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Survivor story shared at Holocaust conference
by Lisa L. Rollins
For history revisionists, it's a far-fetched tale. But for Misha Defonseca and millions of others who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand, it is an indelible part of their lives.
Now a resident of Massachusetts, Holocaust survivor Defonseca, who was adopted by wolves during the four-plus years that she spent roaming Nazi-occupied Europe, was the keynote speaker at MTSU's fourth bi-annual Holocaust Studies Conference on April 13-15. The weekend-long event was sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts.
According to her 1997 book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," after Defonseca's mother and father were taken away during World War II, the then-7-year-old Jewish girl began her travels across 3,000 miles of Nazi-occupied territory.
Often near starvation and frequently freezing, Defonseca said she attributes her ultimate survival to the companionship of a pack of wolves that she befriended and cared for on her journey.
"I never remember being hungry in the company of wolves," she has written.
Defonseca's visit to MTSU was co-sponsored by the MTSU Ideas and Issues Committee and the Department of History, said Dr. Sonja Hedgepeth, chairwoman of the Holocaust Committee and a professor of foreign languages.
This year's bi-annual conference, "The Holocaust: The Reality and Legacy of Genocide," featured back-to-back presentations commemorating the Holocaust experience from cultural, educational, and historical perspectives. Conference sessions were led by university educators from throughout the South as well as representatives from Nashville's Tennessee Commission on the Holocaust.- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Nobel-winning alum to address spring graduates
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| Dr. Buchanan signs a copyof his book Better than Plowingfor Deannie Smith. |
by Tom Tozer
At MTSU's first commencement of the new millennium, Dr. James M. Buchanan (B.S. '40) will speak to the 1,300 graduates about things that are timeless, he says--things not defined by decades or centuries, unchanged even by the "constant inconsistancy" of technology. The 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economic Sciences adds that he will address Middle Tennessee values and refer to both Andrew Jackson and Cordell Hull as personal examples in advocacy of open markets and open politics.
MTSU's Spring Commencement will be held at 10 a.m., May 13, in Murphy Athletic Center.
Despite his obvious brilliance and prodigious achievements, Buchanan himself seems unchanged from his early years in rural Middle Tennessee. He seems never to have lost that independent spirit and simple goodness of his roots. Buchanan the farm boy, the scholar, the man ... are still one and the same.
He grew up in Rutherford County [actually Gum] and attended Buchanan School, so named because it was built on a parcel of land that was once part of the Buchanan family farm. He came from a poor but distinguished family. His grandfather, John P. Buchanan, was elected governor of Tennessee in 1891. It was, however, his family's poverty, Dr. Buchanan has said, that provided a strong family foundation and created within himself a sense of determination, purpose, and frugality.
Early on, it was determined that the young Buchanan would follow in his grandfather's steps and become a lawyer-politician. When the Great Depression put Vanderbilt University out of reach financially, he decided he could live at home, earn money for books and fees milking cows, and attend the small college down the road.
Buchanan attended Middle Tennessee State Teachers College from 1936 to 1940. He graduated with majors in mathematics, English literature, and social science. Later that year, he was awarded a graduate fellowship in economics at UT-Knoxville and earned his master's degree in 1941. He then won a fellowship in statistics at Columbia University for the 1941-42 academic year. However, military service intervened, and he was in the U.S. Navy by August 1941. After officer training and duty at Pearl Harbor and Guam, he was discharged in 1945. He went to the University of Chicago in 1946 and left with a Ph.D. degree in 1948. He received a Fulbright grant for the 1955-56 year and studied in Italy.
In his book, Better Than Plowing and Other Personal Essays (1992, University of Chicago Press), he said of his undergraduate years, "Up until about my second year, I was not really sure about my own competence or ability. At the end of that year, however, the academic rankings were published, and, with all As that year, my name led all the rest. This result made me forget all about the first year C that Nooby Freeman had given me in mechanical drawing, the only C that I got during the whole of my academic career."
When Buchanan visited MTSU in 1997 to address the charter group of Buchanan Scholars, he summed up his personal journey by sharing words of advice. "I would emphasize the fact that the student from Middle Tennessee can make it. In other words, they shouldn't stand in awe of the eastern establishment elite.
"The mixed curriculum, both self-selected and imposed, served me well," Buchanan wrote of his college experience. "Economics, the discipline that was to become my scientific home, requires expository writing skills, logical structures of analysis, and a grounding in ultimate reality. And political economy, the branch of moral philosophy from which economics springs, requires philosophical coherence. I came away from Middle Tennessee with all of these..."
When Buchanan was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, he wrote, "If Jim Buchanan can get a Nobel Prize, anyone can. Recognition and acceptance of this simple truth are very important. ... Here was Jim Buchanan, a country boy from Middle Tennessee, educated in rural public schools and a local public teachers college, who is with an establishment university, who has never shared the academically fashionable soft left ideology, who has worked in totally unorthodox subject matter with very old-fashioned tools of analysis, chosen by a distinguished and respected Swedish committee."
By describing Frank Knight in his book, who was his mentor at the University of Chicago, Buchanan reveals who he is. "The qualities of mind that Knight exhibited were, and remain, those that I seek to emulate: the willingness to question anything, and anybody, on any subject anytime; the categorical refusal to accept anything as sacred; the genuine openness to all ideas; and finally, the basic conviction that most ideas peddled about are nonsense or worse when examined critically."
Today, Buchanan, the author of several books and essays, serves as Advisory General Director of the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Students to demonstrate SolarBike
by John Lynch
The members of the MTSU SolarBike team plan to demonstrate their new and improved vehicle, the Rayce-Array, at Smyrna High School this coming weekend. Linda Hardymon, coordinator for MTSU's Center for Energy Efficiency, says the vehicle has some new features and new wheels which will help the team avoid problems which arose last May at the SolarBike Rayce USA in Topeka, Kansas.
"The bike performed well, but damaged a tire and had to withdraw from the Rayce. The budget was so tight that, unfortunately, there were no spares," she noted.
The Rayce-Array team under the direction of Dr. Ken Sergeant, Jr. assistant professor of Engineering Technology and Industrial Studies, has also been helping students at Smyrna High School construct their own version of a solar-powered vehicle. Both vehicles will be wheeled out onto the athletic track at Smyrna High at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, April 29.- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Short-bread and circuses:
The continuing saga of prison privatization in Tennessee
by Dr. Michael A. Hallett, Criminal Justice
In 1997, Tennessee became the epicenter of one of the major public policy shifts of our time in criminal justice--prison privatization. That year, the Tennessee legislature gave serious consideration to the largest-ever privatization proposal on record, a contract for privatizing the entire Tennessee state prison system, with an inmate population approaching 20,000.
So began the latest effort to privatize the Tennessee prison system. It had been tried before, when, in 1985, after a Federal Court order forced the state to spend an additional $380 million on prison renovation and construction, Tom Beasley, former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, proposed to then-Gov. Lamar Alexander that his company, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) could "lock them up better, quicker, and for less" than the state.
After three separate battles over the proposal, legislative leaders backed off in mid-1998, in large part due to CCA's mishandling of prisons in Tennessee and around the country.
Nevertheless, CCA has still acquired new facilities in Tennessee by targeting contracts for the management of county jails located in impoverished and job-hungry jurisdictions and thus avoiding the scrutiny given to the state budget. This is, in fact, where many of the "out-of-state" inmates so often discussed are housed.
On December 9, 1999, I sat silently through two committee meetings at Legislative Plaza dealing with prison privatization in Tennessee. The first was the Select Oversight Committee (SOC) on Corrections and, the second, a legislative Finance Committee meeting addressing the issue of whether the CCA facility at South Central Correctional Complex is as cost-effective as the same two state-run facilities--Northeast Correctional Complex and Northwest Correctional Complex, respectively.
There are several problems with the Select Oversight Committee's comparative evaluation of the facilities, which the Committee itself admits to. Despite having recommended in 1995 that an "independent" review of performance be conducted, in the Committee's report "measures of performance come from data and records currently maintained by TDOC and CCA." This is like asking students to grade their own exams and assigning them to tell the instructor how they scored.
The second and more serious problem involves how the "measures" are weighted in the decision to renew CCA's contract to run South Central: 60 percent of the decision rests on how the facilities perform at an "Annual Inspection" rather than on how they performed for the whole year. Next, the "Safety and Security" index, which includes issues such as assaults, deaths, escapes, and disciplinary reports, is weighted only 25 percent.
Nevertheless, the report was adopted 7-2. CCA's contract, it seems, will be renewed regardless of what the numbers of the review represent, which it seems to me is nothing.
In 1997, Prudential Securities did an analysis of the private prison industry. They identified four key threats to the private prison industry. In order of importance, they are: 1) falling crime; 2) shorter prison terms; 3) alternatives to incarceration; and 4) changes to mandatory prison sentences for non-violent drug crime. Of course, from my perspective as a criminologist, society has a certain and direct interest in falling crime. Here, we have a dramatic example of private interests being counter to the public interest.
I think often about the day students of mine who formerly worked for CCA realized that they had more in common with many of the inmates in CCA facilities than they did with the Board of Directors of CCA, who made largely unaccountable decisions about their own and the inmates' lives. Indeed, not only does the private prison industry not have an interest in falling crime, it is an industry that rises and falls on a stock-in-trade of human beings, most of whom are black and poor and who are non-violent offenders.- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
MTSU honors retirees for 509 years of service
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| Provost Barbara Haskew, 2nd from left, congratulates three who are retiring with the longest service. Shirley Jones, Dorothy McCormick, and Jack Turner each served 34 years. | ||
by John Lynch
On this spot in 1491 very little happened. That was 509 years ago. Columbus had yet to set foot in America. On April 20, the university honored 23 retiring staff and faculty who in total have worked for MTSU 509 years. Those honorees and their years of service were Andrea Jo Moore, Admissions, 5; Dr. James L. Adams, Information Technology, 6; Thomas A. Garner, Construction/Renovation Services, 6; Miyoko Tominaga Lemons, Japan Center of Tennessee, 10; Frances E. Carson, School of Nursing, 11; Nancy Gorman, Academic Affairs, 15; Dr. Michael A. Schukert, Aerospace, 15; James Grant Reed, Building Maintenance Services, 16; Dr. Anna M. Burford, BMOM, 19; Alice K. Calloway, Phillips Bookstore, 20; Carolyn J. Bishop, University Library, 20; Shirley Reed Thomas, Philosophy, 26; Cynthia L. Vernardakis, Music, 28; Clare Christian, Political Science, 28; Lee Allsbrook, Jr., HPERS, 28; Jane Ozley Poole, Elementary and Special Education, 29; James S. Gibson, Art, 29; Dr. Earl E. Keese, Basic and Applied Sciences, 31; Anne V. Holland, HPERS, 32; Dr. Frederick Rolater, History, 33; Dr. Jack J. Turner, Political Science, 34; Shirley F. Jones, Foreign Languages and Literatures, 34; and Dorothy McCormick, Music, 34.- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Sales whizzes take MTSU to top in nation
by Tom Tozer
She sat there poised and ready to pitch the best appointment calendar money could buy. She felt good about her presentation, and she told herself just to listen to the customer and meet his needs. And then he walked in.
"You sounded so eager on the phone, and you're 20 minutes late." Then he waited for a response.
Forget the pitch. Forget the product. For the next 30 seconds, whatever came out of Rebecca Wilkins' mouth could mean the difference between grabbing the gold or letting it slip from her fingers.
All those hours and late nights of preparing for the unexpected, however, paid off. When the announcement of the winner was made, Rebecca Wilkins from Middle Tennessee State University was number one in the country.
Better yet, the MTSU team of Wilkins, a senior, Barb Kellgren, a senior, and Tiffany Douglas, a junior, who was alternate, also took the top spot.
"Our competition seemed surprised that MTSU won," Wilkins said. "Someone asked, 'Where is that?' I think they were shocked that we took everything. I think the companies were shocked. 'MTSU--we've never come to recruit at your school before.'"
And the contenders for the recent National Sales Competition, held at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, were formidable, including the likes of Central Florida, Cornell, Georgia State, Purdue, Minnesota State, Akron, and the University of Houston, to name just a few of the 21 schools, represented by 44 individual competitors.
The event was composed of three rounds, each 20 minutes long. In the first round, sales students had to sell a product--in this case, a Day-Timer. In the second round, they had to sell a service, which was Federal Express. The buyers--and judges--were managers and vice presidents of various sponsoring companies, as well as college professors. The students had to be prepared for anything. To add anxiety, each presentation was videotaped. The scores were tallied after the first two rounds. The top three were chosen and the slate was wiped clean. The finalists went head to head.
The MTSU team gave rave reviews to the efforts of Drs. Scott Inks and Katie Kemp, Management and Marketing, for their coaching and, as Wilkins put it, "fine-tuning." During their preparation, Inks role played the buyer and Kemp judged.
"Nine people originally tried out here at MTSU," Kellgren said. "They gave us a product to sell and a scenario.We practiced for two weeks, probably 7 to 11 about every night."
The skills one needs include being a good talker, a good listener, and how to think fast, "... when those curve balls come at you," Douglas noted. "You have to be able to handle stress because a lot of times it is very stressful. And you have to write information down and be thinking about what you want to ask next. You have to customize your presentation to fit what the customer needs."
Douglas added that even though she was alternate, she still had a great time and much less pressure. "Nothing was tough when I found out I was an alternate," she said with a laugh. She served more as a coach, throwing a steady stream of curve balls and fast balls at her teammates during their down time.
"Tiffany was awesome," Kellgren commented. "She sat there and threw all kinds of stuff at us."
All three impressed the company recruiters. By the time they were ready to leave, Kellgren already had an interview set up. Douglas scheduled a phone interview with IBM after their return and an in-person interview with another firm. And Wilkins was stashing business cards.
"It definitely opens doors," Douglas said. "The other sales team members didn't seem to be talking to recruiters as much as we were."
"We really got MTSU's name out there, because the companies weren't aware of the sales program we have here," Kellgren added. "Every single sales student should try to audition."
Many of the companies that approached Wilkins were already speaking to her about relocating.
"My husband is a student here, too, and he will be here until next spring," she said. "I'm not interested in relocating until later. Next year I'd love to. I've been contacted by quite a few companies, and we've been e-mailing back and forth. They've told me when we're ready to move to talk to them."
Kellgren, who was working as a disk jockey in Clarksville, decided to come to MTSU so that her husband, Chris, could pursue study in recording industry. She will graduate this month--Chris in December. She says she sees herself one day as some kind of global business development director flying from one commerce center to another.
"I love MTSU--I'm so glad I came," she said.
Douglas, a junior from Hendersonville, attended Volunteer State Community College, then went to Los Angeles for a year. Unable to get into school out there, she pulled MTSU up on the Internet, received a letter to visit the campus, and the rest is a scholastic history of accomplishment.
Wilkins said she is proud to have represented MTSU.
"My biggest goal is to give MTSU visibility--I want people to know about this school," she said. "Actually I have learned more here in this business school. The curriculum is just as good if not better. Being from the northeast ... I hope this will let companies know that we're out there and there are quality students here."
"We went into this with high hopes," Inks commented and Kemp echoed. "[The students] went to the competition thinking they could win. They worked very hard."- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Two books by Womack find new audiences
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by Lisa L. Rollins
Two enduring books written by Dr. Bob Womack--The Echo of Hoofbeats and Call Forth the Mighty Men--have once again demonstrated their readership value and historical significance.
Both The Echo of Hoofbeats, a 476-page history of the Tennessee Walking Horse, and Call Forth the Mighty Men, a 601-page account of the Civil War experiences of Middle Tennesseans, will have the opportunity to reach new audiences, thanks to recent developments.
First published in 1975 by Dabora Inc. of Shelbyville, The Echo of Hoofbeats is now in its third edition and rights to translate the book into German were recently sold, said Womack, a 43-year-member of MTSU's College of Education and Behavioral Science faculty.
A native Tennessean and the sixth of six children, Womack said he grew up in Bedford County with a love for horses, especially the Walking Horse breed. Thus, his background served as the impetus for Hoofbeats, which has been sold in at least 14 countries since its initial publication.
"My father was a livestock trader and, of course, he had horses, but at that time, they were not called Walking Horses," he explained. "Instead, they were just called saddle horses, but then a group of men got together and organized an association in 1935 to formalize the blood line, and they did, and that was the official beginning."
Although the readership for "Hoofbeats" is limited because of its topic-specific content, Womack estimates that the book has sold at least 10,000 copies to date. Moreover, the horse-loving professor also added that he regularly receives telephone calls from around the globe each year from people who want to learn more about the breed.
"You know, you're appealing to a very small audience with that book, because people outside the Walking Horse industry really don't care a hill of beans about it," said Womack, who interviewed hundreds of "horse people" for the book. "But good enough, the people inside the industry turn over a lot, so it keeps selling to a new crop."
In addition, Womack's love for the Walking Horse has been handed down to his own son, Ricky Womack, who now owns and operates one of the nation's leading breeding and training facilities for the breed, Womack Stables at Glen Oaks Farms near Murfreesboro.
Nonetheless, as for his favorite book project to date, Call Forth the Mighty Men, Womack said that the Blue and the Gray Educational Foundation of Virginia recently bought the book from its original publisher, Colonial Press. As a result, it's likely that it will be republished this year after its current supplies are sold, he said.
"It's a human interest book, " explained Womack. "It has very little or nothing to do with the military discipline. It's a human interest story of the Civil War, how it affected people, how they viewed what was happening and the hardships they underwent. I especially tried to collect diaries and letters of women.
"Every class I taught (at MTSU), I asked (students) to help me find material," he added. "It took me over 35 years to collect all of the material to write the book, and most of (the people in the book) are from Middle Tennessee."
Womack said that as a result of writing the Civil War-era book, he greatly enhanced his own understanding of its people and their trials.
"I think I came away with the attitudes (of the people)," he remarked. "Some of them supported the war, but many of them did not. Many of them were forced into the army but they nevertheless made good soldiers. Like all wars, it was so tragic, because there were so many promising young men who got killed (but) could have made such great contributions to their communities, to the state, and even to the nation.
?"To me," said Womack, "I see (the Civil War) as a complete breakdown in human animals' ability to reason out their problems. ..."- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Kilts are for touristsVisiting professor examines images of Scots in American media
by Mike Reed
The Scots rarely wear kilts or play the bagpipes, says Dr. Hugh O'Donnell, visiting professor of language and media at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. "This is something most Scots would never do. This is strictly for the tourists."
During his visit to MTSU, O'Donnell will address several classes in the College of Mass Communication regarding the images of Scots and Scotland in American media.
"Scots are able to see a great many American television programs," he writes, "ranging from series such as 'Friends' or 'The X-Files,' through daytime talk shows and soaps, to cartoons such as 'Southpark.'
"We also see all the big American cinema films, though usually a few months after they are released in the States. None of this is peculiar to Scotland, but is in fact a fairly standard pattern throughout Western Europe."
O'Donnell says the best-known American "Scot" was Scotty from "Star Trek."
"He was the object of some mirth largely because of his accent, which was rather unconvincing," he says. "Also, he would occasionally dress in the kilt and play bagpipes."
Groundskeeper Willy from "The Simpsons" is well-known among younger Scots. Historical inaccuracies in the film "Braveheart" caused a "fairly heated debate."
"In general, the more glamorous Hollywood representations, such as 'Hamlet' and 'Rob Roy' aren't taken seriously," he writes. "Scots are hardly ever annoyed by silly representations of Scottishness. This is probably because they are also available here for the tourist trade.
"There is a long-standing Scottish tradition --very noticeable among football fans, for example--of self-mockery."
O'Donnell is a specialist in international sports, soap operas, and representations of Monarchy. Though he's not sure these areas share a common theme, O'Donnell writes, "What they do share, apart from their ability to draw enormous audiences, is their ability to tell stories on a more or less indefinite basis.
"Contrary to what is often thought, sports commentary is in fact a very sophisticated form of narrative, and the commentators are very skillful at turning often unpromising raw material into a very engaging story."
This will be O'Donnell's first visit to the United States. He says he feels much like Americans do when they go to Scotland for the first time.
"I'm interested to see what the relation is between the images of America we see on our television screens and the experience of actually being there. It will also be interesting to move from what is, after all, a small peripheral and relatively insignificant country--Scotland--to a very large and powerful one."- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Alumni Relations to honor four
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by John Lynch
The MTSU office of Alumni Relations has announced this year's recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Awards. The four will be honored at the annual Spring Appreciation Luncheon, noon, Saturday, May 6, in the James Union Building.
Murfreesboro realtor Bob Lamb has been selected to receive the MTSU Distinguished Alumni Award for Service to the University. Receiving the Young Alumni Achievement Award is Holly Thompson Lynch. Charlie Myatt, regional president of First Tennessee Bank, has been selected to receive the MTSU Distinguished Alumni Award for Community Service, and Billy Pittard, founder of the award-winning design firm of Pittard Sullivan, is this year's recipient of the MTSU Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement.
Lamb received a bachelor's degree in biology in 1969, and a master's degree in biology in 1977. Now the managing broker for Bob Parks Realty, south office, he got his start in real estate while in graduate school.
A contributing member to the MTSU Foundation for more than 25 years, he served as president of the Blue Raider Club in 1984-85. At that time he also chaired the Boots 'n' Barbecue committee. A member of the Board of Directors of the National Alumni Association, he was president of the Rutherford County Chapter of the MTSU Alumni Association in 1990-91 and again in 1991-92. Currently the president of the Blue Raider Athletic Association (BRAA), he is also a member of the Board of Directors of that group, and was 1999 chair of the BRAA membership drive.
Lamb became a member of Kappa Alpha Fraternity as an undergraduate and has been an active supporter since that time. He is the former chair of the Kappa Alpha Memorial Scholarship Fund, and as a member of his fraternity's alumni association, helped facilitate the sale of the fraternity's old house on Maple Street and the move to campus. He and his wife, Jeri, have three children currently enrolled at MTSU.
Lynch, better known by TV viewers as Holly Thompson of WSMV-TV, is a 1994 magna cum laude graduate. She began work in TV with the CBS affiliate in Johnson City, Tenn., where she immediately proved herself capable of wearing a number of broadcasting hats -- photographer, reporter, writer, and editor.
Less than three years after graduation, Holly jumped to the Nashville TV market, number 30 in the nation. Currently she anchors newscasts on Saturday morning and Saturday at 5 p.m. It's also not unusual to see her filling in for the station's main anchors.
In spite of a hectic schedule, she still finds time to return to campus in support of her alma mater. Students in a variety of mass communication classes have heard her speak on topics ranging from "effective communication" to "women in the media." She has twice served on the silent auction committee for the MTSU Presidential Ball. She has also twice been the mistress of ceremonies for that event.
Charlie Myatt has served the university in several capacities. He is on the advisory board of the BRAA and is now second vice president. In 1994 he was the president of the MTSU Rutherford County Alumni Association. He has been an MTSU Trustee for more than a decade and served as president of the MTSU Foundation in
1998-99. He is chair of the Miller Trust Committee, which has helped steer the construction of the Tennessee Miller Horse Arena with the $20 million gift from the estate of John and Mary Miller.
His history of dedicated civic service began in Chattanooga where he was active in the Better Business Bureau, serving as chairman in 1985 and again in 1986. Following his move to Murfreesboro in 1988, he served several years in the early 1990s on the Leadership Rutherford Board of Directors.
He has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce Board since 1992 and served as chairman of that organization in 1996. From 1993-95 he served as the Murfreesboro Parks and Recreation chairman. He was a board member for The Guidance Center from 1992-98. Currently on the board of the Boys and Girls Club, he was president of the organization 1991-92. Also during that time, he served as Main Street Murfreesboro/Rutherford County board member and trustee.
Myatt's service to the community has been recognized by several awards. In 1998, he was named Business Person of the Year by the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce. The preceding year he was named Humanitarian of the Year by the Daily News Journal and SunTrust Bank. Also in 1997, he was a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. In 1995 Myatt received the Four Star Award for Excellence in Parks and Recreation from the Tennessee Recreation and Parks Association.
If you've seen the distinctive yellow and black graphics used by the ABC television network, then you're familiar with some of the award winning work developed by the design firm of Pittard Sullivan, founded by MTSU Alumnus Billy Pittard.
He is considered by many to be one of the founding fathers of the electronic graphic design industry, a pioneer in television graphics design. A native of Murfreesboro, he was one of the first in his field to integrate a designer's sensibilities with digital imaging technology.
He graduated from MTSU in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in Communication and Design. He began his professional career as a designer with WNGE-TV (now WKRN-TV, Nashville) in 1976. While there he began to explore the advantages of working with digital graphics over more traditional optical and mechanical techniques.
In 1984, he went to KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, where he became manager of design. There he overhauled the brand image of the station and helped KCBS incorporate digital technology into their communications department.
He left KCBS in 1986 to start his dream company, Pittard Design, a company which has become known around the world for its innovative work in creating and producing the main titles for television shows, on-air promotions, and brand identity for TV networks. In 1987, Pittard joined forces with Ed Sullivan to form Pittard Sullivan.
Tickets for the luncheon are $12 and may be purchased from the Alumni Relations Office. For information call 898-2922 or e-mail alumni@mtsu.edu.- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
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Cajun Feast will raise funds and the roof |
Cajun chef John Stanford is set to work his special blend of bayou magic again this year as the MTSU Rutherford County Alumni Chapter hosts their annual Cajun Feast, 6 p.m., Thursday, May 4, at the Tennessee Livestock Center.
In addition to Stanford's famous Cajun gumbo, there'll be musical entertainment by Abe Manuel and the Cajuns. Proceeds will benefit the Rutherford County Alumni Scholarship. Tickets are $5 in advance, $7 at the door. Call Alumni Relations, 898-2922, for tickets.- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Workshop brings opera to the schools
by Lisa L. Rollins
MTSU's Opera Workshop took its music and message into two area elementary schools April 28 when its performers participated in a newly implemented program to educate and expose area kindergartners through high-schoolers about the musical genre.
Faculty tenor Stephen Smith, an assistant professor of voice and the workshop's coordinator, said this is the first time the Opera Workshop has reached out to local youngsters in the region's public schools.
"It's actually quite common for a lot of opera companies to present workshops for students, but this is the first time that we have presented an educational outreach program," said Smith, who has spearheaded the in-school operatic visits."
Although the initial goal of the in-school performance and presentation is to introduce students to opera as a musical form, Smith said that a long-term goal of the project is to build an audience for opera among young Tennesseans and perhaps even one day attract high-schoolers who are interested in the study of music to MTSU.
"We do everything, all of our performances, in English, so students should be able to follow the story in the songs," explained Smith, who concedes that many Tennesseans are not familiar with the stylings of opera. However, Smith said that by introducing area youth to opera in their native tongue, the genre, ideally, will become more accessible to them and not "seem like it is in a foreign language."
Smith and the Opera Workshop visited Murfreesboro's Reeves Rogers Elementary School and Mitchell Neilson Elementary School, where the musicians dedicated about 25 minutes to a live operatic performance and additional time to an educational presentation regarding opera, with a question-and-answer session afterward.
"We are going to be telling the children elementary things about opera," said Smith, who hopes to visit all of the area's K-12 schools in the coming year. "The presentations will be interspersed between the music and dialogue, and it will be light on speaking and heavy on music."
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., Smith earned a bachelor's degree in vocal performance, a master's degree in music and a performer's certificate in opera. He made his tenor debut with the Pittsburgh Opera Theater in the role of Pinkerton in Pucinni's "Madama Butterfly," and he has performed a variety of tenor roles, both lyric and dramatic, including title roles in Gounod's "Faust" and "Romeo and Juliet," among many.
In addition to performing in the leading opera houses of Scandinavia, Switzerland, Poland, Britain, and Portugal--he recently performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the recurring role as Don José in Bizet's "Carmen." In reviewing his most recent big-stage role, New York Times critic Allan Kozinn, in the newspaper's April 13 edition, heralded Smith's performance, stating "Stephen Smith sang Don José with both power and finesse and exaggerated the contrasts between his character and Carmen. ..."- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21
Marijuana laws need to be rethought: professor
by Lisa L. Rollins
All of the arguments that Americans have heard to date concerning why marijuana should remain criminalized are ill-founded, said Dr. Bill Shulman, who has researched the never-ending debate from a legal, ethical, and medical standpoint.
"All the arguments you hear behind criminalizing marijuana [such as] it's harmful, it's addictive, it's a gateway drug, [and] it's a crime-control measure--none of those stand up," Shulman said. "There is not enough study to show that marijuana leads to aggressive and violent behavior, and in fact, it's the opposite."
An assistant professor of Criminal Justice Administration, Shulman presented the findings of his research into the matter April 3 in "Reefer Madness: The Government's Repressive and Abusive Marijuana Laws." The lecture was part of the Spring 2000 Honors Lecture Series dealing with "The Abuse of Power" theme. ?
"The premise [of the talk was that] with as many legal drugs as we have, pot is less harmful to individuals and less harmful to society than alcohol and tobacco--and probably even caffeine--and so why are we sending people to jail and prison, taking their rights away from them, clogging up probation dockets and local jails? Why are we doing this? What is the rationale basis for doing it?"
Additionally, Shulman added, "The premise becomes before the government enacts criminal laws, they have to be reasonably related to harmful behavior. And if this is not harmful, or it's minimally harmful, then there's something else going on here at work."
But why, one asks, would the government, or any other entity, for that matter, aggressively work to keep the cultivation, possession, or personal use of Cannabis, or "pot," as it is more commonly called, a criminal offense?
"You know, it could be one of a number of things," Shulman observed. "It could be a class warfare, an age kind of warfare, or it could be a carryover from our old drug policies, which started in the '20s and '30s.
"I think the first laws criminalizing marijuana were enacted in the late '20s, and then they didn't really criminalize it--they more or less taxed it. Then they weren't criminalizing it because marijuana typically is grown in this country and not imported. But it wasn't really until about '37 until the first federal criminal statute (against marijuana) came about, and they just kind of tacked it onto opium and some of the other things that were criminalized."
Today, however, America is engaged in a small-scale trend to decriminalize marijuana use for medicinal reasons, Shulman said.
"I do know that the trend now for states is to pass limited medicinal marijuana use. There are six states that have passed this, and the last couple have just taken effect in the last year or so. Alaska, California, Oregon, Maryland, Maine, Washington, and the District of Columbia have passed it," Shulman notes, "and Maryland, just in the past year, so that's a trend. What is not a trend is for states to legalize it or decriminalize it."
Regarding specifics surrounding the legalization of marijuana use in the U.S., " The Alaska Supreme Court actually struck down the marijuana possession laws years ago in a very famous case and held that when a person privately possesses small amounts of marijuana to use, they're protected under the Constitution," Shulman explained. "They defined small as under 4 ounces--that's the line that they drew. They said, 'Under 4 ounces, for use in your own home, the government has got to stay away or decriminalize it," and that was in the '70s. But you didn't see a whole lot of states after that in the courts protecting the right to smoke marijuana under the right to privacy, which is ordinarily where the courts would go with that," he added.
As for his own opinion on the topic, Shulman said he generally refrains from inserting this viewpoint into public or group discussions, but if asked, he will oblige.
"I think at the very least possession or use in small amounts should be decriminalized and treated as a traffic citation or something," he said. "If there is some medically documented harm to that, then maybe that's the argument there, but the medical literature that I've seen indicates that it's not a physically or psychologically addictive drug.
"The harm associated with it is harm to the lungs from the smoke and the residue being put in the lungs," he reasoned. "I mean, smoking marijuana in terms of damage to the lungs is ... a lot safer than smoking cigarettes."- The Record, May 1, 2000, V8.21