The Leading Edge

Events

Wednesday, Jan. 18

Speaking Justice — Join us for a night of spoken word poetry by the OSU community and our feature artist, TOO BLACK, at 7 p.m. in the MU Lounge. Preceding the performance, TOO BLACK will conduct a workshop entitled “History of Race Relations at OSU” from 3-5 p.m. in the Valley Library 5^th floor Special Collections & Archives Research Center. In the workshop, participants will learn about the history of race relations at OSU and its connections to contemporary issues. To register of the workshop or for more information: 541-737-3653 or natalia.fernandez@oregonstate.edu

School of Writing, Literature, and Film professor Evan Gottlieb will be giving a talk, “From Here to Utopia: Imagining Better Worlds from the Sixteenth Century to Today,” as part of the Oregon Rare Books Initiative speaker series at the University of Oregon. Gottlieb’s talk will be accompanied by a curated display drawn from UO’s Special Collections. The event begins at 4:45 p.m. in the Knight Library Reading Room, University of Oregon, Eugene. 

Friday, Jan. 20

OSU Anthropology Lecture Series — Dr. Christina Cappy, lecturer in Education Policy at Central Oregon Community College, will give a lecture on “Unity, Fragmentation and the Moral Self in South African High Schools.” She will speak from 12 to 12:50 p.m. in Waldo Hall Room 201A. This event is part of the Anthropology Program’s “Tan Sack” Lecture Series.

Music a la Carte — Cellophoria (Cello Quartet). Noon, Memorial Union Lounge.

When Wellness was Weird — Today, “wellness” is a familiar feel-good label slapped on everything from smoothies and school lunch programs to swanky real estate developments. But it was not always so. Historian and wellness advocate Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Ph.D., explains where our current wellness fascination originated and how it’s grown into a massive movement. 3:00 p.m. in the MU Journey Room 104.

Author reading — Fiction writers Jeff Fearnside and Jesse Donaldson will read from their respective books, “Making Love While Levitating Three Feet in the Air” and “The More They Disappear” at 7:30 p.m. in the Valley Library Rotunda.  The reading will be followed by a Q&A and book signing, and is part of the School of Writing, Literature, and Film’s 2016-2017 Literary Northwest Series.

Upcoming Events 

Children of Men Screening — The Anarres Project for Alternative Futures, Allied Students for Another Politics!, and the Spring Creek Project present a film and discussion series of classic dystopian movies to help spur the radical imagination about the possibilities for transformation in daunting times.  Our first film is the award winning film of 2006 “Children of Men” that portrays a world affected by climate change and pollution to the point of complete human infertility, triggering war and global mass migration to the last stable nation on the planet. Monday, January 23, at 6 p.m. in Milam Hall 301.

Oregon State Senator Arnie Roblan, SD 5 (Coos Bay, Florence, Newport, Tillamook) will be on campus to discuss issues related to “Ocean and Coastal Law and Policy in Oregon” in the MU 213 Pan Afrikan – Sankofa on January 24, 12:45 – 2:00 p.m.

Recurring Events

The Little Gallery will be presenting Source, a group exhibition of works featuring Liisa Rahkonen, Sandra Roumagoux, and Eliza Murphy – January 9 – February 17, with an opening on January 19, 3:30-5 p.m., 210 Kidder Hall. All are welcome. Source will present paintings, sculptures and box shrines that reference the sacredness of our rivers and coastal waters – the very source of life.

The Fairbanks Gallery at Oregon State University will host “Montage,” an exhibition of art and poetry by OSU students, Dec. 9 through Jan. 23. An artist’s talk and public reception will take place in the gallery at 5 p.m. on Jan. 19. The event is free and open to the public. It is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. the third Thursday of each month for the Corvallis Arts Walk.

News

Three CLA faculty members are finalists for the 2017 Oregon Book Award: Jennifer Richter (SWLF), for her book of poems, “No Acute Distress;” Kathleen Dean Moore (SHPR) for her book, “Great Tide Rising: Towards Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change;” and Tracy Daugherty (SWLF) for his book, “The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion.” Winners will be announced at the 30th annual Oregon Book Awards ceremony on Monday, April 24 at the Gerding Theater at the Armory

Dr. Patti Duncan (Associate Professor & Program Coordinator, WGSS) was selected as one of two 2017 Honors College Eminent Professors.

Current Research, Publications and Creative Activity

Kenny Maes (Anthropology, SLCS) published an article in the journal Critical African Studies entitled “Experts’ tools, altruists, and job-seekers: visions of community health workers in Ethiopia’s antiretroviral centre of excellence.” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2016.1244959.

Instructors of music Dana Reason and Ryan Biesack, current OSU graduate student Mike Gamble and former OSU student Oren Shalev were featured in two tracks on the “Pioneers of African American Cinema” by Paul Miller / D.J. Spooky which recently won the prestigious Film Heritage Award. They were credited for their performances in the box set of “Body and Soul” and “Within our Gates.” The Film Heritage Award is given annually by the National Society of Film Critics, a group of leading film critics whose purpose is to promote the mutual interest of film criticism and filmmaking.

Director of athletic bands Olin Hannum presented at the California Music Educators Association on January 13. He, along with three other music educators live-broadcast the podcast “AMusEd,” a music-education related production where the group discusses issues relating to contemporary music education from the perspective of active educators early in their career. The presentation / taping was titled “Professional Development Through Community,” where the quartet discussed the importance of honesty in professional collaboration. 

Director of bands Chris Chapman gave a clinic titled “The Pyramid is But One: Using the Musical Score for Decisions on Balance and Blend in the Modern Wind Ensemble” on January 14 at the Oregon Music Educator’s Association conference in Eugene. During the clinic, Chapman and members of the OSU Wind Ensemble demonstrated the numerous ways a conductor/interpreter can use different balances to achieve appropriate colors shifts in a composition. The discussion included the pyramid balance, finding the melody, breaking into “choirs” and homogenizing the sound versus a transparent balance exemplified with selections from Percy Grainger’s “Lincolnshire Posy.”

Patricia Valian Reser professor of music Steven Zielke and instructor of music Nicola Nine gave a presentation on January 13 at the Oregon Music Educator’s Association conference titled “Two Heads are Better than One: Collaboration in Rehearsal.” During the session the duo, which has collaborated together for over 25 years, spoke on the “care and feeding” of conductors and accompanists. Discussion included what conductors wish accompanists knew and vice versa. During the conference, Zielke also conducted the OSU Chamber Choir in an invited performance for the 250 voice Oregon All-State High School Choir.

Instructor of music Jason Gossett presented “Teaching for Student Ownership in Band” on January 13 at the Oregon Music Educator’s Association conference in Eugene. Gossett spoke on the common goal of high school band directors for their students to continue making music post-graduation and ways to empower teachers to enable students to carry on with music as a meaningful lifelong pursuit.

Assistant professor of music Sandra Babb conducted Bella Voce, the OSU Women’s Choir, in a showcase performance on January 14 at the Oregon Music Educator’s Association conference in Eugene. The concert program included: “Ave Maria” by Johannes Brahms; “Svatba” by Hristo Todorov; Karl Jenkin’s “Adiemus”; an arrangement of “La Maumariee” by Joni Jensen; “Mueveme” by Andrea Ramsey; Glen McClure’s “Kyrie”; and “Will the Circle be Unbroken” arranged by J. David Moore. Joining Babb and Bella Voce were OSU faculty members and percussionists Bob Brudvig, Wesley Brewer and Jason Gossett.

Instructor of music Jason Gossett, assistant professor Sandra Babb and associate professor Wesley Brewer presented “Getting the Most For / Out of Student Teachers” on January 14 at the Oregon Music Educator’s Association conference in Eugene. During the session, the trio examined strategies based on research and personal experience that have helped enhance the student teaching experience for in-service teachers, student teachers, and their pupils.