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FALL ENROLLMENT TOPS 1,300

The official enrollment numbers for the fall semester are in, and Southwestern has a student body of more than 1,300 for the first time since the fall of 2005 – 1,301 to be exact.

That number includes 375 new first-year students, which is one of the largest first-year classes the university has ever had. These students were selected from the largest applicant pool ever – nearly 30 percent over the previous year.

“We were extremely fortunate to meet our enrollment goal in this difficult economy,” said President Jake B. Schrum. Schrum cited several reasons for this, including faculty members who wrote personal notes to prospective students and alumni who encouraged prospective students to attend. More than 20 percent of the entering class had contact with alumni during their admission process, either through a referral, at college fairs, through Operation: Pen and Paper or at one of the three “Snapshot” events co-sponsored by the Admission Office that were designed to encourage accepted students to enroll.

Forty percent of students in the first-year class graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Both overall SAT and ACT scores are up from last year. Out-of-state students account for nearly 12 percent of the incoming class and nearly 24 percent are minority students.

The first-year class also includes students from Australia, England, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda and Vietnam. Closer to home, it includes two students who have graduated from Southwestern’s Upward Bound program – Veronica Luna from Granger High School and Jessica Murray of Jarrell High School.

Events

FACULTY PIANO RECITAL SEPT. 15

Pianist Kiyoshi Tamagawa will give a faculty recital on Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 7 p.m. in the Alma Thomas Theater. The concert will feature Haydn’s Divertimento in C major, Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat major and Beethoven’s Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major. Performing with Tamagawa will be Eri Lee Lam, violin; Eileen Kwee, violin; Tim Washecka, viola; and Hai Zheng, cello.

The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, call The Sarofim School of Fine Arts at 512-863-1504.

FACULTY TO PRESENT CHAMBER MUSIC RECITAL SEPT. 20

Several members of the Southwestern music faculty will present a chamber music recital on Sunday, Sept. 20, at 3 p.m. in the Caldwell-Carvey Foyer of the Fine Arts Building.

The concert will feature Eric Stone Miller on bassoon, Adrienne Inglis on flute, Delaine Fedson on harp and Kiyoshi Tamagawa on piano. Guest artist Amy Burgus will play oboe. The group will perform the Concerto in G minor by Antonio Vivaldi, “Pastorales De Noel” by Andre Jolivet, “Rusticana” by Claude Arrieu, Minuet by Herbert Howells, Quartet by Bill Douglas, and “Ebullient Echoes” by Southwestern faculty member Jason Hoogerhyde.

The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, call The Sarofim School of Fine Arts at 512-863-1504.

Media Coverage

The Williamson County Sun ran an article about the First-Year Seminar on dogs taught by Laura Hobgood-Oster and Jimmy Smith.

The Williamson County Sun ran items about the two professors who were recently named to endowed chairs and Ed Kain’s forthcoming honor from the Southern Sociological Society.

Notables

Michael Cooper, professor of music, recently presented papers at two conferences held in the former East Germany. In May, he joined a panel of six scholars representing Germany, France and Italy to give a paper titled “Two Composers Divided by a Shared Identity: Portrayals of Mendelssohn in American and German Musicology in the Twentieth Century” at a conference on Mendelssohn Reception in the Twentieth Century that was held in Rostock. In August, he presented a paper titled “Mendelssohn and Berlioz: Obscure(d) Affinities)” at a conference held in Leipzig.

Sandra Loudwig, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, co-authored a paper that was recently published in the Journal of Inclusion Phenomena & Macrocyclic Chemistry. The paper was titled “Complexing photolabile cholinergic ligands with synthetic and biological receptors: a dynamic survey.”

Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton, associate professor of English, contributed a chapter to a new book titled Thirty Years After: New Essays on Vietnam War Literature, Film, and Art. The chapter Piedmont-Marton contributed is titled “‘I’m not trying to compete with you’: Gulf War Fiction and Discursive Space.” 

Senior communication studies major Sally Spalding is receiving the 2009 Undergraduate Paper Award from the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender.

Spalding wrote a paper titled “Power Play: The Intersection of Religion and Gender in Christian Women’s Narratives” for her communication studies research capstone class last spring under the direction of Julia Johnson, assistant professor of communication studies and feminist studies.

Spalding will receive her award during the annual OSCLG conference to be held at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles Oct. 15-18. Spalding also will present a shorter version of her paper at the Religious Communication Association pre-conference of the National Communication Association annual convention in Chicago in November.