Everything Nac

Dr. Marcus Cox, associate professor of management in Stephen F. Austin State University’s Rusche College of Business, has been named coordinator for Business and Community Services, a new entity launched by the college to assist local and regional businesses, nonprofits and government entities with business-related activities.

“We provide assistance to the community by leveraging the expertise of our faculty and students,” Cox said. “While helping these organizations, students work on problems unique to East Texas and gain real-world experience before starting their careers.”

For specific projects, Cox uses a database of faculty expertise, course topics and projects to match regional businesses with the resources and people who can help them. He also works with businesses to create internships for SFA students that often lead to workforce opportunities for both the students after graduation and businesses looking for skilled employees.

“It is essential that we as a college of business not only leverage our resources to assist the business community but also provide real-world applications for our business students,” said Dr. Tim Bisping, dean of the college. “With the establishment of this new office housed in the Rusche College of Business and coordinated by Dr. Cox, everyone wins.”

Cox earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from SFA, a certificate of advanced management from Babson College, and his doctoral degree from the University of North Texas. He has taught at the university level for 18 years and joined the SFA faculty in 2013 to teach human resource management and strategic management.

Cox serves as the coordinator for the human resource management program at SFA. His research interests include corporate environmental performance and industry regulation, organizational misconduct, executive compensation in the nonprofit sector, and training effectiveness.

BCS is one of several entities launched recently by the College of Business to help bolster local businesses. Others include the Center for Business and Economic Research; the Greg Arnold Center for Entrepreneurship, or ACE; and the Small Business Resource Hub, which is housed in ACE.

For more information, visit sfasu.edu/cob/services/bcs.

More students are graduating sooner, and more first-year students are persisting in their studies, according to Stephen F. Austin State University’s fall 2022 enrollment numbers and success reports.

Even with a decrease in overall enrollment, the university saw growth among several populations and achieved its highest six-year graduation rate in the university’s history.

At a rate of 53.5%, SFA’s fall 2022 six-year graduation rate has consistently risen over several years and in the past five years alone has increased by approximately 5%. Additionally, the university’s first-time undergraduate retention rate is nearly 3% higher compared to five years ago.

“It is very hard to move the needle on retention and graduation rates,” said Dr. Marc Guidry, SFA associate provost, “but we have been doing it with steady progress for several years now through intentional and proactive advising, a revamped early alert system that reaches out to students early in the semester if they are not attending classes or doing assignments, and high-impact programs that direct resources to at-promise students like Generation Jacks and Aspire.”

SFA’s enrollment for fall 2022 was 11,327, marking a 5% drop from last year’s total. The decrease correlates with a national downward trend in higher education enrollment as universities continue to struggle from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a spring 2022 study from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, postsecondary institutions have lost nearly 1.3 million students since spring 2020 — the brunt of that loss suffered by public institutions.

Despite these figures, administrators say positive progress is being made at SFA in many areas.

“We know the overall enrollment trend nationally is on the decline; however, SFA did have some positive movement forward,” said Rachele’ Garrett, SFA’s interim executive director for enrollment management and Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships director. “For the last two fall semesters, we have seen an increase in our first-year student population. We are also experiencing growth with our admissions and financial aid applications.”

SFA also experienced a spike in dual credit enrollment, which grew by 11% from fall 2020.

“SFA has partnerships with East Texas schools that provide access to core curriculum coursework. Not only are students earning credit toward their high school diploma, but they also are able to complete their bachelor’s degree with SFA much sooner,” Garrett added. “We are encouraged by the growing number of students taking advantage of this program.”

The Micky Elliott College of Fine Arts reported the most significant graduate student headcount increase, with graduate enrollment in the college growing by 18% from the last academic year. Its undergraduate enrollment also grew slightly.

“As of last year, the SFA School of Music offered the only all-online master’s degree in music composition in the country, headed by Dr. Stephen Lias,” said Dr. Gary Wurtz, dean of the college. “With data provided by him, we secured support from SFA Provost Dr. Lorenzo Smith to hire a new faculty composer, allowing us to accept a significant number of new graduate students in an area where we previously had to turn students away.”

Wurtz also attributed the college’s ability to stave off enrollment decline to the “substantial gift to the college by local businessman Bill Elliott last fall. We used earnings from that endowment to offer scholarships to prospective art, theatre, dance and music students, who ultimately chose SFA as their college home.”

In addition to enrollment growth, the Elliott College of Fine Arts also experienced a 14% increase in graduate semester credit hours.

“Ultimately, faculty and staff in the ECFA are dedicated to recruiting,” Wurtz said. “They dedicate numerous hours to visiting high schools, hosting workshops and summer programs, corresponding with prospective students, and more, to promote our programs. There is no shortage of students who want to study the fine arts at SFA, so investing proper resources into scholarships, programs and faculty for this college is a great investment in growth.”

Additionally, SFA’s Hispanic student headcount proportion increased by a percentage point, and international student enrollment rose by more than 12%.

For more information on SFA’s fall enrollment, visit the Office of Institutional Research’s website at sfasu.edu/ir.

By Christine Broussard, assistant director for strategic communications at Stephen F. Austin State University

The School of Music at Stephen F. Austin State University will present guest pianist Sung-Soo Cho in a recital at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Cho will present “Alexander Scriabin’s 150th: The Complete Études for Piano.”

“I first learned about the half (Op. 8) several years ago, and learned the rest of them in the following years,” Cho said. “I first presented them in their entirety at the beginning of the pandemic, and when I could first bring them back, it is the composer’s 150th year!”

According to Cho, the history of music reveals no personality, no phenomenon, quite like Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, describing him as “a visionary who deserted the world of normal experience for that of the occult.”

“It would be no coincidence that he was born on Russian Christmas and died on Easter,” Cho said. “His music is as hot as fire and as cold as ice. I hope the audience enjoys the journey: Transformation from Chopinesque to Mysticism!”

Cho describes a portion of his program: “Evocative of Chopin (perhaps in particular his Études in slow tempos), the Étude in C sharp minor, Op. 2 No. 1, written when Scriabin was 15, is a brooding and masterful piece that foreshadows his genius. The closing Etude in D sharp minor, Op. 8 No. 12, is another long effort and features a powerful sense of yearning as if expressing some dire frustration or failure. Op. 42 No. 5, in C sharp minor, has a sinister character to its roiling bass, but a sense of passion to its agitated main theme. The alternate theme is lovely and contrasts well with its more-tempered Romanticism.”

Scriabin was interested in Friedrich Nietzsche’s superhuman (Übermensch) theory, and later became interested in theosophy. Preoccupied with esoteric philosophy, he developed his own personal and abstract mysticism, which gave rise to the mystic chord and synesthesia. Scriabin developed a musical system based on color theory and started associating colors with various harmonic tones of his atonal scale.

Cho’s musical perception has drawn critical acclaim. Awarded Best American Contemporary Performance at the Cincinnati World Piano Competition and Best Performance of the Commissioned Work at the Texas State International Piano Competition, he enjoys broadening his passion for contemporary music. He has appeared as a soloist throughout the world, including appearances with the Prime Philharmonic of Korea, the Festival Chamber Orchestra of Lublin Philharmonic, The Ashdod Symphony Orchestra, and The Round Rock Symphony. His performance highlights include solo recitals at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Yamaha Artist Services in Seoul, and the Kumho Art Hall. He is currently a full-time collaborative pianist at Midwestern State University Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts.

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit finearts.sfasu.edu. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.