Thursday, March 22, 2007

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

To protect and serve

The Department of Public Safety at MTSU will set up a field-sobriety check point on campus on FRIDAY evening and repeat it on a quarterly basis throughout the year. This will be the second time such a check point has been implemented this academic year. The first one occurred last December. A grant awarded to the department, financed with funds administered through the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Governor’s Highway Safety Office, helped to provide the necessary personnel and time to make this effort possible. Associate Police Chief Roy Brewer says, “We have been fortunate that, with the university’s growth, we have not had a fatality crash on campus as of yet. We are aware of more numerous fatality crashes off campus involving MTSU students.”

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

The competition

Talented young pianists from throughout the region and even from as far away as Japan will gather for the 11th annual Clavierfest competition SATURDAY in MTSU’s Wright Music Building. The daylong event will culminate with a 7:30 p.m. finalists’ competition/concert, which is free and open to the public, in the T. Earl Hinton Music Hall. The 7:30 concert will feature the competition’s 12 top finalists. Three finalists will be selected from each of four categories, including K-3rd grade, 4th-6th grades, 7th-9th grades, and 10th-12th grades. “The concert of finalists has always been very inspiring and impressive and represents some of the best young talent in the area,” says Dr. Jerry Perkins, coordinator of keyboard studies at MTSU.

For more information, contact the McLean School of Music at 615-898-2493.

“We must not demean life by standing in awe of death.”—David Sarnoff

Dr. William M. Bass, an internationally recognized expert in the field of forensic anthropology who has gained prominence through his research facility, the UT Body Farm, will deliver a free and open guest lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 27, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of MTSU’s Business Aerospace Building. The upcoming visit by Bass will mark the formal kickoff for the Forensic Institute for Research and Education (FIRE), which is led by Dr. Hugh Berryman, sociology and anthropology, and serve as the inaugural talk in the university’s newly established William M. Bass Legends in Forensic Science Lectureship.

For more information, contact Connie Huddleston in the College of Liberal Arts at 615-494-7628.

TR EXTRA

WOMEN ON THE STAGE--The annual Miss Southern Tennessee Pageant and Miss Southern Tennessee Teen Pageant will be held at 6:30 p.m. SATURDAY at Keathley University Center Theater. The producer will be Miss USA 2000 Lynette Cole, a native of Columbia, Tenn. Wesley Stiles and Mary Grace Williams from Generation for Creation will provide the entertainment. The event will be hosted by Miss Tennessee America Blair Pancake. Contestants ranging in age from 15 to 26 will compete in their respective age categories for titles, crowns, prizes, and much more. The admission fee is $5 at the door. For more information, go to http://www.MissSouthernTennessee.com.
For advance tickets, contact Mary Glass at 615-898-5145 or mglass@mtsu.edu.

WOMEN AND ENGINEERING--Find out about the careers available in the engineering field at the MTSU Women in Engineering Panel at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 29, in Room 100 of the Davis Science Building. A reception will follow the panel discussion. The speakers will be Susan D. Ferrell, Nuclear Assurance Project Manager at TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant; Fiona King, E.I., Infrastructure Marketing Specialist for Gresham, Smith and Partners; and Brenda Sanford, Conservation Engineer, Prince George’s County (Maryland) Soil Conservation District. Students are invited to join the panelists for dinner in the James Union Building at 5:30 p.m. (Students must purchase their own dinners.) For more information, contact Dr. Judith Iriarte-Gross at 615-904-8253 or jiriarte@mtsu.edu.

WOMEN AND THE MEDIA--Lynn Sherr, correspondent for the ABC News program “20/20,” will be the keynote speaker at “Women and Media: Are Women’s Voices Heard in Mainstream Journalism?,” a National Women’s History Month event sponsored by the Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies. The event will take place Monday, March 26, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of the Business Aerospace Building beginning at 2:20 p.m. with a panel discussion that addresses the main topic. The moderator will be Beverly Keel, director of the Seigenthaler Chair. Sherr will deliver her speech, “Women, Politics and the Media,” at 6 p.m. All talks are free and open to the public. Media welcomed. Contact Keel at 615-898-5150 or bkeel@mtsu.edu.

THE DAVIS DIG--A group of MTSU students has won an Award of Excellence from the Tennessee Association of Museums (TAM). Dr. Brenden Martin, history, says graduate students in his Museum Management Seminar class spent last semester planning and constructing the award-winning exhibit titled “Recovering Their Story: African Americans on the Davis Plantation, 1850-1925.” The project now is a permanent exhibit at the Sam Davis Home in Smyrna. “Interpreting artifacts uncovered in a 2004 archeological dig, the exhibit tells the story of free and enslaved African Americans who lived on the plantation,” says Martin. The professor and his students will receive their award during the 2007 TAM Annual Conference, which will be held THROUGH FRIDAY at the Double Tree Hotel in Murfreesboro. For more information, contact Martin at 615-898-2643 or cbmartin@mtsu.edu

SPRING HAS SPRUNG--Openings remain for the MTSU Spring Preview Day, which is scheduled for this SATURDAY. J. Christopher Fleming, associate director of admissions, says students and parents or guardians interested in attending the first of two Spring Preview Days are being directed to the Office of Admissions’ new registration system, Book-it-Now. Prospective students can schedule a visit at http://www.mtsu.edu/~admissn/tour by clicking on the “Schedule Campus Tours” hotlink. The second preview day will be Saturday, April 21.For more information, call 615-898-5670.

READY FOR DENNYBALL?--Denny McLain, whose pitching brilliance propelled the Detroit Tigers to the 1968 World Series championship, will deliver the luncheon address at MTSU’s second annual Conference on Baseball in Literature and Culture Friday, March 30, in the James Union Building. McLain, the last Major League pitcher to win more than 30 games in a season, chalked up 31 victories in 1968, capturing the league’s Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Awards. His life took a tragic turn with federal convictions on racketeering and extortion charges in the 1980s and money laundering, conspiracy and theft charges in the 1990s. His forthcoming book is titled I Told You I Wasn’t Perfect.Contact Warren Tormey, assistant professor of English, at 615-494-7878 or tormey@mtsu.edu.

THAT’S CHOW, NOT CIAO!--An array of mouthwatering delights from all around the world is on the menu for this year’s International Banquet Saturday, March 31, in the Tennessee Room of the James Union Building. Attendees will have the opportunity to dine on Irish stew, vegetable stir-fried rice, shrimp coconut curry, tandori chicken (marinated in Indian spices and roasted), German pork schnitzel with brown sauce, beef fajitas, Asian cole slaw, spring mix salad with dressing, sushi, and assorted pastries. Tickets are $16 for adults, $14 for children age 12 and under, $14 for students from other colleges or schools, and $10 for MTSU students. The doors will open at 4:30 p.m. for viewing of cultural exhibits. The meal will begin promptly at 5 p.m. For further information, call 615-898-2238, or go to Room 124 of MTSU’s Keathley University Center.

FREEDOM ON DISPLAY--"Free at Last! Emancipation and Reconstruction in Tennessee," an exhibit created by the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area (TCWNHA), will travel throughout middle Tennessee this spring and summer. The two-panel exhibit, which is on display now through March 30 at the Roy Bailey African-American History Center in Lebanon, emphasizes the significance of emancipation as a result of the Civil War, says Antoinette van Zelm, historian for the TCWNHA. "Freedom for former slaves was a key outcome of the Civil War, and it was the slaves themselves who made it happen," van Zelm said. "They took advantage of the presence of the occupying Union army to break down the bonds of slavery." For a complete list of tour stops, contact Laura Holder, manager of the TCWNHA, at 615-898-2947 or via e-mail at lholder@mtsu.edu.

BRICK BY BRICK--Each and every brick to be laid in the MTSU Veterans Memorial will represent the support of an entire community for the enlightenment and inspiration of future generations. The bricks may be reserved by all those who wish to honor a veteran or active-duty service member or merely acknowledge their support for the construction of a permanent on-campus memorial to MTSU faculty, students, staff and administrators who perished while serving their country. The bricks will be integrated into the overall memorial design. All proceeds will help to pay for the memorial, which will be an outdoor classroom that includes a wall with the names of the military personnel. To purhcase a brick with a memorial message, send a tax-deductible check of $150 payable to “MTSU Foundation—Veterans Memorial,” to P.O. Box 109, Murfreesboro, TN 37132. Credit cards also are accepted. Address any questions about brick purchases or donations to Robyn Kilpatrick at 615-898-5223 or rkilpatr@mtsu.edu.

GET INTO THE SWIM OF THINGS--The works of Kenda North are on display through April 19 in a photography exhibit titled “Urban Pools” at MTSU’s Baldwin Photographic Gallery. This exhibit is comprised of color Iris prints ranging in sizes up to 33” x 47”. The images were photographed underwater with a Nikonos 35mm camera. The original color negatives have been scanned and worked through Photoshop. North will give a slide show/lecture on her work at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 2, in Room 221 of the Learning Resources Center. A reception will follow in the gallery. Baldwin Photographic Gallery is located in the center. The gallery will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Saturdays from 12 noon to 4 p.m. Exhibitions and lectures are free and open to the public. This exhibit is co-sponsored by the National Women’s History Month Committee. Contact Tom Jimison at 615-898-2085 or tjimison@mtsu.edu.