State grad to present research for Ben Reifel art collection

SDSU graduate Susan Thompson will present “Lone Feather: The Ben Reifel Collection” during a reception at the South Dakota Art Museum Jan. 25.

Graduating in May 2007 with a degree in history, Thompson will talk about her research at 5:30 p.m. in the museum auditorium.

In summer 2006, Thompson served as an intern at the South Dakota Art Museum. During the 10-week internship she created a long-range plan for the Ben Reifel Native American Collection and did extensive research on its sixteen objects.

Her project focused on properly documenting the objects in the collection and researching the personal history of Reifel, the first plains Native American to serve in the United States Congress.

Her research culminated with the exhibition, “The Artist and the Congressman: Oscar Howe and Ben Reifel,” currently shown at the South Dakota Art Museum through Feb. 17.

“Men’s Gauntlets” show some of the native artistry seen in objects of the Ben Reifel Collection on display at the South Dakota Art Museum.

Nebraska photography artist presents gallery talk

Nebraska photographer Roger Bruhn will present a gallery talk at the South Dakota Art Museum about his work, the “New York Series,” on display at the museum through Apr. 16.

Bruhn will give his talk at the reception Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. after a presentation on the Ben Reifel exhibition.

Bruhn’s collection of photographs taken over a four-year period, show surreal images of metropolitan life that comment on the complicated relationship between advertising, consumerism and daily happenings.

“Sometimes the images are direct in their message, but more often, they come across as ambiguous,” said SDAM curator John Rychtarik.

Nevertheless, he said the images always seem to point to an aspect of American culture, making the collection relevant beyond the urban landscapes they present.

In his artist’s statement, Bruhn says, “In this series I am trying to comment, sometimes with humor and/or irony, on the relationship between the skewed world of advertising imagery and the grittier and far less perfect world in which we all live our day-to-day lives.”

Pharmacy students to receive challenge, lab coats

Seventy SDSU pharmacy students will receive their lab coats as a symbol of professionalism at a White Coat ceremony Jan. 25 in the Volstorff Ballroom at the The Union at 7 p.m.

Presentation of white coats formalizes the beginning of the students’ commitment to professionalism in the field of health care. It is made at the start of their second semester in the College of Pharmacy after two years of pre-pharmacy education.

Keynote speaker, Rodney Carter, will deliver the message “Each of Us Can Make a Difference, Together We Can Change the World.”

Carter is associate dean for professional and external relations at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. He also serves as the speaker of the house of delegates for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. He has served at his PharmD alma mater, U of M, since 2001. Prior to that, the Drake undergraduate was at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va.

In Virginia, he was the first chair of pharmacy practice and was responsible for building the practice faculty of this new school of pharmacy. Carter guided the pharmacy practice department in establishing hands-on and classroom portions of the curriculum.

For more information, contact Dennis Hedge, 688-4238.

“Capers” variety gets HOT with global warming theme

Capers 2008, “Global Warming: Capers gets HOT!,” the student variety show, takes place on campus Jan. 30 to Feb. 2 in Doner Auditorium.

Nightly shows start at 7:30 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee Feb. 2. Tickets go on sale Jan. 28 at the box office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. On performance nights, the box office re-opens at 6 p.m.

“Capers” provides the chance for a student group to write, direct, produce, cast, build and perform an entertaining show.

“Boasting the largest ‘Capers’ cast with hot dances and skits, it looks to be one of the best ‘Capers’ I’ve been part of,” said Doug Sahr, Bricelyn, Minn., president of Alpha Psi Omega and director of the show.

The production is sponsored by Alpha Psi Omega, the honorary theatre fraternity at SDSU and serves as a fundraiser for the group to participate in and donate to community events.

Reserved seating tickets for a center front section are $10; adult tickets are $8; and SDSU student with ID or high school tickets are $6.

The show contains adult themes and language.

For ticket information, call the box office at (605)688-6425, or for publicity and promotion information, call Nancy DeBoer at (605)690-6129.

Cast members from the 2007 Capers show some of the zaniness that gives hallmark to the student-produced variety show. (photo credit: John Nelson)

Campus sessions to be held on global warming solutions

“Focus the Nation” will hold two days of programs on campus about global climate change. The event is sponsored by Project Sustainability @ SDSU.

Focus the Nation is a national teach-in group that engages millions of students and citizens with political leaders and decision makers to talk about global warming solutions.

A free, live, interactive webcast will be fed Jan. 30 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Rotunda C.

Participants can join Stanford University Climate Scientist Stephen Schneider, sustainability expert Hunter Lovins, green jobs pioneer Van Jones and youth climate leaders for discussion of global warming solutions. Audiences can weigh in with cell phone voting.

An informational fair at Main Street in The Union will be held Jan. 31 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

That afternoon, a lecture series on global climate change takes place from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Volstorff Ballroom at The Union.

Speakers will include Jihong Cole-Dai, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Carter Johnson, professor of ecology, Department of Horticulture, Forestry, Landscape, & Parks; and Matt Hansen, co-director, Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence.

Also on Jan. 31, the film “Black Gold,” sponsored by South Dakota Students for Fair Trade, will be shown in Rotunda C from 7 to 9 p.m. In the showing, “Black Gold” traces one man’s fight for a fair price.

Reed Freese of Cherrybean Coffee, a Fair Trade coffee roaster in Parker will introduce Fair Trade before the film.

For more information, contact Shianne Ovall, 688-5196.

Extension service to host soybean forums

The Cooperative Extension Services of South Dakota, Minnesota, and North Dakota will host two soybean integrated pest management forums Feb. 7-8.

The regional forums will feature nationally recognized experts from throughout the Midwest. The Feb. 7 event will be held at the Courtyard of the Marriott Hotel in Moorhead, Minn. while the Feb. 8 event will be held at the Swiftel Center in Brookings.

The Northern Great Plains Soybean IPM Forum will offer producers, consultants, agribusinesses, Extension and research staff, and others answers to a wide range of questions about soybean integrated pest management.

Events begin with registration at 7:30 a.m. and continue until 5 p.m. The cost is $15 and it includes lunch.

For more information, e-mail Kelley Tilmon at Kelley.tilmon@sdstate.edu or visit http://plantsci.sdstate.edu/conferences/ipmforum [External Hyperlink].

Extension service to host farmers market workshop

The South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service will host a farmers market workshop Feb. 2.

The training session will be 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Northern Plains Biostress Laboratory. The workshop costs $20 for those who register before Jan. 26, and $25 for those who register after that date. The fee includes lunch, breaks, and information handouts.

The South Dakota Specialty Producers Association, the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service, the Downtown Brookings Farmers Market, and Downtown Brookings are sponsoring the event, with partial funding from the USDA Farmers Market Promotion Program.

Morning sessions will focus on market organization and management, while the afternoon sessions will cover vendor topics such as methods to increase sales, developing enticing displays, customer relations, food safety, and value-added processing.

To register, contact Doris Roden, 692-1554, or downtown@brookings.net. Event information and registration forms are available at http://www.downtownbrookings.com/eventcalendar.htm [External Hyperlink]

TRiO Student Support Services to host workshop on managing money

The workshop, “Money Matters: Education to help you manage your money more effectively,” will be held in two sessions at The Union.

The first session will be held Jan. 29 at 12 noon in SSU Room 260 or Jan. 30 at 4 p.m. The session will cover budgeting basics. The second session will take place Feb. 12 at 4 p.m. in SSU Room 103 or Feb. 13 at 12 noon. The session will be about credit basics.

Donna Bittiker, a graduate student and an SDSU Extension Educator with Family and Consumer Sciences in Moody County, will present the workshop. The sessions are sponsored by TRiO Student Support Services.

For more information, contact Laurie Johnson, TRiO retention advisor, 688-6653.

SDSU to help present three-day dairy conference

The third annual I-29 Dairy Conference will be held in three states Jan. 30-Feb. 1.

SDSU, along with Iowa State University, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska, and their Extension services, will present the conference. Each day of the three-day event will take place in a different state and city.

The first day will be Jan. 30 at the Days Inn in Brookings. The Jan. 31 event will be held at Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon, Iowa, and the Feb. 1 event will be held at Minnesota West Community & Technical College in Pipestone, Minn.

Each day’s events begin at 9:30 a.m. with registration. Sessions will include: economic opportunities to improve reproduction; nutrition and connections to good reproductive performance; genetics and fertility with high-production dairy cows to include pure-breeding and cross-breeding; virtual dairy walk-through sessions; trouble-shooting reproductive performance sessions.

Each day’s events conclude at approximately 3:45 p.m. The cost is $20 per person and includes lunch. Registration is encouraged prior to Jan. 21.

The conference committee still is accepting sponsors to help subsidize the expenses that will benefit dairy producers of the four-state region.

Agencies and businesses can call Valerie Denison, 688-4116, for information about additional benefits of sponsoring the conference. Producers can call Denison to register or for more information on the conference.

SDSU Calendar of Events

This calendar is prepared by the Office of University Relations. For more information, to have campus events included in the next calendar, or to make address corrections, please contact April Clarin at University Relations, SCM 105, Box 2230, (605) 688-6161, or by email at april.clarin@sdstate.edu. Thank you.

Campus Kudos

Steve Erpenbach has been named President and CEO of the South Dakota State University Foundation by the organization’s Board of Governors.

Erpenbach served as the Foundation’s Vice President of Development since December 2004. He succeeds David Marquardt, who will continue with the Foundation as its Senior Counsel. The move was effective January 1, 2008.

SDSU President David L. Chicoine said the Foundation and its leadership play an integral role in helping SDSU fulfill its mission.

“The partnership between the University and the Foundation is essential for the margin of excellence required to achieve national distinction and strengthen our local impact by funding scholarships and fellowships for students, new academic programs, endowed professorships and chairs, new buildings and a host of other exciting initiatives,” Chicoine said.

Erpenbach is responsible for the day-to-day management of the Foundation and its $120 million in assets. He oversees a staff of 32.

Steve Erpenbach leads the South Dakota State University Foundation in maintaining assets and raising funds in support of SDSU.

Dingzhi He, a visiting artist from the People’s Republic of China, is showing his modern color and black ink paintings while visiting students and faculty in the Department of Visual Arts. The artist’s work will be on display through Feb. 8 in the Ritz Gallery.

A public reception will be held Feb. 1 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the Ritz Gallery.

Dingzhi He’s paintings and calligraphy show artistic ingenuity, according to Norman Gambill, head of the Department of Visual Arts and director of the Ritz Gallery.

The exhibition “Birds, Flowers, and Calligraphy: Modern Chinese Paintings by Dingzhi He” will be on display from mid-January to early February.

Gambill said Dingzhi He’s work shows close observation of life forms in order to discover natural animal behavior.

Dingzhi He’s visit is co-sponsored by the Helen J. Van Zante Visiting Artist Endowment, the Office of Diversity Enhancement, and the Department of Visual Arts.

Dingzhi He, visiting artist, will be present for a reception in the Ritz Gallery Feb. 1.

“Fresno Bee” newspaper art columnist Dan Munroe listed SDSU assistant visual arts professor Randy Clark’s exhibition, “The Civil War in Colombia” among his top 20 arts and culture events of the 2007 year in Fresno, Calif.

Clark’s exhibition showed at the Arte Americas Museum in Fresno last February.

Munroe said, “His punchy show about the long war in Colombia was a sober commentary on the country’s self-destruction.”

“A one-person, peer-reviewed exhibition is equivalent to a major article in an important journal or even authoring a book,” said Norman Gambill, head of the Department of Visual Arts.

“Mending” was one of 13 pieces in Randy Clark’s exhibition that has zigzagged across the United States reflecting a more than four-decade old civil war in Colombia. Clark spent two years in the South American country as a missionary.

South Dakota 4-H teams won national championships at this year’s National Western Stock Show in Denver Jan. 10-13.

The roundup features 4-H and FFA teams competing in horse judging, meats judging, livestock judging, family and consumer science, public speaking, and individual and team demonstration projects about horses. Teams from 31 states and one Canadian province competed.

The Miner County team won the horse quiz bowl, the first time ever that a South Dakota team has won.

Coach Craig Hanson said the team worked hard for six years to win the national victory, including two to three hours a week over the past six months reviewing every conceivable topic that has to do with managing horses.

A team from Yankton County won the hippology contest — the third time a South Dakota team has won that event.

Each team won a plaque, ribbons and a chance to participate in a tour to England that will include visits to horse farms, horse shows, race tracks, and polo training grounds.

In addition, the state 4-H Livestock Judging Team, coached by SDSU Livestock Project Leader Rod Geppert, placed ninth overall in the National Western Roundup 4-H Livestock Judging Contest.

The contest consisted of 25 of the states’ elite champion teams with 100 individuals competing for national titles.

New InsideState website being launched

SDSU is preparing to launch a new “InsideState” website. Once the site is in place, users will find that several sections have been restructured and reorganized which should ensure easier navigation.

One change provides a continuous scrolling ticker along the top that will be utilized as part of the Board of Regent’s emergency alert system.

Because it is a component of the larger, system-wide security plan, InsideState will be pushed out and made the required home page for all Internet Explorer browsers effective Feb 1.

In the meantime users are welcome and encouraged to set InsideState as the default main page.

For more information or assistance, contact the support desk, 688-6776.

Attention advisors, presidents of student organizations

The Board of Regents award applications and supporting materials have been emailed to advisors and presidents of student organizations as listed in the Office of Student Activities. The deadline date is Feb. 15 at 5 p.m. For questions or concerns, contact Adam Karnopp, 688-4960, or adam.karnopp@sdstate.edu.

News on Newsline

To publicize an event or congratulations on “Newsline,” please submit information by the preceding Thursday at 2 p.m. to Kyle Johnson kyle.johnson@sdstate.edu or Jeanne Jones Manzer jeanne.jonesmanzer@sdstate.edu

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