NOTE: Because of the extended holiday weekend, there will be no TR Monday or Tuesday. It will resume Wednesday, May 28. Thank you.

Buffy conference in Nashville

"The show has made inroads into all aspects of life," says Dr. David Lavery, professor of English, and television and pop culture expert, regarding the demise of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which ran from 1997 to 2003. Next year, May 28-30, 2004, the first-ever Buffy the Vampire Slayer Conference will be held in Nashville, drawing BTVS scholars and serious fans from all over the world. The event will be the definitive post-mortem/wake/summing up of BTVS, Lavery notes. "In addition to two days of fascinating forays into the Buffy Studies, attendees can expect to hear from the creators of the show."

Contact Lavery at 615-898-5648.
dlavery@mtsu.edu

Visit http://www.slayage.tv/conference/index.htm

Tennessee-Asia connection

Regarding exports in 2002, the Volunteer State did extremely well in Asia and spectacular in China. At $119 million, state exports to Asia were more than double that of a year ago. Most of that growth was due to cotton and harvesting products, according to the Spring 2003 "Global Commerce," published by MTSU's Business and Economic Research Center. The Middle East and South Asia were the most troubled markets for state exporters. Turkey, Tennessee's main Middle Eastern market, was off more than 40 percent, as was India, the state's major South Asian market.

Contact Dr. Steven Livingston, editor, at 615-898-2720.
slivings@mtsu.edu
Online: http://www.mtsu.edu/~berc/trade_database.html

Off on the right foot

MTSU will soon put out the welcome mat for new and transferring students during a seven-week orientation program that introduces them to the people, places and programs of the university--and gives them a jumpstart in advance of their fall arrival. CUSTOMS is composed of nine separate 2-day sessions for entering freshmen and three one-day sessions for transfer students. The first two-day session will be June 11-12. "It's information overload for students and parents," says Gina Poff, director of Student Development. "We give them a lot of written material ... [and] this year we are having separate tracks for students and family members ... each track [meeting their individual needs]." More than 4,500 students will go through the program.

Contact Poff at 615-898-2454.
ghpoff@mtsu.edu

THIS WEEK'S AUDIO CLIPS AT MTSU
Go to http://www.mtsu.edu/~proffice/audio/audio_clips.html TOPIC 1: June is packed with events in the new Tennessee Miller Coliseum, including a 4-H horse show, a youth horsemanship camp and the Tennessee High School Rodeo finals.
TOPIC 2: MTSU students Natalie Calcaterra of Franklin and John Trenton of Somerset, Penn., share their thoughts on studying in France this summer for 10 weeks--as well as their feelings about the friction between France and the U.S. over the recent war in Iraq.
TOPIC 3: Rabbi Bent Melchior discusses one of the most remarkable events of World War II--the escape from Nazi persecution by 7,000 Danish Jews who found refuge in neutral Sweden. This year marks the 60th anniversary of that event, and Melchior describes the exodus as uncommonly successful.