Everything Nac

Changes in curriculum recently approved by the Stephen F. Austin State University Board of Regents reflect society’s continuing reliance on data and technology.

A new Bachelor of Science in data analytics approved Tuesday is a partnership between the computer science, economics, and mathematics and statistics departments.

“There is a widely recognized and strong need for data analytics professionals in government, industry and education in the United States,” said Dr. Deborah Dunn, professor and interim chair of the Department of Computer Science. “Companies increasingly have access to more data, and this fact is creating opportunities for workers with a particular set of skills.”

Data analytics is the process of extracting meaningful information from data stored by companies and using it to make informed decisions, Dunn explained. The data analytics program will provide a fundamental background in data analytics, including programming, algorithms, database technologies, data analytics techniques and statistical analysis. It also will offer substantial information on economics, forecasting and predictive modeling.

SFA’s Department of Computer Science, home to the only master’s degree program in cybersecurity in Texas, prepares students for careers in areas such as software development, database design and data analysis.

Three new certificate programs also were approved and reflect areas of societal concern and span multiple disciplines. In the School of Human Sciences, a new aging studies program will begin in fall 2018. Two programs added in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Communication include translation and interpretation, and risk and crisis communication.

Some academic programs are being consolidated to better meet the needs and interests of SFA students. Three programs have been converted into concentration areas for the Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. Programs include poultry science, agricultural engineering technology and agricultural development production.

“Agriculture is a healthy degree program at SFA, and it is an important industry in the East Texas area,” said Dr. Mary Nelle Brunson, associate provost and vice president for academic affairs.

SFA is in the heart of millions of acres of forest and offers the only doctoral degree program in forestry in Texas. In an effort to better address student needs, the one-year Texas residency requirement has been eliminated to allow students opportunities to conduct research nationwide. Additionally, forest management will now be offered as a concentration for the Bachelor of Science in Forestry, rather than as a separate major.

Regents ratified a $2 million plan to reconstruct Clark Boulevard and expand facility parking to make additional room for visitors to SFA’s new Ed and Gwen Cole STEM Building. The cost of the plan, which includes additional completion of the building’s fourth floor, is within the approved project budget of $46.4 million. The building is scheduled to open this summer and will house the Department of Physics, Engineering and Astronomy, the Department of Computer Science, a planetarium with a 52-foot dome, and makerspaces, which are learning laboratories that allow students to collaborate and create prototypes or other manufactured works.

“This is not the finish line; this is a beginning. We will empower the next generation of STEM professionals to lead and serve in a changing world,” said Dr. Kim Childs, dean of the College of Sciences and Mathematics, in her report to the board. “We are creating a pathway for students that is purposeful and practical as they move forward into their careers.”

Regents approved renaming areas in the McGee Business Building, which houses the Rusche College of Business. An area on the third floor is expected to be named the Naymola Innovation Hub in honor of Walter E. “Loddie” Naymola, a 1978 alumnus. The fourth floor lobby, which offers economics and finance students a professional meeting environment, will be named in honor of Michael J. Hopkins, a 1970 graduate.

Construction approved for SFA Athletics included renovating a storage area in the Johnson Coliseum basement to create a strength-and-conditioning room for the men’s and women’s basketball programs. Regents approved a budget of $725,000, which includes renovation and equipment costs. In the future, commencement materials previously stored in the basement will be located off campus; therefore, the board approved purchasing a covered box truck for use in transporting the items to and from campus and for other university purposes.

Regents approved a fixed-rate tuition of $226 per semester credit hour for students who enter SFA as first-time, full-time college students in fall 2018 and choose to enter into a fixed-rate program. As required by the Texas Education Code, the fixed rate will not increase for any eligible student for 12 consecutive semesters after the date of the student’s initial enrollment at any public or private higher education institution.

During the Tuesday meeting, the board acknowledged the receipt of an audit services report and approved:

· a summer budget of about $3.5 million for fiscal year 2017-18, which covers two regular summer semesters and a mini-semester

· renewal of the $50-per-credit-hour tuition rate for dual-credit students enrolling in any academic semester, including summer

· ratifying $21,935 in additional grant awards allocable to fiscal year 2018

· policy revisions, curriculum changes and minutes from the January and March meetings

· and a marketing budget for 2018-19.

The board heard updates from SFA’s Center for Career Professional Development regarding the positive impact of its new job-posting system, Handshake, which connects students with potential employers. Richards Carlberg also delivered a report regarding the university’s 2018-19 marketing campaign, which will feature refreshed creative materials, airport signage, billboards and a strong digital media presence.

The Board of Regents also heard reports from Dr. Hans Williams, dean of the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture; the Faculty Senate; Student Government Association; and the university president.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and SFA Galleries will present “Red Dirt Memories: Storytelling with Jerry Permenter” Saturday and Sunday, May 5 and 6, at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

A native of the Swift community in Nacogdoches County, Permenter, who goes by the name Red DirtBoy on Facebook, grew up in rural East Texas, and his memories of those early years laid the groundwork for what is now the Facebook page Red Dirt Memories, which has quickly garnered more than 5,000 followers.

Permenter will share some of his own “red dirt” memories in storytelling sessions at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free, but seating in Cole Art Center is limited, according to Lisa Steed, events coordinator for SFA art galleries.

“Jerry’s written and spoken word stories have really created a large nostalgic community of people in a very short time period,” Steed said. “Older locals are particularly enchanted with these memories, but I think we’re all looking for relief from these troubled times and want to feel a connection to our roots.”

Among Permenter’s topics: Dog Trot House, Funeralizing, Cotton Dresses and more.

“His memories are obviously his own, but I’ve found many of the stories have a southern commonality that seems like he lived down the road from me,” Steed said. “I wanted to ask: are we related?”

Many East Texans will remember that Permenter was the founder and executive director of the East Texas AIDS Project based in Nacogdoches in the late 80’s in Nacogdoches until 1994. The project later became Health Horizons.

“Red Dirt Boy” is the name Permenter had given last year to a book in progress.

“I grew up in Nacogdoches, and I have a memory on every corner of those red brick streets,” he said. “I’ve been a technical writer for over 30 years; creative writing was a hobby. ‘Red Dirt Boy’ came about after I lost two siblings and my mom in recent years, and I began to write under that name about some of our experiences growing up.

“The audience for those writings developed organically – usually by word of mouth or through a few websites,” he said. “The reaction to them was so strong that I began to write new ones on a regular basis.”

He now has a collection of stories based on growing up in Nacogdoches County that will be released later this year as “Red Dirt Memories.”

Permenter initially began sharing his memories with his two grandchildren so they would know and understand their family history.

“What began with me sharing my own childhood memories – growing up, the struggles and the good memories – seemed to resonate with so many others that local folks began sharing their stories and photos with me,” he said. “That was probably my greatest motivation after I started. Many families had events in their lives that helped shape them, made them stronger and more resilient, but those stories were kept within the family.”

On his Red Dirt Memories Facebook site, membership grew to almost 5,000 followers in less than two months.

“I discovered a commonality we all shared, along with a desire to tell our stories, to share experiences and create community,” he said.

The closed group site generated almost 2,000 members in a brief six-week period. Members can share their family stories and photos, allowing all to see stories and photos of the rural life many experienced growing up.

After leaving the East Texas AIDS Project, Permenter was the executive director of the Alamo Area Resource Center for 17 years. He then moved into consulting nationally. Permenter now splits his professional time between a home office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and an office in downtown San Antonio. He provides program design, grant writing and evaluation for health and human services programs in both cities. He works with arts and eldercare organizations in Santa Fe while focusing on funding and evaluation of housing, clinical care and supportive services for San Antonio organizations. He has provided technical assistance for nonprofits for the U.S. Office of Minority Health and has overseen projects funded by the U.S. Health and Human Resources Administration. Recently, he founded a comprehensive Health Equity Clinic in San Antonio, which, as the first of its kind in South Texas, has been funded for the past three years by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

“Red Dirt Boy” will eventually be an AIDS memoir when completed.

During the storytelling sessions, those in attendance will have the opportunity to share their memories and ask questions as time allows.

“I want these sessions to be casual and a shared experience, much like my social media pages Red Dirt Memories and Red DirtBoy have become,” Permenter said. “We have many things to discuss, and some wonderful folks who’ll attend, with many great storytellers from the community in attendance. We’ll close with questions and comments about all of our own ‘Red Dirt Memories.’

“I’ve been tremendously blessed by growing up in Nacogdoches and, in many ways, I hope to give back to my hometown at this stage of my life,” he added. “By offering readings, my writings and sharing our collective memories, I think many will enjoy the nostalgia of these stories and find it a great way to spend a weekend afternoon.”

Permenter describes storytelling as “a reciprocal exercise,” and he hopes these sessions will provide a time and place where folks can listen and relive some of their own years of growing up.

“There will be a lot of laughter and, again, a true sense of coming together to share stories in person – something we don’t do enough of in this day of technology overload,” he said. “‘Red Dirt Memories’ is a love letter to Nacogdoches in a very real sense, and my writings are a way of saying thank you to a hometown that helped in creating the man I am today.”

The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-6557.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Friends of the Visual Arts, in partnership with Austin Heights Baptist Church, will present a free, one-night screening of the documentary “Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry” at 7 p.m. Friday, May 4, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

“Look & See” revolves around the divergent stories of several residents of Henry County, Kentucky, who each face difficult choices that will dramatically reshape their relationship with the land and their community. The film explores the agrarian philosophy of American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic and farmer Wendell Berry.

The film, which is directed by Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell and co-produced by Robert Redford, is being co-sponsored by Austin Heights as part of the church’s 50th anniversary.

“Austin Heights is co-sponsoring this film because we feel it is important for East Texas to learn more about Wendell Berry,” said the Rev. Kyle Childress, pastor of Austin Heights. “Berry is a Kentucky farmer who has farmed the same small place for nearly 50 years just down the road from where he was born. He is a highly respected author who in 2010 was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama and in 2012 delivered the prestigious Jefferson Lectures at the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has written more than 50 books in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Considered by many as the father of the modern local food movement, Berry has long been an activist and critic on the environment and agriculture as well as wider issues of culture.”

According to information at lookandseefilm.com, in 1965, Berry returned home to Henry County, where he bought a small farmhouse and began a life of farming, writing and teaching. This lifelong relationship with the land and community would come to form the core of his prolific writings.

A half century later, Henry County, like many rural communities across America, has become a place of quiet ideological struggle. In the span of a generation, the agrarian virtues of simplicity, land stewardship, sustainable farming, local economies and rootedness to place have been replaced by a capital-intensive model of industrial agriculture characterized by machine labor, chemical fertilizers, soil erosion and debt – all of which have frayed the fabric of rural communities, the website states. Berry has watched this struggle unfold, becoming one of its most passionate and eloquent voices in defense of agrarian life.

“For me personally, as well as Austin Heights, Berry is an important influence,” Childress said. “He was writing 40 years ago about the importance of place and of settling down and putting down roots, caring for our place, and helping create and nurture community. He was writing about being good neighbors with one another but also good neighbors with all of creation.”

Filmed across four seasons in the farming cycle, “Look & See” blends observational scenes of farming life and interviews with farmers and community members with evocative, carefully framed shots of the surrounding landscape.

“It is a beautiful and quiet movie about a man who himself is beautiful and quiet,” Childress said. “It is a film about loving God’s creation and slowing down enough to ‘look and see.’

“This year is Austin Heights’ 50th anniversary, and we thought that helping bring this film to Nacogdoches would be a way to help celebrate our shared life over these years as well as sharing it with others.”

“Look & See” was the 2016 winner of the William W. Warner Beautiful Swimmers Award at the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital, the winner/grand jury prize recipient as Best Documentary Film at the 2016 Nashville Film Festival, and the winner/special jury award recipient for Documentary Feature with cinematography by Lee Daniel at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival.

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, 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.