Everything Nac

The SFA School of Art and Friends of the Visual Arts will offer Texas Blueberry Festival-goers the opportunity to view “Found Footage: Rediscovering Nacogdoches” and the George Hooker short promotional film “Nacogdoches: The Oldest Town.”

The two films will be shown every hour on the hour starting at 10 a.m. with the last screenings starting at 3 p.m. on festival day, June 11, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches. Copies of the DVD will be available for purchase during the festival.

“Found Footage” features scenes of Nacogdoches people and businesses in 1938 documented on film. The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and Humanities Texas, in association with the Charles and Lois Marie Bright Foundation, championed the effort to restore the forgotten 16mm film, labeled “Nacogdoches 1938.” Discovered at Nacogdoches High School in 1967 but forgotten until a few years ago, the film was digitally restored and viewed in 2014 for the first time in 70 years.

The Cole Art Center will also serve as an official “oasis” during the festival, according to Lisa Steed, events coordinator for SFA galleries, with tables and chairs set up inside where festival patrons can escape the heat. The art center’s restrooms will also be available to festival-goers.

Volunteers with the Friends of the Visual Arts will man an outside tent where they will sell homemade gumbo, blueberry tea and blueberry baked goods with proceeds going toward funding grants and scholarships the Friends of the Visual Arts awards annually to students in the School of Art.

Blueberry Festival also marks the end of the Texas National exhibition, Abelardo Morell’s photography exhibition and the Boys & Girls Club’s ImageMakers Photography Competition exhibition.

Upcoming Cole Art Center events include the Nacogdoches Photographic Association and Nacogdoches Art League annual shows, which open at 6 p.m. Friday, June 24. The annual 12×12 Art Scholarship Fundraiser exhibition opens Wednesday, June 29, for viewing and silent auction bidding, with the closing party event slated for Saturday night, July 16.

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

An exhibition highlighting the history of African-American leaders in Nacogdoches is the final product for students in a history graduate course within Stephen F. Austin State University’s College of Liberal and Applied Arts.

“I taught a graduate-level history course at SFA this spring, and my students and I developed, designed and produced an exhibition titled, ‘Leaders of Courage: Educating, Mobilizing and Preserving the African-American Community of Nacogdoches,’” said Dr. Paul Sandul, associate professor in the SFA Department of History. “The title comes from a quote by local civil rights activist Arthur Weaver.”

The exhibition will be on display from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, June 14 through July 8, in the historic E.J. Campbell High School, 499 South Shawnee St. An opening reception is scheduled for the evening of Monday, June 13.

“The focus of the exhibition is to highlight such Nacogdoches heroes and leaders as E.J. Campbell, Arthur Weaver and Birdie Wade and the good work they did toward sustaining the community, especially as they faced the difficulties of racism and violence in a Jim Crow Nacogdoches,” Sandul said. “The exhibition highlights this last reality, while underscoring the courage and leadership of these three individuals—for the betterment of the African-American community and, really, for all of us calling Nacogdoches our home today.”

Students within Sandul’s History 570 Collections Management course spent the entirety of the spring 2016 semester digging through East Texas Research Center archives to create 10 text-based, 40-by-32-inch poster boards. The Leaders of Courage posters will be filled with historical information, dozens of historical photographs, maps and an in-depth timeline.

“This graduate course and project introduced students to the essential knowledge, skills and abilities required to conduct the management of archival and museum collections with a specific focus on serving and reaching a public audience,” said Sandul. “In fact, each of these students aspires for a public history career in one of these fields and is the very reason each has enrolled at SFA.

“While the students read essays, extended monographs and technical briefs to familiarize themselves with the processes and practices of archival and museum collections, they had a heavy ‘hands-on’ emphasis to provide them with real-world experiences. Functioning as a member of a team, the students thus created an exhibition highlighting collections at the local East Texas Research Center archive. The Leaders of Courage exhibition is the product of that hands-on experience,” Sandul said.

QR codes, or bar codes with the capability to be scanned by smartphones, also were developed by students for the exhibition. When scanned, the codes link to Internet sites with recorded oral histories and other additional historical information pertinent to the Leaders of Courage project.

For more information, email Sandul at sandulpj@sfasu.edu.

Stephen F. Austin State University’s educator preparation program within the James I. Perkins College of Education hosted its first Partners in Educator Preparation Appreciation Banquet on May 26 on the university campus.

During their final semester before graduation, SFA students majoring in education begin their student teaching in school districts across Texas.

The banquet recognized school administrators, mentoring classroom teachers, field supervisors, administrators, and faculty and staff members in the educator preparation program for their support throughout the year.

Dr. Jannah Nerren, associate dean in the College of Education’s Office of Assessment and Accountability, said SFA sends approximately 350 students each academic year into approximately 550 classrooms across Texas to complete their student teaching.

“This banquet strengthens the relationship between the stakeholders involved in educator preparation of our teacher candidates,” Nerren said. “We wanted to emphasize how important it is for us to work together in our various roles to help prepare this generation of future educators.”

The evening included an informal reception with music provided by students from SFA’s School of Music, dinner, a keynote speech and an awards presentation.

Nerren said keynote speaker Dr. Kandi Hill-Clarke, dean of the Bayh College of Education at Indiana State University, inspired attendees with a motivational speech about the importance of education.

“Dr. Hill-Clarke’s goal was to make all the educators in attendance feel valued and appreciated while underscoring the importance of the educator as the individual who creates the possibility for all other professions,” Nerren said.

SFA teacher candidates nominated their field supervisors and mentoring teachers for awards, which were presented during the banquet.

Cheryl Van Norman and Linda Bruton, both SFA adjunct faculty members, received the Outstanding Field Supervisor award for their work in helping more than 40 SFA student teachers during the fall and spring semesters. Paul Banner from Furneaux Elementary School in Carrollton and Valerie Frazier from Hendrick Middle School in Plano received the Outstanding Cooperating Teacher award for the fall and spring semesters.

“I’m very pleased with the event’s turnout and attendees’ enthusiasm,” Nerren said. “We think it was a successful event, and our mission was accomplished.”