Focus
April 2009
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In this issue
- 85th Anniversary event to feature media experts
- Presentations
- Conferences
- Publications
- Announcements
85th Anniversary event to feature media experts
The 85th anniversary celebration of SFA will continue at 7 p.m. April 15 with a panel discussion titled “The Changing Face of the Media” in the Baker Pattillo Student Center Theatre.
Panelists will include Kenny Boles, an Emmy award-winning journalist and news director of KLTV-Tyler and KTRE-TV in Lufkin; SFA alum Gary Borders, book author and publisher of The Longview News-Journal; Kermit Poling, general manager of Red River Radio, an NPR affiliate; and from Texas Monthly magazine, Skip Hollandsworth, Jake Silverstein and Brian Sweany.
A forum for communication majors will begin at 2:30 p.m. in the Student Center President’s Suite B. The forum will be a mentoring session that allows students to ask the panelists questions of their own.
Boles, an Emmy award-winning journalist, serves as news director of both KLTV in Tyler and KTRE-TV in Lufkin. He was born and raised in Lufkin and began his television career at the age of 17 at KTRE. Two years later he joined the news staff of KPRC-TV in Houston and worked his way through the ranks as photographer, producer, reporter and weekend news anchor. Boles also covered Texas politics in KPRC's Austin, Texas Bureau. While working in Houston and Austin for KPRC, Boles attended Houston Baptist University and the University of Texas at Austin.
After moving to executive producer jobs at KDFW-TV in Dallas and WLS in Chicago, Boles became a field producer for ABC News, covering wars in the Middle East and Central America as well as the 1984 Presidential Campaign. After traveling for long periods of time away from family, Boles got back into local news at WBBM-TV in Chicago and later accepted the assistant news director’s job in Orlando, Florida at WESH-TV.
In 1990, Boles headed west to become the managing editor of KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, California. While at KNBC, Boles organized and oversaw the NBC station's coverage of the Northridge earthquake, the Rodney King beating and the city-wide riots that followed, as well at the Michael Jackson child molestation investigation and the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
In 1995, Boles returned to East Texas to reorganize and manage the newsroom at KLTV in Tyler.
During the course of his 36 year career, Boles has been honored with a number of regional and national awards for his work in television news. He serves on the Texas Legislative Review Committee for the Texas Association of Broadcasters and on the advisory board for the Department of Communications at the University of Texas at Tyler.
Borders has been publisher of The Longview News-Journal since January 2008. He previously served as publisher of the Lufkin Daily News for five years and was editor and publisher of The Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches from 1993 to 2003. All three newspapers are owned by Cox Newspapers. Borders started his career with Cox in Lufkin in 1989 as editorial page editor.
Borders is a lifelong newspaperman who has worked as a paperboy, photographer, writer, editor and publisher. His weekly column is distributed by the New York Times News Service to newspapers across the country.
A collection of his columns, “Behind and Beyond the Pine Curtain,” was published by Eakin Press of Austin in 2005. “A Hanging In Nacogdoches,” his account of a century-old hanging in Nacogdoches, was published by University of Texas Press in March 2006.
Borders has a bachelor’s in history, English and philosophy from Stephen F. Austin State University and a master’s in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. He serves on the advisory board of Red River Radio, an NPR affiliate. He currently serves as board chairman and is past president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association.
Hollandsworth was raised in Wichita Falls, Texas, and graduated with a B.A. in English from Texas Christian University. He has worked as a reporter and columnist for newspapers in Dallas, and he also has worked as a television producer and documentary filmmaker.
Since joining Texas Monthly in 1989, Hollandsworth has received several journalism awards, including a National Headliners Award, the national John Hancock Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism, the City and Regional Magazine gold award for feature writing, the Texas Institute of Letters O. Henry award for magazine writing, and the Charles Green award for outstanding magazine writing in Texas, given by the Headliners club of Austin. He has been a finalist four times for the National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, and his work has been included in such publications as Best American Crime Writing and Best American Magazine Writing.
Poling became interested in broadcasting at and, while in college, co-produced a seven-part television series for WUAB-TV in Cleveland that eventually led to other projects in both television and radio. From that inspiration has grown a highly successful dual career in both broadcasting and as a musician, conductor and composer with performances in many of the world’s leading concert halls.D
uring the past 30 years, Poling has produced audio programs for NPR in Washington both for Performance Today and for the National Symphony Orchestra on tour. Since 1985 he has held various positions with Red River Radio, the public radio network serving most of Louisiana, East Texas and South Arkansas, and since 2006 has served as general manager. Through the years, his various collaborations with artists have included Itzhak Perlman, Eugene Fodor, Victor Borge, Marvin Hamlisch, the Temptations, Emmy Lou Harris and many others.
As an administrator, Poling has served as music director for the Shreveport Symphony, the South Arkansas Symphony, the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and many other arts organizations. May 13, 2006, was recognized as Kermit Poling Day in the City of Shreveport because of Poling’s contributions to the community’s cultural life, both as an artist and as the voice of the community on Red River Radio.
Since becoming general manager of Red River Radio, the network has become the first digital broadcaster in each of the regions it serves and he has expanded the use of the digital service to provide three audio streams of programming including a 24-hour classical stream on HD2 and 24 hours of news/talk on HD3. During the past three years, the network has received numerous awards including Story of the Year and Reporter of the Year from the Louisiana Associated Press. Most recently, he has composed and produced the score to the short film “Silent Treatment,” to be released by film maker Jonathon Rothell later this year.
Silverstein received a B.A. in English from Wesleyan University, an M.A. in English from Hollins University in Virginia and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. After college, he was an intern at Harper’s Magazine and worked his way up to contributing editor. He was a reporter at the Big Bend Sentinel in Marfa from 1999 to 2000 and a 2002 Fulbright Scholar in Zacatecas, Mexico. His Harper’s essay, “Highway Run,” about a Mexican road race, won the 2007 PEN/USA Journalism Award.
Silverstein’s journalism has been featured in several anthologies, including the Best American Travel Writing 2002, and Submersion Journalism, a 2008 collection of first-person non-fiction. He came to work for Texas Monthly in 2006 as a senior editor. In September 2008 he was named editor of Texas Monthly.
Sweany began his Texas Monthly career as an intern in the publisher’s office in January 1996 and was hired as a copy editor in the editorial department nine months later. Born and raised outside of Dallas, Sweany earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of North Texas in Denton and a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He has also served as an assistant professor in the journalism department at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.
Dr. Brian Murphy, dean of SFA’s College of Liberal and Applied Arts, will moderate the event.
Kwame Antwi-Boasiako and Richard Herzog, Political Science and Geography; George Franks, Criminal Justice; CPM program ambassador Annette James, AARC; and SFA alumni Susan McDaniels and Willy Watson presented a focus group titled “The Return on Investment with CPM Programs” at the Certified Public Manager American Society for Public Administration state conference in Round Rock in February. Topics included benefits received by CPM program participants and the benefits institutions receive by offering CPM programs. The audience included administrators from various universities offering CPM programs and those considering implementation of CPM program.
Neill Armstrong, Julia Ballenger, Ken Austin and Linda Black, Secondary Education and Educational Leadership, mentored two graduate students who presented their action research studies at the TASA Midwinter Conference in Austin in January. Jiashi Zhao’s research focused on Chinese Mainland students and their adaptation to learning, lifestyle and culture at a Texas regional university. Denice McCormick researched plans for attracting qualified culturally diverse applicants to the field of teaching in light of the fact that undergraduate students of color have negative perceptions that teaching is not a valued career.
Jill Carrington, Art, presented “The Terrestrial Globe of the Tommaso Rangone Monument at San Guiliano, Venice, and the Golden Age of Cartography” at Exploring the Renaissance: An International Conference sponsored by the South-Central Renaissance Conference in Hot Springs, Ark., in March.
Susan Clarke and Rachel Galan, Steen Library, presented “The TIDES Experience – Texas and Beyond” at the Association of College and Research Libraries national conference in Seattle in March. The presentation detailed the TIDES program at SFA, which offers a digital gateway to the rich historical, cultural and scientific resources held in Texas and Mexico’s libraries and cultural institutions. The TIDES program has grown from a regional collaboration to one with national and international partners.
Marsha L. Bayless, Betty S. Johnson and S. Ann Wilson, General Business, presented “Blogs: A View through the Lens of Business and Education” at the Association of Business Information Systems in Oklahoma City in February. The presentation was a study of the updated use of blogs in higher education and business. Bayless and Johnson also presented “The Changing Face of Business Communication Instruction,” which included results of a survey of business communication faculty on trends in business communication pedagogy. Bayless and Stephanie Graves, MBA graduate, presented “Cross-Cultural Training in Costa Rica: Communication and Cultural Adjustment.” The session recounted research work completed in summer 2008.
Jackson Brown, AARC, presented “From the Mike to the Message Board: Online Tutorial Lessons from a Hip-Hop Novice” at a February meeting of the Southeastern Writing Center Association in February in Greensboro, NC. Brown’s presentation included audio and visual reflections on his graduate school experience as both a composition instruction and a member of a rap group. The presentation drew connections between his fledgling attempts at composing hip-hop lyrics and his approach to developing useful and engaging resources on OWL, the AARC’s Online Writing Lab. Brown’s experience helped him to draw students out of their speechlessness and minimize their inhibitions to self-expression, to create a mistake-friendly environment, and to cultivate opportunities for collaborative learning. Brown directs the AARC’s Writing and English Program.
Patricia Foster, Psychology, co-presented “Plucking New Rabbits from Old Hats” at the National Association Developmental Education workshop in Greensboro, N.C., in February. The three-hour pre-conference workshop introduced attendees to Learning Frameworks courses and included ways to enhance student learning using metaphors, activities and engagement methods. It explained how activities can be created to meet the needs of any class, including developmental courses.
Steven Galatas, Government, attended the Western Political Science Association conference in March in Vancouver, British Columbia, and presented “Party Competition in Canadian Provincial Elections: The (Non) Emergence of Multiparty Competition.” The paper provides a test of "Durverger's Law," which states that single-member district plurality election systems tend to produce two-party competition. Maurice Durverger, the scholar who first proposed the relationship between single-member district plurality and two-party competition, noted that a "Canadian" exception to his "law" existed. Recent tests of the relationship show that the Canadian exception occurs for national elections. This paper provides the first test of the relationship at the provincial level, using data from recent elections to provincial legislatures in all ten provinces. Results are mixed with some provinces adhering to "Duverger's Law," while others follow the "Canadian exception." Galatas also presented the “Strategic Voting and German Federal Elections, 1994-2005.” Galatas co-authored the paper, which provides a test of several measures of party competition for German federal elections and illustrates the superiority of the competitiveness index, a density function, in multiparty election environments like German federal elections. The competitiveness index also captures the dynamics of strategic voting more accurately compared with other measures of party competition.
Adam Peck, Student Affairs, and M.E. McWilliams, AARC, presented “The Age of Reasoning: Prompting Reflective Judgment in a Time of Information” at the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education conference in Seattle in March. Today's unprecedented access to information has prompted a shift in higher education to focus on preparing students to critically evaluate information. Many suggest that student affairs plays a leading role in promoting critical thinking, but few can articulate the conditions necessary to prompt this kind of learning. The presentation explored factors that effectively promote critical thinking in a variety of co-curricular contexts.
Annette James, AARC, attended the Supplemental Instruction Supervisor Workshop in Kansas City, Mo., in November. James directs the AARC’s supplemental instruction program.
Mark Sanders, English and Philosophy, wrote three poems that were published in the spring 2009 issue of Shenandoah. The titles are “In Hurricane, With Horses,” “Early Morning on Farm Road” and “A Thousand Reasons.”
Le’Ann Solmonson, Human Services, was the first author on a textbook published this month by the National Social Science Press. In addition to writing the majority of the book, titled “A Thematic Perspective to Lifespan Development,” Solmonson did all of the Web design and graphics for the textbook, which is a fully interactive state-of-the-art online textbook with embedded video. It contains active links that take the student to relevant information within the text and on the Internet. National Social Science Press provides online texts for students at about half the cost of a traditional text. The students purchase a bundle, which includes a login to the password protected online text, a CD with a copy of the text and a printed copy of the text. Solmonson is currently serving as interim department chair.
Vi Alexander and Sandra McCune, Elementary Education, and the late Donice McCune authored a book to be released in July 2009 titled “CliffsTestPrep Praxis II: ParaPro Assessment.”
Carol Athey, Laura Logan, Regina Low, Rose Powell and Glenda Walker, Nursing, along with students from the Richard and Lucille DeWitt School of Nursing, recently participated in the Texas Nurse Association "Nurse Day" in Austin. Observing the legislative process in action, they attended hearings on nursing and health-related bills pending in the 81st Texas Legislature. They also met with their respective district legislators and staff to discuss these bills and to thank them for their support of the $13 million appropriations bond for the construction of the new nursing school.
Marsha L. Bayless, General Business, was elected as program chair elect for the Federation of Business Disciplines conference at the Oklahoma City meeting of the Association of Business Information Systems. She will serve as the overall program chair at the spring 2011 meeting to be held in Houston.
Linda Bobo, Kinesiology and Health Science, attended Capitol Hill Day in Washington, D.C., with a focus on “Athletic Trainers and Congress Create ATEAM.” Attendees visited with respective legislators specific to our geographical location to ask for support of the ATEAM Act. A record number of more than 400 members of the National Athletic Trainers Association from 48 states descended on Congress recently for the sixth annual Capitol Hill Day in an effort to educate members of Congress about the athletic training profession and request their support in the passage of HR 1137, the Athletic Trainers Equal Access to Medicare Act of 2009 (ATEAM). This bill would improve patient access to athletic trainers, allow choice of a wider range of qualified health professionals and restore the ability of athletic trainers to work independently of a physician.
Jill Carrington, Art, is serving as president of the South-Central Renaissance Society, the largest regional conference affiliated with the Renaissance Society of America.
Bob Choate, Human Services, was honored with a service award by the Texas Association for Counselor Educators and Supervisors. Choate is the director of SFA’s Rehabilitation Counseling Program.
Anne Duncan and Laura Osborne, English, recently finished developing an online version of English 200 (Introduction to Literature) and have received official course approval from OIT. English 200 will debut online in fall 2009.
Steven Galatas, Government, was elected vice-president of the Midwest Association of Canadian Studies at its biennial conference in November 2008.
Orientation staff members made presentations at the National Orientation Directors Association Regional Conference on Feb. 21 in Arlington. Orientation supervisors Logan Ferguson, Kevin Hickey, Star Munoz, Nina Norman and Jamal Smith; Christina Moreno, assistant director of orientation; and Hollie Smith, director of orientation, showcased the exciting aspects of SFA’s Orientation Leader training program. Hickey, a general business senior from Springtown, also was selected as a finalist for the student leader of the year award at the conference.
The Texas Folklore Society, directed by Kenneth Untiedt, English, recently received recognition from the Texas Senate. Senate Resolution 400 recognizes April 10, 2009, as Texas Folklore Society Day in honor of the society’s 100th anniversary.
The resolution states: “By recording and preserving Texas life as expressed in folklore, the Texas Folklore Society is providing a valuable resource for future generations of Texans.”
The Texas Folklore Society, founded at the University of Texas in 1909, has been headquartered at Stephen F. Austin State University since 1971. The society's annual meeting will be held April 9 - 11 in Nacogdoches.
The society is dedicated to preserving and presenting the legends, customs, beliefs, superstitions, songs and crafts of Texas and the Southwest. Prominent members of the organization have included such popular figures as J. Frank Dobie, Walter Prescott Web, Dorothy Scarborough, Harry Ransom, and SFA’s own English Professor F. E. Abernethy (retired).
The society also received official recognition and congratulations from Gov. Rick Perry, who stated: “Texas is nothing if not a state of tall tales, impressive yarns and sweeping stories about larger-than-life characters. Allowing those tales to fade in the mists of time would be a severe blow to our cultural identity as Texans. Your good work has helped ensure these stories will be passed on to future generations.”