News and notes from around the College of Liberal Arts…
ART & ART HISTORY: An exhibition by Associate Professor Nicholas Wood will be on display now through June 25 at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. The exhibit, which features Wood’s drawings and sculptural objects, is called “Tangents & Adjustments.” … New sculptures by Associate Professor Dalton Maroney will be on display now through June 11 at William Campbell Contemporary Art in Fort Worth. The exhibition features Maroney’s signature boat-influence sculptures. …. Assistant Professor Ya’Ke Smith continues to pile up awards for his short film, “Katrina’s Son.” The film won at the Kansas City Film Festival last month and will be screened at the upcoming Cannes International Film Festival in the Short Film Corner. … The Lake Highlands Advocate magazine featured an interview film student Julie Gould about her award-winning short film, “8”. … Former Assistant Professor Ned Rifkin will end a two-year stint as director of the Blanton Museum of Art on May 31. Rifkin is a professor of art and art history at The University of Texas in Austin. … Student films from UT Arlington and the University of North Texas were included in last month’s Student Film Association festival at Southern Methodist University. This year’s screenings were the first to include work from outside SMU. … Assistant Professor Sedrick Huckaby and his wife were interviewed for an article in NEA Arts Magazine last month. The article focused on the work of the nationally recognized artists. … The McKinney Avenue Contemporary art foundation has appointed Lisa Hees (BA, ’09) as director.
COMMUNICATION: Two faculty members were recognized as outstanding educators by the College of Liberal Arts: Dr. Shelley Wigley, Assistant Professor of Public Relations, received the College of Liberal Arts Gertrude Golladay Memorial Award for Outstanding Teaching, and full-time lecturer Geoff Campbell was honored with the College of Liberal Arts Adjunct Teaching Award for Outstanding Teaching. The awards are determined entirely by the votes from 4,200 undergraduate students in the College of Liberal Arts. … Department Chair Dr. Charla Markham Shaw and Assistant Professor Dr. Karishma Chatterjee’s co-authored paper has been accepted for publication. “Media Portrayals of the Female Condom” has been accepted by The Journal of Health Communication for publication. … Public relations senior Rebekah Karth and communication graduate student April Blount both presented their thesis results at the 2011 Annual Celebration of Excellence by Students (ACES) Symposium. … Public relations major Chloe Jamerson will intern this summer with Richards Partners, affiliated with The Richards Group, a prominent Dallas-based PR firm. … Graduating seniors Hillary Williams and Crystal G. Quinones have been accepted for UTA’s Master of Arts in Communication program. … May 2011 broadcast grad Charity Hill has been accepted into the Master’s program at the University of Florida. She has also been offered a Teaching Assistantship in the College of Journalism and Communications. Serving as station manager for UTA Radio, Charity also received the Broadcast Student of the Year award for 2010-2011 at the Department of Communication’s Annual Convocation ceremony. … Maria De la Torre, a May 2011 broadcast grad, has been accepted to attend graduate school at the University of Colorado. … Telemundo Dallas has recently hired two broadcast students, Mayde Gomez and Sharon Murra-Kapon, as interns. They will serve as production assistants at the station. … Alexis Spears (BA, ’10) has joined KTRE in Lufkin, Texas, as a reporter. … Sarah Macias (BA, ’10) has been hired as a producer and editor at KXII in Sherman, Texas. … Jessica Carillo (BA, ’09) will move to Telemundo’s Los Angeles station as an entertainment reporter and anchor. … Sean Bolton (BA, ’10) has accepted a position with Ulterra Drilling Technologies as a database programmer focusing on data mining.
HISTORY: Associated Professor Dr. Elisabeth Cawthon was quoted in a Postmedia News (Canada) story about Catherine Middleton as she takes on the job of royal consort. She said one duty of consorts, particularly female consorts, is to be seen as a conduit to the royal. Cawthon notes that royals can be somewhat removed from the people. “A good consort is perceived as someone who is a little more accessible,” she says. … Robert Fairbanks, department chair, was quoted in a recent Dallas Morning News story on “Downtown Dallas 360 – A Pathway to the Future,” a nonbinding document that envisions a densely populated area of seven distinct walking neighborhoods fed by rail and connected by streetcar lines. Fairbanks said such plans date back to the Kessler Plan, which was written in the second decade of the 20th century and was a significant achievement on its own. … Graduate student Justin Jones was interviewed for a gaming blog about his passion for Warhammer Fantasy Battle and 40K.
LINGUISTICS and TESOL: Several students received awards at the recent Department of Linguistics & TESOL Annual Awards and Recognition Ceremony. Sean Cooper received the Irwin Feigenbaum Award in TESOL, which honors an outstanding MA TESOL student. Four students were honored with the Service Learning Award: Impact Beyond the Classroom. They are Sean Cooper, Sharon Peters, Lori McLain Pierce, and Felicia Wallace. … Associate Professor Dr. Laurel Stvan provided her thoughts on last month’s THATCamp Texas 2011 for a blog on The Chronicle of Higher Education website. The “unconference,” which was held at Rice University in Houston, featured dozens of academicians and experts in group discussions about humanities and technology. … Stvan will also make presentations in two conferences this summer: the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) at Boston University in June and the Corpus Linguistics 2011: Discourse and Corpus Linguistics conference in Birmingham, England, in July. … Ph.D. candidate Vitaly Voinov had his paper “A corpus-based examination of repluralized pronouns in Tuvan” accepted for the 2001 International Corpus Linguistics Conference this June in St. Petersburg, Russia. … Three graduate students recently received funding from the College of Liberal Arts: Vitaly Voinov, Dean’s Excellence Research Travel Award; Matt Benton, Dean’s Excellence Award for Graduate Research/Creative Activity; Sok-hun Kim, Dean’s Excellence Award for Graduate Research/Creative Activity. … Linguistics doctoral student Heather Beal has been awarded a Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship for this summer. … Dr. Jerold Edmondson will be making two presentations in August at the International Congress in Phonetic Sciences in Hong Kong.
MUSIC: Dennis Bilbert, former conductor of the UT Arlington trombone choir, paid homage to jazz professor Tom Streeter’s storied career at Illinois Wesleyan University last month at Streeter’s final concert. … The Jaime Reyes Trio, which includes UT Arlington faculty members Dan Cavanagh and Brian Mulholland, will perform May 12 as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Patio Sessions, a series of outdoor concerts in Sammons Park, D Magazine reported. Cavanagh is the associate director of jazz studies and an associate professor of music. Mulholland is currently adjunct instructor of jazz bass and music business. … Cavanagh’s 2010 album, “Horizon,” a collection of jazz work performed with vibraphonist Dave Hagedorn, received a favorable review in Percussive Notes, the Journal of the Percussive Arts Society.
POLITICAL SCIENCE: Brent Sasley, UT Arlington assistant professor of political science, was interviewed on KXAS Channel 5 about the effect of the killing of Osama bin Laden. … Sasley also weighed in on the debate about the recent Fatah-Hamas unity agreement on HuffingtonPost.com. … Rick Holden (BA, ’81) was one of four finalists interviewed last month for Cleburne city manager, the Celburne Times-Review reported. Holden is the assistant city manager and served as interim city manager since the start of 2011. … Randy Perry (BA, ’82) is slated to begin his new job as superintendent of Malakoff ISD on June 1. Perry has been an educator for 27 years and the principal of Malakoff (TX) High School since 2006.
SOCIOLOGY and ANTHROPOLOGY: Sociology Professor Dr. Ben Agger was quoted in the St. Petersburg Times in an article on the fourth anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings. Agger is co-author of a book on the tragedy titled “There is a Gunman on Campus: Tragedy and Terror at Virginia Tech.” … The Waco Tribune-Herald featured Suzanne Baldon (MA-Anthropology, ‘94) and her unique style of “forensic art.” Baldon is a criminal justice and forensic science instructor at McLennan Community College’s Emergency Services Education Center and one of a handful of forensic artists in Texas.
THEATRE ARTS: Professors Dr. Dennis Maher, Dr. Andrew Gaupp and Joe Chapa were all praised in a blog on “Teacher Appreciation Week” by a former student.
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