Everything Nac

COVID-19 has affected people in all aspects of their lives — socially, professionally and, for some, nutritionally. Thankfully, Nacogdoches Helping Other People Eat, the largest food pantry in East Texas, is receiving assistance from many community members in helping feed the hungry during this uncertain time, including Lizette Rojas, a Stephen F. Austin State University social work student and intern.

Following Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s stay-at-home order and the closure of many businesses, HOPE has seen an 88% increase from this time last year in those asking for food assistance.

“The Nacogdoches community is extremely giving, particularly during times of a crisis,” said Wilma Cordova, SFA professor of social work and member of the HOPE pantry’s board of directors. “Many people are in a situation where they need food or may need help in the near future. Social workers adhere to a code of ethics, and Lizette has demonstrated those values by mobilizing a community in a time of need. Her ability to coordinate services and donations has made a difference for the food pantry.”

Although Rojas returned to her home in Fort Worth when SFA’s campus closed in March due to the pandemic, she’s still helping the food pantry and its clients.

“I call clients to ensure they have food to tide them over,” Rojas said. “I also contact area grocers to organize the collection of boxes the pantry uses to package food for distribution. What others may see as simple tasks can be much more. A phone call or cardboard box can make a difference in how many people we can feed in a given week.”

Rojas also mobilizes volunteers to help ensure the pantry is stocked and remains open.

“Lizette’s ability to be extremely organized and create order in a chaotic situation has impressed me throughout this pandemic,” Cordova said. “Nacogdoches is a unique community in that you must be able to network and do it well. Lizette came into an agency that was already well-respected, and she has worked very hard to bring it to a level that is now even more visible and appreciated.

Rojas said she has spent the majority of her internship closely working with individuals and families in need of food or financial assistance. Some of the areas she’s helped to address include working to stop family violence, closing the health-care gap, harnessing technology for social good and ending economic inequality.

“Those who receive services from HOPE come from all walks of life, and their priority is the need for food, but sometimes they need more. Some clients may need referrals to housing, employment, medical or transportation services, and some may just want someone to listen and offer them the motivation to continue along their paths.”

As the pandemic’s effects continue, Rojas said she is determined to stay focused on making a difference — from SFA’s campus or elsewhere. “Although I’m not physically in Nacogdoches, I’m there in spirit,” Rojas said. “It’s important to me to continue my work helping my East Texas community.”

For more information about Nacogdoches HOPE, visit www.nacogdocheshope.com.

By Emily Brown, marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.

The winning artist in the 2020 Texas National Competition and Exhibition at Stephen F. Austin State University is Boerne artist Victoria Gonzales.

The announcement was made recently on the SFA School of Art website, which also features a short walk-through video of this year’s exhibition in The Cole Art Center @ the Old Opera House, SFA’s historic downtown art gallery. Annette Lawrence, professor of studio art in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas, judged the entries with the assistance of a video.

“Our juror for this year’s Texas National has taken a slightly different approach in making awards,” said John Handley, director of SFA galleries. “Rather than choosing individual works of art, she chose instead to make the awards to individual artists who have pieces in the exhibition – a nice switch, I think. So please welcome the virtual awards video posted on our website.”

Second-place artist was Chelsie Murfee of Nixa, Missouri, and third place went to Linda Reymore of Stuart, Florida. Honorable mention awards were presented to Mick Burson of Albuquerque, New Mexico; Amy Broderick of Jupiter, Florida; and Richard Parker of Pasadena, California.

The video can be accessed on Facebook at SFA Art Galleries & Cole Art Center and at art.sfasu.edu. A different artist is featured periodically on Facebook, showcasing their images, titles, medium and the artist statement, if provided. A brief video of Lawrence announcing the winners is also featured on the Facebook page.

For more information, call (936) 468-1131.

This semester’s special-topics class in a business communication at Stephen F. Austin State University started out as a crash-course in data visualization, with students tracking financial and logistics information as well as the occurrence and location of wildfires, both nationally and in Texas, using Tableau software.

A data junkie who has made a career out of turning opaque statistics into usable business intelligence, Dr. Jamie Humphries, associate professor in the Rusche College of Business, is at his best when tracking something big, something arcane that can be polished, packaged and brought to the conference-room table.

So, it was no surprise that when COVID-19 emerged as an all-consuming pandemic generating a global avalanche of data, that Humphries would realize the opportunity for his students. Quickly plugging into the public Johns Hopkins University database, continually updated with correlated data from 30 global sources, Humphries asked his students to create custom, interactive COVID-19 dashboards.

Once the basics were in place, students were asked to be inventive, to start benchmarking and tracking adjacent data like Wall Street trading to see which stocks crash and those that sizzle during a pandemic, fever charts for hotel stays and, of course, the virus’ curve and its associated death and infection rates. The more granular the better.

Though the COVID-19 project was not on the syllabus at the beginning of the semester, it’s going to be a graded assignment. And it’s also providing a golden opportunity for students to experience what it’s like in the private sector post-graduation.

“You have to pivot,” Humphries said. “You have to find something new.”

Creating customized dashboards to track a virus the size of COVID-19 has been great for the three business and two forestry students enrolled in this semester’s class. By the time it’s over, they should be qualified to take the Tableau software exam for desktop specialist and be halfway through their preparation to qualify as a certified associate, both sought-after credentials in multiple disciplines.

Humphries, in only his second semester at SFA, said the COVID-19 project has tapped into the best impulses of his students.

“These students are a lot smarter than what we give them credit for, and they can be creative,” Humphries said. “You don’t have to ask them to do it. They just do it.”

Once COVID-19 transitions into recovery and the data becomes historical, Humphries said it will still have a great deal of value for students learning the foundations of data visualization. He plans on returning to the pandemic issue, and introducing new topics, this fall.

Regardless of the topic – pandemic, the stock market, wildfires or the opioid crisis – the goal of data visualization is always the same.

“Take data and turn it into a story,” Humphries said. “No one wants to look at a spreadsheet.”

To see Humphries discuss his COVID-19 tracking process with business students, visit bit.ly/2Ll697W.

By Richard Massey, marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.