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SHSU Update For Week Of Aug. 28
- Biology Seminar To Feature Rice Professor
- Student Services Announces K.A.T. Award
- Parking Lot To Close For Kickoff Game
- Artists To Share ‘Delicate Impressions’ For Exhibit
- Showcase To Highlight ‘Uniting’ Program
- Patio Party To Welcome New, Returning Employees
- CJ College Offers Six Student Organizations
- Today@Sam Seeks Calendar Info
- Send Update Items Here
Biology Seminar To Feature Rice Professor
J. Nathaniel Holland, assistant professor in Rice University’s ecology and evolutionary biology department, will discuss his work on "Population and Community Ecology of Mutualism: Integrating Theory and Empiricism in Case Studies of Plant-Animal Interactions in the Sonoran Desert" on Thursday (Sept. 1).
The Biological Science Department Seminar Series lecture will be presented from 4-5 p.m. in Lee Drain Building Room 214.
Holland has taught at Rice University since 2003.
A Richmond, Va., native, he received his bachelor’s degree in 1993 from Ferrum College, in Virginia; his master’s degree from the University of Georgia in 1995; and his doctorate from the University of Miami in 2001.
Holland has earned grants from National Geographic and the National Science Foundation, which allowed him to conduct theoretical and empirical studies of the population and evolutionary ecology of mutualism between senita cacti and senita moths for his dissertation; and is the recipient of a "National Parks Ecological Research Postdoctoral Fellowship," a grant funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ecological Society of America.
The lecture is open to the public.
For more information, contact Madhu Choudhary, assistant professor of biological sciences, at 936.294.4850.
Student Services Announces K.A.T. Award
The SHSU Division of Student Services is coordinating a new campus award this fall to recognize university faculty and staff who have “gone the extra mile” and exhibit outstanding service to others.
The “Kudos and Thanks” or K.A.T. Award recipient will be selected each month from written nominations on official forms that can be found in designated areas across campus.
“There are many times our faculty and staff do great things for our students,” said Frank Parker, vice president for Student Services. “This award is a way of saying ‘thank you for making Sam Houston State University a better place to be.’”
Nominations should include specific examples identifying situations or incidents, which demonstrate how the person nominated has served others in the university community with special distinction. Each recipient will receive a lapel pin and an acrylic star.
For more information, contact the Division of Student Services by email at klv002@shsu.edu or by phone at 936.294.2274.
Parking Lot To Close For Kickoff Game
The Sam Houston State Bearkats kickoff their 2011 football season Thursday (Sept. 1) with a 6 p.m. game with nationally-ranked Western Illinois at Elliott T. Bowers Stadium.
That day, prior to the game, the entire Bowers Stadium parking lot will be closed. At 2:30 p.m. the lot will be opened only to vehicles with official football game parking credentials.
To help students who normally park in the Bowers lot, the University Police Department has two options for students with orange parking permits. Students may park in any “Blue” or “Green” lot that day only and will not receive a citation.
Students may park in a special satellite parking lot and ride special shuttle vans Thursday, running from 7:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. from the satellite lot, located at the corner of IH-45 north feeder road and Lake Road. The lot is commonly known as the old Hillcrest Ford Dealership. The shuttle will drop and pick students up at the dead end next to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Building only.
All current Sam Houston students are admitted free to Sam Houston home football games at Bowers Stadium. Students may pick up their tickets in advance at the Lowman Student Center using their active Bearkat OneCard. Pickup times are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Sam Houston faculty and staff also are admitted free to the general admission seats with their active Bearkat OneCard.
Pregame activities Thursday at Bowers Stadium will begin with the "Bearkat Alley Tailgate" north of the stadium scoreboard, during which members of the Houston Texans Cheerleaders will be signing autographs and posing for photos with fans. At 5 p.m. the Bearkat Marching Band will make its traditional "March to Bowers" from the library to Bearkat Alley.
Artists To Share ‘Delicate Impressions’ For Exhibit
Five women artists will be represented in the first exhibit of the fall semester Monday (Aug. 29) through Sept. 22 at the art department's Gaddis Geeslin Gallery.
A reception and artist talk for “Delicate Impressions"—featuring the works of Janice Jakielski, Jeana Klein, Io Palmer, Amy Riedel, Lauren Scanlon—will be held on Thursday (Sept. 1).
Jakielski received her master’s degree in ceramics from the University of Colorado Boulder and works with a variety of mixed media including fiber, wire, paper and porcelain.
“Her fabrications for the body uses recognizable forms and particular craftsmanship in order to lend her pieces authority as functional objects,” said Debbie Davenport Harper, art audio visual librarian. “Her most recent 3-D explorations have a focus on communication and relationships.”
Klein's “French Knots Series” will be represented in this exhibit, for which each artistic piece is composed of an exact quantity of precisely counted hand-stitched French knots, according to Harper.
“Her process is laborious and obsessive,” she said. “Some works require hundreds of hours of tedious stitching.”
Klein, who earned her master’s degree from Arizona State University, currently lives and works in Boone, N.C., where she is an assistant professor of fibers at Appalachian State University.
Palmer, from Pullman, Wash., uses drawing, photography, ceramics and fabric to produce conceptual objects and mixed-media installations that explore the ephemeral substances of social culture.
Her installation for the exhibit, “Artstars; Janitorial Supplies #6,” is made up of synthetic hair, bobbles, buttons, wooden mop handle and cotton mop head.
She received her master’s degree in ceramics from the University of Arizona.
Riedel has a master’s degree from University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
“Her emotive, 2-D works consist of acrylic and gouache on digital prints,” Harper said. “Reidel merges representations of digital weather radar with photographs of the late singer Karen Carpenter, the Designing Women character Julia Sugarbaker, her mother and herself.”
Scanlon, from St. Louis, Mo., has developed a body of work that uses paintings and paper cuts to investigate the intersection of romance novels and bed sheet patterns.
“Over the past few years she has been using the patterns and pages to think about what the books meant to her and what she thinks they might mean in a larger, cultural sense,” Harper said. “She is looking into in the function of the romance novel, the structure of stories, the history of printed domestic textiles, the process of repeat pattern design, the connection of pattern and memory, and the implications of this particular mass-produced, but intimate, narrative voice.”
The artist talk, featuring Jakielski, will begin at 5 p.m. in the Art Auditorium, located in Art Building E Room 108, followed by the reception in the Gaddis Geeslin Gallery at 6 p.m.
Both are open to the public, and refreshments will be served at the reception.
The Gaddis Geeslin Gallery is located at 1028 21st Street; Art Building F Room 101. It is open from noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
For more information, contact Harper at harperart@shsu.edu or 936.294.1317.
Showcase To Highlight ‘Uniting’ Program
The Student Activities Department will showcase its Multicultural Student Services program and all that the program has to offer on Monday (Aug. 29).
Unityfest will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Lowman Student Center Mall Area.
The program will offer free lunch for students, who can also learn from MSS students the organizations and activities associated with the program.
“It is called Unityfest because ‘unity’ is the underlying theme within all of our entities,” said Donielle Miller, MSS program coordinator. “We use the program as a tool to welcome students to SHSU and highlight all of our services.”
Services offered by the MSS program include SQUAD—Students on A Quest for Unity and Diversity—a group of Student Diversity Trainers; Diversity Council, a multicultural programming council who are specifically charged with developing the annual Diversity Leadership Conference; and SAMentors, a program in conjunction with Student Activities that focuses on developing mentoring relationships between upperclassmen and incoming students.
“Unityfest is an amazing program that helps to promote and highlight the great diversity we have at SHSU,” said Brandon Cooper, associate director for Student Activities.
For more information, call the Multicultural Student Services program at 936.294.3588 or visit www.shsu.edu/diversity.
Patio Party To Welcome New, Returning Employees
Faculty and staff at Sam Houston State University are invited to join the Alumni Association for their annual Party on the Patio celebration on Aug. 31.
The luau-themed event will be from 4-6 p.m. on the second level patio of the John R. Ragsdale Visitor and Alumni Center.
Party on the Patio provides an opportunity for faculty and staff on campus to mingle, as well as meet new colleagues on campus before the semester starts, according to Charlie Vienne, executive director for Alumni Relations.
“It is a really fun event, and we encourage all faculty and staff to attend,” Vienne said.
The reception also provides an opportunity for faculty and staff to demonstrate their Bearkat pride and join the Alumni Association at a discounted rate of $25.
Payroll deduction is also available for those interested in life membership.
“The Sam Houston State University Alumni Association is committed to supporting the heritage and future of our institution by serving the interests of alumni, current students, and friends of the university,” Vienne said. “Membership is one of the most affordable ways for faculty and staff to demonstrate their Bearkat pride.”
For more information, contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 800.283.7478.
CJ College Offers Six Student Organizations
The College of Criminal Justice offers six student organizations to meet the unique needs and interests of future professionals in the field. In addition to hosting outside speakers, these groups provide community service opportunities around campus or in the community and give students the support and camaraderie to excel in their academic and professional pursuits, according to Holly Miller, assistant dean of undergraduate programs.
The largest group is Lambda Alpha Epsilon, a national organization of students and professionals in criminal justice. The group boasts more than 120 SHSU members and provides networking with professionals, skill development through competitions, and a diverse array of volunteer opportunities.
Alpha Phi Sigma is a criminal justice honor society that recognizes academic excellence among undergraduate and graduate majors in the field. To qualify for the organization, students must maintain a 3.2 grade point average both in their overall academic program as well as criminal justice courses.
The National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice is a non-profit, professional organization that promotes the advancement of criminal justice.
The only NABCJ student organization in Texas, the group sponsors Women’s Week, which raises awareness of women’s issues through events on physical fitness, professional advice for future careers, and domestic violence. It also held a mini-conference that allowed criminal justice students to network with practitioners from the Drug Enforcement Agency, juvenile justice, and forensic investigation.
Phi Alpha Delta is the pre-law fraternity that assists students interested in attending law school. The group is building relationships outside the university and hosted an open forum with the Walker County District Attorney’s Office. It also promoted better relationships between the student body and law enforcement through a program called “Bridging the Gap.”
The Crime Victim Service Alliance, which was revived last year, promotes the victim’s rights movement and assists students pursuing careers in the criminal justice field. The group held events for National Crime Victims Week, providing teal ribbons to students in memory of those affected by crimes. It also hopes to get involved with victims’ groups in the community in the future.
“Our mission is to promote victim’s rights both as a movement and within the criminal justice field, ” said president Molly Smith.
The Society of Forensic Science is an undergraduate and graduate student organization that facilitates and encourages research and theory development related to forensic science by providing guest speakers from various professional forensic disciplines.
The society also serves as a platform for student members to network and interact in academic research in order to further their knowledge about the discipline of forensic science. Members are encouraged to attend academic conferences and to present their original scholarly research.
For more information on any of the student organizations, visit http://www.cjcenter.org/center/orgs.html.
Today@Sam Seeks Calendar Info
The University Communications Office is now collecting information on campus events for its fall calendar pages.
Departmental calendars or events can be sent to today@sam.edu or jenniferg@shsu.edu or faxed to 294.1834. Please include the date, location and time of the event, as well as a brief description and a contact person.
Information collected for the Today@Sam calendar pages, at /calendars/, is used by various media outlets, as well as the Communications Office for news stories and releases.
All information, including story ideas and update items for Today@Sam, should be sent a minimum of a week in advance of the event in order to make necessary contacts and write a story.
For more information, call 936.294.1836.
Send Update Items Here
Information for the SHSU Update can be sent to the Office of Communications electronically at Today@Sam.edu or to any of the media contacts listed below.
Please include the date, location and time of the event, as well as a brief description and a contact person.
All information for news stories should be sent to the office at least a week in advance to give the staff ample time to make necessary contacts and write the story.
For electronic access to SHSU news see the Communications Web page Today@Sam.
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SHSU Media Contacts: Julia May, Jennifer Gauntt
Aug. 26, 2011
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu
This page maintained by SHSU's Communications Office
Director: TBD
Assistant Director: Julia May
Writer: Jennifer Gauntt
Located in the 115 Administration Building
Telephone: 936.294.1836; Fax: 936.294.1834
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu.
