PSFA E-CONNECT - March 2009

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

Welcome to SDSU Month! As our Calendar of Events indicates, there are many things happening on campus this month as SDSU celebrates its 112th anniversary. Of particular note is the Theatre of the World Festival, which will be held March 13 and 14 on campus and features theatre for all ages at a budget-friendly price. Works performed at the festival will include 1001 Grains of Sand, a production written and directed by SDSU senior faculty member Margaret Larlham. Young audiences of all ages may enjoy this journey through memory and imagination inspired by the cultural richness of the Middle East. The Festival will also be welcoming the Jordanian National Center for Culture and Performed Arts (PAC) of the King Hussein Foundation. PAC’s National Interactive Theatre Troupe will present Rising to the Pits, a fifty-minute play in Arabic with English super-titles that concerns human dignity and values. For more information, please visit the Festival’s website.

I hope that you will take part in the Theatre of the World Festival or one of the other exciting activities happening on Montezuma Mesa this month. For more information about SDSU month, visit www.sdsumonth.com.

Joyce M. Gattas, Dean
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts

In the News

PSFA Students Receive Four Presidential Awards at Seventh Annual Student Research Symposium

On February 27 and 28, SDSU held its 7th Annual Student Research Symposium. Over 350 students from disciplines across the campus participated in this event. Ten students received Presidential Awards of $500 and will represent SDSU at the California Research Competition this summer. PSFA students took 4 of the Presidential honors. On behalf of PSFA we congratulate these fine students and their faculty mentors for their involvement!

The Presidential Award recipients were:
Golnoosh Behrouzian, Public Relations, BA
Faculty mentor: Professor Bey-Ling Sha
Kizzy Ezirio, Art, MA
Faculty mentor: Professor Patricia Cue
Karl Smerecnik, Communication Studies, MA
Faculty mentor: Professor Valerie Renegar
Wendy Shapiro, Art, MA
Faculty mentor: Professor Michelle Burgess

In addition, two students received Dean’s Awards:
Lauren Beck, Theatre Arts, MA
Faculty mentor: Professor DJ Hopkins
Amanda Barnard, MS, Nutritional
Sciences & Exercise Physiology
Faculty mentor: Professor Mee Young Hong

School of Communications Takes Top Three Awards

The School of Communication had reason to be proud at the 2009 Western States Communication Association (WSCA) Conference in Mesa, Arizona this past February. At the conference luncheon on February 16, Dr. George Dionisopolous received the WSCA Best Journal Article of the Year Award and Dr. Brian Spitzberg received the WSCA Scholar of the Year Award for “a career of scholarship and impact on the field of communication.” And in addition to presenting the Top Student Debut Paper in Interpersonal Communication, graduate student Makenzie Phillips received the Best Debut Paper Award for the entire conference. Congratulations to all the faculty and students who presented scholarship at this year’s WSCA conference!

Alumni Highlights

Local Media Profiles 19-Year-Old Graduate

The San Diego Union Tribune recently recognized Sean O’Callaghan (Criminal Justice,’08) for two extraordinary achievements – being accepted into a prestigious investigative psychology program at Huddersfield University in the United Kingdom and graduating from SDSU at the age of 19. Making Sean’s story even more impressive is the fact that he was diagnosed with a learning disability in third grade and with epilepsy just before starting college! Throughout his undergraduate career Sean proved to be a determined student, taking up to 15 units at SDSU and 15 units at community colleges during the same semester. This determination paid off as he completed his bachelor’s degree in only two and half years. PSFA wishes Sean much success in his future academic and professional endeavors.

Attorney and SDSU Alum Recognized as a San Diego Super Lawyer for Third Straight Year

Garrison “Bud” Klueck (M.A., Television, Film and New Media, ’81) will be honored in Super Lawyer Magazine as one of San Diego’s top attorneys for the third straight year. Bud is a Board-Certified Family Law Specialist with more than 20 years of legal experience and currently practices laws at the Law and Mediation Offices of Garrison Klueck in La Mesa. He has also had an extensive career in broadcasting and media, working at network owned or affiliated stations for NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS.

Bud can be heard on Sunday morning on KFMB-AM’s “The Lawyer in Blue Jeans Show,” sharing the microphone with two other attorneys and dispensing practical and expert legal advice. Bud received his law degree from the University of San Diego and is also a graduate of SDSU’s Television, Film and New Media program. He sees the “Lawyer in Blue Jeans Show” as a way two marry two of his passions: the law and broadcasting.

Student Spotlight

SDSU Soprano Wins Young Artists Competition

Melissa Carter, a graduate student in vocal performance in the School of Music and Dance, took first place in the Vocal Division of the 2009 La Jolla Symphony and Chorus Young Artists Competition, held January 24th. Melissa is on a four-year vocal scholarship at SDSU and is also a member of the San Diego Opera Chorus. The competition provides talented young artists an opportunity to further their careers by performing as soloists with the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus during the 2009-2010 subscription series.

Faculty Focus

SDSU Becomes Second Site for the California Music Project

This year, SDSU became the second site for the California Music Project (CMP), a non-profit whose goal is to provide assistance and hands-on experience for future music teachers while simultaneously bringing music to California schools. Professor Nan McDonald of the School of Music and Dance is coordinator for the CMP on the SDSU campus and this year was able to award scholarship funding to ten SDSU undergraduates in the Music Education program. These students, known as CMP Fellows, are working 8-10 hours per week at urban school sites within San Diego Unified School District and Sweetwater Union High School District. They will provide music education to over 1,500 K-12 students this academic year. For more information on CMP, please visit http://www.californiamusicproject.org/.

Theater Professor Creates Initiative to Start Tanzanian Library

San Diego State University theater professor Peter Larlham is collecting secondhand books for his initiative to start an elementary school library at his alma mater in Tanzania at the Mnyakongo School in Kongwa. The school serves 800 elementary pupils from ages 7 to 12 and has no electricity. "The small village has no library, and children have little access to information or images of a world outside of their immediate environment," Larlham said. Books needed include dictionaries, children’s encyclopedias and other nonfiction, and children’s picture books.

The project is expected to be completed in the last two weeks of May 2010, when SDSU volunteer faculty and students transport the books from Dar-es-Salaam to Kongwa, paint the room set aside for the library, install the shelving and catalog the books. To participate in the project, please contact Larlham directly at plarlham@mail.sdsu.edu.