Weber State University journalism instructor Shane Farver hit the trail earlier this month in Canyonlands National Park.

Farver and friends hiked in Chesler Park in the Needles District. As you can see from the photographs, wide open vistas gave way to slot canyons on a day of sightseeing.

Farver also mapped his hike. Find it by clicking here.

What are your favorite trails in Canyonlands National Park?

— Nate Carlisle

Photos can be viewed here. 

Weber State University students who enjoy the arts and free activities might be interested in the all-age entertainment events that are hosted by the Browning Center and Kimball Arts Center, which they have access to in the community and on campus.

Jazz at the Station is an example of such a program that is an all-age, free jazz concert open to the community, with a donated venue located at the Union Station, as well as donated time and talents from local jazz artists. The program runs on the calendar for 12 performances a year every second Wednesday of the month, and sometimes showcases students from the WSU Jazz Ensemble.

“It tends to not only be a program for our students, but it attracts a lot of people from the community as well,” said Caril Jennings, marketing director for the WSU Visual and Performing Arts Department.

Jennings said that the crowd can reach up to 200 people because of Jazz at the Station’s reputation, and that she sees the program as a way to reach out to the community, to attract them to other events open to the public that are held on campus.

The band Shaky Trade was the featured act of the night earlier this month for Jazz at the Station, and some of the band members hold their roots as WSU alumni.

“Ogden is such a weird place, because it has a really vibrant art community, and it’s cool to have the support of Weber State as a big part of that,” said Christopher Clemons, trumpet player for Shaky Trade and graduate of WSU with a music performance degree.

With a calendar loaded with constant events, the Performing Arts Department’s featured event would most likely be their theater season. The fall season starts with the Shakespearean classic Romeo and Juliet, premiering on Oct. 7 and running through Oct. 15. Then follows the musical Xanadu, opening on Nov. 4. There will also be a production of the Euripides traditional Greek play Iphigenia and Tauris, which will be shown on Aug. 28 during WSU’s annual Greek festival.

The Tuesday performances of Romeo and Juliet and Xanadu are free to any WSU student with a current Wildcard. The tickets are only available an hour before the performance, so people are encouraged to arrive early because of the first-come-first-serve policy.

The Kimball Arts Center has their own outreach for art enthusiasts in the community with seasonal free outreach programs and their series of artist lectures and exhibitions.

The Arts in the Parks program, directed by WSU history professor Kathryn Mackay and Kimball Arts Center Outreach coordinator Linda Gravis, has just finished its second season and was a program modeled after the five-year-running Science in the Parks programs.

“Universities can tend to be sort of an academic bubble within a community,” Gravis said. “I’m interested in advancing efforts on behalf of Weber State to integrate more with the general community as far as outreach opportunities and activities go.”

Arts in the Parks is a summer opportunity where children and their families can participate in free arts activities for an entire week, with different themes each week, such as music, dance, visual arts, theater, and performing and literary arts, which was a partnered effort of the Weber County Library.

Snow Days at the Shaw Gallery is their winter community activity that was started in 2009 and is a bilingual arts program held the first Saturday of each winter month. The program is free, with the gallery remaining open and activities being held by art students in the lobby, with at least one instructor fluent in Spanish and English.

“When you take something to a certain demographic in the community, it’s more effective than when you’re expecting that population to come to something you’re putting on in a different location,” Gravis said.

The artist lectures and exhibitions are free to students as well. The first exhibition, featuring fine arts photographer Edward Burtynsky, begins Aug. 15 and runs through Nov. 22, with a public lecture by the artist on Sept. 16.

Other events can be found by checking the performing and visual arts calendars on the school’s website, or by contacting the WSU Performing Arts Department by calling 801- 626-6800 and the Kimball Visual Arts Center at 801-626-6455.

“In some college towns, everything goes on campus; in others, everything goes on downtown,” Jennings said. “I don’t believe Ogden is like that.”

The SignPost

Jason Dilworth probably always saw things a little differently, first with the trained eyes of an art student at Weber State University, then as a bicyclist who viewed the world up close.

And now Dilworth, 30, and a 2006 WSU grad, has seen 2,500 meandering miles of America, from Greensboro, Ala., to San Francisco, from the back of a kit-assembled bamboo bike.

"A friend of mine, Marc O'Brien, said he wanted to bicycle across country before he turned 30, and asked if I wanted to go," said Dilworth, now a graphic arts teacher at State University of New York at Fredonia. "He asked if I wanted to go, and I said yes immediately. I kind of had some unfinished business."

O'Brien and Dilworth met when both studied art at the University of Virginia, O'Brien as an undergraduate, Dilworth as a grad student. After earning his master's in 2009, Dilworth applied for teaching jobs, and set off traveling west on his bicycle, for a summer of sightseeing and visiting friends he couldn't have afforded to see if it required air fare.

"I was in Bryce Canyon when I checked my voice mail and learned I had a teaching job," Dilworth said. "I ended my bike tour short, and left the red rocks for the green hills. But I always felt I had unfinished business."

When O'Brien suggested the latest ride, which would attract two more friends, he mentioned the idea of bamboo-frame bicycles. O'Brien had worked in Alabama, a state with a struggling farm community, and he learned that Alabama has ideal conditions for growing bamboo, a crop for which America is the largest importer. O'Brien and others believe bamboo is a good cash crop for Southern small farmers struggling to make a living.

So the bicycle trip, besides being a fun idea and a celebration of turning 30, became a promotion for Alabamboo, a movement to bring bamboo farming to Alabama.

The riders bought bike kits from Bamboo Bike Studio, an environmentally minded New York company. The team harvested its own Alabama bamboo and held the fibrous canes over heat for hardening.

The canes were then fitted into metal joints from the kit to form a bicycle frame. Dilworth said his bamboo bicycle rides a lot like his regular bicycle, except he feels extra pride knowing he made his cane-based bike.

The Alabamboo riders assembled their bikes in Alabama, and set off June 4 for a trip they would complete in Northern California on July 30. Dilworth and friends stayed away from interstates and took time to look at the art, history and peculiarities of the regions through which they passed.

"The South has these incredible opportunities, not just for economic growth, but for happiness," said Dilworth, an Idaho native who grew up in Vernal, Utah, and attended WSU on a scholarship. "Every place has incredible histories and local color.

"And riding, you see the South turn into the Midwest, and then into the Intermountain West, and into incredibly different communities in Utah. They fade out in Nevada -- then you get traffic and cars in California."

Dilworth said as the only mountain Westerner in the group, he was worried about what others might think of his childhood home.

"I hoped it wouldn't be too hot and dry, and that none of them would get stung by a scorpion," he said. "I hoped they would love it, and they did. I don't think any of them were expecting the majestic beauty."

The group aimed for a leisurely, flexible trip, with time built in for side excursions suggested by locals. The riders averaged about 80 miles a day, including one day of multiple wrong turns that landed them back where they started, much to their amusement.

Finally riding into San Francisco was satisfying, but that high was followed by a trip low.

"I hated to box up my bike," Dilworth said. "It had become part of me. I could hop on that bike and ride it anywhere."

Now back in New York, Dilworth says he feels trapped, relying on cabs, buses and his own feet to get him where he would rather bike. The bamboo bike is still in transit.

"It's back to school now, back to work," Dilworth said. "It's slightly disorienting. My hometown feels new to me, which I guess is why we travel. Still, I wish there had been time to bicycle back."

OGDEN, Utah – Sticks + Stones, a collaborative design project led in part by Weber State University visual arts professor Mark Biddle, was recently named winner of the international Core77 Design Education Initiatives Award for its Berlin 2010 project.

Sticks + Stones Berlin 2010 focused on culture, migration and representation. In one component of the project, students took to the streets of Berlin wearing T-shirts with the question “What would people call me behind my back?” printed on the front. They approached people randomly and asked them to write directly on their backs.

“This initiative was meant to give physicality to the way we label each other,” Biddle said. “The writers of these opinions pressed their words onto the back of the T-shirt wearer, and in turn, those students felt these labels and assumptions being forced upon their backs.”

Britni Howe was one of six WSU students who traveled to Berlin for the project.

“It was actually pretty interesting because it seemed people were much more comfortable writing more openly and honestly on the guys' shirts,” said Howe, a South Ogden, Utah resident. “All the guys who wore the shirts said that this was not something they would like to volunteer for again. I got the feeling that people were too uncomfortable to write what they may have really been thinking on my back. It was kind of an interesting twist. Our exhibit was also starting to include some gender biases which we had not anticipated originally for this particular project.”

The students reviewed their findings and presented a response exhibition for DesignTransfer, a Berlin gallery. The exhibition also included materials from the other components of the project, such as information graphics about migration, life-sized panels about stereotypes and wall-sized maps.

The study, field research and design of the project were part of a two-week symposium in Berlin, which occurred in June 2010. More than 40 students from six different universities collaborated on the project. The students originated from China, England, Germany, Israel, Poland, Russia, Turkey and the United States.

Other WSU graphic design students who participated in the project included Crissy Barney from Springfield, Ohio; Sam DeMastrie from South Ogden, Utah; Jennifer Hadley from Roy, Utah; Chanel Licheld from North Ogden, Utah; and Jeff Madsen from Davis County, Utah. The students began working on the project while at WSU in May 2010 with preliminary studies about American and German stereotypes. They also competed with students abroad for design of the project’s branding. DeMastrie’s design was chosen as the branding solution.

The Core77 Design Awards are a global competition recognizing excellence in all areas of design enterprise. Jury teams based around the world gathered in eight countries to judge 15 categories of design practice.

“What pushed Sticks + Stones to the top of our list was how it promoted cultural awareness by working with cultural diversity as opposed to just working on or about cultural diversity,” said Elizabeth Tunstall, jury captain of the Core77 Design Education Initiatives Award.

The Sticks + Stones Project began in 2005 as a collaborative project between WSU and three other U.S. universities. The project focused on helping design students understand the basis of stereotypes and how they influence prejudice. Sticks + Stones has now grown to international collaboration with Washington, D.C. and Australia being discussed for future action sites.

Biddle, University of Maryland professor Audra Buck-Coleman and Northeastern University professor Ann McDonald are the project’s primary investigators. Co-collaborators and onsite hosts in Germany were Charlotte Driessen and Universität der Kunste, Berlin professor Ulrich Schwarz.

Visit core77designawards.com/awards/design-education-initiatives for more information about the awards.

Visit sticksandstonesproject.org for more information about Sticks + Stones.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.

Contact:

Mark Biddle, visual arts professor, Sticks + Stones Project coordinator
mbiddle@weber.edu

Sam DeMastrie, visual arts student, Sticks + Stones project participant
samueldemastrie@weber.edu

Britni Howe, visual arts student, Sticks + Stones project participant
howe.britni@gmail.com

Author:

Jonathan McBride, office of Media Relations
801-626-6347 • jonathanmcbride@weber.edu

OGDEN — What kind of things are said behind our backs? If you didn't know someone, what kind of labels would you put on a person based on their gender or ethnicity?

Stereotypes of ethnic immigrants can be brutal, and the recent massacre of dozens of children and adults in Norway by a man claiming an anti-immigrant agenda, is a stark reminder where it can lead. But for many others, name-calling and other comments are kept just out of earshot.

That is what a group of students from Weber State University sought to find out on the streets of Berlin, Germany, as part of an international team of graphics design students. The group was recently awarded an international design prize for its thoughtful and provocative approach to understanding labels and stereotypes.

Students took to the streets last summer, wearing white T-shirts that said: "What would people call me behind my back?" People were then asked to take a marker and write comments about the person. The students were from the United States, Turkey, United Kingdom, Germany and China.

"Barak Obama," "He looks like Will Smith" and "like Morgan Freeman" were some of the things Berliners wrote on the back of one African-American student from Maryland.

A curly-haired, white male student from the U.S. had comments like, "you eat disgusting food," "Israelien (that's meant to be positive)," and "curly Sue."

One female student from Turkey had "eat lots of kebabs," "beautiful lady from Turkey" and "you all look the same!" penned on her back.

Some students commented that exposing themselves to the judgment of strangers was so uncomfortable that they would choose not to do it again.

WSU visual arts professor Mark Biddle said the project "Sticks + Stones" was designed to raise questions and discussion about labeling, stereotyping and name calling. "Visual communication has been used to oppress and hurt people," Biddle said, pointing to the extensive propaganda created by the Nazi party during World War II. Biddle was one of several international professors who created the project.

Biddle said much like how the United States has struggled with the growing population of Hispanic immigrants, Germany and other European countries have struggled to integrate populations of immigrants from the Middle-East and Africa.

Biddle said it is natural for people to put others into categories as a way to make sense of the world. "This can also create some really serious problems as well," he said. Students also toured the Sachsenhausen concentration camp as a way to understand where name-calling and labels of different people can lead.

What would they say about a white young woman from northern Utah? Weber State student Britni Howe, who wore one of the T-shirts, said she found people were much more polite in their comments than her male friends.

"It seemed people were much more comfortable writing more openly and honestly on the guys' shirts," she said. "I got the feeling they were too uncomfortable writing what they may have really been thinking on my back. ... Sometimes I felt they were just being polite to me."

The shirts, along with graphics depicting immigration statistics in the United States and Europe, were then exhibited at a gallery in Berlin.

The project was recently awarded the top winner of the international Core77 Design Education Initiatives competition, beating out other groups from the United States and other countries. Core77 is an international group of design experts and professors who seek to recognize innovative and entrepreneurial projects.

Students said they had to overcome language and cultural barriers of their own. WSU student Sam DeMastrie said before the trip to Berlin he had lived in Ogden his whole life. "We were kind of our own experiment," he said, adding he felt his own assumptions about people from China and Turkey were changed for the better.

DeMastrie, who was selected to create the project's logo, said it was amazing to see his work prominently displayed in an international exhibit.

Given the recent award, Biddle said the groups of professors that help contribute to "Sticks + Stones" have considered adding to the project by doing a T-shirt event in Washington, D.C., next summer and possibly another one in Australia in 2013.

Story and Photos found here

WSU Chamber Orchestra off to China

Nancy Van Valkenburg

OGDEN -- Amy Elmer isn't too worried about the first airplane flight of her life, even though it will last a whopping 15 hours.

The Weber State University music education student, whose previous longest trip was to Washington state, isn't concerned about the food she will eat in China. She likes sushi, and she's moderately skilled with chopsticks.

And Elmer won't get lonely, traveling with three dozen or so fellow musicians in the WSU Chamber Orchestra, which leaves for Beijing at 6 a.m. Sunday but, due to time-zone differences, arrives Monday afternoon.

No, what worries Elmer is the well-being of her cello, which will make the 6,000-mile trip in the plane's belly with other baggage and cargo.

"I'm worried about my cello getting lost or bumped or broken or too cold," said Elmer, 21 of Pleasant View. "It should be OK in the new case Dr. Palumbo bought. But that's what worries me."

Michael Palumbo, WSU department chair and professor of music, is taking a student musical group to China for the third time since 1999, when he was first invited by the visiting president of Shanghai Normal University, Yang Deguang.

"They brought him on a campus tour, and they brought him to our building," Palumbo recalled. "He stuck his head into an orchestra rehearsal and a few months later I got an invitation to do a concert at Shanghai Normal University."

The travel group will consist of 37 faculty members, student musicians and spouses. Faculty soloists will include Yu-Jane Yang, piano; Shi-Hwa Wang, violin; and Viktor Uzur, cello.

For the flights, most musicians put their instruments in overhead compartments, but a few larger instruments will travel as baggage and a few really big instruments will be borrowed in China.

Weber State musicians will perform concerts at Beijing Contemporary Music Academy, Tianjin University of Sport, and Shanghai Ocean University. Much of the musicians' nine-day trip will be spent as tourists, being shown the sites by university hosts.

Elmer can't wait.

"I'm excited to see all the big tourist attractions," she said. "I'm also excited to just see a big city and how it functions. And I'm excited about shopping in Shanghai, where I am told I can buy anything I want -- like clothes, silk and pearls -- cheaper."

Those going had a year to plan and save, Palumbo said. The cost of the trip is $2,015 per person, which goes for flights, transportation in China, hotels, meals and sight-seeing. After monetary donations by the university, those going will pay $1,265 each. But that's still a chunk of change for the average student.

"I've been aware of needing to pay for it, and have been more careful than normal with my money," Elmer said. "I already have a couple of jobs, so I was more careful with what I earned."

Palumbo said music students at Chinese universities he has visited are different from orchestra musicians at Weber State.

"The schools in China cater only to those students who have a very high ability as musicians," he said. "It's not the case that anyone who wants to can get involved and perform. They weed out students to get only the best performers.

"A lot of the performers in my orchestra are not music majors or minors. They just like to play. It's a different musical culture for our students to see, and the Chinese students get to see our students, who are regular college students who just love music and want to enjoy themselves. It's a good learning experience for both sides. And I have to say, my orchestra is pretty good. It holds its own quite well against the Chinese students."

For students like Elmer, hoping to teach music in the United States, and for other orchestra students who plan to follow other career paths, the trip to China is a rare opportunity, Palumbo said.

Elmer agreed.

"It's the chance of a lifetime to go with so many of my friends," she said. "I've been with the orchestra four years, so I'm going to China with a big group of good friends."

Elmer said she plans to stay with her group, "so I don't get lost." She bought a water bottle with a filter, "so I don't get sick."

Her only other worry?

"I'm pretty good with chopsticks, but I may have to hide a fork in my purse."

 Story found here 

Crescendos in China

WSU’s department of performing arts to tour the land of a billion people

Thirty-seven student orchestra players will have the musical opportunity of a lifetime to play on the other side of the globe, and some veteran professors will return to visit old friends and colleagues when the Weber State University Chamber Orchestra performs a musical tour in China from May 15-23. The players, as well as several spouses and music department faculty, are preparing to visit Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai during the nine-day tour.

This is the third tour the orchestra has made to China since the WSU orchestra program began associating with Chinese schools in 1999. That year, president Yang of Shanghai Normal University, visited the WSU campus as part of an exchange development trip, and attended a rehearsal of the Weber State Symphony Orchestra. That led to an invitation for the orchestra to perform a series of concerts at SNU and other venues in Shanghai in 2000.

Michael Palumbo, the Director of Orchestral Studies and professor of Viola at the WSU Department of Performing Arts, organized the trip and will conduct the orchestra.

"It is a once in a lifetime cultural musical opportunity that's hard to get," Palumbo said. "China is such a completely different culture for us that it's something the students will probably not have the a chance to do again, especially as a musical experience."

Palumbo has been teaching at WSU for 29 years and has conducted the orchestra on each of the three previous trips. He also took a sabbatical in the spring of 2008 to teach at the Shanghai Medical College for four months, and has enjoyed his experiences visiting several countries in the East, including Singapore and Taiwan.

"I like everything about it," Palumbo said about China. "The country and the people — it's just a very enjoyable experience."

In 2005, the orchestra was invited to perform concerts in Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. At that time, they were offered a rare opportunity to view and actually walk down among the thousands of excavated terra cotta warriors on site in Xi'an. It was an experience not often offered to guests.

In May, the chamber orchestra will perform at the Tianjin Music Conservatory, Tianjin Normal University and Shanghai Ocean University. They will tour the Forbidden City in Beijing, Tiananmen Square and make a special trip the climb the Great Wall.

Other faculty from the Department of Performing Arts will be featured as guest artists during the tour. Shi-Hwa Wang, professor of Violin;  Yu-Jane Yang, professor of Piano/Piano Pedagogy; and Viktor Uzur, professor of Cello, will perform the Beethoven Concerto in C for Piano, Violin and Cello with the orchestra.

The students will pay a large portion of the trip's expense themselves, but it was also funded by a generous donation from the College of Arts and Humanities and WSU's Student Fee Committee.

For more information about the upcoming trip or the Department of Performing Arts, contact Michael Palumbo at (801) 626-6991, or email mpalumbo@weber.edu.

Article found here: http://www.wsusignpost.com/a-e/crescendos-in-china-1.2124097

From the Signpost
By: Jessica Wilke

Thirty-seven student orchestra players will have the musical opportunity of a lifetime to play on the other side of the globe, and some veteran professors will return to visit old friends and colleagues when the Weber State University Chamber Orchestra performs a musical tour in China from May 15-23. The players, as well as several spouses and music department faculty, are preparing to visit Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai during the nine-day tour.

This is the third tour the orchestra has made to China since the WSU orchestra program began associating with Chinese schools in 1999. That year, president Yang of Shanghai Normal University, visited the WSU campus as part of an exchange development trip, and attended a rehearsal of the Weber State Symphony Orchestra. That led to an invitation for the orchestra to perform a series of concerts at SNU and other venues in Shanghai in 2000.

Michael Palumbo, the Director of Orchestral Studies and professor of Viola at the WSU Department of Performing Arts, organized the trip and will conduct the orchestra.

"It is a once in a lifetime cultural musical opportunity that's hard to get," Palumbo said. "China is such a completely different culture for us that it's something the students will probably not have the a chance to do again, especially as a musical experience."

Palumbo has been teaching at WSU for 29 years and has conducted the orchestra on each of the three previous trips. He also took a sabbatical in the spring of 2008 to teach at the Shanghai Medical College for four months, and has enjoyed his experiences visiting several countries in the East, including Singapore and Taiwan.

"I like everything about it," Palumbo said about China. "The country and the people — it's just a very enjoyable experience."

In 2005, the orchestra was invited to perform concerts in Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. At that time, they were offered a rare opportunity to view and actually walk down among the thousands of excavated terra cotta warriors on site in Xi'an. It was an experience not often offered to guests.

In May, the chamber orchestra will perform at the Tianjin Music Conservatory, Tianjin Normal University and Shanghai Ocean University. They will tour the Forbidden City in Beijing, Tiananmen Square and make a special trip the climb the Great Wall.

Other faculty from the Department of Performing Arts will be featured as guest artists during the tour. Shi-Hwa Wang, professor of Violin;  Yu-Jane Yang, professor of Piano/Piano Pedagogy; and Viktor Uzur, professor of Cello, will perform the Beethoven Concerto in C for Piano, Violin and Cello with the orchestra.

The students will pay a large portion of the trip's expense themselves, but it was also funded by a generous donation from the College of Arts and Humanities and WSU's Student Fee Committee.

For more information about the upcoming trip or the Department of Performing Arts, contact Michael Palumbo at

(801) 626-6991, or email mpalumbo@weber.edu.

OGDEN, Utah – Acclaimed nature photographer James Balog, who is using time-lapse video and photography to document the retreat of glaciers worldwide, will visit Weber State University Nov. 16-20.