Friday, August 13, 2010

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

A good education—priceless

It’s often said that money can’t buy happiness. G. Jeffrey McDonald, a Protestant minister, writes, “The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them.” Dr. Phil Oliver, philosophy, says, “I’m not a churchgoer, but substitute academic for pastoral, students for churchgoers and professors for pastors, and you’ve got a telling vocational parallel. Not all of my teaching colleagues would agree that it’s our job to improve our students and wean them from the depredations of life in consumerist America, and even fewer of my administrative colleagues would. But that’s how I still see it. … It’s not merely about emerging after four years to join the workforce and start accumulating lots of stuff. There are important dots to connect here, between happiness, simplicity, and an education worth stretching for. If we don’t at least try, we fail.”

Contact Oliver at 615-898-2050.
poliver@mtsu.edu

Express yourself!

Tom Joyner, the host of the popular nationally syndicated “Tom Joyner Morning Show,” uses his program as a platform to promote voter registration, healthy living and historically black colleges and universities. In 2002, Dr. Dwight Brooks, chair of the MTSU School of Journalism, and co-author George L. Daniels used the radio program for a case study. They found the success of Joyner’s show to be indicative of how “media businesses can be profitable in providing nonentertainment services to competitive commercial marketplaces. This is significant in addressing the historical tension between the media’s public interest mandate and financial performance. It is our hope that the case of the TJMS serves as a reminder to media industry executives and policy makers of the importance of media companies’ responsibility to serve the public interest and contribute to a more democratic and active public sphere.”

Contact Brooks at 615-494-8925.
dbrooks@mtsu.edu

Spanning the globe

Dr. Steven Livingston, political science professor and editor of Global Commerce, will be Gina Logue’s guest on this week’s edition of “MTSU on the Record” at 8 a.m. this Sunday, Aug. 15, on WMOT-FM (89.5 and wmot.org). Livingston, who recently visited Israel, will discuss international markets for goods produced in Tennessee and how they are faring during the current economic slump. In addition, Livingston will talk about his work on a web-based interactive learning video of Congressional rules and legislative procedures. To further this work, Livingston received the 2009-2010 MTSU Instructional Technology Grant, which is presented each year to a faculty member to assist in the areas of computer technology, telecommunications and instructional and research support.

Contact Logue at 615-898-5081 or WMOT-FM at 615-898-2800.

TR EXTRA

“A HEALTHY STATE ENCOURAGES MANY VOICES—AND LOTS OF LISTENING.”—HHS SECRETARY KATHLEEN SEBELIUS--Expressions of confidence, faith, defiance, togetherness, satire and sobriety characterize the second edition of Voices We Haven’t Heard, a publication of MTSU’s June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students. The latest Voices is larger than last year’s edition, and it includes feminist poetry and prose nestled between glossy, colorful covers. Center Director Terri Johnson says the magazine empowers students by providing them with a creative outlet for their observations on racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and other forms of oppression. Voices We Haven’t Heard is free and available from the June Anderson Center in its new home, Room 320 of the Keathley University Center. For more information, call 615-898-5989 or go to www.mtsu.edu/jac.

I’M PLAYING WITH MY BOOKS, MOMMY.--“Books and Children in the 19th Century: A Small Portrait” is the theme of an exhibit on display now and throughout this summer in the fourth floor Special Collections area of MTSU’s James E. Walker Library. The purpose is to show the variety of ways children and the adults around them engaged with books in the 1800s and early 1900s. The works available for viewing are indicative of the children’s book as an object of moral and educational value. The idea behind the books is to teach values and build character. Entertainment techniques are employed strictly to attract the children and hold their interest. Highlights include several movable books, which are books that contain text or illustrations that the child can manipulate. Pop-up books are one such type of movable book. Many items in the display have never been exhibited previously. Call the James E. Walker Library at 615-898-2772.