Thursday, January 29, 2009

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

Building the better baby backfield

Atlas Sports of Boulder, Colorado, is offering a $149 test that the company claims will help determine what a child’s natural athletic abilities are. It involves using a cheek swab to search for the ACTN3 gene, which has been linked to athletic abilities. Dr. Mark Anshel, health and human performance, says, “This is a dangerous test because no published research currently exists that supports the extent to which genetic predisposition predicts athletic success. There is extensive literature on ‘talent identification’ in sport, and not test exists that predicts future sport success. One reason for this is that there are too many other factors that are predictive of sport success. These include coaching, skill instruction, opportunity to compete, physiological and anatomical growth and development, and practice.”

Contact Anshel at 615-898-2812.
manshel@mtsu.edu

The Pampers portfolio

There’s always enormous focus on what kind of television commercials will run during the Super Bowl. But Dr. Don Roy, management and marketing, says TV ads are only the beginning. He says, “Examples of communication tools Super Bowl advertisers can and should utilize include public relations efforts in advance of the game to tout their commercial, a presence on YouTube to show teasers or other video to pique interest, search engine ads driving traffic to the advertiser’s Web site, and a social networking presence to allow interested persons to connect with the brand around the Super Bowl commercial message.” For example, E*Trade, which increased its brokerage accounts 32 percent following last year’s Super Bowl, now has its creepy market maven baby on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Contact Roy at 615-904-8564.
droy@mtsu.edu

Melting pot, mosaic, or mélange?

Eugene Robinson, associate editor and columnist for the Washington Post and MSNBC political analyst, will speak at 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4, in MTSU’s Keathley University Center Theater. This event, which is co-sponsored by the Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies and the MTSU Black History Committee, is free and open to the public. Robinson, whose twice-weekly Post column is syndicated in 145 newspapers across the country, will speak on “We’re Someplace We’ve Never Been: Race, Diversity and the New America.” The address will focus on Robinson’s upbringing in segregated South Carolina with reviews of the educational and economic progress made by African-Americans, the increase in interracial marriage, the rise of Latinos as the largest minority group in the U.S., the polarization of Americans according to class, and the scientific consensus that race is meaningless except as a social construct.

For more information, contact Dr. Sekou Franklin at 615-904-8232.
franklin@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

DESIGNING WOMEN—AND MEN--Shirley Horowitz, interior designer and owner of Davishire Interiors, will visit MTSU on Saturday, Feb. 7, to serve as the keynote speaker for the 4th Annual Interior Design Showcase. Members of the MTSU student chapter of ASID/IIDA will serve as hosts for the Nashville-based designer’s upcoming talk, “An Interior Design Journey: The Interior Renovation of Far Hills, Tennessee Governor’s Residence,” which will be presented in the Tennessee Room of MTSU’s James Union Building. In addition to the public lecture, “Students in the MTSU interior design program will present vignettes of drawings, models and project boards that include residential, contract, commercial and lighting design,” says Deborah Belcher, registered interior designer and faculty adviser for ASID/IIDA. Tickets are $25 each and include a 6 p.m. reception, 7 p.m. dinner and a 7:30 p.m. lecture. Tickets must be purchased by Monday, Feb. 2. For more information, contact Belcher at 615-898-5604 or dbelcher@mtsu.edu.

WE CAN BE HEROES FOR MORE THAN ONE DAY.--An annual hallmark of Black History Month at MTSU since 1996, the 2009 Unity Luncheon honoring “unsung heroes” in the community will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3, in the Tennessee Room of MTSU’s James Union Building. This year’s honorees are Annie M. Cox, James E. McAdams Sr., Rev. James Thomas, Carl Wade, William Washington and Katie F. Wilson. Tickets for the Unity Luncheon are $20 for adults and $8 for students. No tickets will be sold at the door. For more information, contact Valerie Avent at 615-898-2718 or vavent@mtsu.edu.

A WORD ON WORDS--Middle-school and high-school students who have a way with words will vie to determine verbal supremacy in the Third Annual Linguistics Olympiad at MTSU on Saturday, Jan. 31, on the second floor of the Business and Aerospace Building. More than 80 students representing eight schools in the region are enrolled in junior and senior levels of competition. Traditional challenges in the Olympiad include such exercises as identifying the word formation of a foreign language based on the information presented, deciphering proverbs from other languages, finding commonalities among English words, and decoding cryptic messages. “Following the competition, we have organized fun activities for the students while judges are scoring, including Swahili 101, Word Games, and Psycholinguistic Experiments,” says Dr. Aleka Blackwell, associate professor of English. Contact Blackwell at 615-898-5960 orablackwe@mtsu.edu.

THE WISDOM OF WOMEN--The President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) is accepting applications from MTSU faculty for three grants of $1,800 each to be awarded in summer 2009 for integrating women’s issues into the curriculum. The grants are for use by tenured or tenure-track professors for the revision of a course, revision of a general education course for the Study Abroad program, the creation of a new course, the re-conceptualization of a current minor, or the creation of a new minor. Proposals will be reviewed by the Academic Affairs Subcommittee of the PCSW. The deadline for faculty to submit grant applications is tomorrow, Jan. 30. Details are available at http://www.mtsu.edu/~pcsw/grants.htm. Contact Dr. Samantha Cantrell in the Office of Research Services at 615-494-8751 or scantrel@mtsu.edu.

“I DO NOT CONSIDER MYSELF AS HAVING MASTERED THE FLUTE, BUT I GET A REAL KICK OUT OF TRYING.”—JAMES GALWAY--The ninth annual MTSU Flute Festival, featuring guest artist Katherine Kemler, will be held Saturday, Jan. 31, with registration beginning at 8 a.m. in the Wright Music Building lobby on the MTSU campus. Kemler will give a 1 p.m. recital performance and a 3:30 p.m. master class in the Hinton Music Hall of the Wright Music Building. In addition, Kemler will give a workshop titled “Introduction to Body Mapping for Flutist” at 2:30 p.m. “Dr. Kemler is an exciting and vivacious performer,” says Deanna Little, associate professor of flute and organizer of the festival. “Her enthusiasm is infectious and all that attend will be sure to have a fantastic experience.” Admission is $15 to register for the day as a participating flutist. The general public may register as guests for one or all of the public concerts and competitions for a one-time charge of $5. For more information, go to www.mtsu.edu/~drhahn/flutefest09.html or call Little at 615-898-2473.