Homecoming Parade

Southwestern’s Homecoming Parade returned to the Georgetown Square in 2013 and was followed by a pep rally on the courthouse steps. The APO float that was voted the best in the parade can be seen in the right of this photo. To see more photos of the Homecoming Parade, go here. (Photo by Ellen Davis)

Top News

SOUTHWESTERN STUDENT IS ATTENDING AN INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE IN POLAND THIS MONTH

While most of her classmates are getting ready for their final exams, senior environmental studies and feminist studies major Jessica Olson will be in Poland trying to help solve the problem of global climate change.

Olson is a youth delegate to the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The conference is being held in Warsaw, Poland, Nov. 11-22 and is expected to draw some 9,000 participants.

This will be the second year in a row that Olson has attended this international conference. Last year she was a delegate to the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18), which was held in Doha, Qatar.

Olson was selected to attend both conferences as a representative of the Sierra Student Coalition, which is the national youth-led section of the Sierra Club. Olson recently completed a one-year term on the Executive Committee of the Sierra Student Coalition and in September, she received a national award from the Sierra Club for her work with the organization.

Last year, Olson said she learned the basics of how the Convention on Climate Change works. This year, she hopes to really dig in and make a contribution.

“One of the most important things I got out of the conference last year is the broad sense of urgency that is being felt around the world when it comes to climate change,” Olson said. “We really need to come to a binding agreement by 2015.”

Read more here.

EIGHT RECEIVE 2013 AWARDS FROM THE ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ALUMNI

Seven alumni and a faculty member were honored this year by The Association of Southwestern University Alumni. The awards were presented Nov. 3 during Southwestern’s 2013 Homecoming and Reunion Weekend.

Award recipients included 1992 graduate Kenda Jameson Evans, 1988 graduate Mike Lade, 1977 graduateSteve Cotton, 1960 graduate J. Wehrley Chapman, 1969 graduate Susan Youens, 2008 graduate Anne Olson, and 2005 graduate Blair Quinius. The Ms. Homecoming award went to Sherry Adrian, associate professor of education.

Read more here.

Events

NOV. 9 PUBLIC VIEWING NIGHT CANCELLED

The Nov. 9 public viewing night at the Fountainwood Observatory has been cancelled due to an SCAC soccer tournament that will be held on campus the weekend of Nov. 8-10. Regular public viewing nights at the observatory will begin again in early 2014.

TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE FOR NOV. 12 WRITER’S VOICE EVENT

A limited number of tickets are still available for the Nov. 12 Writer’s Voice event featuring T.C. Boyle.Tickets are free, but must be reserved by completing a ticket request. For questions about The Writer’s Voice, contact Jean Whewell at 863-1172 or whewellj@southwestern.edu. 

THEATRE DEPARTMENT TO PRESENT ‘TARTUFFE’

The Theatre Department will present the Molière classic “Tartuffe” Nov. 15-17 and 21-24. Performances will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and at 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. All performances will be held in the Jones Theater.

For more information, or to purchase tickets, go here.

WIND ENSEMBLE AND ORCHESTRA TO PERFORM NOV. 16

The SU Wind Ensemble and Orchestra will perform on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 7 p.m. in the Alma Thomas Theater. The program will include works by Daniel Bukvich, Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Debussy, Eric Whitacre, Ludwig van Beethoven and Reinhold Glière. Members of the Georgetown High School strings will join the Orchestra and perform pieces conducted by 2013 Southwestern graduate Stacie Glowka.

The concert is free and open to the public.

NOV. 19 HISTORY COLLOQUIUM WILL FOCUS ON THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN LATIN AMERICA

The history of medicine in Latin America will be the subject of Southwestern University’s 2013 History Colloquium to be held Tuesday, Nov. 19, from 4-5:30 p.m. in Olin 110.

Professor David Sowell of Juniata College will be the featured speaker and will deliver a talk titled “Riots, Schools, and Clinics: Writing the History of Medicine in Latin America.” Using examples from Bogotá, Colombia, and the state of Yucatán, Mexico, Sowell will discuss how the introduction of scientific medicine in Latin America in the 19th century caused considerable discomfort, challenging the deeply held belief in the connection between the Catholic faith and healing.

Sowell is the author of The Tale of Healer Miguel Perdomo Neira: Medicine, Ideologies, and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Andes and recently finished a project on public health in the Yucatan from about 1870 through the 1950s. 

The event is free and open to the public.

Media Coverage

The Williamson County Sun covered the Homecoming parade and pep rally on the Georgetown square.

President Edward Burger appeared on the Goldstein on Gelt radio show. Listen to the segment here.

Notables

Three Music Department faculty members were featured at the College Music Society National Conference held in Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 30-Nov. 2. Jason Hoogerhyde, associate professor of music, had his piano trio, Canopy of Night, performed by the Trio Florida on one of the CMS New Music Concerts. Kiyoshi Tamagawa, professor of music, presented a paper titled “The Sing-It-Yourself Messiah: A Particular Kind of Community Engagement,” and Eileen Meyer Russell, associate professor of music, presented a paper titled “Civic Engagement and the Applied Music Studio.” 

Two teams of computer science majors/minors from Southwestern competed in the 2013 ACM ICPC South Central USA Regional Programming Contest at Baylor University Nov. 2. The “su root” team of Rob CampbellParis Nelson and Rebecca Wilson successfully solved two problems, finishing 32nd out of 57 teams, and the “su equipo” team of Ellie EnisKathryn Reagan and Ross Warkentin solved two problems. The teams were coached by Rick Denman, professor of math and computer science, who was assisted by Barbara Anthony, assistant professor of computer science, and Suzanne Buchele, associate professor of computer science. 

Erika Berroth, associate professor of German, participated in the 38thannual conference of the Coalition of Women in German (WIG) in Shawnee on Delaware, Pa., Oct. 24-27. Berroth led three professional development workshops, organized and moderated a panel on “Erlkönigs Töchter: Witches and Ghosts in German Literature and Film,” and collaborated in selecting the 2013 winner of the Women in German Dissertation Prize. She was appointed to chair the Dissertation Prize Committee in the coming year. The WIG membership also voted to sponsor Berroth’s proposal to organize and moderate a panel on “Eco-Pedagogy and Feminist Praxis in Modern Languages and Literatures” at the 2014 conference of the American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages  (ACTFL) and the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) that will be held in San Antonio next November.

Patrick Hajovsky, assistant professor of art history, presented a paper titled “Moteuczoma-Tezcatlipoca-Xiuhtecuhtli: Invisibility and Visibility in Aztec Sculpture and Ritual,” at the 4th Annual South Central Conference on Mesoamerica, which was held at the University of Houston Nov. 1-3.

Senior psychology major Lindsay Jakszta is the first women’s soccer player from Southwestern to be named a First-team Academic All-District® honoree. She now advances to the competition for the first-, second- and third-team All-America honorees, which will be selected in November. Read more here.

Feminist, Queer, Crip, the new book by Alison Kafer, associate professor of feminist studies, will be highlighted during this weekend’s National Women’s Studies Association conference in Cincinnati. Kafer’s work will be the focus of an “Authors Meet Critics” session, which is designed to bring authors of recent cutting-edge books deemed to be important contributions to the field of women’s studies together with discussants chosen to provide a variety of viewpoints. Read more here. Earlier this week, Kafer spoke about the book with Professor Matt Richardson’s graduate seminar on queer theory at UT-Austin. 

Junior Alex Medrano has earned All-SCAC honors in cross country. Read more here.

Eric Selbin, professor of political science and University Scholar, gave a talk at Hobart and William Smith Colleges on decentering international relations and decentering revolution.