Top News

SOUTHWESTERN TO HOST FORUM FOR DIST. 52 STATE REPRESENTATIVE CANDIDATES OCT. 8

Southwestern University will host a forum for the candidates running for state representative in Dist. 52 on Wednesday, Oct. 8, from 7-8:30 p.m. in the Red and Charline McCombs Campus Center ballrooms.

Three candidates - Democrat Diana Maldonado, Republican Bryan Daniel and Libertarian Lillian Simmons - are vying for the Dist. 52 seat being vacated by Mike Krusee. All three will participate in the forum.

District 52 covers most of Round Rock, all of Taylor, and most of Georgetown to the east of Interstate 35 (see map here). Audience members will be able to participate in the forum by submitting written questions to a panel of students. The candidates will have the opportunity to make opening and closing remarks.

Read the rest of the story here.

THE DECEMBERISTS TO PERFORM AT SOUTHWESTERN OCT. 30

The Decemberists, an Indie rock band from Portland, Ore., will be the featured performer for the fourth annual Large Act Concert at Southwestern University on Thursday, Oct. 30. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and the concert will begin at 8 p.m. in the Corbin J. Robertson Center (building #16 on the campus map here: http://www.southwestern.edu/livewhale/content/downloads/6_campus_map.pdf).

The concert will kick off The Decemberists’ national Bridesmaid Revisited Tour 2008, which includes performances at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and The Wiltern in Los Angeles, Calif. Southwestern will be the only stop the band makes in the southern United States during its tour.

Tickets for the concert are $10 for Southwestern students and may be purchased online using Pirate Buc$ beginning Wednesday, Oct. 1. Tickets for the general public are $20 and will be available beginning Oct. 8. Read the rest of the story here: http://www.southwestern.edu/newsroom/story.php?id=215

Events

SOPRANO RECITAL OCT. 5

Soprano Dana Zenobi and pianist David Utterback will perform a faculty recital on Sunday, Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. in the Alma Thomas Theater  located in the Fine Arts Center. The concert will feature “The Soldier Tir’d of War’s Alarms” from Artaxerxes by T. Arne; “La Regata Veneziana” (3 songs) by G. Rossini; selected songs by S. Rachmaninoff; a set of German art songs on night imagery by Mendelssohn-Hensel, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Berg, Marx and R. Strauss; and a set of American art songs by H. Leslie Adams. Zenobi joined the Southwestern voice faculty in fall 2007. She has appeared locally with Austin Lyric Opera, most recently in the American premiere of Philip Glass’ “Waiting for the Barbarians,” as well as with Viola by Choice chamber music ensemble. The recital is sponsored by the Music Department in the Sarofim School of Fine Arts. It is free and open to the public. For more information, call 512-863-1504

TIBETAN WRITER AND FILMAKER TO VISIT SOUTHWESTERN OCT. 6-7

Tibetan writer and filmmaker Dorje Tsering Chenaktsang, commonly known as Jangbu, will speak at Southwestern University Oct. 6-7 as part of a two-day event focusing on the arts in modern Tibet. On Monday, Oct. 6, Jangbu will give a talk titled “An Overview on the Development of Modern Tibetan Literature.” The talk will begin at 7 p.m. in Olin 110 (building 10 on the campus map). On Tuesday, Oct, 7, Jangbu’s latest documentary will be shown at 7 p.m. in the Alma Thomas Theater. The documentary, titled “Kokonor,” is about the impact of tourism on a small Tibetan community on Lake Qinghai (in the People’s Republic of China). In conjunction with Jangbu’s visit, Southwestern will host an exhibit of pictures of China and Tibet by Austin-based artist Rama Tiru. The exhibit will be on display throughout October in the Walzel Lobby outside the Alma Thomas Theater. Read the rest of the story here.

OCT 13 IS DEADLINE TO SIGN UP FOR NYC THEATER TOUR

The Theatre Department in the Sarofim School of Fine Arts is sponsoring a New York Theatre tour Nov. 26-30. The trip will include tickets to three Tony award-winning productions: the smash-hit musical “In The Heights“; the 2008 Tony Award-winning play “August: Osage County” from Steppenwolf, one of America’s premiere theatre companies out of Chicago; and “Boeing, Boeing” starring Christine Baranski, the 2008 Tony Award winner for Best Play Revival. For more information on the tour, visit here. Payments are due Oct 13.

Media Coverage

The Williamson County Sun ran a story about Southwestern’s record minority enrollment this fall. 

Ben Pierce, professor of biology, was featured in a story KVUE-TV in Austin did about a new coalition that has been formed to promote science education in Texas public schools. View the story here.

The Williamson County Sun ran stories about the opening of the “Near East Meets West” ceramics show and the play “Lysistrata.”

Notables

Alexandra Anderson, associate director of Career Services, was selected to be newsletter editor for the 800+ member, 15-state Southern Association of Colleges and Employers (SoACE) for 2008-2009.  In this role, Anderson has redesigned and streamlined the association’s communication process to consist of biweekly newsfeeds featuring feature stories as well as news and announcements. Anderson previously served as the newsletter editor and member of the Board of Directors of the Southwest Association of Colleges and Employers, one of two organizations that merged to form SoACE in 2007.

Ben Pierce, professor of biology and holder of the Lillian Nelson Chair, and former Southwestern University undergraduate students Jose Granda and Robert Pena published an article in Applied Herpetology titled “Effects of disturbance, position of observer, and moonlight on efficiency of anuran call surveys.”