Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

NOTE: With classes slated to end Dec. 6 and professors planning to leave campus, “Today’s Response” will go on hiatus Monday, Dec. 4 for the holiday season. “Today’s Response” will return on Monday, Jan. 16, 2007.

“Performing Gender”

“Performing Gender” will be the embedded theme for the 2007 Interdiscipinary Conference in Women’s Studies Feb. 22-24, 2007 in the James Union Building. Among the guest speakers will be keynote speaker Jill Dolan, author of Presence and Desire: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Performance and Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater. Marissa Richmond, historian and president of the Tennessee Transgender Action Committee, will discuss transgender history. Playwright and performance artist Deb Margolin will introduce her new full-length work. Margolin has been awarded an Obie for sustained excellence of performance and the Joseph Kesselring Prize for playwriting. Conference registration will be $75 ($85 on-site) for non-students and $30 ($35 on-site) for students and unemployed and underemployed individuals. The conference fee is waived for the MTSU community.

For more information on the conference and registration, visit http://www.womenstu.web.mtsu.edu and click on “Women’s Studies Conference.”

Clean and sober

MTSU’s Department of Public Safety will establish field-sobriety check points on campus the evening of Thursday, Dec. 7, and repeat them on a quarterly basis throughout the year. Police officials say there is a higher incidence of drunk driving right before and during traditional academic breaks. “Our goal is to reduce the number of impaired drivers by being proactive,” Associate Chief Roy Brewer says. The check points are made possible in part through a grand awarded to the department with funds administered by the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Governor’s Highway Safety Office. The overall goal is to reduce alcohol- and drug-related fatalities in Tennessee to 35 percent in 2006 from a baseline of 41 percent in the year 2000.

Contact Police Chief Buddy Peaster or Associate Police Chief Roy Brewer at 615-898-2424.

Sing ye chorus, all together!

The MTSU Women’s Chorale will present a free “sounds of the season” concert at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30 in the Hinton Music Hall on the MTSU campus. Dr. Jamila McWhirter, Women’s Chorale director, says the concert will begin with four piano preludes arranged and performed by sophomore Tracey Phillips. The preludes will be The Christmas Song, I Saw Three Ships, In the Bleak Midwinter, and The Christmas Waltz. Other selections will include Ave Maria, Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, Let It Snow, Deck the Halls, and Carol of the Bells. The Nov. 30 performance is free and open to the public.

Contact Tim Musselman at 615-898-2493.
tmusselm@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

VIBRANT VERSE--Students and teachers in grades 6-8 will delve into poetry in “Promoting Student Thinking: Using Poetry to Scaffold Student Creativity,” a satellite videoconference slated for 9 a.m. CST TODAY. Dr. Bobbie Solley, elementary and special education, and Beverly Barnes of Community High School in Bedford County will demonstrate ways in which poetry from both published poets and student poets can foster creativity. They will examine poems and poets that are especially appropriate for middle grade learners. In addition, students will write their own original poems. For more information, contact Jenny Marsh at 615-898-2737 or vmoxley@mtsu.edu

A WHOLE NEW WORLD--Your children can be transported to Japan, China and Indonesia without flight reservations. A new exhibit at the Discovery Center enables youngsters to play dress-up with sarongs and kimonos, view animated superhero Astro Boy or learn about Japanese folklore on a 20-inch DVD player, construct their own colorful kites, make origami figures, work challenging tangram puzzles, stage their own hand puppet theatre and hold Japanese tea parties. The interactive exhibit is made possible by generous donations from Toshiba, Nissan, the Foreign Ministry of Japan and the Japan-U.S. Program of MTSU. The Discovery Center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $5 for anyone age 2 and up. Contact Steve Hoskins at the Discovery Center, 502 SE Broad Street, Murfreesboro, at 615-890-2300.