SFA University
May 29, 2017 Nacogdoches – A performance by 12-year-old Nacogdoches pianist Antonio “Nio” Ajero will be showcased on an upcoming episode of “From the Top,” the hit National Public Radio program featuring America’s best young classical musicians.
Hosted by acclaimed pianist Christopher O’Riley, the show will air at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 3, on Red River Radio. The episode, available for streaming and podcast at fromthetop.org, was presented by LeTourneau University and Red River Radio and taped before a live audience at LeTourneau’s Belcher Center in March.
Nio is a student of Linda Parr in the Music Preparatory Division of the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music. He is also winner of the 2017 Baylor/Waco Solo Piano Competition and a National Gold Medal from The Royal Conservatory for earning the highest score in the United States on their Level 9 Piano Exam.
On the NPR broadcast, Nio performs Caprice à la Scarlatti in G major, Op. 14, No. 3 by Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
A seventh-grade student at Mike Moses Middle School, Nio is the son of Dr. Mario Ajero, professor of piano at SFA, and Gina Ajero.
May 26, 2017 Nacogdoches – Those attending this year’s Texas Blueberry Festival June 10 in Nacogdoches will once again see familiar costumed characters walking the downtown brick streets and have the opportunity to view a film depicting life in Texas’ oldest town in 1938.
Students in the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre will be promoting the upcoming SFA SummerStage Festival, while the SFA School of Art will host three screenings of “Found Footage: Rediscovering Nacogdoches” and the George Hooker short promotional film “Nacogdoches: The Oldest Town” at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. inside The Cole Art Center at The Old Opera House.
“Found Footage” features scenes of Nacogdoches people and businesses in 1938 documented on film. The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and Humanities Texas, in association with the Charles and Lois Marie Bright Foundation, championed the effort to restore the forgotten 16mm film, labeled “Nacogdoches 1938.” Discovered at Nacogdoches High School in 1967 but forgotten until a few years ago, the film was digitally restored and viewed in 2014 for the first time in 70 years.
Also throughout the day Saturday outside Cole Art Center, theatre students will appear in costumes portraying popular characters from fairy tales and children’s stories. Children (and adults) will have the opportunity to talk with the students and take photos with them, according to Angela Bacarisse, professor of design and arts management at SFA. The School of Theatre’s trademark dragon character, Schlaftnicht, from the children’s show “Trudi and the Minstrel,” performed the summer of 2005, will make his annual Blueberry Festival appearance. A costumed dinosaur will make its debut at the festival this year.
Theatre students will also promote this year’s SummerStage Festival, which kicks off Tuesday, June 27, and runs through July 15. The family friendly festival will feature the children’s favorite “Ivy + Bean the Musical,” with book, music and lyrics by Scott Elmegreen and based on books by Annie Barrows as illustrated by Sophie Blackall, and the America classic “The Miracle Worker,” a three-act play by William Gibson based on Helen Keller's autobiography, “The Story of My Life.”
Theatre students will also sell crafts and do face painting as a fundraiser for their study abroad trip to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland in August to produce a student-written play.
The Cole Art Center traditionally serves as an official “oasis” during the festival, according to Lisa Steed, events coordinator for SFA galleries, with tables and chairs set up inside where festival patrons can escape the heat. The art center’s restrooms will also be available to festival-goers.
Volunteers with the Friends of the Visual Arts will man an outside tent where they will sell homemade gumbo, blueberry tea and blueberry baked goods with proceeds going toward funding grants and scholarships the FVA awards annually to students in the School of Art. The FVA will also sell newly available notecards that feature photos of Nacogdoches landmarks as photographed by Christopher Talbot, Bill Nieberding, Ryan Russell, Stanley Bohon and other local photographers.
June 10 is also the final day to view the Texas National exhibition and an exhibition of work by this year’s Texas National juror, Benito Huerta, currently displayed at Cole Art Center.
For performance times and ticketing information for the SummerStage Festival, visit theatre.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS. Performances are in W.M. Turner Auditorium and the Downstage Theatre in the Griffith Fine Arts Building on the SFA campus.
May 26, 2017 Nacogdoches – The Stephen F. Austin State University Campus Recreation Department will host the fifth annual Worsham Bass Tournament on Saturday, June 24, at Jackson Hill Park and Marina on Lake Sam Rayburn in Broaddus.
All proceeds go to the Dr. Raymond Lee Worsham Scholarship, which provides financial assistance to student employees of SFA’s Campus Recreation Department.
Dr. Raymond “Ray” Worsham was SFA intramural department director for 43 years. The scholarship was established through the Alumni Association to honor Worsham’s dedication and lasting impact at the university.
Participants can register for the tournament online at www.sfaalumni.com/event/Bass2017, mail a registration form to the SFA Alumni Association or register at the Jackson Hill Marina boat ramp before the tournament starts.
There will be a 60 percent payout for first, second and third places, as well as a prize package for “Big Bass.” The tournament begins with a shotgun start approximately 30 minutes before sunrise. Entry fee is $150 per boat.
For more information, contact Sarah Kouliavtsev at KouliavtSG@sfasu.edu or the Alumni Association at (936) 468-3407.
May 26, 2017 – The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Friends of the Visual Arts will present a free, one-night screening of “Bombs to Birds” at 7 p.m. Friday, June 2, in The Cole Art Center at The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.
A documentary by award-winning photojournalist Richard Michael Pruitt, “Bombs to Birds” explores the rich history of the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, 7,000 acres set aside to protect one of the highest quality old-growth bottom land hardwood forests in the southeastern United States and the wildlife that inhabit it, according to information at imdb.com.
Home to a munitions plant from 1941 to 1994, the EPA designated the land as a Superfund site in 1990. The Army's Base Realignment and Closure Division was tasked with cleaning the Refuge's acreage in 2000. Today, little progress has been made to clean the original fouled acres, and they remain closed to the public. Community inquiries about the status of the cleanup and Freedom of Information requests have gone unanswered, the website explains.
Narrated by Texas author and performer Kinky Friedman, the 57-minute documentary was filmed in 2012.
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, Brad Maule, John and Kristen Heath, Galleria Z, Jill Carrington, Jean Stephens, Jim and Mary Neal, Richard Orton and Main Street Nacogdoches.
The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.
May 8, 2017 - Dr. Tim Clipson, Stephen F. Austin State University professor in the Department of Business Communication and Legal Studies and SFA 101 Freshman Success coordinator, will offer the commencement address during the university’s spring graduation ceremonies Saturday, May 13.
Clipson has served SFA for 36 years in various roles and was recently named professor emeritus in the Department of Business Communication and Legal Studies. He will retire from SFA May 31.
“Dr. Clipson is one of the best-known and beloved professors on campus. His leadership has helped move the university forward, and his legacy will leave a lasting impact on generations of Lumberjacks,” said Dr. Baker Pattillo, university president.
In 1998, Clipson was named coordinator of the SFA 101 Freshman Success program, which seeks to introduce incoming freshmen to life at SFA in a supportive environment. Within the Rusche College of Business, Clipson teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses. During the past decade, the majority of his curriculum has focused on business leadership.
“I often say being a university professor is by far one of the best jobs anyone could ever have. For me, it has allowed me to fulfill what I believe I was called to do,” Clipson said.
Prior to joining the Lumberjack family, Clipson taught at Oklahoma State University for two years and in public school at the junior high and high school levels for seven years. He is president of Leadership Is For Everyone (LIFE!), a professional leadership and communication consulting firm.
Clipson received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Southern Nazarene University, his Master of Education from the University of North Texas, and his doctoral degree with a specialization in business communication/training and development for business and industry from Oklahoma State University.
In 2016, Clipson was the recipient of the Meada Gibbs Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award for the Association for Business Communication and received the Outstanding Educator Award for the Federation of Business Disciplines.
Clipson’s additional accolades include: Distinguished Paper Award for Association for Business Communication-Southwestern U.S., Teaching Innovation Award and Marlin C. Young Teaching Excellence Award from the Rusche College of Business, SFA Teaching Excellence Award and Distinguished Professor.
Candidates from SFA's James I. Perkins College of Education and 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. Both ceremonies will be held in Johnson Coliseum on the university campus.
Approximately 1,496 degrees are expected to be awarded, including 1,166 bachelor's, 320 master's and 10 doctoral degrees. More than 350 students are expected to graduate with honors, including 122 cum laude, 113 magna cum laude and 116 summa cum laude. Also, there will be approximately 78 students graduating with university scholar honors.
Master’s and doctoral candidates will graduate with their respective colleges, and Clipson will provide the commencement address at both ceremonies.
May 4, 2017 Nacogdoches, Texas – Registration is underway for the annual Summer Art Academy offered by the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art for the two-week camp that will meet June 5 through 16 on the SFA campus.
Students going into kindergarten through sixth grade may enroll in classes that include drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics.
“Art Academy is an exciting opportunity for local youth to work with SFA graduate and undergraduate art students to create original projects using a variety of materials.” said Dr. Cala Coats, SFA art instructor and director of the academy.
Classes will meet from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday in the Art Building on Wilson Drive. An exhibition of the students’ work will be at 5 p.m. Friday, June 16, in the Art Building. Afterward, the students may take their work home.
The registration fee on or before June 1 is $185 and includes all art supplies, exhibition expenses and daily refreshments. Late registration after June 1 is $200. Registration information is available at http://www.art.sfasu.edu/artacademy or in person at the School of Art.
For additional information, contact Coats at (936) 468-4264 or by email at coatsc@sfasu.edu
May 1, 2017 Nacogdoches, Texas – The exhibition “Pollinators of the World” will show May 4 through 20 in The Cole Art Center at The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.
“Pollinators of the World” is curated by Charles Jones, director of the LaNana Creek Press at Stephen F. Austin State University, and Dr. David Kulhavy, Lawrence C. Walker Distinguished Professor in the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, SFA.
International in scope, the exhibition features art from United States, Costa Rica, South Korea, Jamaica, Russia and the Czech Republic. Its purpose is to highlight the role of pollinators around the world.
“The recurring theme of bees, hummingbirds and bats indicate the significance and importance of these pollinators,” according to Kulhavy. “These pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystems by carrying pollen from plant to plant to carry genetic material for reproduction of flowering plants.”
Artists and student-artists of all levels were invited to create works on paper that reflected important pollinators from their area of the world. Among the submissions to the exhibit are images of bees, bats, birds, moths, butterflies, flies, beetles, lemurs, bush babies and geckos.
“The refreshing styles and varied mediums of the works in the exhibit portray the rich color, texture and vibrancy of this part of our environment,” Jones said.
The exhibit contains work by local artists Piero Fenci and Liz Akamatsu, Corinne Jones, Charles Jones, Peter Andrew, Neal Cox and students from the SFA School of Art. Also represented are block prints of butterflies, bush babies and geckos from young artists from Nová Paka, the Czech Republic. From Jamaica, artists portray pollinating butterflies, hummingbirds and bats in mixed media. From Alapaevsk, Sverdlovskaya region, Russia, artists from the P.I. Tchaikovsky Children's Art School present color engravings on cardboard of “The Rustle of Wings,” “Dancing on Flowers,” “Velvet Bees” and “Cities of Butterflies.” From South Korea, students portray bees and butterflies in mixed media. Other works come from students from Holy Trinity School, Dallas, presenting bees, bats, hummingbirds and the monarch butterfly.
Jones and Kulhavy included “Pollinator LIVE,” the text of a song on a woodcut print, and woodcuts and poetry quatrains of the “Monarch Butterfly” and the “Zebra Swallowtail” from “A Forest Insect Alphabet” series, LaNana Creek Press.
Admission is free. The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.
April 28, 2017 Nacogdoches – Dr. Brad Meyer, director of the percussion studio at Stephen F. Austin State University, will continue his “In the Trees” contemporary/new-music concert series with a performance of his original composition “For Whom …” featuring the carillon atop the Griffith Fine Arts Building on the SFA campus.
The performance will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 6, with audience outdoor seating in the green space between Griffith Fine Arts Building and the entrance to Cole Concert Hall in Wright Music Building.
Specifically written by Meyer for the restored carillon, “For Whom …” is a chronological representation of a tsunami striking a coastal city/town, Meyer explained.
“The tsunami in this composition is a metaphor for the big changes that happen in each of our lives,” he said. “The composition represents the calm before the storm, followed by the feeling of impending doom, the mass exodus of animals that can sense the impending disaster better than humans, the actual strike of the tsunami, the physical and emotional aftermath, and finally the feelings of total uncertainty and loss,” Meyer said.
The performers will include the SFA Percussion Studio, as well as students from the other instrumental areas in the SFA School of Music, with Meyer playing the carillon.
The recent restoration and expansion of the bell tower of Griffith Fine Arts Building was completed through a campus-community partnership with funding provided by the Charles and Lois Marie Bright Foundation. The project added 10 new bells to the original 15 installed when the Griffith Building was constructed in 1959. The addition created a full two-octave chromatic carillon.
After a short introduction by Meyer, the performance should last 45 minutes. Audience members are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, picnic items and umbrellas to keep out of the sun. If there is inclement weather, the performance will be canceled due to the necessity of the carillon.
Admission is free. For more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.
April 26, 2017 Nacogdoches – Stephen F. Austin State University theatre students, from left, Daniel Hicks, Richmond sophomore; Kara Bruntz, Southlake senior; Avery Tindol, Tenaha senior; and Sarah Lovelady, Leander sophomore, perform in a scene from Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth” being presented at 7:30 nightly through Saturday, April 29, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus. The play is about the Antrobus family, which narrowly escapes one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present, Single tickets are $15 for adult, $10 for senior and $7.50 for student/youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.theatre.sfasu.edu.
Photo credit: Lane Davidson
Submitted by Robbie Goodrich
April 26, 2017 Nacogdoches — Through a new partnership, Stephen F. Austin State University students will have the opportunity to gain tangible corporate experience and become the next generation of information technology talent while simultaneously completing their degrees.
During the SFA Board of Regents quarterly meeting Tuesday, regents approved a partnership between SFA and Fenway Group, a company dedicated to training college students to become the next generation of IT talent. Employees of Fenway Group teach college students how to work in corporate America, which often leads to employment upon program completion and graduation.
Martin Santora, founder and president of Fenway Group, said the company has a 100-percent job-placement rate. He explained to regents that program completers are recruited to work with the company, a corporate client, or a public or private entity within the graduate’s area of study.
Dr. Steve Bullard, SFA provost and vice president for academic affairs, called the program a great opportunity for students and the university.
“Partnering with Fenway Group is a win, win, win,” Bullard said. “At SFA, our goal is to provide students with transformative experiences. Students who work for Fenway Group will not simply work a job — their lives will be transformed.”
Fenway Group serves as an alternative to corporate business-related offshoring, working to keep IT careers in America. Using a unique business model, Fenway Group partners with select universities to provide business services for major corporations that include managed services, talent pipeline and collaborative projects. Some of its clients include Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and CenturyLink.
Students who participate in the program will work 20 hours a week, with SFA alumni serving as coaches and mentors to the team. The team will work daily with a corporate client, and the students will be paid $10 to $20 an hour, depending on the position.
“Fenway Group provides students real-world opportunities while giving constant guidance and mentorship, and we are looking forward to incorporating the group’s expertise into our university culture,” Bullard said. “This partnership will help our students attain the necessary first two years of experience for entry-level positions and begin establishing their careers before leaving SFA.”
Fenway Group will have an on-campus office in the McGee Business Building, and the program will be open to all majors.
In continuation of providing students with transformative experiences and hands-on learning opportunities, regents also approved the purchase for the Department of Biology of state-of-the-art equipment, including a Tecnai 12 transmission electron microscope and a silicon drift detector X-ray microanalysis system.
“This equipment will provide students access to cutting-edge technology, as well as position SFA uniquely among peer institutions to be able to train students on these pieces of scientific equipment,” Bullard said.
Additionally, regents voted to exempt students enrolled in online-only, off-campus-only or a combination of these course-delivery methods from charges for recreational sports and university center fees beginning fall 2017. Also, students taking study-abroad courses lasting longer than four weeks will be exempt from the recreational sports and university center fees.
The board also approved fees for a three-week Summer High School Academy for international high school students focusing on English as a second language, science and math for summer 2017. The $4,495 participant fee will cover program costs, excursions, housing, meal plan, insurance and local transportation.
A $1,900 fee for the Proyecta 100,000 program, a one-month ESL program for Mexican teachers and students, was approved. This fee will cover teaching, lab modules, excursion and local transportation.
Regents approved a summer budget of $3.6 million for fiscal year 2016-17, which covers two regular summer semesters and a mini-semester. Regents ratified $368,162 in additional grant awards allocable to fiscal year 2017. The funds are a portion of approximately $6 million for the fiscal year.
Board members approved an audit charter and acknowledged the receipt of the audit services report. Regents approved an extension of the William & Fudge contract through June 30, 2018, and the Windham Professional debt collection contract through Aug. 31, 2018, as well as a contract with People Admin, a human resources application system that enables the electronic handling of SFA’s employee recruitment and onboarding processes. Regents also approved a contract renewal with Ad Astra scheduling software.
An amendment to the Aramark contract, which will allow for Chick-fil-A renovations in the Baker Pattillo Student Center, also was approved.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the board approved a proposal to increase the tuition bond debt service budget by $3.5 million for the fiscal year 2017.
Additionally, the board approved the establishment of the Alfred and Madeline Danheim quasi-endowments, which will allow for student scholarships and support of the School of Music.
Regents approved policy revisions, curriculum changes and minutes from the January and March meetings. They received updates on Senate Bill 20, NCAA revenue distribution, the fine arts architecture project by Kirksey Architecture, current university construction, planned maintenance, the Carillon Bells Project and the university’s marketing campaign. The board also heard reports from the Faculty Senate, Student Government Association and the university president.
Pages
