Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

Football fest

This year, the MTSU Rutherford County Alumni Chapter’s annual Pigskin Pregame will be held Saturday, Aug. 25, to kick off the football season. The event will be held at the home of Terry and Lisa Haynes, who live at 1707 Riverview Dr. in Murfreesboro. Tickets for the event, which will run from 7 until 11 p.m., will be $25 if purchased by Aug. 22 (TODAY) or $30 at the door. The ticket price includes an exclusive preview of one of Murfreesboro’s newest restaurants, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, wine, beer truck, soft drinks, music, door prizes and more. All proceeds will benefit the Rutherford County Alumni Chapter Scholarship Fund. The Blue Raiders will open the season Saturday, Sept. 1, at Florida Atlantic in Boca Raton.

Call 1-800-533-6878 or visit http://www.mtalumni.com for information or tickets.
To interview Paul Wydra, assistant director, Office of Alumni Relations, or Ginger Freeman, director of the office, call 615-898-2922.

An historic moment

MTSU’s Department of History has its first permanent female chair ever. Dr. Amy Staples has been named to lead the department of 64 faculty members following a national search. Her specialties are post-1945 U.S. history and U.S. diplomatic history. Staples says one of her goals for the department is to see the first student graduate with a Ph.D. in public history in December 2007. Beyond this, “Some of my longer-term department goals are to develop stronger ties with our alumni and to develop a stronger extracurricular support network for our history majors … (such as) workshops on career and graduate school opportunities, resources for our majors doing their student teaching and an annual conference for students to present their research,” Staples says.

To arrange an interview with Staples, contact Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-2919 or lrollins@mtsu.edu.

Not as a stranger

One of today’s most widely used gases was named for the Greek word for “stranger” because originally it was thought that the gas could not bond with other elements. British chemist Neil Bartlett dispelled this notion about xenon in 1962. “The brightness of discharges from electrically excited xenon gas makes it useful in strobe lights and bactericidal lamps, not to mention safer night driving in a Mercedes-Benz,” says Dr. Preston MacDougall, chemistry. “In 1971, Russian scientists discovered a new kind of laser that emitted intense beams of ultraviolet light. They called it an excimer laser because the light originated from excited dimers of xenon atoms.” Argon fluoride excimer lasers are used to etch and sketch microscopic transistors and circuits on silicon computer chips.

Contact MacDougall at 615-898-5265.
pmacdoug@mtsu.edu


TR EXTRA

AUDIO AUGMENTATION--Give your kids a wholesome, fun extracurricular activity this school year. Enroll your child in the Youth Culture and Arts Center’s (YCAC) next recording workshop at MTSU. The current enrollment period is in effect through Sept. 7 for the upcoming Sept. 13-Oct. 12 workshop in MTSU’s John Bragg Mass Communication Building. The workshop is for youngsters ages 12-17, and the fee is $125 per student. Classes are taught by Ryan York, a 21-year-old MTSU student and teacher of guitar, bass, and drums lessons at Chambers Guitars and Musical Instruments in Murfreesboro. Ryan will provide instruction in cassette four-track instruction, digital eight-track, computer recording and electronic music. All proceeds will benefit YCAC, a program of Youth Empowerment Through Arts and Humanities (YEAH), a nonprofit organization. Call 615-631-9479 or contact York at bororecording@gmail.com.

EIGHT DAYS A WEEK—ER, MAKE THAT TWELVE--Where does a week equal 12 days? At MTSU, where the 2007 Week of Welcome will begin this Friday, Aug. 24, with the all-day We-Haul (moving into the dorms), dinner and music at the Quad, a performance by Floyd the Barber at 6 p.m., and a free movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” at 8 p.m. We-Haul continues Saturday, Aug. 25, when there will be information booths set up from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., a dinner and a street fair starting at 6 p.m. behind Corlew Hall. The culmination of the Week of Welcome will be the Blue Raiders’ second football game of the season. They’ll take on the University of Louisville Cardinals in Louisville, Ky. Thursday, Sept. 6. Contact Rob Patterson, Coordinator of New Student and Family Programs, at 615-898-2454 or rpatters@mtsu.edu.