of Music will present a tragic opera, cello and collaborative piano concerts beginning Friday (April 30).
The Opera Workshop production of “Dido and Aeneas” will be held Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall.
Based on Virgil’s Aenied, the opera tells the story of two lovers torn apart by witches, pride and their own love.
Tickets are $10 for general admission, $5 for non-SHSU students and free for students with an SHSU ID.
On Sunday (May 2), the SHSU Cello Studio and special guest soprano Yuri Maria Saenz will perform a program featuring pieces arranged for the instrument at 3 p.m. in the Recital Hall.
“We will play concertos for cello by Haydn and Saint-Saens accompanied by cellos, instead of piano, featuring student performers Alisa Garcia and Leroy James Cavazos, said Daniel Saenz, adjunct professor of cello. “The SHSU Cello Studio will also be joined by soprano Yuri Maria Saenz to end the program in the gorgeous ‘Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5’ by Hector Villa-Lobos.”
Finally, at 6 p.m. on that day, students from the Collaborative Piano Techniques Class, accompanied by other instrumentalists and vocalists, will take their audience around the world with music from a variety of eras. The performance will be held in the Recital Hall.
“The student pianists will be each playing pieces with other instrumentalists, including saxophone, viola, clarinet, flute, marimba and cello, throughout the evening,” said Ilonka Rus, assistant professor of piano. “Also not to forget there will be two-piano or one-piano, four-hand pieces (with two people playing at the same piano).”
A reception will follow.
Both Sunday concerts are free and open to the public.
For more information, call the School of Music at 936.294.1360.
The SHSU physics department will visit some of the solar system’s “Extreme Planets” during its planetarium presentation on Friday (April 30).
The series, designed to show attendees which constellations, stars and planets they can expect to see in the upcoming weeks, will kick off with a showing of “Legends of the Night Sky: Orion,” from 7-8:15 p.m. in the planetarium, in Farrington Building Room 102.
“Extreme Planets” explores what makes a planet "Earth-like" and “take an immersive all-dome tour of several worlds that just might fit the conditions we're looking for,” according to Michael Prokosch, physics department staff laboratory assistant.
This will be the final presentation of “Extreme Planets” for the spring semester. Showings of “IBEX: Search for the Edge of the Solar System” will be held May 7 and May 14.
The planetarium seats up to 29 visitors and includes a dome that is approximately 18 feet in diameter and more than 20 feet high in the center.
For more information on current show times for the planetarium or the observatory, call 936.294.3664, e-mail Prokosch at mwp007@shsu.edu or visit the Planetarium WikiPage at http://shsu-planetarium.wikispaces.com/.
The SHSU campus will become an “Inflatopia” on Thursday (April 29) as students in the Workshop Studio Art and History showcase their three-dimensional art.
The Inflatable Art Fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at various sites around campus.
The exhibition is part of a WASH project, for which students were placed in groups and assigned to create 3D art installations.
“Our requirements were to design and fabricate a six-person portable, inflatable large outdoor structure that will provide users a retreat from the stresses of everyday life,” said photography major Ashley Dehoyos. “This project is to teach the WASH students about architectural space, space defined in relation to the bodies inside and around it.
“We as students were to collaborate with group members to decide on a utopia that would fit the requirements, and over the last few weeks we have been working hard on these projects,” she said.
The 10 groups will be set up around the Lowman Student Center Mall Area, in front of the Lowman Student Center and Academic Building I, near the Farrington Pit and by the Smith-Hutson Business Building.
“The main reason we are doing this is to promote creativity among faculty and students, learn how to collaborate, think outside the box as well as have the visitors experience art in a new and fun way,” Dehoyos said. “The inflatable utopia's goals are to have visitors leave feeling refreshed, inspired and happy.”
Structures will include inflatable rooms and domes, tiki island huts, exotic destination-inspired structures, a inflatable checkered board, pillows and balloons. Some groups will also offer food and refreshments, music, activities, free henna, and “places to rest, relax and have fun.”
For more information, contact Bill Davenport, art lecturer, at 713.863.7112 or burabura@wt.net.
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For electronic access to SHSU news see the Communications Web page Today@Sam.
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SHSU Media Contacts: Bruce Erickson, Julia May, Jennifer Gauntt
April 23, 2010
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Brian Domitrovic, assistant professor of history, appeared on Book TV (C-SPAN) May 1-2, speaking about his recent book "Econoclasts: The Rebels Sparked the Supply Side Revolution and Restored American Prosperity" (www.econoclasts.net).
Houston Chronicle education writer Jeannie Kever recently turned to Regents Professor of English Paul Ruffin for his views on university presses moving toward "digital books" as opposed to traditional ink-on-paper."We're fulfilling the ancient role of the university press, and that is to produce books," said Paul Ruffin, the Texas poet laureate for 2009 and director of the Texas Review Press at Sam Houston State University. "I don't want to give up the book because it is an art."
Monday, May 3
Tuesday, May 4
"The measure of a Life is its Service."