Everything Nac

In the coming months, drivers traveling on East Starr Avenue will be treated to an assortment of colors ranging from deep hunter green to vibrant hot pink, and it is all in the name of science.

The colors are courtesy of 15 different Swiss chard cultivars recently planted by Dr. Jared Barnes, Stephen F. Austin State University assistant

professor of horticulture, and SFA Gardens student workers as a part of a winter trial to determine what varieties perform best in East Texas.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun to come back in a couple of weeks and look up and down through here, see them all growing up and see a rainbow across these beds,” Barnes said.

But don’t let their beauty fool you. These vegetables are more than just ornamental plants. Swiss chard is nutritionally dense and provides an assortment of vitamins and minerals. Barnes says its combination of beauty, adaptability and nutrition is the primary reason he chose the plant for the winter trial.

“More and more what you’re seeing from people who are interested in buying plants is they want plants to have multiple functions,” Barnes said. “They want it to be edible and pretty. They want it to be pretty and smell nice on their patio. They want it to be small so it can grow in a pot and have foliage color.”

Barnes explained that Swiss chard encapsulates many of these qualities, and as a cool weather crop, it can perform well during Texas’ winter growing season.

The trial will be conducted over two seasons and compare the success rates of cultivars that are left exposed to the elements versus those that are protected by row covers. The results, which Barnes hopes to publish, will provide gardeners insight into which cultivation method is best and what varieties are best suited for the region’s fall and winter gardens.

“There’s a weather station across the road, so we’ll be able to collect data very, very close by,” Barnes said.

Thermometers installed in the rows also will provide insight into the soil’s temperature variations between the two growing methods.

Barnes explained that he hopes this trial also will bring awareness to the opportunities offered by the winter growing season, which he believes is often overshadowed by the spring and summer growing period.

SFA Gardens student employee Jordan McGee agrees. A senior horticulture major, she discussed her passion for small-scale, personal food production as she and fellow horticulture student Aaron Chambers kneeled over a row of Chinese cabbage. They both agree that the opportunity to participate in trials such as this one greatly benefit their education and serve as a way to inform the public of the benefits and opportunities of growing their own food.

The first eight beds in the trial garden area will be dedicated to producing and trialing food crops throughout the year. The remaining beds, located next to SFA’s intramural fields, will be used for ornamental and non-food plant trials.

SFA Gardens at Stephen F. Austin State University will host the monthly Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9, in the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, 2900 Raguet St. in Nacogdoches. Garden writer Patty Leander will present “Butterbeans to Asian Greens—Old Favorites and New Flavors for the Vegetable Garden.”

Leander was raised in Midland, Texas, by a dietitian mom who never met a vegetable she didn’t like and a geologist dad who loved his Bermuda onions as much as his Bermuda shorts. She is a contributing writer to Texas Gardener magazine and a master gardener vegetable specialist, and she holds a Bachelor of Science in food and nutrition from Texas Tech University.

In addition to growing, eating and writing about vegetables, she enjoys traveling the great state of Texas, sharing her enthusiasm for vegetable gardening. Patty and her husband, Bruce, work as a team – she cultivates, harvests and prepares the vegetables; he photographs and eats them. Leander’s passion for vegetable gardening was inspired by the late George and Mary Stewart of Houston, who shared with her their lifetime of gardening wisdom and encouraged her to pass it on so that others may share in the satisfaction and success of growing their own vegetables.

The Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series is held the second Thursday of each month at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture’s SFA Pineywoods Native Plant Center. A rare plant raffle will be held after the program. The lecture is free and open to the public, but donations to the Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series Fund always are appreciated.

Parking is available at the nearby Raguet Elementary School, 2428 Raguet St., with continual shuttle service to the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building.
For more information, call Elyce Rodewald at (936) 468-1832 or email grantdamon@sfasu.edu.

Dr. Paul H. Carlson, Texas Tech University professor emeritus of history, will discuss the importance of a humanities education in a modern global world at the 18th Georgiana and Max S. Lale Lecture presented by the East Texas Historical Association.

The presentation titled “Painting Tom Sawyer’s Fence: Lessons from Literature, Sports and the Humanities” will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, in the Grand Ballroom of the Baker Pattillo Student Center on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches. Admission is free, and the public is invited to attend.

Carlson, a native of Minnesota, received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University in 1973. He taught at Texas Lutheran College for more than a decade before returning in 1986 to Texas Tech, where he remained on the faculty until he retired in 2009. He has taught courses and researched on such American West and Texas topics as Native Americans, the military in the West, ranching and stock raising, and archeology. He also has been honored as a Fellow of both the West Texas Historical Association and the Texas State Historical Association. He and his wife reside in Ransom Canyon, Texas, near Lubbock.

Carlson is an active and prolific researcher and writer. He has published well over 150 articles, essays and book reviews, as well as 19 books. His work “The Plains Indians” was named one of the 100 Most Outstanding Books on the American West published in the 20th century in 2005. Some of his other award-winning books include: “Pecos Bill: A Military Biography of William R. Shafter,” “Texas Woollybacks: The Range Sheep and Goat Industry,” and “Deep Time and the Texas High Plains: History and Geology.” He has been recognized for his publication excellence by the Texas Institute of Letters, the Western Historical Association and the Texas State Historical Association.

Carlson also is a member of the Philosophical Society of Texas and was named the “Outstanding Professor” by Residence Life at Texas Tech University and the “Outstanding Faculty Member of the Texas Tech History Department.” He will be only the second Lale Lecturer who also is a Life Member of the East Texas Historical Association. (Journalist Bill Moyers was the first).

The Association presents this annual lecture through a generous gift by the late Max Sims Lale, a noted Texas journalist, lay historian and newspaper publisher. Lale endowed the series in the name of his late wife, Georgiana, with the intention of allowing the East Texas Historical Association to bring renowned scholars, journalists and public figures to Nacogdoches. Past lecturers include journalist Bill Moyers, Congressman Charlie Wilson, historian T.R. Ferenbach, Texas Monthly senior editor Paul Burka and Houston Mayor Annise Parker. If you have any questions about the lecture, please call the ETHA office at (936) 468-2407 or email Association secretary Christal Gill at gillci@sfasu.edu.

The future of the relationship between the United States and Asia will be featured at the 2014 Global Citizenship Series presented by Stephen F. Austin State University on Oct. 9 and 10 at the Sugar Land Marriott Town Square, 16090 City Walk.

The conference, titled “Asia and the United States: Relationship Patterns and Potential,” is the fourth annual international conference SFA has hosted in the Houston area.

“The goals of the event are to expose our students, faculty, and the Houston community to world leaders, to enhance understanding of a region critical to our nation’s prosperity and security, and to create opportunities for international program development,” said Dr. Brian Murphy, dean of SFA’s College of Liberal and Applied Arts, which organizes the conference series.

Murphy said the United States is in the process of rebalancing relationships with the countries in the region in both economic and security areas. This shift, he notes, signals a new priority placed on the region by the U.S. The change was noted in 2011 when the administration asserted that “Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human progress.”

Registration begins at 2 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9, and the conference itself begins at 3 p.m. with a discussion featuring ambassadors Harsh Bhasin and Michael Armacost, as well as former EU diplomat Adrian Beresford Taylor.

Armacost has been at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center since 2002. He previously served in Washington, D.C., as president of the Brookings Institution, the nation’s oldest think tank and a leader in research on politics, government, international affairs, economics and public policy. He also has served as undersecretary of state for political affairs and as ambassador to Japan and the Philippines.
As U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Armacost was a key force in helping the country undergo a nonviolent transition to democracy.
“In 1989, President George Bush tapped him to become ambassador to Japan, considered one of the most important and sensitive U.S. diplomatic posts abroad,” Murphy said.
Armacost is the author of three books, including “Friends or Rivals?” published in 1996 and drawing on his tenure as ambassador.
Bhasin is chair of the Department of Asian and Asian-American Studies at Stony Brook University. Before joining Stony Brook, he served as a career diplomat for nearly four decades with overseas assignments including China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Nepal. He served as India’s Ambassador to Botswana, South Africa and Denmark.

In 1990, Bhasin was a senior fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University where he researched the political dynamics of the reform process then underway in South Africa, which culminated in the dismantling of apartheid and the emergence of a multiracial South Africa. He was an official observer at South Africa’s first ever non-racial elections in 1994, which returned Nelson Mandela to power.

Taylor is chief executive officer of 4Sing: Foresight and Strategy for Security and Sustainability in Governance. He has worked in more than 33 countries and conducts workshops in English, French and German. His previous positions include scenario planner in a joint venture with Global Business Network, desk officer for India at the European Commission, visiting scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology and director of strategy at the European School of Governance in Berlin.

The conference continues on Oct. 10 with registration at 8:30 a.m. At 9 a.m., a session titled “Socio-political Context: Governance, Regional Cooperation and Demographics” will feature Joseph Harris, Boston University; Ellen Boccuzzi, the Asia Foundation; and Dlynn Armstrong-Williams, the University of North Georgia.

Boccuzzi is senior program officer for governance and law with The Asia Foundation and previously served as a foreign service officer with the United States Agency for International Development, where she managed the agency’s media development portfolio in Afghanistan and contributed to USAID strategies on human trafficking and democracy, human rights and governance.

Boccuzzi has served as a researcher with the Asian Research Center for Migration, and she is the author of “Bangkok Bound,” a study of Thai rural-urban migration based on an examination of first-hand writings by migrants.

Harris, an assistant professor of sociology at Boston University, is a past recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and the Henry Luce Scholarship. His research explores the role of public health experts and AIDS activists in efforts to institutionalize universal healthcare in Thailand, Brazil and South Africa.

Armstrong-Williams is chair of the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of North Georgia. Her publications focus on South Korea and its status as a “middle power” with the ability to employ diplomacy and achieve recognition. She serves on the University System Georgia’s Council on International Education and has served as director of the Center for Global Engagement at the University of North Georgia.

A session at 10:45 a.m. will highlight security issues involving energy, regional threats, immigration and cyber-security. Panelists will include Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.; Carrie Liu Currier, director of Asian Studies at Texas Christian University; and Charles Kennedy, professor at Wake Forest University and author of “Government and Politics in South Asia.”

Economic trade, resources, globalization and investment will be the topic of a session at 1:45 p.m. Discussants include Hoon Lee, assistant professor of political science, Texas Tech University; Hiroki Takeuchi, assistant professor of political science, Southern Methodist University; and Troy Stangarone, senior director of congressional affairs and trade, Korea Economic Institute.

The conference will conclude at 3:15 p.m. with a moderators’ forum. Moderators for the panels include SFA faculty members Aryendra Chakravartty, Thomas Segady, Steve Galatas and Michael Stroup.

There is no cost to attend the conference, which is open to the public. A noon luncheon will be available at a cost of $25 for students and $35 for non-students.

The relationship between the United States and Europe was discussed at the 2011 conference, and U.S.-Middle East relations highlighted the 2012 event. The 2013 conference focused on the relationship between Latin America and North America.

For more information and to register, visit the conference’s website at sfasu.edu/laa/833.asp or call (936) 468-2803.

The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and School of Music will present the university’s jazz bands, the Swingin’ Axes and Swingin’ Aces, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 10, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

In the first concert of the year, the Swingin’s Axes will “take on an exciting project – a live production of Count Basie’s 1968 hit album, ‘Basie – Straight Ahead,’” according to Gary Wurtz, professor of trumpet and jazz studies at SFA and director of the Swingin’ Axes.

“This album contains nine original compositions by famed arranger and composer Sammy Nestico, who was to new to Basie’s band at that time,” explains Wurtz. “The idea behind the recording was to place on display ‘the essence of the Basie style,’ and by the time the session was over, everyone involved, from the band members to the producers, to Basie himself, felt they had accomplished their goal.”

To this day, most teachers of young jazz musicians put these arrangements in front of their students to help teach an iconic style, Wurtz said.

“In this performance, the Axes will perform all nine pieces, in order, replicating, as best they can, the legendary recording,” he said. “‘Straight Ahead’ swing will be the order of the evening.”

The Swingin’ Aces, directed by Deb Scott, professor of trombone at SFA, will perform works by the late jazz composer/arranger Fred Sturm, who studied music at the University of North Texas, as did Scott and Wurtz. Sturm was later the conductor of the Eastman School of Music Jazz Ensemble and then the director of the jazz department at Lawrence University.

“The Swingin’ Aces will perform two of his pieces as a tribute to Sturm,” Scott said. “‘Catalpa Complex,’ composed by John Harmon and arranged by Sturm, was recorded by the funky jazz group Matrix in the 1970s. The Aces will also perform ‘Chronometry’ by Sturm, a beautifully written contemporary samba.”

Also on the Aces’ program is “Let’s Fall in Love” by H. Arlen and T. Koehler, arranged by Dave Wolpe, and a famous saxophone feature, “Four Brothers” by Jimmy Giuffre, arranged by Peter Blair.

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.