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Dr. Dean Coble, professor of forestry at Stephen F. Austin State University, is the first recipient of a recently endowed professorship that rewards faculty members who are excellent teachers and also serve as mentors for students.

The Jim Towns Mentoring Professorship recognizes professors who instill, foster and promote a mentoring culture at SFA. The award is named for Dr. Jim Towns, longtime professor of communication studies, and it is the only SFA professorship for which faculty members in all six academic colleges are eligible.

Coble joined the faculty of SFA’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture in 2000 and teaches classes in forestry biometrics, timber management and applied regression in natural resources. He said he was “proud, honored, shocked and humbled” to be chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Towns professorship.

“I have a personal approach to mentoring in that I focus on individual relationships with students to help them develop professionally,” he said.

“I focus on personal relationships that differ from individual to individual but have the common goal of helping the student reach for more than he or she believed possible. I am motivated by great examples in my life, former professors and colleagues as well as family and friends, because I know without their mentorship, I would not be who I am today.”

The funding for the professorship was largely raised by Towns with the help of many of his colleagues and former students. Faculty mentoring and reverse mentoring are among Towns’ research interests, and he has successfully mentored countless students throughout his distinguished 46-year career at SFA.

“I really wanted to endow a professorship that would encourage mentoring relationships, which I think have benefitted me as much as my students over the years,” Towns said.

“Students are drawn to Dr. Coble and desire to emulate him both professionally and personally. He provides an excellent example of how mentoring relationships between students and faculty members can benefit both parties tremendously. He is most deserving of this recognition.”

An analysis of popular recording techniques will be presented at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, in the Music Recital Hall in the Wright Music Building on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus as a joint presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and School of Music.

“Commercial Recording and Contemporary Composition” features Duncan Williams, a psychoacoustician, sound engineer and composer from the University of Oxford. Williams will present “a range of contemporary experimental pieces from leading composers in the electroacoustic domain,” according to Kevin Kelleher, coordinator of the sound recording technology program at SFA.

Williams will demonstrate various techniques, such as spatialisation and timbral manipulation by signal processing, and will provide a look “under the bonnet” of the pieces, giving the audience an opportunity to critically engage and debate the composition, Kelleher said.

The title for the free lecture, which is part of the 2012-2013 Cole Performing Arts Series, was selected because it encapsulates an online course Williams and Kelleher created for SFA’s SRT program – MUT 360 Commercial Recording and Contemporary Composition – which is offered during the spring semester.

In addition to the SRT students who will benefit from the lecture, music composition students will also learn from Williams’ presentation, Kelleher said.

“Students majoring in composition will find a view of contemporary composition relevant to their interests,” Kelleher said. “Anyone with an interest in music, technology and the recording process will greatly benefit from this lecture because of Williams’ musical background and international perspective.”

In 2011, Williams was the recipient of the University of Oxford’s Humanities Division Teaching Award for supporting innovation in teaching, allowing him to devise a new course in experimental composition using Max/MSP for postgraduate composition students. His research interests are in classical recording, perceptual evaluation of microphone techniques and experimental and electronic composition. He’s had a number of commercial compositions published with EMI Production Music, De Wolfe and West One and a back catalogue with Warner-Chappel.

The Wright Music Building is located at 2210 Alumni Drive.

Stephen F. Austin State University music faculty members Mario Ajero and James Faucett will be featured in a recital at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Ajero, associate professor of piano pedagogy, and Faucett, instructor of class piano, will perform works of Alberto Ginastera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Schubert and Antonín Dvořák.

“Suite de Danzas Criollas by Alberto Ginastera is an exciting work with five contrasting movements that include rich Latin harmonies and rhythms with a virtuosic finale,” Ajero said.

Mozart’s Variations in F. major, K. 398, also featured in the performance, is based on an aria by Giovanni Paisiello entitled “Salve tu Domine.” The performance will include one of the Slavonic Dances for Piano Four Hands by Antonín Dvořák.

“Dvořák created these dances from his own material rather than basing it on previous traditional melodies,” Ajero said. “However, they represent artistic stylizations of characteristic Slavonic dances by incorporating their rhythms as an expressive element.”

Ajero coordinates the class piano program at SFA. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa. He earned a doctoral degree in music education with a concentration in piano pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma.

Faucett earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from SFA. He is also certified in piano pedagogy, teaches private lessons in Nacogdoches and is active as a church pianist..

The Cole Concert Hall is located in the Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Drive. The recital is a joint presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and School of Music.

Tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2 for students. For tickets or more information, visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS.