Friday, January 22, 2010

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

“Always be nice to secretaries. They are the real gatekeepers in the world.”—Anthony J. D’Angelo

Secretaries and clerks who toil in academic and nonacademic units to keep MTSU’s day-to-day essential functions functioning take care of their own and take care of the university through the Association of Secretarial and Clerical Workers. ASCE members hold annual pecan sales to fund a scholarship that helps pay for the Certified Professional Secretary (CPE) exam. Employees who pass this exam are eligible for a nine percent pay raise, and they upgrade their workplace skills through the intense study required to pass. President Kym Stricklin says she joined to reach out beyond the digital communication that has revolutionized the workplace to establish real human contact. “I still think there’s a tremendous value in networking and knowing who to call in another department, establishing a professional relationship beyond e-mails,” she says. The ASCE Web site is http://www.mtsu.edu/asce/.

Contact Stricklin at 615-898-2523.
kstrick@mtsu.edu

Check it out.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the agency that insures bank deposits up to at least $250,000, says that 53 percent of African-American households and 43 percent of Hispanic households use check cashers, payday lenders or pawnbrokers rather than banks. Some activists say these businesses prey on and manipulate disempowered minorities. Dr. Jacque Wade, social work, says, “Check cashing stores are relatively unregulated and are free to charge high fees. They have stringent rules, which amount to ‘predatory’ check cashing behaviors. The fact that banks are notoriously inaccessible as a check cashing alternative in these communities often makes the check cashers ‘the only game in town,’ thus rendering members of these communities with little or no other choice but to use them as their ‘bankers.’”

Contact Wade at 615-898-2477.
jewade@mtsu.edu

Working it out.

A new study by MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center (BERC) finds that a seven-county Middle Tennessee area has substantial available labor, and local leaders can use that information to promote their localities to companies. The study of Bedford, Coffee, Franklin, Grundy, Lincoln, Moore and Warren counties was conducted by Dr. Murat Arik, BERC associate director, and Dr. David Penn, BERC director. Its executive summary states that many of these workers “have multiple skills and educational attainment (of an) associate degree and beyond. Given the wage rates that available workers are willing to accept for a job, the seven-county region offers a healthy pool of labor … to the prospective businesses or those businesses expanding in the region.”

Contact Arik and Penn at 615-898-2610.
marik@mtsu.edu
dpenn@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

GIVE ME SOME MEN WHO ARE STOUTHEARTED MEN--The Collegiate 100 Black Men of MTSU will celebrate its 15th anniversary by holding an induction ceremony for the fall 2009 class at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 24, in the Tennessee Room of the James Union Building. Nineteen young men will be inducted. Members of the Fisk University and Tennessee State University chapters also will be in attendance. The keynote speaker will be Brother Vincent Phipps, founding president of the Collegiate 100. Light refreshments will be served after the ceremony. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Travis Stratton at 901-255-4356 or tts2d@mtsu.edu or the Office of Intercultural and Diversity Affairs at 615-898-5812.

“INVISIBLE AIRWAVES CRACKLE WITH LIFE”—FROM “THE SPIRIT OF RADIO” BY RUSH--Is radio responding to the needs and desires of its listeners? Paul Allen, an associate professor in MTSU’s Department of Recording Industry, will examine the present and future of radio at 8 a.m. this Sunday, Jan. 24, on “MTSU on the Record” with host Gina Logue on WMOT-FM (89.5 and wmot.org). Allen teaches Artist Management, New Media for the Music Business, Concert Promotion and Marketing of Recordings. He is the author of Artist Management for the Music Business, now in its third printing, and co-author of Record Label Marketing, now in its second edition. Allen’s professional background includes work in radio and television programming and management as well as radio ownership. To listen to last week’s program with MTSU industrial hygienist Doug Brinsko, go to http://frank.mtsu.edu/~proffice/podcast2010.html and click on “January 17, 2010. For more information about “MTSU on the Record,” contact Logue at 615-898-5081 or WMOT-FM at 615-898-2800.