Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

It’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it.

The Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp will host an all-girl dance party from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. SATURDAY at SportsCom, 2310 Memorial Blvd. in Murfreesboro, to kick off registration for this year’s camp. The festivities will be open to girls ages 10-17. DJs Bawston Sean and Nicole Tekulve will provide the music. Admission is $10 at the door. Prior to and during the dance party, camp organizers will register girls and volunteers for the fifth annual day camp, which is slated for July 16-21 on the MTSU campus. This year’s camp will feature instruction in voice, keyboards, drums, guitar, electronic music, and vocals. A special discount tuition rate of $225 will be available through Feb. 28. From March 1 to May 1, tuition will cost $250.

For more information, visit http://www.sgrrc.org or send an e-mail to sgrrc05@gmail.com

The sky is falling!

The recent “terrorism” scare in Boston that turned out to be nothing more than a marketing campaign by Cartoon Network put Dr. Larry Burriss, journalism, in mind of a more low-tech approach taken during the Great Depression. The words “They’re coming” were scrawled on sidewalks across the country. Officials, assuming that invasions of hobos were imminent, added extra police patrols and, in some places, vigilantes prepared to dole out their own form of justice. It turned out to be a marketing campaign for a breakfast cereal. “If we were to call the police every time we saw the potential for terrorist activity, they would be responding 24 hours a day,” Burriss says. “And then your routine criminals would know the city was unprotected. If one of the goals of terrorists is to disrupt society, they sure succeeded in Boston.”

Contact Burriss at 615-898-2983.
lburriss@mtsu.edu

“Alternative Fuel Day”

Dave Pelton with Clean Air for Tennessee will speak to the Field Crops class of Alanna Neely, agribusiness and agriscience, from 2:40 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. TOMORROW in the main classroom of the Horticulture Center. The subject will be alternative fuels. Drs. Warren Anderson and Cliff Ricketts of the MTSU faculty also will address the class. Ricketts is known for his electric hybrid five-speed solar-powered Nissan pickup truck. Its power is produced by a 10-kilowatt solar array. “Every day we are hearing about the future impacts of alternative fuels,” Neely says. “I am constantly asked questions like ‘What does this mean for Ag?’ and ‘Will there be many ethanol distributing plants in Tennessee?’”

Contact Neely at 615-898-2432.
alneely@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

GIVE ME JUST A LITTLE MORE TIME--Officials at MTSU have extended the deadline to March 1 for prospective students wanting to apply for the EdScholar scholarships and approximately 70 MTSU Foundation scholarships offered by the Office of Financial Aid, Bonnie McCarty, assistant director of scholarships, said today. The deadline was to be Feb. 15. A transition to a new computer software system from an old one is the reason for the extension. In addition to applying for the scholarships (EdScholar can be done online), students must apply for admission to the university. For information, call Admissions at 615-898-2111 or Financial Aid at 615-898-2830, or visit their Web sites at http://www.mtsu.edu.

AND THE WINNER IS …-- Dr. Connie Jones-Wade, chair of the Department of Elementary and Special Education, College of Education and Behavioral Science, will receive the John Pleas Faculty Award in a ceremony from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. TODAY in the Tom H. Jackson Building. For more information, contact Rosemary Owens at 615-898-2180 or owens@mtsu.edu.

ON THE JOB--The Tennessee Center for Labor-Management Relations will present a workshop on “The Legal Matrix of Workplace Injuries” from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. TODAY at 1313 Old Fort Parkway, Suite 300, in Murfreesboro. Workshop speakers will include Joan Hill, attorney education representative for United Steelworkers International, and Mark Travis, an attorney with the firm of Wimberly, Lawson, Seale, Wright & Daves. The workshop will examine questions raised by the simultaneous application of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family Leave and Medical Act, as well as state workers’ compensation laws. Participants also will address collaborative ways in which to reduce the impact of work-related injuries on the employee’s “ability to work” and the employer’s “bottom line.” For more information, please visit http://www.tnlabormgmt.org.

LOVE HURTS--The fifth annual Tunnel of Love, an interactive event to raise awareness about sexually transmitted diseases, will be hosted by the Department of Health and Human Performance from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. TODAY in the James Union Building’s Tennessee Room. There will be an exhibit featuring literature about the most current statistics of both bacterial and viral STDs, complete with pictures of STDs. Classes are welcomed to attend the self-guided event. Also, vendors will be on hand to distribute safe-sex packets. According to the recent findings released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 19 million new reported cases of sexually transmitted infections each year—and half of them are among those ages 16-24. Contact Casie Higginbotham, HHP instructor, at 615-904-8274 or chigginb@mtsu.edu.

VAUDEVILLE ISN’T DEAD!--Five current or former MTSU faculty members will help create an evening of frivolity in An Evening of Chekhov’s Vaudevilles, a presentation of the Murfreesboro Ensemble Theatre (MET) THROUGH FEB. 18 at the Murfreesboro/Rutherford County Center for the Arts. The entertainment will consist of three one-act farces—The Bear, The Proposal, and Swan Song—with short performances by jugglers, magicians, acrobats and singers as interludes. Times are 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 16 and 17 and at 2:00 p.m. on Feb. 18. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for children and seniors. The Center for the Arts, a non-profit organization, is located at 110 West College Street. For ticket information, call 615-904-ARTS. To interview director Ayne Cantrell, call 615-893-1786 or write to acantrell@comcast.net. To interview MET founder and artistic director Tom Harris, call 615-895-0755 or write to millermn@comcast.net.

THE FREEDOM OF DANCE--“In the Spirit of Pearl: Using Identiy and Womanist Thought to Liberate Performance” will be presented TOMORROW through FRIDAY in Room 140 of the Fairview Building. Facilitated by Ursula Payne, award-winning choreographer and the artistic director of Soul Deep Creations, this performance workshop will explore issues of race, gender, class and identity. Payne has danced in the film “Beloved” and with the National Black Arts Festival. Contact Kim Neal Nofsinger at nofinge@mtsu.edu for more information.

SOUTH OF THE BORDER--“Landscapes of Mexico,” a photography exhibit featuring the works of Hector Montes de Oca, is on display through February 28 at Baldwin Photographic Gallery in the Learning Resources Center. The exhibit is made up of 40 silver gelatine black-and-white prints. He is considered to be one of the most prominent Mexican photographers of his generation. He is especially distinguished for his black-and-white landscapes, which reveal his native country in a most striking and intimate manner. The exhibit will be open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Mr. de Oca will present a slide show/lecture on his work at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 28, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of the Business Aerospace Building. Exhibitions and lectures are free and open to the public. Contact Tom Jimison at 615-898-2085 or tjimison@mtsu.edu.

ROCK, ROLL, AND RUN THE MIXING BOARD--If you missed the first Youth Culture and Arts Center recording workshop series of the year, you still have plenty of chances to learn cassette four-track, digital eight-track, computer recording and electronic music. It’s the hippest, smartest extracurricular activity your kids will ever enjoy. Children ages 12-17 are invited to participate under the tutelage of Ryan York, teacher of guitar, bass and drums at Chambers Guitars and Musical Instruments in Murfreesboro for a fee of $125. Classes are taught in Room 149 of the John Bragg Mass Communication Building each Thursday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and each Sunday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Registration is open now for the next session, which will last from Feb. 15 through Mar. 11. For more information, contact York at bororecording@gmail.com.