Shelby County Today

May 28, 2019 Nacogdoches — Through a $410,000 Hogg Foundation for Mental Health grant, students in Stephen F. Austin State University’s School of Social Work and Department of Languages, Cultures and Communication pulled their collective knowledge, skills and resources to involve Nacogdoches County residents in addressing their own mental health needs.

In July 2018, the Hogg Foundation awarded $4.5 million in grants to six Texas organizations to support collaborative approaches to well-being in rural communities. The grants are aimed to strengthen efforts to transform the environments where people live, learn, work, play and pray, bringing a population health approach to support resilience, mental health and well-being.

“The focus of this grant is primarily engaging with the community while developing a common agenda aimed at improving wellness, well-being and mental health,” said Dr. Stephen Cooper, associate director of research and professor of social work at SFA. “We are using an appreciative inquiry method to develop a common agenda for the grant. We are working with a group of community members to analyze data from our community meetings, which will allow us to continue moving forward with subsequent grants that will follow the current grant.”

Last summer, various community members and representatives from nonprofit organizations began discussing the mental health issues they believed were most important in Nacogdoches County.

Throughout the 2018-19 academic year, Master of Social Work students helped facilitate “community conversation cafés,” where community members attended meetings to discuss the needs and problems surrounding Nacogdoches County’s mental health. The students fielded questions, took notes and coordinated conversations among participants.

According to the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health’s website, each grantee had considerable flexibility in developing its community collaborative and approach to ensure participation from historically excluded groups. However, all the grant recipients had to demonstrate a commitment to shared learning, provide detailed plans for community inclusion and participation, and address the need for inclusive leadership that does not reproduce existing inequities.

“The Hogg Foundation provided us with the resources to ask our rural community what they need and want to come out of this project instead of providing funding with an agenda on how to do it from an outsider’s perspective,” Megan Knight, a Winnsboro graduate student pursing her master’s degree in social work, said. “The foundation understands and accepts the idea that those who live in Nacogdoches County know what is best for their own community.”

The community conversation cafés were designed to engage people from all economic, academic, social and political backgrounds. According to Knight, too often, many community members are unsure of how to voice their opinions, so the School of Social Work created a place where all voices could be heard.

Knight, along with fellow graduate students Alicia Hansen, Brittany White, Mike Widenhouse and Amber Youngblood, played a key role in community outreach.

“Many people won’t attend events unless they are invited by someone they know and trust. We spent many days out in the community asking people to come or advocating for our cause, figuring out where to hold our community conversations, how to reach all populations throughout the county and how to encourage attendance,” Knight said.

Kristin Bailey-Wallace, assistant professor of social work, oversaw undergraduate students completing a service-learning project in conjunction with the grant.

“Students enjoyed interacting with people of different ethnicities and discussing our common concerns regarding changes in the community,” Wallace said. “Some students had an opportunity to hear from older adults about the community’s readiness for change, and overall, the students agreed this was a great opportunity to bridge the gap between SFA and the larger community.”

One of the purposes of the grant is to close the gap in the Nacogdoches community and to include all population groups from the community in conversation cafés, which is something the School of Social Work knew they would need assistance with.

“The foundation wanted us to focus on populations typically underrepresented in community decision-making,” Cooper said. “Dr. Mark Barringer, associate professor of history, connected us with Dr. Mario Jimenez and his students, who assisted our efforts in reaching out to and including Hispanic community members.”

Barringer, who also serves as the director of the Center for Regional Heritage Research, connected Jimenez, adjunct faculty member in SFA’s Department of Languages, Cultures and Communication, to the grant project. During conversation cafés, Jimenez’s translation certification students played a vital role while practicing their skills.

“We were able to serve as the liaison for the Hispanic community and SFA,” said Salvador Rodriguez, an undergraduate student working toward his translation certification. “We talked to people about their problems, asked them questions and acted as their voice.”

Cooper said the group will begin conducting focus groups with the hope of holding town hall meetings in the fall to discuss the findings from the conversation cafés and meetings with community members. To learn more about the School of Social Work’s involvement with the Hogg Foundation, contact Cooper at scooper@sfasu.edu or (936) 468-2845.

May 13, 2019 Nacogdoches — More than 1,500 candidates will cross the stage during Stephen F. Austin State University commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 18, in Johnson Coliseum.

Steve Stagner, a 1991 SFA alumnus and former Mattress Firm CEO, will deliver the commencement address.

Just five years after his SFA graduation, Stagner became a Mattress Firm franchise owner. He eventually became the chief executive of the company, the nation’s largest mattress retailer, overseeing strategic planning as well as core functions such as sales, marketing, merchandising, finance and operations.

Stagner manages a number of private investments and serves as director of SFA’s Rusche College of Business Advisory Council. He serves on the advisory board for the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a non-profit medical research institute dedicated to unraveling the genetic components of both common and complex diseases.

Candidates from SFA’s James I. Perkins College of Education and the College of Fine Arts will participate in a 9:30 a.m. ceremony. Candidates from the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, the Rusche College of Business, the College of Liberal and Applied Arts, and the College of Sciences and Mathematics will participate in a 2 p.m. ceremony.

Degrees to be awarded include 1,178 bachelor’s, 318 master’s and nine doctoral degrees. Approximately 370 students will graduate with honors, including 139 cum laude, 120 magna cum laude and 111 summa cum laude. Eighty-one students will graduate with the university scholar designation.

Special guests expected to attend the afternoon ceremony include Ed Cole of Nacogdoches, who will be awarded an honorary doctoral degree, and former SFA president William R. Johnson, who will confer a diploma to his grandson, Taylor Ash.

To view the ceremony online, visit the SFA Facebook page, www.facebook.com/sfasu.

The phenomenon of swing dancing is examined in the film “Alive and Kicking,” to be screened at 7 p.m. Friday, May 3, in The Cole Art Center. Photo by Jessica Keener.

April 26, 2019 Nacogdoches – The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Friends of the Visual Arts will present a free, one-night screening of the documentary “Alive and Kicking” at 7 p.m. Friday, May 3, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

Directed by Susan Glatzer, “Alive and Kicking” is a feature-length documentary that takes an inside glance into the culture of swing dancing and the characters who make it special. It explores the culture surrounding swing dance from the emergence of the Lindy Hop to the modern-day international phenomenon. The film looks at the lives of the swing dancers themselves to find their personal stories and why this dance fills them with joy, according to information at http://aliveandkickingfilm.com.

Run time is 88 minutes.

This screening is part of the School of Art’s monthly Friday Film Series and is sponsored in part by William Arscott, Nacogdoches Film Festival, Karon Gillespie, Mike Mollot, David Kulhavy, John and Kristen Heath, Galleria Z, Jill Carrington, Jean Stephens, Jim and Mary Neal, Richard Orton, Nacogdoches Junior Forum and Main Street Nacogdoches.

The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.

April 18, 2019 - Stephen F. Austin State University music composition major Jesse Edwards has garnered another award in a prestigious national competition for one of his original orchestral scores.

For the third year, The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) conducted a nationwide search to name the three winners in the PYO Young Composers Competition. Edwards, a Tyler senior, earned second place for his piece “Saturday Afternoon.” This recent recognition adds to the ever-growing list of accolades Edwards has amassed.

“It’s an honor to be recognized by such an amazing ensemble,” Edwards said. “It’s especially exciting for me to be able to share my music with a youth orchestra – the next generation of great musicians.”

Edwards studies with Dr. Stephen Lias, professor of composition at SFA, who described Edwards’ most recent honor as “well-deserved.”

“Jesse is one of those students I never have to push because his hunger for personal and creative growth is so strong,” Lias said. “He has really helped hold the bar high for his colleagues.

“Composers build their reputation by winning competitions,” he added. “The earlier in their career they start doing this, the better for them. So having this on his resume will give Jesse considerable credibility and gravitas as he seeks commissions and applies to graduate programs.”

“Saturday Afternoon” was inspired by one of Edwards’ visits to New York City.

“When my wife lived in New York City, before we were married, I would go up to visit as much as I could,” he said. “We never had very much time together – sometimes just a weekend – so it became a sort of challenge to see how many things we could fit in a day. ‘Saturday Afternoon’ follows the adventures of one such day on a weekend trip during the winter of 2016.”

An internationally performed composer of rising acclaim, Edwards’ newest work, “Mint Chic,” was recently performed at the Alba International Music Festival, in Alba, Italy, by SOLI Chamber Ensemble. Edwards has worked with SFA’s Orchestra of the Pines, Starks Sound, and film director Adam Rothstein to create what has been noted as "accessible," “well spoken," and "straightforward" by Italian composer/educator Ferdinando Nazzaro. His music has been performed by the Lemberg Sinfonietta (Lviv, Ukraine), the Phoenix Ensemble (Ukraine), the Hobart Wind Symphony (Tasmania) and by high school and university choirs and bands throughout East Texas.

Lias noted that SFA’s reputation as an institution that provides a quality fine arts education bodes well for the university as it recruits art, music and theatre students.

“The fact that SFA can attract students of Jesse’s quality and nurture their development in a way that bears fruit like this is a testament to the entire College of Fine Arts,” Lias said. “Jesse has collaborated with both the theatre and art programs scoring plays and movies and has spent a semester studying abroad at our partner institution in Hobart, Australia. Although Jesse would have succeeded anywhere, SFA has been an excellent fit and provided him exactly the opportunities he needed to grow into the composer he is today.”

Following graduation in May, Edwards plans to pursue a master’s degree in music composition.

“I’m just looking forward to even more future opportunities like this one that allow me to spread a little more joy and beauty in a world that needs it,” he said.

For more information on Edwards’ music, recordings and videos, visit jesseedwardsmusic.com