Monday, August 25, 2008

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

A RAD-ical idea

A series of six Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) classes will be offered at no charge from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. every Thursday beginning Sept. 4 through Oct. 9 in the MTSU Public Safety training room, 1412 East Main Street in Murfreesboro. The class will be open to all female MTSU students, faculty and staff, as well as to the general public. A workbook/training manual will be provided to each student. RAD is a comprehensive course for women that begins with awareness, prevention, risk reduction and avoidance and progresses to the basics of hands-on defense training. RAD is the largest women’s self-defense system in the United States. Enrollment is limited.

Contact Officer David Smith at 615-898-2424.

A fine year for full-bodied MERLOT

Dr. Jackie Gilbert, professor in the Department of Management and Marketing at MTSU, is one of eight people at institutions of higher learning nationwide honored recently by the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT). Gilbert and seven other educators on the organization’s Business Editorial Board share the MERLOT House Cup, an award created this year to recognize contributions made during an academic year. “One of the great things about being so closely involved with creating the management division is the opportunity to review and investigate some terrific learning objects for students,” Gilbert says. MERLOT strives to “improve the effectiveness of learning and teaching by increasing the quantity and quality of peer-reviewed online learning materials that can be easily incorporated into faculty-designed courses.”

Contact Gilbert at 615-898-5418.
jgilbert@mtsu.edu

Reach out and TEACH

MTSU’s Office of Financial Aid has implemented a federal program, the Teacher Education Assistance for College, or TEACH, grant, effective July 1. The program was created by Congress to assist future teachers. The grant is available to students who want to teach science, math, technology, foreign language, bilingual education, reading and special education. Undergraduate and graduate students can get up to $4,000 per year or $2,000 per semester. Students who want to earn and keep the TEACH grant must have and maintain a 3.25 grade point average or score above the 75th percentile on a standardized admissions test. Students who are not U.S. citizens also may be eligible for the TEACH grant if they meet requirements. After a grant recipient graduates, he or she is required to teach at a low-income school. Dr. Sherian Huddleston, associate vice provost for enrollment services, says there are more than 500 current MTSU students who are eligible.

Contact the Office of Financial Aid at 615-898-2830 or Huddleston at 615-898-2828.

TR EXTRA

A LONG AND SUCCESSFUL RUN--MTSU track and field coach Dean Hayes will be inducted into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCA) Hall of Fame on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at the USTFCCA convention in Phoenix, Ariz. Hayes, who has been at MTSU since 1965, has led the Blue Raiders to 29 Ohio Valley Conference titles, 14 Sun Belt championships, and 18 NCAA Top 25 finishes. He has been named OVC Coach of the Year 15 times and Sun Belt Coach of the Year 12 times, including a run of 10 straight titles from 1977 to 1986. His fellow coaches voted him NCAA Outdoor Coach of the Year in 1981. In addition to coaching at the World University Games and other international events, Hayes worked as an assistant at the Summer Olympics in Seoul in 1988 and a referee at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Contact MTSU Athletic Communications at 615-898-2968.

CLAP FOR THE WOLFEMAN--The late Dr. Charles K. Wolfe, professor emeritus of English at MTSU and cultural historian, will be inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame at an Oct. 2 ceremony at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Wolfe, who passed away in 2006, was a respected scholar of both country music and bluegrass and the author of more than a dozen books, including The Music of Bill Monroe, co-authored with Neil Rosenberg and published in 2007. Wolfe also was one of the faculty members who came up with the idea for a Center for Popular Music at MTSU. Paul Wells, director of the center, says of Wolfe’s induction, “It’s a well-deserved honor. Charles really made some great contributions to the history and literature of bluegrass music. … He wrote about what he loved, and he loved what he wrote about.” Contact Wells at 615-898-2449 or pwells@mtsu.edu.

FOR THE HEALTH OF IT--The staff of MTSU’s Health Services will welcome the community to its sparkling new facilities in the Campus Recreation Center with a 4 p.m. ribbon-cutting and grand opening slated for Wednesday, Aug. 27. “We’re bringing in a stage,” says Richard Chapman, Health Services Director. “We’re going to make it a real carnival/festival-type activity.” For the first time ever on campus, X-ray services will be available as well as travel medicine to support study abroad students. Another first and perhaps the main attraction will be the drive-thru pharmacy, which is slated to open around Oct. 1. Customers will drive in the recreation center’s main entrance, turn to the right and curve around the building, where they will encounter an ATM-type kiosk with a pneumatic tube system. For more information, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.