Everything Nac

More than 100 Stephen F. Austin State University students enrolled in the School of Human Sciences applied their skills during the annual “Chairished” Blessings fundraiser, which was held Feb. 2 at the Nacogdoches Exposition and Civic Center.

Interior design, merchandising and hospitality students were among the participants during this year’s event and played active roles in making it a success.

Interior design students refinished furniture for a design competition. Both interior and fashion merchandising students created table centerpieces, and hospitality administration students prepared and served the meal. All majors from the School of Human Sciences assisted that evening greeting, taking tickets, selling and serving cakes, and selling and working the door prizes and raffle tickets.

“One of the reasons we get all of the students in the School of Human Sciences involved is because we want them to know what it’s like to be active in their community,” said Sally Ann Swearingen, associate professor in the School of Human Sciences. “We are not just teaching a major. We are teaching students how to incorporate their talents and skills to serve others.”

The annual fundraiser benefited Love in the Name of Christ, a nonprofit Christian organization in Nacogdoches dedicated to serving local citizens in need. Chairished Blessings featured dinner, a silent auction and a design competition.

“This event’s goal is to raise money for the projects Love INC provides for the community,” Swearingen said. “One of the projects is raising money to help construct a shower and laundry facility.”

Prior to the event, SFA students helped set up tables by creating centerpieces. Many also helped assemble gift baskets as auction items.

“Working this event has taught me a lot about what goes on behind the scenes of a project,” said Calli Blankenship, senior interior design major from Livingston, Texas. “Making connections and networking with people to help you is so important.”

Blankenship has participated in Chairished Blessings before and said this year she helped the interior design students refinish furniture for the design competition. However, for Houston senior Yessenia Ramirez, a hospitality major focusing on travel and tourism, this was her first time to participate.

“The tourism industry is all about bringing people to visit different communities, so I feel hosting an event as big as this one is a great way to do that,” Ramirez said. “Hospitality involves service to people, and this is a great example of what we will be doing later and a great experience for us.”

By Kasi Dickerson, senior marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Stephen F. Austin State University education seniors Ben Dickey of Austin and Melissa Caruso of Mineola, along with Emily Fulmer of Dallas, (not pictured), will present their research, “How Can Pre-Service Teachers Engage English-Language Learners in Production Struggle?” at the National Council on Undergraduate Research Conference in April.

Their case study recorded and analyzed the types of questions pre-service teachers asked as they tutored fourth grade English-Language Learners in mathematics.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre hosts the 2018 UIL One-Act Play Festival Thursday and Friday, Feb. 8 and 9, in Griffith Fine Arts Building on the SFA campus. Ten East Texas area schools are participating in the event, which includes storytelling, stage combat, lighting design, makeup and other workshops. The festival allows the high school theatre students to “practice perform” their one-act plays, which are critiqued by SFA theatre faculty, before students compete in UIL events later this semester. School of Theatre Director Cleo House Jr. offers suggestions to Central High School students following their performance of “Hansel and Gretel” Thursday morning. The festival also serves as a recruiting tool, and students have the opportunity to audition for admission to the School of Theatre at the festival’s conclusion.

Stephen F. Austin State University alumni, front left, Jason Anderson, vice chair for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Dallas; Bill Lowry, senior producer for Texas Instruments and Powerhouse Films in Dallas; and Kevin Manuel, remote tech manager for CBS Sports in Houston, shared their broadcast television experiences with SFA students Wednesday during the Department of Mass Communication’s Media Day.

Throughout the day, four panels of media professionals discussed topics on journalism, radio, broadcast, public relations and marketing. Panelists answered a variety of questions, including how and why they chose their careers, how their work has changed through the years, and what it is like to work in the media industry.

By Emily Brown, marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Stephen F. Austin State University will be well represented at the 2018 Texas Music Educators Association annual clinic/convention Feb. 14 through 17 in San Antonio.

The SFA Wind Ensemble, directed by Fred J. Allen, director of bands at SFA, and the Orchestra of the Pines, directed by Dr. Gene H. Moon, director of orchestras, will perform before the nation’s premier music educators’ convention that historically draws more then 26,000 attendees.

“The SFA Wind Ensemble was selected to perform at the convention following a competitive round of adjudicated recordings last April,” Allen said in a previous interview. “We are proud to represent SFA before this large gathering of music educators.”

The Wind Ensemble has been invited to perform before TMEA audiences on numerous occasions, but this is the Orchestra of the Pines’ first invitation, according to Moon.

“The unique part about SFA’s involvement in the TMEA performances is that, historically, the invited university orchestra involved a consortium of the largest schools: UT Austin, University of Houston, Texas Tech, Baylor and Rice,” Moon explained. “Smaller-sized schools’ orchestras, in comparison, have never had a stage at TMEA. This invitation for SFA, including the fact that this is the first time, ever, that the SFA Orchestra of the Pines has been invited to TMEA, is a big hallmark event for us.”

Moon said that, historically, TMEA has invited one university orchestra to perform a concert on Thursday or Friday evening of TMEA. Then, the same university orchestra would become the orchestra for the All-State choirs that same weekend. The double duty became too much for the same university orchestra, so this year, for the first time, TMEA invited two university orchestras: one to perform the regular concert and another to be the All-State choirs’ orchestra. Orchestra of the Pines will perform with the choirs, Moon explained.

“TMEA asked me this past May, and I graciously accepted on behalf of our university,” he said. “It is a great honor and a wonderful opportunity for our students.”

With the All-State Mixed Choir, the orchestra is performing the “Gloria” by Frances Poulenc, the fourth movement from George Frideric Handel’s “Te Deum” and several other works. With the All-State Small School Choir, the orchestra is performing Joseph Haydn’s “Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo.” And with the All-State Women’s Chorus, the orchestra will perform “Arise, My Soul, Arise” by Dan Forrest and Ola Gjeilo’s “Ae Generosa.”

The All-State choir performances are at noon, 2 and 3:45 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17, in the Lila Cockrell Theater.

“Peter Sarkisian: Video Works” will open with a reception and gallery talk by the artist from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House, Stephen F. Austin State University’s downtown art gallery.

The exhibition, which features video projections on sculpture, will show through April 21 in Reavley Gallery. Sarkisian is an American new-media artist whose work combines video projection and sculpture to create a hybrid form of multi-media installation, according to John Handley, director of galleries for the SFA School of Art.

“I first saw Peter’s work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art many years ago,” Handley said. “I saw his work again at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Oregon a few years back and contacted the artist after that.”

Sarkisian’s work is “grounded in the idea that video, in its ubiquitous and most popular form, is an experientially void medium, and that by depriving ourselves of experience in favor of information-based images, we have become unable to grasp the meaning of consequence or to coexist with mutual understanding,” according to information on the artist’s website: http://www.petersarkisian.com/

His installations attempt to “steer the world’s most influential medium back on a collision course with the viewer in order to reintroduce an element of experience to the viewing process.”

“If the filmmaker’s traditional goal is to distract viewers through the suspension of self-awareness, then Sarkisian’s goal is to create a sense of heightened self-awareness by engaging the viewer in constructed environments that blur the line between what is real and what is mediated,” the site says.

The underlying premise of his work remains committed to using video as an instrument against commercialized media, namely television, in order to transform the act of watching video from an experience-killing endeavor to an experience-creating one. He accomplishes this by joining sculptural elements with projected video imagery to create audio/visual illusions that trap the viewer between conflicting interpretations, thereby forcing a state of self-awareness that is otherwise absent while watching television.

Named a Master Video Artist in 2007 by the National Endowment for the Arts, Sarkisian has exhibited widely throughout the world in major museums and public venues, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Musée Picasso, France, the Hammer Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Sarkisian’s work has been featured in many international exhibitions and festivals, including the Istanbul Biennial in Turkey, the Vidarte Festival in Mexico City, the Whitney Biennial in New York, and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.

Admission to all art exhibitions and receptions is free. The reception is sponsored in part by the SFA Friends of the Visual Arts, Nacogdoches Junior Forum and The Flower Shop.

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