Everything Nac

Stephen F. Austin State University art history graduate Kendrick Perkins is working toward earning a master’s degree through the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Perkins is an Urban Scholar Fellow enrolled in the school’s Technology, Innovation and Education master’s program where his studies focus on learning design, entrepreneurship and emerging technology in K-12 urban education.

“I chose Harvard because of the intellectual and demographic diversity of the faculty and students,” he said. “I was drawn to my particular program because it is one of the few educational technology programs in the country with an interdisciplinary approach to education that spans several industries including the K-12 educational sector. The flexibility was particularly interesting because it allows me to combine my interest in the business of education technology and K-12 urban education innovation through classes across the various schools at Harvard, as well as MIT.”

Perkins, a 2014 graduate, has spent the past several years working in San Antonio as a math and English language arts teacher at KIPP Un Mundo Dual Language Academy through Teach For America and as a Data Analyst Fellow at the P16Plus Council of Greater Bexar County.

He has also volunteered with Amnesty International USA as a recruiter for the AIUSA board of directors and with San Antonio RISE, an educational organization focused on equity in urban public schools, where he participated in the Diversity in Public Leadership Series in Los Angeles, California, and the National Organizing Workshop in Chicago, Illinois.

Perkins believes his time at SFA played an integral role in his development as a scholar and a leader.

“At SFA, I majored in art history with a second major in Spanish,” he said. “Since graduation, I have come to fully realize and appreciate the benefits of the liberal arts education I received at SFA.”

For example, through Dr. David Lewis’ and Dr. Jill Carrington’s art history courses at SFA, Perkins said he developed writing and critical analysis skills that have proved beneficial at Harvard. Through Dr. Court Carney’s African American history course in the Department of History, he developed a keen awareness of the history of racism in the U.S., and the subsequent fight for racial equality that inspired him to apply for Teach For America after graduation.

“In conjunction with my academics, I was also involved in many student organizations, such as Omicron Delta Kappa, Alpha Phi Omega, Amnesty International and Pride Nac, to name a few,” he said. “In these organizations, I had the opportunity to practice my leadership abilities, as well contribute to the broader Nacogdoches community through community service. These experiences were essential in the development of who I am today and still bring back fond memories.”

After graduation, Perkins plans to stay in the Greater Boston Area and take advantage of the growing technology landscape to pursue opportunities in learning design in the education technology sector. Specifically, he hopes to work within companies such as Google, Pearson or Khan Academy to design and implement organizational learning opportunities through blended learning environments.

“Long-term, I hope to start my own 503(c) non-profit organization that focuses on teaching underprivileged children 21st century skills such as programming, as well as creating mentorship programs with major industry leaders in the technology sector,” he said. “Above all else, I want to provide children with the opportunity to be their very best selves regardless of what communities they come from.”

Professors in Stephen F. Austin State University’s interior design program were recognized with the Best Presentation Award at the Southwest Regional Conference for Interior Design Educators Council in early October in Dallas.

IDEC is a professionally recognized association for interior design educators in North America. The organization works to advance interior design education, scholarship and service, according to the IDEC website.

SFA Professor Dr. Mitzi Perritt and Associate Professors Sally Ann Swearingen and Leisha Bridwell delivered a presentation about service learning during the conference, which hosted design educators from universities in various states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

Last year, Perritt, Swearingen and Bridwell restructured their courses to include charrettes, intense design periods, to provide students with both an experiential- and service-learning opportunity.

“These projects demonstrate how students can use their own skills for service,” Swearingen said.

In the first charrette, SFA students worked with Love In the Name of Christ, a non-profit Christian organization, to renovate a storage building into a bathing and laundry faculty for the Nacogdoches homeless community.

This year, students partnered with the Douglass Volunteer Fire Department to plan a new fire station. Students divided into teams with a mixture of classifications, and upperclassmen served as team leaders to help guide newer students in the design process.

“This process is good for students,” Bridwell said. “It’s rewarding that we as faculty members get to be a part of projects that mean so much to the community.”

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

The Trio Con Brio, an ensemble of musicians from the Texas Christian University music faculty, will perform a guest recital at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 30, in Cole Concert Hall on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University.

The trio is comprised of Dr. Misha Galaganov, viola; Gary Whitman, clarinet; and John Owings, piano. The program selections will include Sonata in F minor for Viola and Piano, Op. 120 No. 1 by Johannes Brahms; “Asking a Shadow to Dance” by James Scott Balentine; Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Francis Poulenc; and Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, Op. 83 by Max Bruch, written for Trio Con Brio.

Trio Con Brio has presented 11 chamber music commissions in the past five years and released their debut CD, “A Musical Celebration” featuring the music of Elena Sokolovski and Eric Ewazen, on Albany Records.

The trio has toured throughout the United States and China and presented recitals and world premieres in venues such as the University of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Weill Recital Hall, New York City, and the Shanghai Concert Hall, China. Their recitals include the standard repertoire of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Max Bruch and Robert Schumann, as well as 20th century composers Leslie Bassett, Paul Walter Fürst, Gordon Jacob, Gyorgy Kurtag, Alfred Uhl and Jean Francaix.

Galaganov, associate professor of viola at TCU, has performed as a soloist in Russia, Israel, Czech Republic, Holland, Belgium, Austria, the U.S. and Mexico. His solo performance with the TCU Orchestra at the 2002 Latin American Festival was named one of the ten best performances of the year in the Dallas-Fort Worth area by the Fort Worth Star Telegram. He is co-founder and co-director of the Fort Worth Chamber Music Roundup festival, which gives amateur musicians the rare opportunity to rehearse and perform with top concert artists in the same ensembles.

Whitman, professor of clarinet and division chair of woodwinds at TCU, has performed at ClarinetFest conferences throughout the United States and Europe. He has presented master classes in Mexico City, Peru, Belgium, Puerto Rico and China. In addition to his position at TCU, Whitman is the bass clarinetist of the Fort Worth Symphony, performing in the classical subscription series “Pops” and the Fort Worth Opera Festival at Bass Performance Hall.

Chair of the piano division at TCU, Owings holds the Herndon Professorship of Music. Since making his orchestral debut with the San Antonio Symphony at the age of 15, his performing career has ranged from solo and chamber music recitals in major cities in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia, to concerto appearances with the symphony orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, the Boston Pops, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra of both Colombia and Peru.

The concert is a joint presentation of the College of Fine Arts and School of Music and is a feature of the Calliope Concert Series. Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

Playwright Anne Washburn’s “Mr. Burns, a post-electric play” has something for everyone, and the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre will bring the imaginative dark comedy to life as part of its 2017-18 Mainstage Series.

Described by The New York Times as “downright brilliant,” “Mr. Burns” is a show that embodies what its director, Slade Billew, loves most about the theatre.

“It has a bit of everything,” said Billew, assistant professor of acting/movement in the SFA School of Theatre. “It is funny and tragic. It includes fights, dances and songs. It is profound and hilarious. Additionally, I hope that the connections to ‘The Simpsons,’ pop culture, and a post-apocalyptic future will appeal to our student audiences.”

The play follows six people (and later seven) who have survived a nationwide nuclear power disaster. Society has collapsed, and there is no electricity. In Act One, the characters sit around a fire and try to recall an episode of “The Simpsons.” Act Two occurs seven years later. The survivors have regrouped and formed a theatre company performing old episodes of “The Simpsons.” They are seen in rehearsal where we discover more about the world they have helped remake. Act Three takes place 82 years after the initial disaster and includes a full musical performance of an episode of “The Simpsons.”

“Mr. Burns” requires the director and student actors to pay great attention to detail, Billew explained.

“The play’s complexity requires an intense level of attention to detail and coordination of all the elements of production,” he said. “The show asks so much of the cast in the movement between extremes of emotion and the physicality of all the songs and dances.”

The script has been described as providing an interesting examination of the importance of oral history and theatre. According to The New York Times, Washburn’s play “makes us appreciate anew the profound value of storytelling in and of itself… Mr. Burns…makes the case for theater as the most glorious and durable storyteller of all.”

“The play has something for everyone, and it raises interesting questions about how humans handle tragedy and the role art plays in the recovery,” Billew said.

“Mr. Burns, a post-electric play” is not appropriate for young children.

The play will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, Nov. 7 through 11, in W.M. Turner Auditorium in the Griffith Fine Arts Building, 2222 Alumni Drive, on the SFA campus.

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.