Monday, August 23, 2010

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

The numbers game

Dr. David Penn, director of MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Area, presented the latest economic indicators for the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area to the Nashville Apartment Association on Aug. 17. Penn stated that nonfarm employment is nearly level over the year, down 0.4 percent in June from last June. Retail trade, wholesale trade, temporary employment and health care sectors are up. Manufacturing, construction, information and financial activities are down. Total employment is higher over the year, up 1.3 percent from last June and up 12,000 since January after seasonal adjustments. Sales tax collections are up five percent from last June. Penn says households are beginning to buy again.

Contact the Business and Economic Research Center at 615-898-2610.

Their native tongue

In the shadow of the largest Kurdish community in the nation, MTSU will become one of a mere handful of American universities offering Kurdish language courses in the fall 2010 semester. “The reason we think we can do it here when other places can’t is because we have the support of the Kurdish community,” says Dr. Kari Neely, assistant professor of foreign languages and a member of the working group that helped devise the classes. Estimates of the number of Kurds living in Nashville range from 11,000 to 14,000 people. Kovan Murat, senior political science major and co-founder of the Kurdish Students Association (KSA), says they arrived in three waves—in the 1960s, in 1992 after the infamous poison gas attacks staged by Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, and from 1995-1998 with the help of nongovernmental organizations.

Contact Neely at 615-898-2981.
ksneely@mtsu.edu

Memories are made of this.

Studies show that our memories often don’t get the details right. But Dr. Larry Burriss, journalism, says perfect recall isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either. He notes, “Everyone has a camera phone that can take both still and motion pictures. Those images are then stored away pretty much forever and are, in a manner of speaking, set in cement. Those images will become our memories. They will document almost every aspect of our lives, but do we really want that much certainty? Personally, I like my memories the way they are. At some level, I know things weren’t quite like I remember them today. … But, in a few years, all of these new photographs, the documentation, may rob us of some of our humanity by creating an indelible, unchangeable image of the way things were.”

Contact Burriss at 615-898-2983.
lburriss@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

OUR VINES HAVE TENDER GRAPES--Students from the MTSU College of Agribusiness and Agriscience, including students from the Plant and Soil Science Club, will press 200 pounds of grapes at 2 p.m. today, Aug. 23, at the at the Tennessee State Veterans Home, 345 Compton Road in Murfreesboro. The red, seeded grapes were grown in the university’s experimental vineyard on the north end of the Rutherford County Extension Office property at the corner of Gresham Lane and John Rice Boulevard. The vineyard was made possible by a 2005 agreement establishing it as the only joint Tennessee Board of Regents/University of Tennessee system experimental agricultural venture. Dr. Tony Johnston, associate professor of food science and agribusiness and enology consultant, says the students will use a small table-top press that can accommodate two gallons of fruit. The residents of the veterans’ home will use the juice to make jelly. Media welcomed. For more information, contact Johnston at 615-556-1495 or johnston@mtsu.edu.

IF YOU YEARN TO LEARN—“Adventures in Learning,” the annual mini-school for adults age 50 and above, will take place from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sept. 13, Sept. 20, Sept. 27 and Oct. 4 at First United Methodist Church, 265 W. Thompson Lane in Murfreesboro. The purpose of the event, which is planned by an interfaith coalition, is to provide a program by and for older adults in which they can shore knowledge, talents and skills for lifelong learning and personal growth. As usual, retired and active MTSU faculty will play prominent roles in the event. A highlight will be “Mount and Mountain,” a dialogue between Dr. Rami Shapiro, adjunct professor of religious studies and an ordained rabbi, and Dr. Michael A. Smith, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro. This class will be based on online conversations Shapiro and Smith conducted about the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. To register, or for more information, contact Mary Belle Ginanni at 615-895-6072.

“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.