Board members of AHA! (The Arts & Humanities Advisors) are pleased to announce winners of AHA! Scholarships, as well as Awards for Faculty, Staff, Alumnus, and Friend-of-the-College  for 2012-13.  The AHA! Board funds these scholarships and awards to support “unsung heroes” in the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities at Weber State. 

Scholarships go to students who persevere despite difficult circumstances, reach beyond their grasp, and exhibit a talent or promise indicating their commitment to education.  Based on nominations from faculty members and application statements from students themselves, the Board determined that Kierstan Voorhees and Amy Gerard, both from the Communication Department, both of whom have faced considerable challenges in attending and succeeding in school, merit AHA! Scholarships.  Each will receive $2000 toward next year’s tuition and fees.

This year’s AHA! Recognition Award for Faculty, for a faculty member doing an exceptionally good job but who has not been previously recognized in significant public ways, goes to adjunct Music faculty member Linda Lee.  About Linda, her nominator notes: “By using her disarming sense of humor and her rather unassuming character, she skillfully nurtures novice singers, and yet she can also challenge the most advanced singers to reach new heights.”  Linda consistently works with between 14 and 16 vocal students per semester, pitches in to design and construct costumes for opera productions, and quietly takes on all kinds of other duties.  Again, her nominator comments: “She is not simply an ‘adjunct voice instructor;’ she is one of the most reliable, trustworthy, and highly competent voice teachers and colleagues we could hope for.”  Although it may seem ironic to give an “unsung hero” award to someone whose specific expertise is song, the Board is delighted to honor Linda Lee as our AHA! Faculty Member.  This award is $3,000.

Diane Neri Stern, Director of Weber State’s Cultural Affairs Program, is recipient of the AHA! Recognition Award for Staff.  One of her nominators says: “Energy, creativity, resourcefulness, talent, and integrity are but a few of Diane’s attributes.  Her belief that the soul of a community must be nurtured by culture makes her exceptional.”  Another nominator points to the way Diane has contributed to numerous programs—Mandy Patinkin, James Balog, Ta’u Pupu’a, for example—outside her own realm of responsibility.  Anthea Kreston, co-founder and violinist of the internationally touring Amelia Piano Trio, writes that Diane is a person with “razor sharp intelligence, passion, and creative energy. . . .  In her work, she digs deep to find the richest experience possible for her audiences.  She cares equally about her artists and audience, and works with both to create memorable and thought-provoking events.  She is, in my opinion, among the best of the best - always seeking to learn and share what she has discovered.  Her passion is infectious and affects all who she touches.”  We are grateful that Diane is a member of the Arts & Humanities College.  This award is $3,000. 

AHA! Recognition Award for a Friend of the College goes this year to the WSU “Treble Makers,” a student chapter of the Music Teachers National Association. The Treble Makers hold the national record of being awarded the most number of MTNA National Student Chapter of the Year (1997, 2003, 2005, 2007). Students who graduated from WSU’s Piano Pedagogy Program have also received the highest number of Student Teacher of the Year awards from the Utah Music Teacher Association (in 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007).

The Treble Makers merit the Friend of the College Award in recognition of their involvement in helping WSU become an “All-Steinway School of Music.”   The hard work of individual members and of the group, as a whole, was directly responsible for enabling the Department of Performing Arts and Weber State University to join the ranks of the top music programs in the nation which provide Steinway pianos for student practice, lessons, rehearsals, and performances.

Over the past three years, the Treble Makers became increasingly involved in WSU’s All-Steinway School Initiative. Their participation began when several of their members took part in home recitals hosted by university donors such as Dr. Candadai Seshachari to raise awareness of the WSU music program. Their ability, as both musicians and as ambassadors for the university, grew as they performed, talked about their music, and conversed with current and potential donors.  Award: a plaque and as much publicity as possible.

Dr. Stephanie Chamberlain is this year’s AHA! Alumnus.  The daughter of Dr. Elmer Ericson, WSU professor of English (b. 1926, d. 1980), Stephanie  received her BA in English in 1982 from Weber State College, followed by a master’s degree and doctorate in English. She currently is a Professor at Southeast Missouri State University, where she teaches Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature.  A consummate scholar, she has published extensive and has presented at numerous conferences and other scholarly events. Through her education, teaching, research, scholarship and charitable donations, she has demonstrated a personal commitment to academic excellence that reflects highly on the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities.

Stephanie has supported WSU through a gift to endow the Elmer H. Ericson Scholarship in English and through a gift to fund the Dr. Elmer H. Ericson Classroom in Elizabeth Hall. She also extends her commitment to education at Southeast Missouri State University where she has endowed the Dr. Robert W. Hamblin Lecture.  Award: a plaque and as much publicity as possible.

Contact: Madonne Miner   madonneminer@weber.edu">madonneminer@weber.edu" data-mce-href="mailto:madonneminer@weber.edu">madonneminer@weber.edu   801-626-6424

By Stephanie Simonson February 23, 2012.

Weber State University students interested in public relations work will soon have an official outlet for honing their skills. Yeonsoo Kim, a public relations professor at WSU, is now accepting applications for WSU’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America.

“Journalism students have The Signpost so they can get some professional, hands-on knowledge in journalism, but in this department, even though PR has a lot more students, we didn’t have any organization or agency for students to have that kind of experience,” Kim said. “So I tried to reorganize PRSSA, and it’s going to become a student-run agency like The Signpost. . . . I heard there was a PRSSA before, but it was like students just have a meeting once per month and just having a guest lecture to learn a little bit more outside of the classroom, but that was it. So I tried to make it a big deal.”

Kim will be the academic adviser for the organization, and she said she also hopes to recruit three public relations professionals to help advise and train students in real-world issues within the field. Two of the professional advisers will be Allison Hess, WSU’s public relations director, and John Kowalewski, media relations director. The third is yet to be decided on.

Students of any major are welcome to join, but Kim said the actual student-run agency, once properly developed, will require a significant time commitment and passion for the field. However, she said the jobs the agency will offer will be diverse and require students of various skill sets.

“We need so many different types of people who are specialized in just general communications — it’s not only about PR students.”

For now, PRSSA membership will include conferences, workshops, internship opportunities and optional course credit for COMM 3890. Next Friday, the newly formed chapter will attend the regional conference at Brigham Young University, where students will have the chance to network with public relations professionals from around the country and students from other chapters, Kim said.

“It’s a large opportunity for networking and really understanding what the industry’s all about from an angle that can’t be had in a classroom,” said Steve Martin, president of BYU’s chapter of PRSSA. “It opens up doors, it provides people with the resources that they need in order to land their first job, because you just don’t learn about PR in general; you learn about your place in PR.”

Ryker Morgan, a public relations junior and the account director of the recruit campaign for WSU’s chapter, said the hands-on experience PRSSA offers is important for public relations students if they plan on getting related jobs out of college.

“The main point of the national chapter is kind of to bridge the gap between students and professionals,” Morgan said. “It just helps students to get professional experience in the PR field in many different aspects, so that it can basically ready them to enter into a professional world. It helps them get connections with professionals that work in PR, instead of, you know, just learning about what PR is in school and then having to worry about trying to find a job after they graduate without any type of connection to the professional world.”

Kim is taking applications for WSU’s chapter of PRSSA though Saturday. Students can find the applications and membership guides on the bulletin board next to the communications department office, Room 330 of Elizabeth Hall. A $50 deposit is required on application to cover conference and activity costs.

With the demolition of Promontory Tower fast approaching, Weber State University’s radio station is rushing to find a new site for its radio transmitter

“We’re doing our best to make sure things get done, but sometimes the wheels of progress grind slowly,” said Ty Sanders, KWCR adviser.

If the wheels grind too slowly and the radio station doesn’t have a new transmitter in place by late April, it could temporarily loose it’s radio signal beginning in May when Promontory Tower is demolished to make room for a new residents hall.

“If we get approval, we think we could move ahead relatively quickly,” Sanders said. “I would like to know as soon as possible. The possibility exists that if everything doesn’t come together, we might have to go off the air for a short period of time. I’m trying to avoid that, but that’s one of the realities.”

The radio station would like a new transmitter and antenna to replace a 25 year-old system that former WSU engineering professor Bill Clapp purchased 22 years ago from a man’s garage in Texas for $300 after it was struck by lightning.

Clapp’s engineering students had to retrofit and repair the transmitter before they could use it, Clapp said. After the modifications, the transmitter still lost much of the power in its signal when it was covered in even a thin layer of ice.

“It’s a weaker signal that cannot be heard by as many students,” Clapp said.

A new antenna with a fiberglass cover would be unaffected by ice, Clapp said.

Currently, Sanders said the most likely location for the new system is atop a block building east of Stewart Stadium. Sanders said all the new equipment will cost about $45,000 and another $5,000-$15,000 to install. For each of the last several years, KWCR has saved money for the new system but will still come up a little short to complete the project. However, Sanders said there’s a good chance they’ll find the necessary funds elsewhere, perhaps from the existing student-fee budget.

If KWCR can’t complete the project before the tower is demolished, it’s looking into using a temporary transmitter until it can finance the new one.

The uncertainty with KWCR’s broadcasting system came when the first plan to install a transmitter on Mt. Ogden was foiled after the station learned its signal would interfere with another radio signal sharing the same frequency that broadcasts out of Park City, Sanders said. If the transmitter could be installed on Mt. Ogden, it would provide a clearer signal, but not extend its range, which reaches from North Ogden to Layton. It also would eliminate many of the dead zones created when the line of sight from the transmitter is blocked by hills and buildings.

These dead zones are largely eliminated by the superior broadcasting power of major radio stations that broadcast out of Salt Lake City at 100,000 watts compared to KWCR’s broadcast of 2,000 watts. KWCR can’t broadcast a stronger signal because the local radio band is so full that a more powerful broadcast would interfere with other stations, Clapp said.

“We’re a small, low-power station,” Clapp said.

Broadcasting from the same frequency on WSU’s campus isn’t a problem because the mountains prevent the two signals from interfering with each other, Sanders said.

Article found here

OGDEN -- The Weber State University String Project is an after-school orchestra program at WSU's Ogden Campus that will start classes Monday.

Classes, for beginning to advanced students in violin, viola, cello or string bass, run Mondays and Wednesdays. The age for beginning students is third through sixth grades.

Registration is 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday at the Val A. Browning Center, second-floor lobby, at WSU. Students will be able to rent instruments/purchase books on the spot.

Cost for the program is $60 per semester. For information, see the website at programs.weber.edu/wsustringproject or call Elissa at 801-644-9871.

OGDEN, Utah – Weber State University has received a $4,000 grant from the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation to support the Ogden Venture Course in the Humanities offered through the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities.

Each year, the Ogden Venture Course in the Humanities provides adults facing economic barriers with a chance to start college. The program is a yearlong, introductory humanities course taught by university faculty and is modeled after the Clemente Course in the Humanities, which was created by educator and journalist Earl Shorris in 1995.

The course’s curriculum includes sections on literature, American history, art history, philosophy and writing/critical thinking. The program’s students attend class two evenings each week during fall and spring semesters, and upon completion receive 10 credits from WSU. It is free to admitted students and includes child care, bus service, books and supplies, as well as all other services provided to WSU students.

“The 14 students who graduated from this past year’s Ogden Venture Course are from families below the poverty line, families for whom college would have seemed a decidedly unlikely possibility,” said Madonne Miner, dean of the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities. “But these 14 successfully participated in two semesters of college-level course work, connecting with each other, their five Weber State faculty members and some of Western culture’s greatest minds.”

One of the program’s past students writes, “The Venture Course in Humanities that I have participated in … has been a most enlightening, rich experience for me. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity extended to me in these sections, which were all taught by the best teachers Weber State has to offer.”

The Ogden Venture Course in the Humanities receives funding support from the Alternative Visions Fund of the Chicago Community Trust, Utah Humanities Council, O.C. Tanner, Rocky Mountain Power Foundation, Alan E. & Jeanne H. Hall Endowment for Community Outreach, and Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities.

The Rocky Mountain Power Foundation is part of the PacifiCorp Foundation, one of the largest utility-endowed foundations in the United States. The foundation was created in 1988 by PacifiCorp, an electric utility serving 1.7 million customers in six Western states as Rocky Mountain Power (Utah, Wyoming and Idaho) and Pacific Power (Oregon, Washington and California). The foundation’s mission, through charitable investments, is to support the growth and vitality of the communities served by Pacific Power and Rocky Mountain Power.

Visit www.rockymountainpower.net/about/itc/foundation.html for more information.

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

Contact:

Madonne Miner, dean of the Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities
801-626-6424, madonneminer@weber.edu

Author:

John Kowalewski, director of Media Relations
801-626-7212 • jkowalewski@weber.edu

Regents approve tuition increases at public Utah colleges and universities

ST. GEORGE — The State Board of Regents voted on Friday to approve tuition increases at all eight of Utah's public colleges and universities.

The state's more than 173,000 students, as well as any who enroll in the upcoming school year, will now be asked to pay an average of about 7.5 percent more in annual tuition and fees, depending on the school they attend.

The highest increase happens at Dixie State College, which will see an 11.8 percent increase, while Weber State University, Salt Lake Community College and Snow College had at or below 7 percent increases — the lowest increases approved by the board.

Regent Chairman David Jordan said that even with the increase, "all of our institutions are relatively low" when compared to other schools in the Western states.

However, Jordan expressed concern with how little support is coming from the state. State funds used to cover 75 percent of a student's education and now, the number is creeping closer to 50 percent. Last year, students in Utah were responsible for 42 percent of the total cost of their education.

"While I approved the increase … I don't believe we're a bargain," said Snow College President Scott Wyatt. He said the two community colleges in the state are still more expensive than the majority of comparable institutions across the country.

"There are huge numbers of students who don't have access that is affordable to them," he said. Given Utah's uncommonly large family sizes and varied income structure, Wyatt said there are limited low-cost opportunities for students and "education is expensive here."

The Regents' official approval comes after student-held hearings at each campus, where students voiced overall support for the increases, as well as a system-wide 5 percent first-tier tuition increase. The first-tier increase is set by the Utah System of Higher Education to compensate for an approximate 2.5 percent decrease in the amount of state funding provided to higher education institutions this year and about a $100 million drop in the last three years.

The only opposing vote came from Regent Meghan Holbrook, who said she "thought long and hard about it" and "felt in this economy, I did not want to put a tuition increase on students."

Student Regent David Smith, who is a graduate student at the University of Utah, said that students in Utah "recognize certain realities on the ground" but want to keep an eye to the future, making sure that lawmakers help to reverse the changes that have been made over the last few years of declining revenues.

Second-tier tuition increases are set by individual institutions, as a means of covering institutional priorities and initiatives, but also require approval of the Board of Regents.

Utah's Commissioner of Higher Education William Sederburg said the increases are necessary to continue to fund record enrollment growth at Utah's colleges and universities as well as maintain accreditation and higher-ed industry standards.

"We are the third-most efficient system in the United States, as far as expenditures per degree generated. Our tuition is competitive," he said. "We could say no to tuition increases, but we have a responsibility to maintain quality and maintain high standards."

The group also approved various fee increases, ranging from the lowest, a nearly 2 percent increase (or $10) at Utah Valley University, to a 9.25 percent increase at Dixie, resulting in a $51 addition for full-time students each year. Southern Utah University, Snow and Salt Lake Community College opted to keep student fees the same as last year.

Increases will take effect summer term 2011.

Article found here: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705369373/Regents-approve-tuition-increases-at-public-Utah-colleges-and-universities.html?pg=1

Kudos to teachers, WSU for offering strings program

Last updated Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - 12:33pm

http://www.standard.net/topics/opinion

(UNEDITED)I was happy to see your article on WSU's Strings Program. Our son began participating in the program in January of this year and has really enjoyed it. He says he has learned more from the instructors at WSU than he did in other school classes. He particularly enjoyed the fiddle group that was offered with the summer program (in addition to the regular symphony group).
Kudos to the great teachers involved with this program and thanks to WSU for sponsoring it! It's a huge benefit to our future musicians and an affordable program for parents who have children playing a string instrument. Our son is already looking forward to the fall session.
Jean Hampton
Ogden

Staying in Tune: Weber State program offers summer instructions for students
Last updated
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - 10:59pm

OGDEN -- At a time when most kids are lounging in the summer sun, a handful of Weber County teens are pulling out bows and tuning up their instruments.

The Weber State Summer Strings program has just wrapped up, and now Weber State University begins preparations for the WSU String Project to begin again in the fall.
The programs provide a low-cost way for students to learn to play stringed instruments at a younger age than they would learn in public school and an opportunity to be a part of an orchestra.