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SHSU Update For Week Of Aug. 31
- Music Season To Open With Guest Concerts, Master Class
- Forum To Highlight 19th-Century Actress’s Literary Endeavors
- CJ Welcome Week To Introduce College Opportunities
- Art Chair Named ‘Emerging Arts Fellow’
- College Introduces Undergraduate Security Studies Courses
- Library Workshops Offer Faculty, Students Research Tools
- Today@Sam Seeks Fall Calendar Info
- Submit Update Items Here
Music Season To Open With Guest Concerts, Master Class
Two concerts and a master class featuring guest artists will prelude the fall semester of music for the Sam Houston State University School of Music beginning Thursday (Sept. 4).
That day, guest cellist Patrick Moore and pianist Rodney Waters will perform, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Gaertner Performing Arts Center Recital Hall.
On Friday (Sept. 5), the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse will bring their “astonishing musicianship, technique and comical banter” to the GPAC Concert Hall, beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Composed of French horn players Paul Blackstone, Audrey Good, Tony Licata and Gerry Wood, the quartet will perform a program of popular and contemporary music during their tour stop at SHSU.
Performing together for more than 15 years, the Hornsmen have developed a non-traditional approach to music and pride themselves in their “ability to connect with the audience and break the traditional barrier between the musicians and the listener,” the group says on their website.
Their performances have taken them across the country and around the world, playing for audiences at the symphony, college campuses, workshops, churches, arts festivals, public schools, public restrooms, farmer's markets, parking lots, hotel lobbies, and interstate rest areas, the group jokes.
“They are the leading professional horn quartet in the world,” said Peggy DeMers, horn professor at SHSU. “This chamber music ensemble is leading the country and Europe in new compositions written for their group, and new arrangements of classic popular and rock music for their group.”
The group recently completed a tour of Texas, a residency with Symphony Orchestra Augusta and recorded and released a CD entitled “Intuitions.”
“The Four Hornsmen is an engaging group of performers. Their vehicle for their expression is the horn, not the voice or guitar, but they will entertain and challenge your musical imagination,” DeMers said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear this quality of performance live.”
Prior to their concert, the Four Hornsmen will give a master class with SHSU horn students, beginning at 3 p.m. in the GPAC Concert Hall.
Admission is free to all of these events.
The Gaertner Performing Arts Center is located at 815 17th St.
For more information, call the School of Music at 936.294.1360.
Forum To Highlight 19th-Century Actress’s Literary Endeavors
Famous 19th-century actress Adah Menken was believed to be born in New Orleans, but in the first of the Sam Houston State University English department’s First Friday Faculty Forum of the fall, English professor Lee Courtney will discuss her lesser-known literary endeavors, as well as her “Texas Identity.”
“Adah Menken: Texas Roots, Texan Identity,” will be presented on Friday (Sept 5), from 3-4 p.m. in Evans Building Room 212.
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Adah Menken —from Wikipedia.org |
Menken, who was born in 1835, became internationally famous as an entertainer, achieving enormous success in America and in England.
She was best known for her performance in the 1864 adaptation of Lord Byron’s “Mazeppa,” in which she appeared seemingly naked while riding a horse on stage, according to Britannica.com.
Her Texas “roots” took hold in the mid-1850s, when her career began in the Lone Star State, and she met and married her first husband in Livingston.
In her private life, Menken wanted to be known as a writer, but her work was overshadowed by her sensational stage career, according to Wikipedia. Yet, she published about 20 essays and 100 poems, including a collection called “Infelicia,” which was published eight days after her death in 1868.
“Today, she is best known as a consequential literary figure,” said Paul Child, professor of English and forum coordinator. “Dr. Courtney will speak of Menken as both performer and poet, with an emphasis on her formative years in Texas. There will be cameo appearances by Sam Houston, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Charles Dickens, whose paths she crossed in her life.”
Courtney has taught in SHSU’s English department since 1967, taking a break to teach at Texas A&M University from 1975-79.
He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas A&M and his doctorate from Emory University.
The English department Friday Faculty Forum is designed to highlight research by graduate faculty and students.
For more information, contact Child at 936.294.1412.
CJ Welcome Week To Introduce College Opportunities
The College of Criminal Justice will welcome its students back by showing them how to make the most of their college experience through three events for CJ Welcome Week, Sept. 2-4.
The programs will include presentations on internships, a documentary and roundtable discussion on gangs, and a student organizations fair.
The week will kick off on Tuesday with “Internships 101,” at 2 p.m. in the Criminal Justice Center’s Hazel B. Kerper Courtroom.
Presented by CJ internship coordinator Jim Dozier, the program will discuss the more than 200 internships available in law enforcement, corrections, victim services, public and private security, and forensic science for students during their senior year.
Full-time, semester-long internships are available at every level, including local, county, state and federal, as well as in private businesses. Undergraduates can earn nine credits by participating in the program, while graduate students earn six credits.
“CJ Movie Night” will be held on Wednesday, beginning at 4 p.m. in the Kerper Courtroom and will feature “Crips and Bloods: Made in America,” a gritty documentary that tells the story of two of South Los Angeles’ most infamous African-American gangs.
Following the presentation will be a roundtable discussion with assistant CJ professor David Pyrooz, a resident expert on gangs.
On Thursday, representatives from the college’s seven student organizations will talk one-on-one with CJ majors during the Student Organizations’ Fair, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Criminal Justice Center Lobby.
The student organizations are very diverse and cover distinct areas of interest in the field, according to Kalyn Cavazos, CJ advising specialist.
They include Alpha Phi Sigma, the CJ National Honor Society; Crime Victim Services Alliance; Graduate Student Organization; National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice; Phi Alpha Delta, which helps students decide if they would like to go to law school; Society of Forensic Science; and Lambda Alpha Epsilon, a group affiliated with American Criminal Justice Association.
Events are open to all students, and the internship presentation will be streamed live at cjcenter.org/live.
For more information, contact Cavazos at 936.294.1681.
Art Chair Named ‘Emerging Arts Fellow’
Associate professor and chair of the SHSU art department Michael Henderson will spend the next year working with a mentor in hopes of expanding his network in the art world and his skill as an administrator as one of six selected as an Emerging Arts Administration Fellow.
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Michael Henderson |
The fellowship, awarded by the National Council of Arts Administrators, provides recipients with membership into the organization and free attendance to its annual conference, as well as the opportunity to present at the conference; and a mentorship with “a distinguished and experienced administrator” before and at the conference, according to Henderson’s award letter.
Henderson was nominated for the fellowship by a current council member, who felt the opportunity might be helpful to him in his current administrative role, he said.
The selection committee “reviewed an all-time high number of applicants, each with impressive credentials and circumstances” and “deliberated at length to identify six distinguished fellows this year,” according to the award letter.
Henderson was paired with Sergio Soave, a professor and former chair at Ohio State University, who also served as chair at West Virginia University for 15 years.
Together, the two will select a topic on which Henderson will present at the organization’s annual conference, which will be held next September at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The conference will spotlight current trends in arts administration; offer forums, speakers and workshops; and create opportunities to network within a diverse community of leaders in higher education.
“I hope that the fellowship will help me become a better department chair by providing me with contacts with chairs at other universities who can share their experiences and expertise with me and serve as resources when I have questions about issues related to departments of art,” Henderson said.
The National Council of Arts Administrators is considered a dynamic forum for the introduction and dissemination of ideas and strategies of concern to arts administrators, providing a platform for networking and professional support among individuals.
The council represents a cross-section of visual arts programs and related areas, which allows interaction to occur between members representing different types of institutions.
College Introduces Undergraduate Security Studies Courses
Want to protect the world from zombies or other security threats?
The College of Criminal Justice is introducing two undergraduate courses in homeland security studies this fall: “Introduction to Security Studies” and “Zombies and Homeland Security.”
These primers in the growing field of security studies are designed to introduce students to security threats, such as terrorist attacks, pandemics, climate change, and natural disasters, as well as the public and private agencies that prevent and respond to the issues.
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| Russel Lundberg (above) and Nathan Jones (below) are two of the newest faculty in the College of Criminal Justice who will teach specialized classes in homeland security. |
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“America's view of the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001,” said Russell Lundberg, a new faculty member in the SHSU Department of Security Studies. “The terrorist attacks that day were brutal, and invited a strong response, with two wars, on-going military and intelligence activities, and the largest restructuring of the government bureaucracy since World War II. But more so, it shook America's psyche, raising questions about what America is and should be, issues of torture, surveillance, and civil rights.”
“Introduction to Security Studies” (Security Studies 2363) will provide an overview of the field that covers both government and private industries that protect the public and companies from threats of all kinds. Among the topics covered are surveys, threats and challenges from terrorist attacks to pandemics to climate change.
The course, taught by Lundberg, is available Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:30–2:50 p.m.
The curriculum will examine the multi-disciplinary response in the emerging field of homeland security education. The introductory course will cover the historical, present, and current threats in the field and how we deal with them.
“Special Topics: Zombies and Homeland Security” (Security Studies 4377) will examine security threats, especially pandemics, and how to make society more resilient.
Taught by Nathan Jones, another new faculty member in the security studies department, the course is available 3-4:20 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays.
“I borrowed the idea from the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Homeland Security,” said Jones. “They found that whenever ‘zombie apocalypse’ came up in social media, people would pay attention. So instead of promoting hurricane preparedness, they said to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse and you’d be ready for a hurricane.
“As Max Brooks argues, zombies are a metaphor for the things we fear, such as pandemics, terrorism and natural disasters,” Jones said. “We are afraid of things that can shut down all services, which is what makes dramas such as the ‘Walking Dead’ so compelling and is ultimately what the homeland security apparatus is designed to respond to.”
Texts will include a book on homeland security penned by CJ professor Willard Oliver, Princeton University Press's “Theories of International Politics; Zombies” by Dan Drezner (another inspiration for the course), and the award-winning “Hot Zone” by Richard Preston which documents Ebola cases in the 1990s.
SHSU offers a master’s degree in homeland security studies and certificate programs in crisis management and critical infrastructure protection.
Library Workshops Offer Faculty, Students Research Tools
While many students use the library as a place to study or simply find books, the Newton Gresham Library also hosts workshops that provide students and faculty members research tools to make their studies more productive.
Students in all disciplines can learn to use research databases in a number of fields with workshops that students can schedule based on their individual schedules.
The database workshops provide hands-on introductions to electronic databases and full text sources for research, covering topics such as database selection criteria, construction of search strategies or statements, interpretation of search results and locating information found.
“From English and art to business, the librarians of Newton Gresham Library can help students learn to navigate our online subject databases through these workshops,” said Marsha Dickens, NGL associate. “Each librarian is a subject specialist who can help students learn to use the databases to do research for their paper or project.”
A list of database workshops and how to schedule an appointment for training can be found at library.shsu.edu/about/subject.html.
“Our librarians are very knowledgeable and eager to help those wanting more instruction with library resources and tools,” Dickens said. “These workshops are offered every semester to provide more training for students and faculty. Students, especially, are encouraged to attend to learn research techniques for writing papers.”
For more information on library workshops, visit library.shsu.edu/research/guides/tours.html.
Today@Sam Seeks Fall 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 shsu.edu/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.
To see a full list of the Today@Sam submission guidelines, or to access submission forms for news or feature stories, calendar submissions, or hometown releases, visit shsu.edu/guidelines.html.
For more information, call 936.294.1836.
Submit Update Items Here
In order to assist members of the Sam Houston State University community in publicizing events, the SHSU Communications Office (Today@Sam) is now requesting that students, faculty and staff submit information about events, accomplishments or ideas for feature stories online.
Submission criteria and guidelines, including deadlines, have now been placed online, at shsu.edu/guidelines.html. This information is also accessible through the “Submissions” link in the right-hand navigation on Today@Sam.
From there, those submitting ideas can access forms that will allow them to provide detailed information about their idea, as well as attach event calendars, vitas/resumes or photos, depending on the type of submission.
Ideas submitted to the SHSU Communications Office are directly utilized in several ways: as news stories, “slider” or SHSU home page stories, hometown releases, and on the Today@Sam calendar.
If your submission qualifies for distribution, we will either contact you for more detailed information, or we will edit the information using SHSU/journalistic style and forward the final release to the appropriate media.
All information is verified before release, so please provide complete, accurate and timely information. Please type all responses in appropriate upper and lower cases.
For more information, contact the Communications Office at 936.294.1836 or today@sam.edu.
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This page maintained by SHSU's Communications Office
Associate Director: Julia May
Manager: 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.
