SHSU Update for Week of Feb. 2
In honor of his 31 years of service to Sam Houston State University,
history professor James S. Olson will be recognized with several
upcoming events.
The SHSU history department is sponsoring various activities
that will take place Thursday and Friday, Feb. 6 and 7, on campus
and in the Huntsville community.
On Thursday the new auditorium in Academic Building 4 will be
officially dedicated in Olson's name during a ceremony beginning
at 2 p.m.
Distinguished Lecturer Peter Hammond Liddle, director of The
Second World War Experience Centre in Leeds, England, and a
foremost authority on World Wars I and II, will be the guest
speaker, and a dedication ceremony and reception will follow
Liddle's presentation.
The new building at 20th Street and Ave. I will house the history,
psychology and philosophy, and library science departments,
as well as a Student Advising and Mentoring Center and a new
computer services laboratory.
On Thursday evening, a reception for Olson will be held at the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on 19th Street.
The history department has extended an open invitation for community
members to attend the reception beginning at 7 p.m.
On Friday the events celebrating Olson continue with a "Reflections
on History and Historians" Conference to be held in the Olson
Auditorium.
The conference will feature five hour-long sessions beginning
at 9 a.m.
The session titles include: "Careers in History: Why I Chose
a Career in History," "The Historian as Teacher: Challenges
and Rewards," "The Historian as Scholar: From Topic Conception
to Publication," "The Historian as Public Servant: Law, Journalism,
Library Science and Medicine."
Speakers for the first four sessions will be various scholars
from universities across Texas and the country. The final session
entitled "Reflections on the Profession" will be an address
given by Olson himself.
Although the primary audience for the conference is SHSU students,
the university community and other out of town guests will be
welcomed. There is no registration fee for the event.
Closing out the events honoring Olson will be a final reception
Friday evening at Austin Hall at 7 o'clock. Members of the university
community and out of town guests are invited to celebrate Olson's
accomplishments.
On Sunday evening, Feb. 2, at 7:30, guest pianist Robert Roux
from Rice University will give a recital in Killinger Auditorium.
His recital includes Bach's "Italian Concerto," Liszt's monumental
"Sonata in B minor," as well as works by Beethoven and Rachmaninov.
Roux began his career at age 10 with a performance on the nationally
televised Lawrence Welk Show. Since that time, he has
been a winner of several piano competitions in the United States,
including the United States Information Agency's Artistic Ambassador
Competition and the International Piano Recording Competition.
A Steinway Artist, Roux's performances include appearances at
the White House, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts and Library of Congress in Washington, DC., Merkin Concert
Hall in New York, Stude Concert Hall in Houston on the Horowitz
Steinway, St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music, and Villa Pignatelli
in Naples.
He has toured as recitalist and concerto soloist in sixteen
countries; Nuremberg Nachrichten, Germany's third largest daily
newspaper, deemed him "...a smart interpreter of Viennese classicism
whom we should bear in mind."
Clavier magazine, referring to a three-day American Liszt Society
festival held in 2002, deemed Roux's performance of the Liszt
Sonata "...the most stunning playing during the festival...for
which the audience offered a well-deserved standing ovation."
Roux's students have been frequent prize winners and award recipients
at the national and international level. He is currently
chair of the keyboard department at Rice University's Shepherd
School of Music. He has been featured as a master teacher
at the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, and also has taught
on the faculty of the University of Southern California at Los
Angeles.
He has been associate director of the Prague International Piano
Masterclasses since 1997, and has served on the faculty of the
prestigious Van Cliburn Institute, the Moscow International
Piano Masterclasses, the Paris International Piano Sessions,
and the Association of German Music Schools.
His list of teachers and coaches includes Lili Kraus, Adele
Marcus, William Race, and Leonard Shure. He is listed
in Who's Who in America (2003) and is also interviewed as one
of the top teachers in Benjamin Saver's publication, "The Most
Wanted Piano Teachers in the USA."
Admission to the recital is free. A masterclass will be held
in the Recital Hall on Monday at 11 a.m.-1 p.m., also open to
the public and free.
Students in the Cypress-Fairbanks School District in Houston
attended a Television Enrichment Workshop on Saturday, January
25th, organized by Tony DeMars, associate professor of radio-television
at SHSU.
RTV alumna and Cy-Fair TV producer Denise Walker coordinated
the program through the school district.
DeMars spent last fall visiting all the high schools in the
Cy-Fair ISD discussing television news careers and helping faculty
and students enhance their curriculum.
The event is part of a relationship based on a grant DeMars
received from the Radio Television News Directors Association.
The overall goal of the association's High School Journalism
Partnership Grant is to improve high school electronic journalism
programs or help start new programs.
Specifically, the association seeks to increase news career
opportunities for young people, advance diversity in media,
and increase awareness of the First Amendment among those studying
broadcast journalism.
Other RTV faculty who gave presentations at the workshop were
Jason Balas and Jeff Porshe. RTV students who participated
were Jesse Bernal, Laura Berryhill, Paul Nimon and Rachel Wheat.
Bernal, Nimon, and Wheat all attended one of the Cy-Fair ISD
high schools.
Former SHSU RTV students participating in the workshop included
Keith Tomshe from WB 39 News, Kammi Hirschfield from Fox Sports
Net, and Laura Naquin from KRTS Radio. Topics covered
at the workshop included civic journalism; TV news shooting;
editing; writing; creative shooting and editing; and Adobe Premiere
editing.
In addition to working with Cy-Fair ISD for more workshops and
other activities, DeMars plans to develop a similar relationship
with other high schools in the region.
"Just Experience: A Texas Century of American Justice" will
be on display in the atrium of the Walker Education Center through
the end of March.
The U.S. Courts for the Southern District of Texas celebrated
100 years of service in March 2002. The exhibit, on loan
from the U.S. Courts, illustrates a century of the federal judicial
process in action.
Several kiosks depict the U. S. Constitution's authority to
establish the federal judiciary; the history of the U. S. Courts
in the Republic of Texas and the demographics and growth over
the last 100 years; the original federal courthouses, along
with photos of the current courthouses of the seven divisions
of the Southern District of Texas; and a discussion of the shaping
of the history of southeast Texas, including illustrations of
oil, agriculture and industry.
Other illustrations include a view of societal influences, including
the 1920s Prohibition, heavy illegal immigration from Mexico,
civil rights issues, drug trafficking, the Vietnam War protesters,
and the 1980s recession.
Also, there are highlights of the first and a few of the most
notable judges that have served the Southern District of Texas,
as well as a listing of the current federal district judges.
The SHSU Department of Language, Literacy and Special Populations
is offering reading and writing tutorials for children in pre-kindergarten
through fourth grade.
The tutorials will take place on Thursdays from 3:30 to 5:30
p.m. in the Teacher Education Center on the university campus.
For more information on registration, call 936.294.4836 or 936.294.1108
between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Nominations for the prestigious SHSU Excellence in Teaching
Award will be accepted from Feb. 3-Feb. 21.
Voting is open to all students, alumni, faculty, and staff through
the SHSU web page. The award honors outstanding teaching
service, and the recipient is recognized during spring commencement
ceremonies.
Please send information for the SHSU Update to the Office
of Public Relations at SHSU. For electronic access to SHSU
news see the public relations Web page Today@Sam.
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SHSU Media Contacts: Frank Krystyniak,
Julia May
Feb. 2, 2003
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu
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