Everything Nac

Dr. Tim Clipson, professor in Stephen F. Austin State University’s Rusche College of Business, received the Meada Gibbs Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award at the Association for Business Communication international meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The association is an international, interdisciplinary organization committed to advancing business communication, research, education and practice, according to the ABC website.

Clipson has been an ABC member since 1981 and said it’s truly an honor to receive this award.

“To be selected as one at the top of the game is rewarding, humbling and challenging,” Clipson said. “It’s rewarding to be recognized for the quality and consistency of my life’s work, humbling because I truly know there are many others who are worthy, and challenging because the bar is set to constantly do and be my best.”

The Meada Gibbs Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award recognizes, encourages and rewards excellence in teaching and research in business communication and is sponsored by ABC and Pearson Learning. As the award recipient, Clipson received a plaque and monetary award and will have the opportunity to speak at the ABC conference next fall in Dublin, Ireland.

Clipson has been teaching for 45 years with 36 of those years at SFA. He is a professor in SFA’s Department of Business Communication and Legal Studies.

“I think of my classroom as a learning laboratory with the concept that the more engaged the student is in the learning process the more he or she will take away and apply to life,” Clipson said. “My subject matter is definitely important, my students, however, are more so.”

A publication edited by Dr. Mark Sanders, Stephen F. Austin State University’s Department of English and Creative Writing chair and professor, and published by the SFA Press recently won the 2016 Nebraska Book Awards competition in the anthology category.

“Receiving the award is a tremendous honor,” Sanders said. “My creative roots are in Nebraska and the Plains, so this award is an affirmation that I remain a part of that community and that my work in behalf of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and criticism relative to the region is still valuable.”

“A Sandhills Reader: Thirty Years of Great Writing from the Great Plains” is a retrospective of some of the best work published by the Sandhills Press, a small, independent publisher of Great Plains writing since 1979.

“Most small presses don’t last nearly as long; most survive a year or two and publish as many books,” Sanders explained. “Sandhills and its subsidiaries have published more than 50 volumes of anthologies and individual titles by new and established writers from the Great Plains.”

Among authors published are Ted Kooser, former U.S. poet laureate and late Nebraska state poet William Kloefkorn. Others include Don Welch, Twyla Hansen, Kathleene West, Ronald Wallace, Dana Gioia, Kelly Cherry and more.

“Few presses support the work of writers coming from the Great Plains states,” Sanders said. “Because of my press work, I was awarded the Mildred Bennett Award from the Nebraska Center for the Book in 2007 for fostering Nebraska’s literary heritage. This book provides a small view of what the effort entailed.”

Sanders edited and published Sandhills Press books during the past three decades. He began compiling the retrospective collection in 2008 and pulled the pieces and permissions together by the end of 2014.

Dr. Leslie Cecil, chair of the Stephen F. Austin State University Department of Anthropology, Geography and Sociology, speaks Tuesday with high school students during College Day, an all-day event hosted by SFA’s College of Liberal and Applied Arts. Throughout the day, students from school districts across East Texas were introduced to the college’s programs and educational opportunities, ate lunch with representatives from various offices, including financial aid and admissions, and were given a guided tour of the campus.

A poetry reading by Nacogdoches’ prize-winning poets Judith and Ken Lauter will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

“Rembrandt and Vermeer – Two Dutch Painters as Seen by Two Nacogdoches Poets” will feature the Lauters reading from their books combining poems and paintings. Ken’s book is “Vermeer in Words,” and Judith’s is “Light from the Left; poems on paintings by Rembrandt.” Each poem will be accompanied by a full-size color slide of the painting it describes.

“This format lets the two forms of art engage in a dialogue, each speaking to the other,” Judith explained. “The poems celebrate the beauty and artistic genius of these beloved paintings, and they also explore the personal, political and social context of the turbulent times in which they were created.”

A book signing will follow the reading and slideshow.

The Lauters have visited the Netherlands a number of times, and their love for the country, its culture and the spectacular work of the painters of the Dutch Golden Age is fully evident in the poems they will read at The Cole Art Center.

Judith is a neuroscientist, poet and photographer who recently retired from Stephen F. Austin State University after serving more than a decade as the director of the SFA Human Neuroscience Laboratory, capping off a 30-year career as a university professor and researcher. She has published nine volumes of images and poetry, and her books are available both online and from a number of special-interest bookstores and art museums in Texas (Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Longview, Corpus Christi) and New Mexico. Information about her books is available at https://www.amazon.com/Judith-Lauter/e/B00JHWZ3TK , and on her website, judithlauter.com.

Ken has been a university professor of English and creative writing, a university administrator, a mayor’s aide (in St. Louis, Missouri), and a grass-roots environmental activist. He has published 12 volumes of poetry and also writes essays and plays. His books are available online at https://www.amazon.com/Ken-Lauter/e/B001KCMCR6. Additional information about his other writings can be found at kenlauter.com.

“Anyone interested in poetry and/or painting, particularly classical painting, will be enlightened by this event,” said John Handley, director of art galleries at SFA.

Admission is free, and refreshments will be served. For more information, call The Cole Art Center at (936) 468-1131.