Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

Second quarter qualms

Looking at the second quarter of 2010, the recovery continues to be sluggish. In the latest edition of Tennessee Housing Market, Dr. David Penn writes, “The recovery inched along during the second quarter, producing job growth but not at a pace that will reduce the unemployment rate to a reasonable level anytime soon. While employment improved, the housing market did not, as the expiration of the home buyers’ tax credit caused home sales and construction to wither. It remains to be seen whether the housing market can achieve stable growth without help from policymakers. Tennessee job growth accelerated somewhat during the second quarter with nonfarm employment rising by 17,000 from the first quarter after seasonable adjustments.”

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

The high price of free speech

Deborah Andrews, an employee at a state psychiatric hospital in Connecticut, claimed she was punished for reporting unsafe working conditions. Christopher Aubrecht, a Pennsylvania state trooper, claimed he was retaliated against when he reported that his supervisor told him he must issue a certain number of tickets each month, a violation of state law. Both employees lost their court cases. David Hudson, adjunct political science professor and First Amendment Center scholar, says, “It has become much more difficult for plaintiffs’ attorneys to mount effective First Amendment lawsuits based on any speech that relates to the workplace. … It is indeed depressing that many public employees have no First Amendment right to complain or speak out against corruption, illegality or unsafe working conditions.”

Contact Hudson at 615-727-1342.
dhudson@fac.org

The way it was ain’t the way it is.

The next time you watch a television news anchor, consider how much that person’s role has changed in the first few years of the 21st century alone. Dr. Bob Pondillo, electronic media communication, writes in the Encyclopedia of American Journalism, “News anchors are no longer idealized journalists, reporters steeped in the hardscrabble newspaper tradition that spoke truth to power and gave voice to the disenfranchised. They are instead TV celebrities, archetypes of the status quo, corporate faces used to attract advertisers and promote network news ‘products,’ such as high revenue-producing morning television and prime time ‘news magazine’ programs.”

Contact Pondillo at 615-904-8465.
pondillo@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

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.